decaturjim: Fringe Science This listing is for the entire series of Fringe science experiment inspired iconography art prints. “Warning: An Experiment of Great Importance in Progress.” Collect all your favorite Fringe science posters and show your friends and family that you believe in the future. View high resolution

decaturjim:

Fringe Science

This listing is for the entire series of Fringe science experiment inspired iconography art prints. “Warning: An Experiment of Great Importance in Progress.” Collect all your favorite Fringe science posters and show your friends and family that you believe in the future.

(Reblogged from decaturjim)

smithsonianmag:

Timelapse of Metamorphosis

A frog and a flatfish undergo metamorphosis in a timelapse video.

Ed note: Meet the salamanders of Wisconsin who refuse to grow up.

(Reblogged from smithsonianmag)
kqedscience: Today is Endangered Species Day “Once believed to be extinct, black-footed ferrets are slowly recovering with the help of captive breeding programs. This photo of a mother and her four kits was taken in a “preconditioning pen” at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Conservation Center in Colorado where captive bred ferrets learn to survive in their natural habitat before being released into the wild at reintroduction sites. Photo by Mike Lockhart.” View high resolution

kqedscience:

Today is Endangered Species Day

“Once believed to be extinct, black-footed ferrets are slowly recovering with the help of captive breeding programs. This photo of a mother and her four kits was taken in a “preconditioning pen” at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Conservation Center in Colorado where captive bred ferrets learn to survive in their natural habitat before being released into the wild at reintroduction sites. Photo by Mike Lockhart.”

(Reblogged from kqedscience)
discoverynews: Meet the Discovernator Crazy, amazing facts that can double as conversation starters this weekend. discovernator here View high resolution

discoverynews:

Meet the Discovernator

Crazy, amazing facts that can double as conversation starters this weekend.

discovernator here

(Reblogged from discoverynews)
pretendy: “Draw me an atom” This amazing gif by xverdxse is close to my idea of what an atom looks like. Far from the schoolbook picture of a clump of snooker ball protons and neutrons encircled by hoops of electrons the real picture of an atom is more like a vibrating cloud. A cloud? Yeah, a specific type of cloud called a probability density function. Woah maths alert! WEEOO-WEEOO, code red, code red! Relax. A probability density function (PDF) is just a measure (function) of how likely it is (probability) to ‘find’ the atom in a given region of space (density). The thickness of the cloud in a small region is proportional to the likelihood of finding the atom centered within that region. In the image above, it is most likely to be found in the center of the black region, and the likelihood of it being found further away gets smaller and smaller until it’s nearly zero outside. Every frame of this image corresponds to making a single measurement of it’s position. If it weren’t on a loop and we waited long enough, we should expect it to sooner or later make a large jump to a grey or even white area. This is how quantum tunneling works: a particle confined to a domain will at any given time have a small but finite probability of being found outside its confinement region! Even a tennis ball has a finite (but astronomically tiny) probability of tunneling through a solid wall. So what do atoms actually look like? Well, they don’t. They area collection of volumeless point-particles that don’t have any physical shape that you can draw on a piece of paper. However they have an effective shape that is described by (amongst other things and depending on what kind of measurements you make) the PDF. If you take a step back from your screen and look at the above ‘atom’, you can kind of consider it as a single solid entity even though it is an amorphous cloud of pixels. This is all we can say about the ‘true’ shape of the atom and is a visual approximation we have to make if we want to try to understand what atoms look like and not chew off our own faces in philosophical frustration.

pretendy:

“Draw me an atom”

This amazing gif by xverdxse is close to my idea of what an atom looks like. Far from the schoolbook picture of a clump of snooker ball protons and neutrons encircled by hoops of electrons the real picture of an atom is more like a vibrating cloud. A cloud? Yeah, a specific type of cloud called a probability density function. Woah maths alert! WEEOO-WEEOO, code red, code red!

Relax.

A probability density function (PDF) is just a measure (function) of how likely it is (probability) to ‘find’ the atom in a given region of space (density). The thickness of the cloud in a small region is proportional to the likelihood of finding the atom centered within that region. In the image above, it is most likely to be found in the center of the black region, and the likelihood of it being found further away gets smaller and smaller until it’s nearly zero outside.

Every frame of this image corresponds to making a single measurement of it’s position. If it weren’t on a loop and we waited long enough, we should expect it to sooner or later make a large jump to a grey or even white area.

This is how quantum tunneling works: a particle confined to a domain will at any given time have a small but finite probability of being found outside its confinement region! Even a tennis ball has a finite (but astronomically tiny) probability of tunneling through a solid wall.

So what do atoms actually look like? Well, they don’t. They area collection of volumeless point-particles that don’t have any physical shape that you can draw on a piece of paper. However they have an effective shape that is described by (amongst other things and depending on what kind of measurements you make) the PDF.

If you take a step back from your screen and look at the above ‘atom’, you can kind of consider it as a single solid entity even though it is an amorphous cloud of pixels. This is all we can say about the ‘true’ shape of the atom and is a visual approximation we have to make if we want to try to understand what atoms look like and not chew off our own faces in philosophical frustration.

