The order Coleoptera [beetles] includes more species than any other order, constituting almost 25% of all known life-forms. Some estimates put the total number of species, described and undescribed, at as high as 100 million, but a figure of 1 million is more widely accepted.
J.B.S. Haldane was once asked what his study of biology had taught him about God.
He said that the Creator, if he exists, has “an inordinate fondness for beetles.”
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The Birds-of-Paradise Project reveals the astounding beauty of 39 of the most exquisitely specialized animals on earth. After 8 years and 18 expeditions to New Guinea, Australia, and nearby islands, Cornell Lab scientist Ed Scholes and National Geographic photojournalist Tim Laman succeeded in capturing images of all 39 species in the bird-of-paradise family for the first time ever. This trailer gives a sense of their monumental undertaking and the spectacular footage that resulted. Filmed by Tim Laman, Ed Scholes, and Eric Liner. Spectacular beauty and unusual behavior by some of the planets most amazing creatures.
The Birds-of-Paradise Project website was just launched today.
Here's some of what the site contains:
35 videos and 2.5 hours of running time
A breakdown of the main parts of a male's display: sounds, color, unique feathers, shape-shifting poses, and dance steps
The crucial role of the females in choosing their mates
Key concepts of evolution illustrated and explained in simple terms
Secrets and techniques of how we captured such detailed footage
A gallery of extraordinary sounds
Interactive features to walk you through the birds' diversity, how they get their colors, and why they evolved in New Guinea's isolated mountains and islands
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A Mysterious Patch Of Light Shows Up In The North Dakota Dark [NPR]
"This is odd. Take a look at this map of America at night. As you'd expect, the cities are ablaze, the Great Lakes and the oceans dark, but if you look at the center, where the Eastern lights give way to the empty Western plains, there's a mysterious clump of light there that makes me wonder.
It's a little to the left, high up near the Canadian border. Just run your eye up that line of lights at the center of the country, look over to the upper left: There's a patch that looks like a big city — but there is no big city in that part of North Dakota. There's mostly grass. So what are those lights doing there? What is that?
If you need help, here's the same map again; this time, the patch is marked with a circle. It turns out, yes, that's not a city. And those lights weren't there six years ago.
A drilling area in North Dakota can be seen in this nighttime image of the United States.
What we have here is an immense and startlingly new oil and gas field — nighttime evidence of an oil boom created by a technology called fracking. Those lights are rigs, hundreds of them, lit at night, or fiery flares of natural gas. One hundred fifty oil companies, big ones, little ones, wildcatters, have flooded this region, drilling up to eight new wells every day on what is called the Bakken formation. Altogether, they are now producing 660,000 barrels a day — double the output two years ago — so that in no time at all, North Dakota is now the second-largest oil producing state in America. Only Texas produces more, and those lights are a sign that this region is now on fire ... to a disturbing degree. Literally.
. . . And North Dakota, on some nights, is almost as bright as the aurora borealis. "
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Documentary about the Coelacanth, a prehistoric bony fish believed to have been long extinct until one was caught in 1938 off the southern coast of Africa. No trace was found again until May 2000 when a colony of the fish were discovered and filmed.
The Coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) is an enigmatic and important species of fish. It is the only living member (along with a recently discovered second species of Latimeria) of the lobe-finned fishes, a group believed by some to be the sister-group of the terrestrial vertebrates.
Early naturalists, who had studied the fossil records, had long been puzzled and intrigued by this creature, with its lobed, limb-like fins. But it was only with the publication of Darwin’s Origin Of the Species, in 1859, and his theory of evolution, that its true significance first became apparent.
For here was a fossil species that answered the critics who poured scorn on the very idea that fish could somehow have walked out of the sea and later diversified into the huge variety of land-based animals around us today – including man himself.
Yet even after Darwin’s theory became widely accepted, no naturalist ever imagined that coelacanths might have survived into the modern age. At least, not until Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer made her astonishing discovery amid the foetid heat of that South African dockside.
Marjorie’s find turned conventional scientific thinking on its head. But it was by no means the end of the coelacanths mystery. Not by a long chalk. For in the decades after that discovery, the coelacanth continued to defy man’s best attempts to study it.
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"In August 2001 two new crop formations were reported near Chilbolton radio telescope in Hampshire, UK. Both were very impressive looking and consisted of a large number of small 'pixels', which when viewed from the air formed a recognisable shape - unlike many other crop formations.
One represented a "human face" and the other resembled AN ANSWER to the Arecibo message. A radio transmission that SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), sent from the Arecibo radio telescope in 1974.
The Arecibo message on Wikipedia
Then one year later, in August 2002, another impressive formation was discovered just to the west of Winchester (only about 8½ miles to the southeast of the Chilbolton formations). An "alien face" with a circular grid containing a coded message.
When the code is broken, it reads:
"Beware the bearers of false gifts & their broken promises. Much pain but still time. There is good out there. We oppose deception. Conduit closing."
Are these circles genuine? We cant know for sure, since no one investigated them to see if there were significant crop/soil anomalies. But they do seem very sophisticated.
How should we interpret this possible response? And what about the coded message?"
It is highly unlikely that we are the only form of life in the entire universe. And although I have often admired the complex beauty of crop circles, it has been difficult for me to accept their validity as an actual means of 'alien communication'.
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Since the Winter Solstice is one of the few holidays that I celebrate, may I wish everyone who occasionally stops by the warmest of greetings on this occasion.
Recently encountered the photograph above and it immediately triggered a long forgotten memory of a winter sunset which I experienced as a child in my native Slovakia. An experience of the utter peace, beauty, and magnificence of nature.
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"The Birds-of-Paradise Project reveals the astounding beauty of 39 of the most exquisitely specialized animals on earth. After 8 years and 18 expeditions to New Guinea and Australia, Cornell Lab scientist Ed Scholes and National Geographic photojournalist Tim Laman succeeded in capturing images of all 39 species in the bird-of-paradise family for the first time ever. This trailer gives a sense of their monumental undertaking and the spectacular footage that resulted."
Explore more: http://www.birdsofparadiseproject.org
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One of the most delighful, and informative, channels in the entire humongous YouTube video universe is that of CGPGrey [ http://www.youtube.com/user/CGPGrey ].
Short, concise, to the point videos with illustrations [AND ACTUAL FACTS, something sadly lacking in most YouTube videos]. And fascinating if you enjoy learning.
A few personal favorites:
Re: Leap Years, 2012 & The Mayan Calendar
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Coffee: The Greatest Addiction Ever
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8 Animal Misconceptions Rundown
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Is it time to take a break from the bullshit of the current political conventions [both sides] and exercise your brain?
"The Singularity Summit is the premiere futurist conference (it's happening in New York City on October 15 and 16).
Among the speakers is Current TV's Jason Silva, the director of the forthcoming documentary, Turning into Gods. Taking a page from Timothy Leary, the folks behind the Whole Earth Catalog, Ray Kurzweil, and other visionaries, Silva's work looks at the ways in technological progress is allowing humans to direct their own evolution. And the ways in which prohibitionists of all stripes push back on new ways of being human.
"People have always sort of been scared of new technologies," says Silva. "But in the end we assimilate them and they improve the quality of our lives."
Jason Silva on Awe
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Jason Silva on "Turning Into Gods"
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RADICAL OPENNESS with Jason Silva for TEDGlobal
