April 24, 2005

Lava Balloons

I've never heard of this phenomenom before.

Columns of white vapor streamed from the Atlantic this winter. About 8km west of an island called Terceira in the Azores, a submarine eruption was under way. Hot lava squeezed up through cracks in the ocean floor at about 500 meters below the surface of the ocean. The lava solidified into lava balloons. These gas-rich lava balloons interacted with cold seawater as they rose. This process generated steam, which emerged from the Atlantic like smoke from dozens of chimneys. The steam rose about 10 meters high. As the lava balloons reached the surface, the gas that made them buoyant escaped through cracks, and the balloons filled with water and sank.

You can keep the Sunday papers, I love to leisurely surf through the museum sites on my weekend mornings.

Here's another weird volcano I posted about some time ago.

Posted by: Ted at 10:28 AM | category: SciTech
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Even stars can be a little loose

Astronomers are used to seeing star clusters orbiting other galaxies. Up to now, they've always been dense little globes filled with millions of suns.

The Andromeda galaxy is one of the Milky WayÂ’s nearest galactic neighbors.

Astronomers recently found star clusters of a type never seen before orbiting Andromeda.

More familiar to scientists are globular clusters. These collections of stars are densely packed.

The newly discovered clusters are much larger and less dense than globular clusters.

These “extended clusters” are not found in the Milky Way. Why not is still unknown.

Mankind may never know it all, but we continue to learn.

Posted by: Ted at 10:13 AM | category: SciTech
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April 22, 2005

Oh great, another post-nuclear mutant nightmare to worry about

After the world blows itself up, it won't be enough to watch out for the mutants roaming the blasted landscape. Scientists have discovered a species of ant that builds group-sized traps that allow them to subdue insects many times larger than themselves.

Giant ants waiting in ambush. Sweet dreams.

Posted by: Ted at 06:05 AM | category: SciTech
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April 15, 2005

What to do with that old PC you've got lying around

Wanna build your very own Windows web development server? Here's a tutorial on what you need and where to get it, and it looks like all the software is free.

Posted by: Ted at 03:56 PM | category: SciTech
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April 13, 2005

One track mind, apparently

Let's see, we've had unisexual lizards and modesty-protecting swimsuits, it must be time to step into the wayback machine for some ancient sex.

Archaeologist finds 'oldest porn statue'.

Over 7,000 years old, depicting a man and woman practicing the world's oldest intramural sport. They even named the male half of the statue, which is described as an 8 centimeter lower half of a man.

"This is such an interesting discovery," said Dr Sträuble, "as these figurines are not stylistic, but realistic.

8 centimeters? That ain't realistic around here, bucko.

Posted by: Ted at 06:05 AM | category: SciTech
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April 12, 2005

Evolution in Action

The American Museum of Natural History website has an intriguing article up about the whiptail lizard, and how they avoid a problem that occurs among most species when cross-bred in nature.

Most products of crossbreeding, such as the mule, are sterile. But the New Mexico Whiptail, as well as several other all-female species of whiptail lizard, does reproduce, and all of its offspring are female. Moreover, it reproduces by parthenogenesis -- its eggs require no fertilization, and its offspring are exact and complete genetic duplicates of the mother.

The article is short but interesting, and makes me wonder anew at the workings of Mother Nature. Here, she's obviously used natural selection to solve a common problem, by eliminating the wet spot.

Posted by: Ted at 04:16 PM | category: SciTech
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