Cafe Science

Chickens have a great ability to keep their heads stable. Our bodies use a gyro-like mechanism in our ears which has 3 mutually orthogonal inertial measurement devices. Modern motion processors use something called an Inertial Measurment Unit (IMU). These devices provide movement data which can be used to compensate for the movement. Chickens apparently have the same type mechanism only with a higher update rate.

On May 28, 2008, Adam LeWinter and Director Jeff Orlowski filmed a historic breakup at the Ilulissat Glacier in Western Greenland. The calving event lasted for 75 minutes and the glacier retreated a full mile across a calving face three miles wide. The height of the ice is about 3,000 feet, 300-400 feet above water and the rest below water.

Meteorite explosions in the skies of Russia's Urals region has sparked panic in three major cities. Witnesses said that houses shuddered, windows were blown out and cellphones stopped working.

Ultra-Ever Dry is a superhydrophobic (water) and oleophobic (hydrocarbons) coating that will completely repel almost any liquid. Ultra-Ever Dry uses proprietary nanotechnology to coat an object and create a barrier of air on its surface.

First video released of new spider that builds decoys of other spiders!

A minor geomagnetic storm caused the Aurora Australis. This is footage from the International Space Station.

How wet do you get running in the rain appose to walking in the rain.

NASA scientist debunks 2012 end of the world doomsday scenarios.

Tel-Aviv University demos quantum superconductors locked in a magnetic field.

Keith Barry shows us how our brains can fool our bodies -- in a trick that works via podcast too. Then he involves the audience in some jaw-dropping (and even a bit dangerous) feats of brain magic.

Do you want to have your mind blown? Watch this. (This will cost you 13.5 minutes) Hugh Herr, Director of Biomechatronics at MIT University delivers an amazing talk that will touch your soul. I was in the audience. I was almost in the back row. For the opening few minutes of the talk, I couldn't see his feet. So imagine what happened when I finally stood up and saw his legs.

After flying to an altitude of 39,045 meters (128,100 feet) in a helium-filled balloon, Felix Baumgartner completed a record breaking jump for the ages from the edge of space, exactly 65 years after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier flying in an experimental rocket-powered airplane.

The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft and Endeavour flew over the Los Angeles area on September 21, 2012. It flew directly over Malibu, Dodger Stadium, California Science Center, the Los Angeles Colosseum, downtown Los Angeles, and the Hollywood Sign before landing at Los Angeles International Airport at 12:51 pm PT.

Goeff Mackley descended 400 meters into the Marum, an active volcano on Ambrym Island in the Pacific ocean, and stood just a few meters from a massive lava pool. He and Bradley Ambrose, who filmed the video below, were apparently the first people to ever get this close. About the experience, Geoff wrote: "Climbing down to within 30 metres of the lava it was so hot (1150 degrees) that without protection we could stand the heat for 6 seconds before retreating, with heat suit and BA I was able to stand it for 40 minutes."

Ultra-resolution, smooth-motion, detail-enhanced, color-corrected, interpolated from the original 4 frames per second to 30 frames per second. This video plays real-time at the speed that Curiosity descended to the surface of Mars on August 6, 2012. I think it's wonderful that everyone on Earth has a chance to see this amazing footage from Mars :)

Every frame in this video is a photograph taken from the International Space Station. All credit goes to the crews on board the ISS.

TED Talks Ramesh Raskar presents femto-photography, a new type of imaging so fast it shows the world one trillion frames per second, so detailed it shows light itself in motion.