50 of the Most Beautiful Exotic Animals on Planet Earth

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via pxleyes.com

The tropical area on the globe surrounds the Equator, being limited by the tropic of Cancer in the North and the Tropic of Capricorn in the South. This region creates a special climate, entitled, suggestively enough, the tropical climate – known to be humid and hot year-round, in such a way that it gives birth to some of the most famous forests on Earth: the rainforests. Some regions have both a wet and a dry season, where other type of flora and fauna flourishes.

Today’s showcase presents 50 of the most stunning and exotic animals that can be found between the two tropics, creatures that most of us get to see in a zoo only, during a lifetime. Definitely worth taking a good look!

Here’s How Much Every Continent In The World Spends On Mobile Advertising

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via businessinsider.com

The Interactive Advertising Bureau joined forces with ad spend trackers around the world to measure how much money is spent on mobile advertising globally and regionally.

It turns out that the world spent $5.3 billion on mobile ads (from display to search to messaging) overall in 2011, and it turns out that Asia is laying out the most capital. The breakdown is:

Asia-Pacific: 35.9 percent

North America: 31.4 percent

Europe: 25.9 percent

Latin America: 3.5 percent

Africa: 3.2 percent

In dollars that’s…

NASA Envisions Alien Worlds Photos

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For decades, NASA has delighted stargazers with pictures taken by astronauts, telescopes, and rovers across the galaxy — photographic glimpses of real planets, moons, stars, and other heavenly bodies. When illustrators, meanwhile, stretch their imaginations — giving shape and color to what, say, a sunrise on another world — their work offers brilliant notions of what vistas beyond our tiny corner of space might look like. Captured by a camera or, as in this gallery, envisioned by artists, the far reaches of space continue to humble and amaze.

Our Sun Like You Have Never Seen It Before

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via gizmodo.com

This video takes SDO images and applies additional processing to enhance the structures visible. While there is no scientific value to this processing, it does result in a beautiful, new way of looking at the sun. The original frames are in the 171 Angstrom wavelength of extreme ultraviolet. This wavelength shows plasma in the solar atmosphere, called the corona, that is around 600,000 Kelvin. The loops represent plasma held in place by magnetic fields. They are concentrated in “active regions” where the magnetic fields are the strongest. These active regions usually appear in visible light as sunspots. The events in this video represent 24 hours of activity on September 25, 2011.

This Incredible Video Shows All Roads, Air, and Shipping Routes on the Entire Planet

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via gizmodo.com

Scientists are thinking about starting a new geological era: the Anthropocene, the period of geological, environmental and biological transformation of the planet by humans. Cities, towns, shipping routes, global roads and air networks are all changing Earth. This video shows the extent of this change.

The new era’s name (anthropo- means human and -cene means new) refers to the effect of humans on Earth ecosystems, including the transformation of terrain and life all around us. This visualization of Earth-made by anthropologist Felix Pharand-Deschenes-shows this effect. It’s amazing and breathtaking, but also pretty scary. Enjoy it. Or not.

The World’s Population Density, Visualized

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via gizmodo.com

It’s difficult to get a handle on the population density around the world. Fortunately, this visualization makes it a little easier to get your head round.

Put together by Derek Watkins, it’s actually interactive: you get to use a slider to shift the population density and see it change before your eyes. You should head to his website to try it out for yourself. The image above shows the areas around the world that home 5 people per square mile or more.

Breathtaking NASA Photos

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Unless you can afford a ticket to space ($200,000 with Virgin Galactic), the only way we will ever be able to clearly view our planet in its entirety or any distant galaxies is through the photographs released by NASA (The National Aeronautics and Space Agency). So, here are a few of my favorite pictures taken by NASA from its various space programs. You will find them breathtaking.

Distant Planet An Exotic Water-world

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A new class of planet has emerged from the buzzing masses of celestial spinners, a type unlike the rocky, gassy and icy worlds shuffling around the solar system.

The poster-planet for this new order is GJ 1214b, first discovered in 2009 and now shown to be a steamy, water-rich sphere. But it’s not a water-world in the sense of splashing oceans and Kevin Costner: Scientists suspect that the planet’s interior is filled with some exotic, high-pressure form of solid H2O unlike anything seen on Earth.

Big Question for 2012: Will We Find Earth 2.0?

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via news.discovery.com

On Tuesday, astronomers using NASA’s Kepler space telescope announced the discovery of two Earth-size worlds orbiting a star 1,000 light-years away.

Kepler has detected many more candidate worlds of this size, but this was the first time confirmation of small rocky worlds with terrestrial dimensions had been announced.

Does this mean Kepler’s mission has been accomplished? Is this proof that Earth 2.0 exists? It is after all Kepler’s prime objective to seek out Earth-like worlds — or “Earth analogs.” Isn’t this exoplanetary duo “Earth-like”?