WikiLeaks. Thanks Dali!
Exploring Space
The BBC has created a monster infographic illustrating “every attempt to leave Earth’s orbit and reach a destination in extraterrestrial space – be it with probes, orbiters, rovers, or of course manned missions.”
The graphic shows successful and failed missions, country of launch origin and type of mission (eg., fly-by, rover, actual landing).
Related: How Big is Space?
Image: Screenshot, detail from Spacial Awareness: Ultimate guide to exploring space, via the BBC. Select to embiggen.
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(Reblogged from brooklynmutt)
Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.
Sunflowers Do the Math
The spiraling shapes in cauliflower, artichoke, and sunflower florets (above) share a remarkable feature: The numbers of clockwise and counterclockwise spirals are consecutive Fibonacci numbers—the sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, and so on, so that each number is the sum of the last two. What’s more, those spirals pack florets as tight as can be, maximizing their ability to gather sunlight for the plant. But how do plants like sunflowers create such perfect floret arrangements, and what does it have to do with Fibonacci numbers? A plant hormone called auxin, which spurs the growth of leaves, flowers, and other plant organs, is the key: Florets grow where auxin flows. Using a mathematical model that describes how auxin and certain proteins interact to transport each other around inside plants, researchers could predict where the hormone would accumulate. Simulations of that model reproduced patterns exactly matching real “Fibonacci spirals” in sunflowers, the team reports this month in Physical Review Letters. Based on their results, the researchers suggest that such patterns might be more universal in nature than previously thought, so keep an eye out: Fibonacci numbers might be spiraling in every direction.
| image source
via rorschachx, from science-junkie
Refugee numbers 'highest since 1994'
(UNHCR) says that Syria is “a major new factor” driving up refugee numbers.
The report say 55% of all refugees come from five countries: Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Sudan and Syria.
It also found that developing countries now hosted 81% of the world’s refugees, 11% more than a decade ago.
Test Number Three.
Necropolis will launch at the end of August as an ongoing weekly webcomic. Stay tuned!
Oh wow. I am pretty much in love with this.
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(Reblogged from seananmcguire)
I adore the way fan fiction writers engage with and critique source texts, by manipulating them and breaking their rules. Some of it is straight-up homage, but a lot of [fan fiction] is really aggressive towards the source text. One tends to think of it as written by total fanboys and fangirls as a kind of worshipful act, but a lot of times you’ll read these stories and it’ll be like ‘What if Star Trek had an openly gay character on the bridge?’ And of course the point is that they don’t, and they wouldn’t, because they don’t have the balls, or they are beholden to their advertisers, or whatever. There’s a powerful critique, almost punk-like anger, being expressed there—which I find fascinating and interesting and cool.
Lev Grossman (via theadventuresofcargline)
This is very true - I’ve seen innumerable fanfics of people saying, “I could do this better than they did.”
And quite frequently, they do.
(via lil-miss-choc)
(Source: hp2012.org)
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(Reblogged from motherjones)
There’s no question in my mind…that a baby at 20 weeks after conception can feel pain…I thought the date was far too late…Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful. They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. They feel pleasure. Why is it so hard to think that they could feel pain?
“Republican Congressman Opposes Abortion Partly Because Male Fetuses Play With Their Genitals” (via motherjones)
What the what?
Did you mean?
“It is mind that deludes mind, for there is no other mind. O mind, do not let yourself be misled by mind.”
