Saturday 28 February 2015

Tarantula Nebula Star Forming Gas Cloud Sculpture iPad Mini Cases

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


tagged with: billowing interstellar gas clouds, awesome hubble images, star forming activity, star nurseries, tarantula nebula, triggering star formation, large magellanic cloud, hrbstslr tnlmcsfr, cosmological, galaxies, young hot stars

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series An awesome mobile phone shell featuring the Tarantula Nebula of the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is the nearest galaxy to the Milky Way, our galactic home. This Hubble image shows old stars from the distant past and rich, interstellar gas clouds feeding the formation of new ones. The most massive and hottest stars are intense, high-energy radiation sources and this pushes away what remains of the gas and dust, compressing and sculpting it. As the whorls and eddies clump and stretch it, gravity takes over and the birth of the next generation of new stars is triggered.
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Image credit: NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) and ESA

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Scientists Develop Telescopic Contact Lenses to Help People with Severe Eye Problems

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During this year’s annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Eric Tremblay from the

The post Scientists Develop Telescopic Contact Lenses to Help People with Severe Eye Problems has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Vintage Astronomy, Celestial Star Chart, Sky Map Print

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: constellations, retro, sky, americana, nostalgia, nostalgic, vintage illustration, star chart, celestial map, astronomy, antique celestial

Vintage illustration astronomy and celestial map or antique star chart image featuring the constellations of the northern night sky including some signs of the zodiac, Pegasus, Ursa Major (Bear) and Orion the Hunter by English mathematician and physician Thomas Hood (1556-1620). Created in 1590.

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No, plants don't have feelings

Science Focus

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Why on Earth would somebody seriously entertain the notion that plants have feelings? One possible answer might be that the topic is too seductive to ignore. When Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird gave in to seduction and published The Secret Lives of Plants: A Fascinating Account of the Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Relations Between Plants and Man in 1973 they were roundly accused of pseudoscience. But no matter: The book was a hit.

And a hit is blood in the water for scribblers seeking popular subjects to elucidate. Thus the book's swift dismissal by mainstream science hasn't deterred food writers such as Michael Pollan from resurrecting the Nixon-era volume and noting, as he did last year in The New Yorker, that The Secret Lives of Plants "had made its mark on the culture" — as if that qualification alone (people were hooked!) is a legitimate reason to exhume the idea and re-explore its highly suspect merits.

It's not, of course. In fact, the spate of recent media attention on the potential emotional lives of plants is — as I see it — little more than pandering to basic scientific illiteracy through semantic sleights-of-hand. Very recently (in light of this trend) several dozen leading plant scientists sought to set the record straight. They rejected the idea of plant intelligence altogether, noting that "there is no evidence for structures such as neurons, synapses, or a brain in plants."

Undeterred, Pollan (who quotes this disapproving assessment in his article) nonetheless plowed ahead with a New Yorker-feature's worth of ink on the possibility of plant intelligence because "there will probably always be a strain of romanticism running through our thinking about plants." In other words, there's no proven merit to this half-baked idea — and he quotes a bevy of scientists saying as much — but, what the hell, if people are just moony enough to think there is let's leave it on the warming rack.

To be fair, Pollan — who is fully aware that The Secret Life of Plants was crackpot science — reminds us of something important: the underlying notion of plants being intelligent, or having feelings, isn't made out of whole cloth. Plants can be remarkably responsive to external stimuli in a way that might seem reflective of situational decision-making. In his recent book What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses, plant scientist Alan Chapelski demonstrates that plants possess far more complicated sensory mechanisms than we've typically appreciated. These mechanisms enable plants to behave in ways that approximate the human understanding of smelling danger, sensing weather, and maybe even responding to noise. There's now no question that plants, as Chapelski said in an interview, "are complex organisms that live rich, sensual lives." So there is that. A plant, we should all agree, is more neurologically relevant than a shoe.

But to exploit these findings to suggest that plants really "think" or have "feelings" in the vertebrate sense is a different matter altogether. Making this move — one that seriously asks us to compare the sentience of a pig and a pumpkin — requires either distorting the nature of thought and feeling beyond recognition or making a leap in logic no different than global warming deniers make when they suggest that the atmosphere — you never know — would have warmed without anthropocentric influence.

