Corina Marinescu
65,978 followers -
I am a collection of water, calcium and organic molecules, but not a single one of the cells that compose me knows who I am, or cares ...so
I am a collection of water, calcium and organic molecules, but not a single one of the cells that compose me knows who I am, or cares ...so
65,978 followers
Communities and Collections
Posts
Post has attachment
Sea and Sky Glows over the Oregon Coast
Every step caused the sand to light up blue. That glow was bioluminescence -- a blue radiance that also lights the surf in this surreal scene captured last month at Meyer's Creek Beach in Oregon, USA. Volcanic stacks dot the foreground sea, while a thin fog layer scatters light on the horizon.
The rays of light spreading from the left horizon were created by car headlights on the Oregon Coast Highway (US 101), while the orange light on the right horizon emanates from a fishing boat. Visible far in the distance is the band of our Milky Way Galaxy, appearing to rise from a dark rocky outcrop. Sixteen images were added together to bring up the background Milky Way and to reduce noise.
Image & info via APOD
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Image Credit & Copyright: Rudy Montoya
#space #universe #naturalphenomena #bioluminescence
Every step caused the sand to light up blue. That glow was bioluminescence -- a blue radiance that also lights the surf in this surreal scene captured last month at Meyer's Creek Beach in Oregon, USA. Volcanic stacks dot the foreground sea, while a thin fog layer scatters light on the horizon.
The rays of light spreading from the left horizon were created by car headlights on the Oregon Coast Highway (US 101), while the orange light on the right horizon emanates from a fishing boat. Visible far in the distance is the band of our Milky Way Galaxy, appearing to rise from a dark rocky outcrop. Sixteen images were added together to bring up the background Milky Way and to reduce noise.
Image & info via APOD
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Image Credit & Copyright: Rudy Montoya
#space #universe #naturalphenomena #bioluminescence
Post has attachment
Post has attachment
Brain ageing may begin earlier than expected
Physicists have devised a new method of investigating brain function, opening a new frontier in the diagnoses of neurodegenerative and ageing related diseases.
This new non-invasive technique could potentially be used for any diagnosis based on cardiovascular and metabolic-related diseases of the brain.
The researchers at Lancaster University (UK) and the Medical University of Gdansk (Poland) deciphered oscillations in the cerebrospinal fluid which lies between the brain and skull.
A device for non-invasive recordings of this translucent fluid was developed by researchers at the Technical University of Gdansk (Poland), and recordings on healthy subjects were made at the Medical University of Gdansk (Poland) and the University of Regina (Canada).
Using methods developed by physicists at Lancaster, it has been shown that the circulation throughout the brain of this fluid is highly fluctuating, and that these fluctuations are slow but interconnected by the rhythms of breathing and the heart rate.
Researchers found that some of these oscillations are linked with blood pressure, but are generally slower, occurring at lower frequencies, which have been shown in previous studies to be related to oscillations in vascular motion and blood oxygenation.
Preliminary results published in Scientific Reports showed evidence of a decline in the coherence between these oscillations in participants over the age of 25, indicating that brain ageing may begin earlier than expected.
Professor Aneta Stefanovska from Lancaster University, who has been studying the physics of biological oscillations for over 20 years, said: “Combining the technique to noninvasively record the fluctuation corresponding to cerebrospinal fluid and our sophisticated methods to analyse oscillations which are not clock-like but rather vary in time around their natural values, we have come to an interesting and non-invasive method that can be used to study ageing and changes due to various neurodegenerative diseases.“
Source:
http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/articles/2018/brain-ageing-may-begin-earlier-than-expected/
Journal article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21038-0
#cerebrospinalfluid #brainage #neurodegenerativediseases #subarachnoidspace #bloodpressure #oscillations #neuroscience
Physicists have devised a new method of investigating brain function, opening a new frontier in the diagnoses of neurodegenerative and ageing related diseases.
This new non-invasive technique could potentially be used for any diagnosis based on cardiovascular and metabolic-related diseases of the brain.
The researchers at Lancaster University (UK) and the Medical University of Gdansk (Poland) deciphered oscillations in the cerebrospinal fluid which lies between the brain and skull.
A device for non-invasive recordings of this translucent fluid was developed by researchers at the Technical University of Gdansk (Poland), and recordings on healthy subjects were made at the Medical University of Gdansk (Poland) and the University of Regina (Canada).
