How exploding stars might well have changed the course of evolution: http://nyr.kr/117eF9g
Ah my favorite.
Scaiku!
Last week, I posted some science-inspired haiku poetry and many of you sent in your own. Thanks for all the replies, tweets and comments with great, geeky poems!
I drew up some of my favorites along with some beautiful Japanese woodblock art (click the photos to view them biggu). Don’t worry, if you don’t see yours, you can check out everyone’s submissions here.
Got any more scaiku?
This is lovely. Science inspired haiku.
The sun just released a M6.5 class flare today, a merely medium-powered burst of solar energy. While it’s the strongest flare yet this year (2013 is predicted to be a maximum in the solar activity cycle), it likely won’t affect much down here.
I just thought it was really pretty, as captured here by NASA’s SDO satellite.
(via NASA)
Seeing the Brain With New CLARITY
A new brain imaging technique called CLARITY allows neural structures to be reconstructed in three dimensions better than ever before. It does so by turning the brain “transparent”.
Truly understanding the inner workings of the brain means studying not only how individual neurons function, but also how they are wired together. Even with techniques like the beautiful “brainbow”, untangling spaghetti-like long-range connections has proven difficult.
Stanford University neuroscientists have taken a step in that direction with their new CLARITY method. Neurons and other cells are normally labeled by sticking fluorescent tags on various proteins and other molecules that a researcher wants to study. That way we can literally see where and how they function. But looking into a three-dimensional brain is like peering into murky water: the fatty cell membranes and neuron sheaths just get in the way.
The Stanford researchers immobilized these mouse brains in a gel, then washed away all the murky muck. This left all the connections and proteins in their right place, free to be labeled in a clear block of brain Jell-O.
For more: Head over to Nature News to read more, and be sure to watch their great, detailed video to find out more about how it was done. If you’re interested, here’s the research paper in this week’s Nature.
This is JJ Abrams, showing people how many times better Star Trek is than Star Wars, for all eternity.
What Makes Up the Moon
In 1992, the Jupiter-bound Galileo spacecraft made a pass by our planet’s closest companion, the moon. This mosaic of 53 images shows the different composition of rocks on the moon’s surface. Blue and orange colors represent lava flows, bright pink areas are highlands, and light blue colors indicate recent impact material with the youngest craters showing blue rays extending away from them.
Image: NASA/JPL
ESOcast 52: It’s Raining Stars — a video podcast celebrating the Geminid meteor shower (by Eso Observatory)
On 14—16 December 2012, the Geminid meteor shower made a spectacular appearance over ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. As the meteors showered down over the site, ESO Photo Ambassador Gianluca Lombardi was ready with his camera to record the spectacle. He spent over 40 hours recording the shower.
The Geminids is a shower of shooting stars appearing to emanate from within the constellation of Gemini (The Twins). This shower occurs when the Earth cuts through the orbit of an asteroid named 3200 Phaethon, which happens once each year, in December. Particles in the trail of dust along the orbit of Phaethon burn up in our atmosphere, creating the brilliant, fast-moving points of light characteristic of meteor showers.
More information: http://www.eso.org/public/videos/esocast52a/
Credit:
ESO.
Editing: Herbert Zodet.
Web and technical support: Mathias André and Raquel Yumi Shida.
Music: Toomas Erm.
Footage and photos: ESO/Gianluca Lombardi (glphoto.it).
Directed by: Herbert Zodet.
Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen.
I love science
cool iPad app celebrating the Cassini mission to Saturn
Cassini HD - Explore Saturn Via iPad
Our very own science/art Tumblrer stacythinx has been hard at work designing the Cassini HD iPad app, available Sept. 15 in the iTunes store (that’s tomorrow!). It will be free for the first day, by the way (I’ll add the link when it goes live).
I’ve had a chance to play with the app, and it’s really something special. NASA’s Cassini mission has provided us with what I think is the greatest catalogue of planetary images from our solar system. Saturn is such a visually striking celestial body, and exploring its moons and rings via photography gives us the ability to take a digital rocket tour with just a single click.
The Cassini HD app delivers more than just pretty pictures, of course. Tap an image to find out a little bit of the context behind each photo, and any of them can be shared on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, etc. right in the app. My only complaint about the app is that there isn’t more written, but the pictures are informative on their own, and still serve to inspire further study. The philosophy behind this project, and Stacey’s Tumblr, is making knowledge beautiful. Mission accomplished!
I give it a rating of 10 rings out of 10. Go get it tomorrow!
wired:wnycradiolab:ilovecharts:
Please note that this is from a thesis project called OMG Space, possibly the best-named thesis project ever.
Greatest ever.
Giant Squid Captured On Film Its Natural Habitat For The First Time!
Whoa!
The hardest part about finding a Kraken in its natural surroundings is sneaking up on it. You can’t sneak up on a Kraken. The Japanese team that captured this footage, of a comparatively tiny 3 meter giant squid (the largest ever caught was 18 meters!), did it by fitting their submersible with lights that were invisible to both squid and human eyes. Those wavelengths were captured by the camera, though … and the results are stunning.
Read about the incredible work that went into capturing this amazing beast of the deep, this real-life sea monster, this ghost of the seas, at Scientific American. Check out the full video footage from ABC News.
(click through if these GIFs aren’t animating on your dashboard … it’s an amazing thing to see)
Release the Kraken!
