Latest Posts by er-zico - Page 6

Six facts you didn’t know about the Sun

With summer on our doorstep, we thought it would be a good time to get to know the star that we so actively seek out at this time of year. The importance of the Sun in relation to the Earth has been recognized from time immemorial, but in recent years we’ve started to harness the Sun’s power, making it work for us by producing energy. Here we have six scientific facts about the Sun that you probably don’t yet know.

A solar hot water heater is over three times as efficient as solar cells (photovoltaic devices).

The Sun can supply all the people of the Earth’s yearly energy needs in one hour.

A solar cell cannot absorb low energy light rays (radiation) but can absorb high energy. To put in perspective, you wouldn’t be able to catch a ball if it were thrown extremely softly at you (it wouldn’t reach you); however, if the ball were thrown with a greater force towards you, you’d be able to catch it. This is the miracle of quantum mechanics.

The Sun can be used for air conditioning to make a house cooler by using a solar chimney.

A new type of solar energy device called a Solar (Power) Tower can trace its roots back to Leonardo da Vinci who envisioned the hot air rushing up a chimney could turn a pig on a spit.

It is possible to run a coal-fired power plant with solar power by using the Sun to make steam.

Image: Solar Flare by skeeze. Public domain via Pixabay.

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Seen up close, the anatomy of a mosquito bite is terrifying. The most dangerous animal in the world uses six needle-like mouthparts to saw into our skin, tap a blood vessel and sometimes leave a dangerous parting gift. NEW from @kqedscience‘s Deep Look!

“Imagine if men were as disgusted with rape as they are with periods,” street art activist Elonë writes on one pad. This particular message embodies her project’s aim: On one hand, women’s bodies are vandalized, harassed and objectified. On the other, they are often erased when it comes to the reality of menstruation. This is the exact conversation we need to be having.

How many plus-size male models can you name off the top of your head? Probably not many — and that’s a problem. Luckily there are some guys leading the charge. Like Zach Miko and Jamaal Carroll, who are taking the plus-size menswear revolution into their own hands.

#UnfairAndLovely: South Asians Fight Back Against The Stigma Surrounding Dark Skin 

One of the campaign starters had the best thing to say about it, too.

A friendly reminder from the Campaign for Southern Equality.

Curving and bending a ball using the magnus effect is common in every sport. The effect can be reversed though - kick the ball the same way, and it will bend in the opposite direction!  

Thanks to Nicole from @fuckyeahfluiddynamics for explaining the reverse magnus effect in this video! 

Life in Technicolor: Glasses for the colorblind

With so much of our world color-coded, life can be quite tricky without the ability to see the full range of the rainbow.

For the 13 million Americans (and 300 million people worldwide) with color vision deficiency or blindness, living with the inability to detect red, blue, green or a mixture of these colors means having to learn to discern traffic lights or subways lines based on order and patterns rather than color, or having to ask someone whether the piece of meat they’re about to ingest is actually well-done.

However, EnChroma, one of several emerging startups founded by University of California alums, is changing the way people with color vision deficiency experience the world. They make eyewear that corrects for the most common color blindness. 

According to Marc Levin, a neuro-ophthalmologist at UCSF, the lenses work by changing how light is received by the brain for those whose eyes lack sensitivity to red and green light wavelengths. It filters out light that the red and green light-absorbing molecules/photopigments in our eyes sense most similarly. This helps the brain receive more distinct color wavelength information.

While their glasses currently only work for people with red-green color blindness, the company hopes to eventually create lenses that will also help individuals with more severe color vision deficiencies.

GIF source: Valspar Paint

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmiTVDyOCQk)

Watch: Poet paints a vivid picture of growing up as a Chinese American — and it hits deep.



Mercury is officially “out” of retrograde! Know what that means? That the planet doesn’t appear to move backward in the sky due to our motion relative to the “backdrop” of space, because that’s what retrograde notion is – an optical illusion.

So, observers from our past who knew nothing of celestial mechanics and orbital motion (let alone that we are among billions of other solar systems in the universe) perceived Mercury’s odd “movement” as some kind of foreboding communication from the cosmic beyond which indicated a disturbance of reality, rather than consulting (and trusting) an actual astronomer on this “phenomena”.

Still blaming Mercury retrograde for your problems? Congratulations, you’ve managed to remain ignorant after nearly 500 years of scientific progress.

“Astrology is bunk, it’s fraud.” – Carl Sagan

As a child, I once touched an untouchable. For this infraction I was forced by my grandmother to swallow cow dung as a punishment. I was also made to drink cow urine and bathe in Ganga water to purify myself. This experience ingrained in me what untouchability was in the minds of my community. These women here with me once cleaned human excrement from toilets, and this made them untouchables. They had to wear bells around their necks to warn families of their approach. They were forbidden from going to the temple, doing puja, even bathing in the Ganga. Their children could only play with the pigs and not with children of higher castes.

Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of Sulabh International, an India-based social service organization (via brahmaanda)

Obama Recognizes Equal Pay Day With Call To Close The Pay Gap

Read more here.

