A Tribute To Carl Sagan | Music: SPHERES | by we hope

“Emotions are alien to me. I’m a scientist.”

Spock, This Side Of Paradise, Stardate 3417.3, Episode 25

Something great, something big, something very special that’s never happened before is about to happen!

On July 19, 2013, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will be turned to image Saturn and its entire ring system during a total eclipse of the sun, as it has done twice before during its previous 9 years in orbit. But this time will be very different. This time, the images to be collected will capture, in natural color, a glimpse of our own planet next to Saturn and its rings on a day that will be the first time Earthlings know in advance their picture will be taken from a billion miles away. A full end-to-end mosaic of images of the ring system will be acquired over 4 hours on July 19. The Earth will be captured in a series of images taken between 21:27 to 21:42 UTC on that day, or 14:27 and 14:42 Pacific Daylight Time.

It will be a day for people all over the globe to celebrate together the extraordinary achievements that have made such an interplanetary photo session possible. And it will be a day to celebrate life on the Pale Blue Dot. Read the press release via CICLOPS.ORG.

The graphics shown below illustrate the position of our planet relative to Saturn, and the portion of Earth that will be illuminated at the time its pictures are captured.

Illuminated View: This graphic shows the view of Earth and the portion of its surface that will be illuminated during the Earth imaging event on July 19, 2013.

Taking Earth’s Picture from Nearly 900 Million Miles Away: This simulated view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on July 19, 2013, shows the expected positions of Saturn and Earth around the time Cassini is taking Earth’s picture.

via carolynporco

Carolyn Porco: This is Saturn | TED

Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco studies and interprets the photos from the Cassini-Huygens mission, orbiting Saturn and its largest moon, Titan. She and a team of scientists from NASA and the European Space Agency have been analyzing the images that Cassini has been sending back since it left Earth in 1999. They’ve found many new rings and four new moons (so far). And they’ve produced breathtaking images and animations of the stormy face of Saturn, its busy rings, and its jumble of moons and moonlets.

Back in the mid-1980s, while still working on her doctorate, Porco was drafted onto a team at JPL that was crunching the mountains of data coming back from the Voyager fly-by of Saturn. Her work on the planet’s “ringlets,” and on a spoke pattern noticed in the rings, made an important connection between Saturn’s rings and its magnetic field — and cemented her connection with Saturn.

Her ongoing work at the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPs) has two goals: to process and interpret the Cassini images for other scientists, and to make sure the images — in all their breathtaking poetry and mystery and sheer Save-Image-As-Desktop awesomeness — connect with the general public. She is an advocate for the exploration and understanding of planetary space, and her frequent talks (as well as her “Captain’s Log” memos on the CICLOPS website) speak to everyone, scientist and nonscientist alike.

Still Curious? Watch Carolyn again, this time, LEGO-fied! and watch a conversation with Carolyn, as she discusses the Saturn and Cassini Mission with astrophysicist and curator, Mike Shara of the American Museum of Natural History during the 217th American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle, Washington

“Imagine the day when we might journey to the Saturnine system, and visit the Enceladus interplanetary geyser park, just because we can.”

I love this woman.

Can Everyday Hassles Make You Depressed?

Do you sweat the small stuff?

When it comes to pinpointing the source of our woes, we tend not to think too much about the little hassles of everyday life; after all they’re just little hassles, nothing compared to the big stuff.

You’re late for a meeting, you run out of biscuits or you get a parking ticket; irritating certainly, but nothing really serious, or anything like it.

Instead, we tend to blame the big events in life: divorce, disease and bereavement. And, when looking for what puts people over the edge, that’s exactly where psychological researchers have concentrated their attention: on the big stuff.

But many are waking up to the fact that although the little hassles in life are smaller, they’re also more numerous, so they can really add up over time. And, whether stressful events are big or small, it matters a lot how we deal with them.

Daily stressors

In new research published in Psychological Science, Charles et al. (2013) looked at people’s reactions to everyday stressors and how this played out a decade later. Participants were asked about their daily stressors over eight days and generally how they felt. People reported having all the usual sorts of stressors like having arguments, a fridge breaking down or being late for an appointment.

Then, 10 years later, they were revisited and asked whether they had been treated for anxiety, depression or any other emotional problems in the last year.

What the results showed was that how people reacted to the little stressors of everyday life predicted whether they developed psychological problems a decade later (incidentally, the number who did report a disorder was almost one in five).

This fits in with other recent studies which have also shown that people’s reactions to ordinary stressors predict depressive symptoms (e.g. Parrish et al., 2011).

Whether problems are big or small, what matters is how we react to them. People who tend to do worst are those that have the strongest emotional reaction to both big and small events.

We tend to think that depression is always a reaction to some really bad thing happening and sometimes it is; but sometimes it’s all those little things piled on top of one another that can get you down.

