Tag: science

This Echolocating Dormouse Could Reveal the Origins of One of Nature’s Coolest Superpowers

why-animals-do-the-thing:

typhlonectes:

When the sun goes down on the forests of Vietnam, a small, secretive
rodent emerges from the darkness and begins zipping across tree branches
in search of fruit and seeds.

Typhlomys, also known as the
soft-furred tree mouse or Chinese pygmy dormouse, is around three inches
long and sports a white-tufted tail longer than its body. But it darts
so fast that, to the human eye, it appears as little more than a
nocturnal blur.

That’s especially impressive, because Typhlomys is almost completely blind.

When scientists looked at Typhlomys eyeballs under a
microscope, they quickly learned that its visual organs are a total
mess. Irregular retinal folds “destroy continuity of image projection,”
researchers wrote, while a reduced space between the lens and the retina
mucks up the animal’s ability to focus. They also have a reduced number
of image-receiving ganglion cells, which are usually an indicator of
perception. The arboreal rodents seem capable of determining the
difference between light and dark, but little else.

So how does Typhlomys avoid falling to its death or running straight into the jaws of a predator?

According to a paper published in Integrative Zoology
last December, this long-tailed furball has a trick up its sleeve: It
emits ultrasonic chirps, and then navigates its environment based on the
echoes that bounce back.

If that sounds a lot like another nocturnal
mammal, you’re right: Some scientists believe that Typhlomys might be a sort of “transitional animal” that could be the key to understanding bat evolution.

..

This is so cool. 

This Echolocating Dormouse Could Reveal the Origins of One of Nature’s Coolest Superpowers

themiscyra1983:

keyofjetwolf:

thehubby:

Specific dates provided in movies–especially those that pass within our lifetimes–are always interesting to me. Today is one such date. While watching Blade Runner on Saturday, I overheard the replicant Leon mention his inception (activation) date, April 10, 2017. That’s today. (Notably, the more advanced replicants such as Roy have earlier activation dates, in 2016.) It makes Blade Runner another one of those movies that hilariously overestimated the advancement of technology. Like with many others of the time, it’s hard to fault the conclusion; in 1982 we were exploring space, had personal computers in peoples’ homes, and the (somewhat affluent) common man was capable of recording their own video broadcasts. Looking 35 years ahead, it was ambitious, but not completely unreasonable to assume that we would have the kind of quantum advancement we had seen since 35 years earlier, in 1947.

Blade Runner is one of my favorite movies, mostly for the visual artistry. In an era long before CGI as we know it today, Los Angeles is somehow depicted with breathtaking beauty. The lighting and shot compositions blends film noir of the old with a futuristic view of humanity. It’s easy to see how much my favorite anime, Bubblegum Crisis, borrows from the setting. I’m not as completely sold on the film’s story, which bears its fair share of oddities (and I’m really not fond of the interactions between Deckard and Rachael in his apartment.) But overall it’s something I think everyone should try.

I love when real life overtakes movie life like this.

What I find interesting is not so much the overestimation but how bad pop culture can be at guessing which AREAS of science and technology will advance. Blade Runner has ‘replicants’ and space colonies and flying cars; it doesn’t have smartphones. Countless stories and series and movies had routine interstellar travel and computers that still needed punch cards, or printed answers out on film, or generally just displayed text and primitive graphics. Isaac Asimov’s Elijah Bailey books had androids that looked perfectly human, intelligent robots, and interstellar starships, and still, in one novel, had the protagonist taking a flight in which essentially a scrolling newspaper was displayed on a piece of physical film on the seatback in front of him!

We don’t have spaceships or extrasolar colonies or flying cars, but we do have devices in that fit in the palms of our hands and have access to almost literally the entire sum of human knowledge, and more processing power than all but perhaps the most advanced supercomputers of the 80s. We may not have tricorders or long-range sensors that match what you’ll see on Star Trek, but we can display images and information in incredibly high definition. This is not the future we expected, but it would certainly have seemed just as fanciful 50, 40, even 30 years ago.

Mind you, I still want starships and extrasolar colonies, so get on that, everybody.

madmints:

kasaron:

edwardspoonhands:

hoiplatapolloi:

gifsboom:

Perfect magnets

Fun story: One of the first things I was taught as an astronomy student is that, if you want to be a dick to someone giving a presentation, ask them “and how do the magnetic fields play into this?” and they will invariably say “fuck you I don’t know” because no one understands magnetic fields they are black magic.

