(Source: pandor4)

bluedogeyes:

Earth 500 years ago 

 The myth of the Flat Earth is the modern misconception that the prevailing cosmological view during the Middle Ages saw the Earth as flat, instead of spherical.

 This idea seems to have been widespread during the first half of the 20th century, so that the Members of the Historical Association in 1945 stated that:  

 “The idea that educated men at the time of Columbus believed that the earth was flat, and that this belief was one of the obstacles to be overcome by Columbus before he could get his project sanctioned, remains one of the hardiest errors in teaching.” 

During the early Middle Ages, virtually all scholars maintained the spherical viewpoint first expressed by the Ancient Greeks. By the 14th century, belief in a flat earth among the educated was essentially dead. 

However, among Medieval artists, depictions of a flat earth remained common. The exterior of the famous triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch is a Renaissance example in which a disc-shaped earth is shown floating inside a transparent sphere.

According to Stephen Jay Gould, “there never was a period of ‘flat earth darkness’ among scholars (regardless of how the public at large may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth’s roundness as an established fact of cosmology.”

Historians of science David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers point out that “there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth’s] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference”.

Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell says the flat earth error flourished most between 1870 and 1920, and had to do with the ideological setting created by struggles over evolution.

Russell claims “with extraordinary [sic] few exceptions no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the earth was flat,” and credits histories by John William Draper, Andrew Dickson White, and Washington Irving for popularizing the flat-earth myth.

 (via Myth of the Flat Earth)

scinerds:

Life Discovered On Dead Hydrothermal Vents

Scientists at USC have uncovered evidence that even when hydrothermal sea vents go dormant and their blistering warmth turns to frigid cold, life goes on.

Or rather, it is replaced.

A team led by USC microbiologist Katrina Edwards found that the microbes that thrive on hot fluid methane and sulfur spewed by active hydrothermal vents are supplanted, once the vents go cold, by microbes that feed on the solid iron and sulfur that make up the vents themselves.

The findings — based on samples collected for Edwards by the U.S. Navy deep sea submersible Alvin (famed for its exploration of the Titanic in 1986) — provide a rare example of ecological succession in microbes.

The findings were published in an mBio article authored by Edwards, USC postdoctoral researcher Jason Sylvan and Brandy Toner of the University of Minnesota.

Ecological succession is the biological phenomenon whereby one form of life takes the place of another as conditions in an area change — a phenomenon documented in plants and animals.

Megamind (via larikotasarutobi

)

milesian:

Two Scoliotic spines on either side of a straight, healthy human spine. 

(Source: )

expose-the-light:

Felted Anatomy

Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums (via honeyforthehomeless

)

rasputin:

Albert Einstein: Interesting Facts

1. He Hated Boardgames. Aside from his favourite past-time sailing (”the sport which demands the least energy”), Einstein shunned any recreational activity that required mental agility. As he told the New York Times, “When I get through with work I don’t want anything that requires the working of the mind.”
2. He Liked His Feet Naked. “When I was young, I found out that the big toe always ends up making a hole in the sock,” he once said. “So I stopped wearing socks.” Einstein was also a fanatical slob, refusing to “dress properly” for anyone. Either people knew him or they didn’t, he reasoned - so it didn’t matter either way.
3. He Was A Rotten Speller. Although he lived for many years in the United States and was fully bilingual, Einstein claimed never to be able to write in English because of “the treacherous spelling”. He never lost his distinctive German accent either, summed up by his catch-phrase “I vill a little t’ink”.
4. He Smoked Like A Chimney. A life member of the Montreal Pipe Smokers Club, Einstein was quoted as saying: “Pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment of human affairs.” He once fell into the water during a boating expedition but managed heroically to hold on to his pipe.
5. He Loathed Science Fiction. Lest it distort pure science and give people the false illusion of scientific understanding, he recommended complete abstinence from any type of science fiction. “I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.” He also thought people who claimed to have seen flying saucers should keep it to themselves.
6. He Equated Monogamy With Monotony. “All marriages are dangerous,” he once told an interviewer. “Marriage is the unsuccessful attempt to make something lasting out of an incident.” He was notoriously unfaithful as a husband, prone to falling in love with somebody else directly after the exchanging of vows.
7. His Cat Suffered Depression. Fond of animals, Einstein kept a housecat which tended to get depressed whenever it rained. Ernst Straus recalls him saying to the melancholy cat: “I know what’s wrong, dear fellow, but I don’t know how to turn it off.”

(Source: swingingonthespiral)

aseaofquotes:

Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

(Source: jello-is-for-winners)

(Source: pleatedjeans)

(Source: naniithran)

(Source: pandor4)

crookedindifference:

Takuro Kamiya, ca. 80s