Read A Profoundly Beautiful Letter Einstein Wrote To His Daughter About The Universal Force of Love

Brilliant physicist Albert Einstein wrote a tender and intellectual letter to his daughter describing the universal power of love. Believe it or not, the prolific scientist fiercely believed that love was the answer for the survival of the human species. Read the letter he penned to his beloved daughter below.

Keep reading

7 High-Tech Period Products You Had No Idea Existed

There’s now a smart menstrual device called my.Flow

Meet my.Flow. It’s not a tampon covered with sensors, but rather a special tampon string connected to a wearable sensor. It will monitor your tampon and send you alerts via an app on your phone. Is this really the best solution to the menstruation problem they’re trying to solve?

Follow @the-future-now​

Girls from around the world share their first periods

Photos: Plan International

All of the animals above — and more — are “critically endangered.”

When you’re a 17 year-old Dalit girl, your teacher will rape you, the school warden will encourage it, and the admin will collude to hide your murdered body

Delta Meghwal was a 17 year old student at the Jain Adarsh Teacher Training Institute for Girls in Bikaner, a small district in Rajatsthan, India. She was an artist, a brilliant student and an ambitious young woman with big dreams. She also happened to be Dalit. Which is why, her school warden, Priya Shukla, had sent her to ‘clean’ the PT instructor Vijender Singh’s room. Her being Dalit makes it okay for the warden to use her as unpaid labor. It also makes it okay for the said instructor to rape her, in that same room. Her Dalit stauts stops the school from taking any action against the teacher who just raped a student. But it doesn’t not prevent them from forcing her to sign a letter saying the rape was in fact, mutual. That too, only after the terrified child called her father to inform him of the horror. Her ‘lower caste’ guarantees that her dead body will be found in an enclosed, reportedly shallow water tank the next day. And that it will be labeled as suicide. It will also give the ‘school’ permission to have her body be taken away in a GARBAGE TRUCK. Without any evidence or record. Her Dalit identity qualifies the mainstream media to look away, for us to not care, for the insttitution her parents entrusted her safety with to rape and murder her. 

Because it’s normal for Dalits to be treated like this. Because Dalit women’s bodies are never their own. They can be used, abused and killed by any upper caste man, at this will. His caste though, makes sure he gets away. That he is able to do it again. To some other Dalit 17-year-old girl, in another school. Because Dalits, we are used to it.

Delta’s award-winning painting 

Better late than never! It’s time to start Icy Dwarf Planets Month with our favorite icy world, Pluto!

Besides, think of it as fun early Saturday morning cartoons! 

http://space-facts.com/pluto/

Don’t know the original source.

Quick Facts: The Palestinian Nakba.

Striking photos show the Netherlands prison which has become a shelter for refugees and migrants

White House Science Fair Days Are The Best Days

And today, President Barack Obama hosted his last. More here.

We really need to talk about Boko Haram...

They haven’t been covered much in the mainstream media but Boko Haram have been terrorising Africans with devastating, widespread and long-lasting consequences.

Responsible for more deaths than ISIS

According to the Global Terrorism Report, they have overtaken ISIS as the world’s deadliest terrorist group. It should be noted that in March this year, they pledged allegiance to ISIS. The two groups are responsible for more than half of all terrorist attacks in the world.

Who are they?

Boko Haram promotes a version of Islam which makes it “haram”, or forbidden, for Muslims to take part in any political or social activity associated with Western society.

This includes voting in elections, wearing shirts and trousers or receiving a secular education.

Boko Haram regards the Nigerian state as being run by non-believers, even when the country had a Muslim president - and it has extended its military campaign by targeting neighbouring states.

800,000 people have fled their homes since June

Since the beginning of Boko Haram’s attacks in 2009, 2.1 million people have been forced to leave their homes with a staggering 800,000 having fled between June - September 2015.

An estimated 1,100 schools have been destroyed this year alone

The UN have stated that over a thousand schools have been destroyed in Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria in 2015 so far.

This is a list of their major attacks so far in 2015:

Although the figures of deaths are numerical, please remember that these are people who had jobs, lives, families, dreams, hobbies, just like you. They are more than numbers on a screen.

January 3 - 7th: The town of Baga in the north-eastern state of Borno is attacked.  Bodies lay strewn on Baga’s streets with as many as 2,000 people having been killed.

January 9th: Following the Boko Haram massacre, 7,300 flee to neighbouring Chad while over 1,000 are trapped on the island of Kangala in Lake Chad.

January 18th: Boko Haram militants kidnap 80 people and kill three others from villages in north Cameroon.

January 28th: Boko Haram fighters killed 40 people while on a rampage in Adamawa State.

February 15th: A suicide bomber kills 16 and wounds 30 in the Nigerian city of Damaturu.

February 20th: Boko Haram militants kill 34 people in attacks across Borno State and 21 from the town of Chibok.

February 24th: Two suicide bombers kill at least 27 people at bus stations in Potiskum and Kano.

