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aamukherjee Entropie -
alchymista Alchymista -
crownedrose Hymn To The Sea -
epistemophobiarunsdeep Falling Over Myself. -
expose-the-light Quarks to Quasars -
ikenbot cwl -
pieceinthepuzzlehumanity This Is The Right One -
project-argus Hello, Universe. -
torgothegreat God Delusion
Occupy the Neolithic: Social Immobility in the Stone Age
Even the most democratic societies are rife with social and economic inequalities, as the current tension between the poorer “99 percent” and the richest “1 percent” vividly illustrates. But just how early in human events such social hierarchies became entrenched has been a matter of debate. A new study of skeletons from prehistoric farming communities across Europe suggests that hereditary inequality was an early feature, going back more than 7,000 years ago.
Most researchers agree that social hierarchies began with the advent of farming. The earliest known farming communities are found in the Near East, dating back almost 11,000 years. Archaeologists have looked for evidence of social stratification in these societies with mixed results. Some early farming societies show signs that people played different roles and that some were buried with greater ritual — shuffling off this mortal coil with a number of elaborate “grave goods,” including pottery and stone tools. However, there is little evidence that social inequality was hereditary or rigidly defined.
Continue Reading “Occupy the Neolithic: Social Immobility in the Stone Age” »
ikenbot
What is being seen is a fogbow, a reflection of sunlight by water drops similar to a rainbow but without the colors.
Scientists Find Thousands Of Previously Undiscovered Species Cowering In Amazon Rainforest
As usual, The Onion’s best comedy is that which is just barely beyond truth. If you don’t laugh, you just may cry.
“Our expedition has shown that the Amazon Rainforest is simply teeming with a multitude of creatures never before glimpsed in this region,” said lead researcher professor Courtland Gere, who personally observed a rare form of spider monkey as it huddled, shaking, inside the stump of a freshly felled tree. “Just mere minutes after our vehicles entered the forest, our team was lucky enough to hear the grief-stricken whimpers of a fascinating, previously unknown species of striped jaguar locked in the fetal position under a pile of leaves.”
(via The Onion)
British butterfly is rare beneficiary of climate change
The brown argus butterfly has taken advantage of the warmer temperatures to plants its larvae on geraniums.
Octopus foils predators by stealing identities
The octopus’s clever camouflaging has to fool all different types of visual systems from all different angles to be truly effective.
Explore the Map of Life!
MappingLife.org is live, and incredibly informative. It has collected biodiversity survey data for tens of thousands of terrestrial and aquatic species around Earth. And it’s all there for you to search and draw maps with.
The data comes from field observations as well as other sources, like museum specimens. You can toggle several different types of observations for each species that you choose, and overlay them on customized Google-based maps.
The map above is one I made just now, showing the known habitats of a few bluefin tuna species (genus Thunnus, because they are critically threatened), African elephants (Loxodonta africana, also fighting with humans to retain their habitat) and sea otters (Enhydra lutris, because I love otters). Here’s a tutorial video.
It’s a tool that’s as much educational as it is fun, and a way for anyone to take part in biodiversity research. It’s all of our planet. They’re all of our species.
Go. Play. Learn. Conserve.
Colossal Squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni)
Though it is known from only a few specimens, current estimates put its maximum size at 12–14 metres (39–46 ft) long,based on analysis of smaller and immature specimens, making it the largest known invertebrate.
Unlike the giant squid, whose arms and tentacles only have suckers lined with small teeth, the colossal squid’s limbs are also equipped with sharp hooks: some swivelling, others three-pointed.
You can zoom into this image to read in finer detail - here
Dirty Science: What Makes Soil Become Dense?
An earthy activity brought to you by Science Buddies: Learn how compacted soil can affect local plants and animals, and how you can run experiments to test this!
Image: George Retseck“Have you ever noticed how much work it is to dig a hole in really hard soil? It’s much easier to dig a hole in soft, loose soil. But why is that? Soil that is hard and dry is often compacted, which means that it has been packed down, making it denser and thereby difficult to penetrate. Soil that has become compacted is not only harder for you to dig a hole in, but it can also be much harder for a lot of other organisms, such as helpful earthworms, to survive in.”
Image Credit: M101 - NASA, ESA, CFHT, NOAO; Typhoon Rammasun - MODIS, NASA Comparison: Lawrence Anderson-Huang (Ritter Astrophysical Obs., Univ. Toledo)
Uncomfortably close Typhoon Rammasun (right) and 25 million light-year distant galaxy M101 don’t seem to have much in common.
For starters, Rammasun was only a thousand kilometers or so across while M101 (aka the Pinwheel Galaxy) spans about 170,000 light-years, making them vastly dissimilar in scale, not to mention the different physical environments that control their formation and development.
But they do look amazingly alike: each with arms exhibiting the shape of a simple and beautiful mathematical curve known as a logarithmic spiral, a spiral whose separation grows in a geometric way with increasing distance from the center.
Also known as the equiangular spiral, growth spiral, and Bernoulli’s spiral or spira mirabilis, this curve’s rich properties have fascinated mathematicians since its discovery by 17th century philosopher Descartes.
Intriguingly, this abstract shape is much more abundant in nature than suggested by the striking visual comparison above. For example, logarithmic spirals can also describe the tracks of subatomic particles in a bubble chamber, the arrangement of sunflower seeds and, of course, cauliflower.
When lightning strikes: Photographer’s Bay Bridge image goes viral
San Fransisco shutterbug says he has no idea how the photo of lightning striking the Bay Bridge went viral so quickly.
Just an incredible image of a school of sting rays
