Interesting stuff: Early September 2010

Some interesting links, with a bonus one after the bullets:

• I sent an email to Mark Liberman that led to a Language Log post, concerning a particularly bizzare Google Translate result that I stumbled upon by watching my blog stats.
• Speculation about what’s inside Pluto.
• Article listing aspects of science that influence science fiction.
• Chimpanzees learn to deactivate snares.
• The story of Esaw Wood.

There are many metaphorical train maps out there, but Crispian Jago’s modern science map is one of the best of its kind. I asked on Twitter which node should be used as the destination in a Mornington Crescent variation, to which @john_s_wilkins suggested Claude Bernard, adding: “The archetypal experimentalist and error theorist. But you have to get there without a mistake!”

That works for me. In a first for this blog, I hereby invite you to play in the comments section of this post. Some ground rules:

• I strongly encourage you to look up the people played by your competitors. Also, feel free to write a sentence or two about your own choices. Bonus points for highlighting interesting connections between your move and those of others. (This is not compulsory but might make it more fun and educational.)
• Here’s how turn-taking will work. If it has been at least six hours since your last move, and at least one person has played in the meantime, then you may make another move.

I’ll start you off with the first move: Jan Oort. (Who is most famous for speculations regarding icy space rocks at the outer edge of the solar system, giving us a connection of sorts with the Pluto article I link to above, which also speculates about distant icy space rocks.)