78,000 apply to leave Earth forever to live on Mars
“About 78,000 people have applied to become Red Planet colonists with the nonprofit organizationMars One since its application process opened on April 22, officials announced Tuesday. Mars One aims to land four people on the Red Planet in 2023 as the vanguard of a permanent colony, with more astronauts arriving every two years thereafter.”
(via here)
Guinness’ Made of More print advertising campaign brings together the drink and the drinker, using visual craft to illustrate three journeys to greatness. This is the “Rockstar” ad, it uses illustrative photography to portray the path to the stage.
Ira Glass explaining the creative process quite well.
“You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.
And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.
And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.
And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen.”
-Aaron Freeman
A Video Portrait of the Sun
3 years of the sun in 3 minutes
“Laser Forest, an interactive musical instrument which was commissioned for the STRP Biennale in Eindhoven. It’s a huge forest of laser beams that features over 150 rods which can be tapped and played. By strumming and tapping them users can trigger both sounds and lasers and the piece becomes a collaborative instrument, as well as an otherwordly playground.”
check out the video here.
Junius! Made this for the heck of it.
![Does “Science” Make You Moral?
SPOILER: yes. “Is science ethically neutral, or can it supplant religion in providing a moral compass? PLOS ONE on a series of studies finding that exposure to science (either in one’s personal background or merely by being asked to think about science momentarily) made college students more likely to divide up money fairly, more likely to express interest in positive behaviors such as volunteering and donating blood, and more likely to strongly condemn a date rapist in a hypothetical story:
No studies to date [had] directly investigated the links between exposure to science and moral or prosocial behaviors.
Across four studies, both naturalistic measures of science exposure and experimental primes of science led to increased adherence to moral norms and more morally normative behaviors across domains.
Thinking about science leads individuals to endorse more stringent moral norms and exhibit more morally normative behavior. These studies are the first of their kind to systematically and empirically test the relationship between science and morality.
We contend that there is a lay image or notion of “science” that is associated with concepts of rationality, impartiality, fairness, technological progress, and ultimately, the idea that we are to use these rational tools for the mutual benefit of all people in society.”
Taken from here via here…](http://25.media.tumblr.com/c6556e42dab4c3aba278a7ee69aae53a/tumblr_mliropERqr1rw10n0o1_500.jpg)
SPOILER: yes. “Is science ethically neutral, or can it supplant religion in providing a moral compass? PLOS ONE on a series of studies finding that exposure to science (either in one’s personal background or merely by being asked to think about science momentarily) made college students more likely to divide up money fairly, more likely to express interest in positive behaviors such as volunteering and donating blood, and more likely to strongly condemn a date rapist in a hypothetical story:
No studies to date [had] directly investigated the links between exposure to science and moral or prosocial behaviors.
Across four studies, both naturalistic measures of science exposure and experimental primes of science led to increased adherence to moral norms and more morally normative behaviors across domains.
Thinking about science leads individuals to endorse more stringent moral norms and exhibit more morally normative behavior. These studies are the first of their kind to systematically and empirically test the relationship between science and morality.
We contend that there is a lay image or notion of “science” that is associated with concepts of rationality, impartiality, fairness, technological progress, and ultimately, the idea that we are to use these rational tools for the mutual benefit of all people in society.”
Japanese design studio YOY’s series entitled ‘Canvas’ just look like plain ol’ two-dimensional art pieces of chairs. But in actual fact, these deceptive hanging works of furniture are actually chairs that can be sat on. When weight is applied to the framed furniture piece that’s leaned against a wall, its canvas would stretch to form a comfortable void to accommodate the user.
U.F.O. Landing Is Fact, Not Fantasy, the Russians Insist
By ESTHER B. FEIN, Special to The New York Times
Published: October 11, 1989
It is not a joke, nor a hoax, nor a sign of mental instability, nor an attempt to drum up local tourism by drawing the curious, the Soviet press agency Tass insisted today in discussions of what it called an extraterrestrial visit to southern Russia….
Russia wins this one.
![Watching Warp: If a ship with warp drive zipped past a stationary observer, according to a simulation by German researchers, he or she would see the drive’s effect on space, pinching as it approached [top], transitioning as it passed [middle], and dilating as the ship moved away [bottom]. Courtesy Thomas Müller and Daniel Weiskopf, based on Milky Way Panorama by ESO/S Brunier](http://25.media.tumblr.com/025ba8fbb34da4926a570a0e22b6d418/tumblr_mlg4iyGpH51rw10n0o2_r1_500.png)
The sting from a Portuguese man-of-war hurts like hell, so most people avoid the jellyfish-like creatures. Not Aaron Ansarov — he and his wife don rubber gloves and collect them when they wash up on the beach near their home in Delray Beach, Florida. They take the creatures back to their house and Ansarov photographs them on a makeshift light table and then mirrors the image in Photoshop. He shot dozens of them this past winter and the result is a unique, psychedelic portfolio. Man-of-wars have no way to move independently so they’re at the whim of tides and currents. They wash up on the beach naturally and Ansarov says he doesn’t want to interfere with the natural process. If they wash back into the sea when he’s done it was meant to be. If they don’t, they die. via here
Now Spinning: Junius - The Martyrdom of a Catastrophist
