Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Our speck in space (thanks to NASA, Carl Sagan & @Monicks)

Today I saw a version of this picture with this quotation and was in awe once again, of the vastness we move through every day on our small blue orb. And how speck-like and innocent it seems.  The picture was posted on Twitter by a person named @Monicks but the printed quote was a part of the picture and the text was hard to read to my old eyes. So I hunted up a different version of the photo (found at WikiPedia) and the quote to go with it, so I could share it in larger type So Thank you @Monicks for inspiring me. This picture was taken by the Voyager 1 as it left our solar system in 1990. The little speck inside the circle is Earth seen from close to 4 BILLION miles away.  Here is what Carl Sagan said about this picture:

"Consider again that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." ---- Carl Sagan
This inspired a poem

Friday, March 5, 2010

Thursday, January 28, 2010

"Glorious Dawn" from Symphony of Science

"Glorious Dawn" - I think this was the first music video posted at  http://SymphonyofScience.com which is a very cool site.  Check it out! You can find the Lyrics there as well. I have two other of their videos embedded here also.  You can see by watching their videos that outdated concepts of the supernatural are not needed for awe, wonder or mystery in this amazing universe of universes in which we live.

http://www.youtube.com/v/zSgiXGELjbc&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

"We Are All Connected" - a music remix from SymphonyofScience.com

This is a part of a series of videos from http://SymphonyofScience.com - watch the video and checkout their website. I will post more of this series here also.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Living Model Of Basic Units Of Human Brain Created

- A process under development may enable the modeling of the human brain in a living representation, according to an article in Science Daily.

Using cells originally from a tumor which have been 'reprogrammed' to stop multiplying, along with a natural molecule used by the body to stimulate cellular development, the cells are turned into a "co-culture" of nerve cells and astrocytes - which the article calls "the most basic units of the human brain." According to the article, this line of research could lead to improved treatments for Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases.

As someone who feels fairly numb at the moment, heavy with all the folks who have died in the last year, I can't help but wonder if this living model could contain joy..... so elusive right now. So I'm engaging in a little art therapy trying to make a co-culture of renewed vision, shed some grief by the polishing the rice bowl method of doing something, namely sculpting a little. (pictured above) Not working so far. Taking out trashing didn't work either. Nor a blog post. But each little action propells forward into the future. That's really all one can do. Go forward.

Go to the article -- in ScienceDaily.com (2009-03-22):

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Virtual Biopsy - Doctor McCoy move over!

Found this wild note in Science Daily. Read more by clicking on the head line up there.
Sounds like Doc McCoy on Star Trek!

ScienceDaily (2008-01-19) -- A non-invasive diagnostic tool to detect surface cancers quickly and painlessly using technology currently employed by gyms to calculate body composition has been developed by a medical physics researcher. The new diagnostic technique uses bioimpedance spectroscopy to diagnose cervical and skin cancers.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Dead rat hearts, fluffy snow

• A dead rat's heart was scientifically renewed - it's" ALIVE" and the news outlets are crazy for it. However, the euphemism Dead Rat is just too strong to ignore. And you know, when you or I need a new rat heart, the insurance company will tell us to go whistle in the dark somewhere.

• The want ads have been thinner and thinner. So have the Danbury listings on Craig's list. I don't know about the country as a whole - but the Hat City employment situation seems bleak. "Don't worry. Everyday is a day," Maisy told me but I am not sure what she means by that. Since I have turned down two jobs in the last year, and quit one, this makes me nervous. I like having options. Oh well.

• This morning the snow lined every limb, clumped up on every line, and fence rail, looking bright and fresh.