Travel voucher to the moon

Travel voucher to the moon
via Twitter @TheRealBuzz  
https://twitter.com/therealbuzz?lang=en

#moon   #nasa   #space   #buzzaldrin  

Leaf Cutter Ants

Leaf Cutter Ants
Atta ants (of which there are at least 17 species), although small, have a massive effect on ecosystems, with ecologists estimating that Atta colonies may in fact cut 12-17% of the total leaf production of tropical rain forests.

Interestingly, this bountiful collection of leaves are not for the ants dinner; instead, the leaf fragments serve as a growing medium for a special fungus called Leucocoprinus fungus (which is found nowhere but in ant colonies as of yet).

The worker ants bring their leaves and other vegetation back to the nest where the plant material is chewed into a pulp. After this, colony minding working ants then apply faecal droplets containing digestive enzymes which helps form the substrate for fungus formation. The fungus is essentially a life support system for these leaf cutter ant colonies where ants pluck the nutrient-rich swellings known as gongylidia to feed the colony’s larvae.

Know more:
http://www.arkive.org/leaf-cutter-ant/atta-cephalotes/

Photo credit:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cajamediterraneo/5390227294

#biodiversity   #attaants

This is a neat gift...Danke :)

This is a neat gift...Danke :)
Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

#Einstein #relativity #physics

Here’s What Breaking Up Does to Your Brain

Here’s What Breaking Up Does to Your Brain
When the love of your life dumps you, you’re going to go a little nuts. But it’s a very specific form of crazy: There are actually conflicting neural systems active inside your brain. It’s like you’re falling in love all over again, only in reverse. Here’s how neuroscience explains it.
Addicted to Love

It doesn’t matter whether you were with your ex-lover for six months, four years, or more – a breakup throws your brain back into the obsession of early love. Everything that reminds you of that person – a photograph, places you used to go together, random thoughts – triggers activity in “reward” neurons inside the caudate nucleus and the ventral tegmental area of the brain. These are the same parts of the brain that light up when scientists put people in the throes of that grossly cute can’t-think-about-anything-else stage of new love into an fMRI machine and ask them to look at photos of their beloved. As it happens, they’re also parts of the brain that respond to cocaine and nicotine.

Turning on the reward neurons releases repeated floods of the neurotransmitter dopamine. And the dopamine activates circuits inside the brain that create a craving for more. That craving gives you motivation, and encourages you to try out other behaviors that will help you get more of whatever it is you need. In the case of romance, the thing you need more of is your beloved.

As a romantic relationship develops into a long term partnership, that obsession fades away, even though thoughts of your partner still tickle the brain’s reward systems. But after a breakup, all those old can’t-get-enough feelings come flooding back. The brain’s reward systems are still expecting their romantic ‘fix’, but they’re not getting the responses they expect. And like someone in the depths of a drug addiction, they turn up the volume in an effort to get you to respond.
In this new context, the reward system is now the part of your brain that’s going to motivate you do something really dumb. Like drunk calling your ex, or initiating breakup sex.

Lucy Brown, a neuroscientist at Einstein College of Medicine who has studied romantic responses in the brain, explains that the motivation is more extreme than for other forms of social rejection because romance ties into more primal parts of the brain. “Other kinds of social rejection are much more cognitive,” she says. “[Romantic rejection] is a life changing thing, and involves systems that are at the same level as feeling hungry or thirsty.”
No wonder it hurts.

Article:
http://throb.gizmodo.com/heres-what-breaking-up-does-to-your-brain-1717776450

#neuroscience   #emotions   #breakup   #brain

Fontus

Fontus
Austrian designer Kristof Retezar has invented a new device for your bike that collects the moisture contained in the atmosphere, condenses it and stores it as fresh drinking water.

Project:
http://www.jamesdysonaward.org/projects/fontus-2/

Article:
http://www.sciencealert.com/new-self-filling-water-bottle-harvests-drinking-water-from-the-air

#scitech   #H2O   #innovation

One must be serious about something, if one wants to have any amusement in life.

One must be serious about something, if one wants to have any amusement in life.

