Viewing entries tagged
Science
The red light actually a neighboring gas cloud, RCW 89, energized into glowing by the fingers of the PSR B1509-58 nebula, astronomers believe.
The scene, which spans 150 light-years, is about 17,000 light years away, so what we see now is how it actually looked 17,000 years ago, and that light is just arriving here.
I said this when I was 8 and I'll say it again: I WANT TO GO TO OUTER SPACE.
You think you had a bad day at work? Try this one. On March 12 a German scientist accidentally "pricked her finger with a needle used to inject the deadly Ebola virus into lab mice." Ebola as we know is some bad shit and has no known cure: "It begins with flu-like symptoms, followed by bloody diarrhea and vomiting. Days later, some victims begin bleeding through the nose, mouth and eyes. Depending on the strain of virus, it can kill up to 90 percent of victims."
An international team of biologists and virologists immediately gathered in a transatlantic teleconference and decided on a course of action. Less than 24 hours after the incident, "an experimental vaccine never before tried on humans was on its way to Germany from a lab in Canada." So far tests suggests that she will survive (fingers crossed), unlike this Russian scientist. Or Karen Wetterhahn, a former chemistry professor at Dartmouth.
Speaking of the movie Outbreak which featured a...wait for it...an outbreak of an Ebola-esque virus, I'd be mad if I was Morgan Freeman.
"A monkey? A goddamn monkey is getting higher billing than me on the movie poster?! I'm MORGAN FREEMAN. I was RED. I'm a fucking GOD. Who's Marcel's agent? Why? Because I should fire YOU and hire that fucking monkey's agent instead."
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Students from the University of Khartoum scour the Nubian desert in Sudan for remnants of an asteroid, which in a first, was tracked from space to impact.
"It's the first time we've been able to track something through the air and watch it fly apart and then find pieces of it," microbial ecologist Rocco Mancinelli of SETI, a co-author of a study on the meteorite pieces Wednesday in Nature, told Wired.com.
Finding the meteorites was a long shot, but because the rocks would be so important, meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens of SETI, lead author of the study, took a bus loaded with 45 students and staff from the University of Khartoum deep into the desert to hunt for them. A 10-hour bus ride and an 18-mile trek through the sand took them to the remote area where scientists thought the rocks, if they existed, would be. The group began sweeping the desert in a line and two hours later the first meteorite was found by a student.
John Huntington explains the crowd's delayed reaction during Garth Brooks' performance of the classic participatory song "Shout" during the President Obama's pre-inauguration. It's more fascinating than it "sounds." [vimeo=http://vimeo.com/2887685]
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Why hitchhike the galaxy when you can just jump on the ol' tube? Here's a guide to the Milky Way done in the style of a the London subway map.
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Equals an awesome fireball. Don't try this at home, kids. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGPsBz-Xte8&fmt=18]
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This is amazing: The Mona Lisa recreated using just 50 semi-transparent polygons.
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Watch this amazing time lapse video of the aurora borealis as seen from outer space, courtesy of NASA astronaut Don Pettit. I've seen this once back in my Alaska days. It took my breath away. Truly astonishing. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeAmKKrIVlc]
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This bird's-eye view of Kutztown University in Pennsylvania was the first image ever seen by the GeoEye-1, the world's highest-resolution commercial satellite sponsored by Google, when it opened its camera door earlier this week.
The 4,300-pound satellite collected the image at noon EDT on Oct. 7 while moving from the north pole to the south pole in a 423-mile-high orbit at 17,000 miles per hour, or 4.5 miles per second. The spacecraft can take photos at a resolution of up to 41 cm -- close enough to zoom in on the home plate of a baseball diamond, according to Mark Brender, GeoEye's vice president of communications and marketing.
So crisp.
I love the work produced by the graphic design firm Sam Potts Inc, especially this gallon can of gravity:
The wit! I love it.
Dear Mr Potts: Will you please design my website? Please?
The LHC or the Large Hadron Collider is experiencing some problems. Due to a recent helium leak it'll be out of service for two months.
The leak means that the LHC will be down for at least two months, because workers must now warm up the faulty sector of the tunnel in order to repair it. The liquid helium is used to cool the LHC's magnets -- which guide protons and accelerate them so they can be smashed together -- down to within 1.9 kelvins (3.4 degrees Fahrenheit) of absolute zero.
Read more here.
Holyshitholyshitholyshit. Large Hadron Collider is....going to rip a dimensional seam and open a portal into another universe which will unleash demon-ish aliens into our world!!!!
I need to unpack my anti-gravity gun for the end of times that is going to occur as a result of our hubris.
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Not only is Stephen Hawking a genius and an inspiration for all of us, he also has quite a sense of humor. Watch him get the crowd rolling in laughter: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8AG5RPOCjA]
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JbaM1xNIis] Conspiracy theorists (CT) believe that the NASA moon landing didn't actually take place and was instead a huge hoax created in some secret sound stage. CTs point to various supposed discrepancies as evidence of a grand NASA and government hoax. It's so asinine and yet it has persisted (sort of like the "we should teach creationism, er intelligent design in our science classes!"). Mythbusters decides to resolve this once and for all.
The shadows in the NASA photographs of the landing shows non-parallel shadows that suggests multiple light sources instead of just one: THE SUN! Right?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wym04J_3Ls0] Myth BUSTED!
CTs point to this photo of Neil Armstrong who appears WAY too lit, especially when it appears that he is standing in...a shadow! It must be a studio "fill" light. Right?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtWMz51eL0Y] Myth BUSTED!
Astronauts can't leave distinct footprints on the moon in the vacuum of the moon's surface which lacks moisture that is required, CTs claim, for a boot imprint.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5taIxlNA_Lw] Myth BUSTED!
The flag hoisted onto the surface of the moon waves! Flags aren't suppose to have movement in the vacuum of space. That is from a breeze in the "studio." Right?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMBCfuKs9i8] Myth BUSTED!
Ice cream is apparently an igneous rock. The science of it frankly bores me. This entry is just an excuse to share again my all time favorite Eddie Murphy joke, which happens to involve ice cream, and it is this skit that was running through my head when I ran like Usain Bolt after the Mr. Smoothie truck a few weeks ago.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JfMCBh1sJQ]
You know the shit is hysterically genius when the dude telling the joke is wearing a full red leather jump suit and that isn't what's funny.
Kid robot 
This is his charging station. Haha.