holy crap, this stuff is really cool

Kangaroos have three vaginas

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:30:47 -0400

I have nothing to add here.

It’s a magic number. What would we do without Ed Yong to explain this stuff to us?

They can be perpetually pregnant! Also, the diagram he included is informative, if not odd. Finally, this might be why marsupials like joeys are born so prematurely developed (they run out of space).

In closing:

crookedindifference: Graphical timeline of the Universe This...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:04:28 -0400

crookedindifference:

Graphical timeline of the Universe

This more than twenty billion years timeline of our universe shows the best estimates of the occurrence of events since its beginning, up until anticipated events in the near future. Zero of the scale is the present day. A large step on the scale is one billion years, a small step one hundred million years. The past time have a minus sign, e.g. the oldest rock on Earth was formed about four billion years ago and this is marked at -4e+09 years. The “Big Bang” event happened 13.7 billion years ago.

itsfullofstars: 10 Moons Every Person Should Know Pretty much...

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 20:04:26 -0400

itsfullofstars:

10 Moons Every Person Should Know

Pretty much everyone can rattle off the names of our solar system’s eight (formerly nine) planets, but ask the average person to list some moons and you’ll be lucky if they can tell you more than two or three.

Now, you obviously can’t expect people to remember the name of every single satellite in the solar system (after all, they outnumber the planets by around 20 to 1), but if you have even the slightest interest in astronomy, it wouldn’t kill you to be familiar with at least an even ten. So with that in mind, we’ve assembled this reference guide to ten of the solar system’s most noteworthy moons.

rhamphotheca: surrealmadrid: Tardigrades This is a tardigrade,...

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 23:41:24 -0400

rhamphotheca:

surrealmadrid: Tardigrades

This is a tardigrade, also known as a”water bear” or “moss piglet.” It is probably the coolest fucking microscopic life form that you’ve never heard of. Besides looking like miniature, animatronic gummy bears, tardigrades can live at temperatures close to absolute zero. Before you Google what absolute zero is, it’s -459.67 degrees Fahrenheit (lol no parenthetical Celsius conversion for the rest of the world haha). That’s pretty fucking cold. Anyways, tardigrades are tiny little living things that eat shit inside of mosses and whatnot. They can survive in any environment (including outer space), are able to go without water for up to 10 years, and are like a million bajillion years old (they originated in the Cretaceous period for you kids that understand whatever that means).

BAM, TARDIGRADES!

jtotheizzoe: scishow: Early humans apparently had very...

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 18:48:02 -0400

jtotheizzoe:

scishow:

Early humans apparently had very interesting sex-lives!

I bet there’s some Craigslist ads out there that could give Ug a run for his prehistoric money.

carlconnor: Images taken from an electron microscope A wood or...

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 09:13:04 -0400

carlconnor:

Images taken from an electron microscope

A wood or heathland ant, formica fusca, holding a microchip

The surface of a silicon microchip

Eyelash hairs growing from the surface of human skin

The surface of a strawberry

Bacteria on the surface of a human tongue

More…

the-deviations: ontinetine: poetickmagick: prostheticknowledge:...

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 20:07:30 -0400

the-deviations:

ontinetine:

poetickmagick:

prostheticknowledge:

What happens when a tree branch falls onto a powerline?

Answer: Dramatic Annihilation

Only 17 seconds long - stick to the end.

That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life!

Bloody HELL. It’s fucking SCREAMING in pain.

#always reblog science #Also fire

I don’t understand the difference.

paleoillustration: “Scientific Restorations” by Nima...

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 17:48:56 -0400

paleoillustration:

“Scientific Restorations” by Nima Sassani

Titanosaurs

thenewenlightenmentage: The Origins of a Torus in a Galactic...

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 12:42:53 -0400

thenewenlightenmentage:

The Origins of a Torus in a Galactic Nucleus

(PhysOrg.com) — Quasars are among the most energetic objects in the universe, with some of them as luminous as ten thousand Milky Way galaxies. Quasars are thought to have massive black holes at their cores, and astronomers also think that the regions around the black holes actively accrete matter, a process that releases vast amounts of energy and often ejects a powerful, narrow jet of material. Because they are so bright, quasars can be seen even when they are very far away, and this combination of being both highly energetic and located at cosmological distances makes them appealing to astronomers trying to figure out the nature of galactic center black holes (our own Milky Way has one) and the conditions in the early universe that prompt these monsters to form.

