The Fear Of Being Found, Greg Ponthus

You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, not look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books. You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, you shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself (via unsociabledoll)

Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.

Andrew Boyd, Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe   (via operationdeitas)

Chemistry + Physics

We want to make the world a more sciencey place. We’re doing that. With your help, we can do even more. https://www.patreon.com/FQTQ

Image via http://rainbowkitteh.tumblr.com/

Teen breaks Rubik’s Cube new world record (video)

There is no branch of mathematics, however abstract, which may not some day be applied to phenomena of the real world.

Nikolai Lobachevsky (via curiosamathematica)

NASA Completes Space Launch System Design Review:

Well, that’s it folks. The extensive and complicated review process NASA had to undergo is over and they’ll move into “cutting metal and fabricating”.

What does this mean? It means that NASA is going back to space and they’ll definitely be doing it on this rocket.

So what’s the big deal with this rocket exactly?

The Space Launch System is going to be the most powerful launch vehicle ever made and will be the first exploration class vehicle NASA’s made since the Apollo era.

The rocket will be the size of a small skyscraper: 320.9 feet in height.

Could we go to Mars on it?

Yes. In fact that’s the ultimate goal of the program.

It will also likely take astronauts back to the Moon, to asteroids, the moons of other planets etc.

The first launch will be in 2018, without astronauts, to complete final tests and make sure it’s ready to carry humans into space.

The new era of human exploration and discovery is finally before us.

(Image credit: NASA and MSFC)

“When you finish a direct proof, you’ll write QED. When you finish a proof by contraposition, you’ll also write QED but you’ll also write Ta da! Because you’ll feel really great about yourself.”

Discrete math professor (via mathprofessorquotes)

A recent cartoon for New Scientist.

A group of researchers have trained pigeons to identify malignant breast tissue in exchange for pigeon pellets. Here’s the real, not made up study.

This doesn’t mean hospitals will start employing pigeons. But it does suggest that studying pigeons could help us teach doctors how to process medical images. From the study:

Pigeons (Columba livia)—which share many visual system properties with humans—can serve as promising surrogate observers of medical images, a capability not previously documented. 

… The birds’ successes and difficulties suggest that pigeons are well-suited to help us better understand human medical image perception, and may also prove useful in performance assessment and development of medical imaging hardware, image processing, and image analysis tools.

Image credit: Levenson et. al.

As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty, Jonas Mekas (2000)