JUXTAPROPOS

perceived patterns in nature (a side project by lauracricket)

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Betsiboka River Delta in Madagascar & cardiac muscle fiber

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azurite crystals & blue sea dragon

[foreheadxkisses]

Body comparisons. 

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ageratum houstonianum (flossflower) & cyanotrichite & rotavirus

[buggerygrips]

Let me tell you about my favourite shape (it’s normal to have a favourite shape okay), hexagons.

Along with squares and equilateral triangles, regular hexagons fit together so that there is no wasted space. Of the three, the hexagon has the smallest perimeter compared to its area. Which means that, for example in honeycomb, making hexagons requires less work and less wax than any other shape, with no gaps between them. They pop up in other places too: HONEYCOMB: Bees first make circular cells by burrowing into the wax, and use their body heat to melt it slightly. The surface tension then pulls the lines of wax into a series of three-point junctions, making a neat series of hexagons. This is an alternative to the original theory that bees are clever enough to make them deliberately. (x) BUBBLES: When three or more soap bubbles meet, they squash together and sort themselves so that only three bubble walls meet at any point. Whatever the difference in size of the bubbles, the angle between the walls is always 120 degrees, even in foam. The result in large numbers is a collection of mostly hexagons. (x) SNOWFLAKES: Hexagonal snowflakes aren’t the only kind formed. Six-sided ones are generally created in high clouds, with other shapes such as needles or columns formed lower down. Colder temperatures tend to make the prettier “lacy” shapes. It’s the alignment of water molecules which causes the hexagonal shape: they arrange themselves so that each oxygen atom lines up with two hydrogen atoms on other water molecules. This makes an intricate and symmetrical shape as they freeze. The large gaps between molecules is also the reason why water expands on freezing, and why ice floats. (x) GIANT’S CAUSEWAY: These stone hexagonal pillars in Northern Ireland were formed millions of years ago by the molten basalt of volcanic lava cooling quickly (or, alternatively, by the giant Finn MacCool wanting to travel to Scotland without getting his feet wet). The cooling caused contraction and cracks in the rock, splitting it into pillars as well as fracturing horizontally. The same effect and pattern can be seen in drying mud or paint. (x) BUCKYBALL: Hexagons by themselves create a flat tessellation, but by adding pentagons a curved surface or sphere can be formed. Technically called a truncated icosahedron, this spherical shape is better known as the shape of a soccer ball, as well as the glass domes common to botanical gardens and the arrangement of carbon atoms in the buckminsterfullerene molecule. The molecule’s snappy name is a homage to Buckminster Fuller, due to his dome designs. In nature, an arrangement of hexagons and pentagons forms the curve of a tortoise’s shell. (x)

STORM ON SATURN: Near Saturn’s north pole is a storm which is six-sided rather than circular, and has remained fixed with the planet’s rotation for at least 26 years. Due to Saturn’s incredibly thick atmosphere, the speed of the planet’s rotation remains unknown, but this strangely geometric weather may provide some necessary data. In the meantime, scientists have described it as “cool”. I’m a scientist. It counts. (x)

[notanotherkidwithablog]

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protostar IRAS 20324+4057 in the constellation Cgynus & sea nettle jellyfish

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culutred cell microtubules and nucleus & clay colored robin thrush egg in nest

[likeafieldmouse-deactivated2015]

How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. An artist is emotional, they think, and uses only his intuition; he sees all at once and has no need of reason. A scientist is cold, they think, and uses only his reason; he argues carefully step by step, and needs no imagination. That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers.

Isaac Asimov, “Art and Science,” The Roving Mind, 1983. (via s-cientia)

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star cluster NGC 265 & flash mob MP3 Experiment 8

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Nature may reach the same result in many ways. Like a wave in the physical world, in the infinite ocean of the medium which pervades all, so in the world of organisms, in life, an impulse started proceeds onward, at times, may be, with the speed of light, at times, again, so slowly that for ages and ages it seems to stay, passing through processes of a complexity inconceivable to men, but in all its forms, in all its stages, its energy ever and ever integrally present. A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant in by-gone times may have altered the course of his life, may have changed the destiny of nations, may have transformed the surface of the globe, so intricate, so inconceivably complex are the processes in Nature. In no way can we get such an overwhelming idea of the grandeur of Nature than when we consider, that in accordance with the law of the conservation of energy, throughout the Infinite, the forces are in a perfect balance, and hence the energy of a single thought may determine the motion of a Universe.

Nikola Tesla

[subatomiconsciousness-deactivat]

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it is tied to everything else in the universe.

John Muir (via we-are-star-stuff)

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submitted by jesuswaskorean: hellbender salamander & satellite photograph of Cuba on April 3, 2004

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aerial photograph of a river & snail trail

[lostspiration]

[herpicusderpicus]

fibonacci sequence

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Spirals. Once more, with feeling.

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cross section of a petrified fern trunk & sputnik sea urchin test (shell) & sputnik sea urchin (living) & purple sea urchin test (shell) & red cabbage head & red cabbage head sliced transversely

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transmission electron micrograph of poliovirus & blue honey in a hive comb & aerial photograph of center-pivot irrigation farms in the Libyan desert