May 30, 2010

Canadian Billboards ...

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May 22, 2010

Animals in the news ...

With the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico still unfolding, concerns over threats to wildlife have brought animals into the news quite a bit lately. From the oil spill, to preservation efforts, to zoo developments, pampered pets, harsh environments, invasive fish, a surfing alpaca and more, collected here are a handful of recent photographs of animals and our interactions with them, as companions, caretakers, observers, and stewards.

A bear cools down in the water at the zoo in Gelsenkirchen, western Germany, Thursday, April 29, 2010 as Germany faced the hottest day this year so far, with temperatures up to 28 degrees Celsius (82 Fahrenheit).

Molly the Flat coated Retriever undergoes an eye test at the on site vet during the fourth and final of the annual Crufts dog show at the National Exhibition Center on March 14, 2010 in Birmingham, England. During this year's four-day competition nearly 28,000 dogs and their owners will vie for a variety of accolades, ultimately seeking the coveted 'Best In Show'.

A 3-year-old toy poodle Mizuho sits in "Dog Wash Machine," for shampooing at a pet shop named Pet World Joyful Honda in Tokyo, Japan, Tuesday, March 16, 2010. Inside the closed machine, a dog receives a service that includes tear-free shampoo, rinsing and blow dry in the 30-minute course. It costs 1,000 yen (about US$11).

Bill Rothschild looks at his crayfish, Cray Aiken, on Tuesday, April 27, 2010, at his home in Granite Springs, New York.

One of four neglected zoo tigers from Germany arrive at the Dutch shelter for predators in Nijeberkoop, on March 2010. The animals (two 15 year olds and two 6 year olds) come from Tierpark Kalletal zoo, which closed earlier this year.

The Scottish highland cow "Berenike" stands in a garden in Neunkirchen, western Germany on March 18, 2010, after escaping from a field of a hobby-farmer. The police chased the cow into a garden where it was anesthetized by a veterinary surgeon.

A baby whitecoat harp seal is pictured after being washed up on the shore of Prince Edward Island in this handout photo from the International Fund for Animal Welfare, released March 25, 2010. The worst ice year on record in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada, means thousands of harp seals are expected to die this year.

A zoo keeper holds the beak of a Caribbean flamingo at Chester Zoo in northern England March 29, 2010. The zoo's 87 flamingos are being measured, weighed and microchipped for the first time in a decade as part of a health check.

Tom Richardson rescues his cat from his flooded home in Freetown, Massachusetts on Thursday, April 1, 2010, which has been severely flooded due to the rising waters of nearby Long Pond.

London Zookeeper Laura Childs poses for a picture with a spiny stick insect as she takes part in a photocall to promote London Zoo's annual stock take of animals on January 5, 2010.

An oil soaked bird struggles against the oil slicked side of the HOS Iron Horse supply vessel at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana Sunday, May 9, 2010.

A nine-day-old gorilla lays in the hand of its mother Kijivu at the Prague Zoo on May 3, 2010.

A policeman tries to divert a female moose into a net during an organized catch after she accidentally entered the suburbs of Lublin, Poland on May 4, 2010. The moose was later released back into the forest.

Male crocodile "Rex", five meters in length and estimated to be 30-40 years old, thrashes the water while holding a chicken in his mouth during the first public feeding session in his new Kakadu Gorge enclosure at Sydney Wildlife World in Australia on March 29, 2010. Rex, a so-called 'rogue' crocodile, who was captured and placed into a crocodile farm near Darwin in the Northern Territory several years ago, was moved to Wildlife World in mid-December 2009 and will be the only croc housed in the enclosure.

Horses run wild near wind-damaged trees after after a tornado swept through the area on Saturday, April 24, 2010 in Holmes County, Mississippi. Gov. Haley Barbour told The Associated Press there was "utter obliteration" in parts of Yazoo County. About 15 other counties were also damaged, he said.