Using methods developed by physicists at Lancaster, it has been shown that the circulation throughout the brain of this fluid is highly fluctuating, and that these fluctuations are slow but interconnected by the rhythms of breathing and the heart rate.
Researchers found that some of these oscillations are linked with blood pressure, but are generally slower, occurring at lower frequencies, which have been shown in previous studies to be related to oscillations in vascular motion and blood oxygenation.
Preliminary results published in Scientific Reports showed evidence of a decline in the coherence between these oscillations in participants over the age of 25, indicating that brain ageing may begin earlier than expected.
Professor Aneta Stefanovska from Lancaster University, who has been studying the physics of biological oscillations for over 20 years, said: “Combining the technique to noninvasively record the fluctuation corresponding to cerebrospinal fluid and our sophisticated methods to analyse oscillations which are not clock-like but rather vary in time around their natural values, we have come to an interesting and non-invasive method that can be used to study ageing and changes due to various neurodegenerative diseases.“
Source:
http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/articles/2018/brain-ageing-may-begin-earlier-than-expected/
Journal article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21038-0
#cerebrospinalfluid #brainage #neurodegenerativediseases #subarachnoidspace #bloodpressure #oscillations #neuroscience
Post has attachment
How the brain responds to injustice
Punishing a wrongdoer may be more rewarding to the brain than supporting a victim. That is one suggestion of new research published in JNeurosci, which measured the brain activity of young men while they played a “justice game.”
Study participants played a game in which two players – a “Taker” and a “Partner” – each start out with 200 chips. The Taker can steal up to 100 of the Partner’s chips, and then the Partner can retaliate by spending up to 100 chips to reduce the Taker’s stash by up to 300 chips. Participants played as either a Partner or an Observer, who could either punish the Taker or help the Partner by spending chips to increase the Partner’s stash.
Mirre Stallen and colleagues found that participants were more willing to punish the Taker when they experienced injustice directly as a Partner as opposed to a third-party Observer. The decision to punish was associated with activity in the ventral striatum, a brain region involved in reward processing, and distinguishable from the severity of the punishment.
Before beginning the experiment, all participants were given a nasal spray, with some randomly assigned to receive the hormone oxytocin, which has been suggested to have a role in punishing. Participants in the oxytocin group chose to give more frequent, but less intense, punishments. This finding implicates oxytocin in corrective punishments akin to a “slap on the wrist” to maintain fairness.
Source:
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-02/sfn-htb021418.php
Journal article:
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/38/12/2944
#oxytocin #neuroimaging #brainactivity #punishment #socialinjustice #neuroscience
Punishing a wrongdoer may be more rewarding to the brain than supporting a victim. That is one suggestion of new research published in JNeurosci, which measured the brain activity of young men while they played a “justice game.”
Study participants played a game in which two players – a “Taker” and a “Partner” – each start out with 200 chips. The Taker can steal up to 100 of the Partner’s chips, and then the Partner can retaliate by spending up to 100 chips to reduce the Taker’s stash by up to 300 chips. Participants played as either a Partner or an Observer, who could either punish the Taker or help the Partner by spending chips to increase the Partner’s stash.
Mirre Stallen and colleagues found that participants were more willing to punish the Taker when they experienced injustice directly as a Partner as opposed to a third-party Observer. The decision to punish was associated with activity in the ventral striatum, a brain region involved in reward processing, and distinguishable from the severity of the punishment.
Before beginning the experiment, all participants were given a nasal spray, with some randomly assigned to receive the hormone oxytocin, which has been suggested to have a role in punishing. Participants in the oxytocin group chose to give more frequent, but less intense, punishments. This finding implicates oxytocin in corrective punishments akin to a “slap on the wrist” to maintain fairness.
Source:
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-02/sfn-htb021418.php
Journal article:
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/38/12/2944
#oxytocin #neuroimaging #brainactivity #punishment #socialinjustice #neuroscience
Post has attachment
Parker Solar Probe Marks First Mission Milestones on Voyage to Sun
Just two days after launch on Aug. 12, 2018, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe achieved several planned milestones toward full commissioning and operations, announced mission controllers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, or APL, in Laurel, Maryland.
On Aug. 13, the high-gain antenna, which Parker Solar Probe uses to communicate high-rate science data to Earth, was released from locks which held it stable during launch. Controllers have also been monitoring the spacecraft as it autonomously uses its thrusters to remove (or “dump”) momentum, which is part of the flight operations of the spacecraft. Managing momentum helps the spacecraft remain in a stable and optimal flight profile.