Chapelski, for one, knows better than to go there. "Plants exhibit elements of anoetic consciousness which doesn't include, in my understanding, the ability to think," he has said. "Just as a plant can't suffer subjective pain in the absence of a brain, I also don't think that it thinks." Which brings us back to the original question: Why have so many journalists picked up on a renegade hypothesis — one without a shred of hard evidence — and unleashed the idea that plants might be sentient, intelligent beings?

A pretty good hint of an answer comes from a tweet Pollan put out some time ago. Commenting on an article that described how plants communicate, he alerted the masses, "Cool piece on how pea plants communicate with one another, possibly raising some tough issues for vegetarians." Emphasis mine.

Pollan was kidding. But still, he raises a point that less judicious critics of vegetarianism embrace: plant sentience, if a reality, undermines the vegetarian ethic. Vegetarians choose to avoid eating animals because animals suffer to become food. In turn, they replace animal flesh with plant-based food. But if plants suffer as well as animals, the vegetarian can no longer claim the moral high ground. His pedestal gets kicked to the curb.

For conscientious carnivores — a rarified band of gourmands who reject industrial animal agriculture but refuse to give up eating boutiquely rendered animal products — plant sentience would once and for all shut down those nagging animal rights creeps who ask: "How do we grant animals moral standing and still eat them?" Pollan, who has struggled with this question, would certainly breathe a sigh of relief.

If my argument here is right — that is, if the foodie emphasis on intelligent plants is little more than curiosity obscuring ideology — there's still something for vegetarians to learn from the challenge, disingenuous though it might be.

For one, as the concept of plant intelligence circulates, vegetarians would be wise to seek a solid, no-nonsense response to it. It won't do to simply say, "That's crazy talk, man!" The best bet on this score is an excerpt from Oliver Sacks, who elaborates the fundamental distinction between plants and animals in evolutionary and cellular terms. Focusing on the speed with which ions move though ion channels across synapses in plants and animals — thereby allowing thought — he explains:

The calcium ion channels that plants rely on do not support rapid or repetitive signaling between cells; once a plant action potential is generated, it cannot be repeated at a fast enough rate to allow, for example, the speed with which a worm 'dashes … into its burrow.' Speed requires ions and ion channels that can open and close in a matter of milliseconds, allowing hundreds of action potentials to be generated in a second. The magic ions, here, are sodium and potassium ions, which enabled the development of rapidly reacting muscle cells, nerve cells, and neuromodulation at synapses. These made possible organisms [i.e., animals] that could learn, profit by experience, judge, act, and finally think.

The second (and more controversial) thing vegetarians might do (after figuring out Sacks' explanation) is, given the intelligent plant push, to take the proposition of sentient life in the other direction — into the animal kingdom — and ask if the criterion of sentience denied to plants should also be denied to certain animals.

After all, basic intellectual honesty demands that humans acknowledge that animal life is spread across a continuum of emotion and reason and, in turn, that our moral consideration of animals depends in part on where they fall on this spectrum. Oysters and insects come to mind as possibly fair game for ethical consumption. Look at it this way: Without technical vegetarians to pick on, maybe the advocates of plant brilliance would stop reaching for straws and, instead, take a closer look at the animals that we know for sure possess intelligence and, when they are raised to feed us, suffer.

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Why scientists make promises they can't keep

Science Focus

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Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, recently made people angry when he linked budget cuts to the slow progress on an Ebola vaccine. Without the decade-long erosion of the NIH budget, he told Sam Stein of the Huffington Post, "we would have been a year or two ahead of where we are, which would have made all the difference." The push-back was immediate. Collins' claim was dissected by the media and countered by one of Collins' own colleagues, the head of the NIH unit that oversees Ebola research. Many other scientists disagreed as well. University of California-Berkeley biologist Michael Eisen called Collins' comments "complete bullshit."

Why such an angry response? After all, it's undeniably true that the NIH budget has been ailing for a decade. The NIH's purchasing power has dropped by as much as 21 percent since 2004, a consequence of inflation and flat or shrinking appropriations by Congress. Research, including Ebola research, has inevitably been scaled back.

