Mexico's giant crystal cave got it's name from the stunning 10 meter long crystals that were found inside. The cave is extremely hot with air temperatures reaching up to 58 °C (136 °F) with 90 to 99 percent humidity. Due to these factors, the cave is relatively unexplored. Without proper protection people can only endure approximately ten minutes of exposure at a time. The cave lies on an ancient fault and there is an underground magma chamber below the cave. The magma heated the ground water and it became saturated with minerals, including large quantities of gypsum. The hollow space of the cave was filled with this mineral rich hot water and remained filled for about 500,000 years. During this time, the temperature of the water remained very stable at over 50°C. This allowed crystals to form and grow to immense sizes.
Bonus Picture: A science team explores the cave.
BBC Docu - How Earth Made Us
October 15, 2011
October 7, 2011
The Earth core
The earth's core is a remarkable place. Tremendous pressure, insane temperatures, liquid metal storms and raging magnetic fields. A recent horizon episode talked about some mysterious phenomena that have recently been cleared up. One of those was the discovery that earthquake waves travel through the earth faster from north to south than from east to west. In the short clip below you can find out why that is the case.
They have also discovered a sort of Bermuda triangle in space but if you want to find out more about that, you will have to watch the full episode. :p
BBC Horizon - The Core (59 minutes HD)
They have also discovered a sort of Bermuda triangle in space but if you want to find out more about that, you will have to watch the full episode. :p
BBC Horizon - The Core (59 minutes HD)
Mathematical beauty
Why are numbers everywhere? Why does math produce patterns? Why does order emerge out of chaos? Why do we live in a rational logical universe?
October 1, 2011
The unseen eye
"When you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Here we see the iris contracting and expanding, regulating the diameter of a gaping black hole, the pupil, and thus controlling the amount of light that enters the eye.
Bonus Pictures: An Extreme close up of the human eye.
Here we see the iris contracting and expanding, regulating the diameter of a gaping black hole, the pupil, and thus controlling the amount of light that enters the eye.
Bonus Pictures: An Extreme close up of the human eye.
September 24, 2011
GFP
The GFP (Green Fluorescent Protein) exhibits bright green fluorescence when exposed to blue light. Although many other marine organisms have similar green fluorescent proteins, GFP traditionally refers to the protein first isolated from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria. Although it has been used by artists around the world, this GFP is especially useful for the biological sciences. In biology, GFP is used for highlighting specific structures. Compared to other fluorescent proteins, it is much less harmful when illuminated in living cells. The discovery and use of GFP has triggered the development of highly automated live-cell fluorescence microscopy systems, which can be used to observe cells over time expressing one or more proteins tagged with fluorescent proteins. In 2008 Martin Chalfie, Osamu Shimomura, and Roger Y. Tsien were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein.
Wiki - Green Fluorescent Protein
Wiki - Green Fluorescent Protein
The immortal jellyfish
The lifecycle of the jellyfish is quite remarkable (pictured below). A jellyfish larva first develops into a polyp and it is this polyp that will then asexually produce thousands of jellyfish. This surely is rather bizarre but thanks to Turritopsis nutricula, this lifecycle gets a whole lot weirder.
Turritopsis nutricula is potentially immortal, it is a hydrozoan whose medusa, or jellyfish, form can revert back to the polyp stage after becoming sexually mature. It is the only known case of a metazoan capable of reverting completely to a sexually immature, colonial stage after having reached sexual maturity as a solitary stage. It does this through the cell development process of transdifferentiation. Cell transdifferentiation is when the jellyfish "alters the differentiated state of the cell and transforms it into a new cell". In this process the medusa of the immortal jellyfish is transformed into the polyps of a new polyp colony. First, the umbrella reverts itself and then the tentacles and mesoglea get resorbed. The reverted medusa then attaches itself to the substrate by the end that had been at the opposite end of the umbrella and starts giving rise to new polyps to form the new colony. Theoretically, this process can go on indefinitely, effectively rendering the jellyfish biologically immortal.
Turritopsis nutricula is potentially immortal, it is a hydrozoan whose medusa, or jellyfish, form can revert back to the polyp stage after becoming sexually mature. It is the only known case of a metazoan capable of reverting completely to a sexually immature, colonial stage after having reached sexual maturity as a solitary stage. It does this through the cell development process of transdifferentiation. Cell transdifferentiation is when the jellyfish "alters the differentiated state of the cell and transforms it into a new cell". In this process the medusa of the immortal jellyfish is transformed into the polyps of a new polyp colony. First, the umbrella reverts itself and then the tentacles and mesoglea get resorbed. The reverted medusa then attaches itself to the substrate by the end that had been at the opposite end of the umbrella and starts giving rise to new polyps to form the new colony. Theoretically, this process can go on indefinitely, effectively rendering the jellyfish biologically immortal.
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