Craters of the Moon National Monument

Managed jointly by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service, Craters of the Moon, is a geologic wonder in a uniquely preserved volcanic landscape whose central focus is the Great Rift, a 62-mile long crack in the Earth’s crust. Craters, cinder coves, lava tubes, deep cracks, and vast lava fields form a strangely beautiful volcanic sea on central Idaho’s Snake River Plain. At first glance the landscape of Craters of the Moon appears to be devoid of life. Look deeper and you will observe a rich diversity of life including more than 750 types of plants and almost 300 animal species (not including insects!).

Local legends made references to the landscape resembling the surface of the moon. Some even referred to the area as the “Valley of the Moon." In fact, the second group of astronauts to walk on the moon visited Craters of the Moon in 1969 to study the volcanic geology and to explore an unusual and harsh environment in preparation for their trip to space.

The National Monument became known as Craters of the Moon when Robert Limbert used the name in an article for a national magazine. Limbert was the first man to thoroughly explore and promote the area. The name became official with the establishment of the monument in 1924.

Visit the following websites for information about Craters of the Moon:

http://www.nps.gov/crmo/index.htm
http://www.blm.gov/id/st/en/prog/blm_special_areas/craters_of_the_moon.html

coconut crab

The Coconut Crab (Birgus latro) is the largest terrestrial arthropod on Earth, reaching up to 28 kilos with a leg span of nearly a meter! They are found on various islands and shorelines around the Indo-Pacific, where they feed on coconuts…

digestive system art

http://jordanpemberton.bigcartel.com/

 14 digital print posters of an acrylic-on-paper collage of the human digestive system.  

They are 7 x 19 inches and cost 15$. Will ship to you for +5$*.  ♥ * if you’re in the States

An environmentally friendly battery made from wood

Taking inspiration from trees, scientists have developed a battery made from a sliver of wood coated with tin that shows promise for becoming a tiny, long-lasting, efficient and environmentally friendly energy source. Their report on the device — 1,000 times thinner than a sheet of paper — appears in the journal Nano Letters.

Liangbing Hu, Teng Li and colleagues point out that today’s batteries often use stiff, non-flexible substrates, which are too rigid to release the stress that occurs as ions flow through the battery. They knew that wood fibers from trees are supple and naturally designed to hold mineral-rich water, similar to the electrolyte in batteries. They decided to explore use of wood as the base of an experimental sodium-ion battery. Using sodium rather than lithium would make the device environmentally friendly.

Lead author Hongli Zhu and other team members describe lab experiments in which the device performed successfully though 400 charge-discharge cycles, putting it among the longest-lasting of all sodium-ion nanobatteries. Batteries using the new technology would be best suited for large-scale energy storage applications, such as wind farms or solar energy installations, the report indicates. acs.org npr.org

Lichtenberg Figures: The Fractal Patterns of Lightning Strike Scars

Being struck by lightning is a dangerous and scary experience and can even be fatal. Sometimes, the electrical discharge can leave a tattoo-like marking or scar known as a Lichtenberg figure. The patterns created are known to be examples of fractals.

Lichtenberg figures are branching electric discharges that sometimes appear on the surface or the interior of insulating materials. They are named after the German physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, who originally discovered and studied them. When they were first discovered, it was thought that their characteristic shapes might help to reveal the nature of positive and negative electric “fluids”…

(read more: Twisted Sifter)

gillnets and vaquitas

The World’s Most Endangered Marine Mammal Can Be Saved With One Simple Change

If gillnets were banned in the upper Gulf of California, the population of the vaquita porpoise would almost certainly recover, say scientists.

by David Kirby

Can money and technology be deployed in time to save the vaquita, the planet’s smallest and most critically endangered cetacean? It’s possible, but the clock is ticking for these rare and elusive porpoises of the Gulf of California, whose numbers are dwindling yearly, mostly due to death by drowning in fishing nets.

Last month the Mexican government approved an ambitious plan to require nets that do not snag and kill cetaceans or sea turtles. But the state-of-the-art nets, more expensive and difficult to use than traditional trawl nets and gillnets, will be phased in over three years. Meanwhile, annual deaths among vaquitas, who now number less than 200, were estimated at 40 or more before 2008. 

