via Boing Boing by Rob Beschizza
Shocking footage, taken from a nearby aircraft, shows a jetliner spraying its appalling chemical payload into our skies.
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via Scholarly Kitchen by David Crotty
Beauty of Science is an educational effort from XinZhi Digital Media whose mission is to, “to inspire students to study STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)”. Their Envisioning Chemistry project takes advantage of state-of-the-art photographic and technological equipment to present visually compelling views of chemical reactions.
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via Boing Boing by Andrea James
Reporter Amos Chapple went on an expedition with Russians engaging in the illegal but lucrative “ethical ivory” trade: pulling long-buried mammoth tusks from the permafrost, often by illegally gouging out entire hillsides.
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via 3 Quarks Daily by Daniel Ranard
Sometimes it’s easier to understand abstract math with a story. When I explain bits of math to unsuspecting friends, I’m always happy by how quickly they follow. Even precise definitions and proofs are easy to learn with a little work. But for the uninitiated, eventually the words and symbols start to slip from the mind, the thread of logic lost in a haze.
That’s where a story can help. You don’t need plot or character development, just a loose narrative frame. Our brain is a logical powerhouse, but it’s used to dealing with people, not abstractions. By casting mathematical notions within a narrative about people with intentions, we’re more likely to remember them.
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via Big Think by Philip Perry
In the 1990s, astronomers discovered that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. Yet, the exact rate is unclear. We have two calculations that constantly keep coming up – but which is correct? Both, probably. One theory may hold the answer; it essentially describes the universe as a big block of Swiss cheese with the Milky Way lodged in one of its holes, and recent research has strengthened this theory. Now a new analysis shows that it can rectify the difference in measurements surrounding the Hubble Constant (the formula used to describe the rate at which the universe expands).
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via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder
Here’s a good video that describes the laws of thermodynamics in an intuitive way, and why perpetual motion machines won't work.
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via Big Think by Ana Sandoiu
In the 1930s, a group of scientists and philosophers set out to destroy metaphysics. The so-called Vienna Circle accused metaphysics of being made of “pseudo-statements,” that is, a string of words that looks like a statement at first glance, but turns out to be completely bogus after more careful scrutiny.
Yet almost 90 years after the Vienna Circle – and over 2,000 years after Aristotle wrote the Metaphysics – the field doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Some of its “pseudo-statements” may have been refuted by science in the meantime, but there are still many profoundly metaphysical questions that remain unanswered: What is consciousness? Do we have free will? Why is there good and evil? Until we’ve answered them, metaphysics can make a legitimate claim to the pantheon of human knowledge.
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via ResearchBuzz Firehose: Sophia Kramer, Assistant Book Conservator, Thomas J. Watson Library at The Metropolitan Museum
Previously repaired cover of Der Gart der Gesuntheit (Garden of Health) printed by Johann Grüninger. Strasbourg, ca. 1489 (44.7.21). This book had suede onlays wrapped around the head and tail, to stabilize the broken endcaps. (The early pen and ink doodling on the back cover traces several of the blind tooling impressions with a pen and ink.)
This magnificent 15th-century herbal, which has been in The Met collection for 73 years, was among the most damaged of the 186 books I treated thanks to the generous New York State Grant Program for Conservation and Preservation. This year's project focused on plant and garden books in the Department of Drawings and Prints. To make this book accessible to the public once again, while also maintaining the integrity of its history and functionality, I developed a customized treatment plan.
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via Interesting Literature
Previously we’ve offered ten of the most powerful poems about depression. Now, to complement that post, here are ten of the very best poems about being happy. Hurrah! If you’re after more classic poems about happiness, we recommend the wonderful anthology, Heaven on Earth: 101 Happy Poems, edited by Wendy Cope, which includes some of the poems listed below.
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via Boing Boing by Caroline Siede
TED-Ed explores the life (and death) of Marie Skłodowska Curie, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win one twice, and the only person to win one in two different sciences.
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