Ex Astris Scientia @asttra - Tumblr Blog

ifuckingloveminerals

Allanite-(Ce), Spessartine

Harstigen Mine, Pajsberg, Persberg district, Filipstad, Värmland, Sweden

doubleaquariusmcmxciblr

sci-universe

Well, this is definitely the most fun I’ve had while making a post.

Inspired by this one from capnphaggit. Images & copyrights: Trifid Nebula (M20) by Marcus Davies, The Cat’s Eye Nebula and Star-forming region Sharpless 2-106 by NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). Please don’t remove the credits.

alejandracasasc

~ There’s always something to learn from everyone~

spaceexp

Martian Dune Sand

by PaulH51

planned-planethood

Is it aliens? I really hope it's aliens.

It’s never aliens 👽

(General rule of thumb)

asttra

Never is a strong word.

currentsinbiology

How One Man Tried to Write Women Out of CRISPR, the Biggest Biotech Innovation in Decades

On January 14, Eric S. Lander published an article in the journal Cell celebrating the “heroes” of CRISPR-Cas9, a revolutionary DNA-editing technology that may be the most important genetic engineering development in decades.

“It’s hard to recall a revolution that has swept biology more swiftly than CRISPR,” Lander, a biologist at MIT and Harvard’s Broad Institute, wrote, noting that, although nearly every molecular biologist is familiar with the technology that allows scientists to easily disable or change the function of genes, they are likely unfamiliar with the manpower that went into its discovery.

“Yet, the human stories behind scientific advances can teach us a lot about the miraculous ecosystem that drives biomedical progress,” he continued, “about the roles of serendipity and planning, of pure curiosity and practical application, of hypothesis-free and hypothesis-driven science, of individuals and teams, and of fresh perspectives and deep expertise.”

Indeed.

What Lander failed to recognize in his article—and what many of his colleagues and commenters on the piece have recently condemned him for—is that his institute is currently involved in a billion-dollar patent dispute with the University of California’s Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier of the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research in Germany, which played a vital role in developing CRISPR-Cas9. Not only did the Cell paper fail to disclose the potential conflict of interest, it significantly minimized the role of Doudna’s lab in advancing the technology.

staceythinx

Some of the winners of the Nikon 2015 Photomicrography Competition. Click on images for descriptions.

pdlcomics

Being Human

geneticist

Baby snail in its egg before hatching

coolthingoftheday

An oceanic phytoplankton bloom in the South Atlantic Ocean.

pdlcomics

Small Cat and the Asteroid

thewriterkb

Time-Lapse Revealing the Intricacies of Different Release Mechanisms of Various Pills.

(Timelapseblog.com via Sciencedump)

infinity-imagined

Photos from the Saturn system, taken by the Cassini Spacecraft in November and December 2015. From top; crescent Tethys, Enceladus behind Dione, small moons Epimetheus, Prometheus, and Atlas, and an alignment of Enceladus and Tethys. What magnificent worlds!

coolthingoftheday

Vantablack is a substance made of carbon nanotubules, and is the blackest substance ever created. It absorbs approximately 99.965% of visible light that hits it. When a photon strikes the material, instead of bouncing off of it (like most other surfaces), it becomes trapped in the nanotubules, continually deflecting from tube to tube before eventually becoming heat.

(Source)