Lots of you are playing Minecraft – for those just starting out, here is a very well-made explanation of things work.

Here is a world that we’ll be installing on the school server so that you can explore ancient civilizations.

Get a sense of the scale of the universe as you zoom in and out from atoms to galaxies (best viewed full screen). An ‘interactive infographic’ from Numbersleuth.

Here’s a stop-motion animation demonstrating some architectural forms. It was made, in 1980, by Al Jarnow who worked on Seame Street and other TV programmes for children.

Timelapse film of night in a Namibian desert.

Here’s a public information film from 1951. Flower fairies versus germs!

We’ve linked to strange videos and animations by Cyriak before, and here’s a new one for a track by Bonobo.

The Museum of Mathematics has just opened in New York. Here is a video of some of the entertaining activities on the ‘Math Midway’.

January is a music-generating game where you play notes by catching snowflakes on your tongue. Try it out here (requires Flash)

The phenakistiscope is a toy invented in 1841 for displaying animated pictures. Mr Dyer came across some pictures of disks for this device on the Library of Congress website and has animated them so that you can see the effect.