Originally posted by fencehopping

Magnets are pure bullshit.

Pure utter bullshit. Electromagnetic forces somehow outstrip gravitic forces in strength by an obscene factor, for no reason I can comprehend and it bothers me.

I love magnets

Support women in STEM

staff:

Because they’ve advanced the success and growth of those fields for just as long as men, even when they weren’t afforded the opportunity, the recognition, or the grants. Onward:

Rosalind Franklin (July 25, 1920—April 16, 1958)

image

Rosalind Franklin was a chemist and, get this, X-ray crystallographer. As far as titles go, you can’t do much better than crystallographer. Her work in understanding the molecular structure of DNA laid the foundation for the discovery of the double helix. She also made significant contributions to understanding the structures of RNAs. And viruses. And coal. And graphite. Her work was not fully appreciated until after she passed away. Two teams of all-male scientists who used her work to discover great things later went on to win Nobel Prizes.

Rebecca Lee Crumpler (February 8, 1831—March 9, 1895)

image

Rebecca Lee Crumpler spent most of her professional life being the first at things. She was the very first Black woman to become a physician in the United States. The first (and only) Black woman to graduate from New England Female Medical College. She authored Book of Medical Discourses, one of the very first medical books written by a Black person. Every obstacle she powered through was done in an effort to provide care for other people. Hero. 

Mary Anning (May 21, 1799—March 9, 1847)

image

Mary Anning discovered the first full Ichthyosaur skeleton at 11,  the very first Plesiosaur at 22, and then opened up her own fossil store front a few years later. We repeat: She opened up her own fossil store. We could go on and on, but Rejected Princesses (@rejectedprincesses​) already did it best in this biographical comic. While you’re over there, check out their whole archive and the dozens and dozens of women’s life stories within.

Follow these too:

  • She Thought It: Crossing Bodies in Sciences and Arts (@shethoughtit​​) is a database dedicated to shedding light on women making strides in both science and the arts. A whole bunch of great things.
  • Lady Scientists of Tumblr (@scientific-women​​) promises everything you could ever want from a feminist science round-up blog: intersectionality and equal representation of all scientists who identify as female. Hell yeah.
  • Math Brain (@ihaveamathbrain​​) backs the novel idea that women are indeed capable of understanding math. Shocking. With the perfect amount of sarcasm, they tackle the idea some bozos have that women just don’t have the mind for mathematics.

nestofstraightlines:

jackedjill:

dirtydirtychai:

calamity-cain:

death-list-five:

fight-0ff-yourdem0ns:

pongoplease:

Like seriously I wish we had a more comprehensive sex education program in the U.S. You know how many guys I know who had no idea an unaroused vagina is only 2-3 inches deep? Or that the cervix raises up when aroused to accommodate dick? Or that if a girl is “tight” that generally means she’s not turned on and you’re shitty in bed? Or that the cervix has an entire cycle it goes through throughout the month where is changes hardness, placement in the vagina, wetness? Like, when you’re ovulating your cervix gets soft and raises high up into the vagina and your hormones get you really horny. It’s like natures way of moving the furniture around and fluffing the pillow for dick because it wants to get pregnant. And before menstruation, it gets really hard and low in the vagina. It’s basically inactivating it’s Facebook and saying “I just need some alone time for a few days”

Ladies and gentlemen, take a moment to learn about vaginas. Men, take an interest into your woman’s menstrual cycle!

U.S. Needs better sex Ed because I’m a 23 year old woman and didn’t even know all of this

Hi I had no idea about the cervical cycle.

God bless this post pls share it far & wide

Very informational! Pictures of an entire cycle here. 

Ok I didn’t know about the cervix thing until recently and I always wondered why sometimes sex would be painful and other times it would be fine.

This is what they don’t teach you in school that you really need to know.

Very true. I recommend Animal by Sara Pascoe for eeeeveryone on this website. It not only explains so much about the female experience of heterosexual sex that sex education glances over or misses out, it provides great food for thought about the way society regards female sex and the female body the ways in which we internalise that. It’s both a warm and funny autobiographical tale and a look at the current understanding of evolutionary biology.

