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Up close and personal with one of our larger shorebirds. I made this shot last spring from the rolling red Toyota blind. On foot, I could never get this close to one, like I did for yesterday's American White Pelican. Of course, the pelican is a much larger bird, and I was able to fill the frame from a greater distance. The excitement of wildlife photography is due in great measure to its unpredictability: every situation is different. You have to work with pre-existing backgrounds, random variations in quality of light, unpredictable behaviour, varying degrees of proximity, bad weather, physical exertion, chance encounters that are often very brief, long periods of nothing happening punctuated by flurries of action, and lots of disappointment. And through all this... the adventure and the satisfaction of coming home with good stuff in the bag. It isn't for everyone; it takes a special breed. That's us.
Photographed at Reed Lake, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©2020 James R. Page - all rights reserved.
I absolutely adore the name "Linden." It's such a beautiful name...my mouth likes the interplay between the L and the other hard consonants.
Taken through the car window on our way home from the suburbs.
Buffalo, NY
Sigma 30mm f/1.4
[large]
It’s a tree!
I first heard of the Pep Ventosa technique when I was admiring a photo of a tree on Flickr. Sadly I forget whose it was - not someone I frequently follow anyway.
Like all good ideas it’s a simple one, a type of multiple-exposure. The idea is that you just walk around an isolated tree or other object and take a series of images as you go around and then merge them together any which way you fancy.
It helps if the object has some sort of rotational symmetry I think, though anything would do as long as you can get around it and take images of a similar scale. I quite fancy giving it a go sometime with a statue or even a building as well.
I’ve used the technique before on a Dandelion seed head (simply using Mean as an automated stacking function). And I have several unworked sets taken of local trees and one of a small Muscari flower from this spring, all waiting to be processed…
This was an ornamental maple tree in the field which forms the park in front of one of the local big houses. There is a public footpath that runs across the field quite close by so I didn’t feel too guilty as I danced around the tree.
What has inspired me to try this now is the work of two of my Australian Flickr friends Ali de Niese and Andrew Haysom , who are also interested in the technique.
This is a stack of eight images manually blended and merged. I was looking to bring out the autumn colours in the tree and the effect of its light, airy and open canopy. Processing it like this also gives a sense of the leaves blowing about which I quite like.
I’ll link one of the original images in the first comment so you can see how far we came.
Thank you for taking the time to look. I hope you enjoy the image. Happy Sliders Sunday!
[Handheld in daylight (grey cloud actually) trying to get eight images of a similar size of the tree from evenly spaced points of the compass.
The processing was a bit of an experiment. I’ll share the gory detail (including the things that didn’t work) in case it’s of use to someone. The danger with doing this is that it makes it look terribly complicated, which it isn’t really. Anyone with a camera and an editing program that supports layers with opacity and blend modes can easily have fun! Do try it.
The eight images were developed as a batch in Capture one using the same parameters. A simple edit to brighten the images and make them more colourful, but also sharpening them (normally I would leave that until last thing, but I wanted to get them all sharpened to the same degree). Processed into jpegs to save space.
Each image was placed in its own layer (just dragging in from a folder with all the jpegs). I set two guides for the centre of the treetrunk and for the top leaf. I used this to align them all. Thinking about it I should probably adjusted the size to keep them all the same height, but I forgot, and in any case they were close enough (and random variation is good) (that’s called rationalising your mistakes :) ).
(An aside: After discussing with Andrew and running a little experiment I worked out that to get each layer contributing the same amount using Normal blend mode throughout you need to give the lower layers higher opacities. Specifically, the first eight layers need (from the bottom) opacities of 100%, 50%, 33%, 25%, 20%,17%, 14%, 13% and generally 100%/n for the nth layer, thereafter.
So I did that. And it was a waste of time - very bland and grey. Incidentally, this would be equivalent to using algorithmic stacking with the mean function, except that I’d aligned everything manually.)
I then started changing the blend modes to something prettier, starting from the bottom (I’d placed a white layer underneath everything) and switching off the visibility of the higher layers. As I added each layer by switching on its visibility I tried various blend modes until I found one that added something, then set the opacity so that it looked balanced. Because some of the blend modes don’t change luminance in the overall image (perhaps just changing colour) some of the higher layers needed more opacity using this approach.
It was not science. Just messing about and having fun, trying to get a prettier result with each layer.
The first couple of runs through the stack resulted in one image contributing too much to the final compilation, so I didn’t end up with a random, spray-painted look I was aiming for. But eventually, by revising the opacities and modes I ended up with this, which I quite liked.
Once I was happy I cropped the result to get rid of the parts that were covered by only a few images.
I could have stopped there. It was publishable. But, being me, I then tweaked it to improve the overall look. This involved Curves in LAB mode enhancing the colours to something more autumnal, and also lightening the woods in the background, sharpening using Unsharp Mask, bumping the saturation a little and also the brightness and contrast.
Finally, I used the Lighting adjustment with two white spotlights top and bottom with wide cones. This added a pleasing (though not essential) variation to the lighting around the tree. I tried adding a bit of texture with the adjustment and that was a disaster :)
To finish a gentle soft light vignette, mainly to balance the luminosity in the corners after the effect of the Lighting spotlights.
For Sliders Sunday I usually put the image in a frame as here. The technique I use is staightforward: Merge Visible to get one layer; increase the canvas size by the same number of pixels in width and height, typically 100 pixels for this size of image; put a white fill layer underneath; use Layer Fx on the picture layer with a narrow black outline (1 pixel) and an outer shadow to suit.
And we were done, and it were fun :)
[Just for the record here were the blend modes and opacities I ended up using to give you an idea of the variety I ended up using. Kind of like a random walk :)
From the bottom:
White Fill layer Normal (100%), Normal (36%), Overlay (17%), Screen (56%), Color Burn (42%), Pin Light (73%), Multiply (54%), Screen (15%), Color Dodge (39%).
No rhyme or reason to them, just trying things out. Both Affinity Photo, and now Photoshop having caught up, offer previews of the blend mode looks by hovering over the drop-down lists in the layer menus, so I was looking at the effect rather than what I was doing :) ]
I hope this of help to someone! Thanks for listening :)]
Looking like a glittering cosmic geode, a trio of dazzling stars blaze from the hollowed-out cavity of a reflection nebula in this new image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The triple-star system is made up of the variable star HP Tau, HP Tau G2, and HP Tau G3. HP Tau is known as a T Tauri star, a type of young variable star that hasn’t begun nuclear fusion yet but is beginning to evolve into a hydrogen-fueled star similar to our Sun. T Tauri stars tend to be younger than 10 million years old - in comparison, our Sun is around 4.6 billion years old - and are often found still swaddled in the clouds of dust and gas from which they formed.
As with all variable stars, HP Tau’s brightness changes over time. T Tauri stars are known to have both periodic and random fluctuations in brightness. The random variations may be due to the chaotic nature of a developing young star, such as instabilities in the accretion disk of dust and gas around the star, material from that disk falling onto the star and being consumed, and flares on the star’s surface. The periodic changes may be due to giant sunspots rotating in and out of view.
Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Duchene (Universite de Grenoble I); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
#NASA #NASAGoddard #NASAMarshall #NASAGoddard #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #ESA #nebula #star
In an effort to show the unlimited complexities of snowflakes, here is a simple star design, a common type of snowflake that falls by the trillions every year, but with a unique twist – colour in the center with a pattern that cannot be replicated exactly, ever again. Every snowflake is unique! View Large! (press the "L" key to turn on Lightbox mode!)
Snowflakes are complex creations. Governed by a few simple set of physics “rules”, add in the number of molecules required (many quintillion) and pseudo-random variations in temperature, humidity, wind speed, etc. and you’ve got a recipe for unique structures every time. No two snowflakes are ever alike. Some might look similar on the surface, but details reveal another story… and I’m glad I can showcase the details within this series. :)
The colour, for example, is produced by multiple layers of air and ice that evoke the phenomenon known as “thin film interference”. For those that have read these descriptions before, I’ll stop myself from sounding like a broken record. For those curious what the heck “thin film interference”, check out these pages of Sky Crystals for a very good explanation: skycrystals.ca/pages/optical-interference-pages.jpg
The patterns of colour are determined by the thickness of ice and air, and as these two variables change, so too does the resulting colour. The inner part of this snowflake has a “shield”, a top plate layer which is part of a fully-grown “capped column” crystal that might be contributing to this effect… but it only echoes the same idea: these are incredibly small, but incredibly complex things. Measuring roughly 1.5mm in diameter, this snowflake and trillions like it go completely unnoticed every year, but the result is the same in each one: untold complexity that results in untold beauty.
Of course, photographing these snowflakes can be quite difficult. Earlier this evening I was fortunate enough to be featured on another episode of the Jpeg2Raw video podcast and while I featured a fair amount of my work, this snowflakes was used as an example for my editing workflow. I’ll post a link to that episode when it goes live. And you’ll see what is involved in producing this final image. About three and a half hours were dedicated to this crystal, even though (only!) 24 layers were used in the focus stacking part of the process. Plenty of effort is placed into each image, in order to create a scientifically accurate and photographically beautiful image. Rarely do those two things run hand-in-hand!
This entire series of images is based on my love for science, and my love for photography. Snowflakes are perfect subject to bridge that gap, but my personal enjoyment isn’t enough. I wanted to share the experience of discovery with everyone, so I wrote and published a book called Sky Crystals: www.skycrystals.ca/ which details all of the science (in an easy-to-understand way) with all of the photographic techniques in exhaustive detail. Check it out if you have a love of nature, physics and photography like myself. Or check it out if you simply enjoy these images. :)
The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities ("nature," i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences ("nurture," i.e. empiricism or behaviorism) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits.
"Nature versus nurture" in its modern sense was coined by the English Victorian polymath Francis Galton in discussion of the influence of heredity and environment on social advancement, although the terms had been contrasted previously, for example by Shakespeare (The Tempest). Galton was influenced by the book On the Origin of Species written by his cousin, Charles Darwin. The concept embodied in the phrase has been criticized for its binary simplification of two tightly interwoven parameters, as for example an environment of wealth, education and social privilege are often historically passed to genetic offspring.
