Clipmarks | JohnWaterman's clips

Mediterranean was created in Earth's biggest deluge

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:02:06 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

The Mediterranean Sea was formed by the most spectacular flood in Earth's history when water from the Atlantic Ocean breached the mountain range joining Europe and Africa with the force of a thousand Amazon rivers

The devastating surge lasted as long as two years and at its peak caused the level of the Mediterranean to rise by more than 10 metres a day. The floodwaters moved at more than 100 kilometres per hour and created scars on the seabed that are still visible today

The deluge was triggered 5.3m years ago by subsidence in the seabed that caused a land ridge between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean basin to collapse

At the time, the Mediterranean basin was an almost entirely dry expanse of low lying land, between 1.5km and 2.7km beneath today's sea level

The floodwater discharged around 100m cubic metres of water every second, creating a 200km-long channel across the strait. Today, the Mediterranean contains 4m cubic kilometres of water.

Shut down Ohio's machinery of death

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:28:43 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

After a botched attempt to execute a prisoner in the US state of Ohio in September caused international outrage, you might have thought Ohio would hesitate before pressing ahead with another execution. Not a bit of it.

The US state that condemned Edinburgh's Kenny Richey to die and came desperately close to killing him is unfazed that its prison staff subjected an inmate called Romell Broom to a two-hour ordeal where they repeatedly shoved a lethal injection needle into various parts of his body – thigh, ankle, feet, muscles and bone. They've done it again, only this time piloting a new lethal injection on a death row inmate called Kenneth Biros, someone I've written to for many years.

Ohio's killing machinery is not fit even for its already macabre purpose. Year after year Ohio botches executions

It's time for Ohio to shut down the machinery of death. And it's time the US came into the modern world and ended the grisly, inhuman business of warehousing people for death

Hubble Advent Calendar

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:38:09 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.boston.com

Once more, we enter the month of December and the traditional western Holiday Season, and once again, I'd like to present a Hubble Space Telescope imagery Advent Calendar for 2009. Keep checking this page, because every day, for the next 25 days, a new photo will be revealed here from the Hubble Space Telescope, some old and some new. I have felt extremely fortunate to have been able to share photographs and stories with you all this year, and I wish for a Happy Holiday to all those who will celebrate, and for Peace on Earth to everyone. - Alan (25 photos total - eventually) [previously: the 2008 calendar]

Boom-boom-krak-oo

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:54:09 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: Campbell's monkeys combine just six 'words' into rich vocabulary.

Difficult to do this justice in a clip so please follow the link to the whole article.

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

Campbell's monkeys have just six basic types of calls but they have combined them into one of the richest and most sophisticated of animal vocabularies

By chaining calls together in ways that drastically alter their meaning, they can communicate to each other about other falling trees, rival groups, harmless animals and potential threats. They can signal the presence of an unspecified threat, a leopard or an eagle, and even how imminent the danger is

six different types of call

described as boom (B), krak (K), krak-oo (K+), hok (H), hok-oo (H+) and wak-oo (W+)

With no danger in sight

a pair of booms - is made when the monkey is far away from the group and can't see them

a summons

Adding a krak-oo to the end of the boom pair changes its meaning

the signal now means "Watch out for that branch"

Interspersing the booms and krak-oos with some hok-oos changes the meaning yet again

"Prepare for battle"

hok-oo is essentially meaningless

they only use it to change the meaning of another call

"Rubenesque" Proportions

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:53:05 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.all-art.org

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Herlinde Koelb

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Herlinde Koelb

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Herlinde Koelb

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Lauriet Toby Edison

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Lauriet Toby Edison

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Lauriet Toby Edison

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Lauriet Toby Edison

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Lauriet Toby Edison

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Lauriet Toby Edison

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Lauriet Toby Edison

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Lauriet Toby Edison

Five-Story Steel Ball Makes Novel Hospital (Jan, 1929)

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:36:46 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: blog.modernmechanix.com

Clip Source: www.lakesidepress.com

One of the strangest experiments in medical science's long and constant fight against disease, an experiment to which H.H. Timken, Canton, Ohio, manufacturer, has given $1,000,000, has been undertaken in Cleveland, Ohio. It is the Timken Tank, a huge airtight, steel ball fitted out as a hospital, in which patients suffering from diabetes and other maladies will live under 30 pounds air pressure, which is forced into the steel ball by powerful compressors.
[Original Photo and Legend, from 1928. Courtesy of Dittrick Medical History Center, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland]

Questions and Answers about the Monster Steel Ball

Lawrence Martin, M.D.

the Steel Ball "was sold a few times in the mid-1930s and the ground was bought by the Cleveland Catholic Diocese in 1941

The steel ball was dismantled and sold for scrap metal during World War II."

Isaac Asimov and the fuzzy nature of knowledge

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:24:44 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

when people list great science popularizers of the past

Sagan and Feynman always pop up

people seem to have forgotten Isaac Asimov

one example, in which he addresses a claim we hear all the time, that the errors of the past mean our knowledge now is on very shaky ground. He's answering a complaint from an English Lit student who chastised Asimov for thinking he knew anything at all

My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that "right" and "wrong" are absolute; that everything that isn't perfectly and completely right is totally and equally wrong.

