Jeremy Miranda

(Source: likeafieldmouse.com)

“Nature, deaf to our entreaties, will not alter or change the course of her effects; and those things that we are here trying to investigate have not just occurred once and then vanished, but have always proceeded and will always proceed in the same style. This should be a great restraint upon us, and ought to render us very circumspect about pronouncing on such things. We cannot take care that no passion - either toward others or ourselves - bends us away from our aim of pure truth.”

Galileo Galilei (1611)

This is the Spoutwood Observatory aka The Frodo Hut. And it’s way more badass than what I got out of these few pictures. It’s pretty much my ideal nerd-cave if I could imagine one. 

Below is a rundown of Spoutwood Farm, for any who are interested. I extremely suggest you check out the website (source link) to understand what type of lifestyle these people lead. Ultimately, I want to end up on a piece of land like this. I have such respect for these people & the interns that assist with the daily maintenance & upkeep. 

About

Nestled in the rolling landscape of York County, PA close to the Maryland line are Spoutwood Farm’s 26 acres, only 45 minutes north of Baltimore. There is a sense of abundant life here amidst the variety of rolling hills, fertile bottomland, steep wooded hillsides, and old meadows, orchards and pastures. In this richly diverse setting, it is our mission to help people come alive to nature all around us as well as to our own creative natures. We invite people to nurture a sense of wonder, to respect and befriend all living beings, domestic and wild, as well as the environment that supports us all.

Just a few of the things that happen in these magical surroundings are the May Day Fairie Festival the first weekend in May, where fairies from all over the country (and the world) gather together to celebrate the coming of summer with dance, song, food, drums and more! Mother Earth Harvest Fair celebrates the spirit of the Fall season but most importantly, it is a celebration of healthy living, promoting wellness and respect for the Earth.

The Evenings of Wonder at the Spoutwood Observatory are nights filled with the magic of the unfolding universe. Imagine looking into the heart of a globular cluster while surrounded by 26 acres of countryside, these evenings are a definite don’t miss for the whole family. Spoutwood Farm is dedicated to variousEducational Programs that teach young people where it is exactly that our food comes from … it does not come from a store, it comes from the Earth, and all that we put into the Earth comes back to us eventually. The Community Supported Agriculture garden is the crowning jewel of the farm. We grow enough food on just three acres to support 100 families, and we do it *Organically! We can’t imagine a better way to influence the lives of those we care about more than feeding them in a healthy manner, combining the wellness of body, mind and spirit.

*Organically : Spoutwood grows everything using organic methods as perscribed by the USDA for compliance with the National Organic Program and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Guide 65. Spoutwood Farm CSA is not certified “Organic” (now a trademark), as the expense at this time is prohibitive. Organic certification is not a guarantee of quality or purity of the product. Rather, it is evidence of the operation’s adherence to a prescribed system of agriculture and food production that involves the building and enhancing of the soil naturally, protection of the environment, humane treatment of animals and avoidance of toxic synthetic substances, all of which Spoutwood Farm CSA has been doing for years.

(via inspirement)

kqedscience:

Volcanic Lightning: How does it work?!

“VOLCANO LIGHTNING. The fusion of flash with ash! Say the words aloud, together, and it sounds impossible – the kind of thing a six-year-old might think up. And yet, volcanic lightning is very real. But how does it happen?”

Read more from io9.

(via crumblybutgood)

staceythinx:

Breathtaking work by Flick user 號獃

afracturedreality:

Salt Pond Ecosystem

The color of salt ponds range from pale green to deep coral pink, and indicate the salinity of the ponds. Microorganisms create these spectacular colors, changing their own hues in response to increasing salinity.

In low-to mid-salinity ponds, green algae proliferate and lend the water a green cast. As the salinity increases, an algae called Dunaliella out-competes other microorganisms in the pond, and the color shifts to an even lighter shade of green. In mid-salinity ponds, millions of tiny brine shrimp clarify the brine and contribute an orange cast to the water. And in mid-to high-salinity ponds, high salt concentrations actually trigger the Dunaliella to produce a red carotenoid pigment. Halophiles, such as Halobacteria and Stichococcus, also contribute red tints to the hypersaline brine.

