Oh, I know Hamlet. And what he might say with irony, I say with conviction: “What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! In action, how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a god!”
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard
These space colony concept drawings were the result of collaboration between Princeton physicist Gerard O’Neill, the NASA Ames Research Center and Stanford University in the 1970’s. They held a series of space colony summer studies which explored the possibilities of humans living in giant orbiting spaceships.
These look familiar - I wonder if they were inspired by Arthur C. Clarke’s novel ‘Rendezvous with Rama’?
O’Neill’s High Frontier was released in 1976 and Rendezvous with Rama in 1972. I didn’t find anything in a quick Google search, but there are similarities and it sure could influenced O’Neill. Clarke Often used hard scientific research in his writing.
It’s not plumbing.
Or a 1950’s-era-scifi-movie space destructo laser array thing.
It’s a computer, and it’s supposed to be mad fast, y’all.
(Photo of the D-Wave “quantum computer” by Kim Stallknecht for the New York Times)
I wish I understood more of what I just read.
Micro-submarine | kou5oku
Micro-submarine. Conceptual colored scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of a micro-submarine (blue/gray) in a human artery. This tiny submarine was made by computer-guided lasers. Laser light caused an acrylic liquid to polymerize, building up the submarine in layers 10 micrometers thick. Tiny nanorobots such as this could be used for detecting and repairing defects in the human body. Powered by a small propeller, they could travel to sites of blockage or damage in blood vessels and repair them from within, restoring correct blood flow. This submarine was made by microTEC of Duisberg, Germany.
…but is Raquel Welch inside?
The International Astronomical Union is letting us pick the name of 2 of Pluto’s newly discovered Moons… We should all vote “Zoidberg” here’s the write in link! http://www.plutorocks.com/write-in
Reblog get the word out :)
YES YES YES HUUWAAAY!
If you do this I will kiss your face (or hug you, your choice)
i bet a lot of dinosaurs did really cute stuff like play around and roll around on the ground and catch flies in the air and sneeze and bump into stuff and fall down and play in the water and snuggle up close to each other when they were cold
i want more people to imagine them as just regular animals
But a lot of them were reptiles so they probably just sat around on rocks like lazy fucks.
all of them were reptiles
Maybe, or maybe not.
This led me to read some interesting stuff on Dinosaur classification. It seems there is some disagreement on the subject. In general, animals are classified by the major ranks, Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species.
Dinosaur were/are in the Class Repitia. So yes they are, or at least were considered reptiles. However, today many scientists are for creating a new class (Archosaurs?), separate from Repitia, that would also include birds. So basically many scientists would say they are not reptiles. Then there are those who just want to stop using the rank system and replace it with Phylogenetic nomenclature, Which further complicates things.
Interesting stuff. I need to do some more reading when it is not so late and can be more focused.
i bet a lot of dinosaurs did really cute stuff like play around and roll around on the ground and catch flies in the air and sneeze and bump into stuff and fall down and play in the water and snuggle up close to each other when they were cold
i want more people to imagine them as just regular animals
But a lot of them were reptiles so they probably just sat around on rocks like lazy fucks.
all of them were reptiles
Maybe, or maybe not.
Today I visited the Beaty Museum of Biodiversity at the University of British Columbia, primarily to see their articulated Blue Whale. As it turns out the rest of the museum is spectacular as well, but it’s going to take a few posts just to convey the sheer size of this majestic beast. This is a must see if you’re ever in Vancouver BC, nothing can prepare you for seeing a creature this large.
These are some photos from my friend Milo — I’m so horrendously jealous that he got to visit this magnificent creature today! Did you know that the heart of a blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is roughly the size of a small compact car, and only beats around once a minute? Its arteries are so large that a small person can crawl through them. They are the largest creatures to have ever existed in the history of our planet.
It’s no lie that I love blue whales.
Evolution Simplified
This photoset should be required reading for every citizen.
FINALLY
This is basic biology and I still can’t understand why people don’t know this or refuse to entertain it.
Pictures of the surface of venus by the soviets in the 70’s
The Venera (Cyrillic: Венера) series probes were developed by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1984 to gather data from Venus, Venera being the Russian name for Venus. As with some of the Soviet Union’s other planetary probes, the later versions were launched in pairs with a second vehicle being launched soon after the first of the pair.
Ten probes from the Venera series successfully landed on Venus and transmitted data from the surface, including the two Vega program and Venera-Halley probes. In addition, thirteen Venera probes successfully transmitted data from the atmosphere of Venus.
Among the other results, probes of the series became the first man-made devices to enter the atmosphere of another planet (Venera 4 on October 18, 1967), to make a soft landing on another planet (Venera 7 on December 15, 1970), to return images from the planetary surface (Venera 9 on June 8, 1975), and to perform high-resolution radar mapping studies of Venus (Venera 15 on June 2, 1983). So, the entire series could be considered highly successful. Unfortunately the surface conditions on Venus are extreme, which meant that the probes only survived on the surface for a duration of 23 minutes (initial probes) up to about two hours (final probes).
I didn’t know pictures of the surface of Venus existed.
Harry Potter wizarding genetics decoded
If the wizarding gene is dominant, as J.K. Rowling says in her famous series of Harry Potter books, then how can a wizard be born to muggle parents (non-magical people)? And how can there be squibs (non-magical people born into wizarding lines)?
It seems these baffling genetic questions have finally been answered, thanks to Andrea Klenotiz, a biology student at the University of Delaware.
In a six-page paper, which she sent to Rowling, Klenotiz outlines how the wizarding gene works and even explains why some witches and wizards are more powerful than others.
“Magical ability could be explained by a single autosomal dominant gene if it is caused by an expansion of trinucleotide repeats with non-Mendelian ratios of inheritance,” Klenotiz explains.
What does this mean?
In school we learn the fundamentals of genetics by studying Gregory Mendel’s pea plant experiments and completing basic Punnett squares. Basically, we’re taught that whenever one copy of a gene linked to a dominant trait is present, then the offspring will exhibit that dominant trait, regardless of the other gene.
However, Non-Mendelian genes don’t follow this rule, which is the basis of Klenotiz’s argument. She says that the wizarding gene could be explained if it’s caused by a trinucleotide repeat, which is the repetition of three nucleotides — the building blocks of DNA — multiple times.
These repeats can be found in normal genes, but sometimes many more copies of this repeated code can appear in genes than is standard, causing a mutation. This kind of mutation is responsible for genetic diseases like Huntington’s Disease. Depending upon how many of these repeats occur in the genes, a person could exhibit no symptoms, could have a mild form of the disease or could have a severe form of it.
In her paper, Klenotiz argues that eggs with high levels of these repeats are more likely to be fertilized, a phenomenon known as transmission ratio distortion. She also suggests that the egg or sperm with high levels of repeats is less likely to be created or to survive in the wizarding womb.
This argument answers several questions about wizarding genetics:
How can a wizard be born to muggle parents?
Genetic mutations can randomly appear, meaning anyone could be born with the wizarding gene. However, there’s a better chance of magical offspring occurring if the parents are on the high side of the normal range for mutations.
How can a squib be born to wizard parents?
Although parents with these mutated magical genes would be likely to pass the gene on to their children, there’s still a possibility that any given offspring might not inherit the trinucleotide repeat.
How can varying degrees of magical ability be explained?
The more repeats a wizard inherits, the stronger the magical power he or she will have. If both wizarding parents are powerful wizards, it’s likely their offspring will also be powerful.
You can read Klenotiz’s full paper on wizarding genetics here.
Far and away one of the nerdiest things I’ve ever read. Love it.