There are four instrument suites on board Parker Solar Probe, which will each need to be powered and readied for science data collection. The FIELDS investigation, which consists of the most elements, went first. It was powered up on Aug. 13 for two activities. First was the opening of the clamps which held four of the five FIELDS antennas stowed during takeoff. These antennas will be deployed roughly 30 days after launch, and they will stick out from the corners of the spacecraft’s heat shield – called the Thermal Protection System – and be exposed to the harsh solar environment. Second, the spacecraft’s magnetometer boom was fully deployed. This boom contains three magnetometers and a fifth, smaller electric field antenna, all part of the FIELDS suite. Further instrument check-outs and deployments are scheduled in the coming days for the spacecraft.
As of 12:00 p.m. EDT on Aug. 16, Parker Solar Probe was 2.9 million miles from Earth, traveling at 39,000 mph, and heading toward its first Venus flyby scheduled for Oct. 3, 2018, at 4:44 a.m. EDT. The spacecraft will use Venus to slightly slow itself and adjust its trajectory for an optimal path toward first perihelion of the Sun on Nov. 5, 2018, at 10:27 p.m. EST (Nov. 6, 2018, at 03:27 UTC).
Source:
http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Show-Article.php?articleID=95
#NASA #space #science #parkersolarprobe #universe
Just two days after launch on Aug. 12, 2018, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe achieved several planned milestones toward full commissioning and operations, announced mission controllers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, or APL, in Laurel, Maryland.
On Aug. 13, the high-gain antenna, which Parker Solar Probe uses to communicate high-rate science data to Earth, was released from locks which held it stable during launch. Controllers have also been monitoring the spacecraft as it autonomously uses its thrusters to remove (or “dump”) momentum, which is part of the flight operations of the spacecraft. Managing momentum helps the spacecraft remain in a stable and optimal flight profile.
There are four instrument suites on board Parker Solar Probe, which will each need to be powered and readied for science data collection. The FIELDS investigation, which consists of the most elements, went first. It was powered up on Aug. 13 for two activities. First was the opening of the clamps which held four of the five FIELDS antennas stowed during takeoff. These antennas will be deployed roughly 30 days after launch, and they will stick out from the corners of the spacecraft’s heat shield – called the Thermal Protection System – and be exposed to the harsh solar environment. Second, the spacecraft’s magnetometer boom was fully deployed. This boom contains three magnetometers and a fifth, smaller electric field antenna, all part of the FIELDS suite. Further instrument check-outs and deployments are scheduled in the coming days for the spacecraft.
As of 12:00 p.m. EDT on Aug. 16, Parker Solar Probe was 2.9 million miles from Earth, traveling at 39,000 mph, and heading toward its first Venus flyby scheduled for Oct. 3, 2018, at 4:44 a.m. EDT. The spacecraft will use Venus to slightly slow itself and adjust its trajectory for an optimal path toward first perihelion of the Sun on Nov. 5, 2018, at 10:27 p.m. EST (Nov. 6, 2018, at 03:27 UTC).
Source:
http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Show-Article.php?articleID=95
#NASA #space #science #parkersolarprobe #universe
Post has attachment
Brain on a Chip” Reveals How the Brain Folds
Being born with a “tabula rasa” – a clean slate – in the case of the brain is something of a curse. Our brains are already wrinkled like walnuts by the time we are born. Babies born without these wrinkles – smooth brain syndrome – suffer from severe developmental deficiencies and their life expectancy is markedly reduced. The gene that causes this syndrome helped Weizmann Institute of Science researchers to probe the physical forces that cause the brain’s wrinkles to form. In their findings, reported in Nature Physics, the researchers describe a method they developed for growing tiny “brains on chips” from human cells that enabled them to track the physical and biological mechanisms underlying the wrinkling process.
Tiny brains grown in the lab from embryonic stem cells –called organoids – were pioneered in the last decade by Profs. Yoshiki Sasai in Japan and Juergen Knoblich in Austria. Prof. Orly Reiner of the Institute’s Molecular Genetics Department says that her lab, along with many others, embraced the idea of growing organoids. But Dr. Eyal Karzbrun, in her lab, had to put a bit of a damper on their enthusiasm: The sizes of the organoids they obtained were far from uniform; with no blood vessels, the insides did not have a steady supply of nutrients and started to die; and the thickness of the tissue got in the way of the optical imaging and microscope tracking.
