Lynn Margulis died on Tuesday, the 22nd of November.
She is most famous for her theory of endosymbiosis, which says that eukaryotic cells—the complicated cells of protozoa, animals, plants, and fungi—were formed in a series of stages where one organism swallowed another but, instead of digesting it, took it on as a symbiotic partner!
I didn't know she died this week... so sad, she was really a great woman and a great scientist.
Edit: more on her.
For a quick introduction to ERDDAP, watch the first half of thisvideo. (5 minutes)
In it, a scientist downloads ocean currents forecast data from ERDDAP to model a toxic spill in the ocean using NOAA's GNOME software (in 5 minutes!). Thanks to Rich Signell. (One tiny error in the video: when searching for datasets, don't use AND between search terms. It is implicit.)
ERDDAP shares a lot with Pydap, my own data server. I should check if I can use GNOME with Pydap like in this video example; it would be interesting, specially now with the Chevron oil spill in Brazil.
As brine from the sea ice sinks, a 'brinicle' forms threatening life on the sea floor with a frosty fate.
A bizarre underwater "icicle of death" has been filmed by a BBC crew.
With timelapse cameras, specialists recorded salt water being excluded from the sea ice and sinking.
The temperature of this sinking brine, which was well below 0C, caused the water to freeze in an icy sheath around it.
Where the so-called "brinicle" met the sea bed, a web of ice formed that froze everything it touched, including sea urchins and starfish.
There are several smartphone apps that can help you create Lomography look-a-like images, but nothing beats this DIY project which produces similar perfectly imperfect photos. You can even pair this hack with a vast array of OM Series SLR lenses or use an adapter for other glass from different manufacturers to further the array of results...
Really cool project, I need to give it a try.
Richard Hamming (from "You and Your Research", http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html):
1. What are the most important problems in your field?
2. Are you working on one of them?
3. Why not?
Paul Graham's (from "Good and Bad Procrastination", http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html) generalization of Richard Hamming: What's the best thing you could be working on, and why aren't you?
edw519's generalization of Paul Graham: Work on the most important thing until it's not the most important thing any more.
I loved the pictures, specially the one I linked above and the one of the Berlin Wall.
The API is similar to S3 or Rackspace Cloud Files - favoring JSON over XML. For easy portability, we supply libraries to use Nimbus.io as drop-in alternatives for the most popular libraries to access competing cloud storage platforms.
Open source client and server, for $6 per 100GB, no upload cost. I will keep an eye on this.
So here’s the takeaway from that: Even when you do get good at something, you’ll still have your moments of frustration, when you feel like you’re back to square one. But you’ll come to realize that such moments are exceptional. They’re not a reflection of who you truly are and how far you’ve come.
Really nice article, in some many levels.
