Centripetal Notion

Just when you thought Hubble was down for the count (and it is, still, sadly) — scientists celebrate the 17th anniversary of the telescope’s launch and deployment with one of the largest panoramic images ever taken using the HST’s cameras. The above images are snapshots from a massive (read: 29566×14321 pixels) image spanning 50 light-years across, of a region in the Carina Nebula where, as the press release says, “a maelstrom of star birth — and death — is taking place”.

“These prophecies will seem strange, almost impossible. Yet, they have come from the most learned and conservative minds in America. To the wisest and most careful men in our greatest institutions of science and learning I have gone, asking each in his turn to forecast for me what, in his opinion, will have been wrought in his own field of investigation before the dawn of 2001 - a century from now. These opinions I have carefully transcribed.”

Today (Monday, the 23rd of April), NASA is releasing the first high-resolution 3D images of the sun from the STEREO spacecraft. The images will appear on their website and at museums & science centers around the world (not very many locations). More information @ NASA, including where to get 3D glasses and exhibition locations.

Kristen is cuter than I am really prepared to handle. And her sketch/series “Princess of Pets” with Kurt Braunohler is hilarious.

Really beautiful idea — I’d love to see it in person.

“Imagine a modern metropolis with no outdoor advertising: no billboards, no flashing neon signs, no electronic panels with messages crawling along the bottom.”

“The Pirahã, Everett wrote, have no numbers, no fixed color terms, no perfect tense, no deep memory, no tradition of art or drawing, and no words for “all,” “each,” “every,” “most,” or “few”—terms of quantification believed by some linguists to be among the common building blocks of human cognition.”

I didn’t even know we were training horses to dance, much less they could perform like this. The clip is from the 2006 World Equestrian Games Grand Prix Freestyle Dressage, featuring the horse known in human tongue as Blue Hors Matine and his/her(?) rider Andreas Helgstrand.

Starring Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and a baby.

Feist’s newest album, The Reminder, comes out May 1st in the US and Canada, and April 23rd everywhere else.