So Karzbrun developed a new approach to growing organoids – one that would enable the group to follow their growth processes in real time: He limited their growth in the vertical axis. This gave him a “pita”-shaped organoid – round and flat with a thin space in the middle. This shape enabled the group to image the thin tissue as it developed and to supply nutrients to all the cells. And by the second week of the tiny “brain’s” growth and development, wrinkles began to appear and then to deepen. Karzbrun: “This is the first time that folding has been observed in organoids, apparently due to the architecture of our system.”
Wrinkles in time
Karzbrun is a physicist by training, and he naturally turned to physical models for the behavior of elastic materials to understand the formation of the wrinkles. Folds or wrinkles in a surface are the result of mechanical instability – compression forces applied to some part of the material. So for example, if there is uneven expansion in one part of the material, another part might be forced to fold in order to accommodate the pressure. In the organoids, the scientists found such mechanical instability in two places: The cytoskeleton – the internal skeleton – of the cells in the center of the organoid contracted; and the nuclei of the cells near the surface expanded. Or, to think of it another way, the outside of the “pita” grew faster than its inside.
While this achievement was impressive, Reiner was not convinced that the wrinkles in the organoids were really modeling the folds in a developing brain. So the group grew new organoids, this time bearing the same mutations carried by babies with smooth brain syndrome. Reiner had identified this gene – LIS1 – back in 1993, and has investigated its role in the developing brain and in the disease, which affects one in 30,000 births. Among other things, the gene is involved in the migration of nerve cells to the brain during embryonic development, and it also regulates the cytoskeleton and molecular motors in the cell.
The organoids with the mutated gene grew to the same proportions as the others, but they developed few folds and the ones they did develop were very different in shape from the normal wrinkles. Working on the assumption that differences in the physical properties of the cell were responsible for these variations, the group investigated the organoid’s cells with atomic force microscopy, with the help of Dr. Sidney Cohen of the Chemical Research Support Department. By measures of elasticity, the normal cells were about twice as stiff as the mutated ones, which were basically soft. Reiner: “We discovered a significant difference in the physical properties of cells in the two organoids, but we observed difference in their biological properties as well. For example, the nuclei in the centers of the mutant organoids moved more slowly, and we saw significant differences in gene expression.”
Source:
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/%E2%80%9Cbrain-chip%E2%80%9D-reveals-how-brain-folds
Journal article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-018-0046-7
Gif: As the organoid develops, the tissue in the outer part folds in a manner similar to those in the developing brain.
#stemcells #brainorganoids #lissencephaly #brainwrinkles #geneexpression #braindevelopment #neuroscience
Being born with a “tabula rasa” – a clean slate – in the case of the brain is something of a curse. Our brains are already wrinkled like walnuts by the time we are born. Babies born without these wrinkles – smooth brain syndrome – suffer from severe developmental deficiencies and their life expectancy is markedly reduced. The gene that causes this syndrome helped Weizmann Institute of Science researchers to probe the physical forces that cause the brain’s wrinkles to form. In their findings, reported in Nature Physics, the researchers describe a method they developed for growing tiny “brains on chips” from human cells that enabled them to track the physical and biological mechanisms underlying the wrinkling process.
Tiny brains grown in the lab from embryonic stem cells –called organoids – were pioneered in the last decade by Profs. Yoshiki Sasai in Japan and Juergen Knoblich in Austria. Prof. Orly Reiner of the Institute’s Molecular Genetics Department says that her lab, along with many others, embraced the idea of growing organoids. But Dr. Eyal Karzbrun, in her lab, had to put a bit of a damper on their enthusiasm: The sizes of the organoids they obtained were far from uniform; with no blood vessels, the insides did not have a steady supply of nutrients and started to die; and the thickness of the tissue got in the way of the optical imaging and microscope tracking.
So Karzbrun developed a new approach to growing organoids – one that would enable the group to follow their growth processes in real time: He limited their growth in the vertical axis. This gave him a “pita”-shaped organoid – round and flat with a thin space in the middle. This shape enabled the group to image the thin tissue as it developed and to supply nutrients to all the cells. And by the second week of the tiny “brain’s” growth and development, wrinkles began to appear and then to deepen. Karzbrun: “This is the first time that folding has been observed in organoids, apparently due to the architecture of our system.”