Image credit: Stephen Poff

via neuromorphogenesis

Porthole Perspectives

via kateoplis

Sunflowers Do the Math

The spiraling shapes in cauliflower, artichoke, and sunflower florets (above) share a remarkable feature: The numbers of clockwise and counterclockwise spirals are consecutive Fibonacci numbers—the sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, and so on, so that each number is the sum of the last two. What’s more, those spirals pack florets as tight as can be, maximizing their ability to gather sunlight for the plant. But how do plants like sunflowers create such perfect floret arrangements, and what does it have to do with Fibonacci numbers? A plant hormone called auxin, which spurs the growth of leaves, flowers, and other plant organs, is the key: Florets grow where auxin flows. Using a mathematical model that describes how auxin and certain proteins interact to transport each other around inside plants, researchers could predict where the hormone would accumulate. Simulations of that model reproduced patterns exactly matching real “Fibonacci spirals” in sunflowers, the team reports this month in Physical Review Letters. Based on their results, the researchers suggest that such patterns might be more universal in nature than previously thought, so keep an eye out: Fibonacci numbers might be spiraling in every direction.

via sciencemag.org

| image source

via rorschachx, from science-junkie

(via science-junkie)

The Daydreamer, Ian McEwan

via dreamwithin-adream

(via fuckyeahreading)

Frans de Waal: Moral Behaviour in Animals

via primatewin

Why you should listen to him:

Dr. Frans B. M. de Waal is a biologist and primatologist known for his work on the behavior and social intelligence of primates. His first book, Chimpanzee Politics (1982), compared the schmoozing and scheming of chimpanzees involved in power struggles with that of human politicians. Ever since, de Waal has drawn parallels between primate and human behavior, from peacemaking and morality to culture. His scientific work has been published in hundreds of technical articles in journals such as Science, Nature, Scientific American, and outlets specialized in animal behavior. His popular books – translated into fifteen languages – have made him one of the world’s most visible primatologists. His latest books are Our Inner Ape (2005, Riverhead) and The Age of Empathy (2009, Harmony).

De Waal is C. H. Candler Professor in the Psychology Department of Emory University and Director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Center, in Atlanta. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (US), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences. In 2007, he was selected by Time as one of The Worlds’ 100 Most Influential People Today, and in 2011 by Discover as among 47 (all time) Great Minds of Science.

TED

Abandoned Milky Way by Aaron Groen

via seafarers

The Eastern Veil Nebula

via thenewenlightenmentage

Google+ demonstrates deforestation and other man-made climate disasters with satellite images
May 18, 2013

It’s one thing to talk about deforestation, disappearing habitats, and shrinking glaciers and water resources, and another thing entirely to demonstrate it with actual satellite imagery. And thanks to Landsat images and the Google Earth Engine, we’re getting a glimpse at some key locations across the planet as they are changed by the hands of man. A series of interactive timelapse GIFs that use Landsat satellite data to display massive changes to the Earth’s surface could be a potent tool for motivating individuals and organizations to take action on key issues.

Google’s Animated GIFs of Earth Over Time focuses our attention on key features of our planet, such as the Amazon rainforest, the coal beds of Wyoming, the Columbia Glacier, the Aral Sea, and the deserts of Saudi Arabia.

Today, we’re making it possible for you to go back in time and get a stunning historical perspective on the changes to the Earth’s surface over time. Working with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), NASA and TIME, we’re releasing more than a quarter-century of images of Earth taken from space, compiled for the first time into an interactive time-lapse experience. We believe this is the most comprehensive picture of our changing planet ever made available to the public.

- Google

Some of the visualizations are kind of subtle, and need to be put into context to really hit home (such as the massive increase in irrigated areas in Saudi Arabia, which affects local water supplies, or the urban sprawl of Las Vegas, which also puts increased demands on local resources), but some of them, such as this one documenting the rapidly disappearing rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon, speak for themselves:

Explore a global timelapse of our planet, constructed from Landsat satellite imagery. The Amazon rainforest is shrinking at a rapid rate to provide land for farming and raising cattle. Each frame of the timelapse map is constructed from a year of Landsat satellite data, constituting an annual 1.7-terapixel snapshot of the Earth at 30-meter resolution.

- Google Earth Engine

These interactive time-lapse images can be manipulated by pausing or zooming in to them, as we’ve come to expect from Google Earth, and may serve as a pivot point for those who are on the fence about the effects that our booming population and its increased demand for resources has on our Big Blue Marble.

Source

You can view all of the images at Google +, and you can read a backstory at TIME.

via thepeoplesrecord

We like to share Carl Sagan quotes, illustrations of space, the future, fantasy, science fiction films/gifsets and of course, the goings on in the world of space exploration; but this is really happening, everyone. The visions of those before us - depicting a society and civilization with curiosity and bravery at the helm - are being implemented as you read this.

The future is now. The only “cosmic speed bump” we have yet to surpass before journeying out unto the frontier is political will, fueled by bold and loud public advocacy. We can do this.

The collaboration of nations to set aside artificial boundaries - figurative and literal, indeed - will bring forth such a grand unification unseen by any of our kind since the voyage to our natural satellite.

The Apollo era was a teaser trailer of what’s to come, not simply and passively of what was once thought possible.

Although this video/lecture (above, via ESA) isn’t jazzed up with inspring music or dramatic graphics, it’s a conversation worth sitting through, because it’s a conversation we are actually having as a human species.

Set a brief, quiet moment aside for yourself - uninterrupted - where you can listen, digest and grasp the reality and scope of the true “goings on” of our quest toward the unimaginable offerings awaiting us amidst the cosmos.

Stay Curious.

How to Cite Sources: A Comment on Common Knowledge

This video discusses whether you need to cite ideas or words that may qualify as “common knowledge”.

by Kevin deLaplante.

via skeptv

(via anthrocentric)

How well do you know the father of the theory of evolution by natural selection?

via edenchannel

What the heck is THAT? Oh, that’s just a one-ton, nuclear-powered robot dominating Mars with its million watt l-a-s-e-r.

via discoverynews