Kite aerial photographs by Charles “Cris” Benton.

iu2:

Wang Yue, a senior at Dalian Industry University, uses her paintbrush to turn ugly tree holes into lovely views in Shijiazhuang, capital city of Hebei Province.

Wang Yue calls the tree-hole paintings “meitu” which means “beautiful journey.” The paintings on the trees have brightened the city during the dull, grey winter.

Evolution With Digital Support: Photographer Takes On Nature

Synthetic biology might be a futuristic idea, but when photographer Vincent Fournier made it the theme for his new art project he looked to the past. Post Natural History comprises 15 images (more are planned) of fictional near-future creatures, including a drought- and frost-resistant bird and a flower with edible petals. Together, they conject how humans could intervene in evolution: Fournier presents each like an old-fashioned encyclopaedia entry. “It fills the pictures with confusion,” says the 43-year-old, based in Brussels. “It’s not clear if it’s true, if it’s not true, if it’s serious, if it’s ludicrous.”

Although Fournier does not have a scientific background — he invokes research purely “for poetic and aesthetic reasons; as a speculative story” - his process is threaded with academic rigour. First, he photographs an aesthetically interesting piece of taxidermy, usually sourced from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Science. Then he imagines how a future researcher or enthusiast may wish to evolve the creature artificially. Next, he checks his theory with experts at the AgroParisTech institute.

“I just want to make sure the idea is possible,” he says. Finally, a 3D-design studio digitally alters the photographs to manifest the change. In some cases, it’s a subtle tweak (the Intelligent Rabbit is given a human eye, for instance); in others it’s a more drastic overhaul (his Mimetic Lizard, based on a monitor lizard, is computer generated). Increasingly, Fournier 3D-prints his designs, too. So far, he has made a 27cm-high Robotic Jellyfish Drone. This year, two more pieces will move from pixels to atoms. You can see them, alongside the photographs, at the Fondation EDF in Paris in April.

So is the project a criticism of genetic experimentation? “There is no mission — I’m not delivering something to tell people what to think. It is for the viewer to complete the story. I prefer to keep what I think a mystery.”

image 1: Beetle (Oryctes transmissionis), an insect adapted to continuous tracking

image 2: Sparrow (Passeridae megapixeliadeae), a bird with high visual acuity

image 3: Ibis (Passeridae temperatio), a drought- and frost-resistant bird

image 4: Pangolin (Pholidota supraclimatis), a climate change- tolerant mammal

image 5: Treehopper (Curculionidae botulus), a pollutant-sensitive insect

image 6: Dragonfly (Chlorom-gonfus detectis), a volatile inorganic-sensitive animal

vincentfournier.co.uk

She’s Alive

This is a non-commercial attempt to highlight the fact that world leaders, irresponsible corporates and mindless ‘consumers’ are combining to destroy life on earth. It is dedicated to all who died fighting for the planet and those whose lives are on the line today. The cut was put together by Vivek Chauhan, a young film maker, together with naturalists working with the Sanctuary Asia network (http://www.sanctuaryasia.com/).

Content credit: The principal source for the footage was Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s incredible film HOME http://www.homethemovie.org/. The music was by Armand Amar.

via True Activist

scishow:

The Science of Genetically Modified Food

In the U.S., genetically modified organisms are everywhere, despite the fact that creating GMOs for food is incredibly expensive and time-consuming and their impacts on the environment and on human health are largely unknown. But even though a lot remains unexplained, there’s still plenty you need to understand: what GMOs really are, how they’re made, and what we do and don’t know about them so far.  Hank helps you get the facts straight. 

No one is devoid of being affected by nature; we’re all living amidst changes in the weather.

Essentially, we’re all, always “under the weather.” And you can’t be “over the weather,” not even in space, because ‘space’ is an environment which is subjected to variable changes in the weather that persists in the cosmos.

We exist here because of space and the natural laws of the universe which permit our existence in the first place.

In fact, if it weren’t for “space weather”, all life wouldn’t have sprung forth altogether.

