Here We Are Now! :D

Via mindful.brains [Instagram]

Hanna Arendt, talvez a mais influente filósofa do século XX, foi presa pelos nazistas em 1933, fugiu para os EUA, teve retirada a cidadania alemã e ficou sem pátria até que os EUA a acolhessem 2 décadas depois. Sua principal inquietação era a “banalização do mal”, como dizia.

Judia, não queria ser chamada de filósofa, e sim de teórica política. Na sua vida e obra, criticou a democracia representativa nos moldes atuais, defendendo um modelo mais direto. Seu maior valor era a liberdade humana como antagonista do totalitarismo, que devia ser combatido.

Sobre isso, ela escreveu: “os membros fanatizados são intangíveis pela experiência e pelo argumento; a identificação com o movimento e o conformismo total parecem ter destruído a própria capacidade de sentir, mesmo que seja algo tão extremo como a tortura ou o medo da morte”.

O nosso país vive um momento muito crítico de sua história, que talvez vá ter repercussão na história mundial. Nossa sociedade está parindo um neofascismo, inspirado e influenciado pelo nazismo e outros do passado, porém ainda mais drástico, pq não conhece limites.

A modernidade, em sua velocidade e liquidez, como aponta Bauman, também um judeu, fez ruir os limites, e já estamos vendo a consequência disso quando robôs governam mais do que os humanos os assuntos da moda. Esse neofascismo pode se tornar muito pior que seus antecessores.

A iconografia e a arte dramática (teatro, cinema) do século XX às vezes dão a impressão de que Hitler e os nazistas eram pessoas terríveis e temidas, que espalhavam o caos e a destruição onde passavam, dominando a Alemanha ditatorialmente. Ao contrário, Hitler era idolatrado, multidões se aglomeravam para ouvi-lo, pessoas queriam tocá-lo e apertar suas mãos, as mães davam suas crianças para que ele as segurasse quando ele passava. Os jovens faziam fila para se alistar no partido Nazi ou nas SS, cheios de fervor patriótico. Todos carregavam os símbolos nazistas onde quer que fossem e sua saudação icônica era repetida em todo lugar. A verdade é que a Alemanha apaixonou-se por Hitler e pelo nazismo. Fenômeno semelhante ocorreu em maior ou menor grau em todos os países que caíram nas garras do fascismo, Itália, Espanha, Portugal, etc. Hannah Arendt passou a vida investigando as causas deste tipo de comportamento das massas.

É irônico que, na pátria onde Josef Mengele veio terminar placidamente seus dias, sem nunca ter pago por seus crimes, levanta-se um neofascismo espelhado naquele de seus contemporâneos. Usando uma imagem bíblica, a serpente precisa ser esmagada agora mesmo, antes que seja tarde.

Originalmente postado no Twitter, antes da eleição do presidente Lula.

We are all stardust (Carl Sagan).

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

#spacepic #space #jwst #astronomy #astrophoto #stem #stardust #photography #astrophotography #pilarsofcreation #eaglenebula #serpens #starcreation #stars #newbornstars #science #sciencephotograpy #jameswebspacetelescope #infraredastronomy

Total Solar Eclipse l April 2024 l U.S. & Canada

Cr. Deran Hall l Rami Ammoun(236) l GabeWasylko l REUTERS l KendallRust l Joshua Intini l Alfredo Juárez l KuzcoKhanda

Petr Horálek on Instagram

Ever had issues picturing the ventricular system of the brain? 

These are some nice illustrations that I find very helpful because it gives me an idea of how it all looks 3D

5 Unpredictable Things Swift Has Studied (and 1 It’s Still Looking For)

Our Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory — Swift for short — is celebrating its 20th anniversary! The satellite studies cosmic objects and events using visible, ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma-ray light. Swift plays a key role in our efforts to observe our ever-changing universe. Here are a few cosmic surprises Swift has caught over the years — plus one scientists hope to see.

#BOAT

Swift was designed to detect and study gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe. These bursts occur all over the sky without warning, with about one a day detected on average. They also usually last less than a minute – sometimes less than a few seconds – so you need a telescope like Swift that can quickly spot and precisely locate these new events.

In the fall of 2022, for example, Swift helped study a gamma-ray burst nicknamed the BOAT, or brightest of all time. The image above depicts X-rays Swift detected for 12 days after the initial flash. Dust in our galaxy scattered the X-ray light back to us, creating an extraordinary set of expanding rings.

Star meets black hole

Tidal disruptions happen when an unlucky star strays too close to a black hole. Gravitational forces break the star apart into a stream of gas, as seen above. Some of the gas escapes, but some swings back around the black hole and creates a disk of debris that orbits around it.

These events are rare. They only occur once every 10,000 to 100,000 years in a galaxy the size of our Milky Way. Astronomers can’t predict when or where they’ll pop up, but Swift’s quick reflexes have helped it observe several tidal disruption events in other galaxies over its 20-year career.

Active galaxies

Usually, we think of galaxies – and most other things in the universe – as changing so slowly that we can’t see the changes. But about 10% of the universe’s galaxies are active, which means their black hole-powered centers are very bright and have a lot going on. They can produce high-speed particle jets or flares of light. Sometimes scientists can catch and watch these real-time changes.

For example, for several years starting in 2018, Swift and other telescopes observed changes in a galaxy’s X-ray and ultraviolet light that led them to think the galaxy’s magnetic field had flipped 180 degrees.

Magnetic star remnants

Magnetars are a type of neutron star, a very dense leftover of a massive star that exploded in a supernova. Magnetars have the strongest magnetic fields we know of — up to 10 trillion times more intense than a refrigerator magnet and a thousand times stronger than a typical neutron star’s.

Occasionally, magnetars experience outbursts related to sudden changes in their magnetic fields that can last for months or even years. Swift detected such an outburst from a magnetar in 2020. The satellite’s X-ray observations helped scientists determine that the city-sized object was rotating once every 10.4 seconds.

Comets

Swift has also studied comets in our own solar system. Comets are town-sized snowballs of frozen gases, rock, and dust. When one gets close to our Sun, it heats up and spews dust and gases into a giant glowing halo.

In 2019, Swift watched a comet called 2I/Borisov. Using ultraviolet light, scientists calculated that Borisov lost enough water to fill 92 Olympic-size swimming pools! (Another interesting fact about Borisov: Astronomers think it came from outside our solar system.)

What's next for Swift?

Swift has studied a lot of cool events and objects over its two decades, but there are still a few events scientists are hoping it’ll see.

Swift is an important part of a new era of astrophysics called multimessenger astronomy, which is where scientists use light, particles, and space-time ripples called gravitational waves to study different aspects of cosmic events.

In 2017, Swift and other observatories detected light and gravitational waves from the same event, a gamma-ray burst, for the first time. But what astronomers really want is to detect all three messengers from the same event.

As Swift enters its 20th year, it’ll keep watching the ever-changing sky.

Keep up with Swift through NASA Universe on X, Facebook, and Instagram. And make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

Winter milky way.

Toyama, Japan.

M104 - the Sombrero Galaxy

Nick Fritz on Instagram

It is a field of knowledge proposed by me, defined as the study of nature in all its expressions, but from the point of view of alternative non-real possibilities. My background is in ecological economics, but I started to have broader interests that encompass other fields of knowledge. However, instead of an interest in traditional knowledge, I started to study fantastic facts and concepts (fantasy). It is not (only) a literary endeavor, but an attempt to create a new (!?) realm of knowledge aside mathematics, philosophy, and science. I will bring up some themes that can be raised as being of interest to fantastic natural history. By scope or complexity, from mathematics to politics, to aesthetics and art.