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The Dove Real Beauty Sketches campaign held up a mirror to reflect the extent of negative body image issues that many woman have (… see http://realbeautysketches.dove.com/ )
Dove then provide resources to help, at http://www.dove.ca/en/Social-Mission/Self-Esteem-Resources/
What came as a complete surprise, was when they then did the same survey on men…
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=T8Jiwo3u6Vo
This is really funny beause it’s so accurate. When I told some guys about the actual Dove Real Beauty Sketches video, they all assumed right away that the women would have exaggerated their own beauty (the opposite is true), because that’s what they would do. Seems like someone else has picked up on that irony.
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Dove hired a forensic artist to draw how women see themselves versus how others see them - the results are moving.
A little update: yesterday I brought this experiment up in conversation with several men. Just about every one of them assumed that the result would be the opposite; that the women would exaggerate their own beauty and that the self-descriptions would yield a much pretty image than the stranger’s description. I don’t think I’ve ever personally seen a clearer example of how men truly don’t understand women.
(via darwinsminion)
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High ResolutionScience only adds. It never subtracts. A reminder.
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"For more than 2,000 years, philosophers, mathematicians and artists have marveled at the unique properties of the “golden rectangle”: subtract a square from a golden rectangle, and what remains is another golden rectangle, and so on and so on — an infinite spiral. These so-called magical proportions (about 5 by 8) are common in the shapes of books, television sets and credit cards, and they provide the underlying structure for some of the most beloved designs in history: the facades of the Parthenon and Notre Dame, the face of the “Mona Lisa,” the Stradivarius violin and the original iPod."
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Certain patterns also have universal appeal. Natural fractals — irregular, self-similar geometry — occur virtually everywhere in nature: in coastlines and riverways, in snowflakes and leaf veins, even in our own lungs. In recent years, physicists have found that people invariably prefer a certain mathematical density of fractals — not too thick, not too sparse. The theory is that this particular pattern echoes the shapes of trees, specifically the acacia, on the African savanna, the place stored in our genetic memory from the cradle of the human race.
To paraphrase one biologist, beauty is in the genes of the beholder — home is where the genome is.
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Published on Dec 17, 2012
The video tracks formation of snowflakes from their origins in bits of dust in clouds that become droplets of water falling to Earth. When the droplets cool, six crystal faces form because water molecules bond in hexagonal networks when they freeze. It explains that ice crystals grow fastest at the corners between the faces, fostering development of the six branches that exist in most snowflakes. As snowflakes continue to develop, the branches can spread, grow long and pointy, or branch off into new arms. As each snowflake rises and falls through warmer and cooler air, it thus develops its own distinctive shape.
Produced by the American Chemical SocietyNow, did learning that make snow flakes more or less wondrous?
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Things you should know about me: I can never get enough of ferrofluids. After you check out this art exhibit, here’s more examples of these amazing fluid-magnetic creations.
Sachiko Kodama: The Art and Science of Ferrofluid
Sachiko Kodama explores within her artwork ‘The Art and Science of Ferrofluid’ the pulsating nature of science and amorphous character of time and space based on the shape of magnetic waves…
The Japanese female artist Sachiko Kodama was born in 1970. As a child she spent a lot of time in the southernmost part of Japan. This area is rich in tropical flowers and plants, edged by the sea, and washed with warm rain. Sachiko loved art and literature from an early age, but also had a strong interest in science.
After Graduating Physics course in the Faculty of Science at Hokkaido University, in 1993, Sachiko matriculated in the Fine Arts Department at the University of Tsukuba, studying Plastic Art and Mixed Media. Then she completed Master’s and Doctoral Program in Art and Design at the University of Tsukuba. She studied Computer and Holography Art in her doctoral research.
‘Ferrofluids appear as black fluid and are made by dissolving nanoscale ferromagnetic particles in a solvent such as water or oil. They remain strongly magnetic even in a fluid condition which makes them more flexible than iron sand.’
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High ResolutionPlink.
There are few things more beautiful in their simplicity than the rebounding columns of water that result from droplets hitting a larger body of liquid. It’s something we’ve all seen, time and time again, from raindrops to leaky sinks. With the advent of modern technology, we are able to see beyond normal time, and capture these transient moments on a scale of time and space without which we could not appreciate their brilliance.
