22[Space exploration] is in financial trouble. Yet by many standards, such missions are inexpensive. Mariner Jupiter/Saturn costs about the same as the American aircraft shot down in Vietnam in the week in which I am writing these words (Christmas 1972). The Viking mission itself costs about a fortnight of the Vietnam war.
I find these comparisons particularly poignant: life versus death, hope versus fear. Space exploration and the highly mechanized destruction of people use similar technology and manufacturers, and similar human qualities of organization and daring. Can we not make the transition from automated aerospace killing to automated aerospace exploration of the solar system in which we live?
”(Source: brainpickings.org, via throughaliseyes)
Oops.
lolololol
Yeah, tell the atheist to thank the lord now that they are homeless.
These photographs document several of the various types of mould which can be found growing on your average loaf of bread, given enough time and neglect. I am interested in the inherent contradiction of finding aesthetic beauty in something almost universally perceived as disgusting. I was also fascinated by the extraordinary structure and microscopic nature of these life forms, something that those of us not involved in the biological sciences are probably only vaguely aware of.
(Source: scienceyoucanlove, via sagansense)
Speed painting of a very good friend of mine for her birthday. Go visit her blog, it’s one of the most interesting I’m following on tumblr, honest!
oh bby I didn’t see you post this on Tumblr *__* thanks for the promo :3
Most prayers in this room begin with a request to bow your heads. I would like to ask that you not bow your heads. I would like to ask that you take a moment to look around the room at all of the men and women here, in this moment, sharing together this extraordinary experience of being alive and of dedicating ourselves to working toward improving the lives of the people in our state.
This is a room in which there are many challenging debates, many moments of tension, of ideological division, of frustration. But this is also a room where, as my secular humanist tradition stresses, by the very fact of being human, we have much more in common than we have differences. We share the same spectrum of potential for care, for compassion, for fear, for joy, for love….
For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.
”Atheist lawmaker opens session with Carl Sagan quote instead of prayer (via @pourmecoffee)
wonderful
(via amyvdh)
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your nanogarden grow?
Harvard engineer Wim Noorduin has a green thumb. Only his thumb is only a few microns wide. By carefully controlling gradients of chemicals, he guided the construction of flower-like crystal structures to match their larger biological forms. It’s certainly art, but it also demonstrates a masterful manipulation of chemistry on the nano scale.
Just how small are they? As NPR reports, these flowers could fit in the lapel of the tiny Abraham Lincoln statue on the back of a penny (back when pennies had the Lincoln Memorial on them, anyway). These electron microscope images are false colored to recreate fantastic flowers, and these manipulations will one day help control the construction of useful microstructures.
If you’re seriously engineering-inclined, here’s the original research as it appears in Science.
the future is knocking.
Science and Space Posters by Ron Guyatt
Part of a series for spacevidcast.com to help inspire and spread the Good Word of Science! Prints available at etsy.
(via we-are-star-stuff)
