fuckyeahbiomedicina:

Steps of Scientific Method - Meme version

(via scinerds)

theweekmagazine:

An engineer for the space exploration company SpaceX has outlined an elaborate plan to build Star Trek’s USS Enterprise, which he says could be ready to fly within the next 20 years.

“We have the technological reach to build the first generation of the spaceship… so let’s do it,” writes BTE Dan on his website, BuildTheEnterprise.org (which has been loading intermittently because of heavy traffic). 

The website includes conceptual blueprints, budgeting proposals, a timeline for research and development, and almost every other conceivable detail.

Could they actually pull this off?

(via scinerds)

expose-the-light:

20 Things You Didn’t Know About Fire

1  Fire is an event, not a thing. Heating wood or other fuel releases volatile vapors that can rapidly combust with oxygen in the air; the resulting incandescent bloom of gas further heats the fuel, releasing more vapors and perpetuating the cycle.

2  Most of the fuels we use derive their energy from trapped solar rays. In photosynthesis, sunlight and heat make chemical energy (in the form of wood or fossil fuel); fire uses chemical energy to produce light and heat.

3  So a bonfire is basically a tree running in reverse.

4  Assuming stable fuel, heat, and oxygen levels, a typical house fire will double in size every minute.

5  Earth is the only known planet where fire can burn. Everywhere else: Not enough oxygen.

6  Conversely, the more oxygen, the hotter the fire. Air is 21 percent oxygen; combine pure oxygen with acetylene, a chemical relative of methane, and you get an oxyacetylene welding torch that burns at over 5,500 degrees Fahrenheit—the hottest fire you are likely to encounter.

7  Oxygen supply influences the color of the flame. A low-oxygen fire contains lots of uncombusted fuel particles and will give off a yellow glow. A high-oxygen fire burns blue.

8  So candle flames are blue at the bottom because that’s where they take up fresh air, and yellow at the top because the rising fumes from below partly suffocate the upper part of the flame.

9  Fire makes water? It’s true. Place a cold spoon over a candle and you will observe the water vapor condense on the metal…

10 …because wax—like most organic materials, including wood and gasoline—contains hydrogen, which bonds with oxygen to make H₂O when it burns. Water comes out your car’s tailpipe, too.

11  We’ve been at this a long time: Charred bones and wood ash indicate that early hominids were tending thefirst intentional fires more than 400,000 years ago.

12  Nature’s been at it awhile, too. A coal seam about 140 miles north of Sydney, Australia, has been burning by some estimates for 500,000 years.

13  The ancient Greeks started fire with concentrated sunlight. A parabolic mirror that focuses solar rays is still used to ignite the Olympic torch.

14  Every 52 years, when their calendar completed a cycle, the Aztecs would extinguish every flame in the empire. The high priest would start a new fire on the ripped-open chest of a sacrificial victim. Fires fed from this flame would be distributed throughout the land.

15  Good burn: The 1666 Great Fire of London destroyed 80 percent of the city but also ended an outbreak of bubonic plague that had killed more than 65,000 people the previous year. The fire fried the rats and fleas that carried Yersinia pestis, the plague-causing bacterium.

16  The Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin was the second deadliest blaze in United States history, taking 1,200 lives—four times as many as the Great Chicago Fire. Both conflagrations broke out on the same day: October 8, 1871.

17  America’s deadliest fire took place April 27, 1865, aboard the steamship Sultana. Among other passengers were 1,500 recently released Union prisoners traveling home up the Mississippi when the boilers exploded. The ship was six times over capacity, which helps explain the death toll of 1,547.

18  The Black Dragon Fire of 1987, the largest wildfire in modern times, burned some 20 million acres across China and the Soviet Union, an area about the size of South Carolina.

19  Spontaneous combustion is real. Some fuel sources can generate their own heat—by rotting, for instance. Pistachios have so much natural oil and are so prone to heat-generating fat decomposition that the International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code regards them as dangerous.

20  Haystacks, compost heaps, and even piles of old newspapers and magazines can also burst into flame. A good reason to recycle DISCOVER when you are done.

(via scinerds)

scinerds:

AWESOME ALERT: This Guy Hand-Forged His Wedding Ring Out Of A METEORITE!

Go over to io9.com to check out photos that show his process. He turned a Gibeon meteorite into a kick ass wedding ring all in his garage. Anyone else insanely jealous of his talent? I want one!

Real life Sauron, anyone?

invaderxan:

Bring it!

(Source: meme4u)

pleatedjeans:

via

(Source: ForGIFs.com, via awesomephilia)

theweekmagazine:

Has mankind outgrown Earth?

A new report from the World Wildlife Fund says we’re gobbling up the planet’s resources at such an alarming rate that by 2030, even a second Earth wouldn’t be enough to sustain us

Which resources are we depleting?
Renewables like fish, water, timber, and food are being used up much faster than previously thought. According to experts, mankind’s “ecological footprint” is now over 50 percent higher than it was in 2008, meaning it takes 1.5 years for Earth to regenerate the natural resources we use up annually. 

Why is our ecological footprint growing?
The world’s population, which according to the U.N. surpassed 7 billion last October, is getting too big, and the average individual is using more than he or she needs. “The excessive demands that we are putting on the planet will inevitably lead to acute water shortages, a chronic food crisis, and rising prices for energy, metals, and minerals,” says Robert Walker at the Huffington Post.

Keep reading

(via scinerds)

and now someone show how much they expect us to write on these desks with the progression of school

How to Flirt

• smile
• wink
• use cheesy pick up lines
• gently stroke cheek
• slowly lift rag drenched in chloroform and cover mouth/nose
• drag to car

(Source: wholewheat, via laughatyourproblems)

yourerightinthemiddleoftheroad:

andwhispers:

every book you’ve ever read is just a different combination of 26 letters

(via laughatyourproblems)

My dad just emailed me this huge list of puns oh my god

14-billion-years-later:

Shape-Memory Alloy

A shape-memory alloy is exactly what it sounds like: an alloy of two (or more) metals that somehow can “remember” the original shape it was folded into. One of the more famous examples of this is nickel-titanium, or nitinol, will spontaneously fold from a crumpled state back to the ordered, cold forged state when heated. A video of this process can be seen here. This works because of a small phase change in the metal itself, when shaped the atoms arrange themselves into organized crystal structures. Distorting the metal then causes these crystal structures to become disorganized and energetically unfavourable, application of heat then allows the original crystal structure to be formed again by overcoming the energy barrier. The special thing about SMA’s is that the crystal structures can be reversed while in most alloys the structures naturally decay due to diffusion of atoms within the metal.

Shape-memory alloys have many applications, ranging from uses in medicine and robotics right through to the more novel, as seen in this lamp designed by Japanese design group Nendo. In this case the heat from the bulb causes the lamp to “bloom” as the strips of alloy move back to their preformed shape.

(via scinerds)