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, which help give it the appearance of sharp spikes resembling bull horns.
The mountain is located on private property. So to access the photogenic landscape of the beach, you’ll need to make a small payment first.
The experience is worth every penny—especially if you get to see Vestrahorn mountain on a clear night under the Northern Lights.
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 a gas or a solid rod. Said Kundt, “A physicist must be able to saw with a file and to file with a saw.”
The faux mosh pit is the result of a process called “sound looking” which demonstrates what audible vibrations or acoustical forces may actually look like.
No one can doubt that life moves to fascinating rhythms & vibrations.
Lake Hillier in the Recherche Archipelago of Western Australia off the coast of Cape Arid National Park is known for its pink color.
Scientists postulate that the lake’s solid bubblegum pink color results from the intermixing of Halobacteria and a salt-tolerant algae species called Dunaliella Salina.
Halobacteria produce red pigments mixed with salt-tolerant Dunaliella Salina, creating a stunning strawberry milkshake color.
The chemical reactions between the salt and the microorganisms make the lake ten times saltier than the ocean nearby.
There are 29 other pink lakes in the world. But unlike other pink lakes that morph into different colors, Lake Hillier retains its pink hue all year round. It’s also safe to swim in.
The contrast between the bright pink and dark blue ocean water is also striking when viewed above. Learn more about Australia’s pink lake below.
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 from Mount Vesuvius, only to succumb to a massive and more destructive cloud of scorching ash while seeking shelter in a cryptoporticus.
The skeletal remains follow last year’s discovery of another Ancient Roman man crushed by a flying rock during Mount Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 A.D.
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 helps relieve the body in times of stress. In such a way, our tear ducts can act as a natural painkiller.
There’s a biological and evolutionary reason we feel better shedding tears after experiencing a traumatic event.
NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have snapped the closest pictures ever taken of the sun.
The images, taken nearly 48 million miles away from the sun’s surface by the Solar Orbiter probe (launched February 9), reveal countless tiny flares which scientists have called “campfires.”
Scientists hope that these never-before seen exterior shots will help explain why the sun’s solar corona or atmosphere (over 1 million °C) is 300x hotter than its actual surface.
Earlier this year, the National Solar Observatory (NSO) brought us the sharpest movie of the sun we’ve seen which revealed each plasma cell the size of Texas.
“We didn’t expect such great results so early.” Solar Orbiter sends back its first pictures of our Sun — including the closest images ever taken of our star! 📸☀️👉https://t.co/7JXr0XQvuA
Dale Omori, Courtesy of the Cleveland Natural History Museum
Paleontologists have discovered a 3.8 million-year-old skull in Woranso-Mille, Ethiopia that reveals the face of a male Australopithecus anamensis.
Identified mainly by its projecting cheekbones and canine-esque teeth, the newfound hominin cranium provides new information about our earliest human ancestors.
Previously, the 3.2m-year-old iconic hominin bones of Australopithecus Afarensis, best known as before Lucy, served as the missing link in explaining the human evolutionary tree.
Dale Omori & Liz Russell, Courtesy of Cleveland Museum of Natural History
What the individual Australopithecus anamensis could’ve looked like (Artist reconstruction by Matt Crow, Cleveland Museum of Natural History)
The Australopithecus Anamensis and Australopithecus Afarensis lived together for at least 100,000 years.
The leading scientist of the study, Yohannes Haile-Selassie, describes the unearthed skull a “game changer in our understanding of human evolution.”
The precious discovery of the Australopithecine as reported via Nature now represents the face of our oldest direct ancestor.
via @IFLScience/Facebook
However, when it comes to brains, it’s worth noting that humans evolved a unique and complex neocortex.
While the Neathanderals might have possessed bigger brains, it was the advancement of shared language and artistry that helped advance Homo Sapien’ cognitive and mental skills.
The superior cortex and hyper-connectedness of billions of neurons and synapses in the human brain also helped released humans from the prison of biology.
Did you know that you can blow up soap bubbles and instantly freeze them into ice orbs?
If you’re searching for a fun cold-weather activity, this is worth trying out.
Popular Science explains the science behind bubble freeze, in addition to instructions on how to make one.
There’s some interesting science at play here. Every bubble is made up of three individual layers: a thin layer of water molecules squished between two layers of soap. It might look like the entire surface of the bubble is freezing, but what you’re actually seeing is the innermost layer of water—which freezes at warmer temperatures than soapy water—turning to ice within the film.
As the soapy water turns into ice crystals, the inside of the bubble appears to swirl around to create a beautiful effect of a snowglobe — very photographic!
But the ice bubbles don’t last forever, notes bubble photographer Chris Ratzlaff: “Bubbles are such ephemeral things,” he says. “To be able to literally freeze them in time is such a rare experience.”
MesoSPIMs are open-source light-sheet microscopes for imaging cleared tissue.
The custom-built microscopes enable scientists to look at individual neurons using sheets of light rather than cutting a brain into slices.
The mesoSPIM Initiative paves the way for the future discovery and understanding of the brain’s complex organization. The studies may one day reveal vital information on the neuronal networks that drive mental illnesses and addictions.
A chicken embryo captured under the mesoSPIM microscope
