Christian Science: Proof The Earth Is 6000 Years Old

I guess water isn’t a renewable resource, that’s news to me. This graphic is just too illogical to argue with.

Happy Holidays From Hipster Jesus

Just in time for the holidays, the meme world’s favorite holy one…Hipster Jesus!

America Does Not Have To Be The Laughingstock Of The Educated World

@AnonCircle posted this great little picture on Twitter. I’m not sure where this was hanging at, but it’s a great message. Inevitably if you took one of the hanging URLs it would take you to Caltech lecture on evolution titled, Evolution: How We Know it Happened & Why it Matters (with Dr. Donald Prothero). The video is the full lecture and is close to two hours long, but it’s pretty good and worth the watch. Don’t be part of the laughingstock.

(AnonCircle)

The Venn Diagram To Answer Everything

Comet Lovejoy Takes Trip Around The Sun, Lives To Tell About It

Growing up I always had this thought that if something got even remotely close to the Sun that it would just disintegrate into nothing. I mean, after all, the Sun’s surface is several million degrees.

That was not the case for a newly discovered comet named “Lovejoy”. Scientists tracked the two football field-sized comet as it traveled within 75,000 miles of the Suns surface to slingshot around it. Although the comet was only 10% the size it was before it’s encounter, it still survived only losing it’s tail.

Lovejoy isn’t expected to get that close to the Sun for another 800 to 900 years, so it has plenty of time to regain some of it’s mass and tail.

What is a Higgs Boson (Infographic)

Source:LiveScience

Astrophotographer Shoots Incredible Time Lapse Montage of the Milky Way

Being able to view the Milky Way with any kind of clarity is a sight like no other - being able to get a time lapse video is even better. That is exactly what astrophotographer Harley Grady has been doing the past couple years and the results are astounding. Below is a montage video that brings together many of his videos into something that can only be described as cosmic bliss.

Harley uses the following equipment:

• Canon 5D MK II
• Canon 24-105mm f2.8
• Canon 16-35mm f2.8

If you are interested in how he makes his videos, Harley also posted a quick tutorial on how you can get started.

Harley also won The Royal Observatory’s Best Newcomer Award for his shot titled “Zodiacal Light on the Farm”.

If you are as impressed with his work as I am, be sure and check him out on YouTube, Flicker, and Vimeo.

Why Schools Shouldn't Teach Intelligent Design

The Science Behind 'Minority Report' May Soon Be Reality

It’s not quite the same as a hot chick submerged in water predicting the future acts of notorious criminals, but with algorithm based data systems law enforcers may soon be able to stop crime before it happens.


Created by: Criminology

12 Amazing Pictures From 2011's Last Total Lunar Eclipse

If you were lucky, this morning you may have seen an amazing large red Moon as the Moon fell into Earth’s shadow. West Coast Americans got the best view and the the further east you go the less visible it became. The best views came from Australia and the Pacific Ocean. Luckily, there were plenty of pictures taken. Here are 12 courtesy of Twitter:

Space.com also posted a great infographic explaining how the eclipse works.

If you missed it, the next chance to view a partial lunar eclipse is June 04, 2012.

Crazy Physics, How You Work?

Have you ever seen a bumper sticker like this, scratch your head, then keep on driving? If so (or not) it’s just a nerds way of saying “slow the hell down”. What it is referring to is the Doppler Effect which says that if someone or thing is traveling relative another object (say, the sticker) really fast (the speed of light fast) then the Doppler effect will cause a blue shift in the color of the sticker causing it to appear blue. Here is the technical definition straight from Wikipedia:

The relative changes in frequency can be explained as follows. When the source of the waves is moving toward the observer, each successive wave crest is emitted from a position closer to the observer than the previous wave. Therefore each wave takes slightly less time to reach the observer than the previous wave. Therefore the time between the arrival of successive wave crests at the observer is reduced, causing an increase in the frequency. While they are travelling, the distance between successive wave fronts is reduced; so the waves “bunch together”. Conversely, if the source of waves is moving away from the observer, each wave is emitted from a position farther from the observer than the previous wave, so the arrival time between successive waves is increased, reducing the frequency. The distance between successive wave fronts is increased, so the waves “spread out”.

So, the sticker is a lie! because, as we all know, it is impossible for a driver to be traveling at the speed of light, duh.

Evolution May Just Be A Theory, But...

Ever Wondered Just How Small We Really Are?

A few days ago I posted a graphic that was meant more to be funny, but at the same time it was a cool way to show just how small we really are. Well, if that picture wasn’t clear enough these will be. To sum it up - we’re pretty small. If these aren’t big enough then click here to see a huge version.

Creationism vs Evolution

Earth At 7 Billion

Created by: Masters Degree Online

Our Minds May Never Be Able To Comprehend...