#entertainmyfusimotors

Fluffy sharks in the sky

Fluffy sharks in the sky
Kelvin-Helmholtz instability clouds form from differences in air density between adjacent layers and the resulting wind shear. These clouds are extremely short-lived, and break in the same fashion as a wave on a shore – as the bottom layer moves slower than the top layer, and the top billows over and crashes.

Source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/07/28/shark-fins-in-the-sky-awesome-kelvin-helmholtz-clouds-from-the-galapagos/

#naturalphenomena   #clouds   #kevinhelmholtz

A caterpillar’s stubby prolegs contain a circle of gripping hooks (in red) known as crochets.

A caterpillar’s stubby prolegs contain a circle of gripping hooks (in red) known as crochets.

Photo credit: Institute of Molecular Pathology I.M.P.
Vienna, Austria
Confocal, Autofluorescence
20X

#science   #biodiversity   #imaging

Photoacoustic Imaging

Photoacoustic Imaging
A combination of light and sound were used to reveal the network of tiny veins in the iris (that’s the colored part of the eye) of a mouse. 
Scientists hope that this technique can someday be used to monitor brain activity in real time and high definition.

Full article:
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/07/27/425068015/a-scientist-deploys-light-and-sound-to-reveal-the-brain

Image:  Lihong Wang/Optical Imaging Laboratory/Washington University

#imaging   #neuroscience   #innovation

Meditation is an approach to training the mind, similar to the way that fitness is an approach to training the body.

Meditation is an approach to training the mind, similar to the way that fitness is an approach to training the body.
It’s extremely difficult for a beginner to sit for hours and think of nothing or have an “empty mind.” But in general, the easiest way to begin meditating is by focusing on the breath.

#infographic   #meditation   #neuroscience

An open letter from AI researchers, technologists, scientists, and roboticists calls for a ban on "offensive...

An open letter from AI researchers, technologists, scientists, and roboticists calls for a ban on "offensive autonomous weapons." Among the signers are Elon Musk, Demis Hassabis, Stephen Hawking, and Steve Wozniak. The letter acknowledges that artificial intelligences can make battlefields safer for humans but warns that the could lead to an uncontrollable arms race of military AI.

Article:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/27/musk-wozniak-hawking-ban-ai-autonomous-weapons

#AI   #robots   #military

Masks cannot change the real faces

Masks cannot change the real faces

#pinchmyspine

Volcanic critters

Volcanic critters
Discoveries were made by a CSIRO research team conducting surveys off Australian coast.

Source:
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/newly-discovered-underwater-volcanic-range-teeming-bizarre-tiny-fanged-fish

Reference:
http://csironewsblog.com/2015/07/13/sydneys-far-east-is-so-hot-right-now/

#biodiversity   #research   #volcaniccritters

Milky Way and Aurora over Antarctica

Milky Way and Aurora over Antarctica 

Image via APOD
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150727.html

#milkywayphotography   #apod   #aurora   #universe

Because... chemical reactions.

Because... chemical reactions.

#entertainmyfusimotors   #wordsofwisdom   #blackside

This is a dinosaur egg, it is from Argentina, more specifically from the late Cenomanian faunal stage, ~96 to 94...

This is a dinosaur egg, it is from Argentina, more specifically from the late Cenomanian faunal stage, ~96 to 94 million years ago. 
The fossil discovery site is in the Huincul Formation of the Río Limay Subgroup.

Image & description via natgeo
https://instagram.com/p/5ngGsdoVcU/?taken-by=natgeo

#history   #evolution   #dinosaur

Found in the warm waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the peacock mantis shrimp is arguably one of the most...

Found in the warm waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the peacock mantis shrimp is arguably one of the most captivating creatures in the sea. Its hard-shelled body is bursting with color—hues of bright red, green, orange and blue, and its forearms are covered in spots. At the top of its head rests a set of protruding eyes, and they aren’t just for show.

These crustaceans have the most complex eyes in the animal kingdom, containing millions of light-sensitive cells. With 16 color-receptive cones (compared to humans, who have just three), the peacock mantis shrimp can detect ten times more color than a human, including ultraviolet light. It can move each eye independently and uses this exceptional eyesight to avoid predators and track down prey.

