PHYSICS- Chary

Gravity (2013) dir. by Alfonso Cuarón

Sat, 11 May 2013 00:30:15 -0400

Gravity (2013) dir. by Alfonso Cuarón

Photo

Sat, 11 May 2013 00:16:32 -0400

really-shit: Terrifying Time Lapse These time lapses document...

Sat, 11 May 2013 00:11:09 -0400

Terrifying Time Lapse

These time lapses document the change in the world over the past 30 years. Islands have popped up; forests have declined; ice has melted.

Such a terrifying, beautiful thing.

kidmograph: Dust II

Sat, 11 May 2013 00:06:48 -0400

kidmograph:

Dust II

An interactive animation of every recorded meteorite impact in...

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:04:24 -0400

An interactive animation of every recorded meteorite impact in history

odditiesoflife: Strange Rock Formations Around the World There...

Mon, 06 May 2013 02:17:31 -0400

odditiesoflife:

Strange Rock Formations Around the World

There is no doubt that our planet is an astoundingly beautiful place. We still have the opportunity to conserve the resources we have left. This generation cares. Care is good, but action is better. The places featured above are examples of the majesty and mystery of our Earth. We need to do all we can to protect what is ours.

Cappadocia, Turkey

Stone Forest National Park, Yunnan, China

Gibson Steps (12 Apostles), Great Ocean Road, Australia

Bryce Canyon, Utah

Ko Tapu Island, Thailand

Giant’s Causeway, Ireland

Mono Lake, California

Africa. The world’s greatest wilderness. The only place on...

Mon, 06 May 2013 02:13:29 -0400

Africa. The world’s greatest wilderness. The only place on earth to see the full majesty of nature. There’s so much more here than we ever imagined.

logikblok: Halley VI Research Station - The first fully...

Mon, 06 May 2013 02:12:27 -0400

logikblok:

Halley VI Research Station - The first fully relocatable research station in the world. Built for the British Antarctic Survey to conduct research into meteorology, glaciology, seismology, radio astronomy, and geospace science. You can read about the station and its facilities here.

Source: Halley VI

stellar-indulgence: Types of Naturally Occurring...

Mon, 06 May 2013 02:12:07 -0400

Aerial view of a Sarisarinama sinkhole in Bolivar, Venezuela. If you tumble in there, will you reach the lost world? Juan Silva/Getty Images

The dry season reveals a giant sinkhole at Ankarana National Park, Northern Madagascar. THOMAS MARENT/CORBIS

This is Cenote X-Keken in Dzitnup at Valladolid, Mexico. JEAN-PIERRE LESCOURRET/CORBIS

A sinkhole that left a huge crater in the middle of a residential area in Schmalkalden, Germany, Nov. 1, 2010. The hole was about 20 meters (66 feet) deep. STEFAN THOMAS/CORBIS

Animation showing the formation of a cover-collapse sinkhole. Credit: Howstuffworks

stellar-indulgence:

Types of Naturally Occurring Sinkholes

Sinkholes look dramatic when you’re peering down into one, but it’s below the surface where the real action takes place. A sinkhole’s identity centers on the gaps, crevices, cavities and voids that lie under the overburden, or the soil above the bedrock. As these gaps develop, expand and merge, soil from the overburden starts filling the void.

In the case of the sinkhole suddenly opening to swallow a car that we just mentioned, it formed because the overburden was no longer stable enough to hold itself up. This common type of sinkhole is known as a collapse or cover-collapse sinkhole. Although these sinkholes can appear suddenly, the erosion that makes them happen has likely been taking place for weeks or years before, underground and out of view. So let’s head underground.

The top layer of a cover-collapse sinkhole is usually a soft overburden, made of soil with a lot of clay in it. Over time, a small cavern forms underneath that soil. Opportunistic sediment takes advantage of the newly free real estate and starts spilling into the cavern — a process known as spalling. As spalling continues, the underground cavern fills with more sediment, hollowing out the space under the overburden. Eventually, the overburden becomes so thin that it suddenly collapses into the cavern below (this is the “cover collapse”), creating a sinkhole. In some cases, the cover can support its own weight but crumbles when additional weight, whether from a hapless person or car, passes over it.

With cover-subsidence sinkholes, water permeates the soft overburden. An example of this type of terrain is an overburden made up of up to 100 feet (30 meters) of sand with a small amount of clay below before yielding to soft limestone. As limestone dissolves and leaves a void, sediment from the overburden seeps in, creating a bowl-like impression in the Earth. These sinkholes, often only a few feet across and deep, are smaller than many others because after reaching a certain size, sand and sediment pour into the hole [source: Southwest Florida Water Management District]. This inflow of sediment can block the outflow of water by stopping up the cracks and passages that connect the sinkhole to underground conduits. Many of these sinkholes then become ponds, as the water has nowhere to drain. They also don’t produce the spectacular kind of cave-in associated with a cover-collapse sinkhole.

