The Thermostat Hypothesis
The Thermostat Hypothesis is that tropical clouds and thunderstorms actively regulate the temperature of the earth. This keeps the earth at a equilibrium temperature.
Several kinds of evidence are presented to establish and elucidate the Thermostat Hypothesis – historical temperature stability of the Earth, theoretical considerations, satellite photos, and a description of the equilibrium mechanism.
Interesting essay by Willis Eschenbach.
Further reading:
- The original paper about the Thermostat or Iris Hypothesis appeared in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
- Not everybody agrees with this hypothesis…, or what did you expect ?
- And another article with the pros and the cons.
Water Wars ?
It’s often been said that the next resource wars will be fought not over oil but over water. Seven experts debate the past and present existence of water wars, consider the difficulty of owning a fluid resource, and examine the hot spots for future conflict.
How to find images on the internet
Images can be found just about everywhere on the mighty internet. Below you’ll find some interesting gateways to larger image collections. Some are for free, some ask for hard bucks. Some are copyrighted, others are not or even others have a Creative Commons license. If you have located an image somewhere in the digital chaos of the world wide web, always check the conditions of use. Don’t say I didn’t warn you… 
The easiest way to search images is to use search engines :
Ask image search
Google advanced image search
Yahoo image search
Next you can search Creative Commons images,
Creative Commons Web site, Creative Commons explained and portal
Creative Commons image search
Google Creative Commons search (yes try using the advanced search features of Google iso of the ususal simple search bar)
Yahoo Creative Commons search
everystockphoto.com is a search engine for creative commons photos, located in Vancouver
and free stock image collections (always nice if it’s for free, but read the fine print of some of these…) :
DeviantART
FreeFoto.com
Free Images.co.uk
Imageafter
MorgueFile (The term “morgue file” is popular in the newspaper business to describe the file that holds past issues flats)
OpenPhoto.Net
Stock.xchng
Media resources are great for finding recent images :
AFP (Agence France-Presse)
BBC Photo Library (sometimes there seems to be a problem with this site – I’m trying to figure it out)
Empics (Press Association)
Nettizen Online Newspaper Directory
News Directory, a guide to all online English-language media (worldwide), over 3,600 newspapers, 4,800 magazines, hundreds of television stations plus colleges, visitor bureaus, governmental agencies, travel links, and comics ; more than 14,500 links in all
NI (News International) Syndication
Reuters
Or you could check dedicated photojournalist resources :
Association of Photographers
EPUK (Editorial Photographers United Kingdom & Ireland)
NPPA (National Press Photographers Association)
NUJ (National Union of Journalists)
World Press Photo
Some commercial image collection can be found at (read : you have to pay, subscribe, have credit,…) :
About the Image blog
BAPLA (British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies)
BigStockPhoto
Big White Box
Clipart.com
Corbis
Getty Images
Fotolia
iStockPhoto
Jupiterimages Unlimited
PACA (Picture Archive Council of America)
Stockxpert
Or if you are desperately seeking historical images, have a look here :
UNESCO’s Archival Portal, an enormous portal to archives around the world, a bit overwhelming.
UK Public Libraries Page, access to images available at local libraries in the UK
UK Higher Education and Research Libraries, access via these libraries to large image collections, but will take time to search
Sensitive Map, similar as the previous but using a clickable map to direct you to an institution
Libweb, a portal to 7500 libraries in 135 countries which contain of course images
24hourmuseum, a virtual UK museum
Cornucopia, an online database of information about more than 6,000 collections in the UK’s museums, galleries, archives and libraries
Virtual Library Museums Pages, a distributed directory of on-line museums
EIG (Education Image Gallery), nice resource for schools
EnrichUK, a searchable portal linking 150 websites that have been supported with Lottery good causes money from the UK
BBC History
PBS History, some pictures, but mainly movies ; still a nice portal with lots of material including teacher resources (PBS, headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, is a non–profit media enterprise owned and operated by the nation’s 348 public television stations)
Scran, part of the Scran Trust – a registered charity – whose aim is to provide educational access to digital materials representing our material culture and history
British History Online
Best of History Web Sites
Voice of the Shuttle, another overwhelming source of information, I need 48-hour-days
Ok, if you didn’t yet find the right image you need, try some of the following specialist sources :
Directories of museums and art galleries
24hourmuseum (also mentioned as a source for historical images)
Art Guide, the comprehensive internet guide to the art collections of Great Britain and Ireland
Art Museum Network, up-to-date information about the news and activities of more than 200 leading museums around the world including news about the exhibitions, acquisitions, and programs of institutions, and links to all members ; so indirect access to image collections worldwide (well most are American, but other countries are represented as well)
Cornucopia, also mentioned as a source for historical images
Virtual Library Museums Pages, and this one as well
Directories of contemporary art galleries
Artnet.com, actually a place to buy, sell and research fine art online, with over 1,200 galleries in over 250 cities worldwide, more than 100,000 works by over 25,000 artists from around the globe represented on this site ; so lots of art images
AskArt, a comprehensive source for information on contemporary American artists
Gallery Channel, a nice site with information on 8,400 exhibition venues, 21,400 exhibitions and 25,600 artists worldwide – all available for public view, a nice site, easy to access
Other museums with significant online collections
British Museum
Hermitage, a famous museum along the embankment of the River Neva, right in the heart of St Petersburg, Russia
Louvre, situated in Paris as you surely know
Metropolitan Museum of Art, near Central Park, New York
Museum of Modern Art, also in New York between 5th and 6th street
National Gallery in London
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Tate holds the national collection of British art from 1500 and of international modern art. All works can be found on this site.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Or perhaps you are looking for builidings or other architectural images ?
