This just blows my mind. And to think that there is no end… Wow.
And, what’s even better, we think the universe is a hundred million times bigger than we previously thought, and since the high estimates say we can only observe about 10% of it…it’s stunning.
Lego Millennium Falcon
Artist note: I’ve been working on this for near on 9 months now, so it’s a bit of a relief to be nearing completion. All that’s left to do is a bit of the underside, and about 1/5 of the interior.
Created by Will Page
cnet:
Have you heard of the social networking website (“site”) Facebook? It is a place for people to share “photos” and “brand preferences,” and “stalk exes.”
We are on this “The Facebook!”
Anatomical diagram of the land snail Helix aspersa
(graphics: AI2, English version of text: Jeff Dahl)
No GPS Needed: Bumblebees Find Their Own Flight Paths
by Virginia Morell
Bumblebees foraging in flowers for nectar are like salesmen traveling between towns: Both seek the optimal route to minimize their travel costs. Mathematicians call this the “traveling salesman problem,” in which scientists try to calculate the shortest possible route given a theoretical arrangement of cities.
Bumblebees, however, take the brute-force approach: For them, it’s simply a matter of experience, plus trial and error, scientists report in the current issue of PLoS Biology. The study, the first to track the movements of bumblebees in the field, also suggests that bumblebees aren’t using cognitive maps—mental recreations of their environments—as some scientists have suggested, but rather are learning and remembering the distances and directions that need to be flown to find their way from nest to field to home again…
(read more: Science NOW) (image: Andrew Martin)
A tooth found in Slovenia seems to have been filled with beeswax to reduce pain from a cavity.
An ancient cracked tooth repaired with a filling made of beeswax may be the earliest known example of therapeutic dentistry, researchers say.
The tooth is 65 centuries old and was part of a man’s jaw found more than 100 years ago in Slovenia.
Definite evidence of ancient dentistry is rare. The oldest examples are 7,500- to 9,500-year-old molars found in Pakistan that had regularly shaped cavities with concentric ridges drilled into them. Other, more questionable finds include a 5,500-year-old artificial tooth from Egypt.
Scientists reported online Wednesday in the journal PLoS ONE that they found the filling as they analyzed a 6,500-year-old lower jaw recovered from a cave near Trieste, Italy. The jaw, which once belonged to a 24- to 30-year-old man, included a left canine tooth possessing a vertical crack in its hard enamel and softer dentin layers. The severe wear and tear seen on the tooth was probably due to activities besides eating, the researchers said — for instance, men of the time might have used their teeth to soften leather or help make tools, and the women bit down on threads to hold them while weaving.
The researchers found beeswax had been applied to the left canine at about the time of the man’s death.