(Reblogged from pretendy)

Reasons why the ban on sun films doesn’t make sense

The ban on sun films on car windows is another douchebag move by the state/judiciary in India. The reasoning seems to be: “To reduce crime. Criminals hide under dark of these films”. What is even more ridiculous is that VIPs and VVIPs cars will be excluded from this ban. I will give you 6 reasons why sun films shouldn’t be banned. 

1. India is a tropical (read HOT) country. Sun films keep the Sun’s heat out and in turn keeps the car cooler. If sun films were to be removed, cars would get hotter and A/Cs would be on full flow, which directly translates to increased fuel consumption. Hoping the Govt has an answer to how they will deal with a massive increase in demand for fuel. 

2. The concept of covered car parking is still a rarity in our urban commercial areas. Until we have cars that are forced to be parked in the open, having sun films on them is a necessity. 

3. India has a lot of cases of theft from cars. My car was broken into at the Bangalore Airport while I was seeing off my wife. Thanks to my irritatingly loud alarm, the attempt was ditched mid way. Sun films protect the valuables (like music systems, mobiles and wallets) inside cars from criminals. 

4. Women need sun films to protect themselves at Night. Cases of drunk guys chasing and eve teasing women on the road is common. Sun films offer protection for women in the night from such men seeking cheap thrills. 

5. Will the Supreme court pay every citizen back the money they have paid for the  sun films. Most car owners have paid upwards of Rs 2000 for sun films. There is an entire eco-system surviving on selling and installing sun films. Who will reimburse these losses? 

6. Apparently colored glasses are allowed. So what ? Criminals who want to rape women in moving cars cannot afford colored glasses? I fail to see the logic in this. 

So don’t be in a hurry to remove those sun films as yet. I hear there is a petition filed against the motion to ban sun films. Let us see it through. 

Young women in Chechnya - a photo essay

A great photo essay about Chechnya embracing Islam, and how the Chechen women deal with this shift in ideology and clamping down on freedom of expression. 

ISPs block douchebaggery

Firstly, thanks to our geographic location, we don’t have access to services like Pandora, Spotify, Hulu or Netflix. This despite my willingness to pay for these services. I have almost stopped watching TV for the last 5 something years. I rely heavily on programming streamed/downloaded from the internet. Even the few good shows that do air in India are either aired years later, or are so badly censored/edited that I think I am watching a silent movie. Try watching Jon Stewart or South Park in India.

Then, this happens http://www.medianama.com/2012/05/223-isp-wise-list-of-blocked-sites-indiablocks/

It really is that easy for a private party to block access to Information in India. All I have to claim is that these sites are hurting my religious sentiments, helping spread anti government propaganda or helping encourage online piracy.

Let’s take the example of animals and/or birds. When they don’t find food, protection from predators or water, they migrate to places that do offer these comforts. Same will be the case in India if this charade of blockades continue. I can recall very few of my classmates who still call India their home, but with draconian measures like this being implemented, you can surely kiss NRI investments and FDI goodbye.  

explore-blog: I Saw a Peacock with a Fiery Tail – 17th-century British “trick” poetry meets Indian folk art in this magnificent die-cut masterpiece, two years in the making. View high resolution

explore-blog:

I Saw a Peacock with a Fiery Tail – 17th-century British “trick” poetry meets Indian folk art in this magnificent die-cut masterpiece, two years in the making.

(Source: )

(Reblogged from explore-blog)
explore-blog: How common is your birthday? (ᔥ The Atlantic) View high resolution

explore-blog:

How common is your birthday?

(ᔥ The Atlantic)

(Source: )

(Reblogged from explore-blog)
Looks like this contraption needs to come back to get any serious work done.  View high resolution

Looks like this contraption needs to come back to get any serious work done. 

explore-blog: Carl Zimmer reports on new research explaining the famous “Rotating Snakes” optical illusion through “microsaccades” — the involuntary jumps our eyes make. View high resolution

explore-blog:

Carl Zimmer reports on new research explaining the famous “Rotating Snakes” optical illusion through “microsaccades” — the involuntary jumps our eyes make.

(Source: )

(Reblogged from explore-blog)

Videos from North Korea always interest me.

explore-blog:

North Korea celebrates the 100th birthday of Kim Il-Sung, the country’s founding father, “Great Leader,” and “eternal president.” Filmed by Patrik Wallner, whose skateboarding trip to the country was interrupted by the festivities. 

(↬ Doobybrain)

(Source: )

(Reblogged from explore-blog)

explore-blog:

German filmmaker Adonis Pulatus stitched together freely available hi-resolution space images from NASA’s International Space Station Expedition 30 into this mesmerizing time-lapse.

Too bad the future of space exploration is hanging by a thread.

(↬ Doobybrain)

(Reblogged from explore-blog)

Graduate council elections

Did you know that 7 candidates out of the 75 MLCs( Member of the Legislative Council) are elected via the graduate council elections? These candidates are supposed to represent the educated (graduates from a recognized Indian university) class in the local legislative assembly.

This year, I will be voting in the Bangalore graduate council elections and will support Dr Ashwin Mahesh. He has done tremendous work as part of aBIDe task force and is one of the few intellectuals who is vocal about his stand on the polity, policy and legislation in our state. I also admire him for his prudent use of Social Media to gain an audience. Please read about him on his website. It is people like him will make a difference in the politics of our country.