This ferocious shrimp has club-like appendages that fold beneath its body, resembling a praying mantis. With a spring-like motion, it uses these appendages to attack prey— and a mantis shrimp’s punch is no joke. With the ability to strike at the speed of a 22 caliber bullet (50 times faster than the blink of an eye), a blow from a mantis shrimp can easily break through the shell of a crab or mollusk.

Watch:
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/worlds-deadliest/deadliest-mantis-shrimp

Know more:
http://www.amnh.org/explore/news-blogs/on-exhibit-posts/fast-facts-peacock-mantis-shrimp
http://www.aqua.org/explore/animals/mantis-shrimp

Photo source: marinicovcom
https://www.flickr.com/photos/88630861@N02/8483019571/in/photostream/

#biodiversity   #peacockmantisshrimp   #seacreatures

New diagnostic criteria were introduced for neuromyelitis optica, now called neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder,...

New diagnostic criteria were introduced for neuromyelitis optica, now called neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder, which is an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system that is sometimes mistaken for multiple sclerosis.

An international consensus panel, chaired by Mayo Clinic neurologists Dean Wingerchuk, M.D., and Brian Weinshenker, M.D., reviewed the medical literature and recent scientific discoveries relating to NMOSD to develop new diagnostic criteria. 

NMOSD can affect the optic nerves, brain stem, spinal cord and brain. It can cause a spectrum of symptoms, including visual loss, paralysis and episodes of persistent hiccups, nausea and vomiting. Detection of aquaporin-4 immunoglobulin G antibodies (AQP4-IgG), using a blood test that was developed by Mayo Clinic investigators, is highly specific for NMOSD and facilitates the diagnosis. Some patients have the key features of NMOSD, but do not have detectable antibodies. The new criteria address both possibilities.

Some differences between the old criteria and the new include:
- Diagnosis was not possible by identifying a single clinical symptom. Now it is.
- The 2006 criteria also required a diagnosis of optic neuritis and myelitis; whereas, the new 2015 criteria require neither if an AQP4-IgG blood test proves positive.

Access the paper for free:
http://www.neurology.org/content/early/2015/06/19/WNL.0000000000001729.short

Source:
http://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/panel-outlines-new-diagnostic-criteria-for-central-nervous-system-disorder/

#NMOSD   #neurology   #neuroscience   #medicine

Snakes don’t kill by suffocation

Snakes don’t kill by suffocation
In 1994, a rogue herpetologist challenged the dogma that constricting snakes kill by suffocation. He didn’t think it made sense. If suffocation were the mechanism, the prey would have died much more slowly —minutes rather than seconds. Instead, he thought the immense pressure from the snake’s contorted body sent its prey into cardiac arrest. It has taken 20 years, but researchers have finally proved him right.

Paper:
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/218/14/2279

Article:
http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015/07/surprise-snakes-don-t-kill-suffocation

#biodiversity   #snakes   #cardiacarrest

Badman Nishioka/Japan/rainforest action group/

Badman Nishioka/Japan/rainforest action group/

Originally shared by Nishioka Yoshio

Especially the Gold mining Development speed up by 2007, World economy crisis re-started! By 2007, about2400t , but the gold mining development increased about 2750t by2013. The mining scientist appeared those mining development will speed up more widely, many South American, Amazonian forests vanish and make many Carbon Emission, Pollutions!
Badman Nishioka/Japan/rainforest action group/
This news was this January!
http://www.iop.org/news/15/jan/page_64850.html

Badman Nishioka/Japan/rainforest action group/

Badman Nishioka/Japan/rainforest action group/

Originally shared by Nishioka Yoshio

The mining Development in South America, Amazon areas already caused many problems- comunity destruction, pollution, others by this datas.
Badman Nishioka/Japan/rainforest action group/
http://wealthofthecommons.org/essay/mining-threat-commons-case-south-america

How Ebola attacks the cells within the body?

How Ebola attacks the cells within the body?
Ebola is spread by direct contact with blood and bodily fluids, including but not limited to: urine, saliva, sweat, feces, vomit, breast milk, and semen. Also, not all these bodily fluids are as potent as others. For example, while blood and feces are usually quite abundant with the virus, other fluids such as saliva and sweat are much less likely to carry the virus. To become infected, these fluids must enter your body through either broken skin or through a mucous membrane, such as those found in the eyes, nose, or mouth.

