Timelapse Of Europa & Io Orbiting Jupiter, Shot From Cassini During Its Flyby Of Jupiter

Whenever someone tries to claim that evolution is a lie, I send them a picture of platybelodon.

1. It’s an excellent example of transitional evolution.

2. It’s a mess who would intentionally do this and why

3. It makes them piss themselves a little.

“Evolution is just a theory-”

Olinguito 

On Tuesday, Bill Stanley grabbed my arm and pulled me into a side hallway as we were walking towards the mammal collections on the third floor. He looked around suspiciously before leaning in, and in a hushed tone he said

there’s a new raccoon.

What do you mean? 

There’s a new raccoon. You can’t tell anyone. It’s in the pipeline. Going live on Thursday.

Wha- I wasn’t going to-

You can’t tell anyone. Guess where it was discovered?

Oh, geez. I don’t know. Maybe Per-

Here. It was discovered here. 

Then he patted my shoulder, winked, and kept walking. 

Such was my introduction to the olinguito - and yesterday Bill brought it out to show me. In front of us were two drawers, one with the previously known species and the newly described animals on the right. It was immediately obvious to me that before us were two different animals - the size, color and length of the fur, the size of the ears - but without the previous knowledge that they were not one in the same, would I have seen the same dissimilarities? 

This is what sparks me. This is what drives my enthusiasm. In these drawers for sixty years, side-by-side these animals remained, their full potential not realized until a curious researcher took the quiet time to sit down and take a concentrated look at them. It’s the romance of the discovery – it was here all along! – and once you see the striking inconsistencies there comes a feeling of empowerment, the thought that we are the next big discoverers. The thrill of the breakthrough remains attainable, accessible. It’s not beyond our reach or out of grasp - I look forward to seeing what you find next. 

One of my favourite geology facts is this: These diagrams are a lie.

The mantle isn’t yellow. Nor is it orange, or red, or brown, or gray, or black.

The earth’s mantle is made up largely of peridotite.

The earth’s mantle is lime green.

Happy TRAPPIST-1 Day! 

Here’s a comic on our latest discovery! 

http://www.space.com/35806-trappist-1-facts.html

It often seems so quiet after a snowfall because the fresh powder absorbs sound waves. As the snow melts and freezes, it then creates a reflective surface that allows sound to travel farther than normal. Source

For more posts like these, go to @mypsychology​

Contamination-seeking drones - IBM Patent 9447448.

Stay back and let the drones do the dirty work. Patent 9447448 makes cognitive drones able to inspect and decontaminate places so humans don’t have to. The drones’ on-board AI system can collect and analyze samples, so it can identify and clean up any bacteria or outbreak. Meanwhile you get to hang back, safely out of harm’s way.

This is just one of the record-breaking 8,000+ patents IBM received this year. Explore the latest IBM patents. →

It’s way too late for this, but it’s important to note that NASA didn’t discover the new earth-like planets. It was a group of astronomers lead by a dude name Michaël Gillon from the University of Liège in Belgium. Giving NASA credit for this gives the United States credit for something they didn’t do, and we already have a problem with making things about ourselves so. just like…be mindful. I’d be pissed if I discovered a small solar system and credit was wrongfully given to someone else.

I find this table fairly reliable.

Via SMBC

Lmao. Apparently, a sufficient number of puppies can explain any computer science concept. Here we have multithreading: