Folks may recall that Steve and I have switched days this week. For my weekly post, here are a couple of fun things I’ve found while cruising the web.

First, an interesting post on Cognitive Daily about human perception. Apparently we can recognize objects with very little input. By putting dots at key parts of the body, as if they were lights on our elbows, knees, hips, and so on, then animating them, scientists have shown that the figures are clearly identifiable as human — and even things like their gender, level of anxiety, and size are discernable.

According to CogDaily scientists, children as young as five are able to recognize a collection of moving dots as human, dog, bird, and so on. The still images are more difficult to decipher, for both children and adults.

This site allows you to play with the dot skeleton animations. Fun!

And while we are on the subject of human perception and identifying objects with limited information at your disposal, here is something with an even higher coolth factor : astronomers who have collected tons of data on galaxies are inviting the public to help them classify galaxies as either spiral or elliptical.

It’s addictive — like a video game! — and it’s in the name of science. Apparently they have been overwhelmed by the response. I have been playing for over an hour now, and had to wrench myself away to come post about it.

Check it out.