Category: SCI/TECH

May 26, 2012 at 6:31 pm

Picture of the Day: Standing Atop a Wind Turbine

Picture of the Day: Standing Atop a Wind Turbine

STANDING ATOP A WIND TURBINE Photograph by REpower Systems This incredible photograph shows an engineer atop a massive wind turbine. The 3.2 megawatt wind turbine is made by REpower Systems and features a wider rotor diameter and has been optimized for low-wind locations. The hub height of the tower ranges from 93…

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May 22, 2012 at 1:56 pm

The Hypnotic Magnetism of Ferrofluids

The Hypnotic Magnetism of Ferrofluids

Photograph by Shawn Knol (sknol on Flickr) A ferrofluid (portmanteau of ferromagnetic, and fluid) is a liquid which becomes strongly magnetized in the presence of a magnetic field. Ferrofluids are colloidal liquids made of nanoscale ferromagnetic, or ferrimagnetic, particles suspended in a carrier fluid (usually an organic solvent or water). Each tiny particle…

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May 16, 2012 at 3:47 pm

The Most Epic Group Photos You Will See Today

The Most Epic Group Photos You Will See Today

Below you will find a glorious collection of epic group photos that I’ve seen floating around the Web for the past few years. From legendary casts and crews to extraordinary sports teams, musical supergroups, great thinkers and world leaders. I hope you will enjoy this incredible selection of photos and people and the backstory…

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May 16, 2012 at 9:45 am

The Largest Swimming Pool in the World

The Largest Swimming Pool in the World

At 1,013 meters (3,324 ft) in length with a total area of 8 hectares (19.77 acres), the swimming pool at the San Alfonso del Mar resort in Algarrobo, Chile is the largest in the world. It was listed officially as the largest swimming pool by area in the Guinness Book of World Records…

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May 15, 2012 at 9:01 am

A History of NASA Rocket Launches in 25 High-Quality Photos

A History of NASA Rocket Launches in 25 High-Quality Photos

The Sifter has already featured photographs from NASA’s incredible archive (see here, here and here), and we continue that tradition with this series that documents the history of NASA’s various rocket launches from as early as 1950 up to 2003. Nothing captures the imagination like space travel, and these amazing images mark the beginning…

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May 9, 2012 at 2:13 pm

10 Photos to Help You Visualize Magnetic Fields

10 Photos to Help You Visualize Magnetic Fields

Photograph by Dayna Mason (daynoir on Flickr) Yesterday, Redditor jokes_on_you posted a fascinating magnetic field visualization using compasses (see above). What’s interesting is that we can not only see the pattern of magnetic fields, but the direction of those patterns via the compass arrows. As usual, the picture led to some interesting comments and…

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May 8, 2012 at 12:58 pm

The Great Bioluminescence of 2009

The Great Bioluminescence of 2009

Photograph by PHIL HART @ philhart.com | Prints available at Red Bubble Starting in late December of 2008 and ending in January of 2009, the shores of the Gippsland Lakes in Victoria, Australia were awash in a sea of glowing bioluminescent flagellate protists known as Noctiluca scintillans. This incredible phenomenon was captured brilliantly…

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May 7, 2012 at 5:18 pm

Picture of the Day: Fractal Patterns in Dried Out Desert Rivers

Picture of the Day: Fractal Patterns in Dried Out Desert Rivers

FRACTAL PATTERNS IN DRIED OUT DESERT RIVERS Photograph by ADRIANA FRANCO for National Geographic This incredible aerial photograph by Adrian Franco was selected as National Geographic’s Picture of the Day for April 9, 2012. In it we see the incredible fractal patterns rivers (now dried out) have made as they spread into…

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May 6, 2012 at 11:49 am

10 Incredible Views of the 2012 Super Moon

10 Incredible Views of the 2012 Super Moon

On Saturday May 5, 2012, the lunar perigee coincided with a full moon. This fascinating event occurs about once a year. At its closest point the moon will be 222,000 miles (357,000 km) from Earth, causing high and low tides to be slightly more extreme than usual. [Source: The Telegraph] The exact numbers differ…

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April 26, 2012 at 4:48 pm

The Largest Land Vehicle in the World

The Largest Land Vehicle in the World

Photograph via mejjad The $100 million Bagger 288 (Excavator 288), built by the German company Krupp (now ThyssenKrupp) for the energy and mining firm Rheinbraun, is a bucket-wheel excavator or mobile strip mining machine. When its construction was completed in 1978, Bagger 288 superseded NASA’s Crawler-Transporter, used to carry the Space Shuttle and Apollo…

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