The view that humans acquire all or almost all their behavioral traits from "nurture" is known as tabula rasa ("blank slate"). This question was once considered to be an appropriate division of developmental influences, but since both types of factors are known to play such interacting roles in development, many modern psychologists consider the question naive—representing an outdated state of knowledge. Psychologist Donald Hebb is said to have once answered a journalist's question of "which, nature or nurture, contributes more to personality?" by asking in response, "Which contributes more to the area of a rectangle, its length or its width?" That is, the idea that either nature or nurture explains a creature's behavior is a sort of single cause fallacy.
In the social and political sciences, the nature versus nurture debate may be contrasted with the structure versus agency debate (i.e. socialization versus individual autonomy). For a discussion of nature versus nurture in language and other human universals, see also psychological nativism.
Personality is a frequently cited example of a heritable trait that has been studied in twins and adoptions. Identical twins reared apart are far more similar in personality than randomly selected pairs of people. Likewise, identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins. Also, biological siblings are more similar in personality than adoptive siblings. Each observation suggests that personality is heritable to a certain extent. However, these same study designs allow for the examination of environment as well as genes. Adoption studies also directly measure the strength of shared family effects. Adopted siblings share only family environment. Unexpectedly, some adoption studies indicate that by adulthood the personalities of adopted siblings are no more similar than random pairs of strangers. This would mean that shared family effects on personality are zero by adulthood. As is the case with personality, non-shared environmental effects are often found to out-weigh shared environmental effects. That is, environmental effects that are typically thought to be life-shaping (such as family life) may have less of an impact than non-shared effects, which are harder to identify. One possible source of non-shared effects is the environment of pre-natal development. Random variations in the genetic program of development may be a substantial source of non-shared environment. These results suggest that "nurture" may not be the predominant factor in "environment."
The speckled wood (Pararge aegeria) is a butterfly found in and on the borders of woodland areas throughout much of the Palearctic realm. The species is subdivided into multiple subspecies, including Pararge aegeria aegeria, Pararge aegeria tircis, Pararge aegeria oblita, and Pararge aegeria insula. The color of this butterfly varies between subspecies. The existence of these subspecies is due to variation in morphology down a gradient corresponding to a geographic cline. The background of the wings ranges from brown to orange, and the spots are either pale yellow, white, cream, or a tawny orange. The speckled wood feeds on a variety of grass species. The males of this species exhibit two types of mate locating behaviors: territorial defense and patrolling. The proportion of males exhibiting these two strategies changes based on ecological conditions. The monandrous female must choose which type of male can help her reproduce successfully. Her decision is heavily influenced by environmental conditions.
Taxonomy
The speckled wood belongs to the genus Pararge, which comprises three species: Pararge aegeria, Pararge xiphia, and Pararge xiphioides. Pararge xiphia occurs on the Atlantic island of Madeira. Pararge xiphioides occurs on the Canary Islands. Molecular studies suggest that the African and Madeiran populations are closely related and distinct from European populations of both subspecies, suggesting that Madeira was colonized from Africa and that the African population has a long history of isolation from European populations. Furthermore, the species Pararge aegeria comprises four subspecies: Pararge aegeria aegeria, Pararge aegeria tircis, Pararge aegeria oblita, and Pararge aegeria insula. These subspecies stem from the fact that the speckled wood butterfly exhibits a cline across their range. This butterfly varies morphologically down the 700 km cline, resulting in the different subspecies corresponding to geographical areas.
Description
The average wingspan of both males and females is 5.1 cm (2 in), although males tend to be slightly smaller than females. Furthermore, males possess a row of grayish-brown scent scales on their forewings that is absent in the females. Females have brighter and more distinct markings than males. The subspecies P. a. tircis is brown with pale yellow or cream spots and darker upperwing eyespots. The subspecies P. a. aegeria has a more orange background and the hindwing underside eyespots are reddish brown rather than black or dark gray. The two forms gradually intergrade into each other. Subspecies P. a. oblita is a darker brown, often approaching black with white rather than cream spots. The underside of its hindwings has a marginal pale purple band and a row of conspicuous white spots. The spots of subspecies P. a. insula are a tawny orange rather than a cream color. The underside of the forewings has patches of pale orange, and the underside of the hindwing has a purple-tinged band. Although there is considerable variation with each subspecies, identification of the different subspecies is manageable.
The morphology of this butterfly varies as a gradient down its geographic cline from north to south. The northern butterflies in this species have a bigger size, adult body mass, and wing area. These measurements decrease as one moves in a southerly direction in the speckled wood's range. Forewing length on the other hand increases moving in a northerly direction. This is due to the fact that in the cooler temperatures of the northern part of this butterfly's range, the butterflies need larger forewings for thermoregulation. Finally, the northern butterflies are darker than their southern counterpart, and there is a coloration gradient, down their geographical cline.
Habitat and range
The speckled wood occupies a diversity of grassy, flowery habitats in forest, meadow steppe, woods, and glades. It can also be found in urban areas alongside hedges, in wooded urban parks, and occasionally in gardens. Within its range the speckled wood typically prefers damp areas. It is generally found in woodland areas throughout much of the Palearctic realm. P. a. tircis is found in northern and central Europe, Asia Minor, Syria, Russia, and central Asia, and the P. a. aegeria is found in southwestern Europe and North Africa. Two additional subspecies are found within the British Isles: the Scottish speckled wood (P. a. oblita) is restricted to Scotland and its surrounding isles, and the Isles of Scilly speckled wood (P. a. insula) is found only on the Isles of Scilly. P. a. tricis and P. a. aegeria gradually intergrade into each other.
Pupa
The eggs are laid on a variety of grass host plants. The caterpillar is green with a short, forked tail, and the chrysalis (pupa) is green or dark brown. The species is able to overwinter in two totally separated developmental stages, as pupae or as half-grown larvae. This leads to a complicated pattern of several adult flights per year.
Food sources
Larval food plants include a variety of grass species such as Agropyron (Lebanon), Brachypodium (Palaearctic), Brachypodium sylvaticum (British Isles), Bromus (Malta), Cynodon dactylon (Spain), Dactylis glomerata (British Isles, Europe), Elymus repens (Lebanon), Elytrigia repens (Spain), Holcus lanatus (British Isles), Hordeum (Malta), Melica nutans (Finland), Melica uniflora (Europe), Oryzopsis miliacea (Spain), Poa annua (Lebanon), Poa nemoralis (Czechia/Slovakia), Poa trivialis (Czechia/Slovakia), but the preferred species of grass is the couch grass (Elytrigia repens). The adult is nectar feeding.
Growth and development
The growth and development of the speckled wood butterfly is dependent on the larval density and the sex of the individual. High larval densities result in decreased survivorship as well as a longer development and smaller adults. However, females are much more adversely affected by this phenomenon. They depend on their larval food stores during oviposition, so a high larval density in the larva stage can result in lower fecundity for females in the adult stage. Males can compensate for their smaller size by feeding as adults or switching mate-locating tactics, so they are less affected by high larval densities. A high growth rate can also negatively affect larval survivorship. Those with high growth rates will also have high weight-loss rates if food becomes scarce. They are less likely to survive if food becomes available once again.
Mating behavior
In the speckled wood butterfly females are monandrous; they typically only mate once within their lifetime. On the other hand, males are polygynous and typically mate multiple times.[10] In order to locate females, males employ one of two strategies: territorial defense and patrolling.
During territorial defense, the male defends a sunny spot in the forest, waiting for females to stop by. Another strategy is patrolling, during which males fly through the forest actively searching for females. Then, the female must make a choice between mating with a patrolling male or a territorial male. By mating with a territorial male, a female can be sure that she has chosen a high quality male, as the ability to defend a territory reflects the genetic quality of a male. Therefore, by choosing a territorial male, the female is being more picky about which male she chooses to mate with.
The choice is most likely dependent on the search costs associated with finding a mate. When actively searching for a male, a female must spend her precious time and energy, which results in search costs, especially when she has a limited life span. As search costs increase, female choosiness for a mate decreases. For example, if a female's life span is shorter, she has a higher cost associated with searching for the ideal mate. Therefore, she is likely to mate within a day of her emergence as an adult, and will most likely mate with a patrolling male, as they are easier to find. However, if a female lifespan is longer, then the search costs associated with finding a mate are lower. The female is then more likely to actively search for a territorial male. Since the search costs vary depending on environmental conditions, strategies vary from population to population.
Males employing different strategies, territorial defense or patrolling, can be differentiated by the number of spots on their hindwings. Those with three spots are more likely to be patrolling males, while those with four spots are more likely to be defending males. The frequency of the two phenotypes depends on the location and time of year. For example, there are more territorial males in areas where there are many sunny spots. Furthermore, the development of wingspots is influenced by environmental conditions. Therefore, the strategy employed by males is heavily dependent on environmental conditions.
Territorial defense involves a male flying or perching in a spot of sunlight that pierces through the forest canopy. The speckled wood butterfly spends the night high up in the trees, and territorial activity commences once sunlight passes through the canopy. The males often remain in the same sunspot until the evening, following the sunspot as it moves across the forest floor. The males often perch on vegetation near the forest floor. If a female flies into the territory, the resident male flies after her, the pair drop to the ground, and copulation follows. If another species flies through the sunspot, the resident male ignores the intruder.
However, if a conspecific, a male of the same species, enters the sunspot, the resident male flies towards the intruder almost bumping into him, and the pair fly upwards. The winner flies back towards the forest floor within the sunspot, while the defeated male flies away from the territory. The pattern of flight during this encounter depends on the vegetation. In an open understory, the pair fly straight upwards. In a dense understory, this flight pattern is not possible, so the pair spiral upwards.
In most of these interactions, the conflict is relatively short, and the resident male wins. The intruder most likely backs down as a serious confrontation could be costly, and there is an abundance of equally desirable sunspots. However, if both males believe they are the "resident" male, the conflict escalates. If a previous owner of the sunspot tries to reclaim his territory after he has left for mating, a longer and more costly fight ensues. In these serious fights, the winner of the contest is not predictable.
The abundance of territorial behavior depends on the environmental conditions. At the beginning of the mating season, fights over ownership of a sunspot territory are lengthy. The duration of the conflict quickly decreases during a period of two weeks. This pattern is correlated with the progression of the season, as temperature and male density rise. Sunspots are more attractive when temperatures are low, as they provide the warmth needed for higher levels of activity. As male density increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to hold onto a territory, so territoriality decreases and more males exhibit patrolling behavior.
