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nautilus_feedBuilt to track enemy submarines, the Navy’s underwater listening network inadvertently revealed that whales may be singing across entire oceans
The post The Cold War’s Accidental Whale Observatory appeared first on Nautilus.
vasscakewrecks_feedYou ever see a cake and have one of those reactions like: "Ooooh, that's not good. I mean, it could be worse, I guess, but still, really not good. What was it for? ... A wedding?! OH THAT POOR BRIDE."
That's today's cakes.
They're all a bit sad...
A bit lumpy-bumpy...
A bit, "Oh. OH. Um, how... nice?"
When your wedding's "cupcake tower" looks like something you made during the slumber party for your 14th birthday:
Or when there's more wire in your wedding cake than the average 14-year-old's braces:
o.0
You know how in movies when the bad guy lets loose with a machine gun on a wall somewhere, leaving lines of bullet holes that the light shines through?
Imagine the gun shoots roses:
BAM.
(Yes, I know otherwise it's fine. JUST LET ME HAVE THIS.)
And finally, whatever you do, don't think about stretched skin.
Or parsley.
STOP IT.
Thanks to Carrie B., Deanna H., Jimena, Dawn D., Shannon, Britton E., Helen, & Pat J. for lifting our saggy, saggy spirits.
*****
P.S. Speaking of ways to prevent sagging (oh yeah, nailed that segue), this saved my butt during a long painting day recently, so I have a random product recommendation:
No Buckle No-Show Stretch Belt
This is my new favorite belt, y'all. It basically turns anything with belt loops into an elastic waist. So comfy I forget it's on, slimline so it doesn't show under my t-shirts, and NO BELT BUCKLE to dig into my belly or unbuckle for bathroom breaks. Woohoo!
You know how stretch jeans are forever sliding down when you sit or bend, so you have to keep hitching them back up? No more! I wear this with all my jeans now. It's entirely elastic, so it moves and stretches with you, zero painful digging. I HIGHLY recommend for anyone well endowed with squish in the belly area.
******
And from my other blog, Epbot:
oursinSome years ago I advised a composer who was composing an opera about A Historical Figure about whom I am something of a Nexpert, and I am now on their mailing list and get info on their current activities and broadcasts and so on -
And I was invited to the Private View of this, taking place at a venue which is only a reasonable bus-ride and short walk away.
Also giving me the chance to see a small part of the nearish locality with which I am relatively unfamiliar, and which has its charms.
I am not sure I was entirely enthused by the artworks - there was one installation of ceramics where I wished I had someone there to whom I could murmur that they had an urgent phallic look -
My main problem with the venue, however, was the acoustics - I think it was the kind of space where once you got a certain mass of people conversing it would always have been a bit trying for me and my hearing aids, but combined with the ambient music coming out of the various speakers, not optimal at all. (Though maybe its own soundscape....)
I don't think there was anyone there I knew besides The Composer - mostly of a younger generation and art/music people rather than groves of academe - and I didn't really get into much chat, but I did get 2 admiring comments on the green hair streaks and 1 compliment to my pendant (which I think I got at Wiscon, unless it was 4th St?).
However, I have had a sweet email from The Composer thanking me for coming.
mdlbearToday I am thankful for...
dailybunny_feedIt’s the return of Ayla’s backyard bunny cam! This time, meet the Blueberry Goblin! Thanks, Ayla!
[Ed. note: Longtime bunny friends know this already, but please do give your buns fruit in moderation; too much can be hard on those delicate bellies.]
