Bad Astronomy: The Wonders of the Universe

Somewhat in the vein of asking about links that you-all think might be good to add to the blogroll (I'll get there, honest!), I'll mention a blog that I read and isn't on the blogroll.
One such is Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy. Not that he needs the advertising, but I do read and enjoy his blog for reasons relevant to my own aims here. Namely, he regularly has articles (I'll list a few below; apparently 'dozen' should follow the 'few') that illustrate my own feeling -- that the universe is a wonderful and interesting place, and doing science is a way to embrace that wonder.

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Open Lab 2010 nominations

I have the logo on the right for nominating blog articles to the best of collection -- the Open Laboratory 2010. I'll suggest that you look back at the articles that you think are particularly good, here and elsewhere, and follow that link from the decorative logo, or this link to make your nominations. I was reminded of this because Bora Zivkovic, who does the 'Blog Around the Clock' (a title he perhaps is living out), is also the lead on that activity.

Note that, because of Bora's publication schedule, articles are eligible from December 2009 through November 2010.

New locations for two from blogroll

Two blogs from the blogroll have moved -- A Blog Around the Clock and All My Faults are Stress-Related.

Are there other updates?  Blogs I should be adding to the roll?  Note that 'should' requires that the blog be substantially about science -- learning and doing it -- rather than ... well, quite a few other things that are otherwise.  I grant more leeway for blogs that link over here, figuring that reciprocity is good citizenship.

Designing good experiments

This is another time I don't really have great answers, but a question over at the question place has me thinking about it.  Namely, what makes for a good experiment?  As far as the science goes, I'm comfortable about knowing the answer.  Or at least knowing enough of an answer. 

But for the purposes of you readers -- what makes for a good experiment that you could do yourself?  How big or small could it be?  How long should it take to run?  How much expense is ok?  Is following a circuit diagram to assemble test equipment something you're comfortable with?  Carpentry?   And so on. 

For the original question -- a tabletop demonstration of the greenhouse effect -- I might actually have an answer of sorts.  I went running shortly after first reading the question.  That's often a good time for ideas to come to me, and a few did.  But at the moment, they'd take a pretty big table (like, say, 10 feet), you'd have to get hold of a dry ice supply (for the CO2), and you'd have to assemble a fairly simple circuit.  A several Watt laser would also be a plus, but I'm going to try to make sure that the experiment will work without it.

Question place

Time to hang out the shingle for questions.  As always, response time will be variable, including that I may not be able to answer.  If so, maybe a reader can.  And maybe we can have some discussion about the question and how we might go about finding the answer.