guardian:

Black hole bonanza in ‘next door’ Andromeda galaxy.

Twenty-six new black hole candidates have been discovered in the neighbouring Andromeda galaxy. According to the astronomers involved, these could be just the tip of the iceberg. Details of the find will be published in the 20 June issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

Photograph: Dimitar Todorov/Alamy

kenobi-wan-obi:

scinerds:

kenobi-wan-obi:

Cosmic Dance: Creation of Supermassive Black Holes

Evolution of two equal sized galaxies colliding and forming a massive cloud of gas that will collapse into black hole.

Credit: Ohio State University

thatscienceguy:

The Antennae Galaxies; (NGC 4038/4039)

Also known as the Love Heart Galaxies, They are a pair of colliding galaxies.

Their interaction has led to two bands being flung out into space, prompting the name Antennae galaxies, however the two nuclei have begun to merge forming the shape of a loveheart.

(via n-a-s-a)

mrrmq999:

Inside Lightsaber!! 

(via kenobi-wan-obi)

prostheticknowledge:

Prototype Real / Digital Info Interface System

Using projection and gestures to create interactive relationship with information - video embedded below:

Fujitsu Laboratories has developed a next generation user interface which can accurately detect the users finger and what it is touching, creating an interactive touchscreen-like system, using objects in the real word.

“We think paper and many other objects could be manipulated by touching them, as with a touchscreen. This system doesn’t use any special hardware; it consists of just a device like an ordinary webcam, plus a commercial projector. Its capabilities are achieved by image processing technology.”

Using this technology, information can be imported from a document as data, by selecting the necessary parts with your finger.

More at DigInfo here

RELATED: This is very similar to a concept developed in 1991 called ‘The Digital Desk’ [link]

(via kenobi-wan-obi)

n-a-s-a:

Venus and the Pleiades

Credit: Jerry Lodriguss

whileyouweresleeping:

Meet Elizabeth Blackburn. Blackburn here is a professor at the University of California in San Francisco who won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering a fascinating little fact.

What fact, you ask? Well, she studied telomeres and figured out what they are made of. Telomeres are tiny little caps at the end of chromosomes and their job is to help keep genetic information safe. She also studied telomerase, which is an enzyme that helps rebuild telomeres. 

Here’s why you should care: the role of telomeres is basically to make sure chromosomes stay in good shape. If chromosomes aren’t in good shape, do you know what happens? They get old. That’s rarely good.

Here’s the crazy thing Blackburn is working on at the moment: she has a strong suspicion that the shorter your telomeres, the more likely you are to become sick. So she has spearheaded the creation of a test that measures the telomeres to see if certain illnesses could be caught that way. 

Many are saying it’s all too vague and needs more research, but Blackburn is adamant that this is the case. Personally I find that this test, in and of itself is really, really interesting.

But here’s what I think is super intriguing. She says that your emotional state—read this again: your EMOTIONAL STATE, which is to say your ability to handle your stress (which, by the way, can be learnt and controlled)—affects the length of your telomeres. As in, out-of-control stress shortens them.

Do you realise the implications? Blackburn’s research (which she has conducted in recent years with a psychologist, measuring the telomeres of mothers caring for chronically ill children) is basically hard scientific data that tells us we all need to chill the fuck out. And if we can’t do it alone, to seek help. 

Emotional stress management really is a matter of life or death. 

— From SF. 

(via scinerds)

Source:

kqedscience:

This Weird Fish Has Clear Blood

“Living at 3,300 feet in one of the most inhospitable habitats on Earth, this fish has evolved in a very peculiar way.”

(via kraken-queen)

Light and Dust in a Nearby Starburst Galaxy

Visible as a small, sparkling hook in the dark sky, this beautiful object is known as SDSS J082354.96+280621.6, or J082354.96 for short. It is a starburst galaxy, so named because of the incredibly (and unusually) high rate of star formation occurring within it.

One way in which astronomers probe the nature and structure of galaxies like this is by observing the behaviour of their dust and gas components; in particular, the Lyman-alpha emission. This occurs when electrons within a hydrogen atom fall from a higher energy level to a lower one, emitting light as they do so. This emission is interesting because this light leaves its host galaxy only after extensive scattering in the nearby gas — meaning that this light can be used as a pretty direct probe of what a galaxy is made up of.

(via scinerds)

jtotheizzoe:

Frozen Glass

I was pretty shocked to find out just how little liquid fresh water Earth contains, like we saw in this post. But I was equally shocked to find out that as much as one-fifth of Earth’s fresh water is locked up in the beauty above: Lake Baikal.

Siberia’s Lake Baikal, not only the world’s oldest lake at ~25 million years of age, is the largest single fresh water source on the planet. The water is so deep and so pure that when it freezes it becomes a sort of cold, turquoise glass, giving an observer a lens that can see over 100 feet straight down.

There’s more pictures not to miss at My Modern Met.

(via kenobi-wan-obi)