Solar Dynamics Observatory

NASA’s New Eye on the Sun Delivers Stunning First Images
here is the link.. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sdo/news/first-light.html

NASA's recently launched Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, is returning early images that confirm an unprecedented new capability for scientists to better understand our sun’s dynamic processes. These solar activities affect everything on Earth.

Some of the images from the spacecraft show never-before-seen detail of material streaming outward and away from sunspots. Others show extreme close-ups of activity on the sun’s surface. The spacecraft also has made the first high-resolution measurements of solar flares in a broad range of extreme ultraviolet wavelengths.

"These initial images show a dynamic sun that I had never seen in more than 40 years of solar research,” said Richard Fisher, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "SDO will change our understanding of the sun and its processes, which affect our lives and society. This mission will have a huge impact on science, similar to the impact of the Hubble Space Telescope on modern astrophysics.”

Giant Rat-Eating Plant

Giant Rat-Eating Plant Discovered in the Philippines
Scientists discovered a new carnivorous plant species in a remote area of the Philippines that catches and eats rats with its leafy trap.

Cave of Crystals

Giant crystals dwarf researchers in the Crystal Cave. Photo via veoverde

It seems like a Hollywood movie set; perhaps a place for Superman to get a little alone time--but Mexico's Cave of Crystals is no artificial wonder. Discovered in 2000 when silver miners broke through a wall in a mineshaft, the cave features crystals measuring 30 feet, the largest in the world. Only a handful of geologists have ever had the chance to visit this natural wonder, and it seems likely that few ever will; not only are the conditions inside the cave quite inhospitable, soon it will be filled with water.

It's Hot and Humid
Recently, Iain Stewart, a professor from the University of Plymouth, Great Britain, led a team from the BBC into the Crystal Cave in to show them the amazing formations attached to the mines of Naica in northern Mexico. The conditions in the cave, however, make extended exploration difficult. According to the BBC, the temperature reaches 50 degrees centigrade (122°F) with humidity at 100 percent.

Prof. Stewart:


The combination means that when you inhale air, the surface of your lungs is actually the surface cooler than the air is. This means that the fluids begin to condense into the lungs - and this is not good news

To tolerate the challenging conditions in the cave, explorers wear special refrigerant suites which contain a breathing system.

fiberscope

Lights Out: The ladies of Australian all-girl quartet Kaya perform, while a fiberscope snaked down their throats spies on their vocal chords.
This is a bit crazy but interesting to see your vocal cords in action..

Water

This is really neat.. Water droplets interacting with water, filmed at 2,000 frames per second

Nomura’s jellyfish

You could say it was the jellyfish, or you could say it was the overzealous fishermen on board. While trying to haul in a catch of several dozen giant Nomura's jellyfish - one of the largest in the world - a Japanese fishing trawler tipped right over.

According to the Telegraph, "The crew of the fishing boat was thrown into the sea when the vessel capsized, but the three men were rescued by another trawler, according to the Mainichi newspaper. The local Coast Guard office reported that the weather was clear and the sea was calm at the time of the accident."

It's no wonder only a few dozen could capsize a boat. Each jellyfish can weigh as much as 450 pounds. This year has seen a big spike in the numbers of these giant jellies, with a similar population boom not occurring since 2005, when the large numbers of jellyfish and their stinging tentacles ruined fishing nets and made catches of fish inedible. Both ideal weather conditions and a smaller number of predators, such as sea turtles and certain fish species have helped the jelly populations grow this year.

Check out the size of these things next to divers

via:treehugger

NASA's Aqua satellite

NASA's Aqua satellite captured this image of a massive smog bank smothering huge portions of China today. This blanket of pollution has been hovering over the country for over a week now, exacerbated by cool air and smoke from fires.

According to NASA, whose researchers first wrote about this lingering smog bank on Oct. 30
A temperature inversion may be responsible for the build up of pollution over eastern China. Normally, air cools with altitude, but occasionally, a layer of cool air will be trapped beneath a layer of warm air. Since the cool air is more dense than the air above it, the two layers don't mix and pollutants build up in the cool air near Earth's surface.

