The Interstellar Medium.

“NEW GALAXY DISCOVERED ORBITING THE MILKY WAY” You would think that scientists would have already discovered most of the galaxies around the Milky Way, but that does not seem to be the case. Astronomers have recently detected a dwarf galaxy orbiting the Milky Way called the Crater 2 dwarf. This galaxy was discovered through measuring its ‘half-light diameter’. Since galaxies don’t have actual definitive edges, astronomers measure galaxies by looking at the brightest part of the galaxy where half of the total amount of light from the it is emitted - half-light diameter. This galaxy has a half-light diameter of 7000 light years, which would look twice as big as the full moon if we could see it with the naked eye. Gabriel Torrealba and his colleagues at the University of Cambridge, the team that discovered this galaxy, was only able to find it by using a computer that looked for over-densities of stars in data (hinting at the possibilities of galaxies or something else) from images taken by a telescope in Chile. The galaxy has eluded the detection of the scientific community for so long only because its stars are spread out so thinly, giving it a ghost-like appearance. In addition, this dwarf galaxy is near four other new-found objects: the Crater globular star cluster as well as three dwarf galaxies in Leo - a group of objects that is now falling towards the Milky Way. Interestingly, this galaxy is quite new due to it retaining a round shape suggesting that it had never encountered a giant galaxy, otherwise gravity would have bent the dwarf out of shape.

Read more about this fascinating story on: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2084438-never-before-seen-galaxy-spotted-orbiting-the-milky-way/

Planetary nebula IC 4406 in the constellation Lupus

Antibodies are the secreted form of B-lymphocyte receptors and are a part of adaptive immunity, but how are these proteins formed?

Above is a diagram illustrating Paul Ehlrich’s Side Chain Theory of Antibody Formation. Ehlrich proposed that immunoglobulin molecules, a fundamental component of adaptive immunity, served as membrane bound proteins that bound to particular threats, similarly to the former “key in lock” view of enzymes in catalyzing biological reactions. Ehrlich also suggested that the action of binding a pathogenic molecule to the receptor would generate a signal to stimulate the production of more receptors of the same specificity. These “side chains” that were added on would then break off from the cell surface and become what we call antibodies.

 We now know, however, that soluble immunoglobulin receptors are specially manufactured to be secreted as antibody, rather than just “breaking off” of the lymphocyte, even though they have the same specificity as their membrane-bound counterparts.

MBTI Studying Tips - Part 1

DISCLAIMERS: 

What I did do: Collect information and organize them into an easy-to-read-and-understand-post. What I didn’t do: Write most of it. Most of the information here isn’t my own writing, but rather useful tips I found from various sources. Credit is given at the bottom of the post.

I wrote most of this by doing a hell lot of research online and trying to ask my friends of different types irl what they thought of it. I am no professional, and my words in no way should be taken as gospel. Please, please send me corrections or your thoughts if anything I wrote was inaccurate, I will appreciate all the feedback I can get.

Hello hello! Your old friend Skye is here with some tips for studying based on your MBTI personality type. Now before we jump straight into things, let’s answer a few basic questions:

What is MBTI?

MBTI stands for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which is basically a personality test that classifies you into one of 16 different personality categories based on a four-letter code. This is what the “INFP” or “ESFJ” codes mean if you’ve been seeing them around in the community. The test assesses you on four of your main traits:

How do you prefer to direct your energy? (I vs E)

What kind of information do you prefer to gather? (S vs N)

What criteria do you prefer for making decisions? (T vs F)

What kind of environment do you prefer? (J vs P)

So how do I find out what’s my type?

You can take a free online quiz here!

Okay, but what’s with the ‘Introverted Thinking’ and ‘Fi’ and all the fancy terms?

You can read more about Cognitive Function Theory here! I will be basing my post off this theory because I think it’s a more comprehensive method of understanding MBTI. 

Onwards! (The rest is under the cut bc skye rambled and it’s long af even tho I’m just covering the introverted functions)

Keep reading

Colourised footage of Benjamin, the last know Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacine).

