natural light

howstuffworks: colchrishadfield: Today’s photo is from the...

Sun, 19 May 2013 12:18:09 +0200

colchrishadfield:

Today’s photo is from the Mongolian highlands. Surreal to see a frozen lake surrounded by sand dunes.

Scrolling through my dash, I was positive this was an image from a scanning electron microscope until I read the caption.

neurosciencestuff: Bilingual babies know their grammar by 7...

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 22:28:12 +0100

neurosciencestuff:

Bilingual babies know their grammar by 7 months

Babies as young as seven months can distinguish between, and begin to learn, two languages with vastly different grammatical structures, according to new research from the University of British Columbia and Université Paris Descartes.

Published today in the journal Nature Communications and presented at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston, the study shows that infants in bilingual environments use pitch and duration cues to discriminate between languages – such as English and Japanese – with opposite word orders.

In English, a function word comes before a content word (the dog, his hat, with friends, for example) and the duration of the content word is longer, while in Japanese or Hindi, the order is reversed, and the pitch of the content word higher.

“By as early as seven months, babies are sensitive to these differences and use these as cues to tell the languages apart,” says UBC psychologist Janet Werker, co-author of the study.

Previous research by Werker and Judit Gervain, a linguist at the Université Paris Descartes and co-author of the new study, showed that babies use frequency of words in speech to discern their significance.

“For example, in English the words ‘the’ and ‘with’ come up a lot more frequently than other words – they’re essentially learning by counting,” says Gervain. “But babies growing up bilingual need more than that, so they develop new strategies that monolingual babies don’t necessarily need to use.”

“If you speak two languages at home, don’t be afraid, it’s not a zero-sum game,” says Werker. “Your baby is very equipped to keep these languages separate and they do so in remarkable ways.”

futurist-foresight: More on the Russian discovery in...

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 14:48:49 +0100

futurist-foresight:

More on the Russian discovery in Antarctica.

bylinebeat:

Unidentified Life Form Found in Antarctic Lake

It looks like drilling through 2.3 miles of ice may have paid off: The Russian scientists who did just that last year at Antarctica’s Lake Vostok say the samples they recovered contain an “unclassified and unidentified” life form, reports the BBC.The bacteria’s DNA measured less than 86% similar to that of previously existing life forms—which the team’s leader explains is “basically zero” when it comes to DNA. “A level of 90% usually means that the organism is unknown.” “If this had been found on Mars everyone would have undoubtedly said there is life on Mars,” continued the scientist, who says fresh samples will be retrieved from the subglacial lake in May. “But this is bacteria from Earth.” Lake Vostok is so oxygen-rich—about 50 times more so than freshwater lakes—that any microbes living in it must have evolved special adaptations to survive there, notes the Daily Galaxy.

Photo Credit: (Reuters)

sciencesoup: Relatively Simple: Explaining the Theory of...

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 22:56:02 +0100

sciencesoup:

Relatively Simple: Explaining the Theory of General Relativity

Published in 1916, Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity is one of the towering accomplishments of 20th-century physics, completely changing our picture of the universe. While formulating his theory of special relativity, Einstein found that space and time are one and the same thing—they’re woven together into a single fabric called space-time. Everything that happens in the universe affects space-time, and space-time affects everything in the universe. Matter is embedded within this fabric, and so it warps, bends and distorts the space-time. Imagine setting a basketball on a trampoline—its mass will make a dent in the springy sheet. If you then rolled a marble around the basketball, the dent would cause the marble to spiral inwards towards the larger ball, much the same way as the gravity of the sun pulls at the Earth—like the basketball, the sun curves and warps the space around it. Newton postulates that smaller masses travel towards larger ones because of a force of attraction between them, but Einstein theorises that actually, massive objects cause a distortion in space-time, which is felt as gravitational influence. It’s a cool thought—that matter makes space-time stretch and warp, forming mountains and valleys that create ‘paths’ for objects to move through. The planets travelling around the sun are simply following the curvature of space-time. As theoretical physicist John Archibald Wheeler said, “Matter tells space-time how to curve, and curved space tells matter how to move.” Although we can’t actually see or measure space-time, it’s been confirmed by observing phenomena like gravitation lensing, which is the way light bends around massive objects such as black holes because of the warped space-time around them. Newton wasn’t wrong—matter is the source of gravity, and his equations still hold up most of the time—Einstein just delved further into how and why gravity exists.

(Image Credit: Wonders of the Universe)

Photo

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 22:52:03 +0100

springwise: Peel-and-stick solar panels can be integrated into...

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:53:52 +0100

springwise:

Peel-and-stick solar panels can be integrated into everyday objects

Capturing solar energy efficiently and inconspicuously is something that the Solaroad cycle path has attempted in the Netherlands. Now scientists at Stanford University have developed peel-and-stick solar panels, which can be attached to any surface. READ MORE…

Passion quotient

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 02:19:34 +0100

Passion quotient:

Hmm

ilovecharts: All The Facebook Shortcuts You Will Ever Need

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 00:28:29 +0100

ilovecharts:

All The Facebook Shortcuts You Will Ever Need

John Dorian

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 00:35:26 +0100

I haven’t been watching any Scrubs lately but I’m sounding pretty JD in my head…

“I couldn’t help but think how everyone has limitations, whether they realise it or not. And I think it’s important we realise who we are and where we come from…”

Photo

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 02:03:29 +0100

Sometimes you’ve just got to dig in and do it yourself. You always feel better afterwards...

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 01:23:10 +0100

Sometimes you’ve just got to dig in and do it yourself. You always feel better afterwards because you know you’ve done it, even if no one was there to share it with you. 5km run done!

ayuland: untitled by athena113 on Flickr. Rainbow Eucalyptus...

