I'm 19, in my second year of chemical engineering at the University of Ottawa.
Chemistry is my favourite field, but I find that every discipline has interesting aspects, so my blog tends to reflect that by not being consistent at all.
If you find any inaccuracies, or you just feel like sending me a message, feel free.
So now you know.
Butterflies can’t see their wings. They can’t see how truly beautiful they are, but everyone else can. People are like that as well.
Butterflies have excellent vision. Similar to birds, butterflies are able to see in the ultraviolet spectrum; unlike birds, butterflies have the broadest spectrum of color vision known to exist in the animal kingdom. A compound eye is located on each side of the butterflies’ head and is made up of many little eyes pressed together into one. The tiny individual eyes are called facets, and are made up of six sides. Thousands of facets make up the two compound eyes. Unlike human vision, where we see one image, butterflies see thousands of small images at a time. Underneath the facets is a crystal cone that extends inwardly and forms a transparent rod. When light enters this rod, it has already been reversed twice, making its’ rays parallel so that light enters the rod in a straight line. Compound eyes aid in seeing into the UV, detecting movement, and seeing varied colors. The side location of their eyes enables them to see in different directions at one time, useful in detecting predators. However, butterflies cannot see detail from a distance and can only recognize the fine patterns of other butterflies from a few feet away. This would mean they are capable of seeing their own wings.
So basically this is one of those supposedly profound quotes that tries to make a point while being based on really shitty information and thus falls apart. Surely they could have found an analogy that doesn’t fly in the face of basic scientific observation if they wanted to send the “you’re more beautiful than you think” message..
Solar Storms, With a Chance of Proton Showers
This large solar flare, produced by an active region of the sun (AR9077), triggered magnetic storms and knocked out satellites when it created a solar storm on July 14, 2000. Nicknamed the Bastille Day Event, it was the third largest storm of its kind in the past 30 years, and the biggest solar radiation event since 1989. The Slinky-like loops represent magnetic field lines.
The orbiting Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) satellite captured this close-up image after the flare erupted. Recorded in extreme ultraviolet light, it covers a 230,000-by-77,000 kilometer area on the sun’s surface and shows a one-million-degree solar plasma cooling down.
Granulated Sea Star (Choriaster granulatus)
Choriaster granulatus is a large seastar, and is easily identified by its five distinctive large, short, thick conical arms. It is usually pale pink in colour, has small, brown papillae in clusters located in the central part of its body. This species grows to a maximum radius of approximately 27 cm.
It lives in shallow waters, of the Indo-Pacific, at depths of up to 40 m, and is found on rubble slopes, coral reefs,in the reef front, back reef, the external reef, and frequently in locations with rubble and detritus.
This starfish feeds on algae, detritus, and dead animals. One of its predators is the sea snail Triton’s trumpet (Charonia tritonis). It also eats various small invertebrates and coral polyps…
(read more: Wikipedia)
(photos: T - Sam Chow: M - Bernard DuPont; B - Richard Ling)
Alejandro Guijarro photographs the chalkboards of some of the brightest minds in quantum physics for his continuing series Momentum. He went to research facilities like CERN and many of the top universities in the world to find them.
Japan’s MTSAT-2 (also known as Himawari-7) collected these images of yesterday’s annular solar eclipse from geostationary orbit.
The satellite (similar to the United State’s GOES satellites), observed the moon’s shadow as it passed over Australia & the Pacific Ocean. The image sequence begins at 21:32 UTC, with an additional image each hour until 02:32 UTC. The eclipse itself lasted from 22:33 UTC until 02:20 UTC.
Solar Eclipse’s Shadow on Earth
Most visible towards the upper side of the image, that is the moon’s shadow over Earth.
On May 10, 2013, the sun experienced what’s called an annular eclipse — when the moon moves directly in front of the sun, but doesn’t obscure it completely. This leaves a thin, fiery ring, the annulus, visible around the outside. This eclipse was only visible from the South Pacific, along an approximately 100-mile-wide track that traverses Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and the Gilbert Islands. Other areas in Australia and Indonesia saw a partial eclipse, in which the moon blocks a much smaller region of the sun.
Credit: NASA/Goddard/MODIS Rapid Response Team
NASA’s Terra satellite didn’t observe the eclipse directly, but it did see the moon’s shadow darkening the region northeast of Australia including the Solomon Islands. This image was captured by Terra’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on May 9, 2013, at 23:30 UTC (7:30 p.m. EDT).
Bloodstain Pattern Analysis (BPA) - Resource for Crime Writers
well you never know when this might come in handy.
cute infograph
