It's Okay To Be Smart

xkcd on The Pace of Modern Life

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:44:44 -0500

We are good at worrying about the future.

Today’s xkcd (which is too long to share here, so click up top) is a superb reminder that people have long been concerned about the degradation of society thanks to our sprint toward tomorrow. the concerns of technology and social progress have been making ostriches out of worrywarts for centuries.

This dovetails nicely with my latest YouTube episode, which takes a look at how our brains deal with attention. We’re surrounded by worriers, telling us that our brains can’t handle the digital age. I think it’s a challenge, but in my video I try to paint a little more of an optimistic picture.

Because our brains are pretty awesome.

Besides, the future is an inevitable result of the passage of time. Where else are we supposed to go? We have no choice but progress.

NASA Releases Panoramic View of Mars! Warning: Contains billions...

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:48:08 -0500

NASA Releases Panoramic View of Mars! Warning: Contains billions and billions of pixels

A new interactive panorama of the Martian surface has just been released by NASA/JPL, and it’s just as cool as you’d expect. This massive view of the red planet is zoomable down to an incredible level of detail. Everything from the landing site to its eventual destination at Mt. Sharp is there in iron oxide-hued glory.

I’ve included a few of my favorite views above. First, an L-shaped sequence of frickin’ laser beam scars left over from the mast-mounted ChemCam (pew pew science!) Next, some notably shiny rocks, their silver surface made visible through the rusty dust. Finally, “J-P-L” written in morse code thanks to the code drilled into Curiosity’s wheels.

You can go here to explore a few different interactive versions, but I’ve embedded my favorite below (click through to view, Tumblr Dashboard viewers). THIS IS AWESOME.

The Mad Hatterpillar The caterpillars of the Gum Leaf...

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:22:57 -0500

The Mad Hatterpillar

The caterpillars of the Gum Leaf Skeletoniser moth have an interesting claim to fame. They wear their old heads as hats. See, as caterpillars like this grow, like many insects, they shed their exoskeletons for a new larger size. Only this one decides to keep a souvenir every round. When it matures into a moth, the heads are lost.

I particularly liked Bug Girl’s definition of a the function of moths and butterflies:

“Moths and butterflies are just flying gonads that make new caterpillars”

I wonder if it knows how a raven is like a writing desk?

(via Bug Girl’s Blog)

This is the clearest lake in the world. And a very fine lake it...

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 01:45:23 -0500

This is the clearest lake in the world. And a very fine lake it is. Klaus Thymann captured this and other stunning photos of New Zealand’s Blue Lake, 95% as clear as distilled water. Its source is filtered by mountain rocks and it’s above the treeline, so it misses out on most runoff.

Via The Guardian

Who knew wind could be this fascinating? Video

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:37:57 -0500

Who knew wind could be this fascinating? Video:

Joe Hanson of It’s Okay to Be Smart packs lots of fun, useful facts about wind into this short video from PBS Digital…

I heard this is a totally cool YouTube show that like everyone is watching.

via thekidshouldseethis: From PBS Digital...

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:30:41 -0500

via thekidshouldseethis:

From PBS Digital Studios’s UnderH2O team, go on a Blackwater Drift Dive:

The vast, unexplored ocean is filled with wonderful and mysterious creatures. This week, we journey far offshore for a midnight drift dive with over 1,000 feet of water between us and the seafloor. The animals here are bizarre and beautiful, and little is known about their biology.

Related viewing: The Deep Sea, The Secret Life of Plankton, The Plankton Chronicles: Sea Urchin, and Green Bomber Worms.

If you didn’t know that what you are looking at is real, you wouldn’t believe it was real. Welcome to alien Earth, the undiscovered deep. It’s even weirder at night!

Great new channel from PBS Digital Studios (who also produce my show, full disclosure).

I’ve seen a lot of spacey photos in my time. Enough so...

