Unless you have an ultraviolet video telescope.
Here’s a video of the moon’s transit of the sun (recorded by NASA’s stereo-B spacecraft in 2007).
January 30th, 2010
photographic interlude
Photo by David Fisher
Photo by Sebastian Lewis
(photos via light boner)
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January 30th, 2010
human body workings
WrongDiagnosis has a library of visualisations/animations of the workings of the human body. Interesting, insightful little clips, like this one on hair or this one on heartburn.
January 26th, 2010
one cubic foot
Edward O. Wilson (The Diversity of Life) has a nice article on the National Geographic website on one of his favourite topics… biodiversity:
When you thrust a shovel into the soil or tear off a piece of coral, you are, godlike, cutting through an entire world. You have crossed a hidden frontier known to very few. Immediately close at hand, around and beneath our feet, lies the least explored part of the planet’s surface. It is also the most vital place on Earth for human existence.
January 24th, 2010
kids can name 120 pokemon but not their native wildlife
Phylomon.org is a noble project seeking to make our native wildlife as inspiring and exciting to young people as the creators of the Pokemon mythos have made their synthetic creatures.
Conservationist Andrew Balmford’s letter in the Science:
… it appears that conservationists are doing less well than the creators of Pokemon at inspiring interest in their subjects: During their primary school years, children apparently learn far more about Pokemon than about their native wildlife and enter secondary school being able to name less than 50% of common wildlife types. Evidence from elsewhere links loss of knowledge about the natural world to growing isolation from it. People care about what they know. With the world’s urban population rising by 160,000 people daily, conservationists need to reestablish children’s links with nature if they are to win over the hearts and minds of the next generation
The Grimpoteuthis (right), a deep-sea-dwelling octopus, even looks a bit like a Pikachu. Perhaps that’s a good place to start.
I hope they see some interest in their project! The stimulus behind it is something that I’ve found disturbing too (even as an erstwhile Pokémon fan).
And the same applies to the idea of extra terrestrials: People get excited about the idea of finding alien life, but there is more terrestrial life unexplored on our own planet than we could ever fully appreciate.
(via kottke)
Incidentally: Its the UN International Year of Biodiversity!
January 24th, 2010
it’s slinky
Here’s something new to do with a slinky: make Star Wars sound effects. (via silentlistening — great blog!)
January 17th, 2010
atlantic city (1904)
Just a small section of another great Shorpy image that caught my attention. See the full image.
January 16th, 2010
moonvilla concept
Here are 3 fun designs (via notcot):
-Tree Trunk Garden House.
- Beijing Noodle Restaurant design
- Moonvilla Concept (as seen above. more pictures)
The Moonvilla has an outer shell/screen that revolves with the sun to regulate the climate inside. Neat. Although I wouldn’t want to be around when the motor is on the blink. Having said that, there is cleverly a little underground level built into the design.
There are no stairs. Due to the lack of gravity on the moon, people can leap from floor to floor!
January 10th, 2010
language learning ent a sport
Steve Kaufmann (aka The Linguist) argues the point that language learning is more than a task to be completed wholly, a skill to be learned to a specific point of satisfaction or superlative. As he says, “it’s not about performance”:
Athletes compete to see who can run faster, or jump higher, or execute their moves with more precision, or score more goals. Athletes train in order to improve their performance. Learning languages is different. It is, for me, about communicating and enjoying another culture. In fact the learning process, itself, is enjoyable, regardless of the outcome, regardless of the performance. It is possible to enjoy languages without performing at all, without speaking. And when we speak we do not want to be judged, or at least I do not.
I often get comments on my foreign language youtube videos along the lines of:
“your Portuguese is not very good, don’t you care?”
” your Japanese sounds a little American, you should work on your accent.”
” you made a mistake in your Russian.”Well, I don’t care. I am not in competition with native speakers, nor with other non-native learners of any language. If my mistakes are pointed out, it is likely that I will make the same mistake the next time. I know what gives me trouble in these languages. I try to pay attention to these things when I listen, read or speak. But I know that I will continue to make mistakes and will only gradually improve.
More here. There is further discussion in the comments section of that post.
January 9th, 2010
the secret world of ‘water bears’ (aka ‘moss piglets’ aka ‘tardigrades’)
Image via flickr (though probably didn’t originate there)
Tardigrades (meaning “slow walkers”) are microbial creatures that are resilient against all manner of extreme conditions (heat, cold, pressure, radiation, dehydration). They can survive in temperatures as low as 1 degree calvin — 0 degrees calvin being the temperature at which molecular motion ceases. They can survive space. They can survive being dehydrated and rehydrated like instant coffee.