Even if you feel pretty well informed about the biology of sex (and I’m not much younger than the author herself and I learned stuff!), it’s worth it to question assumptions and attitudes you don’t even necessarily realise you have.

It also focuses on the science of love at least as much as the mechanics of sex. Anyone involving themselves in heterosexual boinking and/or relationships would get a lot from it.

howprolifeofyou:

afunnyfeminist:

rachelbt2008:

protego-et-servio:

antichoice-compassion:

rachelbt2008:

antichoice-compassion:

rachelbt2008:

did y’all know that there is scientific research that confirms a link between getting an abortion and it making you more likely to get breast cancer?

Where? Because that’s not what the American Cancer Society says.

I only posted about it so people could do research if they would like to. Here’s a few different links:
http://cradlemyheart.org/2013/08/05/why-you-still-dont-know-about-the-abortion-breast-cancer-link/actions
http://americanrtl.org/abortion-breast-cancer
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/04/17/pediatricians-warn-of-abortion-breast-cancer-link/
It apparently has something to do with the way the breast tissue matures with pregnancy that leaves it more susceptible to breast cancer. But I’m not a scientist so I don’t know.

Oh my god you included a link to breitbart. Yeah, none of these sites are biased or anything. Definitely not.

First link is broken.

Second link is “American Right to Life.” Not unbiased.

Third link is Breitbart. While glancing through it, they reference the studies from Asian countries which, most of which are extremely old, have been debunked, or found no causation of breast cancer and abortion.

If I may copy-pasta from another incident: 

It takes until number 36 to get to a study done in the year 2000. So, most of the studies are outdated. (Giving you almost two decades is a huge leeway, anyway. Even further, a lot of the data compiled from these are from before 2000, too.)

37. Reports no connection between induced abortion and breast cancer.

38. These results suggest a history of several induced abortions has little influence on breast cancer risk in Chinese women.

39. Abortions, as they are performed in China, are not an important cause of breast cancer.

40. No evidence was found for breast cancer being connected to abortion.

41. “Our results do not support the hypothesis that induced abortion or miscarriage increase the breast cancer risk of young women.”

42. This study says the “non-statistically significant increase in risk of breast CIS associated with induced abortion … may reflect incomplete reporting by control subjects who had an abortion before 1973 or those who regularly undergo mammographic screening.”

43. “Our conclusions indicate induced abortion does not increase breast cancer risk in African-American women.”

44. This study says women who induce abortions may be at reduced risk of cancer of the corpus uteri.

45. This one said there was a connection, however, reading through the abstract, I’m not sure if the study used records from 1382 or if that’s me reading it wrong… Plus this one is from Iran. Whatever, I’ll give it to you. (1)

46. Also found a connection. This one is also from Iran. (2)

47.CONCLUSION: These results provide strong evidence that there is no relationship between incomplete pregnancy and breast cancer risk.

48. This study did not find any connection between abortion and breast cancer.

49. There was no mention of abortion in this one…

50. Something to the tune of: “Our findings suggest that age and induced abortion were found to be associated with breast cancer. The discrepancies between our findings and other studies might be due to the different characteristics of Turkish women that merit further investigation.” (3)

51. These findings suggested an increased risk. (4)

52. “Each year delay in first pregnancy increased risk, as did induced abortion.” However, “our findings imply the need for further investigation.” (5)

53. This one suggested that there was a relationship in Jiangsu’s women of China. (6)

54. “An increased number of either spontaneous or induced abortions was not associated with an increased BC risk.”

55. This study did show an increase, however it notes that other studies conflict with its findings. (7)

56. This study mostly references other studies when it comes to abortion and breast cancer. The conclusion of this study is saying that non-vegetarian diets are an important risk factor, when it comes to breast cancer, as is literacy. (If you’re more literate, you’re more likely to get breast cancer.)

I won’t count this one, because it’s mostly referencing other studies.

57. No mention of induced abortion, or even miscarriages.

58. This one saying that there’s an increase of breast cancer risk with the number of induced abortions. This one did not have a specific study, though. It’s a “meta-analysis.” Meaning it took various articles and elaborated from the findings. The citations weren’t done in chronological order, but they were splayed over various decades. Since it’s probably using studies we’ve already touched upon, I’m not going to count this one either.

