I am the Cosmos

Evolutionary Biology • Cosmology • Nerdy things in general

[scenograph]

The Art of My Neighbor Totoro (1988 art book)

[allosauroid]

AR Psittacosaurus! Apparently apart of a traveling exhibition.

Source

[tyrannotitan]

[marrowbird]

I’ve been to this very exhibition! It’s called Dinosaur Revolution and it’s travelling around Australia at the moment, if I’m not mistaken!

[startswithabang]

This Is Everything That’s Wrong With Our Definition Of ‘Planet’

“There are many people who would love to see Pluto regain its planetary status, and there’s a part of me that grew up with planetary Pluto that’s extraordinarily sympathetic to that perspective. But including Pluto as a planet necessarily results in a Solar System with far more than nine planets. Pluto is only the 8th largest non-planet in our Solar System, and is clearly a larger-than-average but otherwise typical member of the Kuiper belt. It will never be the 9th planet again.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We may be headed towards a world where astronomers and planetary scientists work with very different definitions of what attains planethood, but we all study the same objects in the same Universe. Whatever we call objects — however we choose to classify them — makes them no less interesting or worthy of study. The cosmos simply exists as it is. It’s up to the very human endeavor of science to make sense of it all.”

Next month will mark 13 years since the International Astronomical Union (IAU) officially defined the term planet and ‘Plutoed’ our Solar System’s (up-until-that-point) 9th planet. With an additional 13 years of knowledge, understanding, data, and discoveries, though, did they get the decision right?

Certainly, there were aspects that needed to be revised, but the IAU’s definition comes along with some major gaps and mistakes. We can do better! Come learn how.

[newyork]

Kirkjufell, Iceland | Photographer: Sven Broeckx

[end0skeletal]

Ocean Photography by Japan’s Ryo Minemizu

[newyork]

Cascade Mountains | Photographer: Daniel Greenwood

[newyork]

New Zealand | Photographer: CoolBieRe ™

[sciencemuser-andgirl]

InSight has successfully landed on Mars!!

[seatrench]

Dancing Humpback Whales

(source)

[bijoux-et-mineraux]

Opal -  Coober Pedy, SA, Australia

[mindblowingscience]

Cause of polycystic ovary syndrome discovered at last

Polycystic ovary syndrome, which affects one in five women, seems to be caused by a hormonal imbalance. An IVF drug may fix this, and will be trialled soon

The most common cause of female infertility – polycystic ovary syndrome – may be caused by a hormonal imbalance before birth. The finding has led to a cure in mice, and a drug trial is set to begin in women later this year.

Polycystic ovary syndrome affects up to one in five women worldwide, three-quarters of whom struggle to fall pregnant. The condition is typically characterised by high levels of testosterone, ovarian cysts, irregular menstrual cycles, and problems regulating sugar, but the causes have long been a mystery. “It’s by far the most common hormonal condition affecting women of reproductive age but it hasn’t received a lot of attention,” says Robert Norman at the University of Adelaide in Australia.

Continue Reading.

[hdot-mokoriri]

I was born.

僕生まれたよ

[nyquilnap]

my man went for it

[kemeeley-deactivated20200120]

hey WHAT THE FUCK ARE THESE THINGS

[nyquilnap]

eels

[eelpatrickharris-deactivated202]

oh… hello beautifuls….

these wiggly fellas are Anguilla dieffenbachii, or New Zealand longfin eels. the ones in local rivers and preserves are known for being gentle, food-driven little weenies that beg tourists for food.

especially hungry wild specimens have been reported to attack humans and animals by swarming them and ripping off their flesh, but these ones are harmless!

[ailurinae]

@eelpatrickharris how can you tell them from other freshwater eels, I’m curious? I was looking around, and it seemed like while some are pretty different (some have spots, etc), there were a bunch that looked basically like this. I was thinking American eels, since OPs profile says Texas, but I certainly couldn’t tell for sure.

[eelpatrickharris-deactivated202]

the size, behavior, and thickness! you see, NZ longfins are known for travelling in herds, and they are big boys. while the majority of anguilla eels grow to 3.3 feet on average—a. rostrata, a. anguilla, a. japonica—longfins can and will grow to 6 feet and over. there have been reports of them growing to 10 feet, but due to overfishing, any specimens like that are long gone.

also, girth. top is a fully grown american eel (4 feet is their absolute maximum, 3 is average), and below is a new zealand longfin who has a few feet to go.

when it comes to mannerisms, you’ll almost never see american eels in groups outside of mating season, when they all migrate to the sea. they’re highly aggressive, distrustful of humans, and bitey. longfins, on the other hand, stick together and act like big water dogs.

it’s a common thing in NZ to have “pet” eels. people will feed scraps of meat to the ones in their local streams, and they’ll start wiggling excitedly when they see you! those eels in the video are just getting really pumped because they think someone has treats. (even though it’s bread, which is bad for them.)

they’re not as scary as they seem. NZ longfin eels just want to be your friend!

(note: this only applies to ones that live in preserves and rivers near civilization. eels from huge lakes and remote areas are generally starving and i don’t recommend trying to be their friend.)

[itscolossal]

A Burst of Deep Sea Fireworks: A Rare Jellyfish Filmed by the E/V Nautilus

[did-you-know]

The more biological older brothers a man has, the stronger his chances are of being gay. It’s called the fraternal birth order effect, and it has to do with the mother’s immune response to certain male antigens while pregnant, which increases with each pregnancy. Source Source 2 Source 3

[todropscience]

The marine eels and other members of the superorder  Elopomorpha have a leptocephalus larval stage, which are flat and transparent. This group is quite diverse, containing 801 species in 24 orders, 24 families and 156 genera (super diverse). 

Leptocephali have compressed bodies that contain jelly-like substances on the inside, with a thin layer of muscle with visible myomeres on the outside, a simple tube as a gut, dorsal and anal fins, but they lack pelvic fins. They also don’t have any red blood cells (most likely is respiration by passive diffusion), which they only begin produce when the change into the juvenile glass eel stage. Appears to feed on marine snow, tiny free-floating particles in the ocean.

This large size leptocephalus must be a species of Muraenidae (moray eels), and probably the larva of a long thin ribbon eel, which is metamorphosing, and is entering shallow water to finish metamorphosis into a young eel, in Bali, Indonesia.

Video: Filmed by Barry Haythorne and Rob Rutgers, HRF U/W Production

[dinodorks]

Sinister sound of Tyrannosaurus Rex heard for first time in 66 million years

“The fearsome roar of Tyrannosaurus Rex as portrayed in film has left many a cinema-goer quaking in their seat.

But new research suggests the king of the dinosaurs made a far more sinister sound.

For a new BBC documentary, naturalist Chris Packham visited Julia Clarke, professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Texas, to test out a the theory that dinosaurs actually sounded more like birds and reptiles, than today’s predatory mammals.” - Source

[lostbeasts]

reblogging for later!