May52013

historicalheroines:

 I’ve created these flyers for a school activist project where I bring more attention to the women in history that have been forgotten or ignored. This blog will be an extension of those flyers where I post longer biographies of these women and other bad-ass women like them. Too often women’s achievements have been pushed aside, either by others in their lives, or else by the historians who choose to ignore them. This tumblr is dedicated to celebrating them and bringing their achievements to light!

(via ceriene)

oh wow neat fun fact I don't like writing in textbooks especially ones I'll be returning but I usually annotate the history part of science textbooks with women of science who contributed and were left out science queue 

28,541 notes
April212013

neoteotihuacan:

A few months back, a small twitter hashtag got kind of crazy - #overlyhonestmethods

Its a hashtag full of scientists admitting shortcuts in research, along with the daily face palms and annoyances of a scientific lifestyle. Science is hard, yo. 

I decided to steal some of the more popular tweets from the trending hashtag along with some random images of scientists from Google image search and combine them. This is the result. it works, I think. 

The full album can be found here: http://imgur.com/a/x77kL

(via katspaw)

always reblog these science is neither perfect nor simple science queue 

10,946 notes
April162013

neuromanticism:

abluegirl:

Living Wall

These vegetated surfaces don’t just look pretty. They have other benefits as well, including cooling city blocks, reducing loud noises, and improving a building’s energy efficiency.What’s more, a recent modeling study shows that green walls can potentially reduce large amounts of air pollution in what’s called a “street canyon,” or the corridor between tall buildings.

For the study, Thomas Pugh, a biogeochemist at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, and his colleagues created a computer model of a green wall with generic vegetation in a Western European city. Then they recorded chemical reactions based on a variety of factors, such as wind speed and building placement.

The simulation revealed a clear pattern: A green wall in a street canyon trapped or absorbed large amounts of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter—both pollutants harmful to people, said Pugh. Compared with reducing emissions from cars, little attention has been focused on how to trap or take up more of the pollutants, added Pugh, whose study was published last year in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

That’s why the green-wall study is “putting forward an alternative solution that might allow [governments] to improve air quality in these problem hot spots,” he said.Compared with reducing emissions from cars, little attention has been focused on how to trap or take up more of the pollutants, added Pugh, whose study was published last year in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

That’s why the green-wall study is “putting forward an alternative solution that might allow [governments] to improve air quality in these problem hot spots,” he said.

Full Gallery

This is what progress looks like.

(via necromatador)

I've been waiting for something like this tbh science urban development queue 

44,885 notes
April82013

paleoillustration:

Thylacoleo carnifex by Adrie and Alfons Kennis

The murderous marsupial lion, from thylakos (pouch-lion), carnifex (murderer, tormentor, butcher) was a large, carnivorous marsupial mammal that lived in Australia from the early to late Pleistocene Era. Despite its name, it wasn’t part of the cat family, but was more closely related to wombats. it was one of the apex predators at its time, and probably fed on early man. Dinopedia

marsupials filling niches is always super cool science biology queue 

1,330 notes
April22013

zeroambit:

itscolossal:

This is what happens when you run water through a 24hz sine wave.

witchcraft.

(via abhorticulture)

SCIENCE sufficently advanced technology (aka magic) queue 

34,062 notes
March92013

biomedicalephemera:

aspidelaps:

biomedicalephemera:

The Juvenile Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin)

It should first be noted that all birds are dinosaurs (order Saurischia, clade Theropoda), not just descendents of dinosaurs - modern genetic analysis strongly supports this cladistic organization. But given what we’re too often taught in schools, birds and dinosaurs are hard to reconcile in many peoples’ minds.

The juvenile hoatzin, however, makes it easy to see the reptilian traits that once dominated the early birds, and displays the unused genetic codes that lurk in the genome of modern avians. When they hatch, they’re equipped with lizard-like claws in front of their wings. Their use is described here, but in short, they use them to return to their nest and avoid predators. Their claws disappear by the time they leave the nest, having grown together into the metacarpals that support the wing structure.

Another fascinating trait of the hoatzins is their vegetarianism and their digestive tract. They have gut flora and fermentation similar to ruminants, which no other bird has. This is actually what leads to their being called “stink birds” - they exude a lot of stench with the fermentation process. The gut fermentation is so important to the hoatzin that the flight muscles attached to their keel are significantly reduced, to allow for more space for the stomach. They are weak flyers because of this. After a large meal, an adult hoatzin can spend up to two days doing almost nothing, allowing the leaves and greenery to have their nutrients released by their symbiotic gut flora.

Images:

Top: Attitudes of the juvenile hoatzin while climbing
Second row, left: Hoatzin nest with two eggs - Note proximity to water
Second row, right: Two hoatzin chicks preparing to dive, after appearance of threat from above
Third row, left: Hoatzin chick demonstrating strong swimming abilities
Third row, right: Hoatzin chick demonstrating poor locomotion on land
Bottom: Detail of hoatzin chick climbing, using neck, feet, and claws.

Tropical Wild Life in British Guinea, Vol 1. Curated by William Beebe, 1898.

It should be noted that the claws of Hoatzin are not actually simply because they are related to dinosaurs. Their claws actually re-evolved independently - they are not evolutionary leftovers at their core. While it could be considered a re-appearing gene because of their evolutionary history, it’s still something that would have to be selected over time and could have vanished again just as easily, not to mention it’s very unlikely (and impossible to prove) that it is the exact genome coming out of dormancy.

