TED Tuesday: Eyes DO fool us!

Beau Lotto’s color games puzzle your vision, but they also spotlight what you can’t normally see: how your brain works. This fun, first-hand look at your own versatile sense of sight reveals how evolution tints your perception of what’s really out there.

GIVEAWAY!!! Poster print for FREE!

This blog is hosting an 18x24” Rolled Poster Print giveaway sponsored by DigitalRoom.com. You’ll love the photo-quality poster prints, which can be useful for anything from mounting on a wall at home to promoting your campaign to the world!

The winner for the prize of (1) 18x24” rolled poster print** will be chosen on Tuesday, 29th September, 2009. For more information on the sponsors as well as the printing service, please visit,
Poster Printing - http://www.digitalroom.com/poster-printing.html
Digital Printing - http://www.digitalroom.com/
** This offer is open to US residents only. FREE UPS Ground Shipping for US residents.

To enter you must:
· Leave a comment explaining how you would use the Poster Print if you won.

Additionally (optional):
· Write a short blog post about this giveaway and link back to this blog as well as DigitalRoom.com.
· Paste the link to your post in your comment mentioned above.

The winner:
· The winner will be selected on Tuesday, 29th September, 2009 and announced on this blog.
· The winner’s e-mail address, name and the URL of the winner’s post will be sent to the sponsor by the author of this blog.
· Prizes will be awarded by coupon code sent out in bulk e-mail on 1st October, 2009. If you do not receive your coupon code at that time, check your junk mail folder. If you still cannot find your coupon code, email blogs@uprinting.com and they will help you claim your prize.

TED Tuesday: Art that looks back at you

Golan Levin, an artist and engineer, uses modern tools -- robotics, new software, cognitive research -- to make artworks that surprise and delight. Watch as sounds become shapes, bodies create paintings, and a curious eye looks back at the curious viewer.

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• The Intersection of Art and Technology (takepart.com)

TED Tuesday: Fly me to Saturn

Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco shows images from the Cassini voyage to Saturn, focusing on its largest moon, Titan, and on frozen Enceladus, which seems to shoot jets of ice.

Carolyn Porco shares exciting new findings from the Cassini spacecraft's recent sweep of one of Saturn's moons, Enceladus. Samples gathered from the moon's icy geysers hint that an ocean under its surface could harbor life.

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• An Ocean in Saturn's Moon? Cool! (abcnews.go.com)

Hubble sees "bubble"

[Image source: New Scientist, Caption reads: The "Cygnus Bubble" nebula may actually be a cylinder that is being seen from one of its ends. This image was taken with the Kitt Peak Mayall 4-metre telescope in Arizona (Image: Travis A. Rector/U of Alaska Anchorage/Heidi Schweiker/NOAO)]

Giant 'soap bubble' found floating in space - space - 23 July 2009 - New Scientist

IT LOOKS like a soap bubble or perhaps even a camera fault, but the image at right is a newly discovered planetary nebula. [...] The bubble, which was officially named PN G75.5+1.7 last week, has been there a while. [...] "It's a beautiful example," says Adam Frank of the University of Rochester, New York. "Spherical ones are very rare." One explanation is that the image is looking down the throat of a typical cylindrical nebula. However, it is still remarkably symmetrical, Frank says.

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Sunday Spotlight: The Virtual Telescope

A few days back I got an invite to join a group on LinkedIn. It was called The Virtual Telescope Project, a name that interested me enough to go ahead and check out what was this all about. And once I was on the website, I knew I had to write a Sunday Spotlight on this particular service provided by the Bellatrix Astronomical Observatory.

The homepage beckons you to enter the website with the message, "Enjoy the real Universe from your desktop, live!". It is available in English and Italian. This project/telescope is a participant in the IYA2009 activities. The website is created and directed by Gianluca Masi. Here you will find out what makes Virtual Telescope a unique case in the world. The Virtual Telescope offers live shows and astronomical Labs, in real-time or with archived material (the latter being free).

I am very much looking forward to participate in their next live show on Monday 3rd August, which is in Italian. But ... the fascinating beauty of the deep space is beyond spoken word.

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Lightening in a volcano

[Image source: LiveScience]

Yes, this is what Andrea Thompson, Senior Writer at LiveScience, reports about in an interesting article on their website. I learnt something new today, that lightening happens inside a volcano plume, didn't know that!

For the first time, scientists have been able to “see” and trace lightning inside a plume of ash spewing from an actively erupting volcano. Physicist Paul Krehbiel of New Mexico Tech., who observed and studied these lightening flashes, said, "The lightning activity was as strong or stronger than we have seen in large Midwestern thunderstorms."

A recent study in the journal Nature found that volcanic plumes spin like tornadic thunderstorms, a finding which helps to explain the lightning storms, as well as the waterspouts and dust devils produced by some volcanic plumes. For more, follow the link above.

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Within a blink of an eye

[Image source: Alan Sailer's flickr]

A few days back I posted about some really cool time-lapse videos on the internet. Today's post is about the kind of photography exactly opposite to that, the high-speed photography. Time-lapse photography squishes very slow processes into a smaller time-scale and make them interesting to watch. The high-speed photography captures the fleeting moments of a very quick process by using high shutter speeds that make some fabulous visuals. A friend shared this link with me a few days back that shows some impressive shots taken by Alan Sailer. He uses an interrupted laser beam to trigger the camera at the precise moment when a bullet passes out of a given object and captures that "fragile" moment just before the object is blown to pieces. As destructive as it sounds, when you see his pictures, you will be left with a sense of awe and respect for his work! I'm sharing just one of many such fantastic images of his which I'm sure will more than whet your visual appetite :).

