Tag: 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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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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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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NASA and ESA capture closest images of the sun ever taken
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 […]
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Rare Hominin skull excavated in Ethiopia
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 […]
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Watch a soap bubble freeze
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 […]
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MesoSPIMs: Custom-built microscopes that can scan individual neurons in the brain
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 […]