Our Universe Is In Many Respects Sublime. It Prompts Wonder But Can Be Daunting — Even Frightening

NIH to retire all research chimpanzees

Two years after retiring most of its research chimpanzees, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is ceasing its chimp programme altogether, Nature has learned.

In a 16 November e-mail to the agency’s administrators, NIH director Francis Collins announced that the 50 NIH-owned animals that remain available for research will be sent to sanctuaries. The agency will also develop a plan for phasing out NIH support for the remaining chimps that are supported by, but not owned by, the NIH.

“I think this is the natural next step of what has been a very thoughtful five-year process of trying to come to terms with the benefits and risks of trying to perform research with these very special animals,” Collins said in an interview with Nature. “We reached a point where in that five years the need for research has essentially shrunk to zero. “

The US National Institutes of Health once maintained a colony of roughly 350 research chimpanzees. Cyril Ruoso/Minden Pictures/Getty

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)

Talk with people who make you see the world differently.

(via thategyptianqueen)

Masterpieces in Agar. These are some of the most beautiful Agar Art pics from (and inspired by) the annual competition hosted by the American Society for Microbiology. Read more about the contest, the artists, and their work here.

it’s easy to sit from your balcony of privilege & look down upon the masses, ignorant of why they’re angry.

it’s easy to sit under a shelter because you’re protected by privilege & wonder why the masses complain that they’re fed up with the rain.

it’s easy to sit in your warm house with state of the art equipment & wonder why people constantly complain that they’re left out in the cold

it’s easy to celebrate because your crops have yielded a high amount & question why other people complain, unaware that they weren’t given enough seeds. unaware that it barely ever rains here… the sun doesn’t even shine here…

it’s easy to be blinded by privilege. to remain neutral in situations of oppression simply because you are unaffected. but to remain neutral, is to strengthen the power of the oppressor.

— @beeyroyce

26,500 meals, 180 spacewalks and 1,200 scientific results publications later, we celebrate 15 years of continuous human presence aboard the International Space Station. 

An infographic from NASA.  

Credit: NASA’s Website