Great Buildings Online, with integrated Google maps ; nice try but too many adds and needs a complete design overhaul ; still nice idea.
Index of Art Historical Sites, no adds, but needs redesigning, although lots of architectural images
RIBApix, another one, better, but search facilities not always optimal
Other aggregated art image collections (some commercial) :
AHDS Visual Arts
American Memory, part of the Library of Congress
Art Resource
ARTstor, aimed at Canadian and American institutions
Bridgeman Education, also aimed at institutions
David Rumsey Visual Collections, both free and subscription based collections
Courtauld Art and Architecture collection
Grove Art, free trial but subscription required later on
OAIster, with Firefox plugin (!)
RLG Camio, for institutions mainly
RLG Cultural Materials
Scholars Resource, lots of teacher resources
Art History Resources on the Web
AICT, Art Images for College Teaching
Artcyclopedia
Smithsonian Art and Design
UCLA Arts Library Sources, interesting portal
ULAN, Union List of Artist Names, search using structured vocabularies (Part of Getty Museum website)
WorldArt Web Kiosk, access the Californian University image database
Not all of us are into history and art. Some might want scientific images :
Via RDN (Resource Discovery Network) : a wealth of information including texts, images, maps, etc.
BIOME (Life Sciences, Health and Medicine)
EEVL (Engineering, Mathematics and Computing)
Gesource (Geography and Environment) -
PSIgate (Physical Sciences) -
(In the future RDN is to be found at Intute)
General scientific image databases :
Science and Society Picture Library (UK based)
Science Photo Library
ScienceImage
Science.gov (USA government)
US Government Resources for Science Images
USA Centres for Disease Control (CDC) Public Health Image Library
Hubble Space Telescope
NASA
NOAA, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
USDA, US Department of Agriculture
USDoD, US Department of Defense
USDOE, US Department of Energy
USFWS, US Fish and Wildlife Service
Medical images
Anatline, a web-based interface for viewing high resolution anatomical images (very nice !)
Bristol Biomed Image Archive, only for Athens member institutions (if your institution is not a member, you can apply via the website)
Images from the History of Medicine, website of the US National Library of Medicine (NLM)
Karolinska Institutet, images provided by Sweden’s largest medical university
Medical Images on the Web, overview of medical image databases provided by the University of Nebraska
MPL Medical Photographic Library
TDR Image Library with a focus on tropical diseases
Viperlib Visual Perception Images, images related to visual perception (obviously…)
Weill Cornell Medical Library directory
Enough about humans ? What about other species ?
Arkive,the Noah’s Ark for the Internet era – a unique global initiative, gathering together into one centralised digital library, films, photographs and audio recordings of the world’s species
Agripicture picture library, a select diverse collection of generic farming images
Biodidac, Biological Images
Canon Photo Gallery, part World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
ImageBank, Higher Education Academy, Centre for Bioscience, UK
Botanical Society of America, online image collection drawings actually
Earth is also a topmodel as we can see in these images :
American Geological Institute Earth Science World Image Bank
Geo-Images Project maintained at Berkeley University by G. Donald Bain, Director of the Geography Computing Facility
Picture Library of the famous Geological Society of London
National (UK) Archive of Geological Photographs
And finally I wanted to include some resources for maps :
Bodleian Library’s Map Room, and that’s exactly what it is, a ‘room’ full of links
Odden’s Bookmarks, enough links to fill a lifetime
National Geographic Maps, always beautifully made
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection from the University of Texas
David Rumsey Map Collection if you like historical maps
DEMIS World Map Server, a software program to generate maps (not for free…)
Online Map Creation (OMC) Tool, a software package to create high-quality postscript maps in various projections (free)
Timemap TMJava is a novel mapping applet which generates complete interactive maps with a few simple lines of html, and… an open source project of the University of Sydney ; I need to test this as it seems like an awesome application. Anyone tried this already ?
