Oranged-legged rain frog

Zooillogix: 10 New Amphibians Discovered (with photos)

Tempête sur la pointe de Bretagne

(video link)

Incredibly beautiful.

I’ve always thought it would be cool to be a lighthouse keeper, but this might try my nerves. I wonder what it’s like to be in there while this is going on?

via TYWKIWDBI

The Ring of Fire

photo: Dennis L. Mammana (TWAN)

APOD:

Tomorrow, a few lucky people may see a "ring of fire." That's a name for the central view of an annular eclipse of the Sun by the Moon. At the peak of this eclipse, the middle of the Sun will appear to be missing and the dark Moon will appear to be surrounded by the bright Sun. This will only be visible, however, from a path that crosses the southern Indian Ocean. From more populated locations, southern Africa and parts of Australia, most of the Moon will only appear to take a bite out the Sun. Remember to never look directly at the Sun even during an eclipse. An annular eclipse occurs instead of a total eclipse when the Moon is on the far part of its elliptical orbit around the Earth. The next annular eclipse of the Sun will take place in 2010 January, although a total solar eclipse will occur this July. Pictured above, a spectacular annular eclipse was photographed behind palm trees on 1992 January.

Blown away by something new every day - I love the internet.

Cicada molting

File:Cicada molting animated-2.gif

via Projectionist

Solargraph

Suspension Bridge Solargraph

photo: Justin Quinnell

If every picture tells a story, this one might make a novel. The six month long exposure compresses the time from December 17, 2007 to June 21, 2008 into a single point of view. Dubbed a solargraph, the remarkable image was recorded with a simple pinhole camera made from a drink can lined with a piece of photographic paper. The Clifton Suspension Bridge over the Avon River Gorge in Bristol, UK emerges from the foreground, but rising and setting each day the Sun arcs overhead, tracing a glowing path through the sky. Cloud cover causes dark gaps in the daily Sun trails. In December, the Sun trails begin lower down and are short, corresponding to a time near the northern hemisphere’s winter solstice date. They grow longer and climb higher in the sky as the June 21st summer solstice approaches.

Basimycetes

Haeckel Basimycetes

The Magic of Mushroom Spores

Perigee 2009

photo: CytecK

Tonight's perigee moon in photos

untitled

+ Chi +'s photostream (beautiful)

via roamin

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

ice storm

Trees bent by the weight of ice from a winter storm line railroad tracks in Hinsdale, Mass., Friday, Dec. 12. The Berkshire Eagle / Ben Garver

70 degrees here in Savannah.

via The Frame

Lick Observatory Moonrise

photo: Rick Baldridge

APOD: As viewed from a well chosen location at sunset, October's gorgeous Full Moon rose behind Mount Hamilton, east of San Jose, California. Captured in this lovely telescopic view, historic Lick Observatory is perched on the mountain's 4,200 foot summit, observatory and rising Moon momentarily sharing the warm color of filtered sunlight. Of course, tonight those blessed with clear skies can also enjoy a glorious Full Moon. In fact, tonight's Moon reaches its full phase at 1637 UT, within only a few hours of perigee, the closest point in its elliptical orbit. The close approach really will make December's Full Moon the largest Full Moon of 2008, even when it rises high above the horizon.

Why does the moon seem bigger near the horizon?

diatom

Best Pictures of Microscopic Life, 2008:

This micrograph by Montana psychiatrist Stephen Nagy magnifies, by 40 times, a 20-million-year-old fossil of an extinct breed of algae.

Nagy dug up samples of this microscopic diatom in Maryland, then carefully sliced one open like a tiny pomegranate. Using a specialized microscope that uses different colors to represent depth and density, Nagy took five images and stacked them atop one another.