That’s why I don’t like the term ‘environmentalist’ - that’s placing all of those who care enough to die for our privilege to be here due to the stewardship we’re presented with (for our own persistence and survival) into a box, group, class or label; whereas, the rest of the animal kingdom exhibits no trace of trivial, artificial conflict with one another. They all simply do what they must to survive and persist together, in balance, because disrupting that balance would cause complications for the whole ecosystem. And they don’t even realize that. Not consciously, from what we currently understand.

Humans are the only species to apply their own irrational fears, insecurities and willful ignorance toward each other while the rest of the animal kingdom has upheld a sustainable synergy - instinctively - without hesitation.

Yet, we do it all the time, profiting off of it and the pains of others amongst us at will, whilst scoffing at the laws of nature as if we’ve been given some kind of superior immunity amidst 4.55 billion years of natural persistence, persecuting and chastising those amongst us who recognize (what Bill Nye refers to as) “our place in space.”

Environmentalists. I don’t think I want to live on a planet where only a small percentage of us are being labeled with this term. We are all “environmentalists” and “tree-huggers” whether we know it or not.

Those who have created stereotypes such as these are not absent of their place in space, because they live here too.

Everyone is affected by the weather, because we’re all on the same ship.

ikenbot:

Namibian Nights

Namibia has some of the darkest nights visible from any continent. It is therefore home to some of the more spectacular skyscapes, a few of which have been captured in the above time-lapse video.

Video Credit & Copyright: Marsel van Oosten; Music: Simon Wilkinson

Visible at the movie start are unusual quiver trees perched before a deep starfield highlighted by the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy. This bright band of stars and gas appears to pivot around the celestial south pole as our Earth rotates.

The remains of camel thorn trees are then seen against a sky that includes a fuzzy patch on the far right that is the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy to the Milky Way. A bright sunlight-reflecting satellite passes quickly overhead. Quiver trees appear again, now showing their unusual trunks, while the Small Magellanic Cloud becomes clearly visible in the background.

Artificial lights illuminate a mist that surround camel thorn trees in Deadvlei. In the final sequence, natural Namibian stone arches are captured against the advancing shadows of the setting moon. This video incorporates over 16,000 images shot over two years, and won top honors among the 2012 Travel Photographer of the Year awards.

The City Dark

The most important film on light pollution you haven’t seen.

The town in rural Maine where Ian Cheney spent much of his childhood has about 4,000 residents. Waldoboro had electric lights, but on a cloudless and moonless night, it was impossible not to be struck by the incredible array of stars visible above. Cheney became deeply curious about the stars, as humans have been for millennia. He followed his passion into amateur astronomy, fashioning his own homemade telescope, and then into astrophotography to capture the wondrous scenes that revealed themselves at night.

But when Cheney moved to New York City, his familiar world of light and dark was upended. In this metropolis, light was everywhere — but starlight was much harder to find. New York’s brilliance was undeniably alluring, yet for Cheney the glare of streetlights also suggested a deep loss. The City Dark follows Cheney’s journey to discover the surprising and alarming costs of light pollution and the disappearance of the night sky.

The world’s first light bulb was switched on in 1879, and since then artificial illumination has spread across an increasingly urban globe, radically changing humanity’s relation to the night. Yet light pollution is a phenomenon little noted except by those, like astronomers, whose endeavors have been directly hindered by the changes. Meditating on his dwindling connection to the stars, Cheney wonders about the global consequences of artificial lighting, and in The City Dark he sets out to discover what ecologists, cancer researchers, astrophysicists, philosophers and designers have to say about it. Cheney weaves these interviews with time-lapse images of the night sky, culled from tens of thousands of high-resolution still images shot around the world.

The filmmaker discovers an informative and intriguing cast of characters. Irve Robbins, a Brooklyn-born astronomer running the last remaining observatory in Staten Island, N.Y., is a surprising reminder that stars could once be studied in New York City. Now only the brightest objects shine through the light-polluted sky. Robbins says, “I’ve seen the Milky Way twice — when there were blackouts.” At a vast Hackensack, N.J., warehouse filled with myriad light bulbs, owner Larry Birnbaum shows off antique bulbs, including an original Edison that still works, and explains that successive generations of bulbs have exponentially increased in brightness. Today’s bulbs produce thousands more lumens than earlier ones — often many more lumens than we need.

