Tuesday 10 March 2015

Purple Galaxy Cluster Case-Mate Case Case For iPad Air

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: blue, purple, nasa, hubble, space, images, galaxy, cluster, macs, j0717, stars, pretty, galaxies, macsj0717

Galaxy Cluster MACS J0717 thanks to NASA and Hubble program.

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Pandora's Cluster Detail iPad 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: abell 2744, pandora's cluster, blue, pink, purple, magenta, galaxy, galaxies, pretty, colorful, beautiful, awesome, abell2744

A colorful space image galaxy cluster Abell 2744, otherwise known as Pandora's Cluster. Source of image is NASA/Hubble programs.

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Magnetic nanoparticles enhance performance of solar cells

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Magnetic nanoparticles can increase the performance of solar cells made from polymers – provided the mix is right.

The post Magnetic nanoparticles enhance performance of solar cells has been published on Technology Org.

 
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New formula for identifying suitable graphene substrate

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Physicists have developed a criterion with which scientists can seek suitable substrate materials for graphene in a targeted way. Interactions with the substrate material often lead to a loss of the amazing properties that characterize this special form of carbon. Together with partners at other institutions, the scientists were able to demonstrate that the influence exerted by the substrate on the electronic properties of graphene can be estimated by means of a simple structural parameter.

via Science Daily

The science of fear

Science Focus

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A healthy aversion to snakes might be useful in the jungle, but a ramped-up phobia of them that has you running screaming from garden hoses is obviously maladaptive in suburbia. And then there are phobias that seem to lack rational explanation: an aversion to pigeons, avoiding anything to do with the number 13, to fear of the color yellow.

"Fear mechanisms have helped us survive for millions of years," says UC Davis neuroscientist and psychologist Philippe Goldin. But even a natural mechanism can become twisted into something strange.

Where fear lies

The primary seat of fear in the brain lies in the amygdala, two almond-shaped clusters of neurons nestled deep in the temporal lobe. Scientists have found that there are actually two fear-related pathways involving the amygdala — one more direct route from a stimulus, and another, longer way that first passes through the cortex, where much of your higher-order thinking happens.

Either way, tripping the amygdala's alarm "puts you in a mode where you are prepared for action," says Nouchine Hadjikhani, a Harvard University neuroscientist.

(More from World Science Festival: Life in the universe: An optimistic cosmic perspective)

Registering a fear-causing stimulus can happen at lightning speed; Swedish scientist Arne Ohman and colleagues have found that flashing images of snakes or spiders so quickly that people are not consciously aware of seeing a snake or spider can still trigger a fear response. Interestingly, when these high-speed stimuli flash by, people's amygdalas respond equally fearfully to all stimuli — so an arachnophobic person would be equally unnerved by images of spiders and snakes. But when the images are shown slowly enough for people to comprehend them, their amygdala lights up only in response to their specific phobia (spiders, say). Our amygdalas seem to be primed to react quickly to anything that seems threatening, but once there's enough time for other, more sober parts of the brain to weigh in, we can filter out what's not worth getting worked up about.

The pathways leading out of the amygdala lead to lots of other brain regions; one particularly important output for the fear response is the connection to the hypothalamus. This brain region regulates the production and secretion of hormones like adrenaline, a key player in the fight-or-flight response. "The amygdala is one of the most highly interconnected regions of the brain, and that makes sense," Goldin says. "Arousal — positive or negative — activates many different mechanisms."

But there are other brain structures involved in fear, too, as demonstrated by studies of people with a rare genetic disorder called Urbach-Wieth disease, which causes the amygdala to shrivel up. In experiments conducted by University of Iowa researchers, Urbach-Wieth patients were unmoved by horror movies or exposure to large spiders, but did experience terror when they were asked to inhale a carbon dioxide mixture through a mask — which simulates suffocation. Therefore, there must be some amygdala-independent fear pathway; further research is needed to trace that trail through the brain.

(More from World Science Festival: Everything you need to know about Ebola)

How fear takes hold: Through direct association

Just as Pavlov's dogs salivated at the sound of a dinner bell, the power of association can turn even the most relatively innocuous thing into a phobia. Scientists are able to induce phobias of certain sounds or smells in lab rats by administering a painful shock in conjunction with that stimulus. Eventually the rodents are hard-wired to associate that scent or sound with pain, and remain fearful of that trigger.

How fear takes hold: Through indirect association

The process of how phobias form by association in humans is, of course, more subtle than a guy in a lab coat tormenting you. University of North Dakota psychologist Ric Ferraro invites you to consider someone with a phobia of the color green — how could something like that have formed? Any number of ways; it could have been that, as a child, "they could have fallen down, got green grass on their clothes, and their mom or dad yelled at them so now they associate fear with the color green," Ferraro told the UND news service.

How fear takes hold: Through fear transference

There's also a social component to some human phobias. We learn a lot of our behavior through observation, and this includes fear: "You see your mother panicking frantically in response to a wasp when you're a child, you'll likely be afraid of wasps too," neuroscientist Dean Burnett wrote in the Guardian.

How fear takes hold: Through instruction

We may even convince ourselves that something's incredibly scary thanks to receiving information (whether true or false) that something is threatening, a uniquely human phenomenon called instructional fear acquisition. A team led by New York University researcher Elizabeth Phelps found that if a person is told they might get a shock when a square of a certain color flashes on a screen, their amygdala will activate even without the shock, possibly because the brain creates an abstract representation of the pain. In a more real-world setting, instructional fear acquisition could be the reason you get the urge to avoid showers or flocks of birds after seeing a Hitchcock film.