(read more: TakePart.org)              

cuttlefish camo

pamukkale

Pamukkale, 19 km (12 miles) north of Denizli, is Turkey’s foremost mineral-bath spa because of its natural beauty: hot calcium-laden waters spring from the earth and cascade over a cliff. As they cool they form dramatic travertines of hard, brilliantly white calcium that form pools. Pamukkale has been used as a spa since the second century BC.

fab ciraolo

che

cleopatra

marilyn

edward

diana

pablo picasso

fab ciraolo

sea monsters on medieval and renaissance maps

mathematics and science wall art

by CutnPaste.

bottle cap creations

impressive crushed bottle cap portrait

gargoyle bottle opener

buy here!

save your beer cap

buy here!

fossil coral find

pearl and the beard

just breathe

smells like teen spirit

urinal sink- two in one!

A Latvian designer named Kaspars Jursons is trying to help solve European water shortages by redesigning the men's restroom. His new urinal design includes a tap and sink right over it.

"It's not just a fancy piece of art," he says. "The idea is about function and consumption. You are washing your hands in the sink on top of the urinal, and the same water that's running is also used to flush. You don't have to use water twice, like when you use the urinal and wash your hands in separate sink."

The design, called Stand, sells for about $590 per unit. They're getting manufactured on a small production line and have already sold to buyers in Norway, Germany, Russia, Poland and Jursons' home country, Latvia.

Several sink-urinals are currently installed in a concert venue in Riga, Latvia, where Jursons reports they have worked smoothly and saved thousands of liters of water.

npr

Wormhole Entanglement Solves Black Hole Paradox

WORMHOLES – tunnels through space-time that connect black holes – may be a consequence of the bizarre quantum property called entanglement. The redefinition would resolve a pressing paradox that you might be burned instead of crushed, should you fall into a black hole.

Knowing which hazard sign to erect outside a black hole isn’t exactly an everyday problem. For theoretical physicists, though, it reveals an inconsistency between quantum mechanics and general relativity. Solving this conundrum might lead to the sought-after quantum theory of gravity.

Relativity says if you fall into a black hole, you would die via “spaghettification" – a gradual stretching by ever-more intense gravitational forces. But last year, when Joseph Polchinski at the University of California in Santa Barbara and colleagues explored the quantum implications of black holes, they hit a problem. Black holes emit photons via something called Hawking radiation, and these are “entangled" with the interior of the black hole and also with each other. This breaks a quantum rule that particles can’t be entangled with two things at once…

(read more: New Scientist)

the dhole

The Dhole (Cuon alpinus a.k.a. Indian Wild Dog or Asiatic Wild Dog), is a species of canid native to the Indian subcontinent and much of southeast Asia. It is one of the most unique canines alive, and it belongs to its own genus (Cuon). Its closest relative is the African Wild Dog. The Dhole is one of the most social wild dogs. Dholes live in clans usually numbering up to a dozen individuals, although 40 member clans have been reported. Their social groups are identified as clans as opposed to packs because they have a looser social structure than say a wolf pack. In contrast to a pack, members of the clan will break down into smaller groups when hunting. Prey items range anywhere from small deer, to elephant calves. Although they only weigh 20-50 lbs, Dholes still manage to fight off most other predators in their territory as a clan, including 400 lb tigers, 80 lb leopards, and 300 lb bears.

No matter how strong and majestic the Dhole is, it cannot fight against ongoing prosecution by humans. Fewer than 2,500 Dholes remain wild and they have a declining population trend. They are threatened by depletion of their prey base, habitat loss, hunting, population fragmentation, and disease transfer from domestic dogs. Fragmentation specifically is a serious problem affecting many animal species. This occurs when you have one very large population, which is then broken up into several different smaller populations. They can be separated due to barriers such as the construction of cities, highways, or simply excessive hunting in a single location. The issue here lies with the fact that one population may be nearing overpopulation, while another population 40 miles away may have very few individuals. Yet there can be no interchange of specimens because of sprawling metropolises right in the middle. The area suffering from overpopulation will begin to see much higher mortality rates while there’s perfectly good and inaccessible territory right next door.

inner circle

mini pancakes with fruit

PAN'S LABYRINTH

http://www.santiagocaruso.com.ar/

Umberto Brunelleschi (1879-1949)

15-Ton Particle Ring Travels To Chicago By Land And By Sea

It looks almost like the Millennium Falcon, creeping ever so slowing, taking up the entire roadway on New York's Long Island. A team of spotters walks alongside, calling out trees that need cutting and road signs that need to be taken down.

