• Suzie Sheehy writes, “I have come to recognise that it’s not just me who feels stupid in science – in fact there are many arguments to be made that if you’ve stopped feeling stupid then you’ve stopped really doing science.” A terrific piece (in the same vein as, but better than, my “science is about asking questions” post.)
• Gamma ray bursts (GRBs) are the brightest things in the universe for the short duration of their shining. In many ways, they are still very poorly understood. A peculiar GRB spotted on Christmas Day, 2010 might have been very distant, or it might have been much closer to us; while that may sound surprising, it highlights how difficult observing GRBs really is. Two papers to be published in Nautre today outline the two models. I may have something more to say about this later.
• Stephen Colbert is known mostly as a funny man, but he breaks character for a long in-depth interview with astronomer/science advocate Neil deGrasse Tyson. I do mean long, too: make sure you set aside enough time to listen to the whole thing, because it’s worthwhile. (Start the video at 6 minutes in if you’re impatient to get to the actual content.)
• When I was 8 or 9 years old, my aunt gave me her old college biology textbook, which I didn’t really try to understand: I mostly loved it for the pictures of cell structures. A lot has changed since then: new techniques in microscopy reveal structures in cells that were unknown. Here are some images that would have blown my 9-year-old self away.
• A research paper I collaborated on is finally getting published! I’ll have more to say about it soon, so if you don’t want to wade through the equations, be patient; I think many of you might find it interesting.

Finally, ’tis the season for the Hubble Space Telescope holiday cards, free to download and print!