See What Technology Was Used In Determining The Age Of The #Universe

Shadowplay New York brings the beauty and wonder of the universe to hand-crafted, carefully designed and environmentally conscious cashmere scarves. Each piece is digitally printed using real images, often shot from NASA’s Hubble Telescope. See more of their collection on Etsy.

5 Extraordinary & Mind Blowing Sea Creatures

This video was produced by the Youtube channel Top5s

The animals featured in this video are the frilled shark, the mantis shrimp, the giant isopod, the mimic octopus, and finally a mysterious long legged squid.

I decided to share this video on this blog because Top5s did a wonderful job of introducing these incredible, odd, and sometimes unsettling animals without using drama or fear to as a way to gain views or anything else. I really appreciate the straight forward method he takes when discussing things like this. He gets the information out and still keeps the viewer interested without fear mongering.

If/when he posts more ocean related videos I’ll be sure to share them, for now if you are interested to see any of his other videos (he covers a variety of subjects. Many of them odd, strange, and/or disturbing: you’ve been warned) here’s a link to his channel Top5s:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX51Dixddr5HuwLVBH9ykeQ

Seduce me with science puns

Shine bright like a blood strain

Net-The-Average-Boy (via not-the-average-boy)

Net the average boy?

“look again at that dot. that’s here. that’s home. that’s us. on it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. 

“the earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.  

“our posturings, our imagined self importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. in our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. 

“the earth is the only world known so far to harbour life. there is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. visit, yes. settle, not yet. like it or not, for the moment the earth is where we make our stand. 

“there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. to me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” 

- carl sagan

photos taken from cassini in 2013 when 1.5 billion km from earth; voyageur 1 in 1990 when 6 billion km; mars rover curisoity in 2014 when 160 million km; and the lunar reconnaissance orbiter in 2014, when the moon was 403,473 km away from earth, or near apogee.

Sea otters—gardeners of the eel grass

Photo: Ron Eby

In the 1970s, researchers discovered that kelp forests are healthier and home to many more species with otters than without them. By keeping kelp-devouring sea urchins in check, otters promote kelp growth, which in turn supports a diverse community of algae, fish, invertebrates, and marine mammals.

If otter abundance is up, so is the kelp’s; if urchin abundance is up, the otter and kelp abundance will be down. This domino effect is called a three-step trophic cascade.

But wait, there’s more!

Photo: Ron Eby

Researchers from UC Santa Cruz monitoring sea otters living in Elkhorn Slough, an estuary in Monterey Bay, noticed something incredible: after otters moved into the area, the eel grass beds became healthier.  They took a closer look and discovered that otters are also a keystone species in the eel grass community!

We’ve been studying sea otters for over 30 years, and they continue to impress us every day. 

Simple actions—like protecting sea otters—can have drastic, surprising, and positive impacts throughout the environment. To find out how you—yep, you, right there—can help us continue our research, take a look at our Sea Otter Program page. 

Here’s to the next 30 years of sea otter research!

Perfect magnets

It’s magically delicious http://cute-overload.tumblr.com source: http://imgur.com/r/aww/aPFzTID