A Don Sphynx cat sits during an international cat show in Bishkek March 20, 2010.

Farmers use camels to transport their watermelons across the river Ganges at Neevna village on the outskirts of the northern Indian city of Allahabad May 6, 2010.

An Andalusian horseman washes his Spanish thoroughbred horse before their performance during the Sacab Andalusian Horse Show in Coin, near the southern Spanish city of Malaga April 9, 2010.

A policeman looks at an elephant which was knocked down by a train at the Deepor Beel Wildlife Sanctuary, on the outskirts of Gauhati, India, Sunday, Feb. 28, 2010. The female elephant was killed and another pregnant elephant was seriously injured by a train when they searched for food at the sanctuary. The pregnant elephant later gave birth and fled the site, leaving the baby which was rescued by the forest guards and sent to Assam State zoo for treatment.

Sylar, an 8-week-old male red fox is seen among his toys at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, California on Wednesday, May 5, 2010. Federal wildlife officials discovered a litter of nine kits near Paso Robles, after a trapper had killed the mother. Because the red fox is not native to California, these offspring could never be returned to the wild. Six Flags Discovery Kingdom was one of several wildlife facilities adopting a kit to raise for educational purposes.

Picture made available on April 29, 2010 shows Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (right) and scientists examining a polar bear on the island Alexandra Land, part of the Franz Josef Land archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. Putin expressed concern for the fate of Arctic polar bears threatened by climate change. "The polar bear is under threat. Their population is currently only 25,000 individuals," Putin was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying.

Birds fly over the Gulf of Mexico where oil leaking from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead continues to spread south of Venice, Louisiana April 30, 2010.

A dead shark is seen on a sandy shore of the Gulf of Mexico on May 4, 2010 on Ship Island, Mississippi. It is unknown if the shark died due to the oil spill.

A Przewalski horse jumps next to a wisent (European bison) in their new wilderness region "Sielmann's natural landscape Doeberitzer Heide" on May 3, 2010 near Berlin, Germany.

Volunteer Cara Bround holds a ten-day-old baby Sykes Monkey being taken care of at the Colobus Trust rescue center near Mombasa, Kenya after its' mother was electrocuted, March 23 2010. According to the Trust, the population of Sykes Monkeys have gone down from 800 three years ago to 600.

An elephant sticks its trunk out of its container after arriving at the zoo in the southern German city of Neunkirchen on April 30, 2010. Two elephants arrived at the zoo after a 4-days trip from Benidorm in Spain.

Calvin Borel rides Super Saver to victory during the 136th Kentucky Derby horse race at Churchill Downs Saturday, May 1, 2010, in Louisville, Kentucky.

Illinois River silver carp jump out of the water after being disturbed by sounds of watercraft in early December of 2009. The Supreme Court decided on Monday April 26, 2010 not to get involved in a dispute over how to prevent Asian carp from making their way into the Great Lakes. The justices turned down a new request from Michigan to consider ordering permanent closure of Chicago-area shipping locks to prevent the invasive fish from threatening the Great Lakes.

Four-year-old Garrett Mullen watches three-day-old pinto stallion named Einstein in Barnstead, New Hampshire on Sunday, April 25, 2010. The diminutive horse born in New Hampshire could lay claim to the world record for lightweight foal. The pinto stallion named Einstein weighed just 6 pounds and measured 14 inches in height when he was born Friday in Barnstead.

"Manhattan" (left) and "Altesse" fight during the final of the annual "Battle of the Queens" of the Herens breed cows fight on May 9, 2010 in Aproz, Switzerland in the Alpine Canton of Valais. During the combat the cows simply push, forehead against forehead using their horns. The competition continues until the new queen has forced all the other leaders to retreat.

Scuba diver Charles Ang from Singapore approaches a school of jack fish off the Malaysian island of Layang Layang in the South China Sea April 4, 2010.

