The art of the natural world

"Walk at low tide," photographed by Ludwig Windstosser in 1957.  Via First Time User.

"The Inner Life of a Cell"

YouTube link.

When I posted the XVIVO medical animation yesterday, an anonymous comment alerted me that even more elaborate productions by this group are available.  "The Inner Life of a Cell" was uploaded to YouTube by Harvard Magazine. 

I find the animation to be stunning.  There's also one brief almost-laugh-out-loud segment, at 3:46, when a motor protein pulls a vesicle along a microtubule.  

Tornado safety - stay in your car?

The graph above shows the annual death toll from tornadoes in the U.S.  Data and graph from NOAA.  Note the y-axis shows deaths per million, so the absolute change would not be so dramatic. 

Via Paul Douglas' On Weather blog, where he considers the question re what to do if you are in your car when a tornado approaches:

Dr. Greg Forbes from The Weather Channel takes a look at a growing debate: is it safer for commuters to ride out a tornado in their cars (with all the built-in safety equipment) or go into a nearby ditch: "About two weeks ago I came back to work after a rare day off and found a letter on my desk from the American Red Cross. It indicated that their organization was changing some of their tornado safety rules. Some of those changes are at odds with safety rules advocated by the National Weather Service (NWS), and that has created a controversy! ... Part of the basis for the change in American Red Cross policy was studies by researcher Tom Schmidlin, who found that a relatively small percentage of vehicles are overturned, tossed, and demolished in tornadoes. The NWS recommends that if you are being overtaken in your car by a tornado, then you should get out of the car and into a nearby building or ditch. The new American Red Cross recommendation is that if no building is available, stay in the car - get out of the car and into a ditch only as a last resort. Crouch down with your seat belt on and your head below the windshield level...

In defense of nontheists

Excerpts from an op-ed piece in the Washington Post:

Those who don’t believe in God are widely considered to be immoral, wicked and angry. They can’t join the Boy Scouts. Atheist soldiers are rated potentially deficient when they do not score as sufficiently “spiritual” in military psychological evaluations. Surveys find that most Americans refuse or are reluctant to marry or vote for nontheists; in other words, nonbelievers are one minority still commonly denied in practical terms the right to assume office despite the constitutional ban on religious tests...

Is this knee-jerk dislike of atheists warranted? Not even close.

A growing body of social science research reveals that atheists, and non-religious people in general, are far from the unsavory beings many assume them to be. On basic questions of morality and human decency — issues such as governmental use of torture, the death penalty, punitive hitting of children, racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, environmental degradation or human rights — the irreligious tend to be more ethical than their religious peers, particularly compared with those who describe themselves as very religious...

As individuals, atheists tend to score high on measures of intelligence, especially verbal ability and scientific literacy. They tend to raise their children to solve problems rationally, to make up their own minds when it comes to existential questions and to obey the golden rule. They are more likely to practice safe sex than the strongly religious are, and are less likely to be nationalistic or ethnocentric. They value freedom of thought...

As with other national minority groups, atheism is enjoying rapid growth. Despite the bigotry, the number of American nontheists has tripled as a proportion of the general population since the 1960s. Younger generations’ tolerance for the endless disputes of religion is waning fast. Surveys designed to overcome the understandable reluctance to admit atheism have found that as many as 60 million Americans — a fifth of the population — are not believers. Our nonreligious compatriots should be accorded the same respect as other minorities...

One of the writers of this piece is the author of the book Society Without God, which I reviewed here two years ago.

Men try wearing an anti-bark dog collar

YouTube link.

Miniature telescopic ring (c. 1820)

A French gold ring, circa 1820, which pulls open to reveal a so-called Galilean telescope with a combination of a convex or converging lens and a dispersing lens. Designed as ‘toys’ or amusements for the wealthy, these miniature telescopes were found hidden in fans and perfume bottles as well as in pieces of jewellery. A pendant with a telescope is in the British Museum and a similar ring is in the Koch collection.

Posted at encyclopaedia sardonica, via My Ear-Trumpet Has Been Struck by Lightning.

Wisconsin truck

Found here.