Wrinkles in time
Karzbrun is a physicist by training, and he naturally turned to physical models for the behavior of elastic materials to understand the formation of the wrinkles. Folds or wrinkles in a surface are the result of mechanical instability – compression forces applied to some part of the material. So for example, if there is uneven expansion in one part of the material, another part might be forced to fold in order to accommodate the pressure. In the organoids, the scientists found such mechanical instability in two places: The cytoskeleton – the internal skeleton – of the cells in the center of the organoid contracted; and the nuclei of the cells near the surface expanded. Or, to think of it another way, the outside of the “pita” grew faster than its inside.
While this achievement was impressive, Reiner was not convinced that the wrinkles in the organoids were really modeling the folds in a developing brain. So the group grew new organoids, this time bearing the same mutations carried by babies with smooth brain syndrome. Reiner had identified this gene – LIS1 – back in 1993, and has investigated its role in the developing brain and in the disease, which affects one in 30,000 births. Among other things, the gene is involved in the migration of nerve cells to the brain during embryonic development, and it also regulates the cytoskeleton and molecular motors in the cell.
The organoids with the mutated gene grew to the same proportions as the others, but they developed few folds and the ones they did develop were very different in shape from the normal wrinkles. Working on the assumption that differences in the physical properties of the cell were responsible for these variations, the group investigated the organoid’s cells with atomic force microscopy, with the help of Dr. Sidney Cohen of the Chemical Research Support Department. By measures of elasticity, the normal cells were about twice as stiff as the mutated ones, which were basically soft. Reiner: “We discovered a significant difference in the physical properties of cells in the two organoids, but we observed difference in their biological properties as well. For example, the nuclei in the centers of the mutant organoids moved more slowly, and we saw significant differences in gene expression.”
Source:
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/%E2%80%9Cbrain-chip%E2%80%9D-reveals-how-brain-folds
Journal article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-018-0046-7
Gif: As the organoid develops, the tissue in the outer part folds in a manner similar to those in the developing brain.
#stemcells #brainorganoids #lissencephaly #brainwrinkles #geneexpression #braindevelopment #neuroscience
Post has attachment
Lilian Harvey in Du Sollst Nicht stehlen, (1927.)
Lilian Harvey was born on January 19th, 1906 in London. Her mother was English and her father was German. When she was eight her family moved to Berlin shortly before the outbreak of WW1.
Her most successful film, 1931's "Der Kongress Tanzt"/"Le congres s'amuse"/"Congress Dances" led to a contract in Hollywood with the Fox Film Company. She dissolved this contract after a few pictures, walking out on a role that was filled by then-unknown Alice Faye and returning to UFA to be with director Paul Martin, with whom she was romantically involved. The Nazi regime had come to power in her absence and Lilian Harvey found it difficult to work under Goebbels.
She was instrumental in helping those persecuted by the Nazis escape until her film popularity waned and she was forced to escape as well. She eventually landed in the USA and spent most of WW2 in Los Angeles working as a volunteer nurse. She did theater work and continued to work on European stages after the war. She received war reparations in the early sixties and lived on the Riviera until her death on July 27th, 1968.
Bio:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0367613/bio
#history #movies #LilianHarvey
Lilian Harvey was born on January 19th, 1906 in London. Her mother was English and her father was German. When she was eight her family moved to Berlin shortly before the outbreak of WW1.
Her most successful film, 1931's "Der Kongress Tanzt"/"Le congres s'amuse"/"Congress Dances" led to a contract in Hollywood with the Fox Film Company. She dissolved this contract after a few pictures, walking out on a role that was filled by then-unknown Alice Faye and returning to UFA to be with director Paul Martin, with whom she was romantically involved. The Nazi regime had come to power in her absence and Lilian Harvey found it difficult to work under Goebbels.
She was instrumental in helping those persecuted by the Nazis escape until her film popularity waned and she was forced to escape as well. She eventually landed in the USA and spent most of WW2 in Los Angeles working as a volunteer nurse. She did theater work and continued to work on European stages after the war. She received war reparations in the early sixties and lived on the Riviera until her death on July 27th, 1968.
Bio:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0367613/bio
#history #movies #LilianHarvey
Post has attachment
Glowing Elements in the Soul Nebula
Stars are forming in the Soul of the Queen of Aethopia. More specifically, a large star forming region called the Soul Nebula (IC 1898) can be found in the direction of the constellation Cassiopeia, who Greek mythology credits as the vain wife of a King who long ago ruled lands surrounding the upper Nile river.
The Soul Nebula houses several open clusters of stars, a large radio source known as W5, and huge evacuated bubbles formed by the winds of young massive stars. Located about 6,500 light years away, the Soul Nebula spans about 100 light years and is usually imaged next to its celestial neighbor the Heart Nebula (IC 1805). The featured image is a composite of three exposures in different colors: red as emitted by hydrogen gas, yellow as emitted by sulfur, and blue as emitted by oxygen.
Image & info via APOD
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Image Credit & Copyright: Jesús M.Vargas & Maritxu Poyal
#space #NASA #universe #science #nebula
Stars are forming in the Soul of the Queen of Aethopia. More specifically, a large star forming region called the Soul Nebula (IC 1898) can be found in the direction of the constellation Cassiopeia, who Greek mythology credits as the vain wife of a King who long ago ruled lands surrounding the upper Nile river.
The Soul Nebula houses several open clusters of stars, a large radio source known as W5, and huge evacuated bubbles formed by the winds of young massive stars. Located about 6,500 light years away, the Soul Nebula spans about 100 light years and is usually imaged next to its celestial neighbor the Heart Nebula (IC 1805). The featured image is a composite of three exposures in different colors: red as emitted by hydrogen gas, yellow as emitted by sulfur, and blue as emitted by oxygen.
Image & info via APOD
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Image Credit & Copyright: Jesús M.Vargas & Maritxu Poyal
#space #NASA #universe #science #nebula
Post has attachment
Active Prominences on a Quiet Sun
Why is the Sun so quiet? As the Sun enters into a period of time known as a Solar Minimum, it is, as expected, showing fewer sunspots and active regions than usual. The quietness is somewhat unsettling, though, as so far this year, most days show no sunspots at all. In contrast, from 2011 - 2015, during Solar Maximum, the Sun displayed spots just about every day.
Maxima and minima occur on an 11-year cycle, with the last Solar Minimum being the most quiet in a century. Will this current Solar Minimum go even deeper? Even though the Sun's activity affects the Earth and its surroundings, no one knows for sure what the Sun will do next, and the physics behind the processes remain an active topic of research. The featured image was taken three weeks ago and shows that our Sun is busy even on a quiet day. Prominences of hot plasma, some larger than the Earth, dance continually and are most easily visible over the edge.
Image & info via APOD
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Image Credit & Copyright: Alan Friedman (Averted Imagination)
#NASA #space #universe #science #sun
Why is the Sun so quiet? As the Sun enters into a period of time known as a Solar Minimum, it is, as expected, showing fewer sunspots and active regions than usual. The quietness is somewhat unsettling, though, as so far this year, most days show no sunspots at all. In contrast, from 2011 - 2015, during Solar Maximum, the Sun displayed spots just about every day.
Maxima and minima occur on an 11-year cycle, with the last Solar Minimum being the most quiet in a century. Will this current Solar Minimum go even deeper? Even though the Sun's activity affects the Earth and its surroundings, no one knows for sure what the Sun will do next, and the physics behind the processes remain an active topic of research. The featured image was taken three weeks ago and shows that our Sun is busy even on a quiet day. Prominences of hot plasma, some larger than the Earth, dance continually and are most easily visible over the edge.
Image & info via APOD
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Image Credit & Copyright: Alan Friedman (Averted Imagination)
#NASA #space #universe #science #sun
Post has attachment
“Volumes” is an experimental art film by Maxim Zhestkov using physics-based particle animation. Waves and unseen forces send billions of color-changing particles aloft in the film. The motions – especially the way the particles seem to tear themselves – are reminiscent of a complex fluid, like yogurt. These substances have both liquid-like (viscous) and solid-like (elastic) properties depending on the forces they experience. Zhestkov’s particles are similar; they move like a fluid but tear more like a solid.
Watch the video:
https://vimeo.com/257761811
#fluiddynamics #science #physics #granularmotion #complexfluids #nonNewtonianfluids #viscoelasticity
Watch the video:
https://vimeo.com/257761811
#fluiddynamics #science #physics #granularmotion #complexfluids #nonNewtonianfluids #viscoelasticity
Wait while more posts are being loaded