March 7th: Five suicide bomb blasts leave 54 dead and 143 wounded in Maiduguri.

March 18th:  A mass grave of 90 people is discovered in the city of Damasak .

March 29th: Voting in the Nigerian general election is delayed for a second day. 25 people have died in Boko Haram attacks.

June 12th: Several days of nighttime raids on six remote villages that left at least 37 people dead in Northeastern Nigeria

June 16th:  Twin Suicide Bomb attacks in Chad capital killed 24 people and wounded more than 100.

June 17th: Bombs found at Boko Haram camp kills 63 people in Nigeria

June 23rd: Twin female suicide bomb attacks at busy fish market in Maiduguri kill 30 people.

June 28th: Five dead in suicide blast at Nigeria hospital

June 30th: Militants attacked Muslim residents after they had finished prayers, leaving 48 men dead.

July 1st: Attacks on Muslims praying in Mosques before breaking their Ramadan fast kills  97 people in Kukawa.

July 2nd:  Two female suicide bombers attack a village in Borno state killing at least 10 people

July 3rd: Militants slit the throats of 11 people

July 3rd: Several suicide bombers killed dozens of people in Zabarmari village.

July 7th: Bomb attack kills at least 25 people and wounded 32 others in northern Nigeria’s Zaria city

July 11th: At least 14 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack at a crowded market in Chad’s capital 

July 17th: Suicide bombs have killed more than 60 people in multiple blasts in the north-eastern towns of Gombe and Damaturu.

July 22nd: A double suicide attack killed at least 11 people in the far north of Cameroon

July 25th: A child and a middle-aged woman detonated suicide vests in two separate attacks, killing 34 and wounding over 100 people

Aug 2nd: 13 people killed and 27 injured in an attack on Malari village in northeast Nigeria’s Borno state

Aug 3rd: Eight people were killed and about 100 others were kidnapped in an overnight raid on a village near Cameroon’s northern border

Aug 5th: Militants behead a policeman in Nigeria

Aug 7th: Boko Haram attacks on two villages in Yobe kill nine people

Aug 11th: A bomb attack on a packed market in north-eastern Nigeria killed about 50 people.

Aug 17th: Insurgents raided a village in Borno state, Nigeria, near the border with Niger, killing 7 people

Aug 18th: Up to 150 people drowned in a river or were shot dead fleeing Boko Haram gunmen who raided a remote village in Nigeria’s north-eastern Yobe state

Aug 23rd: Army Chief’s convoy attacked, 11 people killed, 5 injured

Aug 25th: Extremists killed 28 people during attacks on remote farming and fishing villages in northeast Nigeria.

Aug 30th: 56 villagers are killed in in Baanu village of Nganzai 

Sept 1st: Gunmen on horseback kill 79 in trio of attacks

Sept 3rd: Militants killed about 30 people and wounded 145 others in attacks on a market and infirmary in northern Cameroon

Sept 20th: More than 100 people were killed in northern Nigeria in a quick succession carefully coordinated bombings

Sept 24th: 15 people killed in an attack by Boko Haram militants on a border village in south-eastern Niger

Sept 27th: 9 people killed in attacks on Mailari Village 

Sept 27th: Militants attacked the town N’gourtoi, a Nigerien village, killing the village head and 14 other civilians.

Oct 1st: An attack on a village in south-eastern Niger killed two soldiers

Oct 3rd: 15 killed in bombings in Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja

Oct 4th: Militants killed three civilians and a soldier in a double suicide attack in Niger

Oct 6th: 11 Chadian soldiers killed in a surprise attack near Lake Chad

Oct 10: Five suicide bombers targeted a market and a refugee camp in Chad killing 36 people and wounding 56 others.

Oct 6th: Suicide attacks in northern Nigeria kill at least 17 people, injuring 11

Oct 7th: At least 12 worshipers have been killed in set of twin suicide attacks on a mosque in Borno State

Oct 22nd: 20 people were shot dead outside the Jingalta village Borno state, Nigeria

Oct 23rd: 23 people were killed in a bombing in a mosque in Borno State

Oct 28th: Thirteen people were killed and three injured in an attack on village in south-east Niger 

Oct 29th: Many killed and houses burnt to the ground in Bara town of Gulani 

Nov 8th: A twin suicide bombing near Lake Chad on Sunday killed two people and wounded 14 others

Nov 11th: 25 dead in raid on a village in southern Niger 

Nov 12th: The government of Chad has imposed a state of emergency on the northern region by Lake Chad

Nov 17th: At least 32 people have been killed and 80 injured in a night-time suicide bomb attack at a truck stop in Yola, Adamawa state, Nigeria

I’ll be updating this list as events progress. Please let me know if I have missed anything and I’ll add it in.

This is what a real, qualified OBGYN will tell you about what women feel when they get an abortion

Dr. Willie Parker, who is trained as a gynecologist and OBGYN, is a hero for the pro-choice movement because he’s honest about the undiscussed aspects of getting (or not getting) an abortion. Watch how he gives a consultation.