letslook4treasure:

Striped Icebergs

Icebergs sometimes have stripes, formed by layers of ice deposited on different conditions. Blue stripes are created when a crevice in the ice sheet fills up with melted water and freezes so quickly that no bubbles form. Green stripes form when an iceberg falls into the sea and a layer of water rich in algae freezes onto the bottom.  Brown, black and yellow lines are caused by sediment, picked up when the ice sheet grinds downhill towards the sea. 

(Photos: Antarctica Series by Steve Nicol)

stepchildofthesun:

Fire sky by rtowsky.

spokeart:

New painting by artist Cam Floyd that is currently on view at the Supersonic Electronic Invitational at Spoke Art in San Francisco. The show will be up until January 26th and admission is free! More info here.

Why don’t our arms grow from the middle of our bodies?

The question isn’t as trivial as it appears. Vertebrae, limbs, ribs, tailbone … in only two days, all these elements take their place in the embryo, in the right spot and with the precision of a Swiss watch…

During the development of an embryo, everything happens at a specific moment. In about 48 hours, it will grow from the top to the bottom, one slice at a time — scientists call this the embryo’s segmentation. “We’re made up of thirty-odd horizontal slices,” explains Denis Duboule, a professor at EPFL and Unige. “These slices correspond more or less to the number of vertebrae we have.”

Every hour and a half, a new segment is built. The genes corresponding to the cervical vertebrae, the thoracic vertebrae, the lumbar vertebrae and the tailbone become activated at exactly the right moment one after another. “If the timing is not followed to the letter, you’ll end up with ribs coming off your lumbar vertebrae,” jokes Duboule. How do the genes know how to launch themselves into action in such a perfectly synchronized manner? “We assumed that the DNA played the role of a kind of clock. But we didn’t understand how.”

When DNA acts like a mechanical clock

Very specific genes, known as “Hox,” are involved in this process. Responsible for the formation of limbs and the spinal column, they have a remarkable characteristic. “Hox genes are situated one exactly after the other on the DNA strand, in four groups. First the neck, then the thorax, then the lumbar, and so on,” explains Duboule. “This unique arrangement inevitably had to play a role.”…

(read more: From blue whales to earthworms, a common mechanism gives shape to living beings)

A wave function or wavefunction is a probability amplitude in quantum mechanics describing the quantum state of a particle and how it behaves. Typically, its values are complex numbers and, for a single particle, it is a function of space and time. The laws of quantum mechanics (the Schrödinger equation) describe how the wave function evolves over time. The wave function behaves qualitatively like other waves, like water waves or waves on a string, because the Schrödinger equation is mathematically a type of wave equation. This explains the name “wave function”, and gives rise to wave-particle duality…

(read more: Wikipedia)   (image: Maschen)

Could Blasts from Cosmic Collisions Destroy Life on Earth?

by Jennifer Welsh

The persistence of life on Earth may depend on massive explosions on the other side of the galaxy, according to a new theory that suggests powerful bursts of space radiation could have played a part in some of our planet’s major extinction events.

The explosions — gamma-ray bursts thought to occur when two stars collide — can  release tons of high-energy gamma-ray radiation into space. The researchers found that such blasts could be contributing to the depletion of the Earth’s ozone layer. Disruption of the ozone layer lets ultraviolet light filter down to the surface of the Earth, where it can change organisms by mutating their genes. Now, researchers are beginning to connect the timing of these gamma-ray bursts to extinctions on Earth that can be dated through the fossil record.

“We find that a kind of gamma-ray burst — a short gamma-ray burst — is probably more significant than a longer gamma-ray burst,” study researcher Brian Thomas of Washburn University, in Topeka, Kansas, said in a statement. “The duration is not as important as the amount of radiation.”…

(read more: Live Science)   (image: Dana Barry/NASA)

Broken bones, been bruised and tortured, 

Lived and died, bled and healed. 

I have

Seen happiness upon purple skies,

streaked with the absence of smiles,

darkness in the sun

I have been risking, unknowingly finding, 

Somehow understanding that not knowing is 

Knowing enough. 

I have

Known love is unbelievably horrible,

that I shiver within

That I suffer beneath floors, under doors, hidden in

Books, and within words that I write or do not write. 

I have

Broken through the surface of life,

the water trembles beneath the bones of my fingers,

i set my heart on a path of darkened sun,

within the sadness,

parched throats, they sip for existence

aching eyes, I wait for them and cry.

I have 

I don’t know who I am, and I

secretly find who I am through  this pain.

It hides in my brain like a scared child, tucked away in

a corner, its body frozen with fear. 

I have

Come to conclusions and forgotten me. 

I am thinking, crying, 

not knowing, who I am, what am I doing, will I love, will I fail,

will I die, will I know after my mind tires, who I am? 

by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) 

From Hamlet Act 2 scene 2, as it appears in the 1623 First Folio. In modern form:

Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.

(Arden Shakespeare, 1982) 

Shards of shattered glass

are spread across the way,

breaking all the more at

everything you say.

Don’t worry about tomorrow,

just let this all be.

Before you know it,

I’ll be a fading reverie.

You left me, then,

walked right out that door,

my glass heart nothing more

than broken pieces on the floor.

i carry your heart with me

i carry it in my heart

i am never without it

anywhere i go you go, my dear;

and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling

i fear no fate

for you are my fate, my sweet

i want no world

for beautiful you are my world, my true

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;

which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart

i carry it in my heart

-e. e. cummings