Appreciate the World Around You...

moderation:

The 16 Best Science Visualizations of 2011

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Cucumber Skin Barbs

Under 800X magnification, this honorable-mention-winning photograph shows toxin-filled barbs called trichomes on the skin of an immature cucumber.

The trichomes bear sharp points 40 times thinner than a sewing needle and help protect the growing fruit from predators. The toxins they release are called cucurbiticins and are the most bitter compounds known.

(via wired)

Fractal broccoli (by Captain Tenneal)

(Source: scinerds)

jtotheizzoe:

Two-Dimensional Glass, created in a nanosynthesis accident, it’s only three atoms thick! Since that’s the minimum thickness for this molecular structure, it’s very nearly two-dimensional.

At least on our scale.

(via ScienceNOW)

Police in Capitán Prat Province, Chile, have stopped a refrigerated truck carrying nearly 6 tons of ice bound for cocktail bars in Santiago, and arrested the driver on suspicion of having thieved the ice from a glacier in a Patagonian national park.

We’ve seen polar-chilled liquor before, as well as elaborately frozen cocktails; but I don’t know that glacial ice cubes add anything particularly special to a beverage that makes them worth the hauling.

The Jorge Montt glacier, from which the ice was harvested, is one of the fastest-shrinking glaciers on record; now we may know why.

(via New Climate Change Culprit: Chilean Man Stealing Glaciers to Put In Cocktails | Popular Science)

(Source: earth-song)

discoverynews:

After 15 years of research, Huang Ah-hsien of the Agricultural Research Institute in Taiwan has created the world’s largest orange. He calls it “The King,” and with good reason. It weighs 1.32 lbs and measures 4.2 inches in diameter.