This is going to be cool: The Tangled Bank.  "A Carnival is a weekly showcase of good weblog writing, selected by the authors themselves.  Each week, one of our crew will highlight a collection of interesting weblog articles in one convenient place, making it easy for everyone to find the good stuff.  Our weekly compendium of great science weblog articles will be called the Tangled Bank, after Charles Darwin's famous metaphor."  I'm going to try to put together a stable URL for a Tangled Bank RSS feed, stay tuned.

AlwaysOn reports DNA folds into paired pyramids.  "Researchers from the Scripps Research Institute have formed strings of DNA that spontaneously fold into a wireframe octahedron, a shape that has eight triangular faces.  The octahedron has two advantages over other artificially-formed three-dimensional DNA shapes, according to the researchers.  First, because the structures are triangular, they're relatively strong.  Second, like a three-dimensional paper airplane made from a flat piece of paper, the octahedron is made from straight DNA strands.  The three-dimensional shape forms when one long DNA strand and five shorter strands are mixed and heated."  Amazing!   This is an excerpt from an article in the February 12, 2004 issue of Nature.

Posts like this one are why I read Lore Sjöberg's Slumbering Lungfish.  "This is like being assigned to buy a new bong and discuss similarities between The Matrix and Lord of the Rings."  Yeah, like, cool, man.

Honesty requires I point out that I've already noted the seeming parallels, especially given the identity between Agent Smith and Elrond.  "You seem to live two lives, Mr. Baggins."  And no, I did not buy a new bong.

I don't often link Mickey Kaus on Slate, but I should.  A masterful skewering: "I sniped at the NYT's Adam Nagourney last night, but this very day he achieves a significant breakthrough, pioneering a solution to a problem that has plagued American journalism for decades.  The dilemma is this: What do you do when you have a strong opinion about your subject?  You can't just say what you think--not within the strictures of 'objective' reporting, anyway."  The solution?  Interview another reporter who has the same view!

Here we have Sapphire, a liquid which doesn't get things wet.  What will they think of next?

came out of stealth mode today.  This is Amazon's search engine startup.  They are built on top of Google.  John Battle gives it a quick review and thumbs up.  "Something tells me the hearts are beating a bit faster at Yahoo and Google HQs today."  Interesting.  Apparently they have a very nice toolbar, I might have to check it out...

Scoble claims Jeremy Mazner clears up the WinFS confusion.  Read his post and see if you agree.  I'm not confused, but I am of the opinion that WinFS has been cut back, despite both evanglists' protests to the contrary...

Just when you think you've seen everything, you are reminded that "everything" is much more than you thought.  ThinkGeek features this PC case which doubles as a home for small rodent pets.  I am not making this up.

These would be perfect for a laboratory server farm :)