Earthbrowser, software application allowing you to browse the surface of our blue planet (free trial, rated at 23.95$ with updates), including webcams, satellite updates, etc.
Atlas of Cyberspace, an atlas of maps and graphic representations of the geographies of the new electronic territories of the Internet, the World-Wide Web and other emerging Cyberspaces, interesting site
And last but not least Google earth
This list is not intended to be exhaustive. If you know of other resources we should include, please put a comment. Thank you.
Celestia
Celestia is a open source 3-D astronomy program created by Chris Laurel. The program, based on the HIP, allows users to travel through an extensive universe, modelled after reality at any speed, in any direction and at any time in history. Celestia displays and interacts with objects ranging in scale from artificial satellites to entire galaxies in three dimensions using OpenGL, from perspectives which would not be possible from a classic planetarium or other ground based display. Download via Sourceforge.
Similar applications include the free software applications Stellarium and KStars, and the proprietary applications Orbiter, XEphem (both freeware), Starry Night (commercial). WorldWide Telescope, which will be made available in Spring 2008, will also offer features included in Celestia.
Ophidiophobia
Ophidiophobia refers to fear of snakes. The word comes from the Greek words “ophis” (ὄφις) which refers to snakes and “phobia” (φοβία) meaning fear.
Some of the oldest tales and wisest mythology allude to the snake as a mischievous seducer, dangerous foe or powerful iconoclast; however, the legend surrounding this proverbial predator may not be based solely on fantasy. As scientists from the University of Virginia recently discovered, the common fear of snakes may well be intrinsic.
The End of Cosmology?
Cosmology, from the Greek: κοσμολογία (cosmologia, κόσμος (cosmos) order + λογος (logos) word, reason, plan) is the quantitative (usually mathematical) study of the Universe in its totality, and by extension, humanity’s place in it. Though the word cosmology is recent (first used in 1730 in Christian Wolff’s Cosmologia Generalis), study of the Universe has a long history involving science, philosophy, esotericism, and religion.
A decade ago astronomers made the revolutionary discovery that the expansion of the universe is speeding up. They are still working out is implications. The quickening expansion will eventually pull galaxies apart faster than light, causing them to drop out of view. This process eliminates reference points for measuring expansion and dilutes the distinctive products of the big bang to nothingness. In short, it erases all the signs that a big bang ever occurred. To our distant descendants, the universe will look like a small puddle of stars in an endless, changeless void.What knowledge has the universe already erased? (via sciam)
Further reading
Physical cosmology : Cosmic Journey: A History of Scientific Cosmology from the American Institute of Physics
Esoteric cosmology : wikipedia
Religious cosmology: wikipedia
Happy Birthday Mr Darwin
150 years ago, Charles Darwin unveiled his theory of natural selection. To mark this anniversary The Guardian brings you the definitive guide to the naturalist’s great book, with extracts from key chapters and essays from leading scientists and thinkers. There is of course the easy but well written introduction at Wikipedia on Charles Darwin as well.
Over the years the theory of natural selection has been refined to result into the current gene-centered view of evolution.
Six Degrees Could Change the World – Preview
A video from the National Geographic Channel’s “Six Degrees Could Change the World” explores the potential impacts of global warming degree-by-degree—through six degrees over the next hundred years. Filmed on five continents, the program tracks the world’s top climate researchers and follows ranchers, photographers, and everyday people to uncover climate trends.
The Evolutionary and Developmental Foundations of Mathematics
Understanding the evolutionary precursors of human mathematical ability is a highly active area of research in psychology and biology with a rich and interesting history. Are some species born with this ability or is it an environmental issue ? It seems that a combination of both is explaining mathematical abilities.
Beran MJ (2008) The Evolutionary and Developmental Foundations of Mathematics. PLoS Biol 6(2): e19
350 Parts Per Million
A NASA scientist named James Hansen offered a simple, straightforward and mind-blowing bottom line for the planet: 350, as in parts per million carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It’s the number that may define our future.
To understand what it means, you need a little background.
