1926
The kangaroo rat's escape response to a snake attack is less than 70 milliseconds and the quickest mammalian startle response
[full paper: bit.ly/2qyU5HM]
1927
When a guitar string is plucked, each of the vibration patterns observed (with the help of the rolling shutter effect) is called a mode
[read more: bit.ly/2qWqB3J]
[source, Jecus Andrei: buff.ly/3P0Lwhn]
1928
The Koch snowflake is a mathematical curve & one of the earliest fractals to have been described. It can be built up iteratively and the first stage is an equilateral triangle. It encloses a finite area, but has an infinite perimeter
[source: buff.ly/3tUN68u]
1929
You may know that the world's first cyber-attack happened in 1834 when two bankers, François and Joseph Blanc bribed the semaphor telegraph operator to introduce deliberate errors into routine government messages being sent over the network [read more: buff.ly/2tPuqNA]
1930
Puglia is a region where ancient olive trees often sport bizarre, fantastical shapes, often twisting and turning about themselves. L’Ulivo Pensieroso (the Thinking Olive Tree) is a (possibly 500 year old) plant with a very peculiar human appearance: buff.ly/3mPS9V5
1931
In November 2021, a ROV operated by Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute captured this clip of a giant phantom jellyfish, more than 1,000 m deep. Scientists have only encountered it ~100 times in ~120 years
[📹 @MBARI_News: buff.ly/3yaJhzS]
1932
The most common estimates of the humans who have ever lived on Earth are around 108 billion people. Using that assumption, a little under 7% of all people who have ever lived are alive right now
[source: buff.ly/3iG40V2]
[read more: buff.ly/2NIH7jU]
1933
Argentinosaurus lived on the then-island continent of South America somewhere between 97 and 93.5 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous Period. It is among the largest known dinosaurs & this is the size of its leg ow.ly/LhLT30okz14 [photo: buff.ly/2K4EgDv]
1934
The frisbee wall ride trick shot is one of the best visualizations of the physics of the flying disc buff.ly/2GhTa7b [source of the gif, Dude Perfect: buff.ly/2VaAM3P]
1935
Mars is about 50 million miles farther away from the Sun than Earth and also, its atmosphere is about 100 times thinner than Earth's. So if you were standing on the Martian equator at noon, it would feel like summer at your feet, but winter near your head: ow.ly/1XqG50wwSHZ
1936
Sea anemones can swim by rapid movements of the tentacles beating synchronously like oar strokes. This one was filmed in the Maldives
[read more: buff.ly/3EuiXD0]
[📹 sideytheshark: buff.ly/3rIORbn]
1937
In Northern Hemisphere we're right in the middle of winter, but Earth is actually at its closest position to the Sun #Today at 16:17 UTC and we're 5 million km closer to the Sun now than we are in early July
[read more: buff.ly/3qTubLl]
#HappyPerihelion
1938
Geckos "drink" from their eyes. In fact most geckos cannot blink, but they often lick their eyes to keep them clean and moist. They have a fixed lens within each iris that enlarges in darkness to let in more light [read more: buff.ly/2G8X6BY]
1939
The strawberry is not, from a botanical point of view, a berry. Each apparent "seed" (achene) on the outside of the fruit is actually one of the ovaries of the flower, with a seed inside it. This macro photo by Alexey Kljatov shows an achene up close ow.ly/Ayrk30ofR4k
1940
This is what happens when you put ferrofluid in a rotating magnetic field: its dynamics creates Hele-Shaw cells and consquent weird shapes [source and full video: buff.ly/2J6UvLF]
1941
This video shows one of the hundreds of salt lakes in the Siwa Oasis region of Egypt whose quality is you don't need to know how to swim
[why salt makes things float: buff.ly/3nesLbR]
[📹 lokoskales: buff.ly/3dm7eKW]
1942
FESTO AirJelly has 8 adaptive tentacles so that its movements come as close as possible to the biological role model, floating with the recoil principle. AirJelly does not glide through the water, but through the air
[read more: buff.ly/3z7n3PF]
1943
When the rate of rotation matches the rate of the smartphone camera, twelve animated gears appear to mesh and turn in this phonotrope from apyrodesign
[source: buff.ly/3bWWh5d]
[apyrodesign: buff.ly/3dwX5yp]
1944
Pyrophorus nyctophanus, aka the headlight beetle
[read more: buff.ly/3i3bVPd]
[source, Bart Coppens: buff.ly/3U5i4aZ]
1945
#Today in 1994, Netscape Navigator 1.0 browser was released
[read more: buff.ly/3DxBVuq]
1946
What actually happens underground at a gas station? This video by Franklin Fueling explains all the technical details you normally ignore during a refueling stop [source, full video by FranklinFueling: buff.ly/2AMbbJi]
1947
Aviation Week’s Rupa Haria took this video of a wing-morphing “flexfoil” demonstrator. It illustrates how the airfoil shape could change in flight to boost performance over a wide range of angles of attack, indicated airspeeds and Mach levels [source: buff.ly/3w3QyzM]
1948
Check out the first flight of the CycloTech technology demonstrator. The Austrian company based its "CycloRotor" propulsion system on the Voith Schneider Propeller design, which has been used in maritime applications for decades [video, read more: buff.ly/3maCHFb]
1949
Underwater, at about 10 m (30 ft) you see human blood as green: this is due to water acting as a selective filter. The deeper you go in the ocean, the less red light there is in the sunlight that reaches you [source 1: ow.ly/VVwS30nyRrz] [source 2: ow.ly/mBNl30nyRrF]
1950
Black Kite 'Firehawks' are birds that deliberately spread fires in Australia by carrying burning twigs in their beaks and talons and dropping them in other areas in order to start new fires and drive out insects and small animals so they can feed on them buff.ly/3uDzPT2
Astronomy, astronautics, meteorology, physics. Engineer, trying to build the big picture of #science via selected & curated pics, videos & links