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 09:29:21 +0100

ayuland:

untitled by athena113 on Flickr.

Rainbow Eucalyptus trees

coloresdely: Rainbow Eucalyptus

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 09:29:20 +0100

coloresdely:

Rainbow Eucalyptus

Respect, KPB.

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 10:30:18 +0100

Respect, KPB.

expose-the-light: Swirling Liquids by Janet Waters

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 03:50:06 +0100

expose-the-light:

Swirling Liquids by Janet Waters

blamoscience: If you approached the rim of a volcano and looked...

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 21:14:28 +0100

blamoscience:

If you approached the rim of a volcano and looked down into it, you might expect to see a lava pool, but if the volcano previously erupted and then the top of it collapsed into a huge bowl-shaped crater, or caldera, then what you might see when you peer over the rim is a beautiful crater lake. Sometimes the water is acidic and the lake has a bright greenish hue. Other times the water is a cloudy turquoise color, yet other times the lake may appear to be a very deep shade of blue. Crater Lake, Oregon, is one of the most well known, but crater lakes can be found all over the globe. If the volcano has been dormant for a long time, the water can be extremely clear because no river or streams flow into with sediment deposits. In some cases, water may have filled up an impact crater to form a lake, but this is less common. A few crater lakes were created by man via an atomic blast, but an artificially-created crater lake is the least common of all. All crater lakes were once a place where the earth experienced great violence, but now are a place of great beauty … even though the volcano can become active and violent again.

See the full gallery here!

allthingseurope: Ciudad Encantada, Cuenca, Spain (by Chairego)

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 09:44:23 +0100

allthingseurope:

Ciudad Encantada, Cuenca, Spain (by Chairego)

we-are-star-stuff: Can humans journey into deep space without...

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 11:08:54 +0100

we-are-star-stuff:

Can humans journey into deep space without cosmic radiation frying our brains?

Beyond a few brief trips to the Moon over four decades ago, humanity has never ventured outside of Earth’s protective magnetic field. And while it’s natural to dream of exploring the stars, such voyages may carry impossibly high medical risks.

That’s the finding of researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center, who have undertaken the latest study examining how prolonged time spent in deep space could affect human astronauts. The big issue is radiation - without the planet’s magnetic field to act as a shield, astronauts in deep space would be exposed both to the fierce energies of solar flares and the persistent hum of what’s known as galactic cosmic radiation.

Now, solar flares can be dealt with - we might have to ground our deep space flights for a couple decades when they get really intense, but that’s not the end of the world - but it’s the other, more subtle radiation that is harder to overcome. Prolonged exposure to cosmic radiation has previously been linked to increased cancer risk, cardiovascular problems, and musculoskeletal issues.

But the Rochester study points to perhaps the greatest danger of such prolonged exposure: the degeneration of the brain itself. Using the particle accelerators at NASA’s Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, mice were exposed to levels of radiation that proportionally matched what humans could expect to encounter on a three-year round trip to Mars. The mice were then given a series of memory tests to track how their brains held up in the wake of such exposure.

The results weren’t good. Those exposed to the radiation were significantly more likely than the unexposed control group to fail tests that depended on their ability to recall objects and locations. Worse, these mice’s brains showed clear buildup of the protein beta amyloid - which, in both mice and humans, is one of the clearest hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. The study suggests the exposed mice developed Alzheimer’s in far greater numbers than would be expected, and much earlier in life as well.

Researcher M. Kerry O’Banion doesn’t mince words in saying what this means for future astronauts:

“Galactic cosmic radiation poses a significant threat to future astronauts. The possibility that radiation exposure in space may give rise to health problems such as cancer has long been recognized. However, this study shows for the first time that exposure to radiation levels equivalent to a mission to Mars could produce cognitive problems and speed up changes in the brain that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease… These findings clearly suggest that exposure to radiation in space has the potential to accelerate the development of Alzheimer’s disease. This is yet another factor that NASA, which is clearly concerned about the health risks to its astronauts, will need to take into account as it plans future missions.”

But why wouldn’t it be possible to shield astronauts from the harmful radiation? The challenge is that we’re dealing with high-mass, high-velocity particles generated in the crucible of supernovas. Unlikely the stray hydrogen protons produced by our Sun’s solar flares, these particles are so powerful that they can penetrate any standard shielding. Dr. O’Banion and his team used iron particles, and he provides a sense of just how far we would have to go just to give astronauts a half-decent shot of surviving a deep space mission without long-term cognitive problems:

“Because iron particles pack a bigger wallop it is extremely difficult from an engineering perspective to effectively shield against them. One would have to essentially wrap a spacecraft in a six-foot block of lead or concrete.”

Admittedly, in the weightlessness of space, that amount of shielding wouldn’t really preclude the effective functioning of a spaceship, but it would almost certainly mean we couldn’t launch such a craft from Earth. If these neurological risks really are this severe, we might be committed to assembling such heavily-shielded craft in Earth’s orbit - itself a huge engineering task that’s probably at least a couple decades away from being doable.

Indeed, it’s also possible that our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease and various cancers could progress to the point that we would be able to effectively manage or perhaps even cure astronauts’ later medical problems. But if these studies suggest anything, it’s that our next giant leaps into space (including planned missions to an asteroid in 2021 and Mars in 2035) will require several orders of magnitude more knowhow than our trips to the Moon, and not just in terms of spaceship-building. Otherwise, astronauts will be forced to face their greatest tests and make their biggest sacrifices long after they return from Mars.

You can check out the entire original paper over at PLoS ONE.

earthlynation: solitude (source)

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 03:44:46 +0100

earthlynation:

solitude (source)

Photo

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 07:08:42 +0100