Daydream

jtotheizzoe: Sound in Space - The B-Sides - Voyager 1, The...

Fri, 24 May 2013 07:55:25 -0400

Sound in Space - The B-Sides - Voyager 1, The Symphony

It’s time for another Episode Extra! (which is where you special blog readers get to check out really cool stuff to go along with my YouTube videos, like special features on a DVD, only way more special-er)

In this latest episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart, we got to explore some musical and sonic art projects that were not only inspired by space, but created from space.

Voyager 1, the most distant manmade object ever created, a day anda half of light travel away from our sun, is approaching 18.5 billion kilometers from Earth as it makes its way out of our solar system. That’s a heck of a road trip. Like everyone knows, a good road trip needs good tunes, right?

Well, Domenico Vicinanza has converted actual magnetic field sensor data from Voyager 1 into music! Like yesterday’s goosebump-worthy choral suite written to the words of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, this one is a more creative take on space sonification.

There’s real data beneath these sounds, with a particular level on the magnetic field sensor set to a particular note, but the instruments and rhythms are modified by human hands. It’s a never-before-heard blend of sound inspired by space, and made from space.

Read more about Vicinenza’s Voyager music at Discover.

Music credit: Sonification run on the GEANT network through EGI

monaass: مقال مدني محظور أنا الآن في مُنتهى تهوري، ربما لن...

Fri, 24 May 2013 07:54:31 -0400

monaass:

مقال مدني محظور

أنا الآن في مُنتهى تهوري، ربما لن يمكنك بعد الأسطر التالية أن تقرأ أسطراً مني بهذا القدر من التهور،…

View Post

Experimenting with Oil Pastels

Thu, 23 May 2013 18:03:57 -0400

Experimenting with Oil Pastels

staceythinx: We do some pretty messed up things to this planet....

Thu, 23 May 2013 17:59:51 -0400

staceythinx:

We do some pretty messed up things to this planet. You can see a really interesting collection of those things, plus some impact craters, in io9 ‘s When Earth Is Scarred Forever.

jtotheizzoe: explore-blog: You go into it because there is...

Tue, 21 May 2013 17:54:50 -0400

jtotheizzoe:

explore-blog:

You go into it because there is something that, when you learn about that stuff, just gave you a little bit of a fever. And you wanna give that fever to somebody else.

How to make great radio – fantastic behind-the-sciences look at Radiolab, who have ushered in a new era of media at the intersection of science and storytelling.

Radiolab is free and supported by listeners, so help them keep making this magic happen with a donation.

Also see Ira Glass’s illustrated guide to great radio and Jad Abumrad on “gut churn” as the secret of creative success.

Great look at how it’s done. It’s like watching Da Vinci paint.

Support this fantastic show!

jtotheizzoe: Explosion on the Moon! Pock-marked with craters...

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:54:08 -0400

jtotheizzoe:

Explosion on the Moon!

Pock-marked with craters and splotched with long-cold beds of dark lava, our moon holds thousands of footprints from its violent past. But we don’t really think of it having a violent present.

Well, it still gets its fair share of action. On March 17, 2013, NASA astronomers captured video of a meteorite striking the moon. It made an explosion bright enough to be seen with the naked eye, like a temporary star drawn on the lunar surface. It turns out that these collisions are not that rare.

Most of the moon’s many meteor marks date from a period known as the Late Heavy Bombardment. That, combined with a magma-riffic adolescence gave the moon the special look we know today. Of course, none of that is as violent as the moon’s birth.

Anyway, make sure to watch that video above and see the meteor strike live. You’ll never look at the moon the same way again.

jtotheizzoe: The World as 100 People: Equally interesting and...

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:19:04 -0400

jtotheizzoe:

The World as 100 People: Equally interesting and shocking.

(via Visual.ly)

jtotheizzoe: Butterfly Stew What happens inside a pupa stays...

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:18:24 -0400

jtotheizzoe:

Butterfly Stew

What happens inside a pupa stays inside a pupa. Or it used to, anyway. Until recently, when special x-ray imagers were turned on a developing butterfly to elucidate its metamorphosis.

the process of caterpillar-to-butterfly is a messy one. An overfed worm not only has to convert a lot of the stored energy it gathered stuffing its face for a few weeks into new body parts, it does so by essentially dissolving much of its body and reforming. The pupa isn’t so much a dressing room for a beautiful diva as it is a bag to keep all the goopy globs of proto-butterfly from dripping on the ground. Sounds like both butterfly and human puberty involve a mess of bodily fluids and hiding in your room.

That’s what most biology books would have you believe anyway. This new work (written up in great detail by Ed Yong) demonstrates that while there’s still plenty of goop-globbing, quite a few structures remain intact, migrating and growing into adult forms in a more traditional way (like those blue circulation vessels). For the insect nerds in the bunch, this technique doesn’t revolutionize metamorphosis or anything, but it’s a view inside that most of us have never gotten.

And quite a view it is.

live2tripoli: A revolution isn’t exactly a spring. I wonder...

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:17:59 -0400

live2tripoli:

A revolution

isn’t exactly a spring. I wonder what they (who ever they are) were thinking when that term was coined. There is no experience of peace with the revolutions (in MENA). Although it (peace) becomes a means to the purpose of the revolutions, it carries no similitude to the mass physical and violent revolts we saw.

