All sharks live in water, but some live in volcanoes!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/09/sharks-underwater-volcano_n_7761242.html

9/25/2015 10:07:40 PM

Latest Google project in development

http://aplus.com/a/google-soli-project-future-is-here

Mind, blown

9/27/2015 3:42:53 AM

Pretty interesting... natural lights that the vast majority of people don't know about!
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150928-ten-strange-lights-that-appear-in-the-sky

World's smallest snail discovered, under a mm long!
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150928-the-worlds-smallest-snail-discovered

Quote :

"The shells are so small, one can fit nicely inside the eye of a needle."

And there is a pic of a shell inside the eye of a needle in the link.

9/28/2015 11:12:39 PM

These would be appreciated here a lot more

The Scale of the Universe

Best video I have seen on that theme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxs5wye0JXs

Someone kindly embed

Here is another more detailed one which starts with lengths much more than a trillion times smaller, but I prefer the other video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al5iZ0Xk94o

10/2/2015 8:22:59 AM

Ever wondered about quicksand? How it works, and how to set yourself free?

Watch the first 3 videos:

https://m.curiosity.com/paths/i-didnt-know-that-can-you-survive-quicksand-national-geographic

10/5/2015 2:41:15 AM

The 17 Most Ridiculous Things on Earth

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150401-ridiculous-things-on-earth

Learn about cows that get high by feeding special weeds, animals with up to 750 legs, and more crazy nature stuff.

10/7/2015 1:09:31 AM

Fu**, we are ultimately doomed

Robot swarms: will they bomb us or save us?
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/video/2015/sep/18/robot-swarms-video

Awesome video!

10/7/2015 2:30:56 AM

^I just read SEVENEVES by Neal Stephenson, and a large portion of it hinges upon robot swarms. It was a really ingenious and optimistic take on them though.



Michael Pollan narrates some time lapse video of plants growing. He -- as he usually does -- makes the plants sympathetic and human. I'm thinking about playing the video for my students, first silent and then with his narration, to demonstrate how language colors perception

10/7/2015 2:32:14 PM

For the hardcore students of the origins of the universe, dark energy, gluons, and the like

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/neil-turok-explains-the-astonishing-simplicity-of-everything

10/15/2015 5:42:50 AM

^^how was that book? worth the 17 bucks amazon wants for the kindle edition?

10/15/2015 4:59:50 PM

I loved it. Like a lot of Stephenson, it falls apart in the third act, but there are some craaazy ideas built on current tech/understanding of orbital physics. $17 seems like a lot. You could probably find a used edition for cheaper...or check it out from your local library. Maybe check Google Play/iBooks/Nook store and price shop?

10/16/2015 11:39:53 AM

yeah it sounds like something that is right up my alley but i don't want to shell out that much for a book. i'll keep an eye out to see if i can find a cheaper version (unless someone has a copy i can borrow?)

10/16/2015 5:21:15 PM

http://www.medicaldaily.com/directing-magnetic-energy-brain-can-reduce-belief-god-prejudice-toward-immigrants-357194

Directing Magnetic Energy Into The Brain Can Reduce Belief In God, Prejudice Toward Immigrants

WTH???

Quote :

"It sounds like a joke — but a new study out of the University of York in the UK finds that directing magnetic energy into the brain can change a person’s beliefs in God, as well as reduce their prejudice against immigrants. Scientists from both the University of York and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) tinkered with participants’ brains using magnetic energy, hoping to see whether certain brain regions were linked to ideology — such as feelings about religion and nationalism."

10/20/2015 7:20:48 AM

^That's crazy. I'm sure conspiracy theorists will love that.

The physiology of the bone-breaking/flexing style of dance.

10/21/2015 9:17:45 AM

^^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXxhX0Pmm8w

10/21/2015 5:55:10 PM

https://youtu.be/u-fbBRAxJNk

http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2015/10/feature-bizarre-reactor-might-save-nuclear-fusion?utm_source=newsfromscience&utm_medium=facebook-text&utm_campaign=stellarator-474

10/22/2015 6:56:32 PM

Anybody know this experimental EM Drive engine for rockets? So first it was considered a joke, then scientists took it seriously, and apparently now NASA has confirmed it works, but no one still knows why.

If they can make it work for space flight, travel times will supposedly be reduced to 10-20% of current times.