Most critics expressed some version of the argument made by Eisen: "It is a gross overtrivialization of even the directed scientific process involved in developing vaccines to suggest that simply by spending more money on something you are guaranteed a product. And, if I were in Congress, frankly I'd be sick of hearing this kind of baloney, and would respond with a long list of things I'd been promised by previous NIH directors if only we'd spend more money on them." In other words, you can't simply buy the scientific results you want.

This puts scientists in an awkward position. After all, one of the main reasons that our government funds scientific research is because we expect it to produce tangible benefits. The rationale for government-funded research was laid out in 1945 by Vannevar Bush, the top U.S. science official during World War II, who argued for generous government support of peace-time research that will "bring higher standards of living, will lead to the prevention or cure of diseases, will promote conservation of our limited national resources, and will assure means of defense against aggression." For six decades we've been committed to Bush's vision, spending billions of taxpayer dollars on science each year, not to subsidize intellectual curiosity, but to obtain concrete outcomes like an Ebola vaccine. This means that scientists who accept this money have to strike a delicate balance when they pitch their work to society — they need to promise definite results, while acknowledging that there are no guarantees in science. If they promise too much, it looks like pandering; if they don't promise enough, then they're asking the government to pay for their intellectual hobby. Francis Collins knows how this game is played as well as any scientist, but this time he flubbed it.

It's a problem faced by scientists at all levels, not just those who lobby Congress for money. Researchers who want to keep the lights on in the lab quickly learn how to put the right spin on their work. When my colleagues and I submitted a proposal to the NIH for a basic research project on fruit fly embryos, we played up the medical angle of our work, discussing its relevance to congenital malformations and various types of cancer. The NIH declined to fund the proposal, so we submitted it to the National Science Foundation instead. The NSF, less lavishly funded than the NIH, is extremely wary about supporting anything that belongs on the medical turf of the NIH. So we completely reversed course in our proposal and put in a paragraph explaining why our research was unrelated to human health in any direct way. We got the money.

Were we dishonest when we initially claimed our work was medically relevant? Absolutely not — my colleagues and I are basic scientists, but we are employed by medical schools. Our research fits comfortably within the missions of both the NSF and the NIH. The reviewers and officials at both agencies understand this; we weren't deceiving anyone. But we had to play the game and pitch our work in a way that was consistent with the goals of a particular agency.

Researchers are required to do this in part because the science agencies themselves have to pitch their research portfolio to society — particularly to members of Congress who are responsible for making sure that society is getting something back for its research dollars. It's easy to point to the past and argue that basic research has an excellent record. There would be no iPhone without the fundamental scientific discoveries of the past half-century that made solid-state electronics, processor architectures, and long-lasting batteries possible. But it is much more difficult to point to ongoing research and make credible promises about future benefits. An HIV vaccine would save more lives around the world than an Ebola vaccine, but we still don't have one, despite decades of sustained funding.

To justify their usefulness, scientists will continue to make promises, but those promises should be ones they can keep. The dust-up over Collins' remarks shows that we, scientists and society, need to be more honest about the uncertainty inherent in the scientific process and in any projection of society's future needs. The NIH has long had a strategic plan in place to develop vaccines for many emerging infectious diseases, including Ebola. It was impossible to predict that there would be an urgent need this year for an Ebola vaccine, instead of one for, say, the SARS virus. And even if we could predict such a thing, researchers couldn't guarantee that an Ebola vaccine would be ready when it was most needed. But without money for this type of research, we can guarantee that a vaccine would never be ready.

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All Sky Fireball Network cameras pick up a fireball over Pennsylvania

Science Focus

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NASA has a lot of programs that don't always capture the public's attention the way, say, a rover on Mars does. But its All Sky Fireball Network, a collection of 15 cameras pointed at the sky, has grabbed a bit of attention today by catching one of its objects of interest as it lit up the skies over Pennsylvania.

NASA's meteor watch group has used its Facebook page to provide some of the basic stats on the rock that generated this fireball: a bit over half a meter in diameter but about 250 kg, it was moving at a speed of over 70,000 km/hour as it entered the atmosphere moving west to east. It was tracked descending from 60 miles in altitude down to 13 miles.

The video below shows the images of the visitor captured by one of the All Sky Fireball Network's cameras.

