2.8% waxing crescent Moon
Venus!
Venus (upper right) and the Crescent Moon
Slight hint of Earthshine on the 2.8% Moon.
A brilliant conjunction of a tiny crescent Moon and Venus in the low western sky this evening
#astronomy #astrophotography @stormhour.com @photohour.bsky.social
Hazel grouse mating sounds and dance
THEY SENT FOUR HUMAN BEINGS 252,756 MILES AWAY, WENT FULLY AROUND THE MOON AND BROUGHT THEM BACK TO LAND IN THE PRECISE LOCATION THEY WANTED
EVERYONE WHO WORKED ON THIS IS THE COOLEST PERSON ON EARTH
Here it is from the official NASA Johnson Flickr feed, which includes other photos of the mission! www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2...
The Moon. NASA/Artemis II/Kevin M. Gill
New shot of the Moon taken only a few hours ago by the Artemis II crew! More of the lunar far side coming into view :-D
flic.kr/p/2s676GN
View from Artemis II today. Crescent Earth. A view humans haven't captured since 1972.
I hope you slept as peacefully as these young loons captured on film by Harry Collins: 🔊 #AGoodPlace
Source: www.reddit.com/r/NatureIsFu...
Here are ten seconds of Flamingoes feeding underwater.
MAMA HUMPBACK WHALE DEFEATS NILE CROCODILE!
HUMPBACK WHALE is #2026MMM CHAMPION!
Artwork by @veppart.bsky.social & @opellisms.bsky.social !!!
Multiple images taken by the Mars rover Curiosity assembled into a single panoramic image
Multiple images taken by the Mars rover Curiosity assembled into a single panoramic image
Now THAT is a view... the Mars rover Curiosity is seeing a truly beautiful landscape as she continues her epic exploration of the slopes of Mt Sharp, high above the floor of Gale Crater... Images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/fredk/Additional processing: S Atkinson
For #NSF and #NIH watchers, Grant Witness now has interactive data on numbers of grants and total funding obligations, broken down by institute and directorate, new awards and non-competitive renewals.
The stranglehold on new awards is still a disaster.
grant-witness.us/funding_curv...
A jewel-toned lobster faces the camera, with long horns and spiky bits all over the exoskeleton. It's on a wooden board. The coloration is ornate and very multi-colored, from purple to yellow to blue to orange. There are five species of rock lobster found in tropical Australian waters, but by far the most abundant is the Ornate Rock Lobster, Panulirus ornatus. This species forms the basis of dive fishery in both the Torres Straits and in the Gulf of Papua. CSIRO scientists have traced the movements of these lobsters to reveal a remarkable picture of animal migration. The lobsters undertake a journey that takes them hundreds of kilometres across the Torres Strait to their breeding grounds in the Gulf of Papua. After breeding, they seem to disappear. November 1985. Photo credit: Robert Kerton
I'd like to introduce you to Panulirus ornatus, the ornate rock lobster.
They're native to the Indo-Pacific, with a large range centered on New Guinea & the Great Barrier Reef near Australia.
They're a member of family Palinuridae, the spiny or rock lobsters.
So why so colorful?
Some species are lost to history. Others are out here spitting acid and crushing bones. I'll be posting genetics & evolution facts for both tonight! #2026MMM
Skeets by @cegamorim.bsky.social @fervillanea.bsky.social @n8upham.bsky.social @sexchrlab.bsky.social @acstone.bsky.social and me!
And March Mammal Madness would not be possible without the incredible achievements of scientists the world over, so many funded by those historical engines of excellence- the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin #2026MMM
Welcome to the 14th Annual March Mammal Madness! This year MMM Celebrates LIBRARIES in honor of 10 years since the launch of the LibGuide! libguides.asu.edu/MarchMammalM... #2026MMM
Are you ready? #2026MMM
“Seven elephant seal pups at Año Nuevo State Park have tested positive for the virus, known as H5N1, becoming the first recorded cases in northern elephant seals. They are among about 30 seals that have died at the park since late last week and the first to have been tested, said Roxanne Beltran”
So I pleased to announce the conceptual spawn of FigTree: PearTree (acronym still to be finalised). If you want to dive right in it is hosted as a web app here: artic-network.github.io/peartree (click the “Example...” button for immediate candy and then click every button you can find).