A dissolution or solution sinkhole is essentially a deep impression in the ground. These sinkholes usually have a thin overburden (if any), which washes away or is eroded. The now-exposed rock then progressively dissolves when it touches acidic water. The bare area hollows out, forming a shallow basin. Water often pools on the surface of a dissolution sinkhole, creating a sort of pond that compounds the erosion of rock below. Also, like in other types of sinkholes, objects and other material can get stuck in the fractures where water would normally flow out. Unlike a cover-subsidence sinkhole, there is no overburden or covering sediment to spall into the sinkhole or cover the eroding rock.

Sinkholes Caused by Humans

In urban settings in particular, sinkholes may owe their development to human activity as much as anything else. In some cases, sinkholes appear because of the combination of industrial activity or development, soft limestone bedrock and less than 200 feet (61 meters) of overburden [source: Southwest Florida Water Management District]. The following human actions can also cause sinkholes:

Drilling and vibrations

Mining

Changes in weight

Lots of foot or vehicle traffic

Heavy increase in water flow, formation of a pond or body of water, or broken pipes, among other things

Sinkholes may also form in places where water flows regularly, such as a storm drain, or when water sources are diverted or cut off, especially by pumping out groundwater. A broken pipe can contribute to sinkhole development by flooding and weakening the soil, but it can also provide an outlet for the dirt and rock that’s supposed to surround pipes. After enough material falls into pipes and is transported away, the surrounding earth becomes destabilized, contributing to sinkhole formation, sewage or water spills, or other disasters…

Continue…

ikenbot: South Korea Makes Billion-Dollar Bet on Fusion...

Mon, 06 May 2013 02:11:45 -0400

ikenbot:

South Korea Makes Billion-Dollar Bet on Fusion Power

A fusion power demonstration reactor to be built in the 2030s in collaboration with the DoE’s Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, represents a step toward commercial use

From Nature magazine

Image: The inside of KSTAR, one of the first research tokamaks in the world with fully superconducting magnets, after a recent upgrade that will allow the study of pulses of up to 300 seconds duration Copyright: Nation Fusion Research Institute PR team, Korea

South Korea has embarked on the development of a preliminary concept design for a fusion power demonstration reactor in collaboration with the US Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) in New Jersey.

The project is provisionally named K-DEMO (Korean Demonstration Fusion Power Plant), and its goal is to develop the design for a facility that could be completed in the 2030s in Daejeon, under the leadership of the country’s National Fusion Research Institute (NFRI).

South Korea is already developing the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (K-STAR) project and contributing to ITER, the €15-billion (US$20-billion) experimental reactor being built in Cadarache, France, under the auspices of an international collaboration. K-DEMO is intended to be the next step toward commercial reactors and would be the first plant to actually contribute power to an electric grid.

“It is a very smart strategy to take advantage of the experience gained in constructing ITER and to immediately proceed to construct a fusion power plant like K-DEMO,” says Stephen Dean, president of Fusion Power Associates, an advocacy group in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

K-DEMO will serve as prototype for the development of commercial fusion reactors. According to the PPPL, it will generate “some 1 billion watts of power for several weeks on end”, a much greater output than ITER’s goal of producing 500 million watts for 500 seconds by the late 2020s.

Building up know-how

In early 2012, the South Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology announced that developing technologies to build K-DEMO would be a priority for the next 10 years, establishing the know-how to permit the construction of a commercial fusion power plant between 2022 and 2036. The government also announced that it planned to invest about 1 trillion won (US$941 million) in the project. About 300 billion won of that spending has already been funded, according to a source within the ministry. The government expects the project to employ nearly 2,400 people in the first phase, which will last throughout 2016.

Robert Goldston, who was the director of the PPPL when it helped with the initial design of K-STAR, believes that the K-DEMO project is feasible, considering South Korea’s commitment to its previous project. “There was a financial crisis in Asia right in the middle of the K-STAR project, but the government and fusion scientists were steady and serious about getting the job done, despite lots of hardship,” he says. “My sense is that the Korean team, at all levels, is very dedicated to a steady pace even in adversity — and there is always adversity in big projects.”

Lee Gyung-Su, a research fellow at NFRI and a former chairman of the ITER Management Advisory Committee, says that Korea is desperately in need of the energy that fusion could provide. “Korea has a lack of energy resources,” he says. “The population density is high and the country consumes so much energy,” Lee adds, “we have a different perspective on fusion energy compared to the United States.”

