Ricardocedillob - Sin Título

by Jaccob McKay

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On January 24, 2015, the Hubble Space Telescope photographed three of Jupiter’s moons in transit across the face of the gas giant. This time-lapse imagery condenses 42 minutes, showing the progression of the moons Io (right), Callisto (center), and Europa (left). Each moon’s orbital velocity varies, proportionally slower with greater distance from Jupiter.

(HubbleSite)

Ludwig van Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata ( 3rd Movement ) Tina S Cover 

Beethoven “Moonlight” Sonata,  III “Presto Agitato” Valentina Lisitsa

I made this to put on my wall for revision, but I thought it might be helpful for some of you guys too so I thought I would share it!

Image of the Week – June 8, 2020

CIL:12375 - http://cellimagelibrary.org/images/12375

Description: Movie showing the dynamics of kinetchore microtubules during meiosis II in primary spermatocytes of the crane-fly Nephrotoma suturalis that were experimentally flattened. Time-lapse polarization microscopy using a Nikon Microphot SA, equipped for liquid crystal polarized light microscopy (LC-PolScope, CRi, Woburn Massachusetts) 60x/1.4 PlanApo oil immersion objective, 1.4 NA oil imm. condenser, with 2.0x zoom lens. Images captured every 15 sec using a QImaging Retigo EXi CCD camera. Raw images were processed using 5-frame algorithm (Shribak and Oldenbourg, 2003). The time series used for the movie is included in this grouped set.

Authors: James R. LaFountain and Rudolf Oldenbourg

Licensing: Public Domain: This image is in the public domain and thus free of any copyright restrictions. However, as is the norm in scientific publishing and as a matter of courtesy, any user should credit the content provider for any public or private use of this image whenever possible.

Chris Saunders: Spirit Animals

Chris Saunders is an American mixed media artist living in Venice Beach, CA. After having a near death experience, Chris found himself compelled to create the images that were pouring from his subconscious, exploring themes of connectedness, abstraction & psychedelic experience.   Facebook | Instagram

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Posted by Yellowmenace

Gantz by Hiroya Oku via Ominous - 不吉

Are colour-changing octopuses really colourblind? 

Cephalopods, including octopuses and squid, have some of the most incredible colour-changing abilities in nature. 

They can almost instantly blend in with their surroundings to evade predators or lay in wait, and put on colourful displays to attract mates or dazzle potential prey.

This is impressive enough on its own, but becomes even more amazing when you discover these creatures are in fact colourblind – they only have one type of light receptor in their eyes, meaning they can only see in black and white.

So how do they know what colours to change to at all?

This has puzzled biologists for decades but a father/son team of scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard University think the unusual shape of their pupils holds the key, and they can see colour after all.

Cephalopods have wide U-shaped or dumbbell-shaped pupils, which allow light into the lens from many directions.

When light enters the pupils in human eyes it gets focused on one spot, cutting down on blur from the light being split into its constituent colours.

The scientists believe cephalopod eyes work the opposite way – the wide pupils split the light up and then individual colours can be focused on the retina by changing the depth of the eyeball and moving the pupil around.  

The price for this is blurry vision, but it does mean they could make out colours in a unique way to any other animals.

Processing colour this way is more computationally intensive than other types of colour vision and likely requires a lot of brainpower, which might explain in part why cephalopods are the most intelligent invertebrates on Earth.

Read the paper

Images:  Roy Caldwell, Klaus Stiefel, Alexander Stubbs

The Helium Atom

Helium nuclei were created in the Big Bang and contain two protons and two neutrons each. Helium is the second most abundant element, comprising roughly one quarter of the mass of the Universe. This animation zooms into a standard helium atom, showing its protons (green), neutrons (white), and electrons (blue).

Credits: Dana Berry / Lead Animator Michael McClare (HTSI)