middle cyclones and other references

nprfreshair:

Today the TED Radio Hour launched on NPR. You can hear the first episode, Our Buggy Brain, here. Enjoy!

(via Our Buggy Brain : NPR)

csebastian:

Epigenetics, by Matthew Forsythe

(via theatlantic:atlanticinfocus)

From A Trip Across the Solar System, one of 34 photos. Here, a view of the Sun on March 7, 2012, seen in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly aboard NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Looping lines reveal solar plasma that is rising and falling along magnetic field lines in the solar atmosphere, or corona. The brighter prominence at upper left is named solar active region 1429, which has already released several large solar flares, some accompanied by large explosions of solar plasma known as coronal mass ejections. (NASA/SDO)

theatlantic:

Beautiful, Mostly Harmless Solar Flare Headed Our Way

The solar flare pictured above erupted from the sun this week causing radiation storms that could affect Earth. Though solar flares are often described in somewhat apocalyptic language — the sun is “exhaling its fury towards Earth” writes The Washington Post Tuesday — this one will probably only briefly disrupt GPS users and power grids later this week. Meanwhile we’re struck as always by the dazzling visual it produced.

[Image: Associated Press/NASA]

theatlantic:

What Do Fact-Checkers and Anesthesiologists Have In Common?

What’s most interesting about fact checkers is the circumstances they work under and the traits they must possess to perform their job. Generally speaking, fact checking is a largely thankless job where the person is invisible if he does his job perfectly and is only noticed for his work when things go wrong. He must work confidently, meticulously, and take accuracy as its own reward. If he makes an error the stakes can be enormous—a loss of his job, a lawsuit, the damaged reputation of a writer, editors, and a publication. He will receive no byline. This requires essentially a reverse skill set, hell, a reverse attitude about life in a culture that seeks endless pats on the back, where everyone in Little League gets a trophy—even the backup right fielder on the last place team. Where we collectively are in a mad panic to have our thoughts and actions known via lengthy blog posts, and in nugget form on Facebook and Twitter, our every mediocre photo shared on Flickr. Where we are willing to debase ourselves to have our personal dramas on reality TV. Where ads are increasingly tailored to us specifically (thanks to all those aforementioned Facebook posts). The American ethos screams YOU, the individual, are important, you must be counted, you must make yourself noticed! What type of person, in a society with these values, goes the other way and chooses anonymity?

It turns out, the lonely, lowly fact checker, is in actuality not so lonely. There is a commonality of his circumstance and traits among a select group of other professionals, a collective I call The Invisibles, and we as a culture can learn from this unique group.

Read more. [Image: Shutterstock]

nationalpost:

Scientists discover largest black holes ever recorded
Astronomers have recorded the biggest black holes ever detected — a pair of stellar monsters that somehow have managed to swallow the equivalent of 10 billion suns each.

“That’s a fairly healthy diet,” said James Graham of the University of Toronto, who is at a loss to explain how they grew so massive.

One of the black holes has a mass of 9.7 billion suns and lurks in the elliptical galaxy NGC 3842, the brightest galaxy near the Leo constellation 320 million light-years away.

Oh, Kara Thrace. 

myownairport:

The human heart stripped of fat and muscle, with just the angel veins exposed.

(via acreage)

bbook:

Neutrinos do something even stranger than breaking the speed of light

oldhollywood:

1930’s state-of-the-art forensic fingerprint analysis via M (1931, dir. Fritz Lang)