The Allende Meteorite

I love plants... I don’t know if they are appropriate for summer/august time but oh well. I still think its quite adorable

The importance of a good and matching teacher or supervisor. You see, even birds can struggle with an inconvenient teaching style.

“It might be imagined that the most brilliant birds would be able to learn at any tempo, whereas others would learn well only when tutored at a slow tempo. But Mets and Brainards’ results demonstrate that this is not the case. Most remarkably, birds that were genetically tuned to sing slowly were not inherently worse learners. In fact, they often learnt better than the fast birds once the tutoring tempo ‘resonated’ with them.“

From the article: Tchernichovski and Conley. A genetically tailored education for birds, Nature 2019, 575. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03416-4

Yuanyang Rice Terraces

This aerial view of the mountains of Yuanyang Couny of the Yunnan province in south China presents a spectacular visual of the rice terraces that cover the landscape. Due to the scarcity of level ground, only about 5% of the land is used for agriculture. However, the Hani people, the predominant ethnic group of the region, have adapted very well.

Keep reading

What if... what if I WANT an info dump???

Then you're my favorite and I will dump SO much info on natrocarbonatite lava

No one knows for sure why or how this type of lava forms. Oldoinyo Lengai is the only volcano on earth that actively erupts it currently, and Oldoinyo Lengai hasn't been extensively studied.

The factor that causes lava to be viscous (thick, and sticky) is its silica content. Rhyolitic magmas, like those in Washington, have around 70 weight % silica. Basaltic magmas, like the volcanoes in Hawai'i, are around 45 wt% silica. Natrocarbonatite lava is less than 3% silica. Its flow rate is close to water, so it flows faster than you can outrun.

It's also a LOT less hot than other lavas. Most lavas are from 700-1200 degrees C (basaltic lavas in the higher range, rhyolitic lavas in the lower), but natrocarbonatite is around 500-600 degrees C. It's cool enough that you won't immediately die if you fall into it (you'll be hospitalized for months, as one man who fell into it was, but it's survivable). It's so cool that you can't see it glow in daylight.

It flows black and cools white! This is because of its content of the minerals nyerereite and gregoryite, which are unstable and break down quickly when exposed to humidity.

Basically it's cool as fuck literally and figuratively and I'm obsessed with it

Blue tit/blåmes.

i love cats. like we as a species just really go out of our way to obtain fat little house goblins in the hopes that they will occasionally acknowledge us

Deep magma reservoir below Mt Rainier

Researchers from Norway and the US have mapped an 8 by 16 km magma chamber at 8 km depth below Washington State’s Mount Rainier. The detailed map was created by measuring the variations in the magnetic and electrical fields as well as seismic imaging. Researchers suggest that this map could help us predict when volcanoes will erupt.

Keep reading

Forecasting the Weather 2: Clouds

Hello lighthouse keepers, sailors, fishermen, and even pirates! I recently made a post  about predicting the weather while at sea. I mentioned in the post that clouds can also help predict the weather, but didn’t include them for brevity, but I did say I’d make that post another day. Well, today is that day! Consider this your guide for using clouds to anticipate the storms before they happen. (Pictures correlate with the word above them)

Fair Weather Clouds

Cirrus (see-ruhs) clouds are thin and wispy due to the wind blowing them around the sky. They look like this:

Cirrocumulus (see-ruh-kyoo-myuh-luhs) clouds are thin, patchy, and generally rippled or poofy. They generally come out in the winter. They look like this:

Altocumulus (al-tow-kyoo-myuh-luhs) clouds are rippled, fluffy and layered, the layers ranging from white to greyish. They look like this:

Cumulus (kyoo-myuh-luhs) clouds are what you think of when you think of clouds. They’re big, puffy, and come in lots of different shapes. 

Stratus (stra-tus) clouds are thin and sheet-like, and always white and will generally cover most if not all of the sky. 

Stratocumulus (stra-tow-kyoo-myuh-luhs) congregate in honeycomb-esque shapes, and they are patchy white or gray in color. Though these are fair weather clouds, they can indicate a storm is on its way. 

Rain Clouds

Cirrostratus (see-row-stra-tuhs, sur-row-stra-tuhs) clouds also cover the sky, and can cause the halo-ing effect that was mentioned in part 1 of this post. Rain is probable within the next day. 

Altostratus (al-tow-stra-tuhs) clouds are grey, cover the sky, and mean continuous rain.

Nimbostratus (nim-bow-stra-tuhs) clouds are big, puffy, gray, and thick. They’re often so thick they can obscure the sun. These also indicate continuous rain. 

Cumulonimbus (Kyoo-myu-low-nim-bus) clouds are high, towered, puffy and white. They indicate upcoming thunderstorms and are generally accompanied by other cumulus clouds. 

Sorry for such a long post but the pictures were necessary! Hope this second part is a good supplement to part one! Have fun keeping your eyes on the skys! 

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

Actinolite Schist