Science Friday: Tasty Science, Tasty profile pics, and wholly unappetising Earth Art.

Tasty chemistry from Ice cream cars to chem-cupcakes

It's the last day of the Nano Ice Cream Van at Science Gallery, but if you still don't think chemistry is sweet, it's because you never studied the periodic table of elements in cupcake form.  This is, of course, very different from the Periodic Table OF Cupcakes. 

If you're skeptical that Cupcake chemistry isn't the next big thing… well, move over, Twitter: Cupcake chemistry is here to stay. 

Don't eat to many chem-cupcakes or nano ice cream cones however... even though new research indicates that you won't realise it.

Your profile pic isn't fooling anyone.  Especially the Psychologists.

Should there be an academic field of Internet Studies?  Besides the obvious research in software, technology development, and electronics, more and more sociological, political, and psychological researchers are studying the internet.

For example, a study soon to be published in Psychological Science has found that Facebook profiles  tend to display a person's true personality, rather than a fictional ideal. 

Psychologist Sam Gosling at The University of Texas at Austin said:

• "I was surprised by the findings because the widely held assumption is that people are using their profiles to promote an enhanced impression of themselves[…] In fact, our findings suggest that online social networking profiles convey rather accurate images of the profile owners, either because people aren't trying to look good or because they are trying and failing to pull it off."

More details at the U of T press release.

Pretty, or pretty disturbing?

Just to prove that beautiful images can be really worrying, check out 'Art of a Changing World' which opened yesterday and runs till 31 Jan at the Royal Academy of Arts.

Bummer, right? Not for Science!

Maybe thoughts of Global warming are making you sick of this decade...  Ring in the new one a bit early with a look back at the most important scientific breakthroughs of the decade from the Irish Times' Dick Ahlstrom.  Or if you're a scientist, why haven't you fixed these ten on W. Reville's list? You some kind of slacker?  Chop chop!

Also, in case you missed it:

• Gross/Awesome! Snake in Tanzania spits out a previously undiscovered species of Chameleon.
• The folks at Gyroscope blog about centers focusing on the intersection of Art and Science popping up with increasing frequency.
• And the National Cancer Screening Service wants artists' submissions by the 18th of Dec.