[video]
[video]
[video]
on tuesday… ;)
(via thingssheloves)
This illustration shows a synapse. When an action potential arrives at a synapse, the positive charge causes the opening of voltage gated calcium channels. Calcium pours into the synaptic button and binds to several proteins, changing their shape. The activated proteins dynamically rearrange the blue cytoskeleton to transport green vesicles filled with yellow neurotransmitters to the synaptic cleft, which is filled with red adhesion proteins. Calcium-activated SNARE proteins bind to both the vesicle and the synaptic membrane, causing the vesicle to fuse with the membrane, turning it inside out and spilling neurotransmitters into the synaptic cleft. The neurotransmitters then bind to proteins on the receiving cell. There are several types of yellow-green receptor proteins. Sodium (Na+) channels (excitatory) respond the the neurotransmitter Glutamate. Chloride (Cl-) channels (inhibitory) respond to the neurotransmitter GABA. Dopamine, Serotonin, and Opioids bind to G-Protein Coupled Receptors (GPCRs) which cause complicated phosphorylation cascades that change the metabolism of the cell.
Artwork by David S. Goodsell
The photo above was taken by Google VP Sebastian Thrun while wearing Google Glass. What’s so remarkable about this photo is that he took it while spinning his son as seen in the picture, and wearing Glass at the same time. This perspective would not have been captured without this technology, which leads us to think what amazing photos and video may we capture in the future from a perspective such as this?
You can read a bit more about the technology and the changes it could make to our future over at io9.com.
now can I shoot a movie of you with this? ;)
:-* :-* :-*
uh huh!!!
(Source: fefinhacomo, via imgfave)
[video]
tsk! missing this one.
(Source: imgfave)
The Fish That Nearly Sank Isaac Newton’s Career
by Stephanie Pappas
An intricate image of a flying fish is one of hundreds of images now searchable online courtesy of the Royal Society, the United Kingdom’s national academy of science.
This striking wood engraving appeared in the 1686 text “Historia Piscium” or “The History of Fishes” by John Ray and Francis Willughby. Now mostly forgotten, the book was groundbreaking for its time. Unfortunately, “The History of Fishes” almost prevented another groundbreaking work from being published: Isaac Newton’s “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica” (“Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”).
The lavish engravings in “The History of Fishes” were so expensive to publish that they nearly bankrupted the young Royal Society, at that time only 26 years old. Short of cash, the Society had to rescind its promise to help pay for the production of Newton’s masterpiece.
Fortunately for Newton (and for science), his “Principia” caught astronomer Edmond Halley’s eye. Halley would be remembered mainly for computing the orbit of the comet that bears his name, but at the time he was a young Royal Society clerk. Halley took on the “Principia” as a personal project, raising funds (many from his own pocket) to get the work published in 1687…
(read more: Live Science)
(image: John Ray and Francis Willughby, 1686, courtesy of the Royal Society)
(via scientificillustration)