Temperature inversions develop most often during the winter, when long, cool nights chill the ground. The cold land cools the air nearest the ground, leaving the air at higher altitudes warmer. The two layers of air do not easily mix, and the temperature inversion can last for days if winds are calm.

So far it has lasted for more than a week. Is this the future of weather?

via NASA

Bubble corals

Bubble corals are recognisable by their large, water-filled bubbles, or vesicles. Like light-loving balloons, these inflate during the day and deflate at the night, when tentacles come out instead in search of food.

Ghost Glass Frog

Ghost Glass Frog (Centrolene ilex)
Costa Rica

Edwin Giesbers, photographer

Anglerfish

The Prickly Deep Sea Anglerfish males becoming one with their female (Image Credit: David Paul/Mark Norman, Australian Conservation Foundation)

Anglerfish, a deep sea fish named for the spiny appendage on its head that it uses as bait to “fish” its prey, has an unusual mating habit. As it spends its time in the bottom of the ocean, finding a mate is a problem – but the species solved this evolutionary challenge beautifully.

At first, scientists were perplexed because they’ve never caught a male anglerfish. Also, all female anglerfish have a lump on their body that looks like a parasite. Only later did scientists discover that the lump is the remain of the male fish.

The tiny male anglerfish are born without any digestive system, so once they hatch, they have to find a female quickly. When a male finds a female, he quickly bites her body and releases an enzyme that digests his skin and her body to fuse the two in an eternal embrace. The male then wastes away, becoming nothing but a lump on the female anglerfish’s body!

When the female is ready to spawn, her “male appendage” is there, ready to release sperms to fertilize her egg. (via neatorama)

Hi. Lets rock out..

Happy Earth Day Venus

BLUE HOLES - THE BAHAMAS

BLUE HOLES - THE BAHAMAS

Found on both land and in the ocean throughout the Bahamas are deep circular cavities known as Blue Holes which are often the entrances to cave networks, some of them up to 14 kilometres in length. Over time the limestone of the islands was eroded by water and vast cave networks created. When sea levels rose again about 10,000 years ago some of these collapsed inwards land the Blue Holes were formed

I love my life!!!

your really getting on my nerves...

Basement of the Swallows

Sótano de las golondrinas

Is an enormous pit cave situated in a rainforest in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. The low point of the entrance provides a 1094 feet (333 m) freefall drop to the bottom of the cave while the high point provides a 1220 feet (372 m) freefall drop. The cave’s entrance is the second deepest in the world.

The cave’s name means Basement of the Swallows, because of the large number of birds living in holes in the cave’s walls. To free themselves from the cave, the birds fly in circles around the cave, gradually flying upwards until they are able to reach the surface and the sky.

Look at your past, dis-identified

I say things I mean and don't mean. What can I do? Nothing. What is done is done. I can only move on and learn from my mistakes. So yeah don't quote me. as a singer/writer/poet my throat chakra is always open. I'm workinonit. Mastery.
So note to all: Don't hear me. Feel me. its less confusing that way

Amethyst Rocks

technique of going beyond consciousness

This is quote from the book I'm reading: VIGYAN BHAIRAV TANTRA by Osho which means the technique of going beyond consciousness.
This is taken from the chapter: Ordinary Love and the Love of a Buddha.

"....thinking is time. If you do not think, there is no time. That is why in meditation you feel a timelessness. That is why in love you feel a timelessness. Love is not thinking, it a a cessation of thought. You are! When you are with your beloved, you are not thinking about love, you are not thinking at all. And if you are thinking, then you are not with your beloved, you are somewhere else. Thinking means absence from the now...you are not there.

That is why those who are too much obsessed with thinking cannot love, because even when they are there, even if they reach to the original divine source, even if they meet God, they will go on thinking about him and they will mess him completely. You can go on thinking about and about and about, but it is never the fact."

I think this is interesting. Why? I will say some other time. I am trying to say less and do more

The Sutra

O Shiva, what is your reality?
What is this wonder-filled universe?
What constitutes seed?
Who centers the universal wheel?
What is this life beyond form pervading forms?
How may we enter it fully,
above space and time
names and descriptions?
Let my doubts be cleared!