(via scientificillustration)

Incipient adj.

Definition: Developing, first, beginning

Synonyms: Antecedent, anterior, basic, beginning, cardinal, commencing, early, elementary, embryonic, first off, front, fundamental, inceptive, inchoate, initial, initiative, introductory, leading, nascent, originating, pioneer, primary, primeval, primitive, primogenial, primordial, start

Examples:  The kindergartner’s incipient math was the least of their teacher’s worries.

The fetus’ lungs were still incipient, to the dismay of the parents.

Isaac is an incipient writer who needs to step it up a notch to fulfill any sort of goal.

biomedicalephemera:

Internal Anatomy of the Grass Frog [Genus Litoria]

As different as frogs are from you and I, you can clearly see how similar vertebrates are to each other when you dissect one. One heart, two lungs, a stomach, liver, spleen, gall bladder, intestines, kidneys, bladder, and gonads are visible in this particular dissection, as well as the extraordinarily strong leg muscles.

Brehms Tierleben, Bd. 1. Alfred Brehms, 1911.

(via scientificillustration)

(via thescienceblog)

zygoma:

This is the face of the naked homeless man dubbed the ‘Miami cannibal’ who was shot dead by police as he ate another man’s face.

Rudy Eugene, 31, was believed to have been high on a new potent form of LSD when he savagely attacked another homeless man, ripping pieces of his skin off with his teeth.

The victim, who was also naked, is fighting for life in intensive care suffering from severe facial injuries as his attacker bit his eyes and chewed off his nose.

Up to 80 per cent of the victim’s face was affected, with the Miami hospital describing his injuries as “some of the worst staff had ever encountered”.

Police had initially responded to reports of two naked men fighting on the city’s MacArthur Causeway bikepath.

At the time of the attack on Saturday afternoon the area was packed with people going to the city’s annual Memorial Day hip-hop festival.

The fight happened at an exit close to the Miami Herald newspaper offices, and some of the incident was caught on their CCTV cameras.

A surveillance video camera showed images of the men’s naked legs lying side by side after the shooting.

[article]

The Miami cannibal,shot dead as he ate a man’s face,is believed to have taken a drug known as bath salts.

CrazedRudy Eugenewas naked as he chewed off his victim’s nose, ears and eyes before police gunned him down.

Doctors now believe Eugene, 31, was high on bath salts – so called because of its appearance.

Its effects can be similar to the hallucinogen LSD and a police officer said: “It can make users go completely insane.”

Bath salts contain the party drug mephedrone, also known as “meow meow”, which was banned in Britain in 2010.

[article]

Mephedrone, also known as 4-methylmethcathinone (4-MMC), or 4-methylephedrone, is a synthetic stimulant drug of the amphetamine and cathinone classes. Slang names include meph, drone, and MCAT. It is reportedly manufactured in China and is chemically similar to the cathinone compounds found in the khat plant of eastern Africa. It comes in the form of tablets or a powder, which users can swallow, snort or inject, producing similar effects to MDMA, amphetamines, and cocaine.

As well as producing the intended stimulant effects, negative side effects occur when mephedrone is used, with teeth grinding the most common. The metabolism of mephedrone has been studied in rats and humans, and the metabolites can be detected in urine after usage. Nothing is known about the potential neurotoxicity of mephedrone, but scientists have suggested possible dangers associated with its use based on its similarity to other drugs. Several people have died after consuming mephedrone, but some deaths that the media attributed to the drug were later determined to have been caused by other factors.

Mephedrone was first synthesised in 1929 but did not become widely known until it was rediscovered in 2003. By 2007 mephedrone was reported to be available for sale on the internet, by 2008 law enforcement agencies had become aware of the compound and by 2010 it had been reported in most of Europe, becoming particularly prevalent in the United Kingdom. Mephedrone was first made illegal in Israel in 2008, followed by Sweden later that year. In 2010 it was made illegal in many European countries and in December 2010, the EU ruled it illegal. In Australia, New Zealand, and the USA it is considered an analog of other illegal drugs and can be controlled by laws similar to the Federal Analog Act. In September 2011 the USA temporarily classified mephedrone as illegal, with effect from October 2011.

Mephedrone is one of hundreds of designer drugs or legal highs that have been reported in recent years, including artificial chemicals such as synthetic cannabis and semi-synthetic substances such as methylhexaneamine. These drugs are primarily developed to avoid being controlled by laws against illegal drugs, thus giving them the label of designer drugs. [source]

“Bath Salts”, the newest fad to hit the shelves  (virtual and real), is the latest addition to a growing list of items that young people can obtain to get high. The synthetic powder is sold legally online and in drug paraphernalia stores under a variety of names, such as “Ivory Wave,” “Purple Wave,” “Red Dove,” “Blue Silk,” “Zoom,” “Bloom,” “Cloud Nine,” “Ocean Snow,” “Lunar Wave,” “Vanilla Sky,” “White Lightning,” “Scarface,” and “Hurricane Charlie.” Because these products are relatively new to the drug abuse scene, our knowledge about their precise chemical composition and short- and long-term effects is limited, yet the information we do have is worrisome and warrants a proactive stance to understand and minimize any potential dangers to the health of the public.

Unfortunately, “bath salts” have already been linked to an alarming number of ER visits across the country. Doctors and clinicians at U.S. poison centers have indicated that ingesting or snorting “bath salts” containing synthetic stimulants can cause chest pains, increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, agitation, hallucinations, extreme paranoia, and delusions. It is noteworthy that, even though we are barely two months into 2011, there have been 251 calls related to “bath salts” to poison control centers so far this year. This number already exceeds the 236 calls received by poison control centers for all of 2010. In response to this emerging threat, several states, including Hawaii, Michigan, Louisiana, Kentucky, and North Dakota, have introduced legislation to ban these products, which are incidentally labeled as “not fit for human consumption.” In addition, several counties, cities, and local municipalities have also taken action to ban these products. [source]

Anyone interested in the “Florida Zombie”?

holymoleculesbatman:

The barking dog reaction

The barking dog experiment involves the reaction of either nitrogen monoxide — NO — or nitrous oxide — N2O) (aka laughing gas) — with carbon disulfide. Why is it called the barking dog? Watch the video. In this clip, the reaction is performed with N2O, which is mixed with the vapors from added carbon disulfide. On a molecular level, this reaction is similar to the hydrogen-oxygen reaction; a chain-reaction-igniting “activation energy” is provided in the form of a match, and as the combustion wave travels down the tube, it compresses the gas ahead of it, giving rise to the characteristic “barking” noise, as well as a bright blue light. This blast of blue is one of the few examples of chemical luminescence in the gas phase, and is so bright that the reaction was once used as a flash in low-light photography.

(via thescienceblog)

mathphysics:

saffythegeek:

stfuconservatives:

positive-press-daily:

German solar power plants produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity per hour - equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity - through the midday hours on Friday and Saturday, the head of a renewable energy think tank said.

(click-through for full story)

Can we have this tech now please? I know coal is fun and everything, but yeah, renewable energy from the sun sounds pretty good right now.

The Earth’s surface at the equator gets 1kW of power from the sun per metre squared.

That is enough energy from the Sun to heat 1Kg of water 14C per minute.

To boil a kettle (around 20C - 100C) would take 5.6 minutes.

I can show working for this if required.

(This is assuming 100% efficiency, which ofcourse nothing is, but it is still a hell of a lot of FREE energy)

The problem mainly lies in storing this power. Like the post says, this power was generated on a specific day at a specific time interval. There are methods available for storing solar power, but if we really want to see a switch towards solar power we’re going to need a lot of funding for innovations in the storage of solar power and mechanisms in grid management for this variable power source. Because this source of power, as compared to coal and nuclear, is drastically variable - peak power production during midday hours to virtually no power production during the pitch black hours of the night, there needs to be a extremely harmonious infrastructure of grid management and power storage.

scientificillustration:

“Burgundy has a a rich heritage of scientists connected with illustrations and images. It was the home of Buffon (1707-1788), whose illustrated Histoire Naturelle made such an impact in the eighteenth century and beyond. It was also where Nicéphore Niepce (1765-1833) took the first photogravure etching, and collaborated with Daguerre in the early days of photography. It was the birthplace of Jules-Etienne Marey (1830-1904), the inventor of chronophotography, along with his exact contemporary Muybridge. The Centre Interlangues at the University of Burgundy, which gathers together researchers in different European languages, is dedicated to the study of the relations between image and text. It has decided to focus in a series of seminars on the relations between scientific texts and images, more precisely on the question of scientific illustrations. The series is conducted in either English or French, and started last autumn. So far, we have organised four seminars, which have attracted researchers from different parts of Europe. The seminars give researchers adequate time to present their topics, as we generally welcome two speakers for a two-hour session. We also organise visits to local places of interest, connected with images. The next seminar, on “The Cultural Politics of Scientific Illustration”, will take place on June 15th. We shall welcome Dr Alix Cooper, from the University of Stony Brook, who will talk about “Picturing Nature: Gender and the Politics of Description in Eighteenth-Century Natural History”, and Valérie Morrison, a colleague from Dijon, who will discuss “Photographic Portraits in Anthropological and Ethnological British Journals 1860-1900″. We are currently putting together next year’s schedule. The series, though, is likely to be continued if interest in the subject develops. We welcome proposals on a wide range of subjects, provided they tackle the question of how illustrations support, reinforce, challenge or contradict scientific texts. These seminars should lead to publication.  To know more about the organisation of the series, and what has been done so far, you can consult the bilingual blog :

http://scientificillustrationdijon.blogspot.fr/

Somniferous adj.

Definition: Tending to produce sleep

Synonyms: Anesthetic, balmy, calming, dozy, hypnotic, hypnogogic, mesmerizing, narcotic, opiate, sedative, slumberous, somnolent, soporiferous, soporific, soothing, tranquilizing

Examples: The music was somniferous in what seemed like a super natural way; staying conscious was futile.

Mothers everywhere subdue their children with a somniferous dose of benadryl to keep their hyperactive young ones at bay.

Facebook was so droll and somniferous that I fell asleep within the hour.

jtotheizzoe:

Explore An Interactive Human Microbiome

Who’s in you? SciAm introduces you to the microbes that not only outnumber the cells in your body, but make you human (click through for interactive version).

(via Scientific American)

(via maplelithe)