So, from number 37 to 58, only 7 studies claim to find an actual connection between induced abortion and breast cancer. A few of the studies say more research is necessary and that there were conflicting findings about the connection of abortion and breast cancer.

Regardless, you might want to double-check your research before pulling a random list off the Internet.

The American Cancer association does not feel there’s any scientific backing to say abortion increases risk of breast cancer. (They offer plenty of citations.)

Like I have said, multiple times now, I just put it out there for others to look into and come to their own conclusions. Do whatever you want, add whatever other information you want to it, because whether it’s true or not, women deserve to know the truth either way, right?

Why can’t you just admit that you posted falsehoods thinking they were true, until some very polite people educated you on the topic, as well as teaching you to separate science from propaganda? If you were truly interested in getting the truth out there, you would be thanking the people who responded with the truth and promise to do better research so you don’t spread lies. People can draw their own conclusions when both sides are supplying facts to a discussion. But posting lies and sticking by those lies is purposely misleading people and manipulating them through fear.

“did y’all know that there is scientific research that confirms a link between getting an abortion and it making you more likely to get breast cancer?” Is the exact OP, right there in plain black and white.

Saying that it “”“confirms a link”“” is not the same as “ I just put it out there for others to look into and come to their own conclusions.” Just admit you were wrong and move on.

Fantasy Biology: The Pegasus

drferox:

The next long awaited post in the Fantasy Biology series, finally looking at the popular pegasus thanks to popular opinion on my Patreon.

Long time followers of this blog have been waiting for this one for a while. You all seem very keen for my take on how to make a six-limbed creature work, get airborne, and ideally be ridden.

There is a lot to talk about with these flying horses. In the interest of narrowing the topic, I’m only going to discuss pegasus with bird wings, not with bat/dragon wings or any other magical flying horses. 

Key features of a pegasus:

  • Horse body
  • Bird wings
  • Can fly
  • Ridden by heroes

The biggest difficulty with making a pegasus ‘work’ is that you have two different types of forelimbs, that both use very different shoulder joints to function. A horse shoulder moves forward to back when running….

image

But a bird shoulder moves up and down with some rotation when flapping…

image

Keep reading

chavisory:

invaderxan:

mistyscience:

The Wow! signal. 

A signal sequence that lasted for 72 seconds in 1977 but has never been seen again. The signal appeared to come from a globular cluster in the Sagittarius constellation, but to this day no definite answer for where the signal originated can be given.  

This signal…

  • After numerous checks and re-checks, it’s been found to have definitely come from an extraterrestrial source.
  • It was broadcast at 1420 MHz. This frequency isn’t used by Earth communications for science reasons. It’s a frequency which neutral hydrogen emits at in interstellar space and is useful in radio astronomy.
  • Interestingly, emitting a strong signal at this frequency is a likely way to get someone’s attention if there’s anyone listening, because any other radio astronomers in the universe will definitely know of it and be making observations of it.
  • That really is a very strong signal. Against the backgrounds, it looks to me like about 30 standard deviations (give or take).
  • Actually, that globular cluster (M55) is just the closest object to the transmission’s source. It appeared to have come from a region of mostly empty space (though it’s worth remembering that distant red dwarfs or brown dwarfs could be too faint to be detectable).
  • The astronomer who found this and scrawled “Wow!” on that printout was Jerry Ehman at the Big Ear radio telescope in Ohio. Credit where it’s due.
  • Despite a lot of efforts, this kind of signal has only ever been recorded this one time. There’s a chance we may never know what it was.
  • It is unlike any other kind of phenomenon ever observed in astronomy. The only logical scientific explanation is that it was one of two things: Either it was a completely unknown and incredibly rare astronomical phenomenon which modern astronomy is completely unaware of – or it was an intercepted alien transmission. There are no other possibilities.

I really love the Wow! signal.

glintglimmergleam:

thoodleoo:

archaeologistforhire:

anarcho-shindouism:

I am still 10000% baffled as to how/why this exploded over the weekend and now it’s circled back to Tumblr. All glory to thoodleoo for the OP.

every time i see this post it has more realistic indiana jones movie titles and i’m overwhelmed with trying to read them all both on twitter and tumblr because they’re all so funny i love y’all

@terrasigillata