The Silent Flying Of An Owl. 

Green burial practices could help the environment

Traditional caskets are hundreds of pounds of wood, metal and whatever cushioning goes inside.. Burial vaults, the enclosures that barricade each casket from the elements, can be around 3,000 pounds of cement, sometimes steel. One gallon of toxic embalming fluid  is used per 50 pounds of body. Add it all up and you’ve got around two tons of material per body chilling in the earth forever.

Despite the downsides of burial, not everyone wants to be cremated. Plus, there’s plenty of evidence suggesting the energy it takes to burn a body down wreaks significant damage on the environment.

Green burial could be the solution. The idea is to make as little an impact on the natural environment of the burial site as possible.

Follow @the-future-now​

a dream come true: ORCAS IN THEIR NATURAL HABITAT!

they examined our cruise vessel inquisitively and played in our stern wave <3 to watch these gentle giants from up close was such a beautiful once in a lifetime experience! they stayed quite a while so i could enjoy the moment and still take some neat pics. thank you for this special day, guys! stay safe.

Microfilter allows non-invasive diagnosis of fetal abnormalities

A new method could allow physicians to diagnose fetal genetic abnormalities during pregnancy without the risks involved in current techniques.

A team of scientists at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Institute of Microelectronics (IME) has fabricated a microchip that can filter fetal red blood cells from the mother’s circulation. Retrieving these isolated fetal cells could allow the early diagnosis of fetal genetic abnormalities.

The technique, which would require drawing only a few millilitres of blood from an expecting mother, could be used from the eighth week of pregnancy; earlier than current prenatal diagnostic procedures.

Sharks are fucking metal!

The blood vessels on your head.

SPERM WHALE EVOLVED TO RAMMING

Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick was inspired by historical instances in which large sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus L.) sank 19th century whaling ships by ramming them with their foreheads. The immense forehead of sperm whales is possibly the largest, and one of the strangest, anatomical structures in the animal kingdom. It contains two large oil-filled compartments, known as the “spermaceti organ” and “junk,” that constitute up to one-quarter of body mass and extend one-third of the total length of the whale 

Now an international team of researchers used structural engineering principles to test how the head of the sperm whale might be able to resist strong ramming impacts. Using computer simulations and working from published data on sperm-whale tissue and skeletal structure, scientists modeled impacts of varying types, and from a range of directions,what they found is the whale’s junk proved to play a vital role, with tissue partitions distributing much of the stress from ramming impacts and thereby preventing the skull from fracturing.

Although male sperm whales may not fight frequently, we know that aggressive ramming behaviour is a common characteristic in the group of mammals from which whales are derived – the even-toed ungulates, the artiodactyls. 

Illustration: Schematic representation of sperm whale head structure, courtesy of Ali Nabavizadeh. 

Reference: Panagiotopoulou et al. 2016. Architecture of the sperm whale forehead facilitates ramming combat Peerj

BILL BILL BILL BILL

It’s a cute little thing though.

Taphonomy

Every shark week special ever

Presenter: Sharks are actually quite gentle creatures see?

Presenter: Gets into the water

Narrator: HE JUMPS INTO THE OCEAN PUTTING HIS LIFE IN MORTAL DANGER