When inside the body the virus fuses with tissue cells, invades them and releases its genetic content into the cell.
This is similar to many viruses wherein the viral RNA uses the host cells to generate copies of itself.

The genetic material takes over the cell machinery to replicate itself; new copies of the virus are formed, released into the system and dispersed. This also causes the cells to explode, sending infectious particles flying

Ebola then overpowers the immune system; the very cells that are meant to fight infection are used as carriers to spread infection to other body parts, including liver, spleen, kidneys and brain.

The virus attacks almost every organ and tissue in the human body.
The cell explosions caused by the virus lead to an overwhelming inflammatory reaction.
This is what causes sudden flu like symptoms that are the first signs of Ebola.

Watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdk2Zhp6FRA

KNow more:
http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/transmission/

Vaccine news?
Vaccine development is facing a crisis for three reasons: the complexity of the most challenging targets, which necessitates substantial investment of capital and human expertise; the diminishing numbers of vaccine manufacturers able to devote the necessary resources to research, development, and production; and the prevailing business model, which prioritizes the development of vaccines with a large market potential. 

Read more:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1506820

#ebola   #virus   #health   #medicine   #prevention

JUICE

JUICE
Airbus Defence & Space in France has been selected as the prime industrial contractor for ESA’s Juice mission to Jupiter and its icy moons.

The agency’s Industrial Policy Committee approved the award of the €350.8 million contract. Pending the negotiation of contractual details, this should allow work to start by the end of this month.

The contract covers the industrial activities for the design, development, integration, test, launch campaign, and in-space commissioning of the spacecraft. The Ariane 5 launch is not included and will be procured later from Arianespace.

The spacecraft will be assembled in Toulouse, France, and many other ESA Member States will also be involved in Europe’s first mission to the largest planet in the Solar System. The spacecraft should be launched in 2022 and arrive in the Jovian system in 2030.

For three and a half years, Juice will sweep around the giant planet, exploring its turbulent atmosphere, enormous magnetosphere, and tenuous set of dark rings, as well as studying the icy moons Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto. All three of these planet-sized satellites are thought to have oceans of liquid water beneath their icy crusts and should provide key clues on the potential for such icy moons to harbor habitable environments.

Source & further reading:
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Preparing_to_build_ESA_s_Jupiter_mission

Image credit: ESA/AOES

#ESA   #JUICE   #space   #jupiter

Gamma - ray raindrops

Gamma - ray raindrops
If gamma-rays were raindrops a flare from a supermassive black hole might look like this. Not so gently falling on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope from June 14 to June 16 the gamma-ray photons, with energies up to 50 billion electron volts, originated in active galaxy 3C 279 some 5 billion light-years away.

Each gamma-ray "drop" is an expanding circle in the timelapse visualization, the color and maximum size determined by the gamma-ray's measured energy. Starting with a background drizzle, the sudden downpour that then trails off is the intense, high energy flare. The creative and calming presentation of the historically bright flare covers a 5 degree wide region of the gamma-ray sky centered on 3C 279.

Watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=54&v=9Rl4l6tuHGg

Video Credit: NASA, DOE, International Fermi LAT Collaboration
Explanation via APOD

#nasa   #DOE   #space

Galileo’s first telescopes; 17th century, in the Institute and Museum of the History of Science, Florence.

Galileo’s first telescopes; 17th century, in the Institute and Museum of the History of Science, Florence. 

#science   #history   #galileo

Kepler-452b

Kepler-452b
NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed the first near-Earth-size planet in the “habitable zone” around a sun-like star. This discovery and the introduction of 11 other new small habitable zone candidate planets mark another milestone in the journey to finding another "Earth."

Source & further reading:
http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-kepler-mission-discovers-bigger-older-cousin-to-earth/

#nasa   #kepler452b   #space

Scientists create tiny beating heart cells

Scientists create tiny beating heart cells
The human heart is a complex organ that is quite challenging to study in the lab in real-time. So, you can see why researchers at UCSF and UC Berkeley are excited by the creation of tiny, 3D heart chambers with the ability to exist and even beat in a lab dish.

The resulting heart chambers may be miniscule — measuring no more than a couple of hair-widths across— but they hold huge potential for everything from improving our understanding of cardiac development to speeding up drug toxicity screening.

