Astronomy: The Known Universe Scientifically Rendered by the American Museum of Natural History

After hovering over Mount Everest and the gorges that plunge to the Ganges, you are pulled through the Earth’s atmosphere to glimpse the inky black of space over Tibet’s high desert. So begins The Known Universe, a new film produced by the American Museum of Natural History that is part of a new exhibition, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City.

The Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises

PolitiFact has compiled more than 500 promises that Barack Obama made during the campaign and is tracking their progress on the Obameter. Statuses are rated as No Action, In the Works or Stalled. Once an action is found to be completed, it is rated a Promise Kept, a Compromise or a Promise Broken. The report card at right provides an up-to-the-minute tally of all the promises.

Iconoclasts: Harry Smith

"Artist, alchemical filmmaker, musical archeologist and avant garde shaman, Harry Smith’s obsessive interests made him an influential, yet not widely known, figure of 20th century Beat culture and beyond. If Smith was only responsible for preserving the folk and blues musical traditions of early America in his Anthology of American Folk Music set from 1952, we would have him to thank for providing a way forward for a young Bob Dylan and the whole of the 60s/70s folk scene." - from Harry Smith: American Magus.

Nadine Jarvin is a product designer. One of her projects involves rethinking how we approach death.

In Carbon Copies, for example, pencils are made from the carbon of human cremains. 240 pencils can be made from an average body of ash - a lifetime supply of pencils for those left behind.

Each pencil is foil stamped with the name of the person. Only one pencil can be removed at a time, it is then sharpened back into the box causing the sharpenings to occupy the space of the used pencils. Over time the pencil box fills with sharpenings - a new ash, transforming it into an urn. The window acts as a timeline, showing you the amount of pencils left as time goes by.

This work forms part of a larger research project into post mortem.

Environment: Alarming time-lapse video of the Alaskan coastline

Erodes at the rate of 45 feet a year
Jaymi Heimbuch writes on Treehugger:

With less ice cover during the summers to protect the shore from the ocean, and warmer ocean waters almost guaranteed, the erosion seems unstoppable. In fact, the scientists working on the study say as much. There is little evidence that this erosion has an end point. As the shoreline is made up of blocks of permafrost, the conditions basically ensure that large chunks are taken off at a time during stormy weather.

From Dangerous Minds

Science & Technology: Elements of Humanity

On Elements of Humanity, the editors of Make magazine present interviews with great minds working in science and technology that ask what intrigues them and try to learn more about what they do.
Lynn Rothschild is "Fascinated with Microbes."