740ct opal butte crystal with Contra luz color plays. This gem has all faceted faces and contains some amazing matrix inclusions. The mix of of facets, color plays, and minerals creates an almost mystical or “underwater” like scene within.
Hillary Clinton pant-suit rainbow
Perfection.
i just feel like i needed this on my blog.
Yissss
X-ray vision tracks lightning bursts
Blink and you’ve missed it. Researchers in the US have captured the world’s first X-ray images of lightning, by creating a special camera that can capture radiation at 10 million frames per second. They presented their new findings at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in San Francisco and they say that this new view of lightning could help to solve some of the mysteries of this spectacular natural phenomenon.
The research was carried out at the International Center for Lightning Research and Testing, located in Florida. It is one of the few sites in world where lightning is initiated and studied under controlled conditions. By firing rockets with trailing wires into thunder clouds, scientists are able to generate electric fields that are large enough to trigger bolts of lightning, which then propagate back down towards the rocket launch tower.
Joseph Dwyer and colleagues at the Florida Institute of Technology became interested in the fact that lightning emits X-rays as it propagates through the air, a phenomenon that was only noted in the past decade. But given that X-ray sources in lightning travel through the Earth’s atmosphere at velocities approaching the speed of light, it is difficult to catch them on camera before they disappear. In addition, they cannot be imaged with standard mirrors and lenses because huge amounts of material are required to prevent X-rays and gamma rays from entering through the sides of a camera.
Dwyer’s team has created a customized camera that has 30 detectors made from a combination of sodium iodide and photomultiplier tubes, each measuring 3 × 3 inch. The device, which is approximately the size of a standard refrigerator, is also equipped with a 3 inch pinhole aperture, and can record X-rays at 10 million frames per second. “This is actually a very old technique for making images, like that seen in a camera obscura,” Dwyer says.
During July and August this year, Dwyer’s team studied four rocket-triggered lightning flashes at the Florida test site. Each flash lasted for approximately two seconds and the resulting sequences of images revealed that X-rays emerged primarily from the vicinity of the lightning tip as it propagated towards the Earth. As the lightning crashed into the control tower it also triggered large bursts of gamma radiation, which were also captured by the camera.
“For the first time we’re catching a glimpse of lightning in the X-ray emission,” says Dwyer. “We’re seeing lightning as Superman would see it with his X-ray vision”.
Credit: James Dacey/physicsworld.com
Here’s a test:
I’m holding a baby in one hand and a petri dish holding a fetus in the other.
I’m going to drop one. You chose which.
If you really truly believe a fetus is the same thing as a baby, it should be impossible for you to decide. You should have to flip a coin, that’s how impossible the decision should be.
Shot in the dark, you saved the baby.
Because you’re aware there’s a difference.
Now admit it
woah.
BOOM ROASTED
INTERVIEWER: Give me one of your purely satisfying mean moments.
TINA FEY: The first thing that comes to mind is a more recent one, when Amy Poehler and I were in the airport last week in Toronto and we were getting hassled by this middle-aged businessman who was doing that thing that middle-aged businessmen do, being rude. And then Amy, in the middle of the airport, screamed, “Fuck you, you fuckin’ dick, you fuckin’ rich asshole.” And it was so satisfying—it was immediate release. She would probably be mortified that I told you. (x)
