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This is a page from on old British Royal Navy logbook. To be exact, its from a ship called The Bramble, and its a log from November 1915. All Royal Navy ships were required to keep a daily log, and six times a day, someone noted various details about the weather. Now, think about it — that’s a lot of raw weather data. Which is exactly why climate scientists want your help. They’ve launched a new citizen science project called oldweather.org. I did this story on the big show earlier this week, but here in the podcast, I’m offering you instead a long version of one of the interviews I recorded as part of the reporting. The interview is with Chris Lintott of Oxford University. He’s one of the folks behind a whole host of citizen science projects called Zooniverse. Take a listen to the WTP 306 and find out more.

We also have a story on the Pentagon’s quest for a flying Humvee (nope, not a joke). We’ll talk with Bill Hennigen, who wrote a great article on the story for the LA Times. And then the BBC’s Steve Rosenberg fills us in on Russia’s plans to use inflatable tanks (also not a joke).

And we end with a nice remembrance of Benoit Mandelbrot, the genius mathematician who figured out fractals. Listen to NOVA’s Peter Tyson explain the everyday tech that is only possible through the fractal geometry that Mandelbrot pioneered.

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