Born Under Punches

“

You boys know what tropism is, it’s what makes a plant grow toward the light. Everything aspires to the light. You don’t have to chase down a fly to get rid of it - you just darken the room, leave a crack of light in a window, and out he goes. Works every time. We all have that instinct, that aspiration. Science can’t dim that. All science can do is turn out the false lights so the true light can get us home.

Tobias Wolff, Old School (via crashinglybeautiful)

02/15/12

fybiology:

jtotheizzoe:

RESEARCH ALL THE THINGS

ANSWER ALL THE QUESTIONS

DISCOVER NEW ONES

(image by crownedrose)

hahahah hyperbole and a half, you guys. CLEAN ALL THE THINGS.

HAIL ~~SATAN~~ SCIENCE

(via you-moiandmemoriesdecaying)

11/28/11

Researchers make the case that life sprang from early mega-organism

11/28/11

areyoubluish:

Science!

(via oldowan)

11/10/11

asteroid, y u no hit earth

11/6/11

gw1:

lionskeleton:

Velvet-bodied star

Or an amazing graphic illustration associated with one of the most amazing bands of all time. That’s right, I’m talking about JOY DIVISION.

I’ma be honest with you, I did not know that that graph was a neutron star. I had always assumed it was waveforms from Unknown Pleasures.

gw1:

lionskeleton:

Velvet-bodied star

Or an amazing graphic illustration associated with one of the most amazing bands of all time. That’s right, I’m talking about JOY DIVISION.

I’ma be honest with you, I did not know that that graph was a neutron star. I had always assumed it was waveforms from Unknown Pleasures.

10/27/11

Jupiter

click it, it’s animated

via

10/27/11

jtotheizzoe:

If this video doesn’t make your jaw drop … you don’t have a jaw.

Behold: Quantum Levitation!

I have to admit, I was flabbergasted by this one. I mean, that means of motion is just so unnatural that it seems fake. But it isn’t fake. So how does it work?

Physics!

What you start with is an inert disc, in this case a crystal sapphire wafer. That wafer is then coated with a superconductor called yttrium barium copper oxide. When superconductors get very cold (like liquid nitrogen cold) they conduct electricity with no loss of energy, which normal conducting materials like copper can’t do.

Superconductors hate magnetic fields (when cold enough), and normally would just repel the magnetic force and float in a wobbly fashion. But because the superconductor is so thin in this case, tiny imperfections allow some magnetic forces through. These little magnetic channels are called flux tubes:

The flux tubes cause the magnetic field to be “locked” in all three dimensions, which is why the disk remains in whatever position it starts in, levitating around the magnets.

Of course, I am a biologist, not a physicist. For more, check out here or here.

Supercold, superconducting hoverboards … HERE WE COME!

(by ASTCvideos)

Jdnsjfnsorbdiwbdnahr

(via whataboutmonday)

10/17/11

ohyeahdevelopmentalbiology:

thewaspinvestigation:

     So I’m sure you’ve all heard that there are signs that there may have been or could eventually be life on Mars, but have you heard about Europa?

     Europa is one of Jupiter’s moons (6th moon, if you wanna know) and this brings it a neat little advantage that could mean life has or will develop there.

     Firstly, let me tell you that is is pretty cold on Europa. Very cold indeed, reaching temperatures of around -100 degrees Kelvin (or -370 degrees C). This means the whole planet is frozen stiff. But, luckily enough, it is frozen water - which is a pretty good indication that there could be life.

     Further, because of Jupiter’s immense gravitational pull (“gravity” refers specifically to Earth) and Europa’s oblong orbit, the moon is stretched when it gets close to the massive planet and it returns to spherical shape when it gains distance again. Because it only takes 3 days, the sheer force of this phenomenon heats the tiny moon considerably - meaning that beneath 15 miles of ice, there may be water supporting complex life forms.

    Though it is more probable that if there is indeed life beneath the ice, it is bacterial or even RNA, it very well could be multicellular and very much like our own marine life - causing great excitement amongst scientists, notably Hawking.

    If there is multicellular life, evolution would have resulted in similar traits to those we see in Earth’s oceans; for example it is likely they are able to feel temperature changes (so they have skin), they could have ears enabling them to communicate and they may even use a similar bacteria to Vibrio fischeri (a bioluminescent organism) in conjunction with eyes to see in the very dark water - much like deep sea fish in our oceans.

“The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.” - Carl Sagan

(via you-moiandmemoriesdecaying)

10/17/11

Carl Sagan's COSMOS in full (YouTube links)!

via

thanks, Vondell

10/8/11

inothernews:

“How I spent my last day in #space That’s me in the cupola off the coast of #Australia taking my last of >25K pics.”

— NASA astronaut RON GARAN, via Twitter. (Click through for larger.)

A great photo. As Gizmodo puts it, “This awesome image of the Space Station could be a lost Star Wars frame.”

that wee bubble is the atmosphere

mother of god

09/27/11

10 Women of Science You Should Know

Lise Meitner (1878 – 1968)

When Lise Meitner finished school at age 14, she was barred from higher education, as were all girls in Austria. But, inspired by the discoveries of William Röntgen and Henri Becquerel, she was determined to study radioactivity. When she turned 21, women were finally allowed into Austrian universities. Two years of tutoring preceded her enrollment at the University of Vienna; there she excelled in math and physics and earned her doctorate in 1906. She wrote to Marie Curie, but there was no room for her in the Paris lab and so Meitner made her way to Berlin. There she collaborated with Otto Hahn on the study of radioactive elements, but as an Austrian Jewish woman (all three qualities were strikes against her), she was excluded from the main labs and lectures and allowed to work only in the basement. In 1912, the pair moved to a new university and Meitner had better lab facilities. Though their partnership was split up physically when she was forced to flee Nazi Germany in 1938, they continued to collaborate. Meitner continued her work in Sweden and after Hahn discovered that uranium atoms were split when bombarded with neutrons, she calculated the energy released in the reaction and named the phenomenon “nuclear fission.” The discovery—which eventually led to the atomic bomb (“You must not blame scientists for the use to which war technicians have put our discoveries,” Meitner would say in 1945)—won Hahn the Nobel Prize in 1944. Meitner, overlooked by the Nobel committee, refused to return to Germany after the war and continued her atomic research in Stockholm into her 80s.

09/21/11

Born Under Punches

I'm a tumblr.

My name is Dan. I live in Edmonton. Sometimes I take pictures. Sometimes I draw things. I like cars and photography and science. You can talk to me on Twitter or ask me a question.

My god, what have I done?

Born Under Punches

I'm a tumblr. My name is Dan. I live in Edmonton. Sometimes I take pictures. Sometimes I draw things. I like cars and photography and science. You can talk to me on Twitter or ask me a question.

My god, what have I done?

I'm a tumblr.

My name is Dan. I live in Edmonton. Sometimes I take pictures. Sometimes I draw things. I like cars and photography and science. You can talk to me on Twitter or ask me a question.