61 Cygni

jamessasek: SCIENCE!

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:26:16 -0400

jamessasek:

SCIENCE!

flloom-galaxy: DC Icons by Melissa Smith

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:50:28 -0400

flloom-galaxy:

DC Icons by Melissa Smith

Photo

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 09:07:50 -0400

un: opens beer…

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 08:37:15 -0400

un:

opens beer…

akluthe: THIS WEEK’S NERD RAGE: E3 2013Console wars…console...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:08:16 -0400

akluthe:

THIS WEEK’S NERD RAGE: E3 2013
Console wars…console wars never change.

Like what you read? Visit Nerd Rage for more! Comic updated weekly. And don’t forget to like Nerd Rage on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

gitesh: woodythedog: Puppy ball. Dog

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:07:46 -0400

gitesh:

woodythedog:

Puppy ball.

Dog

kateoplis: “I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing is faster, and...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:02:39 -0400

kateoplis:

“I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies.”

Le Corbusier, La Cheminée (the fireplace), 1918, at MoMA

Photo

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 07:44:33 -0400

mpdrolet: Bee on Lips, New York, September 22, 1995 Irving Penn

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 07:42:32 -0400

mpdrolet:

Bee on Lips, New York, September 22, 1995

Irving Penn

photojojo: Analogue + Digital = One amazing gizmo! The...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 07:40:49 -0400

photojojo:

Analogue + Digital = One amazing gizmo!

The Smartphone Film Scanner brings your 35mm into the digital world. Simply mount your smartphone, slide in your film, use a free app to invert the colors and snap a pic! It works with iPhones, Androids and any 35mm negatives.

Go from film to masterful tumblr post in a matter of seconds. It’s even easier than pie.

Meet the Smartphone Film Scanner

thekhooll: Rain Oil paintings By artist Gregory Thielker.

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 23:45:38 -0400

thekhooll:

Rain

Oil paintings By artist Gregory Thielker.

nerdology: I post a version of this every year. No reason to...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 14:05:39 -0400

nerdology:

I post a version of this every year. No reason to stop now.

thescienceofreality: 10 insects that look like they belong in...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 12:12:01 -0400

Puss Moth Caterpillar

Devil’s Flower Mantis Idolomantis Diabolica

Brazilian Treehopper

Extatosoma Tiaratum

Pipevine Swallowtail Caterpillar

Atlas Moth

Tailed Emperor Butterfly Caterpillar

Spiny Flower Mantis - Pseudocreobotra wahlbergi

Scorpionfly

Calleta Silkmoth Caterpillar

thescienceofreality:

10 insects that look like they belong in an alien world. [Click images to enlarge & for descriptions.]

10. Puss Moth Caterpillar

With their soft bodies and high protein content, caterpillars are usually incredibly vulnerable. To fend off predators, they often resort to scare tactics. Sometimes it’s in the form of bright, flashy colors; sometimes it’s in the form of mimicry—looking or acting like another, more dangerous insect. The Puss Moth caterpillar opts for mimicry, forming a bizarre looking “face” that resembles a vertebrate face scary enough to send most curious predators the other way.

The caterpillars are bright green and will often have a row of white spots on either side of their body. On the head is a pair of black “eye spots”—directly above a gaping “mouth” through which the true head of the caterpillar protrudes. The effect is startling, but it’s even creepier in action: if the caterpillar is touched anywhere on its body, it will instantly turn its “face” directly towards the attacker. Touch it somewhere else, and the head follows you, like a Mona Lisa from hell.

And if that doesn’t work, it can always spray out a mist of formic acid from the two horns on its back.

9. Devil’s Flower Mantis Idolomantis Diabolica

One of the largest types of praying mantis, the Devil’s Flower Mantis is also one of the strangest. And that’s saying a lot when you’re talking about praying mantids. Females of the species can measure up to 5 inches (13 cm) long, and have developed a range of natural coloring that allows them to mimic the Devil’s Flower, a type of orchid.

Mantids are predators, and their hunting style usually involves sitting motionless until their prey comes within reach, and then whipping their forearms out at lightning speed to snag flies, beetles, even, in some cases, birds. The Devil’s Flower Mantis uses color patterns that mimic a flower to actually lure its prey within reach.

8. Brazilian Treehopper

The image shown here is a model created by Alfred Keller, a German sculptor, in the 1950′s. But don’t let the fact that it’s a model fool you—the Brazilian Treehopper is definitely a real insect, and it’s barely even the strangest looking member of the treehopper family.

Similar to cicadas, treehopper insects are sort of like the Addams family of the insect world. Many of them sport some sort of odd structure on their backs, and we’re still not sure what the point of most of them are. In the case of the Brazilian Treehopper, the ball-like appendages are hollow chitin, and may be for the sole purpose of making it harder to eat.

7. Extatosoma Tiaratum

Anybody who’s ever seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom should instantly recognize this monstrosity, commonly referred to as the Giant Prickly Stick Insect. As the largest known stick insect, the extatosoma tiaratum can reach lengths of 8 inches (20 cm) and is usually covered with large thorny spikes, which double as both camouflage and defensive armor.

Most of the time this insect attempts to blend in with its surroundings, but if it feels threatened it will rear up on its hind legs and spread out its front legs, like a scorpion. Interestingly enough, it also releases a chemical that is meant to scare away predators. To humans, it smells like peanut butter.