How this beauty works: That particular shape, the droplets that rise up when another droplet strikes the pool, is called a “backjet”. The force of a falling droplet divides the liquid it falls into, creating a void and exerting pressure on the liquid around it. The molecules of water rush back together at high velocity, driven by surface tension and reacting to the pressure exerted by the displaced liquid. When that tiny hole snaps back together, the force drives excess water upward, creating the beautiful “backjet” you see here.
Along the edge of the flat, mushroom-like cap, tiny sub-droplets are breaking off in an almost fractal manner, each driven to division by an outward force that pinches them off and overpowers the surface tension.
See more of Markus Reugels’ stunning droplet photography at Colossal.
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"GOD EXISTS!" Argument 5: The Beauty of Physical Laws
- Scientists use aesthetic principles (simplicity, symmetry, elegance) to discover the laws of nature.
- Scientists could only use aesthetic principles successfully if the laws of nature were intrinsically and objectively beautiful.
- The laws of nature are intrinsically and objectively beautiful (from 1 & 2).
- Only a mind-like being with an appreciation of beauty could have designed the laws of nature.
- god is the only being with the power and purpose to design beautiful laws of nature.
- god exists.
- FLAW 1: Do we decide an explanation is good because it’s beautiful, or do we find an explanation beautiful because it provides a good explanation? When we say that the laws of nature are beautiful, what we are really saying is that the laws of nature are the laws of nature, and thus unify into elegant explanation a vast host of seemingly unrelated and random phenomena. We would find the laws of nature of any lawful universe beautiful. So what this argument boils down to is the observation that we live in a lawful universe. And of course any universe that could support the likes of us would have to be lawful. So this argument is another version of the The Anthropic Principle — we live in the kind of universe which is the only kind of universe in which observers like us could live — and thus is subject to the flaws of this argument.
- FLAW 2: If the laws of the universe are intrinsically beautiful, then positing a god who loves beauty, and who is mysteriously capable of creating an elegant universe (and presumably a messy one as well, though his aesthetic tastes led him not to), makes the universe complex and incomprehensible all over again. This negates the intuition behind Premise 3, that the universe is intrinsically elegant and intelligible. (See The Argument from the Intelligibility of the Universe, which I will post soon).
- FLAW 3: A strict implementation of Physical laws negates the credibility of Miracles (later I will post about the Arguments from Miracles). The “scientific laws” of the philosopher of religion, who see them as products of a divine lawmaker, must be completely subjective. In fact, even though we are talking of scientific physical laws and not moral laws, let’s bring in the bogey man of relativism. Given that in their scenario the physical laws can be at the mercy, the whims and fancies, of their divine lawmaker they must see these scientific laws a relative as well as subjective. Aren’t they actually being relativist when they claim that their “miracles” are real? That they are caused by something “supernatural” – suspension of the laws of nature. Their god, in his wisdom, has demanded that these laws of nature are suspended or changed for a time. Isn’t that relativism?
Mind you, these days most claims of “miracles” and “supernatural” phenomena seem to derive more from credibility, falsehoods and poor observation than from any problems with the laws of nature.Flaw 1 is all it takes to decimate this argument.
(via deconversionmovement)
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Denis Dutton: A Darwinian Theory of Beauty
TED collaborates with animator Andrew Park to illustrate Denis Dutton’s provocative theory on beauty — that art, music and other beautiful things, far from being simply “in the eye of the beholder,” are a core part of human nature with deep evolutionary origins.A beautiful theory.
(via we-are-star-stuff)
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Trip out on these shrooms
(Source: setsofnine, via we-are-star-stuff)
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Serenity Nebula
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Amazing Jellies
(via we-are-star-stuff)
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High ResolutionThis is maybe one of the greatest wild life phenomenon on the planet ever captured on lens!
In the sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico, a massive congregation of Munkiana Devil Rays, relative of manta rays, was captured by a German photographer Florian Schulz, displaying unusual event which he dubbed as the Flight of the Rays.
But as this wonderful perspective shows, for all the individuals leaping out that are visible at sea level, there are many more below the surface. The jaw-dropping image below shows only a quarter of the whole scene.
No one knows why the rays gather like this, whether to mate, herd prey or migrate or just for the sheer joy of being together.
Divine Irony
is a rich archive of religious delusions, scientific truths and political implications.
"Tell people there’s an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure."
-George Carlin
“If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed”.
-Albert Einstein
