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Derweze, also known as the door to hell, is a 70 meter wide hole in the middle of the Karakum desert in Turkmenistan. The hole was formed in 1971 when a team of soviet geologists had their drilling rig collapse when they hit a cavern filled with natural gas. In an attempt to avoid poisonous discharge, they decided to burn it off, thinking that the gas would be depleted in only a few days. Derweze is still burning today
The Greatest Volcanic Eruption in Human History
by Our Amazing Planet
On April 10, 1815, the Indonesian volcano of Mount Tambora exploded in the largest eruption in recorded history.
On the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI), a classification system akin to the scale used to rate earthquakes, the Tambora eruption rate a VEI-7. The scale runs from 1 to 8, with each number being approximately 10 times more powerful than the previous one. There haven’t been any VEI-8s in the last 10,000 years. The Tambora eruption killed at least 88,000 people.
The massive eruption — heard on Sumatra Island, more than 1,200 miles (1,930 km) away — spewed an estimated 36 cubic miles (150 cubic kilometers) of tephra — exploded rock and ash — into the air. Ash from the eruption was recognized at least 808 miles (1,300 km) away to the northwest, according to a NASA statement…
(read more: Our Amazing Planet) (image: NASA)
Welsh computer consultant Nat Morris put its IT skills to work, and developed an ingenious system that lets him feed his pet friend Toby with a single tweet. To make sure there’s always some dog biscuits in the bowl, all he has to do is to send a message to @feedtoby for the food to be automatically released: (via Geek Feeds His Dog Via Twitter)
in 1977, NASA launched their Voyager mission. The main objective of the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes was to study Jupiter and Saturn. After each fulfilled their objectives, they kept going, out into the far reaches of our solar system. Voyage 1 is now traversing through the very outside of…
Here is something to think about that was only casually mentioned in passing in the recent video that was posted.
The sunlight you may or may not have experienced today finally managed to reach you after a ~100,000 year long journey since it was originally created at the Sun’s core!
Since the speed of light is finite, about 300,000,000 meters/second (or about 671,000,000 miles/hour), it takes time for it to travel from one point in space to another.Given that the distance from Earth to the Sun is about 150,000,000,000 meters (about 93,000,000 miles) it takes about 8 minutes for light to reach us!
But this is just the time it takes light to reach us from the surface of the sun.
The light coming from the surface of the Sun is itself created as a by-product of nuclear fusion occurring deep in the Sun’s core.
Once light is created at at the Sun’s core it begins its journey to the surface of the Sun some 700,000,000 meters (430,000 miles) away from the core.
One might assume that this light takes the shortest path and heads straight to the surface, which would only take a couple seconds of travel time.
However, this is not the case because there is all kinds of star stuff that gets in the way.
An actual photon may only travel a mere fraction of a centimeter (anywhere between .01 and .3 centimeters depending on how close it is to the surface) before it makes a collision with other matter thereby diverting its path to some other random direction.
Photons continue moving in these seemingly random trajectories, bumping into other particles along the way, and don’t actually reach the surface until about 100,000 years later (give or take an order of magnitude)!
This kind of behavior characterizing the photons motion is modeled by something called a random walk, and is illustrated in a few different instances in the animations above.Random walks have widespread applications through out the sciences and mathematics. The idea of random walks are even used in some computer algorithms to allow for more efficient solutions to some problems.
One particular application of personal interest, and a rather abstract generalization of the idea, is the quantum random walk, in which the superposition principle of quantum mechanics is used to put the trajectory into a combination of multiple possible trajectories to assist quantum computers in solving problems. The workings of Grover’s search algorithm can be thought of in this way. This isn’t the only instance that relates quantum mechanics to the workings of the Sun (see here).
Anyway, next time you are out in the relentless light of the Sun you may wonder what was going on some 100,000 years ago when that light first originated in the Sun, or maybe even where you’ll be 100,000 years from now when the light being created in the Sun at this moment finally reaches Earth.
(GIFs created from this Java app)
Tizen, a new open-source operating system backed by Intel, Samsung and a number of other smartphone manufacturers, has leaked in a number of new screenshots, providing a first look at the new platform that will power new smartphones, tablets, smart TVs and in-car devices. SAMMobile leaked the screenshots, noting that they are taken from the leaked Tizen SDK, which is an early alpha build and not ready for release until later in the first quarter. (via Android Rival Tizen Leaks In New Screenshots)
Paul Higgins: I know that this is not exactly true but shouldn’t research be looking for the truth, not getting on one side or other of the argument? I have a scientific background with a veterinary degree and a research degree and I was always taught that we should be testing a hypothesis. The framing of that hypothesis is vital in formulating a study. There is a big difference between formulating a hypothesis that says “gaming has an effect on behaviour” where you measure all sorts of behaviours to see if that is true versus “gaming has a negative effect on behaviour” and only looking for and measuring the negatives.
Can video games teach us how to behave? | MedicalXpress.com
For the first time, the positive effects of computer games on thoughts, emotions and behaviour will be the subject of closer scrutiny by social psychologists. A total of three studies will explore how, to which extent and for how long cooperative gaming behaviour influences the personality of gamers positively. The project, funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), will complete the current state of research on personality effects from computer games, which has previously been dominated by studies of negative consequences. The studies have the potential to offer significant ideas for analysing and reinforcing social skills in all age groups.
