Photo reblogged from did you know? with 4,897 notes
The research found that the prior listening to happy music significantly enhanced the perceived happiness of a face and likewise listening to sad music significantly enhanced the perceived sadness of a face, and this music-induced effect was maximal when the face was emotionally neutral.
Source: did-you-kno
Photo reblogged from Exit, Pursued by a Claire with 2,055 notes
‘Route 29’ Batman, Lenny Robinson, turns out to be real-life superhero
Earlier this week, The Huffington Post reported that Batman had been pulled over — Batmobile and all — in Montgomery, Md., for not displaying a proper license plate.
It was discovered that the real plates were inside the car. In their place? The Batman symbol — naturally.
When videos of this masquerading Batman — whose real name is Lenny B. Robinson, a businessman from Baltimore County — first came to light, it seemed that the wealthy gentleman (whose ‘Batmobile’ is really a black Lamborghini) was simply having a lark.
But now, the Caped Crusader’s true intentions have came to the surface. It turns out he’s a real hero, after all.
According to the Washington Post, Robinson, 48, has been visiting sick children in hospitals in the Baltimore area since 2001. He dresses up as Batman when he makes his rounds and gives out Batman toys and other goodies to the kids. Sometimes his teenage son, Brandon, tags along as Robin.
Last week, as part of Hope For Henry’s annual Superhero Celebrations, Robinson — alongside Wonder Woman and Spiderman — was at Georgetown Hospital in Washington, D.C., visiting with children with cancer and other serious illnesses, PR Web reports.
“These visits provide an immediate boost for these kids,” Jeffrey Dome, the oncology division chief at Children’s National Medical Center in Northwest Washington, told the Washington Post.. “Some of these children have to stay for weeks or months at a time. That wears down the children and it wears down the family. A visit from a superhero is sort of like a fantasy in the middle of all this hard-core therapy.”
Robinson spends about $25,000 a year of his own money on Batman toys and memorabilia, the UK’s Metro reports.
“I’m just doing it for the kids,” he said. “It feels like I have a responsibility that’s beyond a normal person. And that responsibility is to be there for the kids, to be strong for them, and to make them smile as much as I can.”
Welcome to Maryland, we have superheroes.
Two of my friends met him!
Source: The Huffington Post
Quote reblogged from Atomic Avenue with 17,316 notes
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 “You Want A Physicist To Speak at your Funeral (via enflurane)
This reminds me of one of my favorite moments from Third Rock from the Sun, when Dick gives a eulogy for a fellow physicist:
“How can we honor the memory of a man like Leonard Hanlon? Well, he was governed by the laws of physics, as are all living things. It is a scientific fact that hearts and clocks slow down as they approach the speed of light, the point at which matter is converted into energy.
“Doctor Hanlon’s heart approached that speed on Friday evening, at 7:57, according to the coroner, converting his matter into energy, into pure white light. Though he is no longer with us, he is all around us.”
-Jess
(via stfuconservatives)
Source: lonelyheartsdeathmetal
Photoset reblogged from Exit, Pursued by a Claire with 7,756 notes
Golden Tabby Tiger
A golden tabby tiger is one with an extremely rare color variation caused by a recessive gene and is currently only found in captive tigers. Like the white tiger, it is a color form and not a separate species. In the case of the golden tiger, this is the wide band gene; while the white tiger is due to the color inhibitor (chinchilla) gene. There are currently believed to be fewer than 30 of these rare tigers in the world, but many more carriers of the gene.
Facts | Photo © Tambako the JaguarGod, such a beautiful Tiger ♥
Source: wildlifecollective
Photo reblogged from Exit, Pursued by a Claire with 1,085 notes
Girls in STEM
It’s not a secret that women (and pretty much any minority group) have uphill battle after uphill battle facing them when it comes to succeeding in math, science and engineering fields. Some of these are explicit (like the tilted playing field of the tenure system, which could take 100 years to level out), and some are more obscured (like the quiet social pressures that push them away from science). But what is clear is that it does not have to be the case.
I was really struck by this infographic’s ability to capture how quickly and precipitously women drop out of many fields of science once social pressures begin to take over.
I hope that projects like ScienceCheerleader, IAmScience, DoubleXScience and This Is What A Scientist Looks Like (<- bonus points if you can find me on that one) can continue to make this image a relic of the past and not a picture of the future.
(ᔥ EngineeringDegree.net, click here for enlargification)
Source: engineeringdegree.net
Photoset reblogged from Exit, Pursued by a Claire with 14,897 notes
Key guns, 1600s
‘Jailers’ keys were apparently filled with gun powder to create a primitive gun that could be detonated if there was any trouble when opening a cell door. We found several original versions that back up this claim, dating from the 17th century and of various complexity.’
Source: retronaut.co
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