Quote :

"Last summer WIRED revealed that Nasa's Eagleworks Lab was testing a copy of the EmDrive, a propulsion device frequently labelled as "impossible" because it appears to violate the law of conservation of momentum. Against all expectation they found it produced thrust. The response from the scientific community was dramatic, and generally sceptical -- but the "anomalous thrust" stubbornly refuses to disappear as more research zeroes in on it."

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-07/24/emdrive-space-drive-pluto-mission
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive
https://hacked.com/scientists-confirm-impossible-em-drive-propulsion

11/7/2015 6:09:18 AM

i would say that "Nasa confirmed it works" is more of a clickbait headline than actual facts on the ground. I'm a member of the NASA Spaceflight website and i've been keeping up with it... still a bunch of tinkering and trying to figure out what's going on. the amount of "thrust" produced so far has been minuscule (on the same order as measurement errors) and the amount of energy put into it multiple orders of magnitude higher than the resulting energy from the "thrust"

that being said i'm not saying it shouldn't be explored. if anything maybe we get some new understanding of the nature of the universe... one idea is that virtual particles that have been predicted are where the momentum is coming from... somehow the field is pushing against those, but again, this is just guesswork (not even to the level of a hypothesis yet)

edit: And no, i don't claim to understand all of the physics involved, but i've read that any potential thrust measured also is not any more significant than the pressure of photons that could be generated leaving the assembly.

[Edited on November 7, 2015 at 9:12 AM. Reason : ]

11/7/2015 9:04:52 AM

"Apollo" https://vimeo.com/146677336

Quote :

"Between the years of 1969 and 1972 the human race accomplished arguably the single greatest technological achievement of all time, when humans first set foot on another celestial body. This short film is a tribute to the NASA Apollo Program space missions which successfully landed 12 men on the Moon. It was created entirely from still images from the Project Apollo Archive, which has bought together scans of all the original unprocessed images taken by the crews of the Apollo 10 to 17 space missions."

12/4/2015 10:11:42 PM

2/23/2016 1:13:23 PM

I knew about the undersea lakes and rivers, but a lot of this is pretty cool. Also, the 52 hertz whale was in a Reddit thread about the saddest scientific facts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/52-hertz_whale

[Edited on April 4, 2016 at 2:06 PM. Reason : .]

4/4/2016 2:04:49 PM

^ awesome! and it led me to this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unexplained_sounds

4/5/2016 12:01:29 AM

OMG, best thing ever!

NASA: Space Agency Releases 2.95 Million Thermal Emission Images of Earth Over 16-Year Period
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-japan-make-aster-earth-data-available-at-no-cost

Quote :

"ASTER data cover 99 percent of Earth’s landmass and span from 83 degrees north latitude to 83 degrees south. A single downward-looking ASTER scene covers an area on the ground measuring about 37-by-37 miles (60-by-60-kilometers)."

Wow, really impressive!

Some great examples here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3523293/Volcanoes-wildfires-flooding-space-Nasa-releases-3-MILLION-amazing-shots-Earth-revealing-changing-landscape.html

Just a few from link above:

North Korean drought before-after (vegetation in red)



Idaho-Montana border area logging



Nicaraguan volcanic eruption



Rock intrusion -- called alkaline-ultrabasic massif -- full of rare minerals in Siberia


[Edited on April 6, 2016 at 3:38 AM. Reason : ]

4/6/2016 3:38:01 AM

NASA and NOAA have such cool photo feeds.

A channel y'all might enjoy is The Backyard Scientist. He does a lot of neat, "I wonder what will happen" type videos. He teamed up with someone Mark Rober for this one





[Edited on April 8, 2016 at 1:18 PM. Reason : attribution ]

4/8/2016 1:17:03 PM

Watch a beam of light from a flashlight move in slow motion with the trillion frames/second camera

https://curiosity.com/paths/super-fast-cameras-nova-pbs

8/17/2016 12:50:14 AM

Yes, finally!!!

FDA bans anti-bacterial soap.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/03/science/fda-bans-sale-of-many-antibacterial-soaps-saying-risks-outweigh-benefits.html

9/3/2016 9:54:34 PM

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/11/opinions/america-will-take-giant-leap-to-mars-barack-obama/index.html [warning: autoplay]

Quote :

"We have set a clear goal vital to the next chapter of America's story in space: sending humans to Mars by the 2030s and returning them safely to Earth, with the ultimate ambition to one day remain there for an extended time. Getting to Mars will require continued cooperation between government and private innovators, and we're already well on our way. Within the next two years, private companies will for the first time send astronauts to the International Space Station. - President Obama"

10/12/2016 11:26:25 AM

I'll get excited about that when they allocate real money towards the goal. The Apollo program cost something like one trillion dollars over ten years. Mars will surely cost more.