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

Snow crystals

Snow crystals:

Snow flakes highly magnified by a low-temperature scanning electron microscope (SEM). The colours are called "pseudo colours", they are computer generated and are a standard technique used with SEM images.

via kung fu grippe

The fires under Centralia, PA

In 1962, attempts to clean up a landfill by burning it set fire to the coal mine underneath Centralia, Pennsylvania. The fire has been going strong ever since. Most of Centralia is in ruins and its population has dropped from over 1,000 residents in 1981 to less than 10 in 2007. As the area is loaded with rich deposits of coal, the spreading underground fire is expected to threaten the neighboring town of Ashland in the near future. There are no immediate plans to extinguish the fire, which is consuming an eight-mile seam containing enough coal to fuel it for upwards of 250 years.

So you want to visit Centralia PA ...

Centralia Pennsylvania (many photos)
Centralia, Pennsylvania wiki

hat tip to wtf_nature

Sea glass

In the picture above, there is genuine beach sea glass on the left and on the right of the picture, artificially tumbled craft glass. This photo shows the artificial glass covered up.

Sea glass:

Sea glass (also known as beach glass, mermaid's tears, lucky tears, and many other names) is glass found on beaches along oceans or large lakes that has been tumbled and smoothed by the water and sand, creating small pieces of smooth, frosted glass.

Sea glass is one of the very few cases of a valuable item being created from the actions of the environment on man-made litter.

Sea Glass: The Search on the Shore (it's harder to find these days)
North American Sea Glass Association

Beautiful Birds

An illustration of the scarlet ibis by John James Audubon from 1837.

Audubon’s Species: Bird Art, in All Its Glory

stray bullets

Can’t See the Forest for the Trees But as she drove around the country, Hecht noticed plenty of trees. Some were remnants of old forests, but she also saw hedgerows, backyard orchards, coffee groves, trees growing along rivers and streams, cashew and palm plantations, saplings sprouting in abandoned fields, and heavily wooded grassland. Almost every village abounded with trees—“like a big jungle forest,” she said. Rather than no trees, she saw them everywhere. Nature was far from extinguished; it was thriving. Re-evaluating the 'myth of the pristine forest', it seems that humans have been shaping them for quite some time. (via)

As SLow aS Possible Fair warning for long-term music lovers: the world’s slowest concert, a 639-year organ piece by American avant-garde composer John Cage (01912-01992), will next change notes in just over a month’s time, on 5 November 02008. (with video of the last change, this past July)

Indigenous Media Because I do Internet and Indigenous/Grassroot identity I am occasionally asked “what do you know about Indigenous people on the Internet or on other media?” The answer is: I don’t usually mix these two. However in the name of developing some competence here are a few links...

also:
Thomas Pynchon’s next book (can't wait)
Ancient Peru Pyramid Spotted by Satellite
Man reads entire Oxford English Dictionary
100 Skills Every Man Should Know (girls, too)
10 High Paying Dirty Jobs

viddy:
High-speed (super slow motion) Video Clips (loads)
Sam and Dave interview - 1967
1977 CBC Interview with Marshal McLuhan

Brilliant Noise

Big WOW. Old Sol is such a deep mystery.

Semiconductor:

Brilliant Noise by Semiconductor: Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt

Brilliant Noise takes us into the data vaults of solar astronomy. After sifting through hundreds of thousands of computer files, made accessible via open access archives, Semiconductor have brought together some of the sun's finest unseen moments. These images have been kept in their most raw form, revealing the energetic particles and solar wind as a rain of white noise. This grainy black and white quality is routinely cleaned up by NASA, hiding the processes and mechanics in action behind the capturing procedure. Most of the imagery has been collected as single snapshots containing additional information, by satellites orbiting the Earth. They are then reorganised into their spectral groups to create time-lapse sequences. The soundtrack highlights the hidden forces at play upon the solar surface, by directly translating areas of intensity within the image brightness into layers of audio manipulation and radio frequencies.

available on DVD with 12 alternate soundtracks
more info

Rainbow over the Leith Walk

DK Preston's photostream

via suwaowa.log