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What causes the smell after rain?"

What causes the smell after rain?"
Most people notice a distinctive smell in the air after it rains. It's frequently linked with spring, as the smell of fresh cut grass is associated with summer. You'll find it in a lot of poetry and also on many inspirational lists of things to be happy about. As it turns out, the smells people associate with rainstorms can be caused by a number of things. Another sort of smell is caused by the acidity of rain. Another after-the-rain smell comes from volatile oils that plants and trees release. These are a few common rain smells, but there are also all sorts of other scents after it rains.

How To Mix Chalkboard Paint in Any Color We love using chalkboards as backdrops for displays and parties (like this one here!). So we were super excited to learn that you can create your own custom colors-and it's really easy! We first learned how from Martha Stewart whose tutorial you can read here. She recommends that you use latex paint, but we tried it out with acrylic paints with much success. Here's how you too can create your own chalkboard paint... Supplies: 1/2 cup acrylic paint (choose any color you like, or mix colors together to make the perfect shade!) 1. 2. Once your chalkboard has fully dried be sure to slate the surface before using it for the first time. Have fun creating any color combination you like!!

Scientists Discover The Oldest, Largest Body Of Water In Existence--In Space Scientists have found the biggest and oldest reservoir of water ever--so large and so old, it’s almost impossible to describe. The water is out in space, a place we used to think of as desolate and desert dry, but it's turning out to be pretty lush. Researchers found a lake of water so large that it could provide each person on Earth an entire planet’s worth of water--20,000 times over. The water is in a cloud around a huge black hole that is in the process of sucking in matter and spraying out energy (such an active black hole is called a quasar), and the waves of energy the black hole releases make water by literally knocking hydrogen and oxygen atoms together. The official NASA news release describes the amount of water as “140 trillion times all the water in the world’s oceans," which isn’t particularly helpful, except if you think about it like this. That one cloud of newly discovered space water vapor could supply 140 trillion planets that are just as wet as Earth is.

How Animals See the World The human eye is pretty amazing, but there are some things it cannot do such as see ultraviolet light or detect images at a great distance. The visual capabilities on non-human creatures can help to open our eyes to the possibilities beyond our limited sight. This infographic, published by Mezzmer, looks at vision from some animal’s point of view. [Click here for full size version] Embed This Image On Your Site (copy code below): <div style="clear:both"><a href=" src=" alt="How Animals See the World" border="0" /></a></div><div>Courtesy of: <a href=" Journal</a></div> About the Author (Author Profile)

Fairy Tales Can Come True Here's a "photo story" based on the book, Fairy Tales Can Come True (Just Not Every Day!), published by Shake It! Books. You'll have a few giggles... and learn a few things as well! Falling in love is the easy part. "This relationship stuff. Try to change your attitude a bit. "Okay, I'm taking notes!" Tip #1 Make a list. "Hmmm... Pretty soon, you'll find yourself thinking... "Say, he's not so bad after all!" And making that list goes for both of you —to help you both remember the good. "That's what we do. Click to continue Pondering a universe without purpose - latimes.com The illusion of purpose and design is perhaps the most pervasive illusion about nature that science has to confront on a daily basis. Everywhere we look, it appears that the world was designed so that we could flourish. The position of the Earth around the sun, the presence of organic materials and water and a warm climate — all make life on our planet possible. As a cosmologist, a scientist who studies the origin and evolution of the universe, I am painfully aware that our illusions nonetheless reflect a deep human need to assume that the existence of the Earth, of life and of the universe and the laws that govern it require something more profound. But science has taught us to think the unthinkable. And so it is that the 21st century has brought new revolutions and new revelations on a cosmic scale. And so we continue to be surprised. This has changed our vision of the future, which is now far bleaker.

Före vigseln - hindersprövning Så ansöker ni om hindersprövning Ansök om hindersprövning genom att fylla i Skatteverkets blankett SKV 7880 och skicka eller lämna den till Skatteverket. Beroende på vilken anknytning ni har till Sverige kan ni behöva lämna in även andra handlingar och personligen besöka Skatteverket vid ansökningstillfället. Läs vidare om vad som gäller för er: Vi är båda folkbokförda i Sverige Om ni båda är folkbokförda i Sverige kan ni ansöka om hindersprövning genom att fylla i Skatteverkets blankett Länk SKV 7880. Blanketten kan skrivas ut eller beställas via vår servicetelefon 020-567 000 direktval 1007 ellerbeställas via vår beställningstjänst. Om en av er inte är folkbokförd i Sverige, det vill säga antingen är avregistrerad från den svenska folkbokföringen eller aldrig varit folkbokförd här, måste ni besöka ett servicekontor i samband med att ni lämnar in ansökan om hindersprövning. Du som inte är folkbokförd i Sverige ska även lämna ett intyg där ditt civilstånd framgår. Anmälan om efternamn

