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Appreciating the phenomena they study helps scientists to persevere in the face of setbacks.
Publican las 18 mejores imágenes científicas y biomédicas de 2014 del prestigioso concurso organizado por la ONG sanitaria británica Wellcome.
“Triceratium morlandii -fossil diatom- Oamaru diatoms, New Zealand (40 million years old). 🔬📸Anatoly Mikhaltsov”
Five carved stone balls are part of the collection at the Ashmolean Museum that were discovered in Scotland (Kincardineshire, Aberdeenshire and Banff). The purpose of those objects is unknown and is baffling archaeologists.
“Inner Future” is the name I chose for this effect – when the bubbles in the center of a small hexagonal snowflake take on the shape of larger crystals. Fractals at work – view large! This is one of the most pristine and elegant examples of the “inner future” effect I’ve seen, and I’m thrilled to include it in this series. It all starts in the center where cavities form in the middle of the sides. They stay narrow like little growing tunnels as the snowflake expands, later joined by two more cavities on either side which do not grow in a straight line but rather on an angle. The physics for this is a little beyond me, but you can play the history of this snowflake in your head! Just look at the very center of the crystal and imagine that nothing outside the central pixel of the snowflake exists, then add a layer out, and a layer farther out, etc. until you get to the end. It’s tricky to view this snowflake in terms in expansion from the center when we’re used to following lines and shapes, but it tells a different story when you see it different. The way we normally see a snowflake like this? We see beauty in the symmetry and the patterns, in the balance and the contrast. This comes from stable growth with only the slightest variations, and the same variations hitting each side of the snowflake equally. Personally, understanding how and why a snowflake becomes a beautiful shape only adds to the beauty that I see within it. After all, it’s just an organized collection of water molecules. In itself, it isn’t beautiful. It’s just a thing. Beauty lives in our minds. The fact that we can find beauty in something so inconsequential to our basic instincts and survival is the true magic here. :) If you haven’t already checked out my book on the topic of snow, you can gain a better understanding of these little beauties and a greater appreciation for what falls from the sky – www.skycrystals.ca/book/ - 304pg hardcover and nearing the very end of stock!
At the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC) in Maryland, you will find the US Department of Agriculture’s Low Temperature Scanning Electron Microscope (LT-SEM). One of the LT…
