publicradiointernational: The Mine Kafon — invented by Massoud Hassani — is a cheap, wind-blown landmine clearance device made primarily from bamboo, plastic and iron. (Photo: Massoud Hassani) As a child, Hassani’s playground was a field full of landmines. “When we were kids,” he explained, “we used to make these wind-powered toys and play with them on this desert full of explosives, and they’d get stuck out there.”Those toys were the inspiration for his Mine Kafons. More.

publicradiointernational:

The Mine Kafon — invented by Massoud Hassani — is a cheap, wind-blown landmine clearance device made primarily from bamboo, plastic and iron. (Photo: Massoud Hassani)

As a child, Hassani’s playground was a field full of landmines. “When we were kids,” he explained, “we used to make these wind-powered toys and play with them on this desert full of explosives, and they’d get stuck out there.”

Those toys were the inspiration for his Mine Kafons. More.
scipsy: Bizarre snow and ice formations called “penitentes” produced by the competition between sublimation and melting of the snow (via ESO)

scipsy:

Bizarre snow and ice formations called “penitentes” produced by the competition between sublimation and melting of the snow (via ESO)

sharpestrose: producermatthew: Cupertino high school student Angela Zhang may know the cure for cancer: As a freshman, she started reading doctoral-level papers on biological engineering. By her sophomore year in high school, she managed to convince Stanford University to let her use their laboratories, and by junior year, she began doing her own research that led her to develop a recipe that boggles even her chemistry teacher. Zhang’s recipe won her a $100,000 award at a national science competition sponsored by Siemens. Her method of curing cancer by aiming an infrared light at mutated cells killed cancer in mice; it will be a few more years before it can be determined if the method works in humans. Nevertheless, Zhang’s three years of research is considered a breakthrough. [CBS News] A name to know and quote the next time you head some fuckdouche start slagging off teenage girls. 

sharpestrose:

producermatthew:

Cupertino high school student Angela Zhang may know the cure for cancer: As a freshman, she started reading doctoral-level papers on biological engineering. By her sophomore year in high school, she managed to convince Stanford University to let her use their laboratories, and by junior year, she began doing her own research that led her to develop a recipe that boggles even her chemistry teacher.

Zhang’s recipe won her a $100,000 award at a national science competition sponsored by Siemens.

Her method of curing cancer by aiming an infrared light at mutated cells killed cancer in mice; it will be a few more years before it can be determined if the method works in humans. Nevertheless, Zhang’s three years of research is considered a breakthrough. [CBS News]

A name to know and quote the next time you head some fuckdouche start slagging off teenage girls. 

publicradiointernational: kqedscience: Blue Morpho butterfly tree Nature wins out in the “wondrous” category every time.

publicradiointernational:

kqedscience:

Blue Morpho butterfly tree

Nature wins out in the “wondrous” category every time.

roachpatrol:

jtotheizzoe:

alleluiaaa:

These are the patterns of planets orbiting around each other. It’s as though they’re eternally dancing around each other. Each step, pattern, movement makes a beautiful shape unique to their relationship. It’s so… glorious.

It also hurts my eyes if I stare at it for too long.

All based on this:

“Take the orbits of any two planets and draw a line between the two planet positions every few days.  Because the inner planet orbits faster than the outer planet, interesting patterns evolve.”

Lovely!

Oh whoops I will just be having an eyegasm thank you and goodnight. 

(Source: quitecamille)

geologise:

Cave Of The Crystals | Naica, Chihuahua, Mexico

I remember when this was first discovered, and how blown away I was when photos were released of this magnificent wonder. There’s a documentary out there called, “Naica: Beyond The Crystal Cave” and another that hits on other sister caves as well, “Into The Lost Crystal Caves”. Definitely interesting if you want to watch them go through the cave to get samples and explore. A dangerous but extremely satisfying task! Here’s a bit of information on the Crystal Caves in Naica, Mexico.

  • It contains some of the largest (in size, mass, length, etc) natural crystals ever found on Earth. A Gypsum beam was found to be 11 metres (36 feet) in length, 4 metres (13 feet) in width, and weigh around 55 tons.
  • It is found in a horseshoe-shaped cavity of limestone rock, which used to be full of mineral-rich hot water, but has since been kept drained.
  • The cave is extremely hot with air temperatures reaching up to 58 °C (136 °F) with 90 to 99 percent humidity.
  • The cave was filled with mineral-rich hot water (a constant 50 °C+) for around 500,000 years, which let these crystals form under the right conditions.

