Photos of Interest
j7uy5 | April 4, 2010Well, it is not the traditional flower, but it happens to be what is
blooming right now. The crocuses and daffodils are pretty much
spent;
the lilies and allium haven't blossomed yet.
title="IMG_2414.JPG by Joseph j7uy5, on Flickr">
src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4048/4491077180_73260f0c80.jpg"
alt="IMG_2414.JPG" height="375" width="500">
These are blossoms on a claretcup cactus (Echinocereus
triglochidiatus).
j7uy5 | March 7, 2010We had little squall clouds today, such that there was interesting
light and shadow in the yard. This made for a nice opportunity to
photograph the nectarine tree blossoms.
Emotionally uplifting, I would say. The only problem is that we
now have to watch for frost warnings, then run out and cover the tree
if it might freeze.
j7uy5 | February 21, 2010James Gunn, the director for the movie
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slither_%282006_film%29">Slither,
seems to be enthralled by creepy crawly things. He also has a
blog-like website, on which he posted
href="http://www.jamesgunn.com/2009/07/02/evolution-fucked-your-shit-up-the-worlds-50-freakiest-animals/">Evolution
Fucked Your Shit Up: The World's 50 Freakiest Animals. (HT:
href="http://charlierb3.blogspot.com/2010/02/friday-lists_19.html">Interesting
Pile.)
The creature pictured above, by the way, is
an ajolote. The term ajolote can refer to either the
href="http://…
j7uy5 | December 28, 2009Thanks to a tip from a reader, for this one.
A photographer named
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Prokudin-Gorsky">Sergei
Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) made glass negatives in
the early 1900's that could be used to create color images. He
did this by inventing a camera that would take three different
frames of the same scene, with different color filters (red, green
blue) for each. He displayed the pictures via projection, using
the same filters. Even though the negatives were only grayscale
images, the result was comparable to that obtained using a color slide…
j7uy5 | December 23, 2009Visiting with Kevin, went hiking in Soledad Canyon. The light was
crazy, alterating between awful for photography, and interesting, but
always challenging. When it stopped snowing and the wind wasn't
blowing me around, I was able to get some decent pictures.
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j7uy5 | December 23, 2009From Shorpy (Always Something Wonderful), this is a photo of the
href="http://www.shorpy.com/node/2119">Christmas tree at the home of
Wilbur and Orville Wright, in the year 1900.
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j7uy5 | December 7, 2009This is a
href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=41500">high-resolution
photo of Pearl Harbor (click to enlarge). When I saw that it had
been posted to the NASA Earth Observatory, I wondered -- momentarily --
why they would post a photo of Pearl Harbor. Then I remembered:
December 7th.
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My father was 14 on 7 December 1941. He studied in high school, got
good grades, and enlisted when he turned 18. Didn't think about it.
There was nothing to think. Every able-bodied young man did it,
unless there was a compelling reason to do otherwise.
He…
j7uy5 | November 29, 2009While we have a cold, dreary rain here: a photo of brighter, hotter
times:
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This is from September 2007. It is a desert spiny lizard (
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sceloporus_magister">Sceloporus
magister) on a desert willow (
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilopsis_linearis">Chilopsis
linearis) with some desert marigolds (
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baileya_multiradiata">Baileya
multiradiata) in the background. The local weather
station report indicates that it was 84.2 degrees Fahrenheit (29
degrees C) when the photo was taken.
j7uy5 | October 30, 2009It's not photoshopped, and it really was for the Windows 7 launch.
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The picture was taken in Sietes, Spain, which had been decorated for an
advertisement for the event. In point of fact, the
href="http://www.spanishnews.es/20091012-tiny-spanish-village-has-the-attention-of-microsoft/id=1255/#more-1255">people
of Sietes are not a particularly good customer base:
The tiny village of Sietes Spain will be the new location
for an advertisement from Microsoft about Windows 7, which is slightly
ironic given the software giant has chosen a place that only has one…
j7uy5 | October 29, 2009In general, I try to be respectful of cultural groups, even ones that
are rather aberrant. Somehow, though, I find it exceedingly
difficult to muster any sympathy or respect for Scientology.
By now, you probably have heard that Scientologists were fined $600,00
Euros in France:
href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iB4zZrgJt9_M4ltYiwOwQxcAnMmQ">
href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iB4zZrgJt9_M4ltYiwOwQxcAnMmQ">Scientologists
convicted of fraud in France
...The Paris case followed a complaint by two women, one of whom says
she was manipulated…
j7uy5 | October 22, 2009The Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photography competition winners have
been announced. (The spelling, Environnement, is
correct; it's a French company.) The competition is operated by
the Natural History
Museum (London) and BBC Wildlife Magazine, sponsored by Veolia
Environmental Services.