Battsetseg, 45, holds a one-month-old calf, one of several young animals that are living inside the small home for protection against the extreme cold weather on March 15, 2010 in Zuunmod in Tuv province, Mongolia. The family lost 50% of their herd and many are weak from lack of feed and the continued cold. Mongolia recently experienced one of the worst winters in 30 years, with 68% of provinces affected. The government declared an emergency requiring foreign aid to alleviate the impact of the "Zud" (a multiple natural disaster) caused by bitter cold and thick snow.

An Emperor Tamarin monkey, native to the Amazon rainforest, experiences its new home in the living rainforest enclosure at ZSL London Zoo, in London, on March 25, 2010. 'Rainforest Life', buil

May 18, 2010

Air traffic in 24 hours

via inference.phy.cam.ac.uk

Every yellow dot is an aeroplane !!!

May 18, 2010

Photography's Longest Exposure

[click to enlarge]

Six months. That's right. This dream-like picture shows each phase of the sun over Bristol's Clifton Suspension Bridge taken during half a year.

The image was captured on a pin-hole camera made from an empty drinks can with a 0.25mm aperture and a single sheet of photographic paper.

Photographer Justin Quinnell strapped the camera to a telephone pole overlooking the Gorge, where it was left between December 19, 2007 and June 21, 2008--the Winter and Summer solstices. (That's a 15,552,000 second exposure.)

'Solargraph' shows six months of the sun's luminescent trails and its subtle change of course caused by the earth's movement in orbit. The lowest arc being the first day of exposure on the Winter solstice, while the top curves were captured mid-Summer.

(Dotted lines of light are the result of overcast days when the sun struggled to penetrate the cloud.)

Quinnell, a renowned pin-hole camera artist, says the photograph took on a personal resonance after his father passed away on April 13--halfway through the exposure. He says the picture allows him to pinpoint the exact location of the sun in the sky at the moment of his father passing.

May 18, 2010

New element discovered ...

A Newly discovered element in Periodic Table.

**********************************************

A new element called Woman .
A new element has to be added in the Periodic Table
which is recommended
by my scientists

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Element: Woman
*****************

Symbol: Wo
Discoverer: Adam Edenwarden
Atomic mass: Accepted as 53.6 kg; isotopes vary from
35 - 200kg.

Occurrence: Copious quantities in all urban areas.
-------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES:
**********************

1. Surface usually covered with thin painted film
2. Boils at room Temperature
3. Freezes without any known reason
4. Melts if given special treatment
5. Bitter if incorrectly used
6. Sweeter under certain conditions
7. Found in various states, ranging from metals to
common ore
8. Ductile if moulded properly
9. Yields to pressure applied at correct points
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-------------------------------------------------
CHEMICAL PROPERTIES:
*********************

1. Have great affinity for gold, silver and a range of
precious stones and absorbs great quantities of expensive substances
2. May explode spontaneously without prior warning and for no known
reason
3. Insoluble in liquids, but activity greatly increases by saturation
alcohol
4. Most powerful money non-reducing agent known to man
---------------------------------------------------
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COMMON USES:
**************

1. Highly ornamental, especially in bikes and cars
2. Can be a great aid to relaxation
3. Very effective cleaning agent
------------ --------------------------------------
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TESTS:
********

1. Pure specimen turns rosy pink when happy
2. Turns green when placed beside a better specimen
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AVAILABILITY:
***************

1. Available in wide different forms and varieties
2. Can be easily seen in all busy areas
-------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------
POTENTIAL HAZARDS:
******************

1. Highly dangerous except in experienced hands
2. Illegal to posses more than one, although several can be maintained at different locations as long as specimens do not come into direct contact with each other.
---------------------------------------------------

*****************************************************************
WARNING!!! PROLONGED EXPOSURE TO THIS ELEMENT CAN
CAUSE SEVERE
FINANCIAL HEMORRHAGE AND MENTAL DISTRESS. BE
CAUTIOUS!!!
*****************************************************************

NOTE: New properties are still being discovered

May 17, 2010

Natural Bar ...

