In-pursuit-of-knowledge-blog - Everything Is Interesting!

Something for my dad from the nature trade - a piece of Precambrian-era petrified wood! I thought he would enjoy it and he does, it’s a truly lovely little piece.

this is what chickens smell like

The real difference between us and chimpanzees is the mysterious glue that enables millions of humans to cooperate effectively. This mysterious glue is made of stories, not genes. We cooperate effectively with strangers because we believe in things like gods, nations, money and human rights. Yet none of these things exists outside the stories that people invent and tell one another. There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money and no human rights—except in the common imagination of human beings.

Yuval Noah Harari (via mesogeios)

honey is the only food product that never spoils. there are pots of honey that are over five thousand years old and still completely edible

HulattPhotography

Cultures are defensive constructions against chaos, designed to reduce the impact of randomness on experience.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (via inthenoosphere)

The best picture

Scientists Are Turning Nuclear Waste Into Super-Efficient Diamond Batteries

With a half-life of 5,730 years.

Scientists have figured out how to use nuclear waste as an energy source, converting radioactive gas into artificial diamonds that could be used as batteries.

These diamonds, which are able to generate their own electrical current, could potentially provide a power source for thousands of years, due to the longstanding half-life of the radioactive substances they’re made from.

“There are no moving parts involved, no emissions generated, and no maintenance required, just direct electricity generation,” says geochemist Tom Scott from the University of Bristol in the UK.

“By encapsulating radioactive material inside diamonds, we turn a long-term problem of nuclear waste into a nuclear-powered battery and a long-term supply of clean energy.”

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