The overall winner is this one (click to enlarge)
My favorite is one of the Highly Commended photos in the
10-years-and-under age category:
The photo of the leaping wolf was
href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8318226.stm">written up
on the BBC news website:
Jose Luis Rodriguez…
j7uy5 | October 19, 2009Sometimes I think I have difficult patients. Then I saw this:
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Yes, it is a gorilla in a CT scanner. The poor animal had
href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001034.htm">mastoiditis;
the scan was used prior to surgery. The surgery was
successful. See The Big Picture at the Boston Globe
for the
href="http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/10/world_animal_day_2009.html">original,
from a series on World
Animal Day 2009.
(HT:
href="http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/9vbdl/gorilla_in_a_cat_scan_no_really_pic/">Reddit
user Micah)
j7uy5 | September 17, 2009The people of Obama are selling jellyfish candy. Really.
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The photo shows a diver next to a specimen of Nomura's jellyfish,
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomura%27s_jellyfish">Nemopilema
nomurai. These creatures occasionally
href="http://scienceblogs.com/guiltyplanet/2009/07/another_year_another_giant_jel.php">swarm
off the coast of Japan, where they are a nuisance. Some
creative souls have responded by
href="http://scienceblogs.com/shiftingbaselines/2008/02/more_jellies_fill_your_belly.php">finding
ways to eat them.
Now, schoolkids in the…
j7uy5 | September 8, 2009Poets on Prozac is the short title of a book by
psychiatrist-poet Richard M. Berlin, MD. The full title is: Poets
on Prozac: Mental Illness, Treatment, and the Creative Process.
Berlin was an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of
Massachusetts Medical School; now he's in private practice, and a
Senior Affiliate at U Mass. And a writer. His personal
website is here.
A sample of his work is
href="http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/296/7/737">here;
After Reading Music From Apartment 8
for John Stone, MD
When I started out in medicine,
before I married and…
j7uy5 | August 2, 2009Botanical names drive me nuts, sometimes. Every plant that is
worth anything has many names. The supposed gold standard, the
(Latin) Linnaean taxonomical name, gets changed every so often.
So there is no constancy. You'd think it would be easier to
research something if it has an unusual name that you can use as a
keyword. But that is not always the case. Especially if the
names are changed.
Last week, I noted that I am familiar with one kind of tree, called a
mimosa tree. This tree has blossoms of an unusual color.
But that color is not mimosa. There are other trees, also called…
j7uy5 | July 29, 2009The Knowsley Safari Park
wants their visitors to know that the babbons are smart. They
have figured out how to open car-top cargo carriers.
This is not actually a candid photo. It was staged, in order to
educate the visitors about his potential problem with their Papio
anubis population.
Source: Cellar
Image of the Day
Video HT:
href="http://presurfer.blogspot.com/2009/07/baboons-steal-underwear-from-rooftop.html">The
Presurfer
j7uy5 | July 25, 2009We grow catnip in the garden outside the home-office window. Our
cat likes to lay in front of the window, and stare wistfully at the
catnip.
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But today, he saw something unexpected. The neighbor's cat was
laying in the catnip.
j7uy5 | July 12, 2009Went for a Sunday drive. Saw this:
White Sands National Monument
Drove a little farther, saw this:
Odocoileus hemionus
You might have guessed, I did not take the first picture. It is a
view
from Earth orbit. The second picture, I did take; it is a
view through my windshiled. The two locations are about thirty
miles apart.
j7uy5 | April 30, 2009One of the strangest things I've ever seen. The
photographer's identification is tentative: Vespula
pensylvanica. Personally, I'd never try to identify
an unfamiliar insect.
One summer, I took classes at the UM Biological Station near Pellston, MI.
My cabinmate was an entomologist. Watching him it
the field, I got the impression that the identification of these little
creatures is a black art. Anyway, here's the photo:
alt="Vespula pensylvanica?" title="Vespula pensylvanica?"
src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3333/3487769182_05b7e78c4d.jpg?v=0"
border="0" height="500" width="…
j7uy5 | April 25, 2009The NASA Earth Observatory site is holding a photo contest to celebrate
and popularize their 10th anniversary. It is a contest in which
users vote for their favorite images-of-the-day. Here's my
favorite:
style="display: inline;">
This is an image from the
href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html">Cassini
mission; it's a view of the earth, with the rings of Saturn in the
foreground.
This beautiful image of Saturn and its rings looks more
like an artist's creation than a real image, but in fact, the image is
a composite (layered image) made from 165…