I’ve added a few links that take you to more photos and articles as well (along with its sister caves).

[Flash 10 is required to watch video]

ishmaeldreaming:

cacellcee:

tumbleweedalong:

klaineexists:

imaweaponofmassiveconsumption:

darktwiistedfantasy:

WITCHCRAFT 

can i has

COOL

We are living in the future!

(Source: bignickels)

pumpkincider:

slantedsunlight | sealegslegssea | andifroid

It’s hard to believe that these are all birds. I am speechless. 

That’s amazing

You know how some people debate whether or not animals play or feel emotion?

I like to think starlings are an entire species that comes together to dance.

thirddeadlysin:

Quantum locking, aka quantum LEVITATION, aka by about halfway through I realized I’d been sitting with my mouth wide open for a full minute

Uggghhh, I love following you on Tumblr because HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THIS AMAZING THING.

Played 110 times [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

publicradiointernational:

How do you make science fascinatingly hilarious? Add one part John Hodgman and one part Neil deGrasse Tyson … and that’s what The Sound of Young America did in this interview.

Hodgman and Tyson talk about how money for space exploration stacks up to other spending, personal space travel dreams, how to explain dark matter to normal people, the Cosmos series reboot, and more.

Oh my gosh, this is the best use of my time I can find.

veggielezzyfemmie: Scientists have found the biggest and oldest reservoir of water ever—so large and so old, it’s almost impossible to describe. The water is out in space, a place we used to think of as desolate and desert dry, but it’s turning out to be pretty lush. Researchers found a lake of water so large that it could provide each person on Earth an entire planet’s worth of water—20,000 times over. Yes, so much water out there in space that it could supply each one of us all the water on Earth—Niagara Falls, the Pacific Ocean, the polar ice caps, the puddle in the bottom of the canoe you forgot to flip over—20,000 times over. The water is in a cloud around a huge black hole that is in the process of sucking in matter and spraying out energy (such an active black hole is called a quasar), and the waves of energy the black hole releases make water by literally knocking hydrogen and oxygen atoms together. The official NASA news release describes the amount of water as “140 trillion times all the water in the world’s oceans,” which isn’t particularly helpful, except if you think about it like this. That one cloud of newly discovered space water vapor could supply 140 trillion planets that are just as wet as Earth is. Mind you, our own galaxy, the Milky Way, has about 400 billion stars, so if every one of those stars has 10 planets, each as wet as Earth, that’s only 4 trillion planets worth of water. The new cloud of water is enough to supply 28 galaxies with water. Holy. Shit.

veggielezzyfemmie:

Scientists have found the biggest and oldest reservoir of water ever—so large and so old, it’s almost impossible to describe.

The water is out in space, a place we used to think of as desolate and desert dry, but it’s turning out to be pretty lush.

Researchers found a lake of water so large that it could provide each person on Earth an entire planet’s worth of water—20,000 times over. Yes, so much water out there in space that it could supply each one of us all the water on Earth—Niagara Falls, the Pacific Ocean, the polar ice caps, the puddle in the bottom of the canoe you forgot to flip over—20,000 times over.

The water is in a cloud around a huge black hole that is in the process of sucking in matter and spraying out energy (such an active black hole is called a quasar), and the waves of energy the black hole releases make water by literally knocking hydrogen and oxygen atoms together.

The official NASA news release describes the amount of water as “140 trillion times all the water in the world’s oceans,” which isn’t particularly helpful, except if you think about it like this.

That one cloud of newly discovered space water vapor could supply 140 trillion planets that are just as wet as Earth is.

Mind you, our own galaxy, the Milky Way, has about 400 billion stars, so if every one of those stars has 10 planets, each as wet as Earth, that’s only 4 trillion planets worth of water.

The new cloud of water is enough to supply 28 galaxies with water.

Holy. Shit.

theanimalblog: Pacific Parrotlet (by jim lehmann) Also see: Parrot Parents Name Their Babies

theanimalblog:

Pacific Parrotlet (by jim lehmann)

Also see: Parrot Parents Name Their Babies

bg5000: Grains of sand magnified to 250 times real size I can’t believe this is real.

bg5000:

Grains of sand magnified to 250 times real size

I can’t believe this is real.