Really sad, so senseless. What a life of contributions too
Rev. Jesse Jackson's "I *am* somebody..." remains one of the all-time great pieces of 20th century rhetoric / agitprop
And he could deliver it at a Black separatist meeting, the Democratic National Convention, or on god-blessed Sesame Street (see below 🥹)
RIP to the Voice of the Voiceless
Group of Ansell's mole-rats huddling
Do subterranean mammals have hyper-elastic skin thanks to super-sized hyaluronan (HA) polymers?
We challenge this popular idea in a new preprint, presenting the first skin elasticity measurements of burrowing rodents & HA size profiles for Ansell’s mole-rat (1/8) 🧪
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Important cause! @plazi-species.bsky.social Plazi.org is doing some of this work through Biodiversity Literature Repository -- are you linking forces w that? DOIs minted through Zenodo
Utah Hogle Zoo photo, giraffe and parents
In good news, a little one was born in Utah🦒
www.sltrib.com/news/2026/01...
Pre-announcement ... keep an eye out for news of our upcoming #Biodiversity #Bioinformatics Summer School 21-26 June in Germany co-organised by @sib.swiss & @denbi.bsky.social ... sign up to the mailing list to be sure not to miss it! www.sib.swiss/training/upc...
"And before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half of the world... We aren’t going to have peace on earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN8e...
wikipedia turns 25 today! the last unenshittified major website! backbone of online info! triumph of humanity! powered by urge of unpaid randos to correct each other! somehow mostly reliable! "good thing wikipedia works in practice, because it sure doesn't work in theory" - old wiki adage
Midnight Diner available on Netflix is beautiful, haunting, affecting. Subtitles not dubbing. Poetry of the city from a great Japanese director. www.netflix.com/watch/80113542
A pinhole camera photo taken from Summer to Winter Solstice. It's a bit blurry as the aperture was made with a tiny needle and no focus mechanism. There are yellow to green lines across the photo, that's the Sun moving across the sky over the course of a day. The top line is from the Summer Solstice, the bottom line from the Winter Solstice. Cloudy days don't have any lines or broken lines as the Sun was obscured by clouds. There are some trees on the left, right and in the background.
A pinhole camera photo, a 6 month exposure from Summer to Winter solstice. There are trees on the right side and background. A house with two cars in the drive are visible almost in the center of the photo. The lines are made from the Sun moving across the sky with the bottom line being the Winter Solstice and the top line the Summer solstice. On cloudy days the lines are broken or not visible as the sun was obscured by clouds. The lines show some reflections from a tree trunk. The lines are mostly a white color with some hints of blue, green and yellow in places. Some of the colors could be from rain or snow staining the paper I was using.
A solargram/pinhold camera photo taken from the Winter Solstice of 2024 (21 Dec) to Summer Solstice of 2025 (20 June). It's a 6 month long exposure taken with a beer can pinhole camera, it shows the sun's movement across the sky during that time period, each day the Sun scribes a line on the paper in the pinhole camera. The bottom line is Dec 21 2024 and the top line is 20 June 2025. This kind of photo makes the movement of the Sun during the day into visible trails on the paper in the camera. There is a long orange-yellow arc going across the paper showing the whole 6 months. There is a shadow of my tree on the image, the tree blossomed during the exposure. Shades of blue and pink are on the paper too. There is a black kind of semi circle at the top of the image, that's where the water was disintegrating the top part of the paper.
Happy Winter Solstice!
Beer can, pinhole camera photos of the Summer to Winter Solstice (2024) and the Winter to Summer Solstice (2025).
You never know quite what you're going to get with these photos, set the beer can pointing towards the sun at hopefully the correct angle and wait 6 months!
