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So…what is the Monday Poll? Excellent question! It isn’t, contrary to its name, an actual poll, like with little clicky buttons. It’s just a list of five more or less random questions I’ve been posting on this blog every Monday morning for the past quadrillion years (since 2007). I love reading your answers, and it helps me get my week off to a good start. 1. Does pineapple belong on pizza? Heck, sure, why not? Granted, it’s not my first choice for a pizza topping (give me a margherita pizza any day of the week), I’ll get down with a...

The original letter in which Galileo argued against the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church has been rediscovered in London.Credit: The Royal SocietyVia Nature: Discovery of Galileo’s long-lost letter shows he edited his heretical ideas to fool the Inquisition—There seems there is nothing new or unknown on this find. I recommend taking a look at his essay (in the form of a letter to the Grand Duchess Christina) written in 1615 (around the time the above letter was also written): Galileo Galilei: Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany, 1615

I think it’s safe to say that Patrick Starrr sleigh-ed 2018. Get it? Sleigh-ed?? ? OK, sorry, you know how I am with puns. The mega influencer/YouTuber/all-around “It Boy” is launching yet another collab with MAC, and it’s pretty intense for a holiday collection. There are five lipglosses, three lipsticks, a huge over-sized Mineralized Skinfinish that’s almost as big as my head, a translucent loose setting powder, two eyeshadow palettes and three pigments, and the whole shebang drops December 3rd. Patrick Starrr’s known for bringing the glam, so there’s lots of sparkle, shine and cheeky innuendo. The products have names...

Normally, Tabs goes on patrol first thing on Sunday morning, but today was the first official meeting of the Novato Cat Gardeners Club. Tabs was not deterred by the fact that there are currently only two members, one of which is technically a small human who likes to think of herself as a cat. On today’s agenda, which was not printed in Comic Sans: pick the ripe cherry tomatoes. Now, is this easy to do with paws? No, but Tabs relishes the challenge. The members also discussed yellow versus red tomatoes, as well as the benefits of singing to your...

Multi-purpose silicon chip created for quantum information processingThe Bristol team has been using silicon photonic chips as a way to try to build quantum computing components on a large scale and today’s result, published in the journal Nature Photonics, demonstrates it is possible to fully control two qubits of information within a single integrated chip. This means any task that can be achieved with two qubits, can be programmed and realised with the device.Via Phys.orgImage credit: Xiaogang Qiang/University of Bristol