I'm pretty sure plenty of scientists would have no problem referring to the big bang as an explosion, as it does involve the rapid expansion of matter and energy in an expanding volume. You could even go as far as to call it a detonation or use the narrow definition of explosion in the case of high explosives, because the expansion was supersonic.
Conference proceedings are a mixed bag. In some fields, there are conference proceedings that are tough to get into and such papers are respected, but there are other proceedings that are not peer-reviewed. A lot of smaller conferences handle the review process within the conference, managed by the organizers who then papers are handed off to a publisher for hosting. So it is up to those organizers to maintain any quality control of what goes into the proceedings, short of things being bad enough to get people to complain to the publisher. It is a different ball game from more established journal review processes (although some of those can suck too).
My problem with Spam is not the ingredients or taste, but how expensive it seems to be for what you get. At ~$5-6 per pound of meat, I can get quite a selection of fresh meat for the same price or less.
Around 2:42 you can see one light up on the right and later leave the top-right of the frame. "I have to go now. My planet needs me."
More seriously, even secured cylinders can be quite a mess and training classes abound with images of what accidents involving a single cylinder can do to vehicles.
Some other pictures of the park definitely show crocs, but these pictures linked here look almost like it could be a mix of crocs and gators. The latter have broader heads and less visible teeth when the mouth is closed, among other differences.
The Atomic Energy Kit isn't a DIY nuclear reactor, but a handful of basic radioactivity lab demonstrations. Finding that stuff in a random high school is hit or miss, but certainly all available at an undergrad lecture demo or hands on undergrad lab course. The cloud chamber and electroscope are easy to make yourself, and you can still get the radioactive sources from educational sources (I had the same Pb-210 source for the cloud chamber I made as a kid). A Geiger counter is a bit harder to build, but there are plenty around to buy, made or in kit form. The most interesting part, imo, is the spinthariscope setup that looks like it is meant for redoing Rutherford's foil experiment, which is a lot less common.
I see your point. I think a key difference comes from square numbers working both with integers and reals, in the sense that a 10 by 10 square and a 10 by 10 grid of dots both give 100 for the area or no. of dots. A 10 by 10 triangle grid is going to have 55 dots instead of the 50 sq. unit area of a 10 by 10 right triangle though. Many high school students do at least remember the area of a triangle formula (they say they don't, but if you prod them, many end up remembering it anyway).
I still see triangle numbers and such come up in kids books trying to introduce interesting math or for a visual example of an algebra formula. But there is no emphasis on remembering that since there is enough use for math other than parlor tricks today, and more serious combinatorics efforts are hidden until upper level undergraduate programs or lumped in with basic probability problems. I suppose it is sad for something not to be learned because it is not useful anymore, on the other hand, not so much as long as kids are learning something.
It still comes up in computer programming if you are trying to figure out how many possible connections there are between items in a list. And you can reason it out as someone below almost did: n items need to connect with n-1 items, but not double count gives n(n-1)/2. Realizing it is a triangle number might be more difficult for some than just remembering it as related to situations like the puzzle here.
You only get 90 games because you are double counting. 10 teams each play 9 games, but every game has 2 teams in it so you need to divide by two to count each game once. Then you get 45. No elimination needed.
Any respectable, English speaking scientist should take less than 2 seconds to conclude yes in response to, "Should we stick a plunger on a chicken's butt?" Unless they have higher chicken priorities to deal with first.
It wasn't the acetone that blocked the fluorescence, but an acetone based extract from another part of the pitcher plant, slightly below the fluorescing part. The test was done over 10 days after applying the extract, so the acetone should have been long gone. They also did a second test where they cut off the fluorescing part, and had some observations on day-night cycle effects on normal plants since the UV wouldn't be there at night.
Seeing the top score compares the taker to Tim Bernes-Lee, I was expecting questions on different protocols and standards. But after opening the quiz in a telnet session without a http reference, I started to think it was more of a quiz on how to be or not be a jerk on the internet, with some arbitrary scoring. Then on second thought, I opened it in a real browser with a JS console and took the real proficiency test.
More seriously, even secured cylinders can be quite a mess and training classes abound with images of what accidents involving a single cylinder can do to vehicles.
I still see triangle numbers and such come up in kids books trying to introduce interesting math or for a visual example of an algebra formula. But there is no emphasis on remembering that since there is enough use for math other than parlor tricks today, and more serious combinatorics efforts are hidden until upper level undergraduate programs or lumped in with basic probability problems. I suppose it is sad for something not to be learned because it is not useful anymore, on the other hand, not so much as long as kids are learning something.