CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-06-19 16:46:03 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

Step-by-step guide to Carribean-style cicada BBQ. Want a beer with those bugs? The chef recommends Allagash White. 

2013-06-19 15:48:23 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 4 +1s)

It's a greener world today—NOAA launches Green Marble, a stunning visualization of vegetation on Earth.

View and download the globe, maps and close-ups here: http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/green.php

#NOAAGreen

Image: NASA/NOAA

2013-06-19 14:34:07 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

NASA's Cassini spacecraft, now exploring Saturn, will take a picture of our home planet from a distance of hundreds of millions of miles on July 19.

More here: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-204 

This simulated view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows the expected positions of Saturn and Earth on July 19, 2013, around the time Cassini will take Earth's picture. Cassini will be about 898 million miles (1.44 billion kilometers) away from Earth at the time. That distance is nearly 10 times the distance from the sun to Earth. 

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

2013-06-19 01:31:07 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Stunning photo of an owl inhabitant of The Avian Reconditioning Center for Birds of Prey in Apopka, Florida, blind in one eye from an infection she suffered as a nestling.

2013-06-18 18:51:01 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 7 +1s)

Cat-sized "cheetah cub" robot—modeled after feline morphology and built for speed.

2013-06-18 18:42:21 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

In a tiny, soundproof press box in the Gitmo courtroom, artist Molly Crabapple sketches Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's pre-trial hearings.

More here: http://www.vice.com/read/molly-crabapple-sent-us-sketches-from-khalid-sheikh-mohammeds-trial-at-gitmo

About the image below: "for security reasons, we can’t draw the faces of soldiers guarding the GTMO war court."

Additional sketches, photos, and writing from Gitmo at her Tumblr: http://mollycrabapple.tumblr.com/

2013-06-18 17:30:03 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

A team of scientists in Botswana found that the banded mongoose—a common scavenger in populated areas—carries a pathogen that can be fatal to humans. This study highlights the importance of identifying diseases in wild species that share habitats with humans.

Zoonoses and Public Health: Leptospira interrogans at the Human--Wildlife Interface in Northern Botswana: A Newly Identified Public Health Threat
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/zph.12052/abstract

The Alexander Research Group
http://fishwild.vt.edu/faculty/alexander/Alexander_Lab/lab.html

2013-06-18 16:30:34 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Located in the crater Eminescu, this high-resolution image shows part of the mountainous peak ring, as well as an example of the extensive formation of hollows located within the crater. Hollows maintain an air of mystery in the realm of planetary science.

Though the exact formation mechanism is unknown, most scientists agree sublimation of volatiles holds the answer. This image highlights the prevalence of these hollows on and around the peak ring, as well as captures the beauty of such enigmatic formations.

More here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/9066653331/

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

2013-06-18 12:55:59 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

Tiny museum in a New York alley freight elevator shaft holds 200 objects, gathered by collectors curating oddball bits of everyday life. 

2013-06-17 20:01:11 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

From the creator of the Music Animation Machine, an animated graphical score of Stravinsky's 'The Rite of Spring'. 

2013-06-17 15:32:18 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 6 +1s)

SOLAR / ANECHOIC is a solo exhibition by Copenhagen-based British photographer Alastair Philip Wiper that explores the visually mesmerizing architecture of science and research facilities.

More here: http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/alastair-philip-wiper-solar-anechoic/

Image: Section of the Radio Anechoic Chamber, Denmark (Alastair Philip Wiper)

2013-06-17 15:02:07 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Herschel Space Telescope's mission officially ended on April 29, 2013, but mission control sent Herschel its final command today at 12:25 GMT. The spacecraft spent its last remaining fuel reserves in a final thruster burn, settling into a safe disposal orbit around the sun.

More on the testing conducted during Herschel's final months: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Operations/Final_command_Herschel_ends_operations_as_orbiting_testbed

Image: ESA’s Herschel space observatory set against a background image of the Vela C star-forming region. (ESA/PACS & SPIRE Consortia, T. Hill, F. Motte, Laboratoire AIM Paris-Saclay, CEA/IRFU – CNRS/INSU – Uni. Paris Diderot, HOBYS Key Programme Consortium)

2013-06-17 14:03:33 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Found a chalked haiku outside the subway this morning:

Crowded and dirty
Necessary to get home
Hope I get there soon. 

2013-06-17 00:18:51 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Moonwalking in class as an 'Intro to Astronomy' teaching tool? It worked for +Neil deGrasse Tyson. 

2013-06-14 21:02:55 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Leave it to WTF Evolution? to put such a gleeful spin on functional necrophilia.

2013-06-14 18:31:14 (0 comments, 3 reshares, 8 +1s)

"It is that moment when an idea, an amazing beautiful revolutionary idea becomes reality. It is seeing atoms for the first time." 