I would love to be able to credit the original image, but sadly I have no clue who made it. All I did was add the text.

Amateur Astronomer Captures Rare Glimpse Of Infant Solar System

The photo above was taken by Rolf Wahl Olsen, ‘amateur’ astronomer from New Zealand. The word amateur should be used lightly, as these are the first shots taken of the planetary disk surrounding the popular star Beta Pictoris (β Pic). Olsen took the pictures using a 10-inch telescope from his home. Here are the mind boggling equations he used to get his picture!

First I collected 55 images of Beta Pictoris at 30 seconds each. The dust disc is most prominent in IR so ideally a better result would be expected with the use of an IR pass filter. Since I only have a traditional IR/UV block filter I just imaged without any filter, to at least get as much IR light through as possible.

Next step was to capture a similar image of a reference star under the same conditions. For this purpose I used Alpha Pictoris as the paper suggested. This star is of nearly the same spectral type (A7IV compared to Beta’s A6V) and is also close enough to Beta in the sky so that the slight change in telescope orientation should not affect the diffraction pattern. However, since the two stars have different magnitudes I needed to calculate how long to expose Alpha for in order to get a similar image which I could subtract from the Beta image.

The magnitude difference between the stars is 3.86(Beta) - 3.30(Alpha) = 0.56

Due to the logarithmic nature of the magnitude scale we know that a difference of 1 magnitude equals a brightness ratio of 2.512. Therefore 2.512 to the power of the numerical magnitude difference then equals the variation in brightness.

2.512^0.56 = 1.67, so it appears Alpha is 1.67 times brighter than Beta. This means that exposure for Alpha should be 1/1.67 = 0.597x that of Beta. I took the liberty of using 0.6x for simplicity’s sake…

So I collected 55 images of 18 seconds (30 x 0.6) for Alpha.

You can see more of his work at his site and read more on this story on Discovery!

Record Breaking Storm On Saturn Has Been Encircling Planet For 200 Days

The largest storm seen on Saturn in more than 21 years has now been encircling the planet for a record-breaking 200 days.

First appearing as a tiny blemish on Dec. 5, 2010, the storm is still going strong today, surpassing the ringed giant’s previous longest tempest, which lasted 150 days back in 1903. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, in orbit around Saturn, has given astronomers a front-seat view of this enormous maelstrom and provided valuable data.

From its humble beginnings, the storm has grown to engulf the entire area between Saturn’s 30th and 51st north latitudes. From north to south, the tempest stretches about 9,000 miles — greater than diameter of the Earth — and covers two billion square miles, or eight times the surface area of our planet.

The storm marches through the planet’s atmosphere in the top right of this false-color mosaic from Cassini. Red and orange colors in this view indicate clouds that are deep in the atmosphere. Yellow and green colors, most noticeable along the top edge of the view, indicate intermediate clouds. White and blue indicate high clouds and haze. The rings appear as a thin horizontal line of bright blue.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

(via WIRED)

3D Printing - It's Not Just Science Fiction Anymore

By now I am sure you have heard the term “3D Printing” and if you’re anything like me you blew it off to gimmicky -easy bake oven- technology. If you are just as moronic as me then prepare to have your mind blown. Below is a clip from National Geographic’s Known Universe that shows the printer in action.

Now all we need to do is learn how to build print with other materials such as aluminum or steel or get even more scientific with some organic printing; then the world will be the limit.

We Are The 99.999999926%

Even 518 seems like a lot. I wonder who compiled this number? It would be interesting to see the names and where they are from.

Space Rocks (Infographic)

Source:LiveScience

This is nothing that I haven’t already learned from Meteorite Men!

The World Today If There Was No Science

I’m glad we don’t have to fear dropping off the planet these days.

Aircraft Carrier Sized Asteroid To Buzz By Earth November 8th

An asteroid some 1,300 wide, code named 2005 YU55, will come just slightly closer than the moon’s orbit on November 8th.

The encounter is being called safe and scientists say they “fully understand the asteroids trajectory”. NASA, who will be tracking 2005 YU55 with the Deep Space Network antenna starting November 4th, say the asteroid will not have any gravitational influence on Earth -meaning our tides and tectonic plates will be fine.

The trajectory of asteroid 2005 YU55 is well understood. At the point of closest approach, it will be no closer than 201,700 miles (324,600 kilometers) or 0.85 the distance from the moon to Earth.  The gravitational influence of the asteroid will have no detectable effect on anything here on Earth, including our planet’s tides or tectonic plates. Although 2005 YU55 is in an orbit that regularly brings it to the vicinity of Earth (and Venus and Mars), the 2011 encounter with Earth is the closest this space rock has come for at least the last 200 years.