How fear takes hold: Through inheritance

Another, less-well-understood factor in our fear is epigenetics — heritable changes outside of the changes to our genetic code. Goldin thinks that epigenetics could potentially explain a lot of the variance among people in terms of how they respond to and control their own fears.

(More from World Science Festival: 5 great scientists who never won a Nobel Prize)

"You have had, from birth to this moment, this whole trajectory of learning that sculpts your brain," Goldin says. "In addition to that, there's genetic factors that come from your mom and dad and beyond, even your grandparents, great-grandparents…things that happened to them are influencing what parts of your genetic code are or are not activated."

Evidence bears this out: In 2013, researchers published a paper in the journal Nature Neuroscience about an experiment in which they trained mice to associate the smell of the compound acetophenone (an odor another researcher describes as something like orange blossoms plus artificial cherry flavor) with pain. The scientists then saw that the offspring of those mice showed more signs of agitation and fear at the scent of acetophenone than control mice.

What can be done to fight the fear

Though fears can stem from many different sources, therapy can help undo the psychological knots of phobias. The treatment of choice these days is exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy, in which a person works with a therapist to unlock the thought patterns underlying their fears, and also gradually learns to tolerate exposure to the phobic stimulus. An arachnophobe may talk about the realistic level of danger that spiders actually pose, then look at pictures of spiders, then get closer and closer to an actual spider.

So, if you shudder at snakes, pale at the sight of pigeons, or come undone when a clown honks his malevolent horn, don't despair. Your brain might be wired for fear, but it can be rewired just the same.

 
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 » see original post http://theweek.com/articles/442712/science-fear
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Stellar Nursery R136 in the Tarantula Nebula Rectangle Sticker

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: galaxies, dorneblmc, stellar nursery, 30 doradus nebula, large magellanic cloud, amazing hubble images, tarantula nebula, r136, star cluster, astronomy pictures, massive stars

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series Hundreds of brilliant blue stars wreathed by warm, glowing clouds in appear in this the most detailed view of the largest stellar nursery in our local galactic neighborhood. The massive, young stellar grouping, called R136, is only a few million years old and resides in the 30 Doradus (or Tarantula) Nebula, a turbulent star-birth region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way.
There is no known star-forming region in our galaxy as large or as prolific as 30 Doradus. Many of the diamond-like icy blue stars are among the most massive stars known. Several of them are over 100 times more massive than our Sun. These hefty stars are destined to pop off, like a string of firecrackers, as supernovas in a few million years. The image, taken in ultraviolet, visible, and red light by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3, spans about 100 light-years.
The movement of the LMC around the Milky Way may have triggered the massive cluster's formation in several ways. The gravitational tug of the Milky Way and the companion Small Magellanic Cloud may have compressed gas in the LMC. Also, the pressure resulting from the LMC plowing through the Milky Way's halo may have compressed gas in the satellite. The cluster is a rare, nearby example of the many super star clusters that formed in the distant, early universe, when star birth and galaxy interactions were more frequent.
The LMC is located 170,000 light-years away and is a member of the Local Group of Galaxies, which also includes the Milky Way. The Hubble observations were taken Oct. 20-27, 2009. The blue color is light from the hottest, most massive stars; the green from the glow of oxygen; and the red from fluorescing hydrogen.

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image code: dorneblmc

Image credit: Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3

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via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Rover examining odd Mars rocks at valley overlook

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NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity climbed last month to an overlook for surveying "Marathon Valley," a science destination chosen because spectrometer observations from orbit indicate exposures of clay minerals.

via Science Daily

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Aurora over Icelandic Glacier

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Cosmic dust discs withstand hellfire beside massive young stars in center of Milky Way

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Astronomers have discovered an unusual phenomenon in the center of the Milky Way: They detected about 20 rotating dust and gas discs in each cluster hosting exceptionally large and hot stars. The existence of these discs in the presence of the destructive UV radiation field of their massive neighbors came as a surprise. The science team is pondering how these rotating discs are able to withstand evaporation under these extreme conditions.

via Science Daily

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Purple Galaxy Cluster iPad Air 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: blue, purple, nasa, hubble, space, images, galaxy, cluster, macs, j0717, stars, pretty, galaxies, macsj0717

Galaxy Cluster MACS J0717 thanks to NASA and Hubble program.

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The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

Large reduction in distillate fuel sulfur content has only minor effect on energy content

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Distillate fuel oil supply consists primarily of diesel fuel used for transportation and of heating oil burned in

The post Large reduction in distillate fuel sulfur content has only minor effect on energy content has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Scientists gather to prepare for Large Synoptic Survey Telescope

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When the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope begins in 2022 to image the entire southern sky from a mountaintop in Chile, it will produce the widest, deepest and fastest views of the night sky ever observed – and a flood of 6 million gigabytes of data per year that are expected to provide new insights into dark matter, dark energy and other cosmic mysteries.

via Science Daily

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Witch Head Nebula deep space astronomy image Room Decal

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


tagged with: star galaxies, outer space picture, deep space astronomy, wtchneb, witch head nebula, screaming witch, cursing witch, nasa space photograph, faces in space, witches curse

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A witch appears to be screaming out into space in this image from NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The infrared portrait shows the Witch Head nebula, named after its resemblance to the profile of a wicked witch. Astronomers say the billowy clouds of the nebula, where baby stars are brewing, are being lit up by massive stars. Dust in the cloud is being hit with starlight, causing it to glow with infrared light, which was picked up by WISE's detectors.
The Witch Head nebula is estimated to be hundreds of light-years away in the Orion constellation, just off the famous hunter's knee.
WISE was recently "awakened" to hunt for asteroids in a program called NEOWISE. The reactivation came after the spacecraft was put into hibernation in 2011, when it completed two full scans of the sky, as planned.
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image code: wtchneb

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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