Photo: Reef Dwellers

Macro Reef Dwellers: A Retrospective by Felix Salazar

     

     

     

Photo: Roots fighting with Bricks

"Roots fighting with bricks" by Vincent Guyaux

Photo: Coral Reefs

Dazzling Photos of Coral Reefs by Alexander Semenov

Photo: A bolt from the Blue

40+ Outstanding Photographs of Lightning

Lecture: The Chemistry of Snowflakes

The Chemistry of Snowflakes by BytesizeScience

The shape of a snowflake is due to the changing condition of the air through which it falls. Who knew?

Photo: Nature’s Night Light

Nature’s Night Light

Sometimes known as the sea-firefly, Vargula hilgendorfii is a species of ostracod crustacean that only inhabits coastal waters off Japan. It is a nocturnal creature that rarely grows longer than 3 millimetres, with a beautiful transparent shell—but it’s best known for its bioluminescence. When disturbed, it secretes a luminous blue substance through a process similar to many other bioluminescent creatures: a chemical reaction of the substrate luciferin and the enzyme luciferase. The maximum wavelength of its light depends on the pH and the salinity of the water, and varies between 448 and 463 nanometres—meaning that the light is coloured various shades of blue. In World War II, the Japanese collected these creatures and crushed them in sand and water to produce their blue luminescence, which ingeniously served as light for soldiers to read maps and messages at night.

Video Distraction: Fall Time-Lapse

Fall from Jamie Scott

"One of the most striking things about New York City is the fall colors and there's no better place to view this then Central Park. I chose 15 locations in the park and revisited them 2 days a week for six months, recording all camera positions and lens information to create consistency in the images. All shots were taken just after sunrise."

Video Distraction: Spider Web Weaving

Timelapse: une araignée tisse sa toile from Jean-Michel

A spider making his web. 1h30 shooting, one picture every four seconds. Shot with Nikon D4 and timelapse function...

Photo: Rare Fire Rainbows

Rare Fire Rainbows: It looks like a rainbow on fire but these circumhorizontal arcs aren’t rainbows. They are caused by light passing through high-altitude cirrus clouds. The sun has to hit the clouds at precisely 58 degrees and have just enough crystals in order to form in the sky.

Photo: Urban Landscape

Photo: Feeding The Passion

Feeding The Passion by Mike Berenson

Photo: Dark Water

Dark Water by Mikko Lagerstedt

Photo: Blue Ice Cave

Blue Ice Cave by Jamie Scarrow

Antarctica, December 2011.

Photo: Atmosphere

Photography from Finland by Mikko Lagerstedt

Photo: Lava Crater

Lava crater, Mauritania, Sahara desert

Another amazing capture from ESA astronaut André Kuipers, from his vantage point on the International Space Station. André travelled to the orbital outpost in December 2011, and will remain in orbit for more than 6 months as part of ESA’s long duration mission, PromISSe.

Video Distraction: Perpetual Ocean

Perpetual Ocean from the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

This visualization shows ocean surface currents around the world during the period from June 2005 through Decmeber 2007. The visualization does not include a narration or annotations; the goal was to use ocean flow data to create a simple, visceral experience.

This visualization was produced using NASA/JPL's computational model called Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, Phase II or ECCO2.. ECCO2 is high resolution model of the global ocean and sea-ice. ECCO2 attempts to model the oceans and sea ice to increasingly accurate resolutions that begin to resolve ocean eddies and other narrow-current systems which transport heat and carbon in the oceans.The ECCO2 model simulates ocean flows at all depths, but only surface flows are used in this visualization. The dark patterns under the ocean represent the undersea bathymetry. Topographic land exaggeration is 20x and bathymetric exaggeration is 40x.

Net: Google Tour of the Amazon

Last August, Google sent a team to Brazil to create Street View maps of some of the waterways, forests, and villages of the Amazon Basin.

Video Distraction: Hornets vs Bees

Giant Japanese hornets slaughter European honeybee hive.

Source: National Geographic.

Exploration: Living Bridges

Photo: Daily Mail

Deep in the rainforests of the Indian state of Meghalaya, bridges are not built, they’re grown. For more than 500 years locals have guided roots and vines from the native Ficus Elastica (rubber tree) across rivers, using hollowed out trees to create root guidance systems. When the roots and vines reach the opposite bank they are allowed to take root. Some of the bridges are over 100 feet long and can support the weight of 50 people.  Check out Architizer for even more pictures.

Daily Links: July 7, 2011

The Marble Caves: Patagonia's Sculpted Azure Caverns

10 Amazing Geek Bars and Restaurants, beginning with Miracle of Science, in Cambridge

The Connected States of America is a supercool interactive map from the MIT Media Lab and IBM that lets you visualize how regions in the US are connected by cell phone calls and SMS messages. Instead of the familiar states, new patterns emerge, with New Jersey and California split in half, and Pittsburgh the new capital of West Virginia, among other changes. 

Drunk Puppy Buying Banned by West Village Pet Stores

Magician Derren Brown admits his chess game is shit. Nonetheless, he plays nine world-class chess masters, simultaneously, and wins more matches than he loses. But how?

Tibetan singing bowls give up their chaotic secrets.

Will young men ever grow up? 'They're often called lost boys, the many young men' in Canada, 'who keep postponing adulthood.' 'Social scientists are trying to figure out why their numbers keep growing.' 'In the past, marriage and family were markers of adulthood, writes Michael Kimmel in his book Guyland, but in a world where young women put off children for careers, where job security is a thing of the past and their parents' values hold little allure, young men can postpone adulthood almost indefinitely.'