Unless, the term means a sudden jump. You know like a compressed coil once it’s let go… I don’t know. It’s got to be one of the worst naming experiences.

Enough about that. How about a fun fact? Did you know that Green is the most pleasing color to the eye! If you automatically think of Gaddafi then you’re just lame. A well established cameraman mentioned this to me. If you try to Google it you might get confused…so just trust me (or him) I guess. :)

nothing exciting (in the photos ^)….just things growing.

jtotheizzoe: What is Evolution? Excellent video from Stated...

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:17:11 -0400

jtotheizzoe:

What is Evolution?

Excellent video from Stated Clearly explaining just what evolution is … using great illustrations from Rosemary Mosco’s Bird and Moon comics.

This is a great video to share with friends/enemies/confused relatives that might have trouble accepting evolution and how simple it can be to understand.

I’d like to add one thing to this video. Single amoebas, pairs of parents and a few children are used in these evolution illustrations to simplify the concept of evolution, but it’s important to remember that evolution is something that happens to populations, not individuals. The changes within a generation are random. It’s only after those changes have been passed on for several generations that a survival advantage or disadvantage (followed by either more or less individuals carrying the trait) occurs. That’s where evolution happens, it’s not in the change itself. And sometimes even harmful traits can become frequent in a population, like we see in diseases that are prevalent among isolated ethnic groups.

Bonus: I’d also recommend Understanding Evolution’s “Common Misconceptions” FAQ for those who want to dig deeper.

ayamai: Orthodox Christians observe Good Friday celebrations in...

Mon, 06 May 2013 17:32:03 -0400

ayamai:

Orthodox Christians observe Good Friday celebrations in and around the famed monolithic rock-cut churches in Lalibela, Ethiopia on May 3.

shiknatnapishtim: Before you start reading,put down your...

Mon, 06 May 2013 17:31:48 -0400

shiknatnapishtim:

Before you start reading,
put down your pen:
consider the ink,
how it comprehends bleeding

Learn
from the distant horizon
and from narrowing eyes
the expansiveness of vision
and the treachery of hands

Do not blame me - do not blame anyone -
if you die before you read on
before blood is understood

Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi, Nothing

(via poetrytranslation)

jtotheizzoe: What happens to mercury when it is exposed to...

Mon, 06 May 2013 17:30:33 -0400

jtotheizzoe:

What happens to mercury when it is exposed to various sound frequencies? This does.

Nick Moore placed a blob of quicksilver in the path of various sound waves between 10 and 120 Hz and then pressed record. What you’re seeing here, in slow motion, are three-dimensional standing waves forming in the mercury. The higher the frequency, the more “nodes” that form.

Visit Mental Floss to see the equally awesome full-speed version.

Photo

Sun, 05 May 2013 17:04:53 -0400

"I’m not against religion in the sense that I feel I can’t tolerate it, but I think written into the..."

Sun, 05 May 2013 17:02:57 -0400

“I’m not against religion in the sense that I feel I can’t tolerate it, but I think written...

Spotted mountain

Sun, 05 May 2013 16:41:59 -0400

Spotted mountain

بين الخيول* نص: ربيرتو بولانيو قال الرجل في الفراش، حلمت بامرأة...

Sat, 04 May 2013 22:55:11 -0400

بين الخيول*

نص: ربيرتو بولانيو

قال الرجل في الفراش، حلمت بامرأة بلا فم. لم استطع مغالبة الابتسام. يدفع…

View Post

explore-blog: The history of typography, in a stop-motion...

Sat, 04 May 2013 17:30:49 -0400

explore-blog:

The history of typography, in a stop-motion animation made of 291 cut-paper letters and 2,454 photographs. Pair with a peek inside the sketchbooks of the world’s best type designers and 10 essential books on typography.

(↬ swissmiss)

jtotheizzoe: A “RoboBee” and a synthetic insect eye reported in...

Sat, 04 May 2013 17:30:29 -0400

jtotheizzoe:

A “RoboBee” and a synthetic insect eye reported in the same week? Sounds like a full-fledged man-made insect is just around the corner!

University of Illinois-UC researchers built a synthetic compound eye that, instead of focusing on the central field of view like our eyes, can discern depth and shape along its full scope. The resolution is only about that of a rather small ant, but there’s hope it could one day include as many facets as a bee or dragonfly eye. That research is reported in Nature.

And in this week’s Science, Harvard roboticists report the first controlled flight of a coin-size miniature aerial vehicle (MAV) based on the flight physics of insect wings. The construction is based on that used to make pop-up books, an odd advance in micro-building techniques that gave them the precision needed to get it off the ground. The wings aren’t as flexible or functional as real insect wings, but it’s the smallest piloted vehicle ever made. That research is reported in this week’s Science.

Now we just need to extend that compound eye camera’s sensitivity into the UV range, attach it to the RoboBee, and we’ll finally be able to see flowers like we imagined in this YouTube episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart (and maybe synthetically pollinate them!!)

I, for one, welcome our tiny, buzzing underlings.

ayamai: Women In Art 500 Years of Female Portraits in Western...

Sat, 04 May 2013 17:28:12 -0400

ayamai:

Women In Art

500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art

Music: Bach’s Sarabande from Suite for Solo Cello No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007 performed by Yo-Yo Ma