Read More

expose-the-light: Sunset on Mars Sunset colors on Mars appear...

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 23:56:01 -0500

expose-the-light:

Sunset on Mars

Sunset colors on Mars appear opposite of those typically seen on Earth. The central blue glow appears when the Martian atmosphere scatters the sunlight, the same phenomenon that makes the Earth’s sky blue. Powdery dust suspended in the atmosphere gives the rest of the sky a copper color. The Sun appears only about two-thirds the size that it does on the Earth.

How does the gender of parents matter?

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:10:05 -0500

scipsy:

Claims that children need both a mother and father to be socially and psychologically adjusted presume that women and men parent differently in ways crucial to development, but is it true?

Biblarz and Stacey (2010) analyzed the findings from 81 studies and concluded that:

The entrenched conviction that children need both a mother and a father inflames culture wars over single motherhood, divorce, gay marriage, and gay parenting. Research to date, however, does not support this claim. Contrary to popular belief, studies have not shown that ‘‘compared to all other family forms, families headed by married, biological parents are best for children’’ (Popenoe, quoted in Center for Marriage and Family, p. 1). Research has not identified any gender-exclusive parenting abilities (with the partial exception of lactation). […]

Our review of research […] suggests that strengths typically associated with mother- father families appear at least to the same degree in families with two women parents. We do not yet have comparable research on children parented by two men, but there are good reasons to anticipate similar strengths among male couples who choose parenthood. […]

Every family form provides distinct advantages and risks for children.

Successful parenting is not gender specific.

lifethroughgeologictime: Living Fossil - Coelacanth Coelacanth...

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 08:05:05 -0500

lifethroughgeologictime:

Living Fossil - Coelacanth

Coelacanth is a lobe-finned fish that dates all the way back to the Devonian, and were believed to have gone extinct around the end of the Cretaceous. Before its rediscovery in 1938 it was thought to be the “missing link” between fish and tetrapods, though it is apparently no longer the case that it is the link, coelacanth is still closer related to tetrapods than to ray-finned fish. It has remained roughly unchanged for ~400 million years. There are two living species, Latimeria chalumnae (West Indian Ocean Coelacanth (pictured above,)) and L. menadoensis (the Indonesian Coelacanth.) Its rediscovery in 1938 after virtually falling off the fossil record qualifies it as probably the best example of the Lazarus Taxon.

Photo is from the Wikimedia Commons, its information can be found at this link.

scinerds: X-Rays Reveal What’s Below Fish’s Scales Lookdown...

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 16:05:05 -0500

Lookdown Fish

Torrent Loach

Viper Moray Eel

Porcupine Fish

Wedge-Tail Triggerfish

scinerds:

X-Rays Reveal What’s Below Fish’s Scales

Lookdown Fish

Torrent Loach

Viper Moray Eel

Porcupine Fish

Wedge-Tail Triggerfish

moderation: The 16 Best Science Visualizations of...

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 08:00:06 -0500

moderation:

The 16 Best Science Visualizations of 2011

—

Cucumber Skin Barbs

Under 800X magnification, this honorable-mention-winning photograph shows toxin-filled barbs called trichomes on the skin of an immature cucumber.

The trichomes bear sharp points 40 times thinner than a sewing needle and help protect the growing fruit from predators. The toxins they release are called cucurbiticins and are the most bitter compounds known.

(via wired)

What are we calling "mind-reading?"

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 16:05:05 -0500

fuckyeahneuroscience:

Mind-reading program translates brain activity into words

(click above to watch the accompanying video)

Scientists have picked up fragments of people’s thoughts by decoding the brain activity caused by words that they hear.

The remarkable feat has given researchers fresh insight into how the brain processes language, and raises the tantalising prospect of devices that can return speech to the speechless.

Though in its infancy, the work paves the way for brain implants that could monitor a person’s thoughts and speak words and sentences as they imagine them.

Such devices could transform the lives of thousands of people who lose the ability to speak as a result of a stroke or other medical conditions.

and a response: Is this really mind-reading?

Translating brain activity into words is clever, but a long way from decoding and reconstructing human consciousness

Most studies that garner “mind reading” headlines use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI, or brain-scanning), to record the brain’s responses to certain stimuli. Typically, subjects are shown a limited set of stimuli, such as pictures, and their brains are scanned to record activity in the visual cortex associated with each one. They are then shown the same set of images again, and the responses are compared to the pre-determined activity patterns to predict which one they are viewing at any given time.