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:22:00 -0500

I’ve seen a lot of spacey photos in my time. Enough so that I catch myself occasionally making a jaded sigh, saying “Oh neat, another shot of a spacecraft in front of the moon. Been there, done that.“

Then I punch myself in the arm and tell myself to shut up because these are pictures of SPACE.

That’s what happened with Maximilian Teodorescu’s shot of the International Space Station against the face of the moon. At first I was minorly impressed, because it’s a very small thing traveling very fast, in front of a larger thing that is even farther away. But people take pictures of the ISS all the time. Big deal.

Then I realized that this one was taken during the day. At that point I lost my schnoodles. I’m betting a few of you will too.

(via Overthinking It)

It’s Plane To See … Yes! All the planets are, more...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:06:17 -0500

It’s Plane To See …

Yes! All the planets are, more or less, on the same plane. This means that their orbits all follow the same flat, circular path. This is illustrated by the following animation:

The planets are not perfectly lined up on the same orbit, though. If we define Earth’s orbit to be “the perfectly perfect ecliptic”, then the other planets orbit within a few degrees of that. Why?

When the solar system formed, there was a massive rotating cloud of debris and dust spinning around the young star we now orbit. We call it the Protoplanetary Disk, which would make a great name for a spaceship. When something spins while being tethered in place by gravity, its mass wants to fly outward into a pizza-like shape, like frosting flying from errantly-aimed eggbeaters. The Earth even bulges a bit around the equator because of this “force”. This means that before the planets ever became planets, their planetary “stuff” was already on the same plane. Naturally, they thought this was just fine, and as they matured into the orbs we know and love, they stayed there.

This can be easily observed in the night sky. When multiple planets are visible, you can draw the line of the ecliptic through them! It’s also why we seem to have so many nights when planets are “near” each other in the sky, but never quite on top of each other (called “conjunction”, check it out in this video)

By now, many of you are fidgeting uncomfortably, barely able to contain the following comment: “Bah! You are wrong, science man! Pluto doesn’t orbit on the ecliptic! It’s wonky as hell!”

Well, the question was “Are all the planets in the solar system on the same plane?” And the answer to that is most definitely yes. You’re just going to have to get over the fact that Pluto is not a planet anymore. Its tilted orbit is one of the main reasons why.

The first step to healing is acceptance. The second step is realizing that this wacky ball of ice is so off-kilter that it’s lucky it didn’t fly right off into interstellar space:

(images via Wikipedia)

The Oldest Water on Earth Tastes Very Bad Last month, some...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:00:00 -0500

The Oldest Water on Earth Tastes Very Bad

Last month, some scientists collected water from deep inside the Earth that may have been isolated for more than 2 billion years!! That’s half the age of Earth.

So of course, being a scientist, Barbara Lollar (one of the paper’s authors) had to taste it. It was not delicious (and luckily non-toxic). Instead, it was so salty that it had the consistency of maple syrup.

(via The Atlantic)

PAY ATTENTION!!! The new episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:02:26 -0500

PAY ATTENTION!!! The new episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart is all about how our brain deals with information overload.

It seems like every week someone tells us how the internet and the digital age are overloading our brains. Sure, sometimes it feels like we’re being fed more information than we can handle, and that we’re paying attention to the wrong things. Are we giving our brain a fair shot? I mean, it’s a pretty powerful device.

I explore some science that show how paying attention can definitely blind us to the world, but also some science about how paying attention can be a very helpful thing.

Oh and special cameos by Hank Green and Mike Rugnetta! Make sure to subscribe to It’s Okay To Be Smart on YouTube so you don’t miss an episode/

Just having a bite to eat with some friends today at the San...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 18:32:32 -0500

Just having a bite to eat with some friends today at the San Francisco Zoo. (They’re vegans)

“Glory to the first female cosmonaut!” reads the top...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 13:02:27 -0500

“Glory to the first female cosmonaut!” reads the top poster. June 16 marks the 50th anniversary of Valentina Tereshkova’s trip to space, the first woman to make the leap beyond Earth.

Find out how her mission aboard Vostok-6 worked.

