The atomic clock is so accurate that, had it been running since the Big Bang, 13+ billion years ago, it would only be off of "real" time by four seconds.

Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology want to build a nuclear clock that, when asked for comment on the atomic clock's accuracy, shrugs and says, "that's totally b-list."

[The idea would be to use the atomic nucleus like a tuning fork A nucleus will jump to a higher energy state, then fall back down, and jump up again, only if it is hit with a very specific frequency of light. Tuning a laser so that it prompts these jumps is a way to set its frequency with a phenomenal level of precision. The frequency can then be used like a clock's tick to keep time.

...

A thorium clock controlled in this way would drift by just 1 second in 200 billion years, the team claims - that is more than 14 times the age of the universe.

So in the face of all this jaw-dropping accuracy, I'm gonna keep saying, "It's, like, mid-afternoon, I think."

[NewScientist]

I remember when Lucky Charms cereal added purple horseshoes to their menagerie of marshmallowy shapes, which speaks to either my vivid long-term memory or my sheltered upbringing.

Anyway, I mention this because inventor Tom Lombardi has developed a Lucky Charms Sifter to weed out those crunchy pieces and leave you with a bowl of nothing but sweet, sweet charms. It's one of the many nifty little devices people are developing using 3D printers these days, a few of which don't involve cereal

Tom's most important caveat, by the way: "Be careful to hide the sifter because it may anger others." This is especially true if you live in a leprechaun colony.

[Awesomer]

Colorful, isn't it? It's an art installation called RGB, and it's by Carnovsky, an art duo based in Milan.

RGB, of course, refers to the colors red, green and blue; TVs and computer monitors mix those three colors together to make most of the colors you see. Which brings me to the most interesting part of the installation: look at the piece again with a special set of light-filtering goggles, and you see an almost entirely different piece

Each successive layer shows a different aspect of the whole. Some even play off each other - one RGB image has a skeleton on the red layer; on the green layer, in the same location, there's a set of muscles.

Carnovsky's website says RGB is "about the exploration of the surface's 'deepness.'" Right now it's installed in London, but if you want to dig deeper you can see some of the images on the web.

[via Presurfer]

I wanted to wait a few days to see if there were any notable tributes to Apple's Steve Jobs on the web, and there were plenty - GeeksAreSexy has a pretty good roundup of Jobs tributes you might not have seen yet.

My favorite so far? Steve Jobs' obituary fed into the iPhone's Autocorrect, which, as we all know, misses a word or two from time to time:

Shortly after defacing and fighting a debilitating and fetal bout with pancake cancer in 2004, Apple flounder Sieve Joes spoke before a graduating calls at Sanford and Son University in 2008, giving the fresh faced studios the consummate redress.

He told the crowd of eagle young facets of his struggle with the dis ease and subservient recovery that his brush with deaf helped him underwear the fragility of file, a drive that served Joes well in and around Apple to a new restitution in touchy-feely technology and excess agility.

....

The iconic flounder and C3P0 of Apple Inc. who encouraged his legion of “Mac-n-Cheeseheads” to “Think differentially” passed away on Wed., Oct. 5, 2011 surrounded by his flammability. He was 56 years mold.

Also worth a visit: Regretsy, which found someone who appears to have put a dessert tray up for sale and added "Steve Jobs" to the search terms, just to give it a little more visibility. An A for effort, if not for Apple.