Official NASA Image Showing The Evolution Of The Space Launch System!

I love mankind…but I find to my amazement that the more I love mankind as a whole, the less I love man in particular.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (via wordsnquotes)

“In this presidential election season, one thing is certain: candidates will rarely — if ever — be asked what they would do to keep this nation at the forefront of science and innovation.

The truth is in the numbers. In the 1960s, the United States devoted nearly 17% of discretionary spending to research and development, reaping decades of economic growth from this sustained investment. By 2008, the figure had fallen into the single digits. This occurs at a time when the private sector has cut back on its research investment and other nations have made significant gains in their own research capabilities. China, for example, is projected to outspend the United States in research within the next decade. East Asia as a whole already does.”

— Janet Napolitano, Why more scientists are needed in the public square.

Today is the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s presentation of general relativity’s field equations to the Prussian Academy of Sciences. The equations demonstrated the relationship between the local curvature of spacetime and the energy and momentum within that area of spacetime. The first image shows the way that Einstein first presented the equations in his 25 November 1915 paper, where G_im is the Ricci tensor; g_im, the metric tensor; T_im, the energy–momentum tensor for matter; and κ is proportional to Newton’s gravitational constant. The second image shows a modern full version of the equation where R_μν, is the Ricci curvature tensor; R, is the scalar curvature; g_μν, is the metric tensor; Λ, is the cosmological constant; G, is Newton’s gravitational constant; c, is the speed of light in vacuum; and T_μν, is the stress–energy tensor. For more about Einstein’s development of the equations, we have a article available from our November issue: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.2979

via: Physics Today

The Extraordinary Oil Paintings of Alessandro Sicioldr

Sicioldr is an italian painter and illustrator born in 1990 in Tarquinia, living and working in Perugia. He works mainly with oil paint, pencils and coloured pencils. His subjects are surreal images coming from unconscious that he represents using a blend of contemporary and traditional techniques. His visionary attitude began to sprout in early childhood, when he used to depict in his drawings strange and uncanny worlds. These early manifestations brought a scared kindergarten teacher to call his parents, asking for an exorcism. He studied and worked under his father’s guidance in his classical painting atelier where he learned not only how to paint but how to prepare wood with Cennino Cennini’s technique, how to mix and grind pigments and how to build and decorate custom frames. In 2014 he moved to his personal atelier. His inspirations often comes from his dreamy visions and from studies of art history, psychology, mythology, philosophy, literature and science

Is it possible to have a spacesuit that is skin tight? My logic on this is that space wants to separate your bodies atoms but can the pressure be neutralized by having a tight enough skin suit? Am I even making sense?

Meet Dava Newman:

Now NASA’s Deputy Administrator (second-in-command). She’s spent years at MIT developing what’s known as the “BioSuit” - basically a skintight spacesuit that would use mechanical counter-pressure to apply about a third of an atmosphere on the body, enabling exploration with full range of motion, minimizing the energy spent fighting your own bubble-boy-of-a-suit.

There were a couple of problems remaining when she left to work for NASA:

The design so far still includes a pressurized helmet that has a seal issue with the rest of the suit. Also certain parts of the suit (the hands as you can see above) are difficult to get quite right.

The second problem is going to be returned to in a few years. The last I heard the research group was going to let material science develop carbon nanotubes and graphene a bit more and then try using those two materials somehow in the design.

It’s a super promising design and I hope they get it down pat! As is, it stands to benefit the medical community as well as to open astronaut qualifications to people shorter than 5′5″ (or somewhere around there) - below which apparently they can’t even apply to be an astronaut due to the spacesuits not being made small enough.

(Image credit: Professor Dava Newman: Inventor, Science Engineering; Guillermo Trotti, A.I.A., Trotti and Associates, Inc. (Cambridge, MA): Design; Dainese (Vincenca, Italy): Fabrication; Douglas Sonders: Photography)

Talk with people who make you see the world differently.

(via thategyptianqueen)

Check out these scientists reacting to the first images from the Hubble Space Telescope after they successfully fixed its wonky mirror.

Then watch our music video celebrating Hubble here.

Then read all about Hubble’s 25 years in space here.

Imagine a droplet sitting on a rigid surface spontaneously bouncing up and then continuing to bounce higher after each impact, as if it were on a trampoline. It sounds impossible, but it’s not. There are two key features to making such a trampolining droplet–one is a superhydrophobic surface covered in an array of tiny micropillars and the other is very low air pressure. The low-pressure, low-humidity air around the droplet causes it to vaporize. Inside the micropillar array, this vapor can get trapped by viscosity instead of draining away. The result is an overpressurization beneath the droplet that, if it overcomes the drop’s adhesion, will cause it to leap upward. For more, check out the original research paper or the coverage at Chemistry World.  (Video credit and submission: T. Schutzius et al.)