It seems to me that right and wrong are fuzzy concepts

Go read the rest, it's worth the time.

Butterflynauts Emerge from Cocoons on ISS

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:10:16 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.universetoday.com

Four “butterflynauts” have emerged on the International Space Station. They are part of a suitcase sized educational experiment that was launched Nov. 16 on space shuttle Atlantis as part of the STS-129 mission. Students of all ages and the public are invited to follow the tiny crew’s development from larvae to adult butterflies in the microgravity of space.

In over 100 classrooms across the U.S., students have set up habitats and are replicating the space experiment. Their objective is to compare the growth and behavior of ground-based butterfly larvae and adult butterflies with those living in the microgravity environment of space. New pictures and videos and Powerpoint slides are available almost daily.

A free Butterflies in Space teacher’s guide can be downloaded from BioEd Online at the Butterflies in Space website here. The project is sponsored by National Space Biomedical Research Institute.

[Video]

The World Cup: South Africa 2010 - Who's going and how they got there.

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:30:09 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: misschee.files.wordpress.com

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

The road to South Africa

Highlights of all the qualifiers

USA

Clip Source: www.fifa.com

Latest Photos

Renounce your pomp!

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 12:03:33 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

I think I like this woman. Nell McCafferty rips into representatives of the Catholic church, asking, "What's holy about the Vatican?" and insisting that they ought to set aside the titles of "Father" and "Grace" and so forth, because they've betrayed them. I love the Irish when they get that fire in their eye!

[Video]

Waves of Colour 2

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:11:29 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.colourlovers.com

I know we had a colorful look at waves not too long ago (see it here), but when I came across the shorebreak photography of Clark Little I couldn't resist sharing the incredible palettes created by a mix of sand, shore and water. All of these photos can be seen on his site, and are part of his latest book, The Shorebreak Art of Clark Little.

Stephen Hawking portrait unveiled at Royal Society

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:58:12 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

The Cambridge cosmologist Stephen Hawking arrived in London yesterday for the official unveiling of the portrait by Tai-Shan Schierenberg at the Royal Society, the UK's academy of science.

You can see more of the artist's work here.

Climate conspiracy charges 'rubbish'

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:43:03 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit categorically denies changing climate data

The director of a research unit at the centre of a row over stolen emails, which sceptics claim show climate change data was being manipulated, said today he "absolutely" stands by the science his centre had produced.

Professor Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) said the suggestion that there was a conspiracy to alter evidence to support a theory of man-made climate change was "complete rubbish".

The material was taken from servers at the world-renowned research centre before it was published on websites by climate change sceptics, possibly in a bid to undermine next month's global climate summit in Denmark.

Jones, who since the emails were leaked has received personal threats which have been passed on to Norfolk police, said it had been "the worst few days of my professional life".

2010: A Who Odyssey

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:36:36 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: Warning: for major Doctor Who nerds only.

Clip Source: blogs.discovermagazine.com

I typically don’t like most mashups, but this one was pretty good… especially the last two minutes, which are brilliant! Warning: for major Doctor Who nerds only.

[Video]

On the case with Weegee the Famous

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:18:53 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

24 November 2009: Part artist, part detective, Arthur Fellig – better known as Weegee – prowled the seedy underbelly of pre-war New York, looking for crime scenes to photograph. A press photographer whose nickname came from his mysterious, ouija-like ability to sense trouble, he developed his stark and noirish signature style by chasing the city's emergency services.

Clip Source: www.rachelhulin.com

Clip Source: www.bakedinny.com

Clip Source: www.rachelhulin.com

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Weegee later went on to work in film, collaborating with the likes of Stanley Kubrick, but is best remembered for photography that typified New York street life between the wars. A selection of his works – many of which have never previously been seen in the UK – go on display at Michael Hoppen Gallery from 25 November until 10 January 2010

Clip Source: www.michaelhoppengallery.com

Weegee-It's a crime to take photographs this good...

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Clipmarks | JohnWaterman's clips

Mediterranean was created in Earth's biggest deluge

Shut down Ohio's machinery of death

Hubble Advent Calendar

Boom-boom-krak-oo

"Rubenesque" Proportions

Five-Story Steel Ball Makes Novel Hospital (Jan, 1929)

Questions and Answers about the Monster Steel Ball

Isaac Asimov and the fuzzy nature of knowledge

Butterflynauts Emerge from Cocoons on ISS

The World Cup: South Africa 2010 - Who's going and how they got there.

Latest Photos

Team galleries

Renounce your pomp!

Waves of Colour 2

Stephen Hawking portrait unveiled at Royal Society

Climate conspiracy charges 'rubbish'

2010: A Who Odyssey

On the case with Weegee the Famous

Weegee-It's a crime to take photographs this good...