Your friendly neighborhood astrophysicist in defense of Science and Reason.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
The FCC’s controversial plans for a new version of net neutrality are still open for public comment for a few more days, and Chairman Tom Wheeler — continuing to fight charges that he may be a dingo — says it’s already received over 647,000 comments so far. The 60 day period for public comment runs out on the 15th though, so if you want your voice to be heard then about fast lanes, Title II or anything else, then now is the time.
FCC’s net neutrality inbox is already stuffed with 647k messages, get yours in by Tuesday (via wilwheaton)
Send a kind reminder of the importance of neutrality on the Internet.
A new material has been developed that’s so devoid of reflection, looking at it is like looking into a black hole!
Zaphod Beeblebrox: “It’s the weird colour scheme that freaks me. Every time you try to operate one of these weird black controls, which are labeled in black on a black background, a small black light lights up black to let you know you’ve done it.”
Double Clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud
The double cluster NGC 1850, found in one of our neighboring galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud, is an eye-catching object. It is a young, “globular-like” star cluster — a type of object unknown in our own Milky Way Galaxy. Moreover, NGC 1850 is surrounded by a filigree pattern of diffuse gas, which scientists believe was created by the explosion of massive stars.
NGC 1850, imaged here with the NASA Hubble Space Telescope, is an unusual double cluster that lies in the bar of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way. After the 30 Doradus complex, NGC 1850 is the brightest star cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud. It is representative of a special class of objects — young, globular-like star clusters — that have no counterpart in our galaxy. The two components of the cluster are both relatively young and consist of a main, globular-like cluster in the center and an even younger, smaller cluster, seen below and to the right, composed of extremely hot, blue stars and, fainter red T-Tauri stars. The main cluster is about 50 million years old; the smaller cluster is only 4 million years old.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and Martino Romaniello (European Southern Observatory, Germany)
How many stars does it take to get to the center of NGC 1850? One, two, three………….hmmmm…………three!
Posted with Blogsy
Part of the resistance to Darwin and Wallace derives from our difficulty in imagining the passage of the millennia, much less the aeons. What does seventy million years mean to beings who live only one-millionth as long? We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.
Carl Sagan, Cosmos (via whats-out-there)
Let’s take time to smell the flowers, okay fellow butterflies?
(via jtotheizzoe)I’ve never been female. But I have been black my whole life. I can perhaps offer some insight from that perspective. There are many similar social issues related to access to equal opportunity that we find in the black community, as well as the community of women in a white male dominate society…
When I look at — throughout my life — I’ve known that I wanted to do astrophysics since I was 9 years old…I got to see how the world around me reacted to my expressions of these ambitions. All I can say is, the fact that I wanted to be a scientist, an astrophysicist was hands down the path of most resistance through the forces of society.
Anytime I expressed this interest, teachers would say, ‘Oh, don’t you wanna be an athlete?’ I want to become someone that was outside of the paradigm of expectations of the people in power. Fortunately, my depth of interest of the universe was so deep and so fuel enriched that everyone of these curve balls that I was thrown, and fences built in front of me, and hills that I had to climb, I just reach for more fuel, and I just kept going.
Now, here I am, one of the most visible scientists in the land, and I wanna look behind me and say, ‘Where are the others who might have been this,’ and they’re not there! …I happened to survive and others did not simply because of forces of society that prevented it at every turn. At every turn.
…My life experience tells me that when you don’t find blacks, when you don’t find women in the sciences, I know that these forces are real, and I had to survive them in order to get where I am today.
So before we start talking about genetic differences, you gotta come up with a system where there’s equal opportunity, then we can have that conversation.
"What’s up with chicks and science?"
Are there genetic differences between men and women, explain why more men are in science.
(via magnius159)
This was beautiful
(via tallestsilver)
Very well said.
If you don’t have room for a mustache-wearing Meryl Streep on your blog, I don’t want to know you.
Agreed. :)
(Source: funkes)
Apparently some people think 0.45% of the budget is too much to explore the entire Universe, develop new technology, and land on planets and asteroids. I know budgets are tough, they always are, but would another few tenths of a percent more for NASA really bankrupt the U.S.
image: NASA budget as % of total U.S. Budget - Wikipedia
How Geeks Celebrate Christmas [COMIC] and Gingerbread Houses
Seasons Greetings to both my followers :)
“Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty cold and austere, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music." | Betrand Russell
(Source: nicconoh)