Asymmetry and territoriality
In butterflies, asymmetrical wings are observed in three different ways: fluctuating (small, random variations from the standard bilateral symmetry), directional (variations that are biased towards a particular side so one wing is larger than the other), and antisymmetry (similar to directional but half of the individuals of the species find that a particular wing, such as their left, is larger, and the other half of the individuals find that their right is larger.
Both genders of the speckled wood butterfly exhibit asymmetrical wings; however, only males show directional asymmetry (likely to be caused by genetic factors).[12] Also, females show more asymmetry in general compared to males. Within male speckled wood butterflies, the melanic form shows greater directional asymmetry and grows more slowly than the pale, territorial males. Furthermore, males that are most successful in territorial disputes are only slightly asymmetrical, as opposed to complete symmetry or asymmetry; this indicates that sexual selection affects asymmetry.
Reproduction and offspring
A female's fecundity is dependent on body mass, as females deprived from sucrose during their oviposition period have reduced fecundity. Therefore, heavier females will produce a larger number of eggs. In addition to body mass, the number of eggs laid by a female may also be related to the time spent searching for an oviposition site. The number of eggs laid is inversely proportional to egg size. However, egg size was not found to have any influence on egg or larval survival, larval development time, or pupal weight under experimental conditions. One explanation may be that there is a tradeoff between the number of eggs laid and the time spent searching for the optimal oviposition site. A female would produce more eggs in an optimal environment, so she can produce more offspring and increase her reproductive fitness.
Paternal investment
During copulation in butterfly species, the male deposits a spermatophore in the female consisting of sperm and a secretion high in proteins and lipids. The female uses the nutrients in the spermatophore in egg production. In a polyandrous mating system, where sperm competition is present, it is beneficial for males to deposit a large spermatophore in order to fertilize the largest amount of eggs possible and possibly prevent the female from mating again.
Since most females in the speckled wood butterfly behave monandrously, there is decreased sperm competition, and the male's spermatophore is much smaller relative to other species. The speckled wood male's spermatophore size increases as body mass of the male increases. The spermatophore in the second copulation is significantly smaller, so copulation with a virgin male results in a higher number of larval offspring. Therefore, there is a cost to females associated with mating with a non-virgin male.
Similar species
Pararge xiphia (Fabricius, 1775) the Madeiran speckled wood butterfly
Pararge xiphioides Staudinger, 1871 the Canary speckled wood
Pile it together, and it might not look like much: nine planets, around 130 satellites and a few hundred thousand larger asteroids, Kuiper belt objects and assorted debris. Most of it is dense hydrogen and helium mixtures or cold reddish-grey ice-regolith mixtures. Just about 4e27 kg or something like it.
But each little world has its own history and unique style. From the blue methane storms of Neptune to the shepherd moons dancing around each other in the rings of Saturn to the sulphuric acid rains of Venus, each world is different.
But imagine going back three billion years and changing the state of a single hydrogen atom in the sun. That change would propagate outward, producing slightly different radiation patterns. Most worlds would not change at all: the orbits are set by far greater forces than random variations in radiation pressure. Maybe a few comets would change course slightly, producing somewhat different cratering on some worlds. The weather of most planets with weather would be different by now as they amplify the change, but the general climate would be identical.
Everywhere but on the Earth.
On the Earth changes in solar radiation would lead to a different evolutionary pathway. A single UV quantum can determine the rise of an entire phylum as it causes the right mutation at the right time - or leaves the organism with a deleterious mutation that will doom its descendants. Evolution cannot be replayed, it is always live. And as life grew to encompass the Earth it changed all its systems: atmosphere, lithosphere, aquasphere and biosphere. Maybe the continents would look slightly similar today even after the quantum change, but I doubt it. Life has meddled with continental drift too - not necessarily out of any Gaian purpose, but just because it is so fond of making sediments that oil plate subduction. When intelligent life arose on Earth the rate of change grew. Now a single quantum can lead to the idea that shatters the atom, builds a self-replicating machine or approves a terraforming project.
What makes life so valuable is that it is contingent. It will never repeat itself; it is individually unique in a way asteroids can never be. An asteroid can never become much else (except a crater, a smudge in Jupiter's or the sun's atmosphere or perhaps some smaller shards), a bacterium can become anything in a biosphere given enough time.
Some have proclaimed the unchanged grandeur of the solar system to have a value in itself, something that must never be changed by human action into something else. But that is the grandeur of a dusty art museum, where the pieces eternally revolve with nobody to see them. Life means change, diversity and the unexpected. We should not terraform worlds to live on: it is too hard and expensive, better build orbiting paradises instead. But we should help life spread everywhere it can: solar-powered Von Neumann device ecologies on Mercury. A terraformed Venus shaded by a L1 solar shade and given light from rotating mirrors. The moon covered with worldhouses, each with its own artificial ecology. Modified eagles soaring through the terraformed skies in Valles Marineris. A stellified Jupiter warms its moons. Ethane based artificial biochemistry on Titan. Cold temperature nanomachines evolving their own strange adaptations on the outer moons and Kuiper belt objects, sometimes sailing on gossamer wings towards ever more remote sources of matter.
Lady Life is not a good planner, but she is a great opportunist. When she sees a niche she takes it. Her grandchildren try to help the old lady but she refuses to see it as help: to her mind, their ingenuity is hers in extension. The grandchildren nod and smile, not wanting to spoil the family reunion. Besides, her smile when she beheld her latest great-grandchild (a metallic hydrogen structure colonising the interior of Saturn) was a wonder to behold.
Still, some are not content and want to go further. The snail has stocked up with antimatter, nanotechnology, gene banks and the sum of human culture inside its radiation-proof shell and is escaping the pull from the solar system. The next one is beyond the horizon, but so far so good.
The beauty of the natural and changed world. Bountiful nature.
Details:
I used a square root scale for sizes here: the diameter of objects is proportional to the square root of the real diameter. This way one can almost see Phobos at the same time as Jupiter does not overshadow everything and the size difference between Jupiter and Saturn is still visible unlike how it would be in a logarithmic scale. The circle beneath the planets corresponds to the sun.
Looking like a glittering cosmic geode, a trio of dazzling stars blaze from the hollowed-out cavity of a reflection nebula in this new image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The triple-star system is made up of the variable star HP Tau, HP Tau G2, and HP Tau G3. HP Tau is known as a T Tauri star, a type of young variable star that hasn’t begun nuclear fusion yet but is beginning to evolve into a hydrogen-fueled star similar to our Sun. T Tauri stars tend to be younger than 10 million years old ― in comparison, our Sun is around 4.6 billion years old ― and are often found still swaddled in the clouds of dust and gas from which they formed.
As with all variable stars, HP Tau’s brightness changes over time. T Tauri stars are known to have both periodic and random fluctuations in brightness. The random variations may be due to the chaotic nature of a developing young star, such as instabilities in the accretion disk of dust and gas around the star, material from that disk falling onto the star and being consumed, and flares on the star’s surface. The periodic changes may be due to giant sunspots rotating in and out of view.
Curving around the stars, a cloud of gas and dust shines with their reflected light. Reflection nebulae do not emit visible light of their own, but shine as the light from nearby stars bounces off the gas and dust, like fog illuminated by the glow of a car’s headlights.
HP Tau is located approximately 550 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. Hubble studied HP Tau as part of an investigation into protoplanetary disks, the disks of material around stars that coalesce into planets over millions of years.
For more information: science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-views-the-dawn-of...
Image credit: NASA, ESA, G. Duchene (Universite de Grenoble I); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
my bark is not worse than my bite
The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities ("nature," i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences ("nurture," i.e. empiricism or behaviorism) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits.
"Nature versus nurture" in its modern sense was coined by the English Victorian polymath Francis Galton in discussion of the influence of heredity and environment on social advancement, although the terms had been contrasted previously, for example by Shakespeare (The Tempest). Galton was influenced by the book On the Origin of Species written by his cousin, Charles Darwin. The concept embodied in the phrase has been criticized for its binary simplification of two tightly interwoven parameters, as for example an environment of wealth, education and social privilege are often historically passed to genetic offspring.
The view that humans acquire all or almost all their behavioral traits from "nurture" is known as tabula rasa ("blank slate"). This question was once considered to be an appropriate division of developmental influences, but since both types of factors are known to play such interacting roles in development, many modern psychologists consider the question naive—representing an outdated state of knowledge. Psychologist Donald Hebb is said to have once answered a journalist's question of "which, nature or nurture, contributes more to personality?" by asking in response, "Which contributes more to the area of a rectangle, its length or its width?" That is, the idea that either nature or nurture explains a creature's behavior is a sort of single cause fallacy.
In the social and political sciences, the nature versus nurture debate may be contrasted with the structure versus agency debate (i.e. socialization versus individual autonomy). For a discussion of nature versus nurture in language and other human universals, see also psychological nativism.
Personality is a frequently cited example of a heritable trait that has been studied in twins and adoptions. Identical twins reared apart are far more similar in personality than randomly selected pairs of people. Likewise, identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins. Also, biological siblings are more similar in personality than adoptive siblings. Each observation suggests that personality is heritable to a certain extent. However, these same study designs allow for the examination of environment as well as genes. Adoption studies also directly measure the strength of shared family effects. Adopted siblings share only family environment. Unexpectedly, some adoption studies indicate that by adulthood the personalities of adopted siblings are no more similar than random pairs of strangers. This would mean that shared family effects on personality are zero by adulthood. As is the case with personality, non-shared environmental effects are often found to out-weigh shared environmental effects. That is, environmental effects that are typically thought to be life-shaping (such as family life) may have less of an impact than non-shared effects, which are harder to identify. One possible source of non-shared effects is the environment of pre-natal development. Random variations in the genetic program of development may be a substantial source of non-shared environment. These results suggest that "nurture" may not be the predominant factor in "environment."
Whoops! Forgot something! Golden Yarrow, Eriophyllum confertiflorum, with only discoid flowers and no rays. Maybe we should call this var "Lemonheads." Apparently this was previously recognized as Eriophyllum confertiflorum var. discoideum, but is now just considered a random variation.
BOX DATE: 2000
MANUFACTURER: Mattel
RELEASES: 2000 standard; 2000 "KB Toys"
MISSING ITEMS: Bear, shoes
IMPORTANT NOTES: As mentioned above, KB Toys released their own simplified version of Love 'N Care Kelly. She does not have the dress, shoes, books, crayons, or teddy bear; her nightgown is also simpler with no bow and ruffles. There are random variations of Kelly that have pink cups/bowls.