It’s more similar to dinosaurs when one thinks about convergent evolution than when one thinks about descendence, even if they are descendents too.

All of this is true, but I still like the hoatzin as an example of how to start to show people how birds really *are* dinosaurs - it’s a concept that many people don’t even begin to accept easily.

Hoatzin claws aren’t so much elongated talons-turned-wings like the Archaeopteryx seems to have, as they are a set of hooks on the front of a “chicken wing” structure. Note too, that Archaeopteryx and the hoatzin are not closely related at all (also the archaeopteryx may not even be a bird or bird relative/ancestor, but that’s a whole different matter).

Either way, the hoatzin (btw, if anyone’s wondering, that’s basically pronounced “Watsin”) is an interesting bird. The morphological changes in the wing bones as it matures are interesting enough, but the fact that it’s got such a weird digestive system are what really intrigue me.

It should be noted that while the hoatzin is a poor flyer, it’s not because it’s “primitive” or anything - it’s completely because they have a huge gut, and smaller flight muscles because of that. While their gut is a characteristic that some pretty ancient ancestors of theirs had (at least back to the Eocene), the species as a whole isn’t some evolutionary throwback, like some of the Crocodilians. The “hook-hands” of the hoatzin are relatively recent developments, as was noted. But their morphological similarities to the extinct Therapods still helps to remind people that dinosaurs and birds aren’t so different, after all.

science dinobirds queue 

1,065 notes
March82013
  • me: All scientists are hipsters, that's why they wear glasses.
  • husband: No.
  • me: "I stopped working on electromagnetic induction. It was too current."
  • husband: No.
  • me: "I used to have a passion for oceanography but I got sick of talking about the mainstream."
  • husband: No!
  • me: "Of course I'm not a mathematician. Calculus-based models of the universe are SO derivative."
  • husband: ...
  • me: "I'm an expert on geothermal vents--"
  • husband: Oh my God.
  • me: "--They're probably too deep for you."

PUNS SCIENCE EVERYTHING I LOVE QUEUE 

14,947 notes
March52013

Overly Honest Methods

vieralynn:

darthrose:

electrumplated:

imboredsillyletsfondue:

As a grad student, and a scientist, I found these to be hysterical……and frighteningly accurate!!!!!

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

Like seriously, this exists??

image

Reblogging for the scientific peeps, you know who you are! XD

The last one == Truth.

(Source: marvelismymuse, via mindovermorals)

I actually found overlyhonestmethods when I was writing the method section of a paper last semester it is so great science queue 

6,200 notes
March32013
kateoplis: “As the three continued their work, they noticed something else that was remarkable: again and again one group of people appeared to be particularly unusual when compared to other populations—with perceptions, behaviors, and motivations that were almost always sliding down one end of the human bell curve. In the end they titled their paper “The Weirdest People in the World?” (pdf) By “weird” they meant both unusual and Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. It is not just our Western habits and cultural preferences that are different from the rest of the world, it appears. The very way we think about ourselves and others—and even the way we perceive reality—makes us distinct from other humans on the planet, not to mention from the vast majority of our ancestors. Among Westerners, the data showed that Americans were often the most unusual, leading the researchers to conclude that “American participants are exceptional even within the unusual population of Westerners—outliers among outliers.” Given the data, they concluded that social scientists could not possibly have picked a worse population from which to draw broad generalizations. Researchers had been doing the equivalent of studying penguins while believing that they were learning insights applicable to all birds.” We Aren’t the World (Why Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World)

kateoplis:

“As the three continued their work, they noticed something else that was remarkable: again and again one group of people appeared to be particularly unusual when compared to other populations—with perceptions, behaviors, and motivations that were almost always sliding down one end of the human bell curve.

In the end they titled their paper “The Weirdest People in the World?” (pdf) By “weird” they meant both unusual and Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. It is not just our Western habits and cultural preferences that are different from the rest of the world, it appears. The very way we think about ourselves and others—and even the way we perceive reality—makes us distinct from other humans on the planet, not to mention from the vast majority of our ancestors. Among Westerners, the data showed that Americans were often the most unusual, leading the researchers to conclude that “American participants are exceptional even within the unusual population of Westerners—outliers among outliers.”

Given the data, they concluded that social scientists could not possibly have picked a worse population from which to draw broad generalizations. Researchers had been doing the equivalent of studying penguins while believing that they were learning insights applicable to all birds.”

We Aren’t the World (Why Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World)

oh wow this is really interesting science psychology queue 

423 notes
February102013

cryptoscience:

Study debunks notion that men and women are psychologically distinct

vandyt-xain:

thethoughtcriminal:

shorm:

sinidentidades:

The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology has dealt a devastating blow to the notion that men and women are fundamentally different when it comes to how they think and act.

“Although gender differences on average are not under dispute, the idea of consistently and inflexibly gender-typed individuals is,” Bobbi J. Carothers of Washington University in St. Louis and Harry T. Reis of the University of Rochester explained in their study. “That is, there are not two distinct genders, but instead there are linear gradations of variables associated with sex, such as masculinity or intimacy, all of which are continuous.”

Analyzing 122 different characteristics from 13,301 individuals in 13 studies, the researchers concluded that differences between men and women were best seen as dimensional rather than categorical. In other words, the differences between men and women should be viewed as a matter of degree rather than a sign of consistent differences between two distinct groups.

Thaaaank you.

And on top of that differences being socially enforced rather than coming-with-the-brain-at-birth.

(via coquelicots-et-jonquilles)

this is good science gender good stuff queue 

9,581 notes
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