Ariel Waldman

openscience: Science Hack Day is coming to your city! And I...

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 11:28:31 -0700

Science Hack Day is coming to your city! And I need your help: http://arielwaldman.com/2013/03/21/science-hack-day-is-coming-to-your-city/ .

Let’s get excited and make future-y science-y things together!

The T-Rex has spoken. (by aymanshamma)

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 13:47:32 -0800

The T-Rex has spoken. (by aymanshamma)

laughingsquid: Bubble, Fashion Series Featuring a Giant...

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 18:37:32 -0800

laughingsquid:

Bubble, Fashion Series Featuring a Giant See-Through Ball with the Model Inside (1963)

archiemcphee: My what a lovely Space Oddity you are....

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 16:36:05 -0800

archiemcphee:

My what a lovely Space Oddity you are. Artist Jenn Mann makes these awesome LED Space Helmets. She made the first one as part of a Major Tom costume for a David-Bowie-themed party. And now she makes them for other aspiring astronauts:

This astronaut helmet has a visor that opens and closes all the way so you can talk to other people or say “brb, going into space.” LEDs are arranged around the inside back of the helmet so it glows from the inside. The back of the helmet is painted solid white.

The visor pivots (they hold the visor to the helmet) are custom-designed and can be printed in one of several different day-glo colors! Currently available are fluorescent yellow, fluorescent green, and fluorescent orange. They’re UV-reactive, so they actually fluoresce when the LEDs are blue. The acrylic helmet is lightweight, but comes with a bit of padding for contact points on your shoulders and the back of your head.

LEDs on the inside light up in 16 different colors. Includes a remote control to change LED color. Comes with a 12V battery pack that lasts for hours and hours (more than 8h in my experience).

The helmets are available on a made-to-order basis via Jenn’s Etsy shop, SimpleAsPi.

[via Technabob]

Excited to announce that I am a member of a congressionally-requested study on the future of human spaceflight!

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 12:57:58 -0800

Excited to announce that I am a member of a congressionally-requested study on the future of human spaceflight!

photojojo: This photographer was attacked by a polar bear while...

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 20:56:50 -0800

photojojo:

This photographer was attacked by a polar bear while shooting a documentary for the BBC in Norway!

Fortunately, he was in a pod that let him see out.

You can now add polar bear selfie to your photo bucket list.

Photographer Captures What a Polar Bear Attack Looks Like

via Reddit

These colorful sculptures are actually painted spider webs

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 18:42:23 -0800

These colorful sculptures are actually painted spider webs

Photo

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:33:42 -0800

openscience: Earthworms that shit quantum technology! “When...

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 17:33:44 -0800

openscience:

Earthworms that shit quantum technology!

“When things get small–like millionths-of-an-inch small–they get very interesting. The ordinary rules of physics we’re used to fade back as the oddness of quantum physics looms large. Engineers have taken advantage of this fact by fashioning tiny bits of matter, known as quantum dots, that behave in all sorts of useful ways. For example, quantum dots made from cadmium telluride will respond to ultraviolet light by giving off a flash of visible light–the color depending on their size. If you attach certain molecules to cadmium telluride quantum dots, they will latch onto certain targets, making it possible to detect trace amounts of substances ranging from pesticides to cancer cells.”

“As versatile as cadmium telluride quantum dots are, however, they’re not easy to make. It’s especially tedious to fashion them so that they’re not toxic to living cells, since both cadmium and tellurium are nasty metals. In the latest issue of Nature Nanotechnology, a group of scientists at Kings College London offer a remarkably easy way to make them. In earthworms.”

(Read more: The Quantum Earthworm – Phenomena)

science-junkie: BILLIONS of years ago, a tiny cyanobacterium...

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 11:24:35 -0800

science-junkie:

BILLIONS of years ago, a tiny cyanobacterium cracked open a water molecule - and let loose a poison that wrought death and destruction on an epic scale. The microbe had just perfected photosynthesis, a process that freed the oxygen trapped inside water and killed early Earth’s anaerobic inhabitants.

Now, for the first time, geologists have found evidence of the crucial evolutionary stage just before cyanobacteria split water. The find offers a unique snapshot of the moment that made the modern world. With the advent of photosynthesis came an atmosphere dominated by oxygen and, ultimately, the diversity of life forms that we know today.

“This was the biggest change that ever occurred in the biosphere,” says Kevin Redding at Arizona State University in Tempe. “The extinction caused by oxygen was probably the largest ever seen, but at the same time animal life wouldn’t be possible without oxygen.”

Image source.
(via Captured: the moment photosynthesis changed the world)

scinerds: rhamphotheca: alexandstein:poisonparadise:-ryan: Cou...

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 10:56:42 -0800

scinerds:

rhamphotheca:

alexandstein:poisonparadise:-ryan:

Courtship of the Peacock jumping spider in Australia.

I can almost hear it saying “why I oughta”

The Crystal Dome (by Swarovski) Via

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 10:44:17 -0800

The Crystal Dome (by Swarovski)

Via

http://workshop.chromeexperiments.com/stars/

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 10:01:24 -0800

http://workshop.chromeexperiments.com/stars/:

Stop everything you’re doing and go on a gorgeous journey through the universe: http://workshop.chromeexperiments.com/stars/ Your spaceship? The web.

An army of penguins will be delivering your presents this year....

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 14:40:42 -0800

An army of penguins will be delivering your presents this year. (via Some Penguins Dressed Up In Christmas Outfits)

scinerds: Coral Autopsy Reveals Great Barrier Reef...

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 09:48:46 -0800

scinerds:

Coral Autopsy Reveals Great Barrier Reef Collapse

Nutrient-rich slurry from farms has been causing coral populations on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to crash for 90 years.

The corals collapsed between the 1920s and 1950s, say John Pandolfi at the University of Queensland in Brisbane and his colleagues. The team took cores from three reefs and worked out when the corals died. Two had little coral left after the 1950s, while the third had been colonised since then by different types.

By the 1920s, European settlers were farming intensively near rivers flowing onto the reef, boosting agricultural run-off by up to a factor of 20. Events like cyclones kill coral, but the extra nutrients in the water help seaweed move in afterwards, preventing coral from regenerating, says Terry Done of the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Townsville, Queensland.

The reefs were already in decline again when monitoring began in the 1980s, says Joana Figueiredo of James Cook University, also in Townsville. Pandolfi’s work shows that it was pristine until the 1920s.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2012.2100

Stephen Hawking at age 21 (1963). More photos from the shoot...

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 22:37:00 -0700

Stephen Hawking at age 21 (1963). More photos from the shoot at http://www.howardgrey.com/sets/stephen-hawking/ .

letsdolaunch:

Young Stephen Hawking.

trextrying: T-Rex Trying to Take his own Profile...

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 13:11:30 -0700

trextrying:

T-Rex Trying to Take his own Profile Pic…

#TRexTrying

Even Victorian microscope slides were beautifully ornate

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 16:39:34 -0700

Even Victorian microscope slides were beautifully ornate

2020: The beginning of an era of digital medicine: Digestible...

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 17:23:47 -0700

2020:

The beginning of an era of digital medicine: Digestible microchips embedded in drugs are the first ingestible devices approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

biocanvas: The reproductive branches of Amansia, a red seaweed,...

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 21:15:41 -0700

biocanvas:

The reproductive branches of Amansia, a red seaweed, at 100-times magnification.

Image by Dr. John Huisman, Murdoch University.