PERSONAL FUN FACT: Many of these pieces are borrowed from my "KB Toys" doll I had growing up. I actually owned two Love 'N Care Kelly dolls back then--one who was brand new from KB Toys, and the other who was a flea market rescue. Even back then, I had duplicated pieces. I've acquired even more Love 'N Care accessories over the years in various lots. It's awesome that the original Love 'N Care set came with an extra outfit!!! I sadly still don't have the shoes or bear, despite how many pieces I've found in the wild. The two books and crayon box were still in a plastic baggie, when I found them at the flea market. It took me years to figure out what doll the went to. Luckily, the books have 2000 copyright dates on them, which aided in my identification. I actually prefer the simplified nightie sold on my KB Toys lady...it looks cozier. Since this version came with so many more things, and the nightgown was fancier, I chose to split up my KB Toys doll from the other two for my Flickr guide.
This beautiful Hubble image captures the core and some of the spiral arms of the galaxy Caldwell 36. Also known as NGC 4559, this spiral galaxy is located roughly 30 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices.
With an apparent magnitude of 10, Caldwell 36 can be spotted with a medium-sized telescope. The galaxy is relatively easy to locate in the night sky because of its proximity to the Coma Star Cluster (Melotte 111), a group of gravitationally bound stars with an apparent magnitude of 1.8. Caldwell 36 was discovered by William Herschel in 1785 and is easiest to spot from the Northern Hemisphere in the spring. Southern Hemisphere observers should look for it in the north during the autumn months.
Hubble captured this image of Caldwell 36 in visible and infrared wavelengths using its Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). Astronomers made these observations to help identify the precise locations of supernova explosions in the galaxy. Supernovae were observed in Caldwell 36 in 1941 and 2019.
In 2016, astronomers also observed a supernova-like outburst from a luminous blue variable (LBV) star in Caldwell 36. LBVs are massive, supergiant stars that show random variations in their brightness and spectra. These stars seem to be extremely rare; there are currently only around 20 stars with this classification in the General Catalogue of Variable Stars (and some of those are disputed). They are some of the most luminous stars in existence, often experiencing dramatic outbursts and occasionally undergoing violent eruptions. During “giant outbursts” these stars brighten significantly and lose mass, causing these eruptions to sometimes be mistaken for supernova explosions. Like other massive stars, LBVs have short lives. They evolve quickly and shine for only a few million years.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and S. Smartt (The Queen's University of Belfast); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
APPROXIMATE RELEASE DATE: 2005-2022
HEAD MOLD: "Classic"
***My doll is wearing the Truly Me Outfit with Truly Me Accessories.
PERSONAL FUN FACT: I was always a character doll kind of girl, ever since I was little. Whether it was a Disney character, or a Barbie one with a special name and interests, like the Generation Girls, I was far more inclined towards them than the generic sorts. This also applied to American Girls--while there were Girl of Today dolls out in catalogues when I was first allowed to pick an AG out, I never considered getting one. I was far more interested in the gals with books and specialized collections. Of course, being the doll fanatic/addict that I am, I dabbled eventually in the modern Girl of Today line too. But the dolls did not have the same appeal or “magic” as their historical counterparts. When the Girl of the Year line launched in the early 2000s, the need for any sort of standard Girl of Today doll was null and void. Why go for basic when you could have the wonderful combination of a contemporary character?!!! Colleen and I had three Girl of Today dolls between us as kids. But neither Angela, Valerie, or Amber saw nearly as much play as the likes of Addy, Josefina, Molly, Samantha, or any of our historical friends. Although we did eyeball the Girl of Today fashions in catalogue spreads, it wasn’t until I got Marisol Luna for Christmas 2005 that I actually bought any (besides a lone halloween costume I got for Samantha). By the time I began collecting dolls again in 2011, I was very self assured of my taste in American Girls. I had learned that I was better off investing my money in the historical American Girls and their clothes, rather than testing out any more modern Girl of Today dolls. There was especially no need to even consider the Girl of Todays when I started becoming more interested in Girl of the Years later on. However, the selection in 2011 was admittedly much more interesting than it had been years before. I was overwhelmed with how many choices were available--not all the dolls sported the same long, blunt haircut with a full fringe. Instead you could get them in a wide variety of hair styles, and even eyebrows/head molds! Even so, I still couldn’t imagine myself wanting one of these dolls badly enough to actually hand pick one.
In those early days, I spent quite a bit of time cruising the internet admiring other people’s collections. I actually had started doing this sometime in 2010, right around when I first got “The Ultimate Barbie Book.” There was a part of me that was very keen on the idea of getting back into dolls, but I just didn’t know how to. Eventually worked up the nerve to flat out ask my dad if I could buy a Satiny Shimmer Mulan and the rest is history. Despite this newly opened door, I still felt a bit odd buying dolls. It had been so long since Colleen and I had gotten anything brand new from American Girl, that the whole franchise seemed foreign to us. I often found myself during this time ogling American Girl collection and opening videos on Youtube. It was a fun way to submerge myself in this modern world of American Girls. Although I had not actively been buying dolls when Julie Albright debuted, we were still getting catalogues. I had secretly always been a bit intrigued by her, even as a “too cool for dolls” teen. I stumbled on quite a few videos on the internet featuring Julie and things from her collection, which made we want her even more. That’s how I accidentally fell in love with #25….she was featured in a random video of a girl opening up Julie. I had no idea what this dolls number was, but her dark hair and feathered eyebrows were stunning. Since I was so new to the world of American Girls, I thought of this doll as the name she was given….Claire. She must have been especially popular back then, because I often saw other “Claire” dolls pop up in other people’s videos. It didn’t take long before I could pick Claire out of a lineup. I had many daydreams of getting my very own “Claire,” but having been so underwhelmed by our own Girl of Today dolls growing up, it seemed like nothing more than a passing fancy.
In the years since initially being introduced to Claire, Mattel released an even wider array of modern American Girls. Heck, by 2018 you could create your own customized American Girl, with whatever hair color, head mold, eyes, etc you wanted! Claire in comparison was now just as “bland” and “basic” as the dolls I grew up with. Yet this never deterred me from fancying her. Although there were some newly introduced Truly Me dolls that were very intriguing, none had a lasting impact. I would still rather have any Girl of the Year, no matter how mundane. At some point, when Colleen and I were looking through a catalogue circa 2017, I recall having a conversation about all the pretty new modern dolls. We were talking about our favorites, when I finally revealed my secret pining for Claire. The second I pointed her out on one of the pages to Colleen, she could see why I was so taken with her. Perhaps we grew up in such a simple time for American Girls that we could still somehow appreciate such a basic design. Or maybe Colleen could just sense that this dark haired doll was just such a “Shelly pick,” that she liked her too. Either way, from then on out we both always ogled #25. I even learned what her official number was around this time. Ironically since circa 2010 or 2011, I had always thought of her simply as “Claire,” without having any idea of how one could distinguish her officially. Colleen eventually could spot #25 in a lineup, although not quite as quickly as me. Eventually, I revealed to her the backstory of what made me fall in love with #25, and how I always thought of her as Claire. We both found it amusing that I had been secretly admiring Julie dolls years before, and yet somehow got distracted by the mysterious dark haired “Claire” doll who was simply a bystander in the video (it was just such a Shelly thing to do).
There was always that part of me that knew I wanted my very own #25. Funnily enough, I really hoped that I had gotten lucky the day I found my Maya at the local flea market. She was still in a My American Girl box, but the lid was incorrect. Either way, back in 2016, I didn’t know that Claire was #25. So had Maya’s box been appropriately labeled as #41, it’s not like I would have known what it meant. $50 was a great deal for a brand new, unplayed with American Girl...but it was a lot of money for Colleen and me to spend on a modern doll (when we were so invested in historicals/Girl of the Years). But what prompted me to get Maya was actually my secret desire that she was Claire. Maya’s hair was in a wig cap still, so I couldn’t make out what the style was. But it was dark and parted in the same way as Claire’s. Plus she had the same soft, feathered eyebrows I had grown to know and love. The one thing that made her different were her shocking green eyes. I was almost 100% certain that Claire had brown eyes, but I thought that Maya was pretty much the same doll as Claire, just with a different eye color. When I got home, I was horrified to realize that #41 was the one My American Girl doll I HATED. That short curly hair combined with the “classic” head mold reminded me of Ruthie (who in turn was reminiscent of a girl I went to school with who made my life hell). Needless to say, this disgust was compounded by the disappointment that Maya was not Claire after all. No worries, in the end, I learned to love Maya with all my heart...and I actually much prefer her over my three childhood Girl of Today dolls! Plus it is funny that her picture ended up on my vegetarian cookbook before I owned her, but I digress.
Colleen did not know it until some years later why I was so eager to buy Maya. But when I finally admitted the truth, it all made sense to her. Plus when you compare pictures of the dolls side by side, they do bare a shocking resemblance to one another. Maya never did fulfill the void in my heart and collection that was left by Miss Claire. No matter how many awesome historical characters or Girl of the Year dolls I acquired, none could fully distract me from that longing for #25. But there were other more pressing matters that always took precedent. Whether it was my several year lusting for Cecile Rey, or my semi impulsive purchase of yet another Samantha doll, I always seemed to be on the quest for someone “more important” than Claire. I think the main reason for this was my fear that I just wouldn’t be as enchanted by her in real life...that I would have wished I spent the money on a more desirable character doll, as I had when I was younger. So I figured I would leave it up to fate to decide whether or not #25 was in my deck of cards. It turns out that is sort of what happened, although it was a tad bit more complicated than that.