The effect has not been lost on Manhattan Boy Scout Troop 718, whose leader jokes that wayfinding in a dark forest now means following the pinkish glow in the night sky. These Scouts must embark on a trip far from the city to see the Milky Way for the first time. Another native New Yorker, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, describes falling in love with the stars during his first visit to the Hayden Planetarium in Manhattan — noting the irony of being smitten with an artificial night sky while the real sky above his own Bronx neighborhood revealed just a handful of stars.

Cheney leaves New York City seeking darker skies and finds his way to Sky Village, a dark-sky haven for astronomers in rural Arizona. While the village’s denizens come from all walks of life, what draws them together is their need to be close to a dark night sky. Cheney visits a mountaintop in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, considered the best site for professional astronomy in the world. Astronomers rely on Pan-STARRS, the world’s newest, largest telescope-camera to detect Earth-killing asteroids, but even here, urban growth in the valley below creates a luminous haze that impedes their work. “It’s as though you’re looking through fog,” says John Tonry of the University of Hawaii.

But astronomers are far from the only ones affected by the worldwide retreat of the night. Biologists along the Florida coast have determined that thousands of hatching sea turtles die every year because they fail to make it to the ocean after they confuse the light-polluted horizon of the land with the starlit horizon of the sea and head the wrong way. Similarly, millions of birds, evolved to navigate by the stars, crash into brightly-lit city buildings each year during migration season. This raises the question: Do humans also need the dark?

Suzanne Goldklang for years worked a night shift selling jewelry on television. Now a breast cancer patient, she is surprised to learn about epidemiologist Richard Stevens’ suggestion of a link between persistent exposure to light at night and increased breast cancer risk. Indeed, Stevens’ research shows that female night-shift workers are almost twice as likely as day-shift workers to develop breast cancer. The disruption of humanity’s millennial cycle of light and dark may have profound physiological consequences; the World Health Organization has even deemed shift work a probable carcinogen.

Artificial light has undoubtedly revolutionized life in numerous positive ways — beating back humanity’s fears of the dark, extending the active day and facilitating productivity and social interaction. Historian Roger Ekirch notes that every civilization has expressed a fear of the dark. Criminologist and former policeman Jon Shane says, “History is replete with examples of poorly lit areas that are transformed by light,” and goes on a nighttime visit to a Newark, N.J., park once riddled with crime. Neighbors attest that the installation of more lighting has made the park markedly safer. But the extent to which increased lighting reduces crime remains controversial; and though Cheney acknowledges that humans are drawn to the light, he also asks if there’s such a thing as too much light.

Notes astrophysicist Tyson, “When you look at the night sky, you realize how small we are within the cosmos. It’s kind of a resetting of your ego. To deny yourself of that state of mind, either willingly or unwittingly, is to not live to the full extent of what it is to be human.”

- Everyone needs to see this film. Thanks to YouTube user IRISH ASTRONOMY, you can view it in it’s entirety (unfortunately not in 720p) HERE. Film description via PBS.

rhamphotheca:

Bees Can Sense the Electric Fields of Flowers

by Ed Yong

A bumblebee visits a flower, drawn in by the bright colours, the patterns on the petals, and the aromatic promise of sweet nectar. But there’s more to pollination than sight and smell. There is also electricity in the air.

Dominic Clarke and Heather Whitney from the University of Bristol have shown that bumblebees can sense the electric field that surrounds a flower. They can even learn to distinguish between fields produced by different floral shapes, or use them to work out whether a flower has been recently visited by other bees. Flowers aren’t just visual spectacles and smelly beacons. They’re also electric billboards.

“This is a big finding,” says Daniel Robert, who led the study. “Nobody had postulated the idea that bees could be sensitive to the electric field of a flower.”

Scientists have, however, known about the electric side of pollination since the 1960s, although it is rarely discussed. As bees fly through the air, they bump into charged particles from dust to small molecules. The friction of these microscopic collisions strips electrons from the bee’s surface, and they typically end up with a positive charge…

(read more: National Geo)               

(photo: T - p7r7 | Wikipedia; B - Clarke et al, 2013)