“When he was on the set, he was Spock. And you never saw Leonard smile when he was doing Spock, very in character, but he’d have moments. When the work was done, then he was different. He’d go back to being Leonard Nimoy.”

rhamphotheca:

Why Most Snails Do Coil to the Right?

by Jennifer Carpenter

When plucking a snail from the beach you’d be lucky to snag a left-coiling shell.That’s because only 5% of all snails are “lefties,” new research shows. Shell enthusiasts have long marveled at the lack of sinistral (left-coiling) snails among their collections, especially when other shelled mollusks, such as clams and the now-extinct ammonites—nautiluslike creatures that sported dozens of tentacles inside spiraled shells—are just as likely to be left- as right-coiling.

Now, in the largest survey of its kind, researchers inspected more than 55,000 snail species—representing two-thirds of all gastropods—to reveal that left-coiling has arisen more than 100 times, and yet few of the species that have made the switch have been particularly successful. In the rare cases where left-coiling took off, it was almost always on land, the team reported here in a presentation last week at the annual meeting of the Canadian Society of Zoologists.

The researchers don’t know why sinistrality is so rare underwater, but the most likely explanation, they say, is that unlike land snails that tend to hang around where they hatch out, the microscopic young of sea snails are carried on ocean currents that make the chance of meeting and reproducing with another left-coiling nest-mate slim. Without such a meeting, the left-coiling lineage goes extinct.

(via: Science NEWS/AAAS)                            (photo: Yang Hao)

ichthyologist:

The Complex Structure of Bucket Orchids

Orchids of the genus Coryanthes have evolved along with orchid bees, and depend on each other for reproduction.

Male bees are attracted to an pheromone laced wax produced under the orchid’s helmet. The wax is stored by the male and are used in courtship. However, the helmet is slippery and bees sometimes fall into the fluid filled bucket below.

Once in the bucket, their wings are wet, which prevent them from flying. The walls of the bucket are smooth and lined with downward pointing hairs, preventing the insect from escaping through climbing. A small opening towards the front of the flower is the only way out.

As the bee climbs through the narrow opening, they must press their bodies against sticky pollen packets. These are essentially glued to the bee’s body as it tries to escape. In order for fertilisation to happen, the pollen from one plant must be transferred to the stigma of another plant.

After the bee flies off and visits another flower, it goes through a similar ordeal. This time, as it exits the bucket, the pollen packet on its back brushes past the stigma of the new flower, thus achieving pollination.

dwittkower, dogtooth77, Alex Popovkin on Flickr

wired:

motherjones:

kqedscience:

Teen Develops Computer Algorithm to Diagnose Leukemia

“Brittany Wenger isn’t your average high-school senior: She taught the computer how to diagnose leukemia.

The 18-year-old student from Sarasota, Fla. built a custom, cloud-based “artificial neural network” to find patterns in genetic expression profiles to diagnose patients with an aggressive form of cancer called mixed-lineage leukemia (MLL). Simply put, this means Wenger taught the computer how to diagnose leukemia by creating a diagnostic tool for doctors to use.”

Rock.

Eff. Yes. This girl is such a bad-ass.

shoomlah:

So the problem with designing characters who become popular is that, if you’re a needy bastard like me who tracks the Lutece tags when you’re bored, you’re suddenly exposed to a ton of art of said characters in various states of undress.

I’m not one to discourage this sort of thing- no no, I have sketchbooks full of Remus/Sirius stuff from high school- but I figured I might as well give everyone a leg-up with a more detailed guide to Rosalind Lutece’s potential underthings.  I’ve seen a ton of drawings of her in corsets from a good 50 years before her time and I…  I needed to step in.

Think of this as a primer!  Not a be-all-end-all of Edwardian underthings (heck, I’m still learning this stuff), but it might teach you some new fashion terms/ideas you weren’t previously aware of!  Go forth, young padawan, and draw historically-accurate Rosalind porn to your heart’s content.

…I do not know if this counts as fanart or not since I’m the one doing it?  Whatever.  RESEARCH OR DIE MOFOS

theartofanimation:

TangoCharlieESQ

I have been and always shall be your friend.

Live long and prosper.