Growth Of A Seed

I miss doing microscope work. Can we make a thread of our favourite thin section? This is mine

Actinolite Schist

Love me some rocks

How the media depicts the Apollo 11 mission:

Actual quotes from the Apollo 11 mission:

A columnar basalt staircase from Iceland (was actually not that easy to climb)

A predatory moment, frozen in geological time

You’re a hungry spider who is rushing towards a wasp that has become entangled in your web when all of a sudden everything goes sticky, you can’t move, frozen in place like the proverbial Tantalus with your food in sight but forever beyond your reach. Very soon after you are engulfed in another wash of sticky sap oozing out of a tree and everything goes dark. The spider may ironically have also been courting a painful death, since these wasps are parasitic and known to lay their eggs in spiders and other insects, with the larvae slowly consuming the insect from the inside out, preserving it alive by leaving the vital organs for last. Such a moment was caught by a unique fossil pictured below, that turned up in a hundred million year old piece of amber from what is now the Hukawng valley in Burma.

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This mysterious hole nearly swallowed a 6-year-old boy

On the south shore of Lake Michigan there are a series of large sand dunes that create the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. The dunes are a consequence of winds blowing sand along the length of Lake Michigan and the lake level dropping over time and exposing the shorelines. The largest is known as Mount Baldy, a 40-meter high pile of sand that is not anchored by vegetation and migrates side to side every year depending on the winds.

In July 2013, a Northwestern Illinois family including 6-year-old Nathan Woessner was hiking along the dune on vacation. Suddenly, Nathan vanished and all that was left was this hole. Adults reached in and couldn’t feel the boy or reach his hands.

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Let me tell you about my panda mini-washer

As an apartment dweller, this is a game changer. My current apartment doesn’t have a laundry facility and the closest Laundromat about a 30 min bus ride which is just not practical. The mini-washer is a life saver

The panda mini washer hooks up to the sink, is incredibly lightweight (about 28 pounds, so light even I can lift it) and easy to use. 

It has a surprisingly large capacity. The basket from the first picture represents about one and a half loads. The jeans took up a whole load while the rest filled the bin only half way. 

Here’s the inside. The left is the washer the right is the spin dryer. Yes, it even drys.

Basically you shove your cloths into the washer, fill it up with water and let it go. I use my shower head to fill it up so it goes faster, the sink hook up took about five minutes to fill the whole tub, with the shower head is is down to a minute an a half. I do it in three wash cycles, a five minute rinse with baking soda, a five minute wash with soap and a three minute rinse with water. You have to drain and refill between each cycle so it’s a little more labor intensive than a traditional washer. 

That’s the spin dryer. It’s about half the capacity of the washer so one wash takes about two loads to dry. The spinner is much more effective than I was expecting. A three minute spin gets my cloths about 90% dry. I hang them up to air dry for that last 10%. 

The machine cost me about 150$. When you factor in two dollars for the bus, five for the machines (per week), the mini-washer pays for its self after only about six months worth of laundry. 

I’m not great at expressing emotion, but I’m hoping you can tell how excited I am.  Let me just say that the panda mini-washer is great and I highly recommend it to anyone currently using a Laundromat.  

it is starting to bloom outside!!! smell like earth and worms!! the grass is tall and awake!!! flowers are here and scattered everywhere!!! it’s raining and humid and fresh!!! i know i say this every other day!!! i love!!! spring!!!

GUYS, I HIT THE JACKPOT. So my department is in the midst of organizing all the stuff and we’re getting rid of a bunch of rocks that we’ve had lying around in bins and LOOK WHAT I FOUND. It’s a copper ore, specifically a bornite (Cu5FeS4) vein. For reference, bornite is the peacock ore, and it’s even prettier in person than in the pic. I remember collecting little pieces of bornite from rock grab bags when I was a kid, but this piece is HUGE!

Don’t forget that: