Science Porn

[Exian]

I'm as dope as two rappers so you better be scared. Cuz that means Albert E. equals MC squared.

Haha love it.

[SteelCurtain]

I'm as dope as two rappers so you better be scared. Cuz that means Albert E. equals MC squared.

Haha love it.

I must have watched 20 of those last night...

[Exian]

They're addicting! When I saw your post, I went to rewatch the Clint Eastwood v Bruce Lee one to quote it, because I remembered it had some hard hitting lines (I even squint better than you); 30 minutes later, I forgot my original mission.

[SteelCurtain]

They're addicting! When I saw your post, I went to rewatch the Clint Eastwood v Bruce Lee one to quote it, because I remembered it had some hard hitting lines (I even squint better than you); 30 minutes later, I forgot my original mission.

Ha ha.. yeah 30 mins... yeah me too.... 

I got lost down the rabbit hole. Epic Rap Battles, TheFineBros React channel, YouTubers on Omegle (Shane Dawson, Joey Graceffa, Caspar Lee), and then the recommended videos. YouTube is dangeroso for me.

[Longhorn]

In case you ever wondered what it would look like if the Orion Nebula, aka Messier 42 was 4 light years away from Earth instead of the actual 1,344

[Anomalocaris]

EIn case you ever wondered what it would look like if the Orion Nebula, aka Messier 42 was 4 light years away from Earth instead of the actual 1,344

The problem with this kind of reconstruction is it is very difficult, as well as somewhat anti-climactic, to get the actual surface brightness of the object to appear realistic, similar to as would appear to the naked eye.   Furthermore how realistic the surface brightness seems on a monitor also depends on the ambient lighting.

What is certain is even at 4 light years, the surface brightness of Orion Nebula as it would appear to the naked eye even on a very dark night is unlikely to be anywhere near as intense or vivid as the computer graphics.

One example of this graphic exaggeration is a typical rendering of our Milky Way Galaxy.   Often illustrators attempt to show what Milky Way might look like if we lived just above the disk of the Galaxy.   But keep in mind the surface brightness of milky does not change no matter what distance you look at it from.  The only thing that change is how much surface there is.   So if you hang just above the disk of Milky Way, Milky Way  pin wheel will stretch spectacularly across the entire sky.   But the surface brightness of the that pin wheel would be exactly the same as what you see now from back yard, a very subdued milky haze.

[Alex K]

But keep in mind the surface brightness of milky does not change no matter what distance you look at it from.

I think you want to say that the surface brightness goes down as the object approaches?

Sorry, forget what I just said. It stays the same
Which is quite a mind-boggling fact if one isn't used to thinking about these things.

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Inspired by a mother's day post on Jerry Coyne's blog and comments therein, I stumbled across a question I've never really asked myself - if the mitochondria which we get from our mothers, and which do all that important work in our cells, are endosymbionts, i.e. were once independent organisms which got incorporated by other cells to make eucaryotic cells, what are their closest surviving "free-living" relatives? It turns out that it is probably the Rickettsia, some of which produce quite nasty diseases:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artf...e-thought/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickettsia

Now the Rickettsia in the strictest sense don't really live freely - they are still autonomous bacteria, but they need a host cell as an environment to survive. You can see how they could be related to mitochondria. The closest really free relatives are probably also found in the same order

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickettsiales

because some members of this order are still freely living bacteria.

This is maybe not aaaaaah! ooooooooh! level science porn, but I thought that was very fascinating. Maybe 80s science soft porn.

[SteelCurtain]

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[Longhorn]

Have we discussed the Pharaoh's Serpent effect yet? Cos if we haven't we should, like right now

So, this is what happens when you ignite mercury (II) thiocyanate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI_xTTqNj6o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIEJvQaOgSE

[SteelCurtain]

I think I posted a GIF somewheres...

But awesome exothermic reactions are kewl.