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Moon-Venus-Mars Skyline

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Taken on February 20, five different exposures made in rapid succession were used to created this tantalizing telephoto image. In combination, they reveal a wide range of brightness visible to the eye on that frigid evening, from the urban glow of the Quebec City skyline to the triple conjunction of Moon, Venus and Mars. Shortly after sunset the young Moon shows off its bright crescent next to brilliant Venus. Fainter Mars is near the top of the frame. Though details in the Moon's sunlit crescent are washed out, features on the dark, shadowed part of the lunar disk are remarkably clear. Still lacking city lights the lunar night is illuminated solely by earthshine, light reflected from the sunlit side of planet Earth.
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Star Cloud Wall Decal

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: star cloud, stars, space, astronomy, clouds, outer space, nebulae, astronauts, science, scientist, exploration, hubble, space pictures, space photographs, outer space pictures

A picture of a star cloud in a star forming region of space.

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Desiderata Poem, Constellation Cygnus, The Swan iPad Mini Cases

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


tagged with: full desiderata, desiderata poem, noise and haste, go placidly, awesome hubble images, star forming activity, constellation cygnus, the swan, hrbstslr cygsb, cosmological, new star s106ir, star nurseries, young hot stars, interstellar gas clouds, star birth, glowing hydrogen, turbulence

Inspirational Guidance series

A gorgeous iPad Mini case featuring the full Desiderata by Max Ehrmann: Go placidly amidst the noise and haste... with an image of a star forming region in Constellation Cygnus (The Swan). This Hubble picture shows a dust-rich, interstellar gas cloud with a new-born star in the centre of the hour-glass shape.

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Image credit: NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) and ESA

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Voltage tester for beating cardiac cells

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For the first time, scientists have succeeded in recording the current in membrane channels of contracting cardiac cells.

The post Voltage tester for beating cardiac cells has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Vintage Astronomy Celestial Planet Planetary Orbit Poster

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Vintage illustration Renaissance era astronomy and antique celestial image featuring a planisphere, spheres with signs of the zodiac and planets, created in 1660 by Andreas Cellarius. Planetary orbits, from The Celestial Atlas, or the Harmony of the Universe. Andreas Cellarius (c.1596-1665) was a Dutch-German cartographer, best known for his Harmonia Macrocosmica of 1660, a major star atlas, published by Johannes Janssonius in Amsterdam.

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Life 'not as we know it' possible on Saturn's moon Titan

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A new type of methane-based, oxygen-free life form that can metabolize and reproduce similar to life on Earth has been modeled. It is theorized to have a cell membrane, composed of small organic nitrogen compounds and capable of functioning in liquid methane temperatures of 292 degrees below zero.

via Science Daily

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Welcome to the Space Room Decal

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: astronomy, stars, science, astonomy, space, universe, nebula, planets, cosmological, space travel, planet, star, discovery, explore, exploring, fantasy, sci, fiction, orbit, orbital, travel, research, cosmonaut, astronaut, spaceship, starship

Waiting for clearance in geostationary orbit to leave the home planet and explore new worlds in outer space. Digital artwork by Liz Molnar. Planets, stars, space clouds, lights were made with basic Photoshop effects and brushes, planets' surfaces created from photos.

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Friday 27 February 2015

Bringing clean energy a step closer

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Researchers have made an inexpensive metal-free catalyst that performs as well as costly metal catalysts at speeding the oxygen reduction reaction in an acidic fuel cell, and is more durable. The catalyst is made of sheets of nitrogen-doped graphene that provides great surface area, carbon nanotubes that enhance conductivity, and carbon black particles that separate the layers allowing the electrolyte and oxygen to flow freely, which greatly increased performance and efficiency.

via Science Daily

Researchers develop new technique for making graphene competitor molybdenum disulfide

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Graphene, a single-atom-thick lattice of carbon atoms, is often touted as a replacement for silicon in electronic devices

The post Researchers develop new technique for making graphene competitor molybdenum disulfide has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Vintage Astronomy Celestial Stars in the Night Sky Print

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: retro, vintage, americana, nostalgia, nostalgic, celestial map, star chart, planisphere, astronomy, zodiac constellations, antique celestial

Vintage illustration astronomy and celestial star chart map by the Dutch cartographer family Frederik de Wit. Frederik de Wit can refer to any of three members (Father, son or grandson) of a family of Dutch engravers, cartographers and publishers. The senior de Wit opened a printing office in Amsterdam under the name "De Witte Pascaert".
Planisphæri cœleste, 1680, is an antique celestial planisphere featuring the constellations of the northern and southern hemispheres (with the signs of the zodiac), the earth, sun and phases of the moon.

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New research signals big future for quantum radar

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A prototype quantum radar that has the potential to detect objects which are invisible to conventional systems has been developed by an international research team led by a quantum information scientist at the University of York.



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New research signals big future for quantum radar

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A prototype quantum radar that has the potential to detect objects which are invisible to conventional systems has been developed by an international research team led by a quantum information scientist at the University of York.



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“Punting” on evolution: Presidential hopeful Scott Walker dodges science

Science Focus

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Given that February 12 would be Charles Darwin's 206th birthday, having people spare some thought for the theory of evolution doesn't seem outrageously out of place this week. But, for a US politician visiting London, a question on the matter was clearly unwelcome.

Scott Walker, governor of Wisconsin and possible presidential candidate, was obviously hoping for a chance to have a few experiences that would make him seem more credible on the foreign policy scene. But the host of a British TV show asked some questions that, for many in the US, touch on matters of personal belief and the ability to think critically: "Are you comfortable with the idea of evolution? Do you believe in it? Do you accept it?" (A video that includes these questions along with extensive commentary is available here.)

Walker, rather than oblige his host, literally answered that he was going to dodge the question, saying, "For me, I'm going to punt on that one as well. That's a question a politician shouldn't be involved in one way or another."

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Quantum mechanical behaviour at the macroscale

Science Focus

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Most quantum physics research to date has used particles such as atoms and electrons to observe quantum mechanical

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Long Lovejoy and Little Dumbbell

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Buffeted by the solar wind, Comet Lovejoy's crooked ion tail stretches over 3 degrees across this telescopic field of view, recorded on February 20. The starry background includes awesome bluish star Phi Persei below, and pretty planetary nebula M76 just above Lovejoy's long tail. Also known as the Little Dumbbell Nebula, after its brighter cousin M27 the Dumbbell Nebula, M76 is only a Full Moon's width away from the comet's greenish coma. Still shining in northern hemisphere skies, this Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) is outbound from the inner solar system some 10 light-minutes or 190 million kilometers from Earth. But the Little Dumbbell actually lies over 3 thousand light-years away. Now sweeping steadily north toward the constellation Cassiopeia Comet Lovejoy is fading more slowly than predicted and is still a good target for small telescopes.
Tomorrow's picture: EOF
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Planetary Nebula Wall Decal

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: nebula, black, space, hole, turquoise, blue, green, stars, astronomy, awesome, clouds, gaseous, window, light

Awesome turquoise color gaseous clouds and stars in this nebula wall decal

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Crab Nebula – Hubble Telescope Case For The iPad Mini

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


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Hubble photograph of the Crab Nebula

This is a composite photograph produced from 24 individual images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, and is the most detailed image of the Crab Nebula that has been produced to date.
Credit: NASA, ESA and Allison Loll/Jeff Hester (Arizona State University). Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble)

You can personalise the design further if you'd prefer, such as by adding your name or other text, or adjusting the image - just click 'Customize it' to see all the options. IMPORTANT: If you choose a different sized version of the product, it's important to click Customize and check the image in the Design view to ensure it fills the area to the edge of the product, otherwise white edges may be visible.

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How Iron Feels the Heat

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As you heat up a piece of iron, the arrangement of the iron atoms changes several times before

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Vintage Astronomy Celestial Renaissance Moon Stars Poster

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: landscape, antique, constellations, stars, retro, moon, americana, nostalgic, celestial, vintage illustration, antique celestial

Vintage illustration astronomy and celestial black and white Renaissance era antique drawing of a landscape and the moon (lune) in the night sky with stars and constellations. People are standing next to a river, bridge and buildings. Created in 1683 by Allain Manesson Mallet (1630 – 1706), a French cartographer and engineer.

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Thursday 26 February 2015

Boomerang Nebula Hubble Astronomy iPad Mini Covers

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


tagged with: boomerang nebula, stars, nasa, astronomy, universe, outer space, hubble telescope, cosmos, nature, space picture, nebula, nebulae, esa, hubble space telescope, hubble photograph, hubble photo, astronomical, astrophotography, cosmology, space photograph, deep space, space, natural, science, space photo, space image, nebula picture, nebula photograph, nebula photo, nebula image, blue

Hubble photograph of the Boomerang Nebula

This photograph of the Boomerang Nebula was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1998. It shows the bow-tie-shaped nebula in beautiful blue and white colours, against a dark starry background.

