Click each image to enlargenate it.
Taken by Alan Friedman in the wavelength of hydrogen alpha light.
Taken by NASA’s STEREO satellites. False color image taken in the 1 million degree C range.
Another STEREO image. False color in the 60,000-80,000 C range.
STEREO image. False color in 2.5 million degree range.
STEREO image in 3D! Need red/cyan 3d glasses to see the 3d effect.
Forest Hill resident and apparently amateur shutterbug Brenda Rusnak captured the magnificent and unusual scene on the Serengeti: a leopard bounding atop a tree, with the lightness of a character from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, as it escapes from the roaring lion a branch below that has laid claim to the leopard’s quarry – a freshly killed gazelle.
Text from this article.
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Image via Wikipedia
I’m a big fan of all sorts of books.
I read lots of science fiction. It’s my go-to genre when I’m bored and want to read something. You would assume my favorite book would fall within the genre, I know I made that assumption.
Today I realized that wasn’t the case. Understanding Physics by Isaac Asimov holds this distinction. I read this first probably in junior high and it just blew me away. I was always an underachiever in school. A lot of that had to do with the fact that, while I knew I was smart, I didn’t feel like I was smart enough to understand complicated things. This book changed all of that.
Asimov’s writing style is just fantastic when it comes to explaining topics. In this book he does a great job of not only explaining how things work, but how we figured them out and how scientists depend on the work of their predecessors.
I would put this book somewhere between pop science books without a bit of math and a full-on textbook. However, even though it has math in it, it is completely attainable to someone who normally only reads the pop science books.
I rarely re-read books, but I find myself reading this one every couple of years. You will too.
And by “you’re”, I mean your conscious mind. Robin Hanson points to the latest Nature:
Our conscious minds control less than we think. From the latest Nature:
A person’s responses can often be explained by non-linguistic behaviours of other people and simple instincts for social display and response, without any recourse to conscious cognition. This `second channel’ of human communication acts in parallel with that based on rational thinking and verbal communication, and it is much more important in human affairs than most people like to think. …
Every day I see more evidence that points towards a simple conclusion: It requires rigorous self-examination to determine our own motives and the correct, rational response to any given problem. This rigorous self-examination is beyond what the vast majority of people are either capable of or are willing to do.
Since I enjoy rants against those holding beliefs with no basis in reality, I enjoyed this little post on Skeptic Blog.
I had to laugh when I read fellow Skeptologist Brian Dunning’s article about the UFO True Believer™ Stan Friedman hating him. What an elite club! Friedman is no fan of me, either. A few years ago I wrote an article for Sky and Telescope magazine about UFOs, basically making the same claim I made here last week: if all these UFO sightings we hear about were real, the majority of them would be seen by amateur astronomers.
Friedman took exception to that (shocker, I know). In his internet newsletter (subscription required), he said: “Plait among other gems says about Amateur [sic] astronomers [sic] ‘Logically, they should be reporting most of the UFOs’. This is logic?”
Um, yeah, Mr. Friedman, it is. Maybe you should acquaint yourself with it. Note that this is all he said, just dismissing my point without actually saying anything about it. I know, it’s hard to believe that someone with such stature in the UFO community would make a claim with no evidence, and dismiss a claim that does have evidence!
Be sure to click on over and read it all.
New data: High-fructose corn syrup no worse than sugar – USATODAY.com
Now, the tide of research, if not public opinion, has shifted. This week, five papers published in
- Image by slworking2 via Flickr
a supplement to Clinical Nutrition find no special link between consumption of high-fructose corn syrup and obesity. One paper was written by Barry Popkin, a co-author on the original 2004 paper.
I’m sure this won’t convince many on the anti-HFCS bandwagon, but some of us prefer to live in the world of evidence. The evidence points to no ill-effects. Sorry, Charley.
Of course, we all consume too much sweetener. Period.