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Time- lapsed nature

Time-lapse photography / video have made the observation of a lot of painfully slow processes not so boring. In fact it makes the spectacle enjoyable in most cases. The technique involves recording a process, natural or man-made, onto film with very long exposure times. Or, as mentioned on Wikipedia, “Time-lapse photography is a cinematography technique whereby each film frame is captured at a rate much slower than it will be played back. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing. Time-lapse photography can be considered to be the opposite of high speed photography.”Aaron Rowe, a blog author on the Wired.com blog, has presented a list of what he thinks are the top ten time-lapse videos of naturally occurring processes. I’m not convinced that they’re all the best ones out there but they’re fascinating to watch for sure. It was difficult to decide which one to embed here in my post but I have chosen the ‘Thunderstorm’ video which is on #3 on Aaron’s list. The radpidly passing clouds constantly aglow due to lightening make a great spectacle. Follow the above link to the article for the rest 9. Happy time-lapsing!

Live webcam from 3000 ft under-sea

The so-called ‘Eye-in-the-Sea’, a 502-pound video camera, is a recent addition to the first observatory operating in deep sea water. It will become part of a new kind of scientific exploration to assess the impacts of climate change on marine life. The observatory, Monterey Accelerated Research Station or MARS, began operating in November 2008 off the California coast. It is in form of a giant metal pyramid connected to shore by 32 miles of cable and serves as a gigantic electrical outlet for equipment such as the camera. Instruments onboard measure currents, seismic activity and effect of higher acidity on the marine life. The observatory and webcam permit real time information to be streamed ashore, giving researchers an opportunity to watch life at 500 fathoms and understand the effect of greenhouse gasses faster and better than before.

The observatory, its instruments and the webcam are the product of research and funding of Ocean Research and Conservation Association (ORCA). ORCA is dedicated to the protection and restoration of marine ecosystems and the species they sustain through the development of innovative technologies and science based conservation action. Their website gives a good overview of the research undertaken and gives one an opportunity to look at the streaming video feed coming in from the deep-sea webcam. There are also links for volunteer opportunities and donations for those so inclined.

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Frizions: Art emerging from science

Just yesterday I wrote about the polarised light in the context of how the artificial polarised light causes ecological pollution. However, today while browsing the New Scientist website I came across an article that portrays polarised light as an art tool! NASA scientist and artist Peter Wasilewski creates stunningly beautiful images with polarised light and ice in the process of freezing. And he calls them “frizions”. The article gives details of the process along with the link to a slideshow that showcases some of the magnificent pieces of art produced and to the website of the artists himself. One of the very few examples where art and science meet, it makes for a pleasurable viewing.

Light pollution (ELP and PLP)

Ecological light pollution (ELP) is caused by excessive or obtrusive artificial light. It occurs especially in urban areas where sources of artificial light abound. It not only reduces the visibility of the night sky but, like any form of pollution, harms the ecosystem and the health of its inhabitants. There are many different types of ELP, light trespassing and sky glow being a few of them. The excessive light can cause damage to human health and psychology. But the artificial light affects the non-human inhabitants of this planet the most. Many, if not all, members of the animal kingdom use light sources as their GPS at the night time. According to the article in Wikipedia, “Life exists with natural patterns of light and dark, so disruption of those patterns influences many aspects of animal behavior. Light pollution can confuse animal navigation, alter competitive interactions, change predator-prey relations, and influence animal physiology.” For example, sea turtle hatchlings use the silhouettes of objects caused by moonlight to move away from the land and the reflections of moonlight from the sea to move towards it. However, as one can easily imagine, artificial sources of light cause major interference in these “guiding mechanisms”.

As if the ELP affecting the ecology at night time wasn’t doing enough harm, researchers have recently found out another form of light pollution that exists at daytime and night. It is called Polarised light pollution (PLP) and as the name suggests, it is caused by existence of artificially polarised light. In the natural world, water is the primary source of horizontal polarised light and many animals - including birds, insects and reptiles - have highly developed polarisation vision. However, in urban environments, any shiny, black object that reflects a polarised light adds to the “cues” for animal behaviour. Glass window panes, asphalt roads, oil are some of the common culprits. The sea creatures use polarisation of light passing through the transparent plankton as a tool to locate their food. However, thin plastic bags in the sea produce a very similar polarised light leading more and more sea turtles to ingest them! A very informative article on the research about PLP and its effects is published on the BBC News’ website. I feel it makes for a very interesting read and shows us one more way in which us humans are messing with the ecology of this planet.

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Awesome Christmas Light Show!

In keeping with the festive spirit of the Christmas season, I thought of sharing this AWESOMELY creative video :). Hope everyone who visits my blog enjoys it!

Humble sticky tape emits powerful X-rays

Read the detailed article about this fascinating find here,

http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/dn15016-humble-sticky-tape-emits-powerful-xrays.html