2019 was definitely a year of American Girls for Colleen and me. We tracked down the perfect Cecile Rey doll FINALLY, after much planning and plotting. I also randomly decided to pick myself out Melody Ellison for an early birthday present too. She had been a doll I loved the idea of, but it took me a while to warm up to the actual “in the flesh” version. But what really set the ball in motion in Claire’s direction was Miss McKenna Brooks. On one of the later weeks of the flea market season, we happened upon Kenna at a booth for just $20. McKenna was not wearing the appropriate attire, which simply would not do. Although I was in no rush to splurge on her gymnastics attire, which wasn’t all that appealing to me, I did want my doll to have her original ensemble. I was fairly confident I could easily acquire a complete “meet” ensemble for a good deal. But eBay did not turn up the most ideal results that Sunday when I was perusing for Kenna’s attire. Feeling a little frustrated and impatient, I opted to check an alternative website I had not yet tried out. I had heard things about Mercari since it first appeared, but did not have the courage to test it out. Since it had now been up for a while, and all the sellers would have a history of feedback I could investigate, I decided to at least look for McKenna’s outfit. Things went so smoothly in regards to our transaction, that Colleen and I were more than willing to use Mercari again. It was less than a week after acquiring McKenna when Colleen and I were having one of our usual conversations about dolls. That day we were discussing a future American Girl collection video, and how we wanted to wait for Colleen’s dream Rebecca doll before filming it. As were were both confidently stating that she was the only doll “on the wish list” still, Claire popped up into my thoughts. I casually said, “Well, we have everyone we really wanted except for Claire.” My semi joke must have resonated with Colleen, because later that night she was on eBay and Merari cruising for Claire listings.
I was in the living room one evening, lounging on the couch when Colleen yelled to me from the other room. She exclaimed with reserved excitement, “Shelly, you have to come in and see this.” I had no idea what Colleen was yammering on about, but I was sort of annoyed because I figured she was just going to show me a joke in an email or something. But when I walked into the office/doll room, I noticed Mercari on the computer screen. I jokingly asked if she was shopping, when Colleen gestured towards the screen. There she was, in all her glory...Claire! Colleen had found a brand spanking new #25 on Mercari, in the newest Truly Me getup. I had told Colleen some hours before that I had no preference on which “meet” outfit I got for a future Claire doll, only that it was different than the one Maya came in (why have more of the same when Claire was available in so many different ensembles?). But not only that, Claire checked off several other boxes. She was one of the “dreaded” dolls with the “x” on her bum, and she also had perma-panties. This may sound odd, but as an extreme doll hobbyist, I always feel very intrigued about random variations, changes, and defects in dolls. Both Colleen and I always felt a sense of disappointment whenever we got a secondhand AG doll online or in “the wild” who didn’t have the “x” on her bum. All it really meant was that a doll had been returned or was a store display model at one point. But it also signified that you couldn’t return the doll to the store, since they were already discarded before. As for the perma-panties, I thought the idea was terrible as a person who loves buying undies for her dolls. But at the same time, I was curious about what the attached underwear would look like. As we studied the listing, looking for what was “wrong” with this doll that would warrant such a cheap price, I noticed that the seller described #25 as having uneven eyebrows. It then became apparent why Claire had been returned...whoever first ordered her was upset with her wonky eyebrows, and wanted a more symmetrical doll (which is fair, considering the price point of the dolls). I told Colleen that while the deal was great, we did not “need” Claire right now, and that I would feel bad getting another doll for myself when she had wanted Rebecca for so long. But for the next two days, Colleen relentlessly brought it up. Anytime I tried to change the topic, Colleen would give me puppy dog eyes, like she was begging for food. When that didn’t work, she would try to appeal to my rational side, who loves a good bargain. I finally cracked under the pressure...I let Colleen order the “defective” #25 on Mercari for $77 (that included shipping).
Perhaps to some our choice might sound rash. Why wait over eight years to get a doll only to settle on the “ugly, wonky” one? It’s not like Claire was some kind of difficult to track down doll. No, she was produced for many years and was not hard to find online in any “meet” outfit for a decent price. But the quirks the doll from the Mercari listing had were ultimately what sold her to us. I guess I have always taken pity on the plastic friends who are rejected and otherwise would not be wanted. Since I’m not all that picky of a person, I always figure I’m doing a doll a favor by adopting one who has some setbacks in life. Plus, I loved that Claire had a story to tell. We knew she was most likely ordered, rejected, returned, and then sold at the benefit sale. She was then bought by a Mercari seller to be marked up to a higher price, and then we found her. Colleen thought it was only acceptable to call our #25 Claire...after all, for nearly eight years that is what I had known her as. Even after figuring out what her special number was, both Colleen and I still referred to #25 as Claire all the time. Although the person who originally inspired me to buy Claire only had three or four videos on their channel, and I simply happened upon the one with Julie by mistake, it left a lasting impact on me. In many ways, Claire fits with my notion that it’s always more fun when fate decides your doll collection. It was a random coincidence that I found the video with Claire in the first place, and although she popped up in other places online, it was that one specific doll, named Claire, who grabbed my attention. If you had given me all the options in the world to choose from, I probably would not have chosen #25 back then, were it not for that one video. Not to mention, the doll I finally ended up buying really chose me! I wouldn’t trade my quirky Claire with the wonky eyebrows, unflattering perma-panties, and the little x on her bum for the world. She is my Claire, and I think she is perfect just the way she is!
Looking like a glittering cosmic geode, a trio of dazzling stars blaze from the hollowed-out cavity of a reflection nebula in this new image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The triple-star system is made up of the variable star HP Tau, HP Tau G2, and HP Tau G3. HP Tau is known as a T Tauri star, a type of young variable star that hasn’t begun nuclear fusion yet but is beginning to evolve into a hydrogen-fueled star similar to our Sun. T Tauri stars tend to be younger than 10 million years old ― in comparison, our Sun is around 4.6 billion years old ― and are often found still swaddled in the clouds of dust and gas from which they formed.
As with all variable stars, HP Tau’s brightness changes over time. T Tauri stars are known to have both periodic and random fluctuations in brightness. The random variations may be due to the chaotic nature of a developing young star, such as instabilities in the accretion disk of dust and gas around the star, material from that disk falling onto the star and being consumed, and flares on the star’s surface. The periodic changes may be due to giant sunspots rotating in and out of view. Curving around the stars, a cloud of gas and dust shines with their reflected light.
Reflection nebulae do not emit visible light of their own, but shine as the light from nearby stars bounces off the gas and dust, like fog illuminated by the glow of a car’s headlights. HP Tau is located approximately 550 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. Hubble studied HP Tau as part of an investigation into protoplanetary disks, the disks of material around stars that coalesce into planets over millions of years.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Duchene (Universite de Grenoble I); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
For more information: science.nasa.gov/image-detail/hubble-hptau-wfc3-1-flat-fi...
The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities ("nature," i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences ("nurture," i.e. empiricism or behaviorism) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits.
"Nature versus nurture" in its modern sense was coined by the English Victorian polymath Francis Galton in discussion of the influence of heredity and environment on social advancement, although the terms had been contrasted previously, for example by Shakespeare (The Tempest). Galton was influenced by the book On the Origin of Species written by his cousin, Charles Darwin. The concept embodied in the phrase has been criticized for its binary simplification of two tightly interwoven parameters, as for example an environment of wealth, education and social privilege are often historically passed to genetic offspring.
The view that humans acquire all or almost all their behavioral traits from "nurture" is known as tabula rasa ("blank slate"). This question was once considered to be an appropriate division of developmental influences, but since both types of factors are known to play such interacting roles in development, many modern psychologists consider the question naive—representing an outdated state of knowledge. Psychologist Donald Hebb is said to have once answered a journalist's question of "which, nature or nurture, contributes more to personality?" by asking in response, "Which contributes more to the area of a rectangle, its length or its width?" That is, the idea that either nature or nurture explains a creature's behavior is a sort of single cause fallacy.
In the social and political sciences, the nature versus nurture debate may be contrasted with the structure versus agency debate (i.e. socialization versus individual autonomy). For a discussion of nature versus nurture in language and other human universals, see also psychological nativism.
Personality is a frequently cited example of a heritable trait that has been studied in twins and adoptions. Identical twins reared apart are far more similar in personality than randomly selected pairs of people. Likewise, identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins. Also, biological siblings are more similar in personality than adoptive siblings. Each observation suggests that personality is heritable to a certain extent. However, these same study designs allow for the examination of environment as well as genes. Adoption studies also directly measure the strength of shared family effects. Adopted siblings share only family environment. Unexpectedly, some adoption studies indicate that by adulthood the personalities of adopted siblings are no more similar than random pairs of strangers. This would mean that shared family effects on personality are zero by adulthood. As is the case with personality, non-shared environmental effects are often found to out-weigh shared environmental effects. That is, environmental effects that are typically thought to be life-shaping (such as family life) may have less of an impact than non-shared effects, which are harder to identify. One possible source of non-shared effects is the environment of pre-natal development. Random variations in the genetic program of development may be a substantial source of non-shared environment. These results suggest that "nurture" may not be the predominant factor in "environment."
BOX DATE: 2000
MANUFACTURER: Mattel
RELEASES: 2000 standard; 2000 "KB Toys"
IMPORTANT NOTES: As mentioned above, KB Toys released their own simplified version of Love 'N Care Kelly. She does not have the dress, shoes, books, crayons, or teddy bear; her nightgown is also simpler with no bow and ruffles. There are random variations of Kelly that have pink cups/bowls.
PERSONAL FUN FACT: All of the things shown here, except the were purchased brand new. I got Jamie, Love 'n Care Kelly, at KB Toys when I was eleven years old. She was the simplified version that did not come with a spare dress or any shoes. I did not know it at the time though--I was surprised to see "fancier" variations of this set online when I was an adult. Anyways, I think my initial attraction to Jamie was all this stuff. I mean how could you not want a little bed for a Kelly doll?!!! At the time, I think I only really had cribs to use for my Kelly dolls. And while some of my Kelly dolls I chose to make young enough to need cribs, oftentimes, the others were four or five years old...too old to still be sleeping in one. But even though there was the awesome bed, which featured real bedding, I was most interested in Jamie's food stuff. Yes, I am a self proclaimed doll food/dishware junky. I LOVED the idea of chicken soup for my dolls. And more than anything else, I played with the cup, straw, and bowl of soup. I think I made my dolls sick many times just to use these things. And if I'm not mistaken, I even used them for regular Barbie dolls when they were "sick..." which meant Colleen's Becky doll probably used these items all the time. I ended up with duplicated pieces early on. I found them in a large container of dolls at the local flea market maybe a year or so after buying Jamie. I made sure to find all the pieces I could when filling up a $5 baggie of goodies. Therefore I ended up with two of just about everything. The second dress and the shoes came with my "fancier" Love 'n Care Kelly, who was part of the "Bratz Shoe bin" of 2012.
This is just a little something I picked up on Ebay. I like the fact that the photographer (a professional, no doubt. There was another one that I didn't buy in this same format) stood at an angle to the front of the building, rather than taking the shot head-on, and I like the way Bob has decorated his building, with tires kind of thrown up at random. I think we overlook a lot of pleasure we could derive from the random variations in our daily drudgery. Each day the tires stack up a little differently, each day the dishes in the dry-rack stack differently, and of course there are usually different dishes on succeeding days.