Credit: NASA, ESA, R. Sahai and J. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and the WFPC2 Science Team

You can personalise the design further if you'd prefer, such as by adding your name or other text, or adjusting the image - just click 'Customize it' to see all the options. IMPORTANT: If you choose a different sized version of the product, it's important to click Customize and check the image in the Design view to ensure it fills the area to the edge of the product, otherwise white edges may be visible.

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Perfume could be the riskiest gift you’ll ever buy

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Those of a nervous disposition might be better off buying chocolates. Özgür Mülazımoğlu When it comes to making

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Perfume could be the riskiest gift you’ll ever buy

original post »

Those of a nervous disposition might be better off buying chocolates. Özgür Mülazımoğlu When it comes to making

The post Perfume could be the riskiest gift you’ll ever buy has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Vintage Astronomy, Celestial Planisphere Map Poster

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: planisphere, constellations, retro, antique, americana, vintage, celestial map, star chart, mythology, nostalgic, antique celestial

Vintage illustration celestial star chart map created in 1702 featuring astrological signs of the zodiac and other figures from Greek mythology. Planisphere Celeste featuring the constellations of the northern and southern night sky, planets (Mercury, Mars, Venus and Saturn), the phases of the moon and the sun. A mythological representation of our universe.

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Why the fight against climate change needs more win-win solutions

Science Focus

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This weekend, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report, which amounts to the starkest warning yet that the world is on unsustainable path toward accelerated climate change. But in a survey filled with dour news, there was evidence that governments have hit on win-win solutions that can overcome the shortsighted political self-interest that has dogged the issue for decades.

The IPCC's Synthesis Report aims to summarize and contextualize a wide body of scientific work in language that policymakers can understand, in an effort to compel them to act in a way commensurate with the totality of the risk before them. It details the radical changes necessary to stave off a calamitous future of resource deprivation and extreme weather risk. If the world does not put itself on a path to zero-carbon by 2100, the probability is extremely high that we will not avoid the worst effects of global warming.

The topline findings underscore both the unprecedented nature of the warming we have experienced so far, as well as the conclusion, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that humans are responsible for it. "The period from 1983 to 2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years in the Northern Hemisphere," according to the IPCC. The blame is laid squarely on the energy source that served as a foundation for economic growth in the modern era: "Emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes contributed about 78 percent of the total greenhouse gas emissions increase from 1970 to 2010."

There is no conceivable way, in the estimation of the scientific community, that we would be seeing such warming patterns without the actions of human beings.

The report also highlights climate change's profound geopolitical risk. While animal and plant species will suffer irreversible, lethal effects from radical changes in habitat, it is the effect on people that is ultimately most important — and no less dangerous. For the developing world in particular, the effects will be difficult to adapt to, and threaten to undermine the impressive record of economic growth and poverty alleviation experienced over the past 30 years.

The effect of such setbacks could be quite dire in the eyes of the IPCC: "Climate change can indirectly increase risks of violent conflicts by amplifying well-documented drivers of these conflicts such as poverty and economic shocks." For those who would doubt that climate change is a national security concern, this report should be a wake-up call.

Will another report from the United Nations actually change anything? The international community will have an opportunity to demonstrate that in Paris in 2015, when world leaders will meet to craft a follow-on agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. While countries have made impressive strides in goal-setting for emissions reductions, the pace of those reductions will not likely align with the low- to zero-carbon path the IPCC concludes is necessary to minimize risk. For example, the aggressive emissions reduction target announced by the European Union last week, while among the strongest plans yet proposed, may still not be ambitious enough.

The report's authors blame "inertia" for a lack of ambition when it comes to combating climate change, which is a polite and diplomatic way of pointing out a variety of obstacles: the vested interests of the fossil fuel industry and their political allies, as well as developing world countries that argue, not without merit, that their economic growth should be prioritized over emissions reductions.