Its name is the Muon g-2 (pronounced g minus two) and it's a very powerful electromagnetic ring capable of carrying 5,200 amps of current, says Chris Polly, the lead scientist for the ring's experiments.

"It creates a very strong magnetic field that allows us to store a special particle called a muon," he says.

A muon is a sort of phantom particle that exists only for a very short time after a particle collision. The g-2 traps muons and then uses them to probe for evidence of other new particles no one has seen before. Back in 2001, scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island found hints of new particles, but to be sure, they need more muons. Fermi National Lab, located outside Chicago, has a big accelerator that can produce loads of them, but no ring. So, you just need to bring the ring to the accelerator.

npr

Climate change frames debate over the extinction of megafauna in Sahul (Pleistocene Australia-New Guinea)

• by Stephen Wroe, Judith H. Field, Michael Archer, Donald K. Grayson, Gilbert J. Price, Julien Louysd, J. Tyler Faith, Gregory E. Webb, Iain Davidson, and Scott D. Mooney

“Around 88 large vertebrate taxa disappeared from Sahul sometime during the Pleistocene, with the majority of losses (54 taxa) clearly taking place within the last 400,000 years. The largest was the 2.8-ton browsingDiprotodon optatum, whereas the ∼100- to 130-kg marsupial lion,Thylacoleo carnifex, the world’s most specialized mammalian carnivore, and Varanus priscus, the largest lizard known, were formidable predators. Explanations for these extinctions have centered on climatic change or human activities. Here, we review the evidence and arguments for both. Human involvement in the disappearance of some species remains possible but unproven. Mounting evidence points to the loss of most species before the peopling of Sahul (circa 50–45 ka) and a significant role for climate change in the disappearance of the continent’s megafauna.

Explaining Pleistocene faunal extinctions remains one of the most challenging problems in the prehistory of Sahul (1–3). The vast majority of extinctions across geological time are wholly attributable to climate-related factors (4), but claims that some, or even all, Pleistocene extinctions of large-gigantic vertebrates (Fig. 1) in Sahul were the consequence of human activity have generated particularly robust debate. Polarized views have emerged to account for the mode and timing of these events (2, 5–11). A paucity of empirical data; shortfalls in radiometric dating; and, until recently, a limited appreciation of the paleoenvironmental record (7, 12) have placed considerable constraints on the ability to resolve “who or what” was responsible for these extinctions. Given these limitations, assertions such as “… the question is no longer if, but rather how, humans induced this prehistoric extinction event” (ref. 13, p. 563) are premature” (read more/not open access).

(Source: PNAS, early addition 2013;  doi:10.1073/pnas.1302698110)

The Maned Wolf

Canis Jubatus (now Chrysocyon brachyurus) - The Maned Wolf

While it might have a mane of sorts, the maned wolf is not a wolf. In fact, it’s not even a fox, even though it might look like a fox on stilts. Speaking of stilts, these guys are the tallest living canid, measuring up to 42 inches (106 cm) at the shoulder! Historically, the maned wolf was placed in the genera Canis and Vulpes (the wolves and foxes, respectively), because of superficial morphological similarities.

However, on further anatomical examination, and later, DNA analysis, the maned wolf was found to be unique in the genus Chrysocyon. There are no known extant or extinct species that come close to the maned wolf, though part of that is almost certainly due to a lack of fossilized remains - there may have been other members of the genus in the Pleistocene and Holocene that have not been found yet.

Currently, one of the most accepted theories on why the maned wolf is so unique is that it just happened to be the sole surviving species of its genus, during the Pleistocene (or Quaternary) extinction. That extinction event snuffed out all the large canids of South America, along with almost 3/4 of all the large mammals living at that time. 

The diet of this species may lend a clue as to how it survived the mass extinction: it’s extremely omnivorous. While they search out and eat birds, small mammals, and reptiles, they also eat  berries, leaves, fruits, and tubers, and spread the seeds of many plants. Their diet also lends the maned wolf its nickname - the Skunk Wolf. They produce pyrazines and other musky plant derivatives that they spray about to mark territory. In fact, the smell of the maned wolf enclosure at the Rotterdam Zoo set off a search for marijuana, before they discovered the true source!

migration of humans