Of course, that's gotta be Bob standing in the doorway, and that's nice too. I try to find reasons NOT to buy photographs, since I pretty much want everything. Even though sometimes an occupational photograph pretty much explains the nature of the workspace and the working men and women, I'll pass if the photograph doesn't have what I call "narrative" appeal. This photo has a lot of "visual" appeal, and a little "narrative" appeal. Some, but not a lot, but the visual is strong enough that it's a photo I want. It's a not a classic photo, but it's pretty darn good as a "Tire Shop" photo.
This photo is of a poorly drawn sketch of a human skull, clearly done by someone with no artistic talent whatsoever. Admiring the human skull and sketching it out is a process that for many people would lead to many internal questions. For years humans have searched for some type of designer, who constructed their race and the natural world around them. Alex Rosenberg, in his article “Why I am a Naturalist,” has an explanation for these types of people. Rosenberg of course believes in the theory or mindset of Naturalistic Philosophy, the idea that everything in the natural world came from the natural world itself. He claims that in our quest for finding this type of creator or designer we are being “fooled.” He claims that Darwin’s evolutionary processes of random variation and natural selection have shaped the world around us, rather than some designer. The context under which I came across the skull I have sketched would seem to support his idea. The various other types of skulls around the room that day, and the differences between them, some more pronounced than others, suggests he has a point. These skulls suggest that the journey to the true Human, Homo sapien skull was done by millions of years of refinement. Millions of years of random variation and natural selection. Humans certainly have improved on many of the less desirable qualities of their ancestors. Where some ancestors have pronounced ridges where their brow is, modern day humans have a flat forehead, which allows room for the frontal lobe, an important part of the human brain. This sketch, along with the context under which it was drawn in, do a great job supporting Rosenbergs argument.
Week 1 / Sketch 1 - FutureLearn Creative Coding course. I wrote my name (and made it red and grey for bonus points)
* Week 1, 01 - Draw your name!
* by Indae Hwang and Jon McCormack
* Copyright (c) 2014 Monash University
* This version adapted by Kim Plowright 2015-08-09
* for FutureLearn Creative Coding
* This program allows you to draw using the mouse.
* Press 's' to save your drawing as an image to the file "yourName.jpg"
* Press 'r' to erase your drawing and start with a blank screen
*
*/
// setup function -- called once when the program begins
void setup() {
// set the display window to size 500 x 500 pixels
size(1280, 720);
//changed to make this bigger
// set the background colour to white
background(48);
// set the rectangle mode to draw from the centre with a specified radius
rectMode(RADIUS);
}
// draw function -- called continuously while the program is running
void draw() {
// KP> sets a global variable, I think. May need to be in Setup header
int a = 48;
/* draw a rectangle at your mouse point while you are pressing
the left mouse button */
if (mousePressed) {
// draw a rectangle with a small random variation in size
stroke(0,0); // set the stroke colour to a light grey
//KP > invisible, zero alpha
fill((random(200)),(random(20)),(random(20)), (random(100))); // set the fill colour to black with transparency
// KP > changed to randomly vary the RGBa values, giving a wider possibility space for the reds to keep everything in a palette. guess: random(value) gives you a random value from zero to the integer specified.
// rotate(0.5);
// KP> adding this rotates the whole draw field by 45 degrees including mouse input. commenting out. Was trying to just tilt the circles.
ellipse(mouseX, mouseY, random(20), random(30));
// changed to circles, tweaked arguments in random()
// rotate(0.5); // KP this also doesnt work to rotate! TODO: figure out how to rotate an object only.
}
// save your drawing when you press keyboard 's'
if (keyPressed == true && key=='s') {
saveFrame("yourName.jpg");
// TODO - figure out how to auto increment the file name with eg a time stamp
}
// erase your drawing when you press keyboard 'r'
if (keyPressed == true && key == 'r') {
background(a);
// added a variable here, so in theory you should be able to set the background colour and the wipe colour in the same place. TODO.
}
}
When I spotted this colony of paper wasps on Magnetic Island my first thought was that it was a big one, and my second was that they were Ropalidia revolutionalis - the nest shape is distinctive and diagnostic.
Only when I examined the images later did I notice that these wasps had yellow faces, whereas all the R. revolutionalis I have photographed before have dark red-brown faces. A few minutes online informed me that these yellow faces are indeed unusual - I couldn't find any image showing the feature.
Random variation within the species? Subspecies? I don't know.
This one seems to be alive with energy radiating from the center and lighting the entire fractal. It is a tweak of a splits random. Variations are: t1: Julia3DZ, post pressure_wave. t2: splits, t3: sphericalN, t4: noies.
The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities ("nature," i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences ("nurture," i.e. empiricism or behaviorism) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits.
"Nature versus nurture" in its modern sense was coined by the English Victorian polymath Francis Galton in discussion of the influence of heredity and environment on social advancement, although the terms had been contrasted previously, for example by Shakespeare (The Tempest). Galton was influenced by the book On the Origin of Species written by his cousin, Charles Darwin. The concept embodied in the phrase has been criticized for its binary simplification of two tightly interwoven parameters, as for example an environment of wealth, education and social privilege are often historically passed to genetic offspring.
The view that humans acquire all or almost all their behavioral traits from "nurture" is known as tabula rasa ("blank slate"). This question was once considered to be an appropriate division of developmental influences, but since both types of factors are known to play such interacting roles in development, many modern psychologists consider the question naive—representing an outdated state of knowledge. Psychologist Donald Hebb is said to have once answered a journalist's question of "which, nature or nurture, contributes more to personality?" by asking in response, "Which contributes more to the area of a rectangle, its length or its width?" That is, the idea that either nature or nurture explains a creature's behavior is a sort of single cause fallacy.
In the social and political sciences, the nature versus nurture debate may be contrasted with the structure versus agency debate (i.e. socialization versus individual autonomy). For a discussion of nature versus nurture in language and other human universals, see also psychological nativism.
Personality is a frequently cited example of a heritable trait that has been studied in twins and adoptions. Identical twins reared apart are far more similar in personality than randomly selected pairs of people. Likewise, identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins. Also, biological siblings are more similar in personality than adoptive siblings. Each observation suggests that personality is heritable to a certain extent. However, these same study designs allow for the examination of environment as well as genes. Adoption studies also directly measure the strength of shared family effects. Adopted siblings share only family environment. Unexpectedly, some adoption studies indicate that by adulthood the personalities of adopted siblings are no more similar than random pairs of strangers. This would mean that shared family effects on personality are zero by adulthood. As is the case with personality, non-shared environmental effects are often found to out-weigh shared environmental effects. That is, environmental effects that are typically thought to be life-shaping (such as family life) may have less of an impact than non-shared effects, which are harder to identify. One possible source of non-shared effects is the environment of pre-natal development. Random variations in the genetic program of development may be a substantial source of non-shared environment. These results suggest that "nurture" may not be the predominant factor in "environment."
The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities ("nature," i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences ("nurture," i.e. empiricism or behaviorism) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits.
"Nature versus nurture" in its modern sense was coined by the English Victorian polymath Francis Galton in discussion of the influence of heredity and environment on social advancement, although the terms had been contrasted previously, for example by Shakespeare (The Tempest). Galton was influenced by the book On the Origin of Species written by his cousin, Charles Darwin. The concept embodied in the phrase has been criticized for its binary simplification of two tightly interwoven parameters, as for example an environment of wealth, education and social privilege are often historically passed to genetic offspring.
The view that humans acquire all or almost all their behavioral traits from "nurture" is known as tabula rasa ("blank slate"). This question was once considered to be an appropriate division of developmental influences, but since both types of factors are known to play such interacting roles in development, many modern psychologists consider the question naive—representing an outdated state of knowledge. Psychologist Donald Hebb is said to have once answered a journalist's question of "which, nature or nurture, contributes more to personality?" by asking in response, "Which contributes more to the area of a rectangle, its length or its width?" That is, the idea that either nature or nurture explains a creature's behavior is a sort of single cause fallacy.
In the social and political sciences, the nature versus nurture debate may be contrasted with the structure versus agency debate (i.e. socialization versus individual autonomy). For a discussion of nature versus nurture in language and other human universals, see also psychological nativism.
Personality is a frequently cited example of a heritable trait that has been studied in twins and adoptions. Identical twins reared apart are far more similar in personality than randomly selected pairs of people. Likewise, identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins. Also, biological siblings are more similar in personality than adoptive siblings. Each observation suggests that personality is heritable to a certain extent. However, these same study designs allow for the examination of environment as well as genes. Adoption studies also directly measure the strength of shared family effects. Adopted siblings share only family environment. Unexpectedly, some adoption studies indicate that by adulthood the personalities of adopted siblings are no more similar than random pairs of strangers. This would mean that shared family effects on personality are zero by adulthood. As is the case with personality, non-shared environmental effects are often found to out-weigh shared environmental effects. That is, environmental effects that are typically thought to be life-shaping (such as family life) may have less of an impact than non-shared effects, which are harder to identify. One possible source of non-shared effects is the environment of pre-natal development. Random variations in the genetic program of development may be a substantial source of non-shared environment. These results suggest that "nurture" may not be the predominant factor in "environment."
A video that shows processing drawing random squares with random gap variations and random variation in color.
Many thanks to mdvfunes for the great idea to capture my screen for this.
Survivor of “Decent with Modification”
This Ring-necked Pheasant wakes me up in the morning with his loud crowing cawk followed by an echoing beating of his wings under our bedroom window.
Pheasants are classified as birds and they belong to Family Phasianidae. Pheasants are large in size, and resemble chickens. They have stocky bodies, thick, short legs and large toes that are adapted for walking and grazing. As they generally live around grassland, grass woodland edges and farmlands, their “tool-using” short, dull beaks are well adapted for crushing seeds and feeding on a variety of insects and other foods. Pheasants are omnivorous but they eat mostly plant foods, grains, seeds of weeds and grasses, fruits, and insects. They are “survivors” according to Darwin’s idea of “descent with modification”. This random variation within the species of Phasianus colchicus allows them to adapt to the environment such as dense wood and bushes nearby. They also became tolerate of humans. Darwin’s concept of “survival of the fittest” explains pheasant’s ability to survive and produce chicks in suburbia area.
