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Die-hard republican climate denier breaks down in tears after seeing the climate change movie, Chasing Ice. This is her reaction just as she leaves the theater. The poor lady is trembling and crying as she apologizes to her children. Reblog if you can, thanks a lot!
Time - Bill Nye the Science Guy
What exactly is time? A fun and simple explanation of time and Einstein’s theory of General Relativity.
There’s also some incredibly badass clips of Einstein speaking that I would love to make gifs out of.
Do you remember 1982’s “TRON” movie? The plot: A computer programmer (epic: Jeff Bridges) is digitized inside the software world of a mainframe computer, where he interacts with various programs in his attempt to get back out. I loved the light cycle races and strange solar wind ships…
Back in the real word the ISS is in a way one of these solar ships, constantly rotating around us. A tiny white spot, as it can be seen racing over the sky from time to time, when illuminated by the sunset (and sunrise ;).
This Video was achived by “stacking” image sequences provided by NASA from the Crew at International Space Station (see also fragileoasis.org/blog/2012/3/on-the-trails-of-stars/). These “stacks” create the Star Trails, but furthermore make interesting patterns visible. For example lightning corridors within clouds, but they also show occasional satellite tracks (or Iridium Flashes) as well as meteors - patterns that interrupt the main Star Trails, and thus are immediately visible.
The many oversaturated hot pixels in some of the scenes are the inevitable result of ultrahigh ISO settings the Nikon D3s in ISS-use are pushed to for keeping exposure times short by all means (owed to the dramatic speed the ISS travels). As there are no dark frames or RAW data currently available, hot pixels are not easy to remove.
The Science of Orgasms
The guys at AsapSCIENCE bring you some toe-curling, Meg Ryan-in-a-diner-esque, deity-invoking science. Here’s what’s going on behind the screams.
Because it’s the weekend!
Viewing the world through the senses of those who experience synesthesia, the crossover of sensory experiences.
A truly mind-bending video by futureshorts.
Amazing Mars Rover Landing Video Captures NASA’s Daring Descent
A stunning new video shot by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity captures the huge robot’s nail-biting journey to the Red Planet’s surface Sunday (Aug. 5).
The Curiosity rover’s landing video was taken by the Mars Descent Imager camera, or MARDI, snapped about 660 photos while the six-wheeled robot was barreling through the Martian atmosphere during its “seven minutes of terror” landing attempt late Sunday night (Aug. 5 PDT; Aug. 6 EDT).
Shit Scientists Say
I’m a little tired of the “Shit ____ Say/Don’t Say” meme already, but I’ll make an exception for this one. It’s mildly hilarious.
Stochastic.
(by RoseEveleth)
On Space, Love, and Carl Sagan’s Cosmic Mix Tape
Penny Lane was fascinated by the journey of the Voyager probes, as they carried inside of them gold records full of binary-coded human culture to the farthest reaches of our solar system, and beyond. It occurred to her that those gold records represented a love story - not of mankind, but of Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, who met and fell in love while assembling these time capsules of our species.
Penny made this short film as a love note to her husband on their wedding day, using the journey of these spacecraft and the love story of Carl and Ann as a way to express her joy and wonder on that day:
“Thousands of millions of years from now, long after our Sun burns the Earth into nothing, the Voyagers will still be out there, rushing at incredible speeds, into an incredible unknown, seeking. The Voyagers were only built to last two years, but they surprised everyone.
They are fearless.”
(via The Atlantic)
Time Cloak Hides (Very Small) Events in Time
You’ve probably seen this on your dashboard today, as a few of my science buds have covered it: “Time Cloak Can Make Time Disappear!” That’s very cool stuff, but what does it mean?
You might remember a few months ago when I posted about an “invisibility cloak” technology, where beams of light are bent around an object preventing it from reflecting (becoming invisible). There’s a video here. This new “time cloak” uses a special way of slowing down certain of wavelengths of light to do the same thing. Sort of. From SciAm:
The cloak, described in the January 5 issue of Nature, relies on the fact that light of different colors moves at different speeds through certain media. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) Using a device that they call a “time lens,” the researchers split a single-color laser beam into a spread of wavelengths, then slowed half of those wavelengths while speeding up the others. That created a very brief time gap that could be closed again before the beam reached the detector by reversing the lensing process, restoring the beam to a single, seemingly undisturbed wavelength.
Very cool, with implications for computing (good and bad). But you know what’s better? ANIMATIONS!
Click above for a great video explanation of the time cloak, put together by Rose Eveleth. Make much more sense now.
Genius Cops Caught Apparently Planting Evidence By Own Dash Camera
Here’s a video of two Utica, N.Y. police officers searching a car during a traffic stop. At 1:02, one officer pulls a small baggie of something out of his pocket and ducks into the car; at 1:31, he emerges again, holding the same baggie. Oops!
The video was obtained by the Utica Phoenix, which goes to great lengths to avoid specifically accusing the officers of evidence-planting. We understand! The cops are only “apparently” planting evidence: it’s also possible that they just completely and egregiously mishandled the evidence they found. Utica cops [are] also “apparently” really good at finding drugs on the property of black residents. +
Informational: Nearly Earth-Sized Planets Orbiting Alien Sun
NASA’s Kepler mission has detected two worlds, one slightly smaller and one almost the same size as Earth. This is the first time that Earth-sized planets have been confirmed orbiting another star.
Cherokee
Take care of you
