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August 26 2008
Why are plants green and not, say, red?
I've been somewhat obsessed with this question the last few days, and being offline had no way of getting a quick answer. The connection with the sun's spectrum is obvious, but why should plants waste all those awesome green photons?
Here's the answer:
The energy spectrum of sunlight at Earth’s surface peaks in the blue-green, so scientists have long scratched their heads about why plants reflect green, thereby wasting what appears to be the best available light. The answer is that photosynthesis does not depend on the total amount of light energy but on the energy per photon and the number of photons that make up the light.
Whereas blue photons carry more energy than red ones, the sun emits more of the red kind. Plants use blue photons for their quality and red photons for their quantity. The green photons that lie in between have neither the energy nor the numbers, so plants have adapted to absorb fewer of them.
The World is Just Awesome.
Reposted by
ra
raAugust 25 2008
DUDE!!!!11!1elf This is teh Awesomeness!!!
Scripty you _rule_.
August 08 2008
August 06 2008
kyrah off-line
I will be on summer vacation from August 8 to August 25 and completely off-line during the whole period.
August 05 2008
“ When you’re young, you look at television and think, ‘There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down.’ But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth. ”— Steve Jobs in 1996 (via marco)
Reposted from
c3o
c3oMassive awesomeness! (via kintel)
August 04 2008
August 02 2008
July 29 2008
Happy Birthday, Set!
Note: If you, like me, love these comics, you are spending too much time hanging out with Egyptologists... ;-)
July 28 2008
July 24 2008
July 23 2008
“ El subterráneo es sin duda un símbolo de los tiempos que corren, un laberinto en donde en silencio nos cruzamos con nuestros semejantes, sin saber quienes son ni a donde van, cientos de andenes en los que aprovechamos para establecer un balance, prever una situación e intentar abordar, mas que un tren, un cambio de vida, es un extraño juego en el que nos sumergimos por infinitos túneles sin darnos cuenta de que en cada transbordo, estamos cambiando definitivamente nuestro destino... ”— Moebius
July 18 2008
July 17 2008
Defeating Encrypted and Deniable File Systems
Bruce Schneier et al, to appear at USENIX HotSec '08:
We examine the security requirements for creating a Deniable File System (DFS), and the efficacy with which the TrueCrypt disk-encryption software meets those requirements. We find that the Windows Vista operating system itself, Microsoft Word, and Google Desktop all compromise the deniability of a TrueCrypt DFS.
All TrueCrypt users should read this and think very, very carefully about it. Note that this does not mean that it does not make sense to use TrueCrypt. But you should consider well what kind of data you store on your hidden volumes and how you access these data... As always, thinking helps.
(Thanks to lynx for the pointer.)
Reposted by
July 16 2008
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