ITER has experienced repeated delays and cost increases, prompting some critics to question whether the project will ever be completed. “It is already obvious that future commercial-size machines will be too large and costly, and too expensive to operate, to generate competitive energy,” says Thomas Cochran, a consultant for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington DC. He adds that he believes South Korea should spend its resources on technologies that have the potential to provide a nearer-term impact on carbon emissions and climate change.

Lee acknowledges the criticism, but says that most of ITER’s issues were of a management, rather than a technical nature. “The schedules are now mostly fixed and sorted out,” he says. “And risks always exist when it comes to a new finding in science, and the investment on the research and development has been made based on the estimation of such risks.”

Moreover, Lee adds, “we are willing to take risks, and need to innovate to survive”.

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on January 21, 2013.

sagansense: Mars One: Reality Bites “The fishermen know that...

Thu, 02 May 2013 03:21:37 -0400

sagansense:

Mars One: Reality Bites

“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.”
— Vincent Van Gogh

For a shot at all this excitement and fame you need to volunteer online with Mars One, the non-profit company behind the initiative. Requirements include “intelligence, adaptability, and a good sense of humour”. “We will train you,” Mars One says. To the relief of many parents, you have to be at least 18 years of age to register.

There is a catch: It’s a one-way trip. You will help to establish humankind as a multi-planet species, a pioneer in the truest sense of the word. Every other year you will be joined by another equally adventurous set of pioneering couples until a proper community has taken root on Mars.

But first you have to survive de-selection by the human race, and a fickle lot we are. We will scrutinise your online video application to decide whether you have the “right stuff”. Your “candidacy” will depend substantially on whether you can impress without annoying. Anti-socials and aspergics need not apply. Hint: do a quick online marketing course and may the best networker win.

Once selected for the training phase, you will find yourself gobsmack-bang in the centre of the biggest reality show ever. Mars One will engage “everyone on Earth” in a 24/7/365 broadcast of your mission. This is Big Brother meets Space Exploration writ large. We will watch you and 39 other aspirant emigrants jostle for elbow-space in remote and cramped simulated Mars conditions; observe your efforts to find a suitable sexual partner and gain a place on “Team 1”. Big Brother meets Survivor and the meek shall not inherit.

Your every step from here down to the surface of Mars will be scrutinised by billions. We will have a better idea of what makes you tick than your own mother, our interest in your fate generating viewer figures exceeding those of the recent London Olympics. This will cover the projected $6-billion per interplanetary trip needed, including at least a decade’s worth of dental floss and sanitary wipes.

Sixty-four South Africans had volunteered even before Mars One opened up formal applications. Five of these have already submitted online video applications. Racing test driver, Donovan Taylor (26) from Gauteng has hands-on mechanical skills. He wants to “do something profound” with his life, “something like executing the next big step for humankind”. He mixes and matches easily and has the “mental strength” to endure the tin-can conditions of the seven-month flight to Mars.

Johan Viljoen (28) from Bloemfontein, an IT and robotics enthusiast with an engineering background, wants to be part of “a great technological leap for humankind”. He draws his inspiration from series like Star Trek and Babylon 5. “This is the closest I could ever get to travelling among the stars. It would be a dream come true.”

Taylor has watched several space movies and knows that “anything can go wrong and one cannot plan for everything”. Mars One will use “existing technologies”, nothing fancy, which reduces the risks. And the health risks? “Oh, things like loss of bone density and such?” Yes, and things like weakened immune systems, pathogens behaving strangely, the high levels of radiation on the way across and on Mars itself. “Perhaps they could thicken the hull of the space ship against the radiation,” Taylor thinks. Viljoen still wants to read up on stuff like that.

In an NBC interview Mars Society president and Mars settlement advocate Robert Zubrin say that the Mars One plan is technically feasible. However, some space analysts point out that the DragonX space craft on which the plan relies, still have to be developed and that there would be little time for the technology to “mature”. There are good reasons why the space establishment develops “mission architecture” in such a boring, step-by-step manner.

If, therefore, you make it safely down to the surface of Mars as we your supporters desire, then you and your fellow settlers will be more remote, exposed and vulnerable than anybody in the history of humankind. With the nearest hospital several million kilometres away, Viljoen thinks that medical care could become an issue, though “Mars One will train us to deal with emergencies”. He knows that they would grow their own food and that there would be no meat. “Perhaps,” he concludes, “we could eventually fly over some chickens”.

Bass Lansdorp, CEO of Mars One, has certainly managed to make going to Mars real – so real that one can almost taste the home-grown carrots. But this reality show has bite in it. You run a real risk of becoming an “interesting” medical textbook case or simply adding to the growing amount of anthropogenic litter on the surface of Mars.

