Word of the Day
Avarice (n., AV-uh-riss)
Excessive desire for lots of money. Less Scrooge McDuck and more Plato's brother.
Gif of the Day
BinocularsEyesBlinkingWait a minuteBall gamesSix eyes?
Link of the Day
Why physicists put a ferret in a particle accelerator
A fun little story from Atlas Obscura features physics mixing with Felicia the ferret:
Robert Sheldon, a British engineer who’d been brought on to NAL to find “shortcuts and money-saving ideas,” suggested a ferret, equipped with a cleaning tool, could do the job, scampering through the vacuum tubes as if flushing rabbits out of a warren. “In his part of Yorkshire, hunters used ferrets,” Frank Beck, a former head of research services at Fermilab, wrote. “A ferret would not hesitate to run down the inside of the stainless steel tube, even if that involved a long journey into the unknown.”
The ferret arrived by special delivery from the Wild Game and Fur Farm in Gaylord, Minnesota. At 15 inches long, she was the smallest ferret they’d had. Her fur was brown and black except for white patches on her face. They called her Felicia. She cost $35.
You can read more about Felicia's frolicking in the Fermilab over at Atlas Obscura.
StoriesFerretsHi, FeliciaRound and roundPhysicsI've heard of bats in the machine?