Centsational Girl & Blog Archive & Recycled Wine Barrel Planter I know this happens to you. You see something in a catalog or online and you think to yourself, “I bet I could make that for less money” or “I think I could pull off a similar version, but give it my own twist”. That’s just what happened when I spied the tiered recycled wine barrel planter in the Napa Style catalog for $299. As I mentioned yesterday, wine barrels are readily accessible where I’m from, and we can find them for as little as $20 a half barrel. (If you’re local, make a stop at Mission ACE on Highway 12, they’ll hook you up!) After we scored a few half barrels last week from our favorite source, the mister and I decided to build our own rustic planter, and for much less than the Napa Style version. Napa Style barrel planter, $299. CG barrel planter, $25. Wine barrels make fantastic planters season after season, and this version is an interesting variation on the ordinary half barrel planter. My design is different than the NS version which has 4 tiers and 6 planting areas.

Bengal Cats For Sale Bengal Cat Breeder Breeders Snow Bengal Cats For Sale How to Trick Your Brain for Happiness | Greater Good - StumbleUpon This month, we feature videos of a Greater Good presentation by Rick Hanson, the best-selling author and trailblazing psychologist. In this excerpt from his talk, Dr. Hanson explains how we can take advantage of the brain’s natural “plasticity”—it’s ability to change shape over time. gobyg There’s this great line by Ani Tenzin Palmo, an English woman who spent 12 years in a cave in Tibet: “We do not know what a thought is, yet we’re thinking them all the time.” It’s true. In recent years, though, we have started to better understand the neural bases of states like happiness, gratitude, resilience, love, compassion, and so forth. Ultimately, what this can mean is that with proper practice, we can increasingly trick our neural machinery to cultivate positive states of mind. But in order to understand how, you need to understand three important facts about the brain. Fact one: As the brain changes, the mind changes, for better or worse. Fact two: As the mind changes, the brain changes. 1. 2. 3.

11 cheap gifts guaranteed to impress science geeks | DVICE - StumbleUpon Science comes up with a lot of awesome stuff, and you don't need a Ph.D, a secret lab, or government funding to get your hands on some of the coolest discoveries. We've got a list of 11 mostly affordable gifts that are guaranteed to blow your mind, whether or not you're a science geek. Click on any image to see it enlarged. 1. Aerogel Also known as frozen smoke, Aerogel is the world's lowest density solid, clocking in at 96% air. Aerogel isn't just neat, it's useful. Price: $35 2. Inside these sealed glass balls live shrimp, algae, and bacteria, all swimming around in filtered seawater. EcoSpheres came out of research looking at ways to develop self-contained ecosystems for long duration space travel. Price: $80 3. NASA has been trying to figure out how to get a sample of rock back from Mars for a while now. Every once in a while, a meteorite smashes into Mars hard enough to eject some rocks out into orbit around the sun. Price: $70+ 4. Price: $150 5. Price: $110 6. Price: $80 7. Price: $15 8.

Neuroscience Sheds New Light on Creativity - Rewiring the Creative Mind | Fast Company - StumbleUpon 500MW from half a gram of hydrogen: The hunt for fusion power heats up - Slideshow | ExtremeTech - StumbleUpon You’ve heard of the Manhattan Project — the Allied research and development program that resulted in two nuclear bombs being dropped on Japan and the end of World War II — and now it’s time to learn about one of its successors, Project Matterhorn, a Cold War program to control and harness thermonuclear reactions to create fusion power. Nuclear fusion occurs when two atoms fuse together (usually hydrogen) to form a heavier atom (helium), and releasing a vast amount of energy in the process. This process can only occur at incredibly high temperatures, such as the center of a star (such as our Sun). Every second, the Sun fuses 500 million tons of hydrogen into helium, releasing about 5 million tons of gamma rays that eventually heat and illuminate Earth. So far the main problem with fusion power generation is that it doesn’t actually produce more thermal energy than the electrical energy required to keep the reaction going.

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