Our aspirant interplanetary migrants, it seems, will cheerfully face these and other risks. Yet, once the fine Martian dust has settled, the excitement has died down and the opinionated bloggers and commentators are feeding off new topics, what then? Unlike in Big Brother, you can only leave the Team 1 habitat feet first. It is, says prize-winning poet Annesu de Vos “bona-fide freaksh*t insane”. At the recent Mars One media launch somebody comments online: “What the f**k are you going to do on Mars for the rest of your life?”

But then, these two are clearly not pioneer material at all, and I could personally think of quite a few things to do on Mars. Besides, everybody knows that going to Mars is a good idea. Stephen Hawking said so – argue with that. It can be done and most of us lunatic fringe types want it to be done.

Sadly, the cyber chatter is homing in on what could be the soft underbelly of this story. Zubrin and others are sceptical about the Mars One business plan. Will the project achieve the Olympian viewer figures needed to foot the billion dollar mission bills? Now, this author will definitely be watching Team 1 “24/7/365”, but what about the rest of you? Hell, I don’t even know whether you are reading this.

Mars One Timeline
2013: Astronaut selection begins. Forty astronauts begin training at a simulated Mars base.
2014: Preparation for a series of supply missions and the development of the first Mars communication satellite begins.
2016: The first supply mission lands on Mars in October with 2 500 kg of equipment in the general location of the future settlement.
2018: A settlement Rover lands on Mars to identify an ideal spot for the settlement.
2021: 6 separate landers deliver two living units, two life-support units, and another rover. The rovers transport the equipment to the settlement location.
2022: Water, oxygen and atmosphere production is ready. Mars Team One gets the go-for-launch. Mars transit vehicle is assembled in orbit and the first four astronauts depart in September.
2023: Mars Team One lands and start linking individual capsules and activating food and energy production. Five cargo missions arrive with additional living units, life-support unit and a third rover.
2025: Mars Team Two arrives … Hereafter a team arrives every two years.

Mars One already states that there could be delays in achieving the milestones on time.

via Mail&Guardian

moon at its full

Thu, 02 May 2013 03:13:10 -0400

moon at its full

I look up — many people feel small because they’re small and...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 02:00:42 -0400

I look up — many people feel small because they’re small and the Universe is big — but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars. There’s a level of connectivity.

That’s really what you want in life, you want to feel connected, you want to feel relevant, you want to feel like a participant in the goings on of activities and events around you.

That’s precisely what we are, just by being alive…

- Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson [ x ]

thatscienceguy: The Sonic Boom, as seen above, is caused by the...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 01:52:41 -0400

thatscienceguy:

The Sonic Boom, as seen above, is caused by the Doppler Effect - that thing Sheldon explained on the Big Bang Theory.

When an object is stationary, while emitting sound, the sound waves spread out uniformly in a circle from the source, as seen in the second image, however when that object begins, as seen in the third image, to move the circles are not emanating from the same position, so the troughs and crests (represented by the black lines) of each wave are in are closer together on one side and further apart on the other.

So when the object is traveling at the speed of sound all the troughs/crests are perfectly aligned on one side, where they then amplify each other (positive and negative superposition) producing a loud burst of sound and also pressurising the air close to the source which is why a cloud is seen.

This effect can also be observed with light, theoritically, however first we need to make something that can, somehow, reach the speed of light ;)

4gifs: Black hole consumes a star

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 01:50:22 -0400

4gifs:

Black hole consumes a star

secular-sally: A red giant exploding

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 02:55:44 -0400

secular-sally:

A red giant exploding

anndruyan: jtotheizzoe: feezix: Pages from Albert...

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 02:52:39 -0400

anndruyan:

jtotheizzoe:

feezix:

Pages from Albert Einstein’s notebook

Some of his science and nonscience papers have been digitally published to look through. One of which is a paper detailing the meaning of E=mc².

Unfortunately his original manuscript hasn’t been digitally copied yet, but has been in museum events all over the world for the public to see an older derivation of the equation, rumored to be the original.

Image Credit: Peat Bakke

minus229k1: Can we all just take a moment to appreciate the...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 01:41:13 -0400

minus229k1:

Can we all just take a moment to appreciate the beauty that the Hubble Telescope has shown us?

Since its launch in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has taken some of the most detailed visible-light images ever, allowing a deep view into space and time. Many Hubble observations have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as accurately determining the rate of expansion of the universe.

thank you,hubble :3 and thank you #ifuckinglovescience

Photo

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 01:35:44 -0400

so i care. :)

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 02:51:00 -0400

nobody cares how much you know unless they know how much you care…
share God’s word. :)