10/12/2016 11:38:44 AM

That won't happen in 100 yrs.

Human beings took 500 years to create the new world on a new continent.

So I guess it will take them 500*10 yrs to build a new PLANET!

10/12/2016 11:39:50 AM

Again, this is totally a waste of time and money! A trillion dollar allocating to NASA?? A trillion dollar can rebuild US already.
This dream may come true in 3000 AC.

[Edited on October 12, 2016 at 12:43 PM. Reason : ;]

10/12/2016 12:43:30 PM

Quote :

"Yes, finally!!! FDA bans anti-bacterial soap."

whoot


also "wearable robot glove" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUUM_DUIU8c

[Edited on November 7, 2016 at 11:44 AM. Reason : .]

11/7/2016 11:43:42 AM

By removing the protein galectin-3 (Gal3), a team of investigators led by University of California School of Medicine researchers were able to reverse diabetic insulin resistance and glucose intolerance in mouse models of obesity and diabetes.

By binding to insulin receptors on cells, Gal3 prevents insulin from attaching to the receptors resulting in cellular insulin resistance. The team led by Jerrold Olefsky, MD, professor of medicine in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at UC San Diego School of Medicine, showed that by genetically removing Gal3 or using pharmaceutical inhibitors to target it, insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance could be returned to normal, even among older mice. However, obesity remained unchanged.

"This study puts Gal3 on the map for insulin resistance and diabetes in mouse model," said Olefsky, associate dean for scientific affairs and senior author of the study. "Our findings suggest that Gal3 inhibition in people could be an effective anti-diabetic approach."

Olefsky and other researchers have been studying how chronic tissue inflammation leads to insulin resistance in type 2 diabetes. In the paper, published in the journal Cell on November 3, researchers explain that inflammation requires macrophages -- specialized cells that destroy targeted cells. In obese adipose tissue (fat), for example, 40 percent of cells are macrophages. Macrophages in turn secrete Gal3, which then acts as a signaling protein attracting more macrophages, thus resulting in the production of even more Gal3.

Furthermore, investigators identified bone marrow-derived macrophages as the source of Gal3 that leads to insulin resistance. More importantly, researchers found that Gal3 is secreted by macrophages, and can then cause insulin resistance in liver, fat cells, and muscle cells independent of inflammation.

Gal3 has previously been connected to other diseases. Olefsky will continue to study Gal3 depletion as a possible therapeutic target for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis as well as heart and liver fibrosis.

Study co-authors include: Pingping Li, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College and UC San Diego; Shuainan Liu, Zhufang Shen, Bing Cui, Lijuan Kong, Shaocong Hou, Xiao Liang, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College; Min Lu, UC San Diego, and Merck Research Laboratories; Gautum Bandyyopadhyay, Dayoung Oh, Andrew M. Johnson, Dorothy Sears, Wei Ying, Olivia Osborn, Joshua Wollam, UC San Diego; Takeshi Imamura, Shiga University of Medical Science; Salvatore Iovino, Martin Brenner, Merck Research Laboratories; Steven M. Watkins, Lipomics Technologies, Inc.

This research was funded, in part, by grants from the National Institutes of Health (DK033651, DK074868, DK063491, DK09062) and Merck (LKR159915).

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of California San Diego Health Sciences. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:

Pingping Li, Shuainan Liu, Min Lu, Gautum Bandyopadhyay, Dayoung Oh, Takeshi Imamura, Andrew M.F. Johnson, Dorothy Sears, Zhufang Shen, Bing Cui, Lijuan Kong, Shaocong Hou, Xiao Liang, Salvatore Iovino, Steven M. Watkins, Wei Ying, Olivia Osborn, Joshua Wollam, Martin Brenner, Jerrold M. Olefsky. Hematopoietic-Derived Galectin-3 Causes Cellular and Systemic Insulin Resistance. Cell, 2016; 167 (4): 973 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2016.10.025

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161103143403.htm#.WCC2e_tC7c0.facebook

11/7/2016 2:46:31 PM

^ That's great, but I am afraid if it is somehow made into a cure one day, it will make people think they can continue eating like shit because they won't get diabetes anymore!

Diabetes can be easily reversed using diet in a matter of weeks by eating a diet of only whole plant foods, but people always want a silver bullet while continuing to eat crap.

