reel and real

When you look at a moving wheels/fan blades in a movie or under the baleful glare of a tubelight, especially when speeding up, there is a point where they appear to slow down, stop, and go backwards. That's old news. What you didn't know is that something in our very brains can cause this, even in direct sunlight... or at least according to the author of this article: http://www.pnas.org/content/93/8/3693.abstract

cuddly plant

So early man might've extinct'ed mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers. So we have an animated movie portraying such furry cuddly huggable beasties. A plant, though, gets no love.

It seems the Romans wiped out a plant because, well, it was in demand (wink wink) though the wiki article linked to speculates that "Much of the speculation about the cause of its extinction rests on a sudden demand for animals that grazed on the plant"... really? So if I hunt rabbits I doom carrots?

two kinds of math

The who's who:

http://arxiv.org/find/all/1/all:+AND+jaffe+quinn/0/1/0/all/0/1

The stuff's from way back in '94 but still fascinating. Start from the bottom.