Back From Florida. Time To Scare The Boyfriend!

Nine relief printed original art greeting cards, each with a unique set of curios/specimens.

In the mineralogist’s defense, that’s much tidier than trying to eat watermelon on its own.

Also being a scientist pretty much gives you a free pass to be as eccentric as you want like you’ll be at a conference and it’s like “is that guy wearing socks and sandals and plaid pants???” “Ya but he was on the team that discovered gravitational waves let him be”

this is so rare!!! and it’s not albino, because its eyes are the usual color instead of pinkish- it’s the same gene that gives some moose white spots!

Nature spirit.

In 1941, Swiss engineer George de Mestral noticed after a hunting trip that burrs from burdock plants stuck to his pants and his dog’s fur. 

He took the seed and looked at them through a microscope to find that this seed attaches to animal fur via the hooks on its surface to improve distribution.

                               Source: All of Nature on Blogspot

These hooks would latch onto anything loop-shaped, such as the fibers in his pants and his dog’s tangled fur. This inspired him to come up with the ‘Velcro’.

Velcro is a bio-mimicry of this burrs with small flexible hooks attached on its surface to attach to fluffy surfaces.

Although it goes by the name Velcro the generic name is a  hook-and-loop fastener)  

And depending on the load that needs to be held there are different types of hooks that are available:

The sound that the velcro makes when you rip it apart is oddly satisfying. It is made when the loops are ripped apart from the hooks.

It was always in my head that the hooks or the loops would break whenever you would rip it apart. But turns out, they are extremely flexible.

                                                Source

For a long time I believed that this was the end of the story and that’s how far we had gone. But recently when I was trying to mount a board to the wall, I came across the 3M dual lock fasteners.

These use a mushroom shaped hook on both the sides to snap together in place.

                                                  Source

And evidently it turns out the mushroom fastener design were inspired from dragonflies who used it for stability during mating (check source video above for more).

This is great, but since this is made of plastic this surely would fail at higher temperatures. You need something robust to handle higher temperatures, and this is where the Metaklett comes into the picture:

A square metre of this fastener, called Metaklett (made of steel), is capable of supporting 35 tonnes at temperatures up to 800 ºC,  (Video)

There is something exotic in the blend of nature and technology that is manifested in the Velcro, I just cannot put my hand on what it is.

Have a great day!

Sea otters rebound but struggle to regain historic range

MOSS LANDING, Calif. (AP) — While threatened southern sea otters bob and sun in the gentle waves of this central California estuary, wildlife experts up and down the West Coast ar

Southern sea otter recovery has come a long way, but there’s still work to be done. 🐾

This slender-snouted crocodile skull in Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Alcohol House was used to determine that each African region had a unique crocodile species. You can see this skull and its story on display at the new We Are Nature. Look for the Alcohol House media interactive in the gallery! 

This post was originally posted on our curatorial assistant’s Instagram, which features specimens in the museum’s historic Alcohol House.

that must have taken so much resilience and deftness and i’m sure it was very intimidating to the attacker and I hope you were alright!!!

once i got shot with a crossbow, so i took the bolt out and stabbed the attacker with it

i think about that every godsdamned day

I remembering being at the Monterey aquarium a few times and I recall it's repurposed from a cannery. Does the aquarium have a book of the building's history? I'd love to buy it and read up on the local history.

It’s true! The Aquarium stands on the site of the former Hovden and Sea Pride canneries. Here’s a brief history of the Aquarium. For a longer read, this book delves into the history of Monterey Bay, including the Aquarium!

The canneries are an important part of Monterey Bay history and you can find  tributes to them throughout the Aquarium, including the smokestacks on the roof and the boiler exhibit in the atrium. 

The smokestacks! They’re now sealed and primarily used as a perch by peregrine falcons searching for prey.

Restored boilers—fish would be cooked in these as part of the canning process.

Old Hovden Cannery building as seen from Hopkins Beach in the late 60′s. (📷: Mark Silberstein)

Same spot today! The Aquarium building incorporates some of the original structures and style of the canneries. You can read more about the architectural design of the Aquarium here. 

Robotic companions will never take the place of our furry best friends – but they can help us get them (and us) out of a jam! Test your robotic readiness by figuring out these futuristic scenarios.

what is a god to a scientist?