***************************************************

http://www.livescience.com/57536-zebra-shark-has-virgin-births.html

Zabra shark gives virgin birth!

1/18/2017 5:30:00 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohmajJTcpNk

1/18/2017 9:15:19 PM

^cant wait for the new bruce lee and john wayne movies

1/18/2017 9:46:39 PM

Bees are way smarter than we thought!

https://www.facebook.com/nytimes/videos/1891307757753404

Wow!

7/22/2017 6:02:51 AM

Many people have heard of quasars and pulsars, but BLAZARS and MAGNETARS?

Introducing The Universe's Most Epic Object: The Blazar
https://curiosity.com/topics/introducing-the-universes-most-epic-object-the-blazar-curiosity

Meet the Magnetar: The Strongest Known Magnet in the Universe
https://curiosity.com/topics/meet-the-magnetar-the-strongest-known-magnet-in-the-universe-curiosity

1,000 trillion times the magnetic field of the earth!

Quote :

"In fact, a magnetar's magnetic field is so powerful that even coming within 600 miles of one would destroy your nervous system and change your molecular structure. Just a little bit closer and the gravitational force would literally tear you apart—starting at the atomic level."

More on magnetars: https://www.space.com/30263-paul-sutter-on-why-magnetars-are-scary.html


Those Curiosity pages have great 5-10 min educational videos on the topics discussed on a given page, and are suitable for children as well who have a strong interest in space.

Best of all, the Curiosity webpages are the type which when you scroll to the bottom, they scroll continuously into a new equally awesome article (and the URL changes automatically) which also has great videos! Keep scrolling and the articles keep appearing.

7/23/2017 12:07:36 AM

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jul/25/sperm-counts-among-western-men-have-halved-in-last-40-years-study

My speculation is because of increasingly worse average health. And that's down to various causes: worsening diet, being sedentary, various pollutants in earth, air, and water, maybe even EM waves from all the towers and gadgets.

7/26/2017 6:24:25 AM

Water balloons bouncing off a bed of nails



https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/23/science/pancake-bounce-water-balloons-bed-nails.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpsnxFhEgTI

10/5/2017 11:10:23 AM

Dat pancake bounce. . .

10/7/2017 5:48:05 PM

I am my own twin (a chimera)

https://mic.com/articles/186774/meet-taylor-muhl-a-model-with-a-rare-genetic-condition-dividing-her-body-into-two-skin-tones

12/15/2017 1:54:05 AM

A

12/15/2017 12:40:13 PM

Chimeras are weird

12/15/2017 1:34:17 PM

Some progress being made on the Voynich manuscript with the help of AI

https://gizmodo.com/artificial-intelligence-may-have-cracked-freaky-600-yea-1822519232

1/29/2018 9:26:58 PM

From 2015 but this is awesome.

Fetuses grimace when their stupid expectant mothers smoke

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/4d-ultrasound-study-shows-harmful-effects-of-smoking-on-unborn-babies-10128345.html

2/3/2018 5:36:11 PM

this is amazing and unsettling

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+KajSotala/posts/ZhPZ4KKvs87

Quote :

"Algorithm that increases the resolution of images, synthesizing additional details as needed based on its understanding of what e.g. human faces should look like. Left is an 8x8 input, middle is the enhanced 32x32 version, right is what the 8x8 input originally looked like at 32x32 size. To clarify, the algorithm isn't really "reconstructing" the original 32x32 image: there isn't enough information available for that. The algorithm is more like an artist that's given a sketch to use for inspiration, and then fills in the details using their imagination and sense of what would look good."

[Edited on April 30, 2018 at 10:04 AM. Reason : ]

4/30/2018 10:03:35 AM

That doesn't seem much difference than nVidia's ML tool, trained on celebrities, that creates new faces from scratch.

4/30/2018 11:41:49 AM

i do not know of the tool you speak of, but this is trying to get at/guess an existing face.

so if there is blurry pics/footage of criminals, this can guess what they look like so they can be easier to find.

(or so you can call your hitman if you are a crime boss)

4/30/2018 11:59:48 AM

The reconstructions in your link don't look anything like the truth images. They're just making a face that's in the ball park.

Here's the nVidia paper: http://research.nvidia.com/publication/2017-10_Progressive-Growing-of

4/30/2018 3:55:30 PM

closer than I would've done. i thought those were all blurred out vaginas from japanese pr0n.

4/30/2018 5:16:30 PM