This is a real video from a French documentary about Africa . You won't understand a word, but the video's a hoot.

African Marula, that grow in Africa which, once a year, produce very juicy fruits, Amarula, that contain a large percentage of alcohol.
Because there is a shortage of water, as soon as the fruits are ripe, animals come there to help protect themselves from the heat.

What happens next, you can watch for yourselves.

(download)

May 17, 2010

Kitchen Oil Fire ... I know .. some of us need this ...

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May 14, 2010

Fantastic Natural Phenomena ...

The classical natural wonders are huge and hard to miss - vast canyons, giant mountains and the like. Many of the most fantastic natural phenomena, however, are also least easy to spot. Some are incredibly rare while others are located in hard-to-reach parts of the planet. From moving rocks to mammatus clouds and red tides to fire rainbows, here are seven of the most spectacular phenomenal wonders of the natural world.

1) Sailing Stones

The mysterious moving stones of the packed-mud desert of Death Valley have been a center of scientific controversy for decades. Rocks weighing up to hundreds of pounds have been known to move up to hundreds of yards at a time. Some scientists have proposed that a combination of strong winds and surface ice account for these movements. However, this theory does not explain evidence of different rocks starting side by side and moving at different rates and in disparate directions. Moreover, the physics calculations do not fully support this theory as wind speeds of hundreds of miles per hour would be needed to move some of the stones.

2) Columnar Basalt

When a thick lava flow cools it contracts vertically but cracks perpendicular to its directional flow with remarkable geometric regularity - in most cases forming a regular grid of remarkable hexagonal extrusions that almost appear to be made by man. One of the most famous such examples is the Giant's Causeway on the coast of Ireland (shown above) though the largest and most widely recognized would be Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Basalt also forms different but equally fascinating ways when eruptions are exposed to air or water.

3) Blue Holes

Blue holes are giant and sudden drops in underwater elevation that get their name from the dark and foreboding blue tone they exhibit when viewed from above in relationship to surrounding waters. They can be hundreds of feet deep and while divers are able to explore some of them they are largely devoid of oxygen that would support sea life due to poor water circulation - leaving them eerily empty. Some blue holes, however, contain ancient fossil remains that have been discovered, preserved in their depths.

4) Red Tides

Red tides are also known as algal blooms - sudden influxes of massive amounts of colored single-cell algae that can convert entire areas of an ocean or beach into a blood red color. While some of these can be relatively harmless, others can be harbingers of deadly toxins that cause the deaths of fish, birds and marine mammals. In some cases, even humans have been harmed by red tides though no human exposure are known to have been fatal. While they can be fatal, the constituent phytoplankton in ride tides are not harmful in small numbers.

5) Ice Circles

While many see these apparently perfect ice circles as worthy of conspiracy theorizing, scientists generally accept that they are formed by eddies in the water that spin a sizable piece of ice in a circular motion. As a result of this rotation, other pieces of ice and flotsam wear relatively evenly at the edges of the ice until it slowly forms into an essentially ideal circle. Ice circles have been seen with diameters of over 500 feet and can also at times be found in clusters and groups at different sizes as shown above.

6) Mammatus Clouds

True to their ominous appearance, mammatus clouds are often harbingers of a coming storm or other extreme weather system. Typically composed primarily of ice, they can extend for hundreds of miles in each direction and individual formations can remain visibly static for ten to fifteen minutes at a time. While they may appear foreboding they are merely the messengers - appearing around, before or even after severe weather.

7) Fire Rainbows

A circumhorizontal fire rainbow arc occurs at a rare confluence of right time and right place for the sun and certain clouds. Crystals within the clouds refract light into the various visible waves of the spectrum but only if they are arrayed correctly relative to the ground below. Due to the rarity with which all of these events happen in conjunction with one another, there are relatively few remarkable photos of this phenomena.