"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything." - Friedrick Nietzsche
Atheist, scientist, secular Buddhist, rat lover, etc.
Originally from Iowa,I am a biology graduate student at Memorial University of Newfoundland.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
A brief history of microscopy by i-heart-histo
c2000 BC
The Chinese use water microscopes made of a lens and a water filled tube to better visualize smaller objects.
1590
Hans Jansen and his son Zacharias Jansen invent the compound microscope.
1609
Galileo Galilei develops a compound microscope with a convex and concave lens. Calling it the occhiolino - the little eye.
1625
The term ‘microscope’ is coined by Giovanni Faber of Bamberg, an anology with the word ‘telescope’
1665
Robert Hooke publishes Micrographia and coins the word ‘cell’ after his examination of cork bark.
1674
Anton van Leuwenhoek develops the compound microscope to optimize it for observing biological specimens.
1860s
Ernst Abbe discovers the Abbe sine condition for manipulating the axis of optical systems to improving sharpess of images. This breakthrough in microscope design was exploited by microscope manufacturers Zeiss and Leitz resulting in a microscope boom.
1920
Olympus manufacture their first microscope - the Asahi.
1957
The Olympus DF Biological Microscope becomes the first microscope to feature an attached light source rather than a mirror that reflects light on the specimen.
1976
The popular CH series of Olympus microscopes appear in universities and colleges around the world. Chances are your college still uses these lab teaching scopes (or the slightly newer CH2 version).
1993
Introduction of a unique Y-shaped design for the microscope body for enhancing optics.
2004
Confocal and virtual microscopy are now common place.
fml
So, I am applying for an internal scholarship and I needed to request an official transcript. When I did, it said there was a hold on my account. Odd. So I go to the resgistrar’s office and they tell me it is a financial hold and I have to go to talk to the cashier’s office. Great. I do. And it turns out that the university hasn’t been deducting my tuition or fees from my payroll for the last two semesters. So, I just had to pay for two full semesters’ worth of tuition and fees. And I now have basically no money left in my bank account. The way she goes, I suppose.
(Even though last year when I filled out my deduction request form they def told me that I wouldn’t have to do one for another year)
balls.
hairy, sweaty balls.
Intriguing Science Art From the University of Wisconsin
“The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living.”
—Jules Henri Poincare, a French mathematician (1854-1912)
The University of Wisconsin-Madison revealed the winners of the 2012 Cool Science image contest at the beginning of the month. From clusters of cells, zebrafish neural networks to ZnO Fall Flowers as seen above, this year’s contest showed nothing but impressive content for us to enjoy. Check out the rest of the contestants here!
TAKEI OH MY GOD.
Lt. Sulu will take none of your bigoted bs today.
I can never stop posting this. The narrow minded bible fanatics that just look at one small thing in the bible then feed the world with their hate over it. At the same time they ignore all the other silly laws made by man they claimed were made by god. These gif’s say it all.
my older sister is getting a law degree but she needs to have extra classes that aren’t related to law to complete it so she’s taking tree climbing 101
as in
a class that teaches you how to climb trees
let’s talk about the american education system
Yes, let’s talk about how it is attempting to give people both subject/profession specific education as well as broad spectrum education to produce graduates that are well-rounded. Let’s talk about the fact that me having courses in theater and metalsmithing gave me an edge over people with out a well-rounded course load and eventually landed me a grad position in a magnificent microbiology lab. Like that?
Everybody say it with me now, “you cannot become physically addicted to marijuana or hash.”
But, but, but, my best friend/parent/I was addicted to it!
No. Stop. Take a deep breath. Now go learn some basic biochemistry. It is not possible to develop a chemical dependence to it because that’s not how the fucking chemical works. Period. There is a difference between an addiction and a habit. Par example, I habitually eat two slices of wheat toast with jam every morning. When I don’t get my morning toast I will often be a bit grumpy about it and it doesn’t feel right leaving the house without it. I will think about toast more than normal during that day. This does not mean that I am addicted to toast. It’s fucking toast for fuck’s sake. If, however, I were to be prescribed an opiate for my arthritis and took said opiate for a long time I might not get the full pain-relieving effects after awhile and I might get the dosage upped. If I forget to take a pill I would likely experience pain, nausea, etc. etc. because I have developed a legitimate chemical dependence aka ‘addiction’ to the substance.
In case you missed the point, pot is basically toast.
The boss took me out for lunch and a drink and to talk about “the future”. Well, at least I know that I will have a place to do my PhD, regardless!
“The institution of butchering is unique to human beings. All carnivorous animals kill and consume their prey themselves. They see and hear their victims before they eat them. There is no absent referent, only a dead one. Plutarch taunts his readers with this fact in his “Essay on Flesh Eating”: If you believe yourselves to be meat eaters, “then, to begin with, kill yourself what you wish to eat, but do it yourself with your own natural weapons, without the use of butcher’s knife, or axe, or club.” Plutarch points out that people do not have bodies equipped for eating flesh from a carcass, “no curved beak, no sharp talons and claws, no pointed teeth.” We have no bodily agency for killing and dismembering the animals we eat; we require implements.”
— Carol J. Adams - Eliding Fragmentation, The Sexual Politics of Meat
(via cuntcrunk)
A very weak argument pretending to be good philosophy. We do have bodies “equipped” as it were, for eating meat - canine teeth, proper salivary enzymes, and intestinal microflora. Our evolved ability for tool usage is just as natural as a bird’s beak or a lion’s claws. It is likely that our early ancestor’s consumption of meat and fish (probably scavenged from better “equipped” hunters) is what led to the explosion in Homo sapiens brain size and complexity - the very things that allow us to contemplate the ethicality of eating animals in the first place. Chimpanzees, one of our closest evolutionary relatives, have been known to kill and eat other animals (often times other primates) for food. They have also been observed using tools to do so, very much like our own species. Is this “unnatural”? I personally am rather on the side of not consuming animal products for food as we have other, more economical and environmentally friendly food sources to choose from; I am, however, very much against the use of poor philosophy and utter disregard for scientific fact to try to “prove” a point.
If you care more about the condition of a woman’s breasts than you do about her health you are the kind of sack of shit that needs to stay very much the fuck away from me. Or you can start planning a “Save the testes” campaign after I’m through with you.