Our neighbor’s cat Max was on a prowl over the pheasant. The pheasant was running only in a pace just fast enough to put a healthy distance between them. Does “running” instead of “flying” an evolution through what Lamarck hypothesized “the inheritance of acquired characteristics” or was it simply a “learned” characteristic? What about his decision to poke on my pink color toenail with his hard beak one day? Well, it sent both of us flying… knowing birds derived from theropod dinosaurs, the only thing I saw was a face and an act of a small dinosaur chasing me...
Chicago multimedia artist Willy Chyr geared up show-goers with his off-the-rails entrance exhibit, an intricate balloon display that walked the line between science and art, with a dash of spontaneity. "Instead of creating each work with the final design in mind," says Willy, "I use random variations in the material to dictate the course of the installation."
Chicago multimedia artist Willy Chyr geared up show-goers with his off-the-rails entrance exhibit, an intricate balloon display that walked the line between science and art, with a dash of spontaneity. "Instead of creating each work with the final design in mind," says Willy, "I use random variations in the material to dictate the course of the installation."
Chicago multimedia artist Willy Chyr geared up show-goers with his off-the-rails entrance exhibit, an intricate balloon display that walked the line between science and art, with a dash of spontaneity. "Instead of creating each work with the final design in mind," says Willy, "I use random variations in the material to dictate the course of the installation."
4 random variations generated by www.complexification.net/gallery/machines/peterdejong/
A little Flash fullscreen (well, 1920 x 1200 px) slideshow can be seen here.
This photo was taken on October 27, 2019 at Bengston’s Pumpkin Farm in Homer Glen. This is a photo of a oberhasli goat, Capra aegagrus hircus, taken in the petting zoo. These goats are generally very friendly, calm animals with gentle dispositions. This makes them great pack animals because they do not get frightened easily. Oberhasli goats were imported into the United States in the early 1900s from Switzerland but they were not bred pure which is why their bloodlines were lost, they interbred with alpine goats. This is an example of genetic drift because their genetic variation was lost because of random variation in mating and inheritance. Specifically it connects to founders effect because a small number of goats left their original population in Switzerland to colonize a new area. This is also an example of allopatric speciation because the population is physically isolated and has adapted to different resources in different geographic regions.
The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities ("nature," i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences ("nurture," i.e. empiricism or behaviorism) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits.
"Nature versus nurture" in its modern sense was coined by the English Victorian polymath Francis Galton in discussion of the influence of heredity and environment on social advancement, although the terms had been contrasted previously, for example by Shakespeare (The Tempest). Galton was influenced by the book On the Origin of Species written by his cousin, Charles Darwin. The concept embodied in the phrase has been criticized for its binary simplification of two tightly interwoven parameters, as for example an environment of wealth, education and social privilege are often historically passed to genetic offspring.
The view that humans acquire all or almost all their behavioral traits from "nurture" is known as tabula rasa ("blank slate"). This question was once considered to be an appropriate division of developmental influences, but since both types of factors are known to play such interacting roles in development, many modern psychologists consider the question naive—representing an outdated state of knowledge. Psychologist Donald Hebb is said to have once answered a journalist's question of "which, nature or nurture, contributes more to personality?" by asking in response, "Which contributes more to the area of a rectangle, its length or its width?" That is, the idea that either nature or nurture explains a creature's behavior is a sort of single cause fallacy.
In the social and political sciences, the nature versus nurture debate may be contrasted with the structure versus agency debate (i.e. socialization versus individual autonomy). For a discussion of nature versus nurture in language and other human universals, see also psychological nativism.
Personality is a frequently cited example of a heritable trait that has been studied in twins and adoptions. Identical twins reared apart are far more similar in personality than randomly selected pairs of people. Likewise, identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins. Also, biological siblings are more similar in personality than adoptive siblings. Each observation suggests that personality is heritable to a certain extent. However, these same study designs allow for the examination of environment as well as genes. Adoption studies also directly measure the strength of shared family effects. Adopted siblings share only family environment. Unexpectedly, some adoption studies indicate that by adulthood the personalities of adopted siblings are no more similar than random pairs of strangers. This would mean that shared family effects on personality are zero by adulthood. As is the case with personality, non-shared environmental effects are often found to out-weigh shared environmental effects. That is, environmental effects that are typically thought to be life-shaping (such as family life) may have less of an impact than non-shared effects, which are harder to identify. One possible source of non-shared effects is the environment of pre-natal development. Random variations in the genetic program of development may be a substantial source of non-shared environment. These results suggest that "nurture" may not be the predominant factor in "environment."
BOX DATE: 2006
MANUFACTURER: Playmates
BODY TYPE: 2006; white molded panties
HEAD MOLD: No date
SPECIAL FEATURES: Scented
***The doll in the middle is wearing a Kid Kore Katie top.
The doll on the far right is wearing a 2003 Strawberry Shortcake Berry Wear and Accessory Sets Ski Days outfit.
PERSONAL FUN FACT: My doll in the middle of this photo was one of the very first Playmates Strawberry Shortcake ladies in my collection. The spring of 2015 turned out to be most prosperous for my Strawberry Shortcake collection. First, my sister and I found a TON of 80s Strawberry Shortcake dolls and playsets outside one of my neighbor's houses for free. This one bin of dolls made my very small collection of mostly Bandai childhood dollies, much larger and more diverse. Not long after, within a few weeks, I spotted more Strawberry Shortcake dolls at my local flea market. The dolls themselves were all made by Playmates, save the one bald Bandai doll. However, some of the playsets were made Bandai. I purchased the lot, unsure of how many clothes it contained for the dolls. To my dismay, I realized that most of the dollies did not have their original outfits, which meant I had to get creative whilst dressing them. This is why my gal on the right is wearing a Kid Kore Katie top. She is too large to fit Bandai or Kenner Strawberry Shortcake clothes (it's a good thing she still had her pants). It was very difficult for me to tell her apart from my Pie Cart Strawberry Shortcake doll, who was from the same lot. She has an identical facial screening and hair parting. The only difference is that my Berry Sweet Scooter doll was still sporting her original ponytail (and of course I found her original pants in the lot). She is very fruity smelling still, despite the fact that these Strawberry Shortcake dolls STANK like cat urine when I rescued them.
Ironically, my second Berry Sweet Scooter doll's hairstyle also indicated her potential identity when she joined my doll family two years later. During the fall of 2017, an old friend of mine sent me an unexpected package of gifts in the mail. I was thrilled to find two Playmates Strawberry Shortcake dolls and two Barbies inside (Candy Pops Angel Cake, Princess and the Pauper Anneliese, Beach Party! Steven, and this Berry Sweet Scooter gal). The two Strawberry Shortcake dollies were in rough condition because their nylon tresses had become matted. However, I noticed that my Strawberry Shortcake lady still had a factory elastic in her hair, styled in a ponytail. Were it not for this, I would not have known whether or not she was in fact the Flavor Swirl doll instead, since her skirt and sock was in the box too. Interestingly enough, my two Berry Sweet Scooter dolls have rather different faces. My first girl's eyes are larger, and she has a pink curved line and a white shine spot in her iris. My second dolly's eyes are smaller, with no pink line, and a pink shine spot is present instead of a white one. I spent a ton of time researching both the Berry Sweet Scooter and the Flavor Swirl dolls, but it seems that there are subtle variations from doll to doll, and they aren't line specific. It is rather difficult to tell in photographs though, especially since most of the pictures I could find were grainy ones on eBay. Playmates is notorious for recycling facial screenings and for having random variations, so I think there is a strong possibility that both of these girls are in fact the Berry Sweet Scooter Strawberry Shortcake! While I love my first dolly dearly, I am very attached to my duplicate since she was a thoughtful gift, and I also prefer her more delicate facial screening. She was a blast to makeover and I had a great time fashioning chocolate covered strawberry hair clips for her from polymer clay!
I had a feeling when my third gal turned up, on the far right side of this photo, that she was perhaps ANOTHER Berry Sweet Scooter lady. Her hair was still tied off in a ponytail, just like my other gals' tresses had been. But when I found evidence of Flavor Swirl clothes, I realized that perhaps my doll was from that line instead. Just as I was writing this doll down as "Flavor Swirl," the authentic Flavor Swirl presented herself. I wasn't able to find any trace of Scooter Strawberry's items in the "Labor Day Ladies Lot" of 2019, but I did find a pair of shoes. So between the shoes and her hairstyle, it was pretty safe to say she was another Berry Sweet Scooter friend. She smells delicious, and looks super sweet (no pun intended) in this Bandai fashion pack!
[click] "Hold the pulsar cannon, Renfrew!" [click]
My father used to say that too. It's from
a novel children used to read. You pick
your battles. Captain Edwards read that one
when he was young, too, I suppose. I see
him barking those last words as though I were
again his Officer-on-Bridge. To me,
now hearing them, I snap, "Yessir!"
and bring the ship around to quarter-port,
where we were best equipped for anything.
I wasn't there that day. I flew support
for Captain Edwards' son, who saved the king...
There must have been a damn good reason for
that last command. He didn't want this war...
© Keith Ward 2006
The image was created using a photo of Harrisburg PA's Whitaker Center, duplicating one of the decorative thingees on the side of the building so that there were two of them where I wanted them. I rotated the image to the left, then used Photoshop's gradient map feature on random to find a look that struck me as good. After making adjustments to the resulting colors and contrasts, and burning in where there were obvious building stones, I arrived at what you now see: the "pulsar cannon" on Captain Edwards' ship... Neat, huh? :)
This is one of those uncommon instances in which the poem was composed before the image. Usually it's the gradient map image I see appear when running through the random variations that inspires a story, which turns into a SF Sonnet.
Click here for more about this series, SF Sonnets.
He was mentally disturbed. Little doubt about it - facial expressions and tics, weird random variations in gait ... someone experiencing an episode of some sort (either that or a method actor doing research). So what do the police do? Bail him up at the station turnstiles, question him for ten minutes, lead him up the stairs to be searched - and when they found nothing they let him go, to cross busy George Street with his funny walk and nearly be run over.
I don't know the "right" answer in this situation, but I strongly suspect that this isn't it.
Captured 4 Sep 20, 21:44 hrs ET, Springfield, VA, USA. Bortle 8 skies, MallinCam DS10c camera, 80mm achromat f9.4, E 1 sec, gain 80, uv/ir cut filter.
