The Year 2000 As Imagined In 1910 (Images)
Filed under People, Science, Tech, Visual Graphics & Images
Back in 1910, Villemard started predicting the future on paper. With each brush stroke, an elegant picture of the future came to life. It is amazing how accurate these paintings are. Sure, we don’t have personal wings or flying machines (individual ones that is) just yet, and the cars are a bit different as well. However, the overall look of 2000 pretty much made perfect sense.
The accuracy of these images is not in the way they are drawn but in the toys, gadgets and gizmos that are depicted therein. I wish someone today would do the same thing and predict the future in a hundred years from now. Would be really cool right?
There are 24 images in total, and I’ve randomly picked a few to post here. Head over to the original source for more.
Tags: future technologies, Villemard
Scientist: We’ve found Atlantis (maybe)
Filed under General, Interest, Science
This is it. No, really – according to Reuters, and the show that aired on Nat Geo some three weeks ago. The show revealed the work of Richard Freund, a professor at the University of Hartford, Conn., and his international team of Atlantis-seekers.
You will be wondering where Atlantis truly is. Throughout history there has been speculation that it was somewhere near Southern Spain. The Google Earth rumor placed it 600 miles west of the Canary Islands–off the west coast of Africa.
Using satellite photos, Professor Freunds and his freunds say they’ve found the remains of a city, just north of Cadiz in Spain. They say that it has the multiringed characteristics that many associate with the legendary Atlantis. And they say that it was wiped out by a tsunami.
The researchers spent two years using a variety of technological tools–deep-ground radar and digital mapping, for example–to locate their nirvana.
Freund told Reuters that, though he can’t know for sure (yet) whether this is the lost city, there is some hope. “We found something that no one else has ever seen before, which gives it a layer of credibility, especially for archeology, that makes a lot more sense,” he said.
Freund believes that the residents of Atlantis managed to escape the tsunami’s worst and created more Atlantis-type settlements in the central regions of Spain. He bases this on his discovery of several more so-called memorial cities 150 miles inland from what he now believes might be the original Atlantis.
Of course, much of this research team’s claim to fame will depend on whether it can match its discovery of these geological formations with descriptions that Plato left behind some 2,600 years ago.
Plato, you’ll recall, described Atlantis as having been wiped out overnight. He also called it a naval power and “an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Hercules.” These pillars are believed to have referred to the Straits of Gibraltar, a place where, these days, if you land by plane, it then has to cross a car-lined street before taking you to the gate.
Source: CNet
Tags: Atlantis
Voyager near Solar System’s edge
Filed under Science
This news is from last month, so probably by now, Voyager would have crossed the solar system’s edge already.
Anyway, for the news, Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, has reached a new milestone in its quest to leave the Solar System.
Now 17.4bn km (10.8bn miles) from home, the veteran probe has detected a distinct change in the flow of particles that surround it.
These particles, which emanate from the Sun, are no longer travelling outwards but are moving sideways. It means Voyager must be very close to making the jump to interstellar space – the space between the stars.
Edward Stone, the Voyager project scientist, lauded the explorer and the fascinating science it continues to return 33 years after launch. “When Voyager was launched, the space age itself was only 20 years old, so there was no basis to know that spacecraft could last so long,” he told BBC News.
Just so you know, Voyager 1 was launched on 5 September 1977, and its sister spacecraft, Voyager 2, on 20 August 1977.
Source: BBC News
Tags: solar system, voyager 1
26 Aug 1883: Krakatau Erupts!
Filed under Environment, Science
Krakatau was definitely one of the few things that fascinated me as a kid. The extent of its destructive power, the effect to the world, etc. was just out the box.
And thankfully, Wired has done a very nice writeup on this sleeping giant. I know this sounds bad, but I hope to see the Krakatau come alive one day!
Flashback, to 1883
Krakatau (aka Krakatoa) had been rumbling and sending up puffs of ash since May 1883. The eruption turned deadly on the afternoon of Aug. 26, with the first explosion coming at 1 p.m. A column of black ash soon rose 17 miles into the sky above the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra.
The earth around and under the volcano continued to move, sending a tsunami out around 5 p.m. Others would follow.
Explosions continued at night, and lightning jumped between the ash column and the island. St. Elmo’s Fire played on a ship’s yardarms and rigging 25 miles away, ash fell on its deck, and explosions deafened its crew.
Just after 10 a.m. on the morning of Aug. 27 came the final, cataclysmic explosion with 26 times the power of the biggest H-bomb test. As Krakatau’s underground magma chamber emptied, the sea rushed in, at first sucking ships toward it in an inbound current. Then the 2,600-foot-high volcanic cone collapsed into the center, leaving little of the island above water and sending out a truly colossal tsunami.