They’re extremely common (there are probably some in your back garden) and examples have been found dating back to the Cambrian period, when they were less evolved: fewer legs, simpler head shape and no posterior appendages.
Image via the incredible water bear.
They occupy their own phylum in the animal kingdom (tardigrada), they are so unique. Their closest relatives are fruit flies (arthropoda) and nematodes (nematoda).
More info at Wikipedia, where there are links to yet more info, photos, and videos.
January 9th, 2010
porridge deviation
I am deviating from normal blog activity to report on the best porridge (ever).
A debt of gratitude is owed to Mother Beaton for this recipe (I must get my experimental streak from her), whose secret is in the milk.
I’m aware that almond milk and goats milk are not exactly common in most parts of the world. Well, neither is the best porridge (ever).
January 7th, 2010
it’s a wuzzy line and its getting wuzzier
“The Unbroken Thread” is the latest and greatest musical-science-mashup by youtuber MelodySheep. Uplifting!
See also: Previous Attenborough-related posts
January 7th, 2010
understanding others
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
Carl Jung
The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather what he does not say. Kahlil Gibran
January 5th, 2010
inside-out
After a time
something telling happened:
My trousers began to wear me.
You could tell it was late in the day;
Brown corduroys, the loudest, would say:
You are going to be a teacher until my grooves
your thighs corrugate and your buttocks bruise.
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January 5th, 2010
caught in the act of make-believe
Miles Davis. Photo: LIFE
Brian Eno on Miles Davis (and music in general):
When you listen to Miles Davis, how much of what you hear is music, and how much is context? Another way of saying that is, ‘What would you be hearing if you didn’t know you were listening to Miles Davis?’ I think of context as everything that isn’t physically contained in the grooves of the record, and in his case that seems quite a lot. It includes your knowledge, first of all, that everyone else says he’s great: that must modify the way you hear him. But it also includes a host of other strands: that he was a handsome and imposing man, a member of a romantic minority, that he played with Charlie Parker, that he spans generations, that he underwent various addictions, that he married Cicely Tyson, that he dressed well, that Jean-Luc Godard liked him, that he wore shades and was very cool, that he himself said little about his work, and so on. Surely all that affects how you hear him: I mean, could it possibly have felt the same if he’d been an overweight heating engineer from Oslo? When you listen to music, aren’t you also ‘listening’ to all the stuff around it, too? How important is that to the experience you’re having, and is it differently important with different musics, different artists?
Miles was an intelligent man, by all accounts, and must have become increasingly aware of the power of his personal charisma, especially in the later years as he watched his reputation grow over his declining trumpeting skills. Perhaps he said to himself: These people are hearing a lot more context than music, so perhaps I accept that I am now primarily a context maker. My art is not just what comes out of the end of my trumpet or appears on a record, but a larger experience which is intimately connected to who I appear to be, to my life and charisma, to the Miles Davis story. In that scenario, the ‘music’, the sonic bit, could end up being quite a small part of the whole experience. Developing the context – the package, the delivery system, the buzz, the spin, the story – might itself become the art. Like perfume…
(via peter serafinowicz‘s twitter page)
January 5th, 2010
Martine Franck
Martine Franck. “Torry Island” 1995.
Martine Franck (born 1938) is a Belgian photographer, and a member of the Magnum Photos agency. She was the second wife of photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson after his divorce with Ratna Mohini, and is president and co-founder of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, which administrates his estate. (from wiki)
(via 3qd)
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January 5th, 2010
why do plants make caffeine?
What role does caffeine play in the life of a plant? According to “the naked scientists”, it plays a part in their defence mechanisms.
So it seems that caffeinated plants are lucky to have this compound as part of their natural defences, but it doesn’t deter all attackers. For instance, caffeine doesn’t poison humans in the doses that we typically ingest (even a Monday morning dose), but it does cause addiction. It works by stopping the enzyme phosphodiesterase from breaking down a signalling substance called cyclic AMP (cAMP for short) and its close relatives. One of the actions of the stress hormone adrenaline is to increase the levels of cAMP in cells, so by preventing cells from breaking down cAMP, caffeine potentiates the action of adrenaline, and gives us a buzz. In even higher doses, and with prolonged use, it can trigger anxiety, muscle tremors, palpitations and fast heart rates, and profound withdrawal effects
including headaches, inability to think clearly, and bad moods whenever you mistakenly switch to decaff !