background preloader

The Most Astounding Fact - Neil deGrasse Tyson

The Most Astounding Fact - Neil deGrasse Tyson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D05ej8u-gU

Related:  Astronomy-1

Humans Really Are Made of Stardust, and a New Study Proves It For decades, science popularizers have said humans are made of stardust, and now, a new survey of 150,000 stars shows just how true the old cliché is: Humans and their galaxy have about 97 percent of the same kind of atoms, and the elements of life appear to be more prevalent toward the galaxy's center, the research found. The crucial elements for life on Earth, often called the building blocks of life, can be abbreviated as CHNOPS: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. For the first time, astronomers have cataloged the abundance of these elements in a huge sample of stars. The astronomers evaluated each element's abundance through a method called spectroscopy; each element emits distinct wavelengths of light from within a star, and they measured the depth of the dark and bright patches in each star's light spectrum to determine what it was made of. [The Milky Way: A Traveler's Guide] The catalog of chemical abundances is available at

Perigee "Super Moon" On May 5-6 Perigee "Super Moon" On May 5-6 May 2, 2012: The full Moon has a reputation for trouble. It raises high tides, it makes dogs howl, it wakes you up in the middle of the night with beams of moonlight stealing through drapes. If a moonbeam wakes you up on the night of May 5th, 2012, you might want to get out of bed and take a look. This May’s full Moon is a "super Moon,” as much as 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full Moons of 2012.

Men's Journal Magazine - Men's Style, Travel, Fitness and Gear Courtesy Michael Finkel These are my final words: "Why a camp chair?" I speak them to a man named Wade. Wade from Minnesota. I'm in line behind him, waiting to enter the Dhamma Giri meditation center, in the quiet hill country of western India, for the official start of the 10-day course. Wade tells me that this is his second course and that he learned a valuable lesson from the first. Arthur C. Clarke - The Nine Billion Names of God “This is a slightly unusual request,” said Dr. Wagner, with what he hoped was commendable restraint. “As far as I know, it’s the first time anyone’s been asked to supply a Tibetan monastery with an Automatic Sequence Computer. I don’t wish to be inquisitive, but I should hardly have thought that your — ah — establishment had much use for such a machine. Could you explain just what you intend to do with it?”

Science and Technology of WWII So What is This About? Teachers, here you will find classroom lesson plans related to the science and technology of WWII. Social studies and history teachers can use these lessons to imbue science and math into their classrooms. Science and math teachers can use these lessons to bring real-world applications to their theories and concepts.

A laughing matter Dishing up tacos and burritos to hungry college students may not sound like much fun, but the women behind the counter at Salsa Rico look like they're having a pretty good time. Their heads are thrown back in laughter as they yell out to each other from either end of the steam tables. Meanwhile, a student grabbing a quick solo meal stands straight-faced near the cash register. Psychology professor Robert Provine, PhD, nods in the direction of the Salsa Rico trio as he takes in the student commons scene. The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) psychology professor has spent close to two decades taking careful notes on situations just like this, trying to understand how and why people laugh.

Harrison Bergeron French Translation from Avice Robitaille. Hindi Translation by Ashwin.Urdu Translation by RealMSRussian translation THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. Life Under a Rock: Bacteria in Extreme Environments The world’s deserts are harsh environments. Some are extremely hot like the Sahara in Africa, while others are frozen deserts, like those in the polar regions. What unites them is that they are all very dry, receiving little annual precipitation.

Why We Need to Study the Brain’s Evolution in Order to Understand the Modern Mind Image via Wikimedia Commons, adapted from Christopher Walsh, Harvard Medical School, by Gary2863 In the September 17th issue of The New Yorker, Anthony Gottlieb analyzes Homo Mysterious: Evolutionary Puzzles of Human Nature, a new book by David Barash, a psychology professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. Gottlieb’s article is more than just a book review—it’s also the latest in a long line of critiques of evolutionary psychology, the study of the brain, mind and behavior in the context of evolution. Gottlieb makes several excellent points, describing the same major shortcomings of evolutionary psychology that critics and proponents alike have named many times before: frustratingly scant evidence of early humans’ intellect, the immense difficulty of objectively testing hypotheses about how early humans behaved, the allure of convenient just-so stories to explain the origins of various mental quirks and talents. Yes, you do.

Fiction: The Secret Number, by Igor Teper 20 November 2000 Dr. Simon Tomlin studied the man sitting across the table from him. Rocking back and forth in his chair, with his shoulders slouching, his eyes darting all around the room, and his upper lip twitching every few seconds, the man conveyed a distinctly squirrel-like impression.

Related:  StoriesEspacio / SpaceYoutubeExploration Of SpaceFavouritesVideo clipslindavsteVideos for Physical Science