Neuron time-lapse wins 2023 Nikon Small World video competition

The winner of the 2023 Nikon Small World in Motion competition is Alexandre Dumoulin of the Department of Molecular Life Sciences at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. The first sequence in this video is his winning entry, which depicts 48 hours in the development of neurons in a chick embryo as it develops its central nervous system. The footage shows the elongation of axons – projections from nerve cells – between the two hemispheres of the central nervous system.

The other top placed videos follow which are very cool too …

Learn more here.

8 Billion humans

Back in 2011 I was astonished we had reached a global population of 7 billion.

And now we just clocked over to 8 billion!

I wonder how the rate of population change will look over the next 10 to 100 years:

Though the global population is still rising, the rate of growth has slowed. Based on current projections, the population is expected to peak in the 2080s — at about 10.4 billion people. After that, it may hold steady until 2100. Learn more here.

Millions of children learn only very little.

For many children schools do not live up to their promise: in many schools children learn very little.

This is a problem in rich countries. By the end of primary school about 9% of children in high-income countries cannot read with comprehension.

But it tends to be a much larger problem in poorer countries. This is what the chart below shows. Researchers estimate that in the very poorest countries of the world 90% of children are not able to read with comprehension when they reach the end of primary school.

To learn more about this data and some low-cost ways to improve learning outcomes, click here.

COVID-19: update

One of the most important indicators of the state of the pandemic globally is the number of people dying from COVID every day.

The daily number of confirmed COVID deaths is at its lowest level in over two years—the last time it was lower was 30 March 2020.

Learn more here.

Why Real Explosions Don’t Look Like Movie Explosions

Explosions on film are made to look good: fireballs and flame. In reality, though, they’re a bit disappointing. Here’s how Hollywood does it.

COVID-19: some data

There is much being written about COVID-19 and while I don’t plan to add to it, I have come across some excellent data sources on the spread and effects of this virus.

The most well known is – Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) (here is an interview with the people creating this data too.)

Our World in Data is an astoundingly good website with enormous amounts of information and their Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) – Statistics and Research page is no different (see also their testing data page).

Finally, being Australian, the Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Australia site is also of interest.

Hope the above are of interest.

2019 Best illusion of the Year Contest Winner

I really like optical illusions. And this is no exception …

The video above shows the top winner in the annual Illusion of the Year competition. It’s called the Dual Axis illusion by Frank Force. Is this shape spinning vertically or horizontally? You can’t tell, because it’s a 2D image, but your brain makes it seem one or the other, until visual cues help you change the orientation.

Light Speed – fast, but slow

Light travels at 299 792 458 m/s.

If you could travel at the speed of light, you could go around the Earth 7.5 times in one second. Which is fast, but…

A scientist captured an impossible photo of a single atom

Using an ordinary camera, with the help of long exposure, a laser, and two electrodes to suspend the atom in the air, a Scientist called David Nadlinger successfully took a photo of a single glowing strontium atom.

How awesome is that!

When illuminated by a laser of the right blue-violet colour, the atom absorbs and re-emits light particles sufficiently quickly for an ordinary camera to capture it in a long exposure photograph. Learn more here.

One of Australia’s 10 Most Influential Educational Leaders, 2019

The Knowledge Review recently announced Australia’s 10 Most Influential Educational Leaders (online magazine), 2019 … and it turns out I was one of them.

So that is cool!

Read more here.