zefrank:

True Facts About The Aye Aye :: Ugladorable

jtotheizzoe:

The Earliest Days of NASA

Maria Popova, at Brain Pickings, happened upon a treasure trove of early NASA (and its airplane-only predecessor NACA) archive photos. They are really something. From biplanes to the Mercury capsule, pre-1950 aeronautics seemed to live by the motto of “If we build it, then we can go there.” That’s a sentiment we could use a bit more of.

More here.

theolduvaigorge:

My Primate Family Tree, Edinburgh Zoo

• Images and text by artist Russell Dempster

“I was approached a while back by Edinburgh Zoo to design ‘My Primate Family Tree’ for the Living Links department of the zoo. It was to be an educational mural to show a few representatives from the hundreds of living primates, and tell us how closely related we are to each with the bonus of being able to take part in the picture and then completing the link. It fills an outside space of 2.3m x 3m. Every monkey and ape was drawn individually and all pieced together at the final artwork stage and then printed onto 3 panels.

The base of the tree represents the evolutionary origin of primates about 65 million years ago. The Capuchin and Squirrel monkeys on the bottom left represent the primates of the ‘New World’ (The Americas) that split from other evolving primates about 35 million years ago. Next, the Gelada Baboon, Japanese Macaque and Diana Monkey on the top left represent the ‘Old World’ monkeys of Africa and Asia that split from the apes shown on the right about 25 million years ago. Our closest relative is the Chimpanzee, then it’s the Gorilla and then the Orang-utan. These great apes and ourselves are a family that share a common ancestor about 14 million years ago.”

For more information about the divergence of humans and apes see:

• Langergraber, K.E. et al. 2012. “Generation times in wild chimpanzees and gorillas suggest earlier divergence times in great ape and human evolution,” PNAS 109(39):15716–15721
• Pontzer, H. 2012. ”Overview of Hominin Evolution,” Nature Education Knowledge 3(10):8 (open access)

(via scishow)

theatlantic:

In Focus: 2013 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest

The 25th annual National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest is under way, and entries will be accepted for another six weeks, until June 30, 2013. First prize winner will receive a 10-day Galapagos expedition for two. National Geographic was once more kind enough to allow me to share some of the early entries with you here, gathered from four categories: Travel Portraits, Outdoor Scenes, Sense of Place, and Spontaneous Moments. Photos and captions by the photographers.

See more. [Images: National Geographic Traveler Contest]

(via pbsarts)

jtotheizzoe:

“Evolution is fluid.”

- Digital Darwin

(Source: amadeus1996)

John Green's tumblr: johndarnielle: wilwheaton: I really hope Yahoo doesn’t fuck up Tumblr... »

johndarnielle:

wilwheaton:

I really hope Yahoo doesn’t fuck up Tumblr like it’s fucked up … well, every single thing it’s ever touched in the history of the universe.

See here’s the thing though. The only way to prevent something like this would have been to make Tumblr an…

itsalwayssunnyinasgard:

I doodled a thing. [x]

(via edwardspoonhands)

Sponsored Content Pretty Fucking Awesome »

seanbonner:

NAILED IT

(via edwardspoonhands)

It's Okay To Be Smart: Let's agree that we're in agreement about the climate and move on »

jtotheizzoe:

An international team of scientists recently surveyed almost 12,000 climate science research publications to gauge the consensus on manmade global warming among people who know lots about climate science. They did this because some people still like to pretend like there’s plenty of skepticism…

edwardspoonhands:

theashleyclements:

wilwheaton:

jenniferdeguzman:

He said Star Trek is too “philosophical”? Screw that noise.

mechcanuck:

I don’t know when this interview happened but I AM SAD AND ANGRY NOW 

The philosophies in Star Trek are kinda part of the actual setting. If you don’t get that, why are you allowed to make Star Trek movies.

Sigh. The whole point of Star Trek is that it’s philosophical. If you don’t want philosophical Science Fiction, there’s plenty of that for you to enjoy, but Star Trek is philosophical. Philosophy is part of Star Trek’s DNA, and if you’re given the captain’s chair, you’d better damn well respect that.

This just… hurts. 

This reminds me of all the executives being hired to run YouTube networks who probably couldn’t name more than one YouTube channel. 

(Source: catbushandludicrous)