Plenty of Nothing

Androides, c. 1800

This is a handbill for an exhibition of automatons put on in London about the year 1800. Go here for a voomable version.

Giants of Biomedical Sciences

These ten heads belong to Banting, Best, Bigelow, Connell, Menten, Mustard, Peters, Salter, Siminovitch, and Tsui, not necssarily in that order, all giants of biomedical sciences. Source.

On the Equilibrium of Elastic Solids

Statue of James Clerk Maxwell, electrical engineer, and his wee dug, on George Street, Edinburgh.

It's the semi-finals of the League Cup. Today: Hibs [2 - 1] St Johnstone. Tomorrow: Ross County [3 - 1] Celtic. Celtic have won the cup 15 times, Hibs 3, St Johnstone and Ross County 0. Hibs and St Johnstone last met in league play in 2013-14, when they were both in the Premiership. They played to a win, a lose, and a draw. Celtic and Ross County have played twice so far this season, Celtic winning both times. Ross County and Celtic are the only clubs left with a shot at the Scottish treble. [No treble for Celtic.]

Owing to Hibernian's cup commitment, Morton's regularly scheduled league match against them is postponed. [But elsewhere Rangers beat Falkirk and St Mirren beat Alloa, meaning that Rangers evade automatic relegation, and Alloa cannot win the Championship.]

The SPFL or Cove Rangers -- Which Is Greater? SPFL clubs have played a total of 18 games against Cove Rangers of the Highland League, and have taken 13 wins, against 4 wins for Cove Rangers, and one draw. The SPFL is greater. Clubs beaten by Cove Rangers: Cowdenbeath, Peterhead, Annan, and Montrose.

Bottom-place teams of the SPFL:

East Stirlingshire (L2) -- 19 pts

Brechin City (L1) -- 16 pts

Dundee United (Pr) -- 13 pts

Alloa Athletic (Ch) -- 11 pts

Each of these clubs is worrying about relegation, but East Stirlingshire face a day of reckoning. The pyramid playoffs were introduced more or less to drop East Stirlingshire into the Lowland League. League Two is very tight though, and the Shire have time to climb the table. Plus, if they end up facing Brora Rangers, Brora may throw the game.

Wednesday was the first preliminary round of the 2016 AFC Champions League, so summer is now officially on. There was only one match in this round: Mohun Bagan of the Hero I-League 3 - 1 Tampines Rovers of Singapore's S-League.

Yoker versus Largs Thistle [is postponed.]

Difference Engine

Charles Babbage's Difference Engine was never built in his century, but two of them have been constructed in recent years and are housed at the Science Museum in London and the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley. They're hand cranked! (Via Laughing Squid.)

Fossil Buttercup

Science.

Albert Street Fossil

This rare fossil of an armour-plated worm was dug out of an Albert Street construction site in 1997, discovered among the rubble at a dump-site in Nepean, and just recently identified as a plumulitid machaeridian, a relative of modern leeches and earthworms that existed between 480 and 250 million years ago. But where is James Sherwood, the guy who found it?

Tesla!

It's Nikola Tesla's 153rd birthday.  In that century and a half he has gone from genius to kook to genius again. Electrical engineers are just beginning to get their heads around his concept of wireless energy transmission.  The upshot being that you may soon be able to power your laptop without plugging it in. He is presently thought of so highly by the corporate world that Google has posted this special birthday logo today, and a car company has taken his name.  

And of course there's Beaton's comic.  Tesla!

Nick Longrich, Artist and Paleontologist

Nick Longrich is a paleontologist at the University of Calgary and a specialist in the up till now unexplored field of teensy weensy dinosaurs.  And like the great naturalists of the 18th century he can draw like you wouldn't believe. Here is an article about Nick's newly described Hesperonychus elizabethae, a little wee raptor, and here is his website containing other dinosaur artwork, including the Archaeopteryx lithographica shown above, with some nifty Photoshop tips.  Douglas