The effects?
Hundred-foot tidal waves (up to 130 feet in some places) scoured nearby coasts, obliterating hundreds of villages and taking more than 36,000 lives. Much reduced, the sea wave swept past the Cape of Good Hope into the Atlantic Ocean and even caused a measurable ripple in the English Channel.
The noise was heard at Alice Springs in the middle of Australia. Four hours after the massive explosion, 3,000 miles away on the island of Rodrigues in the western Indian Ocean, it was recorded as the “roar of heavy guns.” The sound was audible over 1/13 the surface of the globe, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. The shock wave registered on a barometer in London.
The final eruption also threw pumice an estimated 34 to 50 miles into the sky. Dust fell more than 3,000 miles away 10 days later. Islands of pumice floated on the oceans for months. Sulfur in the ash reacted with atmospheric ozone to scatter sunlight, causing vivid red sunsets around the world. Global temperatures dropped, and climate disruptions lasted five years.
[Extracted from Wired.com. Image shows Anak Krakatau exploding in 2007]
Tags: Anak Krakatau, Krakatau, Krakatoa, volcano
Optical Illusions!
Filed under Science, Youtube/Vimeo/Videos
I love optical illusions, and I’ve always been fascinated by the mechanics of vision, so sharing this video goes without saying.
Apparently, this technique of animation has been known for a long time, but it’s still pretty cool.
You might also want to check out on how it is all done.
Tags: mechanics of vision, optical illusions, optics, video illusions
The story of the Mega Shark
Filed under Animals, Entertainment, Science, Visual Graphics & Images
Well this post actually relates to a B-rated movie called Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus. It’s so hilariously anti-physics so many people were once involved in discussing about it.
The interesting part: the Mega Shark takes down a commercial jetliner that is cruising over the middle of the ocean.
So Taubman over at Stivo made this Infographic alongside his post. Quite interesting, worth the time reading (including the critical comments from readers).
Tags: Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus
Hubble Celebrates 20 Years
As the Hubble Space Telescope achieves the major milestone of two decades on orbit this year, NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute, or STScI, in Baltimore are celebrating Hubble’s journey of exploration with a stunning new picture and several online educational activities. There are also opportunities for people to explore galaxies as armchair scientists and send personal greetings to Hubble for posterity.
NASA is releasing a new Hubble photo of a small portion of one of the largest known star-birth regions in the galaxy, the Carina Nebula. Three light-year-tall towers of cool hydrogen laced with dust rise from the wall of the nebula. The scene is reminiscent of Hubble’s classic “Pillars of Creation” photo from 1995, but even more striking.
This picture here, one of the latest new Hubble photos, is of a small portion of one of the largest seen star-birth regions in the galaxy, the Carina Nebula.
Tags: Hubble Space Telescope, NASA
Evil Neptune: It May Have Eaten a Planet and Stolen its Moon
Filed under Science
NEPTUNE may have polished off a super-Earth that once roamed the outer solar system and stolen its moon to boot. The brutal deed could explain mysterious heat radiating from the icy planet and the odd orbit of its moon Triton.
Neptune’s own existence was a puzzle until recently. The dusty cloud that gave birth to the planets probably thinned out further from the sun. With building material so scarce, it is hard to understand how Uranus and Neptune, the two outermost planets, managed to get so big.
But what if they formed closer in? In 2005, a team of scientists proposed that the giant planets shifted positions in an early upheaval. In this scenario, Uranus and Neptune formed much closer to the sun and migrated outwards, possibly swapping places in the process.
Turning Water into Marbles, Possible?
Filed under Science, Youtube/Vimeo/Videos
Well this is a famous hoax, but it’s still very cool. Do check it out!
Tags: water hoax, water marbles
Flu and Infections: Vitamin D Deficiency
Filed under Foods, Health, Science
A new study led by researchers at the University of Copenhagen has confirmed that vitamin D plays an important role in activating immune defenses against infectious diseases like flu.
Vitamin D deficiency has already been linked to a wide spectrum of diseases including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, depression, autoimmune disease and many others.
In the case of flu fighting, Dr. John Cannell and his colleagues have reported that vitamin D helps produce antibacterial peptides that help protect against flu. That is why in winter people are prone to becoming vitamin D deficiency and getting infected with flu viruses.
Dr. Cannell, a vitamin D expert and director of Vitamin D Council, says in his newsletter sent last year that two physicians, one in Wisconsin and the other in Georgia reported to him that few of their patients/residents who maintained a high level of serum vitamin d acquired swine flu last year while many of other patients and medical workers who did not take vitamin D to maintain high vitamin D levels got swine flu and other flu viruses.
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