Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
![pyrositshere:
amordragon:
Since her death in 1979, the woman who discovered what the universe is made of has not so much as received a memorial plaque. Her newspaper obituaries do not mention her greatest discovery. […] Every high school student knows that Isaac Newton discovered gravity, that Charles Darwin discovered evolution, and that Albert Einstein discovered the relativity of time. But when it comes to the composition of our universe, the textbooks simply say that the most abundant atom in the universe is hydrogen. And no one ever wonders how we know.
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, a truly extraordinary woman.
Maybe someday I’ll get around to doing a post about Ruth Patrick. “Who’s that?” you’re probably saying. Well, if you’ve ever studied ecology, you probably haven’t ever seen her name, but you’ve used concepts she developed. It’s kind of a recurring theme in the history of science that the names of women scientists are forgotten even if their discoveries are foundational. The great men get remembered as Great Men of Science, and the great women … well, their contributions become things that everyone just knows, with no attribution or explanation needed. Marie Curie is partly an exception and partly not, because school children learn her name and one of her discoveries, but the rest of the scope and significance of her work and her daughter Irene’s work (and even the fact that she had daughters at all) are usually ignored.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/a267e436b5eda1885acf71d440d4465c/tumblr_mifwcaflht1r50k9co1_400.jpg)
Since her death in 1979, the woman who discovered what the universe is made of has not so much as received a memorial plaque. Her newspaper obituaries do not mention her greatest discovery. […] Every high school student knows that Isaac Newton discovered gravity, that Charles Darwin discovered evolution, and that Albert Einstein discovered the relativity of time. But when it comes to the composition of our universe, the textbooks simply say that the most abundant atom in the universe is hydrogen. And no one ever wonders how we know.
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, a truly extraordinary woman.
Maybe someday I’ll get around to doing a post about Ruth Patrick. “Who’s that?” you’re probably saying. Well, if you’ve ever studied ecology, you probably haven’t ever seen her name, but you’ve used concepts she developed. It’s kind of a recurring theme in the history of science that the names of women scientists are forgotten even if their discoveries are foundational. The great men get remembered as Great Men of Science, and the great women … well, their contributions become things that everyone just knows, with no attribution or explanation needed. Marie Curie is partly an exception and partly not, because school children learn her name and one of her discoveries, but the rest of the scope and significance of her work and her daughter Irene’s work (and even the fact that she had daughters at all) are usually ignored.
Water on the moon: It's been there all along
“”Because these are some of the oldest rocks from the moon, the water is inferred to have been in the moon when it formed,” Zhang said.”
Minimal Posters - Six Women Who Changed Science. And The World.
The vampire squid (Vampyroteuthis infernalis, lit. “vampire squid from Hell”) is a small, deep-sea cephalopod found throughout the temperate and tropical oceans of the world. Unique retractile sensory filaments justify the vampire squid’s placement in its own order:Vampyromorphida (formerly Vampyromorpha), which shares similarities with both squid and octopuses. As a phylogenetic relict it is the only known surviving member of its order, first described and originally classified as an octopus in 1903 by German teuthologist Carl Chun, but later assigned to a new order together with several extinct taxa… [more]
just how smart are you?
(Source: rebekkahs)
![thedailywhat:
RIP: Sally Ride, at 61: Sally Ride, the first American woman to fly in space, has died after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 61.
In addition to flying for NASA — “All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary,” she once said – Ride was a physicist and a science writer.
After retiring from space, she founded Sally Ride Science, an organization created to inspire young people, especially girls, to stick with their interest in science, and pursue careers in science and engineering.
[sallyridescience]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7mtpkgiHY1qzpwi0o1_500.jpg)
RIP: Sally Ride, at 61: Sally Ride, the first American woman to fly in space, has died after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 61.
In addition to flying for NASA — “All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary,” she once said – Ride was a physicist and a science writer.
After retiring from space, she founded Sally Ride Science, an organization created to inspire young people, especially girls, to stick with their interest in science, and pursue careers in science and engineering.
(Source: thedailywhat)
(Movies of jets from young stars at HubbleSite: here)
If you’re like me and maybe a little confused as to what you’re looking at, here’s some more detail (Yes, even Joe has to look stuff up sometimes):
As a star is formed from collapsing dust, ever increasing its density and energy, it begins to form a disk of dust and gas pulled in and rotated by its growing gravity. Perpendicular to this disk, like the tip of a spinning top, some gas is ejected away from the growing star in a high-energy jet. As this collides with interstellar gas, it gives off radiation, which we can observe with telescopes like Hubble.
To see the jets, we have to shift into the infrared and other spectra, as the radiation is outside normal human vision. These movies represent the first time we’ve seen the dynamics of the jets as opposed to still images. More info on protostellar jets here, you star-freaks.
This photo of a Fire Rainbow (taken by Matthew Haskill) is a rare meteorological occurence. A meteorologist explains:
“The sun has to be in the right position — at least 58 degrees above the horizon — and the right cloud, a wispy and high up cirrus formation, must also be in place.
If the cloud is made up of the proper kind of ice crystals and the sun is aligned correctly, the crystals will act as a prism for the sun, producing a spectrum of colours that can last for hours.”
stop scrolling
a group of ferrets is referred to as a business of ferrets
ok you can scroll again now
Yeah, it’s an ad for Google. But it’s still pretty amazing.