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It's Saturn with the Sun behind it. Also, on the left side, just above the rings is a bright dot. That's Earth.
That picture is tremendously overpowering. I'm looking at Saturn from behind, while sitting in the comfort of my office drinking tea.
By golly humans can do some awesome stuff.
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Yup. In general the data from the Casini mission has been pretty amazing too.
The only picture of Earth from further away (that I'm aware of) is this one. Taken 3.7 billion miles away from Earth.
Which inspired Carl Sagan to write:
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
The other cool thing about Voyager 1, it was launched in 1977, but scientists are still using it to collect data. It's changed our picture of the outer rim of the solar system in major ways and should be able to continue feeding us valuable information for another 8-12 years. They still aren't sure if it has left the solar system, though it probably is right on the edge. The major problem is that the instrument that measures solar wind directly stopped working over 20 years ago, but they can infer data from other instruments, and even did some re-orientating maneuvers a few years ago to improve data collection.
The current estimate is that it may have left the solar system on Aug 25, 2012, or it is in some new, undefined region of the solar system.
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Women in Science are COOL
Penny Sackett- In September 2008, Sackett was appointed the Chief Scientist of Australia; Announcing her appointment, the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr said Sackett is "an accomplished cross-disciplinary scientist with a record of academic excellence on three continents ... highly respected in the national and international communities of science and technology, both for her research and her proven experience in research management."
Stephanie Louise Kwolek (born July 31, 1923) is an American chemist who invented poly-paraphenylene terephtalamide—better known as Kevlar. She was born in the Pittsburgh suburb of New Kensington, Pennsylvania. Kwolek has won numerous awards for her work in polymer chemistry.
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (born October 20, 1942 in Magdeburg) is a German biologist who won the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1991 and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1995, together with Eric Wieschaus and Edward B. Lewis, for their research on the genetic control of embryonic development.
Ruby Violet Payne-Scott, BSc(Phys) MSc DipEd(Syd) (28 May 1912 – 25 May 1981) was an Australian pioneer in radiophysics and radio astronomy, and was the first female radio astronomer. One of the more outstanding physicists that Australia has ever produced and one of the first people in the world to consider the possibility of radio astronomy, and thereby responsible for what is now a fundamental part of the modern lexicon of science
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Not cool at all, but:
Almost third of US West Coast newborns hit with thyroid problems after Fukushima nuclear disaster
Math fail on the part of those editors.
"28% more likely" does not equate to 1/3 of all babies.
Are there any sources that actually discuss the incidence of congenital hyperthyroidism cases using sound statistics? The article leaves that out.
Edit: The shoddy reporting vexed me so much that I read the study. In 5 western states studied, between March 17 - June 30, 2011 there were 122 instances of congenital hyperthyroidism vs 95 during the same period in 2010. The region accounts for approximately 700,000 live births per year. It is an annualized incidence of approximately 0.05%. Still too many, certainly, but sensationalistic headlines bug the hell out of me.
Good to know. To be honest, that's why I threw it up here. I figured others could do the heavy lifting for me.
CH, could you vet this one for me, too?
Male bats found to perform oral sex on females
Goblins do it in the treetops!
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CH, could you vet this one for me, too?
Male bats found to perform oral sex on femalesGoblins do it in the treetops!
Uhhh.
I think I need some first-hand research.
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Tiny Cthulhu Monsters Discovered in Termite Guts.
I like how they have a picture of Cthulhu, but not of the critters.
edit: Okay, so old versions of IE aren't supported by the site to do all the cool stuff Celestial Healer mentions. Guess I'll just have to wait to get home before I see the creatures that will drive me insane.
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Tiny Cthulhu Monsters Discovered in Termite Guts.
I like how they have a picture of Cthulhu, but not of the critters.
There are pictures of the critters. When you view the article, there is a "right arrow" near the right edge of the picture. If you click it, it is a slideshow, and contains actual photos of our new masters.
Did I just say that, I mean... These things are totally harmless. Totally.
...
Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn!
It's a three year old article, but I was re-reading it and at the suggestion of another board member I'm posting a link to The Marsupial Death Pit. (insert dramatic, scary music).
Sales Imp
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Linked from yesterday's What if:
From "Things I Won't Work With: Dioxygen Difluoride":
Wow...............
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It's a three year old article, but I was re-reading it and at the suggestion of another board member I'm posting a link to The Marsupial Death Pit. (insert dramatic, scary music).
Thanks DMCal.. :-)
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Any drop bears? ;)
Its not the drop bears you have to worry about its the Veloci-Roo's that will hunt you down and rip you open from ear hole to breakfast.
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Allosaurus eats like a falcon, stings like a bee!
Sorry. Allosaurs are my favorite dinos.
Allosaurus eats like a falcon, stings like a bee!
Sorry. Allosaurs are my favorite dinos.
I saw that article the other day. It bugs me that T. Rex, Triceratops, and others hog the spotlight when there are many, many more just as interesting, if not more so.
Using crazy ol' science to gain a better understanding of how the T-Rex got its food. (Sorry, DungeonmasterCal... it's that spotlight hogging Tyrannosaur again.)
I understand it doesn't entirely eliminate scavaging from the T-Rex's eat-y ways, but I loves me the idea of T-Rex-as-apex-predator, and this makes me super happy!
Yay!
Pippi, no worries! I read the article the other day, and curmudgeonly old Jack Horner essentially grumbles and mumbles into his beer about it the whole time. I've generally thought of T. Rex as an opportunistic feeder for years, capable of bringing down large prey or driving other Rexes away from their own kills.
At the risk of being pelted for advocating hyperloops and mangos, I found this on New Pravda today and it sounds like a big deal!
Alas, I'm no science dude.
Nuclear fusion breakthrough: US scientists make crucial step to limitless power