This report does acknowledge that, in the short term, mitigation of climate change will pass down costs to consumers, even if they are balanced by avoiding the worst effects of future warming. Importantly, there are also some immediate benefits: energy security derived from reducing usage of imported fuel sources, as well as public health benefits from reducing particulate pollution.

The latter argument has been aggressively used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to justify the cost-effectiveness of its new rules regarding existing power plants. It also should be an attractive rationale for the smog-choked cities of India and China, two of the developing world's biggest carbon emitters, and other countries that have resisted calls for reducing pollution in the name of poverty alleviation.

Perhaps the key obstacle to greater international cooperation has been money. The developing world has long argued that the developed world needs to pony up some financial aid, due to their historical responsibility in emitting carbon into the atmosphere. To date, pledged contributions to the Green Climate Fund have lagged behind what was promised in previous years. A concrete pledge by the United States to contribute to the fund, even a token amount, would go a long way to assuring the developing world that the developed world is committed to following through on their pledges.

It would also buttress bilateral partnerships with India and China, both a priority for the Obama administration, to say nothing of private sector investments in clean energy diffusion.

One of the goals for Paris, then, will be to follow through on these promises and identify methodologies for creating more of these win-win situations, where climate change mitigation is paired with other immediate benefits, in a way which can be embraced by the widest possible range of participating nations. If even that attempt fails, then this planet and the people living on it will be on the path toward an unimaginably dire and dangerous future.

 
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 » see original post http://theweek.com/articles/442546/fight-against-climate-change-needs-more-winwin-solutions
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MUSE goes beyond Hubble: Looking deeply into the universe in 3-D

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The MUSE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope has given astronomers the best ever three-dimensional view of the deep universe. After staring at the Hubble Deep Field South region for only 27 hours, the new observations reveal the distances, motions and other properties of far more galaxies than ever before in this tiny piece of the sky. They also go beyond Hubble and reveal previously invisible objects.

via Science Daily

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Pockets of calm protect molecules around a supermassive black hole

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Researchers have discovered regions where certain organic molecules somehow endure the intense radiation near the supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy NGC 1068, also known to amateur stargazers as M77.

via Science Daily

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Love and War by Moonlight

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Venus, named for the Roman goddess of love, and Mars, the war god's namesake, came together by moonlight in this lovely skyview, recorded on February 20 from Charleston, South Carolina, USA, planet Earth. Made in twilight with a digital camera, the three second time exposure also records earthshine illuminating the otherwise dark surface of the young crescent Moon. Of course, the Moon has moved on from this much anticipated triple conjunction. Venus still shines in the west though as the evening star, third brightest object in Earth's sky, after the Sun and the Moon itself. Seen here within almost a Moon's width of Venus, much fainter Mars approached even closer on the following evening. But Mars has since been moving slowly away from brilliant Venus, though Mars is still visible too in the western twilight.
Tomorrow's picture: pixels at sunset
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Horsehead Nebula - Our Awesome Universe Wall Graphic

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: breathtaking astronomy images, hrshdneb, stars, nebulae, star clusters, starfields, star nurseries, horsehead nebula, galaxies, vista, european southern observatory, eso

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous deep space photograph featuring the Horsehead Nebula.
It's actually a composite colour image based on three exposures in the visual part of the spectrum with the FORS2 multi-mode instrument at the 8.2-m KUEYEN telescope at Paranal.

It was produced from three images, obtained on February 1, 2000, with the FORS2 multi-mode instrument at the 8.2-m KUEYEN Unit Telescope and extracted from the VLT Science Archive Facility.

The frames were obtained in the B-band (600 sec exposure; wavelength 429 nm; FWHM 88 nm; here rendered as blue), V-band (300 sec; 554 nm; 112 nm; green) and R-band (120 sec; 655 nm; 165 nm; red).

The original pixel size is 0.2 arcsec.

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image code: hrshdneb

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

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Cat's Eye Nebula Hubble Space iPad Mini Cover

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


tagged with: cat's eye nebula, astronomy, cats eye nebula blue, hubble, nebula photo, gas clouds, stars, universe, outer space, nature, ngc-6543, nebula, nebulae, nasa, hubble telescope, hubble space telescope, hubble photo, cosmos, cosmic, astronomical, astrophotography, cosmology, space photograph, space picture, space image, deep space, space, natural, science, abstract, space photo

The Cat's Eye nebula (NGC 6543) is a planetary nebula with an unusually complex structure. This Hubble telescope image shows a sequence of spherical gas shells around the central star.