Source & further reading:
http://directorsblog.nih.gov/2015/07/21/bioengineering-big-potential-in-tiny-3d-heart-chambers/

#research   #science   #cells   #heart   #bioengineering

Two tornadoes and a super cell.

Two tornadoes and a super cell.
Via storm chaser Kelly DeLay.

https://instagram.com/kellydelay/

#naturalphenomena   #storms   #tornado   #supercell

This remarkable image shows the interior cell walls of a coffee bean

This remarkable image shows the interior cell walls of a coffee bean

#science   #RPS

July 2014 Lunar Transit

July 2014 Lunar Transit

#sdo   #nasa   #sun   #space

How the hair-like filaments of the "Hair Ice" form?

How the hair-like filaments of the "Hair Ice" form?
Hair ice - have you heard of it? The rare ice grows upward, forming fine, hair-like filaments that form a glacial toupee of frost atop rotting wood.

Scientists have now filled in a major gap in our understanding of the ice's formation: the fungus Exidiopsis effusa. When the temperature dips below freezing on humid winter evenings, hair ice springs out of rotting tree branches that house E. effusa.

Upon examining samples of melted hair ice, researchers identified the organic compounds lignin and tannin, metabolic byproducts of fungal activity.

"The action of the fungus is to enable the ice to form thin hairs - with a diameter of about 0.01 mm - and to keep this shape over many hours at temperatures close to [freezing]," explains Christian Matzler, a physicist at Switzerland's University of Bern. "Our hypothesis includes that the hairs are stabilized by a recrystallization inhibitor that is provided by the fungus."

Source & further reading:
http://www.discovery.com/dscovrd/nature/scientists-unravel-the-mystery-behind-cotton-candy-like-hair-ice/

#hairice #naturalphenomena #science #fungus

Blasting Space Junk With A Laser

Blasting Space Junk With A Laser
It’s getting crowded up in space: More than 500,000 pieces of debris orbit the Earth. Most of the orbital debris is man-made objects that no longer serve a purpose (old satellites, rockets, and mission-related debris).

These objects travel at speeds up to 17,500 mph. At this speed, a relatively small piece of debris —even tiny paint flecks— can do some major damage to a satellite or a spacecraft. In fact, a number of space shuttle windows have been replaced because of damage caused by flecks of paint.

Here’s how it would work: EUSO, a new Japanese space telescope, would spot the debris using it’s powerful optics and wide field of view. This telescope could be combined with a high-energy laser system known as CAN.
CAN’s plasma pulse could hit the debris and slow it down — so much so that it falls out of orbit and burns up in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Article:
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/astronomers-want-to-blast-space-junk-by-strapping-a-laser-to-a-telescope

#spacejunk   #research   #gravity   #science

Nanotech transforms cotton fibers into modern marvel

Nanotech transforms cotton fibers into modern marvel
A Cornell University lab is applying nanotechnology to make textiles do a whole range of new and useful tricks.
Chemical and biomolecular engineer Juan Hinestroza and his team in the textiles nanotechnology lab are adding tiny bits of metal into fibrous material like cotton. When woven into a textile, the augmented yarn can produce light, kill disease-causing microbes or act as a filter to trap harmful gas. In addition, the metal oxides allow the yarn to be fashioned into conductive components like transistors for electronics.

Source & further reading:
http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/07/nanotech-transforms-cotton-fibers-modern-marvel

#nanotech   #science   #engineering

Shinny side of the planet ;)

Shinny side of the planet ;)
For the first time since 1972, the entirety of the Sun-lit half of Earth has been captured in one photograph, taken by a satellite one million miles away.

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/nasa-captures-epic-earth-image

#nasa   #earth   #space   #DSCOVR

Well I am late again, but I have 3 words too... awesome, awesome, awesome

Well I am late again, but I have 3 words too... awesome, awesome, awesome

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin makes history on the Moon, July 20, 1969.

#apollo11   #nasa   #space

How do fireflies glow?

How do fireflies glow?
Superoxide is an oxygen molecule that has an extra electron. Ordinarily, superoxide's high reactivity makes it toxic to cells. But as this short video documentary explains, superoxide can be useful: in helping fireflies to glow in the dark.

