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POPSMost spectacular view in the Solar System Few sights in the solar system are more strikingly beautiful than softly hued Saturn embraced by the shadows of its stately rings. The Cassini Orbiter on its mission in deep space caught this rare occasion of Saturn eclipsing the Sun.
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POPS25 Greatest Science Books of All Time The Origin of Species (1859) Darwin's masterwork is, undeniably, The Origin of Species , in which he introduced his theory of evolution by natural selection. Prior to its publication, the prevailing view was that each species had existed in its current form since the moment of divine creation and that humans were a privileged form of life, above and apart from nature. Darwin's theory knocked us from that pedestal. Wary of a religious backlash, he kept his ideas secret for almost two decades while bolstering them with additional observations and experiments. The result is an avalanche of detail—there seems to be no species he did not contemplate—thankfully delivered in accessible, conversational prose. A century and a half later, Darwin's paean to evolution still begs to be heard: "There is grandeur in this view of life," he wrote, that "from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
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POPSA writer is a person who cares about words. When I was struggling as a freelance writer, this quote was my mantra. Often when I told people I was a writer, their response was, "What have you written?" Later, when I was conducting memoir writing and personal history, I used the quote again to convince my students they were writers.
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POPS14 free vertical CSS menus Sometimes it's better not to bother reinventing the wheel. :) Here's some great CSS menu designs to give a solid navigation element to your site using only ul and li in the html.
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POPSThe Myth of Prodigy and Why it Matters Science writer, Malcolm Gladwell, debates the worth of placing so much attention on childhood prodigies and whether the notion of childhood prodigy hasn't been romanticized beyond it's importance. Our romanticized view of precociousness matters. When certain kids are singled out as gifted or talented, Gladwell suggested, it creates an environment that may be subtly discouraging to those who are just average. “In singling out people like me at age 13 for special treatment, we discouraged other kids from ever taking up running at all. And we will never know how many kids who might have been great milers had they been encouraged and not discouraged from joining running, might have ended up as being very successful 10 years down the road.”
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POPSGraphic: Timeline of the Big Bang An informative graphical timeline of the very creation of time, space, matter, and energy in our universe. Cool! I just clipped the first paragraph of the nicely written description that accompanies it. Of course, cosmology, cosmogony, and quantum physics, and the origins of space-time are some of the hardest fields of study being pursued right now. Any other pointers to clip-size explanations would be welcome additions to Clipmarks.
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POPSThe God Experiments Over millennia, as natural selection bolstered our unconscious anthropomorphic tendencies, they reached beyond specific objects and events to encompass all of nature, goes Guthrie's theory, until we persuaded ourselves that "the entire world of our experience is merely a show staged by some master dramatist."
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POPSComforting embrace You can disagree with the war, or the motives, or the decisions of our officials who sit in the safety of their Washington, D.C. offices, but you should never disparage or downplay the efforts of our men and women who serve our country.
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POPSBring the moon to your room OK, so it's a little weird, I wouldn't buy one, but if someone gave it to me as a present, I'd put it on the wall and gaze at it every night.
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