andrewduckeremperorsovayspatch had wanted to take me to water after I had spent the previous day in the kind of pain where as soon as it eased off a little I passed out. We ate roast beef sandwiches parked at the Mystic Lakes and drove north once rush hour had died down.rushthatspeaks' irresistible report on Tokuzō Tanaka's The Whale God (鯨神, 1962), a radiation of Melville I had known nothing about. Rob and I have not yet caught up on the latest episode of Widow's Bay (2026), but last week when we marathoned the previous three we were delighted to confirm that in its remix of New England horrors, Shirley Jackson had unambiguously entered the chat. Hestia, our own lighthouse, was golden-eyed in the cat tree.vamp_ress posting in booknookthistleingreyearthobservatory_iod_feed
One of the first images transmitted back to Earth from the Artemis II mission was a stunner. In a single image, Earth’s full disk appears amid celestial phenomena that illustrate its place in the solar system. And although the visible hemisphere appears to be awash in sunlight, it is actually lit by moonlight. The astronauts’ vantage point provided a rare opportunity to capture nighttime features—most notably lights from human habitation—from a new perspective.
An Artemis crew member captured the photo from the Orion spacecraft after it completed the translunar injection burn, which sent the spacecraft out of Earth orbit and on a trajectory toward the Moon. In the photo, Earth eclipses the Sun from Orion’s perspective, leaving only a small sliver of its bright light visible around the bottom right edge. Green auroras, caused by charged particles from the Sun interacting with Earth’s upper atmosphere, glow around the north and south poles (lower left and upper right, respectively).
The Sun’s light also produces the fuzzy glow, known as zodiacal light, that appears to the lower right of Earth. This phenomenon comes from sunlight reflecting off interplanetary dust. Skywatchers on Earth may see it at certain times of year around dawn or dusk as a faint column of light extending up from the horizon. Data collected by NASA’s Juno spacecraft on its journey to Jupiter suggest that Mars may be a significant source of the dust particles that produce zodiacal light. Earth’s other planetary neighbor, Venus, appears as the bright object in the bottom right of the image.
On Earth itself, city lights are evidence of human activity. Bright areas appear in Spain, Portugal, and northern Africa (lower left), sub-Saharan Africa (center left), and Brazil (center right). Digital camera technology—with help from the illumination of a full Moon—made it possible to see these and other details of Earth’s surface and atmosphere in low light. The crew set the camera’s ISO to 51,200 to make it highly sensitive to light. For comparison, an ISO setting of 100 or 200 is common for daytime photography.
Previous nighttime views of Earth taken from spacecraft may look very different from this photo but have also inspired and enlightened. For instance, the Apollo 12 crew photographed Earth eclipsing the Sun in 1969; astronaut Alan Bean would go on to depict his impressions of the event in paintings.
More recently, astronauts aboard the International Space Station have photographed the planet at night from low Earth orbit, while NASA’s Black Marble nighttime lights product suite uses satellite observations to produce science-quality records of nighttime lights at daily, monthly, and yearly time scales. Those programs provide sustained data records, while the Artemis II photo is distinctive as a single human-captured full-disk view showing many low-light features at once.
Cindy Evans, senior exploration scientist in the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, was working in the Science Evaluation Room during the Artemis II mission and was one of the first people on Earth to see the image. Evans was struck both by its beauty and the perspective revealed by all the visible solar system features. “I love the image so much because it was taken with Earth in moonshine, and shows Earth as a solar system body, a dynamic planet interacting with the solar wind, and a place harboring life,” she said.
The image is scientifically valuable, as well, said Miguel Román, Deputy Director for Atmospheres and Data Systems at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “It speaks powerfully to the breadth of what NASA does across science and human exploration,” he said. Román studies artificial light at night, as viewed from space, as a measurable signal of human activity.
“[This photo] reminds us that Earth at night is visually compelling, physically complex, and scientifically underexplored,” Román said. “I see this image as a glimpse of what Earth science can become in the future.”
NASA images prepared for Earth Observatory by Lauren Dauphin. Story by Lindsey Doermann.
Stay up-to-date with the latest content from NASA as we explore the universe and discover more about our home planet.
An astronaut on the International Space Station was surprised to photograph a shower of light streaking through the darkness while…
The crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission captured extraordinary images of our home planet during their journey around the far…
A series of nighttime satellite images revealed how moonlight reaching Earth varied throughout a total lunar eclipse.
The post A Moonlit Earth as Seen From Artemis II appeared first on NASA Science.
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