alonein-kyoto:

The world of programming. 

The oldest surviving illustrated manuscript written in Arabic on any subject is a manuscript on paper of Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi’s Treatise on the Fixed Stars preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford [Ms. Marsh 144. p. 165].

“The pictures show the configurations of the stars in the forty-eight constellations recognized by Ptolemy, but the figures are dressed in Oriental rather than classical Greek garb. Al-Sufi wrote in his text that although he knew of another illustrated astronomical treatise, he copied his illsutrations directly from images engraved on a celestial globe, indicating that he was not working in a manuscript tradition.

According to the eleventh-century scholar al-Biruni, al-Sufi explained that he had laid a very thin piece of paper over a celestial globe and fitted it carefully over the surface of the sphere. He then traced the outlines of the constellations and the locations of individual stars on the paper. Al-Biruni later commented that this procedure ‘is an [adequate] approximation when the figures are small but it is far [from adequate] if they are large.’

The Oxford manuscript of al-Sufi’s text was copied from the author’s original by his son” (Bloom, Paper Before Print. The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World [2001]  143-44 and figure 51).

The Book of Fixed Stars (in Arabic: كتاب صور الكواكب /kitab suwar al kawakib/) is an astronomical text written by Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (Azophi) around 964. The book was written in Arabic, although the author himself was Persian. It was an attempt to create a synthesis of the most popular classical work of astronomy — Ptolemy’s Almagest — with the indigenous Arabic tradition, or Anwa.

The book was thoroughly illustrated along with observations and descriptions of the stars, their positions, their magnitudes (brightness) and their color. His results were set out constellation by constellation. For each constellation, he provided two drawings, one from the outside of a celestial globe, and the other from the inside.

The work was highly influential and survives in numerous manuscripts and translations. The oldest manuscript, kept in the Bodleian Library, dates to AD 1009 and is the work of the author’s son.

He has the earliest known descriptions and illustrations of what he called “A Little Cloud” which is actually the Andromeda Galaxy. He mentions it as lying before the mouth of a Big Fish, an Arabicconstellation. This “cloud” was apparently commonly known to the Isfahan astronomers, very probably before 905 AD. The first recorded mention of the Large Magellanic Cloud was also given by Abd Al-Rahman Al Sufi in his Book of Fixed Stars. These were the first galaxiesother than the Milky Way to be observed from Earth. The Great Andromeda Nebula he observed was also the first true nebula to be observed, as distinct from a star cluster.

He probably also cataloged the Omicron Velorum star cluster as a “nebulous star”, and an additional “nebulous object” in Vulpecula, a cluster now variously known as Al Sufi’s Cluster, the “Coathanger asterism”, Brocchi’s Cluster or Collinder 399. Moreover, he mentions the Large Magellanic Cloud as Al Bakr, the White Ox, of the southern Arabs as it is visible from SouthernArabia, although not from more northern latitudes.

Vesicles of The Neuron

A colorized scanning EM of a nerve broken open to reveal the vesicles containing the neurotransmitters.

Image Credit: NIH, via Curiosity/Discovery, via Sloth Unleashed

karleybodis:

Troublemaker

mothernaturenetwork:

Male crickets are very chivalrous
Male crickets lay down their lives for their mates, protecting them from birds and other predators.