Light Poles can be seen at nights over large cities with different colored lights. They can only be seen during very cold weather (the temperature of -20 Celsius degrees or lower is required), with minimal wind and plenty of tiny ice crystals in the atmosphere.
FDA To Finally Decide Whether Antibacterial Soap Is Safe
Antibacterial soap has been around for 40 years. But research now shows that the active ingredient in the soap, triclosan, alters hormonal balance in animals, is possibly harmful to the immune system, and possibly contributes to the rise of antibiotic resistant germs.
Triclosan is all around us, in addition to soaps, it’s found in deodorants and toothpaste and mouthwashes where it helps prevent gingivitis, and it’s infused in various household products. Which is why it’s a good thing that the FDA has decided to take a look at the compound to see first of all if it actually works, and secondly if it’s harmful. The move has been prompted by recent animal studies showing triclosan affects hormone regulation in animals. If the same holds for humans, it could increase risk of hormone-related problems such as infertility and early puberty.
Jupiter’s moon Io, photographed by Voyager 2, 10 July 1979.
The end of this blog’s Io-thon follows on from yesterday’s post. The photos used in this gif were taken with longer exposures than yesterday’s, so there is a better contrast between Io and the background. Two volcanic eruptions are clearly visible in the top-left: I think that they are from Amirani and Maui. There’s also an eruption on the right-hand side, but as its only lit by reflected light from Jupiter, it requires a lot of brightening to see (NASA’s photojournal shows it here).
You can also see a volcano in the south, tall enough to stay in sunlight even as the surrounding areas fall into darkness.
Yesterday I mentioned the bright spot glinting near the equator. I asked Jason Perry (who used to write an Io blog) about it on Twitter and he said that it “looks like specular reflection off of glassy, cooled lava near Hi’iaka Patera.” So there you go.
(via n-a-s-a)
And so starts the East Asian shitstorm
With deference to the genius of David Bowie, here’s Space Oddity, recorded on Station. A last glimpse of the World.
Huge thanks in the making of the video to the talented trio of Emm Gryner, Joe Corcoran and Andrew Tidby, plus Evan Hadfield and all at the CSA.
God damn quaternions
History of typography
Top: Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with Mir on 4 July 1995. Cosmonauts Anatoliy Y. Solovyev and Nikolai M. Budarin, who had arrive onboard Atlantis five days earlier, took Soyuz TM-21 for a fly-around photo survey prior to Atlantis undocking for her return to Earth. This was the first time a shuttle had docked with Mir.
Bottom: Two shots of the Space Shuttle Endeavour docked with the ISS, as photographed by the departing Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft on 23 May 2011, during the STS-134 mission. (There are a lot more from this fly-around here)
(via n-a-s-a)