Benjamin died on September 7th, 1936 in Hobart zoo. It is believed that he died out of neglect, as he was locked out of his shelter and was exposed to the searing hot sun and freezing cold night of Tasmania.

The Thylacine was one of the last large marsupials left on Australia (the other being the Kangaroo) after a great extinction event occurred around 40 thousand years ago. This extinction event, caused mainly by the arrival of humans, wiped out 90% of Australia’s terrestrial vertebrates, including the famous Megafauna.

The Thylacine was around 15-30kg (33-66lbs), were carnivorous, and had numerous similarities to other species like dogs, despite not being related and purely by chance, in a phenomenon known as convergent evolution (just like the ability to fly of bats and birds, despite following different evolutionary paths). Not only that, they could open their jaws up to 120 degrees, could hop around on two legs like a kangaroo, and both males and females had pouches.

Lastly in a cruel twist, the Tasmanian government decided to protect the Thylacine - just 59 days before the last one died, in a very notable case case of “Too little too late”. To date, many biologists believe that there are still Thylacine roaming the wild plains of Australia. 

Practise what you preach

Images taken by the International Space Station

images here

What would happen if two galaxies or black holes became one?

Hi there!

Astronomers have had the opportunity to observe galaxies colliding so they have been able to learn more about them!

In a galaxy collision, although quite violent, nothing usually happens to the stars or any solar systems! This is due to the vast spaces between stars. Usually the friction and gravitational interactions between the galaxies is what makes it violent. Our very own Milky Way galaxy is on collision course for the Andromeda Galaxy. It’s predicted that nothing will happen to our solar system, that we will just be flung into another part of the galaxy!

Black holes on the other hand are much more violent. Astronomers haven’t actually witnessed black holes colliding, but through computer simulations they’ve been able to simulate it!

The collision begins once they come too close to each other to escape each other’s gravity. Once that happens they’ll spiral towards each other until they eventually collide. Since it’s so violent they actually send ripples into space time!

Hope that helped! If not, feel free to ask me anything else :) xx

Some websites that I use for geography [lessons + revision] - a mix of summary notes websites, statistics, geo-located data and other goodies :D enjoy! Hope you find something useful! 

I’ve only put my faves tbh but ** = I’ve used this a lot A LOT 

Scribd: honestly some docs on here are so useful for help structuring your own notes etc. [our teacher uses this one for example for the glossary]

**Sporcle: i use this to test my place knowledge! [i’ve linked you to the world one, but you can find other continent specific ones too]

[Alternative to above that I personally haven’t used much but it looks decent so]

World Mapper: Really cool maps and omg countries look so funny distorted heu heu (HONESTLY SO USEFUL AND VISUAL) [i’ve linked to the old site haha]

**Gapminder: I’ve linked you to the program itself [so so so good omg for global trends over time GENIUS] but Hans Rosling is a cinnamon roll go watch the videos too!!

Information is beautiful: I love infographics okay fight me on this. You could have a look at this one and oh here’s the blog and just have an explore tbh [there’s isn’t a huge number of infographics on here tbh it’s a shame but i guess they’re trying to sell the book so fair]

**Datashine (UK centric): UK Census 2011 info geo-located and ahhh it’s so useful 

they also have this one on commuting if you’re about that life

*******CIA World Factbook: ALL THE STATS! LIFESAVER! 10Q America! (that maths pun stop me pls) 

Generally amazing website that is succinct and you could probably find so much on here tbh

Quizlet: really useful resource!! flashcards!! i love this site!! (and there’s an app hehe) test yourself on case studies etc!!

[tip: you can duplicate ppl’s flashcards and edit them if there’s anything you want to add!] 

BBC bitesize ayyy for gcse peeps! (and in general too :) ) 

S-cool [linked again to the gcse site cuz that’s what was bookmarked but they have an a-level section too!] Some real concise notes tbh and may be useful even if you aren’t studying gcses/alevels! :) 

my other masterpost/ramble hybrids are all (there’s like 2 others lol) here and feel free to come rant at me (or just talk lel) if any links don’t work etc! 

in hindsight a better header for this would have been ‘resources i rely on way too much for geography’ (*´◡`) 

Alien Worlds