6. Pipevine Swallowtail Caterpillar

The Pipevine Swallowtail is a beautiful fluorescent blue butterfly that’s commonly found in North and Central America. Its larvae, on the other hand, is an armored congealed-blood-red caterpillar with tinted visor shades for eyes and a quadruple row of blunt horns running across its body.

The caterpillars live in groups while they are young, but over time they will wander off on their own before entering the chrysalis stage. They also change color as they grow, shifting from red to black, while their horns take on a bright orange hue. The bright colors are a warning—Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillars feed primarily on the Pipevine, a poisonous plant, and retain the toxins from the leaves in their own bodies.

5. Atlas Moth

Most of the time, it’s the caterpillar of a moth species that looks the strangest, while the moth itself is drab and uninteresting. Apparently, the Atlas moth didn’t get the memo. With a 10 inch (25 cm) wingspan, Atlas moths are believed to be the largest moth species on the planet. They also have a very unique trait—the front tips of their wings almost perfectly resemble a snake head poised to strike.

Nicknamed the Cobra moth for obvious reasons, Atlas moths are found in Southeast Asia, where they’re farmed for their silk.

4. Tailed Emperor Butterfly Caterpillar

Take a trip to the east coast of Australia around March or April and you might run into one of these strange creatures. The caterpillar of the Tailed Emperor butterfly looks pretty normal—from the neck down. Its head, though, definitely secures it a spot on this list.

From a broad, armor-plated forehead extend four bizarre horns that would be more at home on a dinosaur than anything from this millenium. The butterflies lay their eggs in groups, usually on Illawarra Flame trees, and the alien caterpillars emerge sometime around late March.

3. Spiny Flower Mantis - Pseudocreobotra wahlbergi

Another incredible looking mantis, the Spiny Flower Mantis (Pseudocreobotra wahlbergi) is, again, a flower mantis, pulling its bizarre ornamentation from the appearance of a flower. This mantis is very small, measuring only 1.5 inches (38 mm) and is found in select locations in Southern Africa.

And like most mantids, the Spiny Flower Mantis is a voracious cannibal, and the older they get the more likely they will be to eat other mantids that come across their path. Another interesting fact is that the female’s egg sac can be nearly three time larger than its own body.

2. Scorpionfly

While this insect looks like the result of some bizarre genetic experiment that spliced a scorprion stinger onto a wasp, that “stinger” is actually something much more innocuous: the fly’s genitals.

Nevertheless, it makes for a bizarre looking creature. Scorpionflies, or mecoptera, can be found all over the world, and have been around since the Mesozoic age. In fact, they’re believed to have been the forerunners of most of our modern moths and butterflies, collectively grouped in the Lepidoptera order.

1. Calleta Silkmoth Caterpillar

If Jackson Pollock and God had a design meeting, they would probably come up with something similar to the Eupackardia calleta larva, also known as the Calleta silkmoth caterpillar. With a massive color range and dangerous looking barbs, the Calleta silkmoth caterpillar is something most predators stay away from.

The moth is found in the Southern US, and the color pattern of the caterpillar changes based on age and environmental factors. It feeds mostly on the Mexican jumping bean, a plant found throughout Mexico, Texas, and Arizona.

mechcanuck: I love this. It’s like one of those old-timey...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 12:10:17 -0400

mechcanuck:

I love this. It’s like one of those old-timey Workin’-Folk-In-New-York pictures.

You know the ones, dammit.

ryandonato: Grand Central Terminal

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 08:40:49 -0400

ryandonato:

Grand Central Terminal

singularitarian: WiSee: Wi-Fi signals enable gesture...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 08:35:07 -0400

singularitarian:

WiSee: Wi-Fi signals enable gesture recognition throughout entire home

we-are-star-stuff: This is an example of supercooling – the...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 07:13:12 -0400

we-are-star-stuff:

This is an example of supercooling – the process by which a very pure liquid is chilled to a temperature just below its usual freezing point without actually making the jump to its solid state. Bottled water is perfect for this, especially the kind that’s been purified via reverse osmosis, a process that strips water of all its particulates. This particulates can act as “seed crystals,” or “nuclei,” to which a liquid phase on the cusp of becoming solid can attach, and crystalize around. In this video, a seed crystal is introduced in the form of a cube of already-frozen water. As soon as it’s introduced, the liquid phase rapidly crystallizes and attaches to the solid one, kicking off a chain reaction of ice-formation.

Water that freezes as it’s being poured out of the bottle also solidifies upon exposure to a seed crystal, which, in this case, is an already-frozen surface. This is similar to the effect observed when freezing rain, supercooled by its flightpath through sub-freezing layers of atmosphere, comes into contact with an object cooled to a temperature below freezing. The result is a phenomenon known as glaze-ice, which – if you live somewhere cold – you may have seen before, coating the spindly extremities of tree branches.

See here for more on supercooling and glassy water.

via

zeroing: Colleen Pinsk

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 07:10:05 -0400

zeroing:

Colleen Pinsk

kateoplis: A Father’s Day Gift Guide

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:20:08 -0400

kateoplis:

A Father’s Day Gift Guide

A surrey limousine, with the fringe on top.

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 14:02:52 -0400

A surrey limousine, with the fringe on top.