#chemistryoffireflies   #superoxide  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTPMwZK2-yM

Tempescope

Tempescope
A device that doesn’t simply tell you what the weather is going to be like, it shows you.
Tempescope downloads weather forecast information from the internet and simulates upcoming weather conditions inside a translucent box. Designed by Japanese software engineer and inventor Ken Kawamoto, the Tempescope can replicate sunshine, clouds, rain, and lightning.

Reference:
http://www.tempescope.com/opentempescope/

#scitech   #innovation   #tempescope

Humans may soon echolocate like bats and dolphins

Humans may soon echolocate like bats and dolphins
UC Berkeley physicists have created ultrasonic, lightweight loudspeakers and microphones that will enable people to echolocate like bats and dolphins. 

The wireless ultrasound devices complement standard radio transmission using electromagnetic waves in areas where radio is not practical, such as underwater, but with far greater fidelity than current ultrasound or sonar devices.


They can also be used to communicate through objects, such as steel, that electromagnetic waves cannot penetrate.
The device is made with graphene that consists of carbon atoms laid out in a hexagonal, chicken-wire arrangement, which creates a tough, lightweight sheet with unique electronic properties.

Source & further reading:
http://news.berkeley.edu/2015/07/06/bats-do-it-dolphins-do-it-now-humans-can-do-it-too/

#scitech    #research   #graphe

The Diphelleia grayi or “Skeleton Flower” is a rare flower that transforms into a translucent beauty when exposed to...

The Diphelleia grayi or “Skeleton Flower” is a rare flower that transforms into a translucent beauty when exposed to water, its white petals becoming completely clear while wet, then transforming back to their original color once dry.

Watch:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=84YboMfyzjo

#botanics   #skeletonflower

Rotating Triangles

Rotating Triangles

#mathematics   #processing   #animation   #fractal

A German doctor and nurse using an electromagnet to remove iron splinters in the eye of a wounded soldier.

A German doctor and nurse using an electromagnet to remove iron splinters in the eye of a wounded soldier.

Photo shared under IWM Non Commercial Licence.
http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205305072

#history   #WWI   #medicine

Camereon! They change the color!

Camereon! They change the color!
From Mr.Ronaldo Arigatouuu!
Badman Nishioka/Japan/rainforest group/

Originally shared by Ronaldo Nobre

Camaleão

What do this bird sing? I don't know, interesting!

What do this bird sing? I don't know, interesting!
From Mr.Ronaldo Arigatouuu!
Badman Nishioka/Japan/rainforest group/

Originally shared by Ronaldo Nobre

Royal flycatcher (Onychorhynchus coronatus coronatus) é encontrado em diversas regiões da Amazônia

Amazon has many big trees! I want to sleep on the roots of trees, Amazon! Bravo!

Amazon has many big trees! I want to sleep on the roots of trees, Amazon! Bravo!
Arigatouuu! Mr.Ronaldo Badman Nishioka/Japan

Originally shared by Ronaldo Nobre

Sumaúma, árvore típica da Floresta Amazônica

Many kinds of birds live in Amazon! Bravo! Mr.Ronaldo! Arigatouuu!

Many kinds of birds live in Amazon! Bravo! Mr.Ronaldo! Arigatouuu!
Badman Nishioka/Japan/rainforest group/

Originally shared by Ronaldo Nobre

Gavião-de-penacho (Spizaetus ornatus)

Beautiful birds from Mr. Ronaldo Nobre

Beautiful birds from Mr. Ronaldo Nobre
Badman Nishioka/Japan/rainforest group/!

Originally shared by Ronaldo Nobre

Periquitos

How a tornado forms?

How a tornado forms?
1.Thunderstorms form when warm, wet air rises and mixes with cool, dry air above.

2. Some storms get stronger because of wind shear, when winds at higher altitudes move faster and in a different direction than winds at lower altitudes. Wind shear makes the storm tilt and rotate.

3. If a storm is strong enough, more warm air gets swept up into the storm cloud. At the same time, falling cool air produces a small cloud called a wall cloud.

4. Inside the wall cloud, a funnel cloud forms and extends towards the ground. It causes air on the ground to rotate, and begin to rip up the earth.