Weekend reading
A miniature swimming deer seems to be the missing link between whales and land mammals. The poor deer had to spring into the water to escape being eaten 50 million years ago.
We don’t know, and might never know, if science has overbid its hand. When in doubt, confronted with the complexities of the world, scientists have no choice but to play their cards as if they can win, as if the universe is indeed comprehensible. That is what they have been doing for more than 2,000 years, and they are still winning. There is in fact a kind of chicken-and-egg problem with the universe and its laws. Which “came” first — the laws or the universe? Laws of Nature, Source Unknown (Update: you need to register to read this article, but it’s for free).
Sexing the handbag. It’s time to fight Hefnerism with radicalisation not restriction, declares Dylan van Rijsbergen.
The pre-Socratic philosopher sparked an intellectual revolution that still echoes today. Yet for philosophy and science to continue to progress in the 21st century, we may need to embark on an entirely new cognitive journey
Dinosaur Gallery
Europe’s largest dinosaur exhibition, with over 30 skeletons and lots of interactives: now again open to the public!
Is There Anything Good About Men?
You’re probably thinking that a talk called “Is there anything good about men” will be a short talk! Recent writings have not had much good to say about men. Titles like Men Are Not Cost Effective speak for themselves. Maureen Dowd’s book was called Are Men Necessary? and although she never gave an explicit answer, anyone reading the book knows her answer was no. Louann Brizendine’s book, The Female Brain, introduces itself by saying, “Men, get ready to experience brain envy.” Imagine a book advertising itself by saying that women will soon be envying the superior male brain! More…
An invited address given by Prof. Baumeister at a meeting the American Psychological Association in San Francisco on August 24, 2007. The thinking it represents is part of a long-range project to understand human action and the relation of culture to behavior.
(own links)
Bern Physiologus
Physiologus
The Physiologus was written in Greek, probably in Alexandria, in about the fourth century. It consisted of 48 or 49 chapters about beasts, birds and stones used as a vehicle for explaining Christian dogma. Its stories come from very ancient sources: Indian, Hebrew and Egyptian animal lore and various classical natural philosophers like Aristotle and Pliny. A moralising Christian gloss was added to these stories by a person presumably known as Physiologus.
The book was translated into Latin in about 400, and later many European and Middle-Eastern languages, and many illuminated manuscript copies such as the Bern Physiologus survive. It retained its influence over people’s minds in Europe for over a thousand years. It was a predecessor of the bestiaries (books of beasts).
A Bestiary is a collection of short descriptions about all sorts of animals, real and imaginary, birds and even rocks, accompanied by a moralising explanation. Although it deals with the natural world it was never meant to be a scientific text and should not be read as such. Some observations may be quite accurate but they are given the same weight as totally fabulous accounts. The Bestiary appeared in its present form in England in the twelfth century, as a compilation of many earlier sources, principally the Physiologus.
Bern Physiologus
The Bern Physiologus (Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Codex Bongarsianus 318) is a 9th century illuminated copy of the Latin translation of the Physiologus. It was probably produced at Reims about 825-850. Some sample pages of this copy (source wikipedia):
Earworm
Earworm, a loan translation of the German Ohrwurm, is a term for a song stuck in one’s head. An earworm is also the larva of the moth Helicoverpa zea.
Draculin
Draculin is a glycoprotein found in the saliva of vampire bats. It is composed of 411 amino acids. It functions as an anticoagulant, keeping the blood of the bitten victim from clotting while the bat is drinking.
A tree for a book
Did you know that 20 million trees are cut down annually for the virgin paper to produce books sold in the United States alone?
The mission of Eco-Libris is to offset that impact by easily and affordably empowering readers to plant a tree for every book they read. Readers, in turn, receive an Eco-Libris sticker to put on the book jacket (yes, made of out of recycled paper) and the satisfaction of being part of the solution.
Get your questions answered – how they do it, where they do it, their tree-planting partners – at www.ecolibris.net.
Why do apple slices turn brown after being cut?
Lynne McLandsborough, a professor of food science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, explains this oft-observed kitchen conundrum.
Zebroid
A zebroid is a cross between a zebra and any other equid: essentially, a zebra hybrid. They are also known as zebra mules. In general, the sire is a zebra stallion. Offspring of a donkey sire and zebra mare, called a zebra hinny, do exist, but are rare. Zebroids have been bred since the 19th Century.
Conservapedia
Look what this alternative (?) for Wikipedia writes about evolution e.g.
If you use “The truth shall set you free.” on your homepage, you should follow your own advice…
leave a comment