Credit: NASA, ESA, HEIC, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Acknowledgment: R. Corradi (Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, Spain) and Z. Tsvetanov (NASA)

You can personalise the design further if you'd prefer, such as by adding your name or other text, or adjusting the image - just click 'Customize it' to see all the options. IMPORTANT: If you choose a different sized version of the product, it's important to click Customize and check the image in the Design view to ensure it fills the area to the edge of the product, otherwise white edges may be visible.

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Building blocks of the Large Hadron Collider

The future of electronics—now in 2D

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The future of electronics could lie in a material from its past, as researchers from The Ohio State

The post The future of electronics—now in 2D has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Vintage Astronomy, Map of Christian Constellations Poster

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: antique, constellations, retro, vintage, americana, nostalgic, zodiac, celestial map, star chart, universe, antique celestial

Vintage illustration Renaissance era astronomy and celestial image featuring an antique star chart of the sky, Map of the Christian Constellations of the northern skies as depicted by Julius Schiller (c. 1580-1627), from The Celestial Atlas, or The Harmony of the Universe by Andreas Cellarius. Andreas Cellarius (c.1596-1665) was a Dutch-German cartographer, best known for his Harmonia Macrocosmica of 1660, a major star atlas, published by Johannes Janssonius in Amsterdam.

Julius Schiller was a lawyer from Augsburg, Germany, who like his fellow citizen and colleague Johann Bayer published a star atlas in celestial cartography.

In the year of his death, Schiller, with Bayer's assistance, published the star atlas Coelum Stellatum Christianum which replaced pagan constellations with biblical and early Christian figures. Specifically, Schiller replaced the zodiacal constellations with the twelve apostles, the northern constellations by figures from the New Testament and the southern constellations by figures from the Old Testament.

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Wednesday 25 February 2015

Cone Nebula Hubble Space Covers For iPad Mini

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


tagged with: cone nebula, red glow, nebula photo, nebula photograph, stars, nasa, universe, hubble photo, astronomy, nature, ngc 2264, nebula, nebulae, red sky, outer space, hubble telescope, cosmos, cosmic, astronomical, astrophotography, cosmology, space, picture, image, deep, natural, science, abstract, photo, dark, cloudy, gifts, products

This is a Hubble Space Telescope photograph of the Cone nebula (NGC 2264), which is situated in the Monoceros constellation, 2500 light years away. It depicts a tall pillar of dust and gas against a glowing red background, and the nebula derives its name from the conical appearance it has in ground-based images. This is a composite image, dating from 2002.

Credit: NASA, H. Ford (JHU), G. Illingworth (UCSC/LO), M.Clampin (STScI), G. Hartig (STScI), the ACS Science Team, and ESA.

You can personalise the design further if you'd prefer, such as by adding your name or other text, or adjusting the image - just click 'Customize it' to see all the options. IMPORTANT: If you choose a different sized version of the product, it's important to click Customize and check the image in the Design view to ensure it fills the area to the edge of the product, otherwise white edges may be visible.

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Gold nanotubes launch a three-pronged attack on cancer cells

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Scientists have shown that gold nanotubes have many applications in fighting cancer: internal nanoprobes for high-resolution imaging; drug

The post Gold nanotubes launch a three-pronged attack on cancer cells has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Monster black hole discovered at cosmic dawn

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The discovery of the brightest quasar in the early universe, powered by the most massive black hole yet known at that time presents a puzzle to researchers: How could something so massive and luminous form so early in the universe, only 900 million years after the Big Bang?

via Science Daily

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Study demonstrates an electronic switch based on stereoisomerism

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As devices get smaller and smaller, scientists are running up against limits to how small one can feasibly construct a circuit using bulk materials. Molecular circuits offer a possible solution to overcoming these size constraints, and have led to a growing field merging chemistry with electronics.



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Bending a highly energetic electron beam with crystal

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Scientists have demonstrated that a bent silicon crystal can bend the paths of focused, very energetic electron beams much more than magnets used today. The method could be of interest for particle accelerator applications such as next-generation X-ray lasers that will help scientists unravel atomic structures and motions in unprecedented detail.

via Science Daily