African Bull Frog plays ant app

Murmuration

mur·mur·a·tion

   [mur-muh-rey-shuhn]  Show IPA

noun

1.

an act or instance of murmuring.

2.

a flock of starlings.

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

Camouflaged Cuttlefish: Don't Mind Me, I'm Not Here.

Cuttlefish have amazing camouflage capabilities -- really incredible. Even when it encounters patterns not found in nature (black and white stripes, for example.... unless there are underwater zebras). Watch how it adapts. All this, despite the fact that, according to scientists, they cannot perceive colour.

Full article at NPR.

A Rare Albino Humpback Whale

has been spotted near Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

The whale's thought to be a few weeks old and was spotted by a local man.

He said: "I couldn't believe my eyes, and I just grabbed my camera. Then the white calf approached my boat, seeming to want to check us out."

White whales are rare - the reef's rep says there are only 10-15 among the 10,000-15,000 humpback whales living along Australia's east coast.

And it's even rarer for them to be completely white like this one.

From the BBC.

Tortoise Skeleton

I never really thought about the fact that turtles/tortoises have skeletons. A fascinating construction, really.

Dolphin News

Article: How far will dolphins go to relate to humans?

Kind Hippies and Whales in Distress: A Match Made in Heaven

This is a truly, truly amazing and heartwarming video. A guy on a small boat with his family (it's not entirely clear whether he's a real marine biologist, or has become an 'unofficial expert') finds a humpback whale hopelessly tangled in a nylon fishing net, unable to swim, and on the verge of drowning. Armed with only a small knife, a snorkel and a few hours, they try to set it free...

Now, let's not forget how huge these animals are.

It was actually incredibly dangerous to get in the water with it the way he did, a fact he acknowledges. Kindof. In a hippy-dippy free-the-whales kind of way. Anyway, watch to see what happened...

It's quite a coincidence I stumbled on this video today; you know Nick and I went to Tadoussac last weekend. Tiny town at the confluence of the Saguenay and the St-Laurent where fresh river water meets the salty water of the sea, which creates great conditions for krill and other whale-food. Long story short, there are tonnes of whales there. We went whale-watching in a little tiny boat, and it was just like in the photo - the whales were that close! We saw all kinds of whales. The biggest was a fin whale (second largest animal on earth), as well as dozens of frolicking belugas (they're an endangered species). Anyway, a wonderful experience.

We could even see them from shore! (i brought mommy's binoculars along, which was handy).

Anyway, I'm rambling. Long story short, whales are amazing, go to Tadoussac, watch this video.... possibly smoke a joint.

Speed Climbing

Swiss "speed climber" Ueli Steck is known for scaling mountains (you guessed it) extremely quickly. This first video shows snippets of interviews with him, describes his technique and training (plus there are pretty shots of our beloved Swiss Alps in summer). Needless to say, he is very, very harcore. He happily compares himself to a swiss watch at one point.

Below is a gorgeous clip of of his most famous feat to date, his record-breaking climb of the North Face of the Eiger in Switzerland. It ususally takes a couple of days to scale this mountain; he did it in 2 hour and 47 minutes, breaking the long-standing previous record of over four hours.

As an aside, I cannot at all relate to how this person's mind works - his drive and total devotion the goal of climbing things faster than anyone else. I don't get it. But it takes all kinds, I guess!

PS: Any idea what the song playing in the background is? It's really good.

Golden Rays

In 2008, nature photographer shot a herd (?) of Golden Rays off the Mexican coast.

She said: “It was an unreal image, very difficult to describe. The surface of the water was covered by warm and different shades of gold and looked like a bed of autumn leaves gently moved by the wind.

“It’s hard to say exactly how many there were but in the range of a few thousand.

“We were surrounded by them without seeing the edge of the school and we could see many under the water surface too.

Golden Rays grow up to seven feet across and migrate within the Caribbean. And are very cool.

Aurora Borealis

The Aurora from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

Terje Sorgjerd took footage of the Aurora Borealis around Kirkenes, Norway, near the Russian border. A week of footage is condensed in this beautiful time-lapse video.

Whales may embed their name in clicks...

New information on the clicks via an article at Wired:

Rendell and his collaborators, including biologists Hal Whitehead, Shane Gero and Tyler Schulz, have for years studied the click sequences, or codas, used by sperm whales to communicate across miles of deep ocean. In a study published last June in Marine Mammal Sciences, they described a sound-analysis technique that linked recorded codas to individual members of a whale family living in the Caribbean.

In that study, they focused on a coda made only by Caribbean sperm whales. It appears to signify group membership. In the latest study, published Feb. 10 in Animal Behavior, they analyzed a coda made by sperm whales around the world. Called 5R, it’s composed of five consecutive clicks, and superficially appears to be identical in each whale. Analyzed closely, however, variations in click timing emerge. Each of the researchers’ whales had its own personal 5R riff...

Moreover, 5R tends to be made at the beginning of each coda string as if, like old-time telegraph operators clicking out a call sign, they were identifying themselves. Said Rendell, “It may function to let the animals know which individual is vocalizing.”..

That individual whales would have means of identifying themselves does, however, make sense. Dolphins have already been shown to have individual, identifying whistles.

The video above (not part of the study) has several minutes of clicks.

Ant Hill.....nay, Kingdom

"Everything looks like it has been designed by an architect - a single mind. But of course, that isn't true; this colossal and complex city was created by the collective will of the ant colony."

Strolling with Kitties

Dramatic Bird is Dramatic

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Yeah they do.

The Universe

Beautifully narrated

Animations of the Molecular

Ayoye!!

Dinosaur Skull Found in Church

A slab of marble in the Cathedral of St. Ambrose in Vigevano, Italy, appears to contain a cross-section of the skull of a dinosaur:

The rock contains what appears to be a horizontal section of a dinosaur’s skull. The image looks like a CT scan, and clearly shows the cranium, the nasal cavities, and numerous teeth,” Andrea Tintori, the University of Milan paleontologist who spotted the fossil near the altar, told Discovery News.

Measuring about 30 cm (11.8 inches), the skull was cut in sections as slabs of the marble-like rock were used to build the Cathedral between 1532 and 1660.

Just IMAGINE, a 4,000 year-old artifact like that in a Church! Amazing... Full Story here

Mind-Blowing Photo

Also my desktop for the foreseeable future