Top 10 Most Extreme Substances Known on Earth

Here is a nice top 10 list of awesome Earthly substances, ranging form super-hot to the most darkest and the most magnetic to the super-fluid. So without any further adieu

10. The Darkest Substance Known to Man

What do you get when you stack carbon nanotubes on their ends and sandwich them together? A material that absorbs 99.9% of the light that touches it. The microscopic surface of the material is rough and uneven, which breaks up the light and makes it a poor reflector. Then add to that carbon nanotubes act as superconductors in certain arrangements, which makes them excellent light absorbers, and you have a perfect storm of black. Scientists are really excited about the potential applications of the substance; since virtually no light is “wasted”, it would be used to improve optical tools like telescopes, and even be used to make nearly 100% efficient solar collectors.

Art meets science in a stem-cell exhibit

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the discovery of stem cells by Canadian scientists James Till and Ernest McCulloch, thus the Ontario Science Centre !dea Gallery has brought together scientists and artists to explore the intersection between art and the cutting-edge science of stem cell research.

This collaboration has inspired student artists and designers from a remarkable diversity of disciplines -including fashion design, science and medical illustration, and visual and textile arts - to respond with their personal visions of what stem cells are and what they mean.

Watch the animation made for this exhibition to find out more about stem cells.

via: OntarioScienceCentre

Interactorium, the coolest 3-D molecular visualizer

The Interactorium is a platform built to visualise very large interactome datasets. Developed in collaboration with the School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of New South Wales, it is adapted from the Skyrails Visualisation Engine, which was originally developed by Yose Widjaja.

The Interactorium functions as an atlas of known protein-protein interactions. The current distribution uses the yeast protein-protein interaction dataset by Bertin et al.

A groundbreaking visual presentation of a microscopic organism at a molecular level such as this, encompasses such a great amount of detail and interactivity, its mind-boggling. This project should be adapted to other organisms and eventually to human beings, possibly to study the life around us in a more grandiose fashion and to understand all the little minute changes that happen at a the molecular level.

via: Interactorium