Interesting discovery and video: an octopus uses a coconut shell to hide under but also takes the shell with him when walking over the mud of the ocean. Coconuts as tools. Most interesting of all, this was not discovered or filmed by the BBC Life team.
Tag Science
Drought Problems In Ethiopia Almost Solved. Country To Get Its Own Oceans
According to researchers, you know those people who get paid to claim things other researches then have to prove are true, have claimed that a 35 mile long crack, up to 20 feet wide, in Ethiopia may be the source of a new ocean.
Using newly gathered seismic data from 2005, researchers reconstructed the event to show the rift tore open along its entire 35-mile length in just days. Dabbahu, a volcano at the northern end of the rift, erupted first, then magma pushed up through the middle of the rift area and began “unzipping” the rift in both directions, the researchers explained in a statement today.
“We know that seafloor ridges are created by a similar intrusion of magma into a rift, but we never knew that a huge length of the ridge could break open at once like this,” said Cindy Ebinger, professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Rochesterand co-author of the study.
Water problems solved. But things would get worse even: the new ocean is said to connect the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden. Errr… yeah.
So when we translate all the sciencalese we come to this: the largest ass crack in the world will connect two seas which are already connected together all while solving the drought problem in Ethiopia. Wait, what happens to Ethiopia?
Via MSNBC.
Nanotechnology Could Be Dangerous. Extremely Hard To Spot Danger
A new paper published by the German Federal Environment Agency has warned for possible dangers from nanotechnology. The German internet immediately inflated the warning and the nanodanger became humongous in the rumour kitchen.
Yet some studies have emerged that do appear to show nano-sized ingredients can be harmful. One, from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in the United Kingdom, found that when mice inhaled carbon nano-tubes, they developed lung inflammations similar to those caused by asbestos. The lung inflammations did eventually subside. Another theory posits that nano-materials could have an impact on human DNA and more science-fiction-style scenarios involve the deadly military potential of items like the flexible amour and lightweight combat equipment being developed at Florida State University in the United States.
Read more at Spiegel International.
Billions of $$$ Shot In Space and What Do We Get Back: ‘Einstein Could Be Wrong’. Ace, Waiting On The Pope To Extradite Einstein Now
It’s pretty much the same story as with the Church needing 500 years to accept Galileo’s theory, but the other way round and without the church involved this time. Which won’t last long of course. Especially not if the topic is as serious as it is.
It could be that time is out of joint!
Everything from the concept of the black hole to GPS timing owes a debt to the theory of general relativity, which describes how gravity arises from the geometry of space and time. The sun’s gravitational field, for instance, bends starlight passing nearby because its mass is warping the surrounding space-time. This theory has held up to precision tests in the solar system and beyond, and has explained everything from the odd orbit of Mercury to the way pairs of neutron stars perform their pas de deux.
Yet it is still not clear how well general relativity holds up over cosmic scales, at distances much larger than the span of single galaxies. Now the first, tentative hint of a deviation from general relativity has been found. While the evidence is far from watertight, if confirmed by bigger surveys, it may indicate either that Einstein’s theory is incomplete, or else that dark energy, the stuff thought to be accelerating the expansion of the universe, is much weirder than we thought
Continue reading at The New Scientist.
Missions to Mars
After the awesome 50 Years of Space Exploration infographic, here is another one containing all, and future, missions to Mars.
Germans Break World Record of Speed
Two German professors at the Uni of Koblenz claim having discovered the possibility to travel faster than the speed of light. But there could be some problems with their quantum tunneling theory;
The pair say they have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons – energetic packets of light – travelled “instantaneously” between a pair of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart.
Being able to travel faster than the speed of light would lead to a wide variety of bizarre consequences.
For instance, an astronaut moving faster than it would theoretically arrive at a destination before leaving
We are not sure if this announcement is truly exciting or not but it contains the word quantum, so we had to report it here.
Source: The Telegraph.
The Illusion of Sex
Really, sex is an illusion? That’s not what she said!
Maybe they meant something entirely differently when the title was written.
What you’re looking at isn’t an optical illusion, but is a play on the basic expected traits of men and women’s faces. The flusher lips of the left pic coincide with our expectations for women’s faces, as does the fairer skin. And it’s not just the illusion of lipstick; even without lipstick, we expect women’s lips to be more red than men’s. The difference in skin tone also brings to mind a recent a study suggesting that, on the whole, men’s faces are more red complected, while women’s are more green. Thus, even in the B&W photo, we infer that the darker complected face has the deeper reddish tone of masculinity; the lighter, the paler, greenish tone of femininity.
Via The Grand Narrative.
50 Years of Space Exploration
Awesome graphic picturing 50 years of space exploration and travel. Not updated with the latest trips made in 2009 but still an amazingly awesome pic. And maybe an inspiration to stand still for a second and reflect on how far the humans have gone all while not being able to solve basic problems such as poverty, homelessness and war.
Click the image for larger version or go here for a +1MB version.
Black Hole Alert. Amazing Documentary
SpaceRip has released a new amazing documentary. This time the topic are black holes. Watch it below and don’t forget to watch the other videos by SpaceRip.
It’s not at all about the size of your penis
But the preliminary factor in how easy, often woman can climax, or not, is the distance between the vagina and the clitoris according to Kim Wallen, professor of psychology and behavioral neuroendocrinology at Emory University.
In fact, there’s even an easy “rule of thumb,” Wallen says: Clitoris-vagina distances less than 2.5 cm — that’s roughly from the tip of your thumb to your first knuckle — tend to yield reliable orgasms during sex. More than a thumb’s length? Regular intercourse alone typically might not do the trick.
This confirms previous research in the 1920s by Princess Marie Bonaparte. So guys, you now have a counter question for when women ask you for your size.
Via LA Times.
