Category: Science
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How Australia’s Lake Hillier gets its pink color
Lake Hillier located off the south coast of Western Australia (Middle Island) is an iconic lake known for its vivid pink color. Scientists postulate that the lake’s solid bubblegum color results from the intermixing of Halobacteria and a salt-tolerant algae species called Dunaliella Salina. When mixed with salt-tolerant microalgae, the bacteria produce red pigments that […]
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The Wave in Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness, Arizona
The Wave is a sandstone rock formation located in Vermilion Cliffs National Monument on the Arizona and Utah borders. The swirling stone waves combine water and wind eroded sandstone dunes, calcified vertically and horizontally, and fossilized over 190 million years. The rich red-vermillion rocks get their colors from iron oxide pigments. Only 20 people can […]
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Diver finds 900-year-old crusader sword off Israel’s Carmel coast
A scuba diver discovered an ancient sword off Israel’s Carmel coast near the port city of Haifa. The iron sword is thought to have belonged to a crusader knight 900 years ago when the Crusaders were fighting Muslim forces for control over the Holy Land. Eagle-eyed diver Shlomi Katzin stumbled upon the three-foot blade on […]
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Mount Bromo Crater, East Java Indonesia
Mount Bromo is an active volcano located in the Tengger mountain range of East Java, Indonesia. It is also one of the most visited tourist attractions in the rugged Indonesian province. The views from atop the mountain are extraordinary, as one can see well into the crater and the beautiful countryside surrounding it. There’s also […]
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Santiago Ramon y Cajal: The father of neuroscience was also an amazing artist
More than a hundred years ago, the father of modern neuroscience, Santiago Ramón y Cajal demonstrated that information is the output of messy internal wiring provided by the brain’s chemical synchronicity. Cajal was an artist trapped in a laboratory. He used his trained skills as an artist to draw masterful sketches of the brain. In […]
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Iceland’s dark and tall scree Vestrahorn mountains
The ever-so-beautiful Vestrahorn mountain in southeast Iceland is a sight to behold. Nicknamed “Batman Mountain” for its dark and ominous appearance – it looks like the iconic Bat-signal from afar — the 1,490-foot tall scree mountain looks down at the flat black sand of Stokksnes Beach below. Vestrahorn is composed of gabbro and granophyre rocks, […]
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Natural erosion takes down famed Darwin’s Arch in the Galapagos Islands
The top of Darwin’s Arch, a rock formation located in the Galápagos Islands, collapsed into the sea from erosion. The Ecuadorean Environment Ministry reported the destruction of the unique 141 foot high, 230-foot long rock on May 17. “The collapse of Darwin’s Arch, the attractive natural bridge found less than a kilometer from the main […]
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Watch styrofoam dancing to sound waves in a Kundt’s tube
Put your hands in the air and wave them like you just don’t care. What looks like a dubstep rave of little ghost people is actually styrofoam dancing to sound waves in a massive plexiglass pipe known as a Kundt’s tube. In 1866 German physicist August Kundt constructed the experimental acoustical apparatus to measure the speed of sound in […]
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Two ash-covered bodies from Vesuvius eruption uncovered at Pompeii
Archaeologists uncovered the body of a wealthy 40-year old man and his young slave in Pompeii, 2,000 years after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Excavations at the suburban villa Civita Giuliana, a suburb outside Pompeii, discovered the bodies covered in a bed of 6.5-foot ash. Researchers believe that the two men survived the initial eruption […]
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There are different types of tears
Did you know that we shed different types of tears based on our emotions? Each tear type is composed of unique chemicals — mainly salt, water, and lysozyme — that give them their variable structure. Emotional tears contain a natural painkiller According to scientist Claire Phillips, tears of grief contain the neurotransmitter leucine enkephalin which […]
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Photographer captures rare Devil Horns solar eclipse over the Persian Gulf
On December 26, 2019, amateur photographer Elias Chasiotis captured an incredible ‘red devil horns’ sunrise over the Persian Gulf during a rare solar eclipse. The Athens-based photographer was vacationing in the coastal city of Al Wakrah in Qatar just before the new year when he snapped the rare spectacle of the moon blocking the sun. […]
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UFO, lampshade? An amazing lenticular cloud hovers over Japan’s Mount Fuji
They look like flying saucers or marshmallows. These UFO-looking lens-shaped clouds called lenticular clouds often develop near the peaks of mountains, as in the case of Mount Fuji in Japan. Lenticular clouds form when strong winds force air up and over a topographic barrier such as a mountain. Once the rising air hits the obstructive […]