This is just one of many responses scientists tweeted to +Maggie Koerth-Baker's query "What makes science beautiful?" A Storify of the Twitter conversation is here: http://storify.com/maggiekb1/what-makes-science-beautiful

Beauty in science takes many forms—this is one of them. Tail neurons in a slipper lobster, imaged by invertebrate neuroethologist +Zen Faulkes. http://neurodojo.blogspot.com/2013/04/tuesday-crustie-clarity.html

2013-06-14 14:23:51 (3 comments, 2 reshares, 10 +1s)

Fifteen trilobites now on display at the +American Museum of Natural History look ready to crawl right off the matrix and into your nightmares.

More here: http://www.amnh.org/explore/news-blogs/on-exhibit-posts/ancient-trilobite-fossils-on-display

Photo ©AMNH/R. Mickens

2013-06-13 20:04:53 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

A chance meeting in Antarctica between a scientist and a poet inspires poetry about science. 

2013-06-13 17:56:33 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Our latest Astro News travels to the nearby Hyades star cluster, where a pair of dead stars is surrounded by dust particles that resemble the building blocks of rocky planets. These particles allow astronomers to study the chemical makeup of planetary building material, and suggest that planet formation may take place even around burnt-out or failed stars. 

2013-06-12 13:25:54 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

This illustration of the 50 state birds in the US demonstrates the quantity of visual information you can cram into simple shapes and minimal embellishment.

HT +Rafael Maia

2013-06-11 23:56:16 (0 comments, 7 reshares, 8 +1s)

5 months. 11 deaths. Shooters' age range: 3–6 years.

At least 10 more toddlers have shot and injured themselves or someone else. In three cases, the shooter was only 2 years old.

2013-06-11 23:49:05 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

Writer +Chuck Wendig has a whole passel of simply marvelous responses to asshats who whine about how UNFAIR it is when anyone points out evidence of sexism and misogyny. 

Here's one of my favorites—his comeback to a timeworn 'reason' why women don't work as lead characters:

“BUT IT DOESN’T SERVE THE STORY!”

Worst excuse ever.

I hate this excuse. I hate it like I hate the DMV, hemorrhoids, airline travel delays, and bad coffee. I hate it because it suggests that writers are not in control of their own stories, that they are merely conduits for some kind of divine unicorn breath, some heady Musefart that they can’t help but gassily breathe onto the page. I AM VESSEL. STORY IS LOA.

I hate it because it absolves you of ever having to change anything — whether that means changing a character’s race or sex or even just makingedits to improv... more »

2013-06-11 22:10:45 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

NASA-JPL's Dan Goods practices data alchemy, converting scientific information to images and installations. 

2013-06-11 15:39:16 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Lost to history—Yusra, the Palestinian woman and digsite foreperson who discovered a Neanderthal skull near Mount Carmel in the early 1930's. 

Views of the skull are featured on the eFossils website. The find is credited to Dorothy Garrod, who led the dig. http://www.efossils.org/page/boneviewer/Homo%20neanderthalensis/Tabun%20I

2013-06-10 17:55:01 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

From the barrel of a spray paint can—the Turkish revolution in graffiti. Photos: Mirgun Akyavas for +Dangerous Minds. 

2013-06-10 16:19:31 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

The CLARITY process is pretty dang awesome—we covered it for the Human Bulletin at AMNH: Science Bulletins: CLARITY Clears the Path to a See-Through Brain

And that view below is just one of the videos Deisseroth Lab released! There's a bunch more here: http://clarityresourcecenter.com/clarity_movies.html

2013-06-10 16:06:28 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Sonar detects a long-buried stone structure in the Sea of Galilea resembling burial sites in Bronze Age Europe. 

2013-06-10 03:07:28 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

It's transparent. Regenerates. Fuels groundbreaking research. It's a zebrafish—and it may end up saving your life. 

2013-06-10 02:35:11 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Could carefully-managed grazing reindeer geo-engineer a landscape?

A Finnish study finds that reindeer's grazing on dark-colored vegetation minimizes solar heat absorption, potentially delaying seasonal warming.

2013-06-09 17:05:36 (1 comments, 15 reshares, 14 +1s)

The "Chewbacca" bat, a cave-dwelling frog, bombardier beetles that unleash explosive farts as a defense mechanism, and a diminutive elephant shrew were among hundreds of species documented during a one-month survey of a park that was ravaged during Mozambique's 17-year civil war.

Read more at http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0604-gorongosa-cheringoma-discoveries.html#xWy3WwS81IlZSIPy.99

Photo of "Chewbacca bat" © 2013 Piotr Naskrecki

2013-06-09 16:30:03 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 4 +1s)

The early summer months of 2013 welcome 17-year Brood II cicadas to the eastern and mid-Atlantic United States. These periodical cousins of annual cicadas emerge after living underground for nearly two decades, an unusual but effective survival strategy.

2013-06-07 21:47:22 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Looking Along a Filament

NASA’s SDO spacecraft peered down the length of a long solar filament as it rotated over the Sun’s edge June 3 (at 3:00 UT) to June 4, 2013 (at 17:00 UT).  The filament’s darker, cooler plasma appeared to have a number of support struts below it as it snaked its way above the surface.  In the background, bright coils of magnetic field lines rose up over an active region.  Images were taken in extreme ultraviolet light. 

Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory/NASA
More from the Solar Dynamics Observatory at sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

2013-06-07 19:56:26 (1 comments, 4 reshares, 1 +1s)

We've still got some space to fill, but it's a good start.

2013-06-07 18:16:34 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

+Thomas Dolby and +Buzz Aldrin perform "She Blinded Me With Science".

So. Much. Awesomeness. 

2013-06-05 20:34:48 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Peek under Antarctica's icy cover to see the topography beneath.

2013-06-11 13:01:42 (6 comments, 3 reshares, 3 +1s)

On June 5, 1995 an adult male duck collided with the glass façade of the Natuurmuseum Rotterdam and died. The events that followed led to the first described case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard.

Happy Dead Duck Day!

Read the paper here: http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/sillymolecules/papers/duck.pdf 

Figure 2. a. Drake mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) in full breeding plumage (left) next to the dead drake mallard (NMR 9997-00232) just after collision with the new wing of the Natuurmuseum Rotterdam; b. the same couple during copulation, two minutes
after photo a was taken. [photo: C.W. Moeliker]

2013-06-05 14:53:40 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

+American Museum of Natural History curator +Ross MacPhee examines de-extinction—what's scientifically possible, and what's ethically defensible.

2013-06-05 14:35:26 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Artist James Gurney paints a portrait of a 17-year cicada which rested alongside its empty larval exoskeleton. He uses a DIY tripod-mounted painting rig that holds his sketchbook above a palette for mixing casein paints.

2013-06-04 19:37:20 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

During last week's +World Science Festival, Science Bulletins writer and producer +Laura Allen joined +Minnesota Public Radio's Kerri Miller and NYU science journalism professor Dan Fagin for a conversation about science communication. 

2013-06-04 18:07:10 (5 comments, 1 reshares, 8 +1s)

And here I thought this summer's Brood II cicadas were pretty impressive. Leave it to Australia, with its massive Double Drummer cicada, to blow all the others away.

This beast of a buzzer is the largest cicada in Australia, and the call of the male, amplified by a pair of drum-like pockets on its abdomen, is among the loudest of all cicadas worldwide.

More here: http://www.brisbaneinsects.com/brisbane_cicadas/DoubleDrummer.htm

+Queensland Museum & Sciencentre offers a downloadable PDF introduction to some of Australia's many species of cicadas, including the Double Drummer: http://bit.ly/16HeNFW

Photo: BrisbaneInsects.com

2013-06-09 13:48:49 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

My latest Bio News for +Science Bulletins at AMNH: After 17 years of living quietly underground, red-eyed, black-bodied Brood II cicadas emerge in the billions.

Old link is broken, here's the new one: Science Bulletins: 17-Year Cicadas Emerge in Eastern U.S.

2013-06-04 13:38:47 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 5 +1s)

https://vimeo.com/65313515

2013-06-03 20:39:48 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

London's railway for the dead!

I think there's a horror movie, or novel in this story. 
Somebody run with it; I'd read/watch that!

2013-06-03 18:32:19 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Astronomers upgrade Earth's neighborhood—the Local Arm is now recognized as a "prominent feature" in our galaxy. 

2013-06-03 17:47:21 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Hurrah for NASA debuting their "It Gets Better" video!

HT +Brain Pickings 

2013-06-03 15:00:30 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 4 +1s)

Molting baby tarantulas! Timelapse video captures Pinktoes's transition from "eggs with legs" to first instar. 

2013-06-03 14:53:07 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

A forest grows inside the SS Ayrfield, abandoned in Australia's Homebush Bay. 

2013-05-31 21:04:12 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Meet entomologist and comics artist/writer Carly Tribull (Carly's Adventures in Wasp Land) on Saturday 6/1 in the AMNH Discovery Room. 

Download the first two comics here: http://www.amnh.org/ology/features/wonderfulworldofwasps/comic/

2013-05-31 20:45:35 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Large Coronal Hole

An extensive coronal hole rotated towards Earth over several days this week (May 28-31, 2013). The massive coronal area is probably the largest we have seen in over a year or two. Coronal holes are the source of strong solar wind gusts that carry solar particles out to our magnetosphere and beyond. They appear darker in extreme ultraviolet light images (here, a combination of three wavelengths of UV light) because there is just less matter at the temperatures we are observing in. Solar wind streams take 2-3 days to travel from the Sun to Earth, and the coronal holes in which they originate are more likely to affect Earth after they have rotated more than halfway around the visible hemisphere of the Sun, which is the case here.

Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory/NASA
More from the Solar Dynamics Observatory at sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

2013-06-11 13:03:22 (3 comments, 4 reshares, 4 +1s)

While researching for a video about periodical cicadas, I stumbled upon this unexpected find—a cicada cookbook.

The PDF was compiled and released by the University of Maryland Cicadamaniacs, and is prefaced with a disclaimer that the University of Maryland does NOT advocate eating cicadas without first consulting your doctor.

Download the PDF here: http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/pdf/cicada%20recipes.PDF