The luminous haze that obscures our view of the constellations - light pollution -is one of the most prevalent forms of environmental alteration. Its impact is felt across a swath of life from the migration of sea turtles to the circadian rhythm of humans.
A new atlas of light pollution created by an international team of scientists reveals just how pervasive this artificial glow is. The atlas shows that more than 80% of the world and more than 99% of the U.S. and European populations live under light-polluted skies. The Milky Way is hidden from more than one-third of humanity, including 60% of Europeans and nearly 80% of North Americans.
Check out this interactive map and read more here.
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. For some perspective, if it were hollow, more than 1,300 Earths could fit inside of it! The giant planet contains two-thirds of all the planetary mass in the solar system and holds more than dozens of moons in its gravitational grip. But what about a visit to this giant planet?
Let’s be honest…Jupiter is not a nice place to visit. It’s a giant ball of gas and there’s nowhere to land. Any spacecraft – or person – passing through the colorful clouds gets crushed and melted. On Jupiter, the pressure is so strong it squishes gas into liquid. Its atmosphere can crush a metal spaceship like a paper cup.
Jupiter’s stripes and swirls are cold, windy clouds of ammonia and water. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is a giant storm BIGGER THAN EARTH! This storm has lasted hundreds of years.
Since Jupiter’s atmosphere is made up of mostly hydrogen and helium, it’s poisonous. There’s also dangerous radiation, more than 1,000 times the lethal level for a human.
Scientists think that Jupiter’s core may be a thick, super hot soup…up to 50,000 degrees! Woah!
The Moons
Did you know that Jupiter has its own “mini solar system” of 50 moons? Scientists are most interested in the Galilean satellites – which are the four largest moons discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610.
Today, Galileo would be astounded to know some of the facts about these moons. The moon Io has active volcanos. Ganymede has its own magnetic field while Europa has a frozen crust with liquid-water underneath making it a tempting place to explore for future missions.
When Juno arrives to Jupiter on July 4, it will bring with it a slew of instruments such as infrared imager/spectrometer and vector magnetometer among the half a dozen other scientific tools in its payload.
Juno will avoid Jupiter’s highest radiation regions by approaching over the north, dropping to an altitude below the planet’s radiation belts – which are analogous to Earth’s Van Allen belts, but far more deadly – and then exiting over the south. To protect sensitive spacecraft electronics, Juno will carry the first radiation shielded electronics vault, a critical feature for enabling sustained exploration in such a heavy radiation environment.
Follow our Juno mission on the web, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Tumblr.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com
Neil deGrasse Tyson lays down some rainbow facts in honor of Pride and Pulse. If you couldn’t love him enough already.
A rape culture is a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women.
It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent. In a rape culture, women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself.
A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm.
~ Rape culture is encouraging male sexual aggression.
~ Rape culture is regarding violence as sexy and sexuality as violent.
~ Rape culture is treating rape as a compliment, as the unbridled passion stirred in a healthy man by a beautiful woman, making irresistible the urge to rip open her bodice or slam her against a wall, or a wrought-iron fence, or a car hood, or pull her by her hair, or shove her onto a bed, or any one of a million other images of fight-fucking in movies and television shows and on the covers of romance novels that convey violent urges are inextricably linked with (straight) sexuality.
~ Rape culture is encouraging men to use the language of rape to establish dominance over one another ("I'll make you my bitch").
~ Rape culture is making rape a ubiquitous part of male-exclusive bonding.
As the resistance swelled, Churchill announced: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.” This hatred killed. To give just one, major, example, in 1943 a famine broke out in Bengal, caused – as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has proved – by the imperial policies of the British. Up to 3 million people starved to death while British officials begged Churchill to direct food supplies to the region. He bluntly refused. He raged that it was their own fault for “breeding like rabbits”. At other times, he said the plague was “merrily” culling the population. Skeletal, half-dead people were streaming into the cities and dying on the streets, but Churchill – to the astonishment of his staff – had only jeers for them. “If food is so scarce, why hasn’t Gandhi died yet?”
Source: The Independent, Time, IBT
Talking about your feelings can help you stay in good mental health and deal with times when you feel troubled.
Regular exercise can boost your self-esteem and can help you concentrate, sleep, and look and feel better. Exercise keeps the brain and your other vital organs healthy, and is also a significant benefit towards improving your mental health.
Your brain needs a mix of nutrients in order to stay healthy and function well, just like the other organs in your body. A diet that’s good for your physical health is also good for your mental health.
We often drink alcohol to change our mood. Some people drink to deal with fear or loneliness, but the effect is only temporary.
When the drink wears off, you feel worse because of the way the alcohol has affected your brain and the rest of your body. Drinking is not a good way to manage difficult feelings.
There’s nothing better than catching up with someone face to face, but that’s not always possible. You can also give them a call, drop them a note, or chat to them online instead. Keep the lines of communication open: it’s good for you!
None of us are superhuman. We all sometimes get tired or overwhelmed by how we feel or when things don’t go to plan.
If things are getting too much for you and you feel you can’t cope, ask for help. Your family or friends may be able to offer practical help or a listening ear.
Local services are there to help you.
A change of scene or a change of pace is good for your mental health.
It could be a five-minute pause from cleaning your kitchen, a half-hour lunch break at work, or a weekend exploring somewhere new. A few minutes can be enough to de-stress you. Give yourself some ‘me time’.
What do you love doing? What activities can you lose yourself in? What did you love doing in the past?
Enjoying yourself can help beat stress. Doing an activity you enjoy probably means you’re good at it, and achieving something boosts your self-esteem.
We’re all different. It’s much healthier to accept that you’re unique than to wish you were more like someone else. Feeling good about yourself boosts your confidence to learn new skills, visit new places and make new friends. Good self-esteem helps you cope when life takes a difficult turn.
‘Friends are really important… We help each other whenever we can, so it’s a two-way street, and supporting them uplifts me.’
Caring for others is often an important part of keeping up relationships with people close to you. It can even bring you closer together.
(Source: mentalhealth.org.uk)
Stunning Jewellery Collection Pays Homage to the Solar System by Lauren Beacham
American artist Lauren Beacham left her job as a gallery director to dedicate her herself and artistry to her newfound passion as a jewelry designer. With a BFA in photography, Beacham transformed a creative outlet into a full-time job. As the studio continued to grow, her husband joined Yugen as a partner and business development director. A reflection of her otherworldly-inspired work, her independent boutique is named after the Japanese term, which is defined as an awareness of the universe that triggers emotional responses too deep and mysterious for words.
Impassioned by our galaxy, Beacham recreates our solar system in every piece of her jewelry. Composed or a variety of materials, including rhodium plated brass, glass, giclee, magnets and other tools, small images of the solar system are present in every charm. The inclusion of the phases of the moon, one of the biggest muse in art is carefully placed in charming bracelets. Its obscure and intriguing beauty is easily admired up close.
Overall Beacham caters to the nostalgic stargazer who is in love with mystery and beauty beyond grasp. She allows us to take fragments of stardust everywhere with us. The demand to be inspired and to dream is reflected in her work. Romantic in nature, every detail causes a sense of lost nostalgia and chimera. You can find her entire collection in her Etsy shop.
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Dear Readers,Welcome to my personal blog. I'm Sabyasachi Naik (Zico,24).An Agnostic,deeply NON religious(atheist), and Secular Progressive Civil Engineer . I'm brown and proud to be an Indian tribe. “I want to say a word to the Brahmins: In the name of God, religion, sastras you have duped us. We were the ruling people. Stop this life of cheating us from this year. Give room for rationalism and humanism.” ― Periyar E.V. Ramasamy
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