The City Below

mishaswhore:

asktheoakenshieldbros:

goquackyourself:

fuckyeah-kasumisty:

can-you-feel-the-gay-tonight:

a-big-guy-named-tiny:

SCIENCE!

science has figured out how to open a portal to hell

#holy shit #imagine doing this in the middle ages #you could rule a small town through fear

It’s Cthulhu!!!!!!!!

• sand
• alcohol or lighter fluid
• sugar  

1. Mix 4 parts powdered sugar with 1 part baking soda. 
2. Make a mound with the sand. Push a depression into the middle of the sand.
3. Pour the alcohol or other fuel into the sand to wet it.
4. Pour the sugar and baking soda mixture into the depression.
5. Ignite the mound, using a lighter or match.

Oh tumblr, what would we do without you.

(Source: laissesaigner)

upperstories:

peacelovehappychan:

a-big-guy-named-tiny:

SCIENCE!

ITS A DEMON BEING BORN FROM THE PITS OF HELL

SUMMON THE KRAKEN

(Source: laissesaigner)

thescienceofreality:

This Week in Science - March 11 - 17, 2013:

• Mars previously habitable here.
• Antioxidant could prevent neuron loss here.
• New species here.
• Gastric brooding frog revived here.
• Higgs Boson confirmed here. 
• Spiders eating bats here.
• Polar bear & brown bear relations here.
• Ancient stone tools here.
• Giant California sea cucumber here.
• 50th anniversary of quasar discovery here.
• LED Quantum teleportation here.
• Testing black plague remains here.

thescienceofreality:

This Week in Science - March 4 - 10, 2013:

• Liquid Below Freezing Point here.
• Europa’s Ocean here.
• Extinct Giant Camel Discovered here.
• Deserts ‘damaged’ by Mad Max film crew here.
• The father of all men here.
• Make an old brain young here.
• 1st Complete Map of Planet Mercury here.
• ‘Achingly Close’ to confirming Higgs Boson here.
• Adding human brain cells to mice here.
• Mouse re-cloning to the 25th generation perfected here.
• Brain Activity Map here.
• Bee Venom Kills HIV here.

thollukthcaptor:

howardphillipslovecraft:

starscrossed:

pfdiva:

OMG, that’s so fucking cool!  Someone from the science side of Tumblr needs to come along and tell me what’s going on here!

the bubble is freezing you fucking idiot

thank u science side of tumblr

(Source: cineraria)

detenebrate:

0xymoronic:

shitarianasays:

theeyesinthenight:

the-sonic-screw:

platinumpixels:

volpesvolpes:

unseilie:

sarahvonkrolock:

gaysexagainstawall:

them-days-was-olden-as-fuck:

The spread of the black death.

Poland

Poland, tell us your secret.

Poland is the old new Madagascar. 

If I remember correctly, Poland’s secret is that the jews where being blamed all over europe (as usual) as scapegoats for the black plague. Poland was the only place that accepted Jewish refugees, so pretty much all of them moved there. 

Now, one of the major causes of getting the plague was poor hygiene. This proved very effective for the plague because everyone threw their poop into the streets because there were no sewers, and literally no one bathed because it was against their religion. Unless they were jewish, who actually bathed relatively often. When all the jews moved to Poland, they brought bathing with them, and so the plague had little effect there.

Milan survived by quarantining its city and burning down the house of anyone showing early symptoms, with the entire family inside it. 

I reblogged this tons of times, but the Milan info is new.

Damn Italy, you scary.

Poland: “Hey, feeling a bit down? Have a quick wash! There, you see? All better”

Milan: “Aw, feeling a bit sick are we? BURN MOTHERFUCKER, BURN!!!!!”

Also, this might have something to do with it: from what I understand, O blood type is uncommonly… common in Poland. Something to do with large families in small villages and a LOT of intermarriage. The black plague was caused by a bacterium that produced, in its waste in the human body, wastes that very closely mimic the “B” marker sugars on red blood cells that keep the body from attacking its own immune system. Anyone who has a B blood type had an immune system that was naturally desensitized to the presence of the bacterium, and therefore was more prone to developing the disease. Anyone who had an O type was doubly lucky because the O blood type means the total absence of ANY markers, A or B, meaning that their bodys’ immune system would react quickly and violently against the invaders, while someone with an A may show symptoms and recover more slowly, while someone with B would have just died. Because O is a recessive blood type, it shows in higher numbers when more people who carry the recessive genes marry other people who also carry the recessive gene. Poland, which has a nearly 700 year history of being conquered by or partnering with every other nation in the surrounding area, was primarily an agricultural country, focused around smaller, farming communities where people were legally tied to, and required to work, “their” land, and so historically never “spread” their genes across a large area. The economy was, and had been, unstable for a very long period of time leading up to the plague, the government had been ineffective and had very little reach in comparison to the armies of the other countries around for a very very long time, and so its people largely remained in small communities where multiple generations of cross-familial inbreeding could have allowed for this more recessive gene to show up more frequently. Thus, there could be a higher percentage of O blood types in any region of the country, guaranteeing less spread of the illness and moving slower when it did manage to travel. Combine this with the fact that there were very few large, urban centers where the disease would thrive, and with the above facts, and you’ve got a lovely recipe for avoiding the plague.

Interestingly enough, as a result from the plague, the entirety of Europe now has a higher percentage of people with O blood type than any other region of the world. 

WHY IS THIS ALL SO COOL

When Tumblr teaches you more about the plague than 12 years of school ever did.

Just to throw a nod in, as a medieval historian, this is all credible, and is the leading theory as to the plagues effectiveness at this point. So. Enjoy your new knowledge!

(Source: )

typicalugandan:

Ugandan girl, 19, makes deworming tablet: Innovation. The medicine, made of dried pawpaw seeds, sugar and cassava flour or banana flour.

“My dream is to become a veterinary doctor but I am also an emerging innovator,” says Christine Nalukwago, the girl behind the research which might lead to the discovery of locally-made de-worming tablets.
Nalukwago, 19, currently a Senior Six student at Kitante Hill School, says she hatched the idea of coming up with a solution to parasitic worms in children while staying with her grandmother.

“My grandmother used to give us dried pawpaw seeds to chew when we were still young but we didn’t know the use. But one day, she told us that they expel worms from our bodies,” she says.

Nalukwago says she became inquisitive after her grandma’s revelation and when she joined secondary school where she has access to laboratories, she chose to carry her research forward.

“At first, the results were not good but I kept on trying,” says Nalukwago, who offers Physics, Chemistry, Agriculture and sub-Math as a subject combination.

How it is done: Nalukwago says some of the substances she mixes to develop the ‘drug’ includes; dried pawpaw seeds, sugar and cassava flour or banana flour.
“I mix them in equal quantity and leave them in a clean open place to concentrate. Sometimes the whole process takes a week when there is enough sunshine or two weeks when there is little sunshine,” Nalukwago explains.
She says after final tests in the laboratory, she tried the drug on a worm and it died instantly. (read more via Daily Monitor)

thedailywhat:

A New Perspective of the Day: This is What a Volcanic Eruption Looks Like from Space

Here’s a striking view of Sarychev Volcano in Kuril Islands of Japan going through its early stage of eruption, taken from the orbit of the International Space Station in June 2009. For more info on this picture, head over to NASA’s Earth Observatory!