Recent advances in these techniques now enable researchers to do something even more remarkable – they can decode brain activity to accurately reconstruct novel images that the subjects have never seen before. And last year, another team of researchers from Berkeley extended this approach to reconstruct novel pictures from brain activity. This is possible because the primary visual cortex contains groups of neurons that respond in stereotypical ways to specific features of an image, such as contrast and the orientation of edges.

But do they constitute mind-reading?

Science decodes 'internal voices' | BBC

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 08:05:05 -0500

Science decodes 'internal voices' | BBC:

Researchers have demonstrated a striking method to reconstruct words, based on the brain waves of patients thinking of those words.

The technique reported in PLoS Biologyrelies on gathering electrical signals directly from patients’ brains.

Based on signals from listening patients, a computer model was used to reconstruct the sounds of words that patients were thinking of.

The method may in future help comatose and locked-in patients communicate.

Several approaches have in recent years suggested that scientists are closing in on methods to tap into our very thoughts.

In a 2011 study, participants with electrodes in direct brain contact were able to move a cursor on a screen by simply thinking of vowel sounds.

A technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging to track blood flow in the brain has shown promise for identifying which words or ideas someone may be thinking about.

By studying patterns of blood flow related to particular images, Jack Gallant’s group at the University of California Berkeley showed in September that patterns can be used to guess images being thought of -recreating “movies in the mind”.

[Read More]

nocontxt: Extremely weird, but kinda cool at the same...

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 16:05:05 -0500

nocontxt:

Extremely weird, but kinda cool at the same time.

Illustration of dissection of conjoined twins from the 1665 edition of De Monstris by Fortunio Liceti (1577-1657).

Image courtesy of the National Library of Medicine. Via. Wikipedia

ikenbot: Gorilla Grins Hint at Origin of Human...

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 08:06:06 -0500

ikenbot:

Gorilla Grins Hint at Origin of Human Smiles

Psychologists from the University of Portsmouth have published a paper suggesting gorillas use human-like facial expressions to communicate moods with one another. Not only that, but two of the expressions, both of which resemble grinning, could show the origins of the human smile.

However, the findings published in the American Journal of Primatology show their smiles mean different things. The Portsmouth researchers found these expressions, observed in Western Lowland gorillas, expressed a number of emotions.

One, a “play face”, featuring an open mouth and showing no teeth, denotes a playful mood, usually accompanied with physical contact. Another, which is open-mouthed and displaying top teeth, could be a submissive smile — as it mixes the play face and a bared-teeth expression, which indicates appeasement.

“Many primate species also show their teeth when they scream,” Bridget Waller, the lead researcher told Wired.co.uk in an e-mail. “These expressions tend to look different to the expressions I studied in gorillas, as the upper and lower teeth are both exposed, and the mouth widely open. The expression is more tense, and accompanied by very different vocalisations. The vocalised element of the scream can differ depending on whether the screamer is an aggressor or a victim.”

In short: subtle differences in facial expression and vocals mean quite different things in primate posturing — one is obedient and appeasing, the other screaming and aggressive. But does this mean that our own smile is inherently passive and submissive?

14-billion-years-later: Want Bullet Proof Skin?Of course you...

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 16:14:05 -0500

14-billion-years-later:

Want Bullet Proof Skin?

Of course you do. Well now bioengineers have developed a skin made in part with spider silk that is capable of stopping a speeding bullet. Spider silk may not seem that strong, but in a strength to weight comparison a weave of it out distances Kevlar 4 fold. I once heard that an inch thick rope of the stuff could stop a jet plane at full throttle. For videos of the tests you can click here. The first test shows a bullet moving only at half speed, while the second test shows it moving at full speed under which conditions the skin is compromised. To be fair though, it’s a step in the right direction and I look forward to being the super ~~villain~~ hero I’ve always wanted to be.

Image

Scipsy: How does the gender of parents matter?

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 08:06:06 -0500

Scipsy: How does the gender of parents matter?:

scipsy:

Claims that children need both a mother and father to be socially and psychologically adjusted presume that women and men parent differently in ways crucial to development, but is it true?

Biblarz and Stacey (2010) analyzed the findings from 81 studies and concluded that:

The entrenched…