Giant’s Causeway, Ireland | Amateria, Myst III: Exile
I can’t believe this is a natural formation, amazing.
Joss Whedon: Feminist
| Interviewer: | So why do you write these strong female characters? |
| Whedon: | Because you're still asking me that question. |
| I wouldn't be reblogging if it weren't for ONE person I know. HMMMMMMM |
One of the most talked about installations at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice was Cloudscapes. Japanese architect Tetsuo Kondo and a German climate engineering firm Transsolar came together to put a cloud in a large interior space called the Corderie, a 316-meter-long space where ropes for Venetian ships were made. Visitors to the exhibit can walk through the cloud via a circular ramp that ascended 4.3 meters high. This feat of climate engineering is produced by blowing three layers of air into the space at different temperatures. Cool dry air at the bottom layer keeps the cloud up; warm, humid air in the middle creates the dense fog; hot, dry air sits on top.
(via mysticplaces)
Suzzallo Library | University of Washington
submission by Brian Fioca
So Manhattan is the skinniest county in New York. This should of course come as no surprise. But here’s the punchline:
Manhattan’s wiry and willowy were eager on Wednesday to dissect how they brought home such an honor. First and foremost, they said, Manhattan is a place where people walk. Even subway riders need to climb stairs. Storefront yoga studios, parks and pedestrian-friendly streets make working out relatively easy.
If you design an environment where health is easy, that population will, as a whole, be healthier than places where health is hard, as in, the entire rest of the United States. That, and, there’s a big component of vanity in health. And we’re surely some of the vainest people in the world, with plenty of businesses around catering to that. It’s not that complicated. You’ve got to fight capitalism with capitalism.
photo by The Sartorialist
alice44:magicalnaturetour: The Referees by Harry Eggens :)
The three referees are White Tailed Eagles and the two fighting are Steller’s Sea Eagles. I was feeling rather pleased that I could identify the WTEs but I have watched a WTE nest during two nesting seasons, so I should be able to identify them.
Sand dunes at Sossus Vlei in Namibia’s Namib Desert.
Human Brains Are Primally Wired to Notice Animals
Surrounded by technology and urbanity though we may be, the human brain remains profoundly hard-wired to respond to animals.
When people are shown pictures of animals, specific parts of the amygdala — a structure central to pleasure and pain, fear and reward — react almost instantly.
Put another way, glimpsing a bird at the feeder or a shark on Animal Planet, or even a plankitten, could invoke cognitive tricks inherited from ancestors who walked on four legs in shallow water.
The effect is large and consistent, and “may reflect the importance that animals held throughout our evolutionary past,” wrote researchers led by California Institute of Technology neurobiologist Florian Mormann in an Aug. 29 Nature Neuroscience paper.
The researchers had access to a unique group of research subjects: 41 people receiving surgery for drug-resistant epilepsy. Prior to surgery, doctors needed to map their minds, a task performed by inserting electrodes into different parts of their brains, then measuring neuron-by-neuron responses to stimuli.
(via rhamphotheca)
Marsupials: Common Wombat (Vombatus ursinus)
Wombats are badger-sized burrowers and the closest living relative to koalas.
(via: Live Science) (photo: Checha, Shutterstock)