Clouds: partly cloudy
Seeing: 30
Transparency: 30
FOV: 79 x 59 arcmin
Moon phase: 96% , set
Appearance: red star
Spectral type M2 Iab, Mag +4.8
Mass: estimates vary
Color index (B-V): +1.73
from Wikipedia
VV Cephei, also known as HD 208816, is an eclipsing binary star system located in the constellation Cepheus, approximately 5,000 light years from Earth. It is both a B[e] star and shell star.
VV Cephei is an eclipsing binary with the second longest known period. A red supergiant fills its Roche lobe when closest to a companion blue star, the latter appearing to be on the main sequence. Matter flows from the red supergiant onto the blue companion for at least part of the orbit and the hot star is obscured by a large disk of material. The supergiant primary, known as VV Cephei A, is currently recognised as one of the largest stars in the galaxy although its size is not certain. The best estimate is 1,000 R☉, which is nearly as large as the orbit of Jupiter.
The fact that VV Cephei is an eclipsing binary system was discovered by American astronomer Dean McLaughlin in 1936. VV Cephei experiences both primary and secondary eclipses during a 20.3 year orbit. The primary eclipses totally obscure the hot secondary star and last for nearly 18 months.
Secondary eclipses are so shallow that they have not been detected photometrically since the secondary obscures such a small proportion of the large cool primary star. The timing and duration of the eclipses is variable, although the exact onset is difficult to measure because it is gradual. Only Epsilon Aurigae has a longer period among eclipsing binaries.
VV Cephei also shows semiregular variations of a few tenths of a magnitude. Visual and infrared variations appear unrelated to variations at ultraviolet wavelengths. A period of 58 days has been reported in UV, while the dominant period for longer wavelengths is 118.5 days. The short wavelength variations are thought to be caused by the disc around the hot secondary, while pulsation of the red supergiant primary caused the other variations. It has been predicted that the disc surrounding the secondary would produce such brightness variability.
The spectrum of VV Cep can be resolved into two main components, originating from a cool supergiant and a hot small star surrounded by a disk. The material surrounding the hot secondary produces emission lines, including [FeII] forbidden lines, the B[e] phenomenon known from other stars surrounded by circumstellar disks. The hydrogen emission lines are double-peaked, caused by a narrow central absorption component. This is caused by seeing the disk almost edge on where it intercepts continuum radiation from the star. This is characteristic of shell stars.
Forbidden lines, mainly of FeII but also of CuII and NiII, are mostly constant in radial velocity and during eclipses, so they are thought to originate in distant circumbinary material.
The spectrum varies dramatically during the primary eclipses, particularly at the ultraviolet wavelengths produced most strongly by the hot companion and its disc. The typical B spectrum with some emission is replaced by a spectrum dominated by thousands of emission lines as portions of the disc are seen with the continuum from the star blocked. During ingress and egress, the emission line profiles change as one side or the other of the disc close to the star becomes visible while the other is still eclipsed. The colour of the system as a whole is also changed during eclipse, with much of the blue light from the companion blocked.
Out of eclipses, certain spectral lines vary strongly and erratically in both strength and shape, as well as the continuum. Rapid random variations in the short wavelength (i.e. hot) continuum appear to arise from the disc around the B component. Shell absorption lines show variable radial velocities, possibly due to variations in accretion from the disk. Emission from FeII and MgII strengthens around periastron or secondary eclipses, which occur at about the same time, but the emission lines also vary randomly throughout the orbit.
In the optical spectrum, the Hα is the only clear emission feature. Its strength varies randomly and rapidly out of eclipse, but it becomes much weaker and relatively constant during the primary eclipses.
The distance has been estimated by a variety of techniques to be around 1.5 kpc, which places it within the Cepheus OB2 association. Some older studies found a larger distance and consequently very high luminosity and radius, but it now seems that the distance is more likely to be around 1.5 kpc,[9] although both the Hipparcos and Gaia Data Release 2 parallax measurements imply a distance considerably below 1 kpc.
It should be possible to calculate the masses of eclipsing binary stars with some accuracy, but in this case mass loss, changes in the orbital parameters, a disk obscuring the hot secondary, and doubt about the distance of the system have led to wildly varying estimates. The traditional model, from the spectroscopically derived orbit, has the masses of both stars around 20 M☉, which is typical for a luminous red supergiant and an early A main sequence star. An alternative model has been proposed based on the unexpected timing of the 1997 eclipse. Assuming that the change is due to mass transfer altering the orbit, dramatically lower mass values are required. In this model, the primary is a 2.5 M☉ AGB star and the secondary is an 8 M☉ B star. The spectroscopic radial velocities showing the secondary with equal mass to the primary is explained as being of a portion of the disc rather than the star itself.
The angular diameter of VV Cephei A can be estimated using photometric methods and has been calculated at 0.00638 arcseconds. This allows a direct calculation of the actual diameter, which is in good agreement with the 1,050 R☉ derived from a complete orbital solution and eclipse timings. Analysis of earlier eclipses had given radius values between 1,200 R☉ and 1,600 R☉ and an upper limit of 1,900 R☉. The size of the secondary is even more uncertain, since it is physically and photometrically obscured by a much larger disc several hundred R☉ across. The secondary is certainly much smaller than either the primary or the disc, and has been calculated at 13 R☉ to 25 R☉ from the orbital solution.
The temperature of the VV Cephei stars is again uncertain, partly because there simply isn't a single temperature that can be assigned to a significantly non-spherical diffuse star orbiting a hot companion. The effective temperature generally quoted for stars is the temperature of a spherical blackbody that approximates the electromagnetic radiation output of the actual star, accounting for emission and absorption in the spectrum. VV Cephei A is fairly clearly identified as an M2 supergiant, and as such, it is given a temperature around 3,800 K. The secondary star is heavily obscured by a disk of material from the primary, and its spectrum is almost undetectable against the disc emission. Detection of some ultraviolet absorption lines narrow down the spectral type to early B and it is apparently a main-sequence star, but likely to be abnormal in several respects due to mass transfer from the supergiant.
Although VV Cephei A is an extremely large star showing high mass loss and having some emissions lines, it is not generally considered to be a hypergiant. The emission lines are produced from the accretion disc around the hot secondary and the absolute magnitude is typical for a red supergiant.
random variations in dynamics on a "Y" -shaped heavy stroke, working towards mimicking "ink" -ish styles
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Useful Commands for Stata
Useful Commands for R
Preface for Students: How This Book Can Help You Learn Econometrics
Preface for Instructors: How to Help Your Students Learn Econometrics
Acknowledgments
1 The Quest for Causality
The Core Model
Two Challenges: Randomness and Endogeneity
CASE STUDY: Flu Shots
CASE STUDY: Country Music and Suicides
Randomized Experiments as the Gold Standard
2 Stats in the Wild: Good Data Practices
2.1 Know Our Data
2.2 Replication
CASE STUDY: Violent Crime in the United States
2.3 Statistical Software
I The OLS FRAMEWORK
3 Bivariate OLS: The Foundation of Econometric Analysis
3.1 Bivariate Regression Model
3.2 Random Variation in Coefficient Estimates
3.3 Exogeneity and Unbiasedness
3.4 Precision of Estimates
3.5 Probability Limits and Consistency
3.6 Solvable Problems: Heteroscedasticity and Correlated Errors
3.7 Goodness of Fit
CASE STUDY: Height and Wages
3.8 Outliers
4 Hypothesis Testing and Interval Estimation: Answering Research Questions
4.1 Hypothesis Testing
4.2 t Tests
4.3 p Values
4.4 Power
4.5 Straight Talk about Hypothesis Testing
4.6 Confidence Intervals
5 Multivariate OLS: Where the Action Is
5.1 Using Multivariate OLS to Fight Endogeneity
5.2 Omitted Variable Bias
CASE STUDY: Does Education Support Economic Growth?
5.3 Measurement Error
5.4 Precision and Goodness of Fit
CASE STUDY: Institutions and Human Rights
5.5
idstudy.net/product/solution-manuals-for-real-econometric...
Okay so the Rock On reference is vague I know, I build bikes for a living, we have a bike at work called a Girl's Rock On, it is bluish metallic and very girly, there in the center of the seat is the coolest Peace Emblem ever, it looks like someone had taken a stone and carved it out, so Rock On For Peace!
Okay so the transfer was not the easiest, a sheet of paper, 1 minute of guessing where the lines were, since you can't see the sign through the paper and then 2 hours of drawing it up in random variations at home. I loved it anyway and may have this as one of my next tattoos I do on myself, all in black and grey, unlike the flourescent yellow or blue the signs were in on the original bikes.
Use your mind before your fists, use your heart before your money, and use your intelligence before your attitude.
I was anxious to try some of the techniques from the resist dye class. For now, I used kool aid vs acid based dye.
I observed the difference between Homo habilis and Australopithecus afarensis when I took pictures of both skulls in class. Australopithecus afarensis are human ancestors that gave a rise to Homo habilis. While Australopithecus afarensis’ skulls looks more like chimpanzee, the Homo Habis’ skulls resemble the modern humans. Naturalism explains that the science includes not only specific facts and archeological studies but it also is based on random variations and physical processes. Some facts in the nature can’t be exactly explained and the communication of all sciences like biology physics, and chemistry helps us to understand the species that lived o the Earth 4 millions years ago. For example, Australopithecus have a massive jar that indicates that the individuals didn’t have a proper diet like Homo habilis did. Their skulls are similar to a gorilla’s one that shows how far they were at the stage of developing from modern humans. Their physical development is connected to their place in biology and development of their genes and ecology around them. The students are able to compare the skulls without a fear that they can make a mistake. Naturalism is not mathematics where there’s only one answer; the difference between Homo habilis and Australopithecus afarensis can be observed both in the classroom, proved by biological facts, personal knowledge, and even philosophical puzzles what was the reason of one species giving a rise to another one.
When I spotted this colony of paper wasps on Magnetic Island my first thought was that it was a big one, and my second was that they were Ropalidia revolutionalis - the nest shape is distinctive and diagnostic.
Only when I examined the images later did I notice that these wasps had yellow faces, whereas all the R. revolutionalis I have photographed before have dark red-brown faces. A few minutes online informed me that these yellow faces are indeed unusual - I couldn't find any image showing the feature.
Random variation within the species? Subspecies? I don't know.