The Science of Money Well, I suppose it’s really the...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 00:34:00 -0500

The Science of Money

Well, I suppose it’s really the science on money. Over the years, various national banks from around the world have adorned their currency with great scientists. Despite our intellectual stutters as a nation, even the United States has two scientists currently on legal tender: Benjamin Franklin ($100 bill, AKA “the Benji”) and Thomas Jefferson ($2 bill, rare but real).

Here we see Einstein on Isreali Lirot (1968), the Space Shuttle on a British £5 note, a senior Nikola Tesla on a rather ridiculous 10,000,000,000 Yugoslavian Dinar (1993, clearly at the height of economic health), Louis Pasteur on a 5 French Franc note (1966), Marie (Sklodowska) Curie on a 20,000 Polish Zloty, and a rather suspicious Galileo Galilei on a 2000 Italian Lire note (1973).

Check out Jacob Bourjaily’s full collection for more science plus dinero.

Bonus galleries of awesome science:

Browse my favorite über-nerdy pocket protector collection, true gems of pocket-sized mid-century design here (there’s even one in plaid).

The I.D. badges of every single Manhattan Project scientist, proving that even famous physicists take awkward photos.

thefrogman: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal by Zach Wiener...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 00:01:36 -0500

thefrogman:

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal by Zach Wiener [website]

[h/t: pleatedjeans]

Kiss, boom.

US rivers in the contiguous 48 states, assembled in vector ink...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 23:53:31 -0500

US rivers in the contiguous 48 states, assembled in vector ink from public USGS data by Nelson Minar. It’s like elegant porcelain, made of digital water.

I’m amazed both that so much of the continent is covered by rivers, as well by the fact that there’s enormous regions with nothing. Fascinating. Click the link above to explore more.

fuckyeahfluiddynamics: Underwater explosions are, in general,...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 22:05:54 -0500

fuckyeahfluiddynamics:

Underwater explosions are, in general, much more dangerous than those in air. This video shows an underwater blast at 30,000 fps. During the initial blast, a hot sphere of gas expands outward in a shock wave. In air, some of the energy of this pressure wave would be dissipated by compressing the air. Since water is incompressible, however, the blast instead moves water aside as the bubble expands. Eventually, the bubble expands to the point where its pressure is less than that of the water around it, which causes the bubble to collapse. But the collapse increases the gas pressure once more, kicking off a series of expansions and collapses. Each bubble contains less energy than the previous, thanks to the loss of pushing the water aside. (Video credit: K. Kitagawa)

If you needed something to make a science GIF out of this weekend, here’s a good subject.

Whoa.

For Father’s Day, a lesson from Albert Einstein to his son...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 15:16:44 -0500

For Father’s Day, a lesson from Albert Einstein to his son about how to learn anything.

(More at Brain Pickings)

Don’t worry, ISS astronaut Chris Cassidy is watching over...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 13:22:48 -0500

Don’t worry, ISS astronaut Chris Cassidy is watching over you from above. These are the hands that make the wonder that we all enjoy.

(via NASA)

Peer into a Simulated Black Hole The folks at NASA put together...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 13:19:07 -0500

Peer into a Simulated Black Hole

The folks at NASA put together this awesome supercomputer simulation of the inner regions surrounding a black hole.

Stellar gas is accelerated to near-light-speed thanks to the incredible draw of the black hole’s gravity. You know how a hot iron bar will glow red? That’s emission in the visible and infrared regions of light. Gas surrounding a black hole gets so hot that it emits light with MUCH higher energy: X-rays!

Near the center, the event horizon marks where nothing, not even x-rays, can escape the pull of gravity. That’s the dark disk in the center.

I think this is about as close as I ever want to get to a black hole.

(by NASAexplorer)

via staceythinx: Celebrate space exploration with these fun...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 13:03:26 -0500

via staceythinx:

Celebrate space exploration with these fun posters from the Ink and Sword Etsy store as part of their wonderful Stellar Science Series (which may look familiar)

These guys make absolutely brilliant stuff. Go get some! I mean just look at this: