jtotheizzoe:

fastcompany:

Last year, the comic/blog XKCD had the Internet examine various colors and name them. They ended up with a sample size of 5,000,000, and designer Stephen Von Worley turned the 2,000 most common responses into a gender-exploring interactive infographic. As it seemingly turns out, men and women call the same colors different names.

Hat tip: Flowing Data

When a comic becomes a science experiment, this is what happens. And it is awesome.

I had completely forgotten about this, but the wait was worth it. Definitely check out this hyper-interactive look on the naming and color perception differences between genders.

The things Randall Munroe does with xkcd, What-If, and his projects outside of it (like this) makes him one of my favorite science communicators. We may not need to know how powerful and how many lasers it would take to light up the moon, but the process and consequences are fascinating.

And that’s what makes science cool.

I can’t stress how awesome XKCD’s new What If section is

Link: I can’t stress how awesome XKCD’s new What If section is

Ask XKCD’s Randall Munroe “What would happen if…” and he’ll give you a detailed answer, complete with illustrations. Just started, only two are answered, but definitely worth checking out every few days.

This means that the odds of acing the SAT by guessing are worse than the odds of every living ex-President and every member of the main cast of Firefly all being independently struck by lightning … on the same day.

canisfamiliaris:

BACKYARD SNOW-TRACKS GUIDE

(by xkcd :: via jtotheizzoe :: Jennifer Ouellette)

This is good science guys. Also, I’m pretty excited about the Higgs Boson announcement on the 4th!