Tugging on my heart strings…..
This is the chordae tendenae. They are connected to the bottom of the hearts valves and help pull them closed.
(Source: farm2.staticflickr.com)
Basalt columns on the coast of Northern Ireland (by Rhodesjmartin)
(Source: scinerds)
Top Photo: Bryce Window Wall Sunrise (by jander5)
Bottom Photo: A Small Person In A Big World (by Dene’ Miles)Bryce Canyon National Park is a national park located in southwestern Utah in the United States. The major feature of the park is Bryce Canyon which, despite its name, is not a canyon but a giant natural amphitheater created by erosion along the eastern side of the Paunsaugunt Plateau. Bryce is distinctive due to geological structures called hoodoos, formed by wind, water, and ice erosion of the river and lake bed sedimentary rocks. The red, orange, and white colors of the rocks provide spectacular views for park visitors. Bryce sits at a much higher elevation than nearby Zion National Park. The rim at Bryce varies from 8,000 to 9,000 feet (2,400 to 2,700 m).
(via scinerds)
Body vs Mind Dilemma
From Descartes separation between mental substances and material substances, to Merleau Pontytalking about the deep influence of the body upon even our most rarefied thoughts, to Spinoza who acknowledge that body and mind are one.
” Our awareness is inseparable - even, in some sense, indistinguishable - from our material physiology, can we really continue to maintain that mind remains alien to the rest of material nature?
Consider how completely your sentient body is entangled in the crowd of creatures and elemental forces that enfolds you.
Consider how thoroughly your organism is dependent upon these other lives: how your flesh is nourished and sustained by the plants whose leaves or fruits you ingest, by the other animals whose muscles you may eat, or whose milk you may drink, or whose carefully laid eggs firm the chocolate cake you nibbled on last night. And ponder, how your life sustains others in turn. Consider how your breath is taken up within the green chemistry of these grasses and whispering conifers, and how their exhalations add themselves to the swirling winds that embrace you, from which your lungs must drink, again and again, to fire your gestures and your streaming thoughts. Notice the pleasure that your finger tips find in certain wave-polished stones, the giddy thrill that your open palm, held out the window of a car, draws from the rush of wind that blasts against it. Notice the way your ears empty themselves toward the song of a wood thrush, or the manner in which your eyes are lured, like bees, by the interior azure of certain blossoms.
The human body is not a closed or static object, but an open, unfinished entity utterly entwined with the soils, waters, and winds that move through it — a wild creature whose life is contingent upon multiple other lives that surround it, and the shifting flows that surge through it. ”
extract from “Becoming Animals” by David Abram
Tibetan Halo
The particularly colorful halo featured above was snapped at Yamdrok Tso Lake, Tibet. This is a 22-degree halo — the radius of the inner ring to the Sun.
by Alan Millar
Cave Of The Crystals | Naica, Chihuahua, Mexico
I remember when this was first discovered, and how blown away I was when photos were released of this magnificent wonder. There’s a documentary out there called, “Naica: Beyond The Crystal Cave” and another that hits on other sister caves as well, “Into The Lost Crystal Caves”. Definitely interesting if you want to watch them go through the cave to get samples and explore. A dangerous but extremely satisfying task! Here’s a bit of information on the Crystal Caves in Naica, Mexico.
- It contains some of the largest (in size, mass, length, etc) natural crystals ever found on Earth. A Gypsum beam was found to be 11 metres (36 feet) in length, 4 metres (13 feet) in width, and weigh around 55 tons.
- It is found in a horseshoe-shaped cavity of limestone rock, which used to be full of mineral-rich hot water, but has since been kept drained.
- The cave is extremely hot with air temperatures reaching up to 58 °C (136 °F) with 90 to 99 percent humidity.
- The cave was filled with mineral-rich hot water (a constant 50 °C+) for around 500,000 years, which let these crystals form under the right conditions.
I’ve added a few links that take you to more photos and articles as well (along with its sister caves).
take me there
(via scinerds)
Earthly Atmosphere
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station took a picture on July 31, 2011 showing the layers of the Earth’s atmosphere. The orange-red troposphere lies closest to Earth’s surface. A brown transitional layer marks the upper edge of the troposphere, the tropopause.
A milky white and gray layer rests above that, likely part of the stratosphere possibly containing some noctilucent clouds. The upper atmosphere composed of the mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere fades from blue to the blackness of space.— Tom Chao
Credit: ISS Crew Earth Observations Experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory/Johnson Space Center
(via scinerds)
this is me this is me
(Source: hentaikamidesu, via scinerds)
Big Five from Africa and Twilight Arch
The photo above shows a gathering of planets and the waning crescent Moon as captured from Tivoli, Namibia just before dawn on May 30, 2011. The “Big Five” in Africa refers to the top five big game animals; lion, leopard, rhinoceros, Cape buffalo, and elephant.
On this late autumn morning (Southern Hemisphere), however, I was able to a bring down a prize night-sky quarry — Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and our Moon all in the same frame. Venus shines brightly at magnitude -3.9, Jupiter at -2.2; Mercury at -1.0, and Mars glows dimly at 1.4 magnitude.
Only five percent of the slender Moon was illuminated. The shallow arching band of red, gold and yellow at the bottom of the photo is the twilight arch. Sunlight from the rising Sun (still about six degrees below the horizon) is scattered by the cloud-free atmosphere.
Photography & Summary by Eduard von Bergen
cwnl:
Piece Of The Galaxy In Your Hands
That’s a fukang awesome meteorite!
Photo of a man holding a rare meteorite known as the Fukang Pallasite with sun rays passing through its crystals.
‘The Fukang meteorite was found in the mountains near Fukang, China in 2000. Pallasites are a type of stony–iron meteorite with beautiful olivine crystals.’
(via scinerds)