5. When the funnel cloud meets the churning air near the ground, it becomes a tornado. When the updrafts lose energy, the tornado does too, and it slowly disappears.

How do scientists predict tornados?
http://www.amnh.org/explore/ology/earth/tornadoes-spinning-thunderstorms

See tornados in action in the exhibition, Nature’s Fury
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/nature-s-fury-the-science-of-natural-disasters

#science   #naturalphenomena   #AMNH   #tornado

Scientists have discovered a new variant of streptococcal bacteria that has contributed to a rise in disease cases...

Scientists have discovered a new variant of streptococcal bacteria that has contributed to a rise in disease cases in the UK over the last 17 years.

Group A streptococcus causes around 600 million infections per year worldwide. Severe infections can cause necrotising fasciitis, pneumonia, sepsis, or toxic shock, and around one in four people who suffer an invasive infection do not survive.

Researchers at Imperial College London and clinicians at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, together with colleagues at Public Health England, noticed a sharp rise in infections caused by one particular strain, called emm89, from 1998 to 2009. To investigate why, they sequenced the genomes of bacterial samples from patients.

The genetic sequences revealed a new subtype of emm89 streptococcus whose emergence coincided with the surge in cases.

Japan, Canada, France and Sweden have reported a surge in the same strain type, raising the possibility that the new variant is spreading globally.

Source and further reading:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-07/icl-sfn071515.php

Image:
streptococcus under the microscope

CREDIT
(Nicola N Lynskey, Imperial College London/David Goulding, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute)

#medicine   #research   #emm89   #strep

The tree lobster insect is a species of stick bug which was thought to have gone extinct around 1918 after black...

The tree lobster insect is a species of stick bug which was thought to have gone extinct around 1918 after black rats were introduced to the island on which they lived. After the last sighting occurred around 1920, the species was thought to have been wiped out.

In 2001, two Australian scientists that had been researching Ball’s Pyramid - a large sea stack off the coast of Australia that reaches higher than the Empire State Building - miraculously discovered twenty-four of the insects living atop the rock. On all sides, the rock face drops off vertically, making it nearly impossible for anything to survive - yet somehow, the insects did. The colony was found living around the only plant on the island, a shrub that had also somehow managed to survive despite the nearly inhospitable conditions.

Nobody knows how they got there in the first place because, astonishingly, tree lobster insects are incapable of flight. 

After their brush with death, four members of the species were flown to Australia, where they are being bred and have plans to be reintroduced to the island chains that they once lived on. Currently there are roughly 700 individuals and over 11,000 eggs being incubated in the Melbourne Zoo.

Article:
http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/02/24/147367644/six-legged-giant-finds-secret-hideaway-hides-for-80-years

#biodiversity   #treelobsterinsect   #coolinsects

Fly over Pluto

Fly over Pluto
It took 9.5 years to get this close, but you can now take a virtual flight over Pluto in this animation of image data from the New Horizons spacecraft. The Plutonian terrain unfolding 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers) below is identified as Norgay Montes, followed by Sputnik Planum.

The icy mountains, informally named for one of the first two Mount Everest climbers Tenzing Norgay, reach up to 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the surface. The frozen, young, craterless plains are informally named for the Earth's first artificial satellite. Sputnik Planum is north of Norgay Montes, within Pluto's expansive, bright, heart-shaped feature provisionally known as Tombaugh Regio for Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930.

Video credit:
NASA, Johns Hopkins Univ./APL, Southwest Research Inst.
Explanation via APOD

#nasa   #space   #Pluto   #newhorizons

The Gaussian Integral is a beautiful integral for which the area between the e^(-x^2) and the x-axis from negative...

The Gaussian Integral is a beautiful integral for which the area between the e^(-x^2) and the x-axis from negative infinity to positive infinity perfectly equals the square root of pi.

Know more:
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/GaussianIntegral.html

#mathematics   #science

Jagar! coming to here! Pantanal.Amazon!

Jagar! coming to here! Pantanal.Amazon!
Thaaaanks! Mr.Ronaldo
Badman Nishioka/Japan/rainforest action group/

Originally shared by Ronaldo Nobre

Onça pintada do Pantanal do Mato Grosso, Brasil