Owl visitation

(nicmaz37)

Spaceweather.com:

In a remote area of New Mexico, amateur astronomer Thomas Ashcraft operates an all-sky camera for nightly monitoring of meteors and fireballs. "The other night I caught a big one," he says. "An owl descended from the sky and landed on the clear dome of my fireball camera," explains Ashcraft. "It stayed for a few minutes and then flew away." This visitor was probably a Western Screech-Owl or a Great Horned Owl, two varieties common to New Mexico. Ornithologists may be able to pinpoint the species; the owl glances down during the video for a revealing self-portrait.

via Projectionist

Handicapped Parking

This horse was tied up outside of Mt. Ascutney Hospital in Windsor, Vermont. Notice the handicapped tag on its saddle. (click image for a closer look)

via Creature's Corner News

Method of Exercising a Cat

Illustration by Josh McKible

via LCSV4

Oranged-legged rain frog

Zooillogix: 10 New Amphibians Discovered (with photos)

David Douglas Duncan's Picasso photos

Picasso, clad only in briefs and slippers, his bathrobe draped over one arm, poses with his Afghan hound Kabul on the front steps of Mas Notre-Dame-de-Vie in Mougins, 1959 or later.

David Douglas Duncan - Picasso (extensive collection of photographs of Picasso and his work)

via Nag on the Lake
by way of Dog Art Today

Sam

from the archives of John H. McNulty

Weirdest cat ever

Tetrapod Zoology:

Apparently this animal was photographed in south-eastern Yemen where it was frequenting a building site. The photos were taken by Jim Larsen. He reported that the cat wasn't just hanging around the site, it was also chewing on cables; so much so that they had to take measures to stop the cables getting damaged further....

What is this animal? Of the cat species that occur at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, it lacks the striping characteristic of the African wild cat Felis lybica, and of course looks nothing at all like a Sand cat F. margarita. Apparently there's been some suggestion that it might be a Caracal Caracal caracal, but it doesn't look much like one at all. In fact, if its fat, rounded face and bob-tail are natural features it doesn't match any known species.

I am convinced that there are a large number of strange creatures out there that we haven't encountered yet. It's a big planet.

aqua forest aquarium

The International Aquatic Plant Layout Contest 2008

via Weekly Teinou 蜂 Woman

Cicada molting

File:Cicada molting animated-2.gif

via Projectionist

Sea Kittens

Save the Sea Kittens

In case you haven’t heard, fish are now “Sea Kittens”.

via Gems Sty

The Bunny Hop

Ele M's photostream

via Aspettando Ellis

white raccoon

FLORIDA TODAY:

The pale-furred mutant likes to munch on grapes and cat food, said a woman who feeds and photographs the elusive animal.

Fearful for the albino creature's safety, the woman asked Brevard Zoo officials to trap it and put it on public display. She asked FLORIDA TODAY to withhold her identity so hunters would not converge on the raccoon's territory.

"I'd hate to see him get shot as a trophy," she said. "This is something kids would love to see. He is so unique."

Michelle Smurl, Brevard Zoo's director of animal programs, said the zoo is not at liberty to trap an adult animal that is thriving in the wild.

via Mrs. Kitten

Parasites

The Alien Lives of Parasites:

Cymothoa exigua, a Crustacean, is the only known parasite that effectively replaces a body part. It makes its home in the mouth of a fish, where it feeds on blood until the tongue withers and dies. Attaching its body to the remaining stub, the parasite can now be manipulated by the fish as a functional new tongue.

hat tip: wtf_nature

Living Africa

Fighting elephants, Savute, Botswana

Steve Bloom - Living Africa

Living, breathing and bleeding.

via New Scientist

Tippi, the real-life Mowgli

Her "brother" was an elephant, her best friend a leopard and her playground the African bush.

The real-life Mowgli who grew up with Africa's wild animals

Tippi: My Book of Africa

Pilgrims

24 hours in pictures:

Puskar, Rajasthan: Pilgrims visit the world's largest cattle fair. The festival hosts about 50,000 camels, which are sold, decorated, shaved and raced Photograph: Piyal Adhikary/EPA

stray bullets

That Rothschild clan in full: eccentricity, money, influence and scandal Nat Rothschild’s career path – from playboy to plutocrat – has to be seen against the backdrop of his family history, studded as it is with eccentrics who were torn between loyalty to an immense and powerful name and the urge to break away from the clan. An interesting look at the 3rd Baron Rothschild and the celebrated, reviled and feared family of global players and manipulators. (via)

Turkish police may have beaten encryption key out of TJ Maxx suspect Otherwise known as rubber-hose cryptanalysis. (via)

Is surfing the Internet altering your brain? The Internet is not just changing the way people live but altering the way our brains work with a neuroscientist arguing this is an evolutionary change which will put the tech-savvy at the top of the new social order.

