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Symphony of Science: Onward to the Edge!

By prawn1 Tuesday January 17, 2012

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Symphony of Science: Onward to the Edge!

If you enjoyed John Boswell’s Ode to the Brain, you may like this too. Since 2009, the composer has been creating the Symphony of Science set of videos with the aim of teaching the fundamentals of science through the medium of music.

In Onward to the Edge, the twelfth installment in the series, a trio of auto-tuned scientists wax lyrical about space exploration and the wonders of the solar system.

For more info about the project, visit Symphony of Science.

[via Brain Pickings]

Behold, the Icy Finger of Death!

By prawn1 Thursday November 24, 2011

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Cameramen for BBC One’s seven-part nature series Frozen Planet captured an interesting phenomenon in the freezing waters at Little Razorback Island, in Antarctica. Using a rig of time-lapse equipment, the crew filmed what looks like an icy finger of death as it extended from the ice sheet and touched the sear floor, freezing everything around it.

This icicle of death is called a brinicle. Dr Mark Brandon at the Open University explains how such a brinicle is formed:

In winter, the air temperature above the sea ice can be below -20C, whereas the sea water is only about -1.9C. Heat flows from the warmer sea up to the very cold air, forming new ice from the bottom. The salt in this newly formed ice is concentrated and pushed into the brine channels. And because it is very cold and salty, it is denser than the water beneath.

The result is the brine sinks in a descending plume. But as this extremely cold brine leaves the sea ice, it freezes the relatively fresh seawater it comes in contact with. This forms a fragile tube of ice around the descending plume, which grows into what has been called a brinicle.

See a brinicle forming in this little excerpt from the Frozen Planet series.

It is the first time that the crew has managed to film a brinicle forming. You can read more about how they captured the footage on the BBC website.

[via +Paul Scott]

Conception to Birth, Visualized

By prawn1 Friday November 18, 2011

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Alexander Tsiaras is a whiz at scientific visualization. In his early days, he created lenses for microscopes, most notably for the one that captures the very first images of human eggs in an in vitro fertilisation (IVF) program.

In his presentation from a TED conference in 2010, the scientist talks about how the instruction sets used in creating a human being are so complex that they are beyond our comprehension. It’s mathemagical. He also shows a visualization of the development of the human fetus. See Conception to Birth, Visualized below. Be warned, there are some graphic images of the “expulsion” process.

[via Geeks are Sexy]

Earth From Space, a Time-Lapse Compilation

By prawn1 Monday November 14, 2011

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Earth From Space, a Time-Lapse Compilation

Using NASA’s Image Science & Analysis Laboratory as a resource, Vimeo user Michael König compiled footage using photographs taken by the crew on board the International Space Station as the space craft orbited the earth. The video covers the period of August to October, and the shows the flyover over the main continents and a number of aurorae captured over the United States, the south of Australia, and the Indian Ocean.

If you missed all the separate videos (this, that, and the other), here’s a chance to catch König’s compilation that has been refurbished, smoothed, denoised, and deflickered for your viewing pleasure.

[via @paukee]

Inside The Milky Way

By prawn1 Tuesday October 4, 2011

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It’s a city of stars above our heads. The Milky Way is a galaxy that stretches a staggering 600,000 trillion miles from one end to the other. And in this National Geographic TV special, we are taken on a journey through the tumultuous moments in the history of the Milky Way, from the birth of this beautiful spiral galaxy all the way to its eventual death.

One of the images used in the documentary is the 800-million-pixel panorama of the Milky Way created by the Gigagalaxy Zoom project. As grand as the image is, it’s a side-on view of the galaxy that we see and astronomers use all manner of high-tech computer tools to work out what it would like if it were viewed from a bird’s-eye view. Watch part one of Inside the Milky Way below.

Find the other parts after the jump, or you could just buy the blu-ray.

Auroras as Seen From Space

By prawn1 Monday September 26, 2011

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Earlier on this month, YouTube user yesterday2221 used 600 still photos from NASA’s Image Science and Analysis Laboratory and created a time-lapse video of the view from the International Space Station (ISS) as it orbits the Earth at night. If you missed that, refresh your memory.

YouTuber user, isoeph, has collected raw data from the same NASA source to create another time-lapse video, this time of the auroras as they would be as seen from the ISS in its low Earth orbit.

[via PetaPixel]

Around the World in 62 Seconds

By prawn1 Monday September 19, 2011

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YouTube user yesterday2221 downloaded raw image data from NASA’s Image Science and Analysis Laboratory and created a time-lapse video that shows a view from the International Space Station as it orbits the Earth at night. The movie, comprising 600 still photos, starts over the Pacific Ocean and flies over cities and stormy weather in North and South America, and ends at daylight near Antarctica.

What does it feel like to fly over planet Earth? Check it out below.

[via Slashdot]

The “Benham’s Top” Illusion: What Colour Do You See?

By prawn1 Tuesday September 13, 2011

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The “Benham’s Top” Illusion: What Colour Do You See?

Gizmodo posted a rather trippy optical illusion yesterday where the green and the blue in this spiral are actually the same color. As interesting as that is (the explanation is here), one of the commenters submitted another illusion that caught my eye.

The Benham top, created by nineteenth-century British toymaker Charles Benham, is a disc that contains a black-and-white pattern, which when spun gives the illusion of colour. These colours are visible on different parts of the disk, and not everyone see the same colour.

I see red quite clearly. What about you?

The answer to why different people see different colours on Benham’s top is not a concrete one. Hit the jump to read one of the theories.

Google’s New Data Centre is Cool

By prawn1 Tuesday September 13, 2011

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Internet search giant Google has opened a new, cool data centre in Hamina, Finland. The site used to be a paper mill, but in 2009, Google purchased the 60-year-old pulp factory with a mind to construct a data centre that would significantly reduce its impact on the environment. Data centre servers are usually kept cool by blasting cold air at them, an inefficient process that requires vast amounts of power. Last year Google is reported to have used 2.26 terawatt hours of electricity, the same amount of electricity that would be used by 200,000 average American homes.

At the Hamina data centre, Google has used a renewable resource at the heart of its cooling system — seawater. There was existing seawater intake tunnel underneath the paper mill, and it was repurposed to provide cooling to massive banks of servers. The new water-to-water exchange system pumps in frigid water from the Gulf of Finland through the intake, and it travels through a myriad of pipes in the data centre to cool the components. That water is then piped to another building, where it is mixed with an incoming stream of sea water, so it is cooled before it is returned to the Gulf of Finland.

This new power-efficient data centre cost €200 million to build. Take a quick look into the inner workings.

[via Wall Street Journal]

In the Shadow of Saturn

By prawn1 Thursday September 8, 2011

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You might not believe it, but this is an actual photograph reported to have been taken back in 2006 as the Cassini space probe sheltered in the shadow of Saturn. It was 2.2 million kilometers away from the gas giant when it took the photograph.

Astronomy Photo of the Day explains the image thus:

The robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn drifted in giant planet’s shadow for about 12 hours in 2006 and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun. Cassini saw a view unlike any other.

First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own majestic ring system. Next, the rings themselves appear dark when silhouetted against Saturn, but quite bright when viewed away from Saturn, slightly scattering sunlight, in this exaggerated color image.

Hit the jump to see the full image.