SNOWFLAKES - Everything you EVER wanted to know about them!

Winter. The word has been known, believe it or not, to conjure up visions of snow. Yes, you know what I'm talking about: that cold white stuff that tends to fall out of the skies in some parts of the world lucky enough to actually experience Winter?

Now, I know that all you folks down in places like sunny Florida have no idea what I'm talking about. But listen up anyway! You might just learn a thing or three. At the very least, you could just be polite and humor your currently shivering Eclectic Science guy. Please?

Anyway, Winter sometimes means snow, but snow always means snowflakes! How about that!? Pretty cool so far, eh?

No? Well, humor me (or perhaps suffer me would be a better phrase), a bit longer because I'm about to astound, amaze, and educate the living snot out of you! (Um,... that is if you haven't already been impressed by the pics herein contained)

Snowflakes, REAL snowflakes are ALWAYS hexagonal. That's six (6) sided for those of you who have no idea what a hexagon is. And, NO the Pentagon is five (5) sided, you dummies. Are you astounded yet?  Heh, I thought so!

A Frozen Britain from way above! and It's sooooo cold that...

Yep, it's cold outside, baby! Take a gander at the deep freeze holding Britain hostage in the photo below! Now, I'm thinking that there are parts of the U.S. that are a tad chilly also, but I wasn't able to hack into NASA's Terra satellite to get a photo of it yet.

This striking image taken by Nasa's Terra satellite on 7 January 2010 shows the UK deep in the clutches of the current cold snap. [Photo: NASA/GSFC, MODIS Rapid Response]

And, speaking of cooooold,... I've scoured the Internet for the best, and only the best, humor regarding the currently less-than-warm-fuzzy temps we've all been chatting and chattering and shivering about. And with all that chatter, the Department of Homeland Frigidity has finally set the Chilly Warning to White!

Happy HALLOWEEN everybody!

You're blind in one eye, and can’t see out of the other!

Did you know that each of your eyes has a Blind Spot??

There is a spot on the retina of each of our eyes that literally can’t see anything at all. This blind spot is where the optic nerve is and there are no rods or cones there. Now, you normally don’t notice that there is a blind spot anywhere in your field of vision. That’s because your brain is filling in the gaps, so to speak. Try the following experiment to prove it to yourself.

What's YOUR Umwelt?

I wonder what reality would be like if only we could directly perceive more than the comparatively tiny bit of it we can actually perceive. But perhaps understanding my question is more important than its answer. And maybe, just maybe, the fact that we can indeed understand the question, and even begin to explore the answer, will allow us to at least begin to comprehend, if not conquer, “real” reality.

What's In A Color?

What's in a color?
Okay, now that I've drawn you in with a quirky question....   We all take a lot of things for granted in our daily lives. One of those things is color. Do you really know what it is?

Here are some thoughts about color that will hopefully make you think, and maybe encourage you to take a few less things for granted.

Look Up And See Into The Past

There's a curious thing about looking up, especially if you happen to be looking up at a clear, dark night sky - you can literally see into the past! Now, this applies to things in the sky other than clouds and bats - things like stars, planets, and galaxies.

But before we get to the crux of the matter, you have to realize that light travels at about 186,000 miles (300,000 km) per second - that would be about 7 times around the Earth in one second. Now, that's pretty fast, but not infinetly so. And since the distances we are considering are significantly greater than 186,000 miles, you can see that it is going to take time for light to travel those immense distances.

The Moon is about 240,000 miles (384,00 km) away. Divide that by 186,000 and you get the appromately 1.3 seconds that light takes to travel from the Moon to Earth. So that means whenever you look a the Moon, you are seeing it as it was 1.3 seconds ago. Well, that's not so bad, you say? Harumpn, Big deal!

But it gets better, really! When you look at the Sun, you are seeing it as it was about 8 minutes ago. Do the math: 93,000,000 miles (distance from Earth to the Sun) divided by 186,000 (speed of light per second) = 500 seconds = about 8.3 minutes. Keep in mind that the light you see Now actually left the Sun about 8.3 minutes ago and is just now getting to your eyes. So, when you see the Sun rise, it actually rose 8.3 minutes ago. And if the Sun were to suddenly go supernova, we wouldn't know it until 8.3 minutes later because the light from the supernova event would take over 8 minutes to get here.

But we're not going to stop here,... because it just keeps getting sooo much better.

A Lesson On ASSUMPTIONS

Yup, most of us know the old adage that when we assume, we make an ass of you and me - you know, ass-u-me. But some of the assumptions we fall prey to are particularly insidious because we aren't even aware that we are making an assumption. Sometimes we run across things that raise our eyebrows and even amaze or astound us, and that raise our suspicions immediately. But those suspicions are fought down as we stare at the apparent evidence right in front of our eyes.

Evolution - Back to Basics

Okay, it's time to get back to the basics of evolution, folks!

The word evolution is seeing the light of day more and more these days as the debates about evolution vs. creationism and science vs. religion, ratchet upward in public arenas like school curricula, government, churches, newspapers, magazines, and Internet forums, blogs, and websites. But what an awful lot of people are missing, is a basic understanding of just what evolution is, how it works, what it says about how life evolves from simpler lifeforms, and what it doesn't say about how life began on Earth to begin with. So, this blog entry is devoted to clarifying and simplifying evolution for the masses, for the average Joe-Schmoe, and for even for some “experts” that still get things screwed up when they talk about evolution.

Equal Marriage Rights for Gays?

Not EQUAL, but ADDITIONAL Rights!

As the debate rages on in the U.S. between legalizing gay marriage and banning it altogether, there is one point that needs to be made – a point that I have yet to hear either side make. It's a really critical point of clarification and is basic to the issue at hand. Now, before I make that point, please understand that I am taking no sides here, and I'm not a gay hater or even a gay disliker. So don't flame me as such.