What I've Learned: John Malkovich There will be people who will hate anything you do. And some people will really love it. But that's not really different from the people who really hate it. You could learn a thing or two from what he's learned. (via)

also:
Judge Slams RIAA Tactics (via)
A guide to the Hippocratic Oath
Seven of the greatest scientific hoaxes
Top 10 Science Hoaxes
Evolution of Logos (pictoral history of well known logo designs) (via)
How to Take Better Photographs
Audio Slideshow: Photos compete for the Prix Pictet
Listen to Genius (audio library) (via)
Andrei Codrescu: Life Without Smell May Not Be Worth It (audio)
Pinewood Dialogues (conversations with film, TV, digital media innovators and creators) (audio) (via)

A by-product of obsessively, constantly surfing the net to discover the bright and the shiny is a steady flow of promising new ideas. Mostly slight variations on existing great ideas that tickle your fancy. Rands In Repose: FriendDA (via)

viddy:
FreakyFlicks (obscure torrents) (via)
Studs Terkel a/v linkdump
Film, Art and Creative Television (exclusive videos and interviews with artists and filmmakers) (via)
The greatest choreography in film history
Kids in the Hall - Sausages
Pig Fights Lion (wow)
Good for Nothing, Peanut-Stealing Cat (via)
Klaus Nomi's Lime Tart Recipe (doc)

"Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think." - John Cage, 'Rules for Students and Teachers' (via)

stray bullets

Getting A Story Made at National Geographic After talking with several National Geographic photographers about shooting for the magazine I became intrigued with the process of getting a story made. The collaboration between the photo editors and photographers and then the photographers involvement in all the steps along the way is unique and important to how they make stories. More magazines should spend this kind of time with their contributors. The few times I’ve had photographer come into the office and present their images to us have been incredibly rewarding and certainly I think made the story that much better. I asked David Griffin, National Geographic’s Director of Photography about the process of getting stories made and the rumored years it takes for a story to go from idea to printed page... (via)

Jacking into the Brain--Is the Brain the Ultimate Computer Interface? How far can science advance brain-machine interface technology? Will we one day pipe the latest blog entry or NASCAR highlights directly into the human brain as if the organ were an outsize flash drive?

From Silver Lake to Suicide: One Family's Secret History of the Jonestown Massacre A cache of letters hidden in the basement brings to life a house, a family and the tragedy that would change everything (via)

Love story: The librarian, the postal worker and their art Art takes up all the air in Herb and Dorothy Vogel's cramped one-bedroom on the Upper East Side. Minimalist and conceptual works cover every inch of wall and dangle from the ceiling. Because there is no other place for it, a Richard Tuttle painting clings to the inside of a louvered door that leads to the tiny kitchen. Other pieces crowd shelves and table tops. And the Vogels, who are giving the Miami Art Museum and 49 other institutions around the country gifts of 50 artworks each and are subjects of a documentary that will screen in December during Art Basel Miami Beach, say there is plenty more under the bed and jammed into the closets of this modest, rent-stabilized space they have called home since 1963.

Library Ghosts: Northeastern U.S. Last year about this time (just in time for Halloween), I posted on this blog a list of libraries that are said to be haunted. Now the library ghosts are back, by popular demand...

also:
Stanislav Petrov, the man who could have started a nuclear war, but didn’t (via)
Know Your Intelligence Agencies: National Reconnaissance Office
Biology in Science Fiction: Erasing Memory
The History of Some of Today's Most Common Phrases (via)
Recent additions to the Chambers Slang Dictionary
Punctuation Game
1000 artworks to see before you die (via)
Podcasts from the University of Oxford (via)
Haruki Murakami interview (via)
Wayne Coyne interview
Aerial Phenomena Research: Selected Papers - Jacques F. Vallee (via)
Casting the Runes by M.R. James
Oboe Bong

Futility Closet: Over the Moon Jules Verne earned his title as the father of science fiction. His 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon contains eerie similarities to the Apollo program that unfolded a century later. (read more)

viddy:
The Anti-Fascist trailer
Parallel Universes, Parallel Lives 1/6 (Eels frontman Mark Everett in search of his father's brain. Dr Hugh Everett III proposed the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics.) (via)
Hog Hunting (A plague of feral hogs has descended on the American South. They've been spotted here in Savannah.) (via)
The Real Secret Of The Matrix: The Haunting Sound Of The Waterphone (You'll know it as soon as you hear it.)
Daily (kinda sorta) Weather with David Lynch (via)
Angkor Wat, Cambodia (1930s newsreel)

Spy Pigeons

National Air and Space Museum:

In 1903, Dr. Julius Neubronner patented a miniature pigeon camera activated by a timing mechanism. Equipped with the cameras, the pigeons photographed a castle in Kronberg, Germany, around 1908. Pigeon Photographs © Deutsches Museum, Munich.

Spy Pigeons Circle the World

Urban parrots

image via

I lived in two areas of New Orleans that had wild Quaker parrots all over the place. When I lived in Gentilly, we had them in the palm trees in our front yard. One of the people in the neighborhood told me that they had escaped from a pet store fire back in the '60s. Since Quaker parrots, aka Monk parakeets, originate in Argentina and are not migratory, it stands to reason that they escaped from captivity of some sort. They thrive there.

It seems that feral parrots are living in cities all over the world.

BrooklynParrots.com a website about the wild parrots of Brooklyn and other environs
Blake Pontchartrain on the wild Quaker parrots of New Orleans
and yes, they did survive Katrina
City Parrots Urban Parrot Conservation
The California Parrot Project

Independent Lens - The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (PBS) (clip)



The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill