"Snowball Cam has no visible moving parts but [is] able to roll across most terrains, even up hill." A
new generation of spycams - very mobile spycams - have been prowling the northern arctic islands of Norway for an
upcoming BBC TV program on polar bears. Bilzzard Cam has two electric motors that propel it across the snow - on skis - at speeds up to 40 mph. When threatened by the bears, it releases the onboard decoy device - the Snowball Cam - seen in action
here.
posted by woodblock100
on Dec 23, 2010 -
34 comments
An Outsider's View "Over the past fifty years, factions of biologists have had a complex relationship. Some scientists have continued to carry out relatively traditional natural history work, with little need to delve into molecular (or computational) biology. Others have given little attention to natural history, focusing their efforts instead on deciphering the complexities of a membrane channel, or building new algorithms for identifying open reading frames. In some cases, biologists have bridged this divide, and the result has been a fruitful collaboration. But in other cases—such as the DNA studies on whales and hippos—one group moves into the other's traditional territory, sparking new conflict."[
via]
posted by dhruva
on Jul 22, 2009 -
12 comments
Circuits are flipping on in the
nation's attic. A couple of weeks ago,
31 "digerati" -- like
Clay Shirky,
Chris Anderson, and
George Oates --
dropped in to the Smithsonian Institution for the invitation-only conference
"Smithsonian 2.0: A Gathering to Re-imagine the Smithsonian in the Digital Age".
Dan Cohen of the
Center for History and New Media provides
a great summary (and continues to pose provocative questions) on his own blog. Those whose invitations were somehow lost in the mail can play fly-on-the-wall by
watching the keynotes, paging through the
Flickr pool of envymaking glimpses of their behind-the-scenes lab and collections tours, reading the
blog (where Bruce Wyman of the Denver Art Museum lays out
a succinct road map for museums using social media), and poking around in the SI's
website gallery. Want to cheer on the USA's favorite 163-year-old
"Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge" without taking the trip to DC? Thanks to their recent efforts, you can now follow the SI on
Twitter, listen to its
podcasts, watch its
YouTube channel, visit the
Latino Virtual Museum in Second Life, or use the
FaceBook gifts page to send your best friends their very own pair of Dorothy's
ruby slippers,
Hope diamond,
Negro Leagues baseball, or
coelocanth.
posted by Miko
on Feb 27, 2009 -
13 comments
A collection of bird skeletons (with 3d rotating skeleton goodness). The site also has tips on
cleaning your own, and
identifying those you might, uh, stumble across. Comparative pictures and anatomy of
orangutan, chimp, marmoset, and lemur skeletons.
Will's Skull Site, with close to 100 skulls and details (
Cougar!). The California Academy of Sciences
site on skulls, including this cool
animal-to-skull match tool.
Skeleton specimen tutorials from the Vetrinary Museum. The
Human Osteology pages. A
x-ray anatomy of the human skeleton. The
Human Skull module at CalState Chico.
And, you know, dragon physiology. And previously, the skeletal systems of cartoon characters.
posted by OmieWise
on Mar 29, 2006 -
8 comments
Owls are rad. Sometimes they look kind of
metallic and scary, sometimes
wise, sometimes
puzzled, and sometimes like
skulls, (
Index); sometimes they
sound like dogs or pigs, sometimes they
sound like a little train, sometimes they
sound alarmed, (
Index of MP3s); sometimes you come across an
extensive gallery of Central and North American owls with
pictures,
ranges,
video, and even a description of
the '04-'05 Northern Owl Invasion; sometimes it's a
dynamic range map of Owls of the Western Hemisphere; sometimes it's the
OwlCam homepage with
downloadable owl movies, sometimes it's a
series of articles on all things owl; sometimes at
BiologyBase it's a printable
owl sighting lifelist, sometimes it's
Ruru, the morepork, New Zealand's native owl at
NZBirds. Or,
w0t! w0t!, it's
attracting barn owls and
building nest boxes at World Owl Trust.
Previous MeFi birding FPP.
posted by OmieWise
on Mar 28, 2006 -
34 comments
The orchid scrapbooks of John Day. Over the course of 40 years, John Day participated in the popular Victorian pursuit of orchid collection. He collected his stunning paintings of the plants into 53 scrapbooks, a selection of which is available online at the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens. [via the remarkable
BibliOdyssey]
posted by frykitty
on Nov 30, 2005 -
7 comments
Electronic Biologia Centrali-Americana is a collaboration between the Smithsonian, Missouri Botanical and Kew Gardens, the British Natural History Museum and various other institutions which has enabled the digitizing of 58 volumes of natural history about central America produced between 1880 and 1920. It includes descriptions of more than 50,000 species with images of more than 18,000
birds,
more birds,
snakes,
turtles,
centipedes,
spiders,
more spiders,
plants,
mollusks,
more plants,
butterflies,
orthoptera insects,
more butterflies and
their family's (
moth-like)
families,
mammals and even some
historic maps of the region. There is a parallel project attempting to provide access to much more scientific data and specimens between these institutions.
Note: 'next' button at top +/- bottom of these large thumb pages; large high resolution jpegs work (in most cases) but zoom and .pdfiles are not yet enabled. I've only just scratched the surface.
posted by peacay
on Sep 26, 2005 -
9 comments
"A natural history of birds. Most of which have not been figur'd or describ'd, and others very little known from obscure or too brief descriptions without figures, or from figures very ill design'd.
" [1743] and "Birds of North America" [1903]
Samples
(the last 15 from each link): [1743]:
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12,
13,
14,
15.
[1903]:
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12,
13,
14,
15.
[MI]
posted by peacay
on Sep 10, 2005 -
23 comments
New York's Natural History Museum Pioneers Use of Internet2 "Sebastien Lepine, a post-doctoral fellow at the museum, had figured that it would take him a year, using the commercial Internet, to finish downloading two 360-degree digital sky surveys for his study of fast-moving stars. But that was before the museum connected to Abilene."
This indication of how the "commmercial Internet" has become so clogged with crap annoys me intensely. Particularly when the article points out just a few of the research projects that need high bandwidth.
posted by elgoose
on Apr 17, 2002 -
13 comments
