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Nembrotha lineolata gobbling on a tunicate by Samantha Craven
(via ody-ssea)
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@itsmotherswork
(via qbits)
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A motionless, but alert, Black Caiman (Melanosuchus niger) waits at the bottom of a pond in Brazil.
(photo: Pankaj Valia)
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British architectural firm Marks Barfield, known for their treetop walkway at London’s Kew Botanical gardens and Europe’s first eco-mosque, have now designed a bamboo tower that hopes to become a pioneering research centre in the heart of the Amazon jungle.
More here: Spiraling Bamboo Science Tower To Observe Amazon Rainforest
Need one for the fen.
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![theatlantic:
Museums Want to Entertain You (and That’s Not a Bad Thing)
Once, art museums were like fortresses. They were built of stone atop forbidding mountains of stairs. Today, museums might be nestled under glass pyramids, or sheathed in undulating ripples of stainless steel, or built to look like boats and the hood of a sports car. A city in China has plans for a comic book museum that’s shaped like a speech bubble.
Just as the buildings have changed, so have the exhibits inside them. Today museums must compete with a host of entertainment options that didn’t exist a generation ago. Customers who could be down the street seeing Titanic: An IMAX 3D Experience instead are unlikely to be satisfied with the old school, cattle-like shuffle past painting after painting, just as patrons with smartphones in their pockets don’t want to read names and dates off of little white cards. Even the Louvre has gone high-tech. The venerable institution has partnered with Nintendo to put gallery maps, high-resolution imagery, and a dozen languages of audio commentary in every visitor’s palm.
Patrons who expect multimedia bang for their buck get it at “Inventing the Modern World: Decorative Arts at the World’s Fairs 1851-1939,” a new exhibit at Kansas City’s Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The ambitious show, which opened on Saturday and runs through August 19, explores how World’s Fairs did—and still do—offer a means for nations to assert themselves on the international stage. World’s Fairs also became the first platform for introducing new styles, manufacturing techniques, and consumer goods on a global stage. Popular products first presented at a World’s Fair, for instance, range from mayonnaise and Cracker Jacks to the sewing machine and telephone. The bejeweled Cartier clock is eye-popping. The prototype Herman Miller plexiglass chair will make any design-lover swoon.
Read more. [Image: Bob Greenspan]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2q9k3amrN1qcokc4o1_1280.jpg)
Museums Want to Entertain You (and That’s Not a Bad Thing)
Once, art museums were like fortresses. They were built of stone atop forbidding mountains of stairs. Today, museums might be nestled under glass pyramids, or sheathed in undulating ripples of stainless steel, or built to look like boats and the hood of a sports car. A city in China has plans for a comic book museum that’s shaped like a speech bubble.
Just as the buildings have changed, so have the exhibits inside them. Today museums must compete with a host of entertainment options that didn’t exist a generation ago. Customers who could be down the street seeing Titanic: An IMAX 3D Experience instead are unlikely to be satisfied with the old school, cattle-like shuffle past painting after painting, just as patrons with smartphones in their pockets don’t want to read names and dates off of little white cards. Even the Louvre has gone high-tech. The venerable institution has partnered with Nintendo to put gallery maps, high-resolution imagery, and a dozen languages of audio commentary in every visitor’s palm.
Patrons who expect multimedia bang for their buck get it at “Inventing the Modern World: Decorative Arts at the World’s Fairs 1851-1939,” a new exhibit at Kansas City’s Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The ambitious show, which opened on Saturday and runs through August 19, explores how World’s Fairs did—and still do—offer a means for nations to assert themselves on the international stage. World’s Fairs also became the first platform for introducing new styles, manufacturing techniques, and consumer goods on a global stage. Popular products first presented at a World’s Fair, for instance, range from mayonnaise and Cracker Jacks to the sewing machine and telephone. The bejeweled Cartier clock is eye-popping. The prototype Herman Miller plexiglass chair will make any design-lover swoon.
Read more. [Image: Bob Greenspan]
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Adaptive Roots
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![parkerkierce:
thedailywhat:
Early Bird Special: True story: The Canadian Avalanche Rescue Cat Association is now acceptingapplicants for “a network of highly efficient avalanche search and rescue cat teams across Canada.” Upon submission, CARCA will “review you and your cat’s suitability for our extensive and rigourous program.” But how can cats help in an avalanche, you ask? A documentary has been released to give would-be rescue cats (and their humans) an idea of what the program entails.
Only outdoor cats need apply.
[metafilter]
if this isnt the most badass thing ever…](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2mmp73FyC1qzpwi0o1_1280.png)
Early Bird Special: True story: The Canadian Avalanche Rescue Cat Association is now acceptingapplicants for “a network of highly efficient avalanche search and rescue cat teams across Canada.” Upon submission, CARCA will “review you and your cat’s suitability for our extensive and rigourous program.” But how can cats help in an avalanche, you ask? A documentary has been released to give would-be rescue cats (and their humans) an idea of what the program entails.
Only outdoor cats need apply.
if this isnt the most badass thing ever…
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The Day Yahoo Decided I Liked Reading About Child Murder
On February 8, 2012, I was on Yahoo’s homepage when a headline caught my eye: “Mo. teen gets life with possible parole in killing.” Curious, I clicked to see what atrocity had transpired in the state where I live. Alyssa Bustamante, a teenager from Jefferson City, had strangled and stabbed her nine-year-old neighbor for the sheer thrill of it, later describing the event in her diary as an “ahmazing” experience. Horrified, I closed the page. Like many whose homepage defaults to Yahoo, this quick scan of a story was a rote action, information via procrastination, almost subconsciously performed every morning before I move on to other things. In this case, the story was so awful that I wanted to get away. Except, it turned out, I couldn’t.
For the next month, I woke up to a barrage of horrifying stories that seemed to signal an epidemic of child torture in America. “3-year-old recovering after swallowing 37 powerful magnets,” Yahoo solemnly informed me on March 5; “Police: Alaska girl locked in frigid bedroom dies” on March 6. Occasionally the child in question survived their ordeal (“7-year-old boy survives brush with tornado in North Carolina”, March 4) but more often than not they were the adversary (“Boy, 9, charged in shooting of third-grade classmate”, February 23; “11-year-old California girl dies after fight with classmate”, February 26; “Texas boy, 12, accused of brandishing loaded gun”, February 27; “10-year-old girl’s death in fight with student ruled homicide”, February 27).
I rarely clicked on any of these headlines, and at first, I didn’t notice the way they had crept into my Yahoo homepage — and into my mind — until their pervasiveness became impossible to ignore.
That’s when I realized: Yahoo had decided I liked child murder.
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A useful take on the matter.
ht: ALA
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20110304-IMG_8574-Edit-Edit by Todd Aki on Flickr.
(via ody-ssea)
