There is a very big diamond in the sky and her name just happens to be Lucy.

This is a pretty old discovery (2004, haha) but it is certainly one of my favorites. Basically, there is a GIANT DIAMOND FLOATING AROUND IN OUR GALAXY. How freaking cool is that?

Okay, well, here’s how it was formed: when a star burns out it becomes something that’s known as a white dwarf and at the core of this particular white dwarf is a very large (understatement of the century) diamond. It’s in the constellation Centarus, about 50 light years from us, and the Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicists that discovered it lovingly named her Lucy (I’m particularly fond of this seeing as I’m a gigantic Beatles nut.)

Most scientists were pretty sure that star cores crystalized after death, but Lucy was their first confirmation of this theory. She weighs 10 billion-trillion-trillion-carats, far surpassing the previous record held by the Golden Jubilee at 546 carats.  


     The Golden Jubilee diamond at a laughable 546 carats

Now, since us earthlings usually believe that diamonds are rare and incredibly valuable, you might be shocked to know that Lucy is not the only giant diamond floating around out there. In fact, most (if not all) white dwarfs eventually crystalize into diamonds in the sky. Of course this takes a rather long amount of time (about 2 billion years after the initial death of the star) but I’d say it’s worth the wait.

(Peep the link for some more info.)

Sadly we cannot thank the Neanderthals for Amy Adams and Neko Case... but they may have had their own hot redheads

In light of some not-so-new research done by pretty awesome forensic anthropologists it’s now clear that at least some Neanderthals were gingers. In a rather extraordinary feat of evolution our Neanderthal friends were the proud owners of a gene that in its mutated form caused red hair just like modern humans. Now you may be asking yourself, “well doesn’t this mean that there must be some link between modern Homo and Neanderthals because we must have gotten this redhead gene from them?” Here’s your answer: not so much.

The Neanderthal Amy Adams.... so hot.

This brings me to the most interesting thing about redheaded Neanderthals; they somehow independently evolved a gene that coded for gingers that is totally different from our gene that is responsible for the same exact thing. This probably plays quite well into the theory that red hair and pale skin are helpful for people that live in colder climates. Neanderthals were stockier and had wider noses than modern human because of the climate they called home plus, if they did have red hair, it would have greatly reduced their chance of getting rickets in such a cold atmosphere. Basically, hurray for redheaded Neanderthals! We modern humans salute you! (check the link above for some more detailed science-y stuff.)

Also, for all you boys with a love for redheads, there might actually be an evolutionary reason you want to get it on with them. There’s a good chance that most of the reason we still have redheads swimming in the gene pool is due to sexual selection (like natural selection only hotter)… again, yay redheads, sexy sexy redheads.

What a hottie... Jenny Lewis
Oh wild world of blogging... take kindly to me

I resisted for over a year, but the painful idea of studying for finals and a completely wasted Saturday has led me to convert to the dark side and enter the “blogosphere” as it were. I figure for my first post I should attempt to explain my convoluted title because there is some meaning behind it (unlike everything hipsters write on the internet, but I digress). 

Here’s the thing, I have lived in Knoxville, TN (home of the University of Tennessee Volunteers) ever since I was a wee little thing of 2 years old. My parents met at the University of Michigan (an adorable story I will undoubtedly share with you later on) and I was born while they were living in Ann Arbor. Daddy-o got a job as a professor at UT so we moved down here and basically the rest is history. 

We’re a Jewish family living in an overwhelmingly Christian and conservative part of the country so the dichotomy (hellz yeah vocab) created by the numerous differences between my religion and the city I call home has affected (and continues to affect effect fuck, I can never figure out the difference) my life in some rather interesting ways. 

This blog will now tell you about them (among other things, of course). Enjoy. 

Oh, did I mention that I love science? (I want to be a science journalist after all.) The blog will focus on that a lot too, so stick around.

I’m a fan of brevity, hope you are too. 

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Themed by: Hunson