The Standalone Camera is Dying onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com The Standalone Camera is Dying

S

Time's inexorable march has pushed another piece of tech to the brink of obsolescence. The dedicated camera is on the outs – or so claims designer Craig Mod in a contentious article for The New Yorker.

Top photo by jeyp via flickr

Mod's piece recounts his prolonged love-affair with photography and photographic equipment, including his 2009-transition to the micro-four-thirds system – a smaller, lighter, more intuitive alternative to the DSLR paradigm of high-end photography. Mod made the switch with the purchase of a Panasonic GF1, which he brought with him on an expedition to Annapurna Base Camp in central Nepal. The camera was unobtrusive and took remarkable photographs; significantly – like many phone-cameras – it did so without a viewfinder. In a field test from the Annapurna trip, Mod wrote, "For better or worse, a camera without a viewfinder is less intimidating. You are no longer half-human half-camera … which is wonderful if you want candid, real photographs. Subjects focus on being human rather than being a subject."

The GF1 marked a nascent shift in Mod's perspective on photographic equipment, one that would fully materialize two and a half years later, when he replaced his GF1 with Panasonic's Gx1 in preparation for a six-day hike through the mountains of Wakayama, in central Japan, re-tracing the path of an ancient imperial pilgrimage called the Kumano Kodo:

During the trip, I alternated between shooting with it and an iPhone 5. After importing the results into Lightroom, Adobe's photo-development software, it was difficult to distinguish the GX1's photos from the iPhone 5's. (That's not even the latest iPhone; Austin Mann's superlative results make it clear that the iPhone 5S operates on an even higher level.) Of course, zooming in and poking around the photos revealed differences: the iPhone 5 doesn't capture as much highlight detail as the GX1, or handle low light as well, or withstand intense editing, such as drastic changes in exposure. But it seems clear that in a couple of years, with an iPhone 6S in our pockets, it will be nearly impossible to justify taking a dedicated camera on trips like the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage.

Mod's piece is certainly worth reading in and of itself, but the comments section – where the readership's sense of nostalgia, individuality and craftsmanship collides at full force with a yearning for accessibility and technological advancement – is where this controversial subject really comes alive. Read it here.

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com The Standalone Camera is Dying

Tokyos Internet Black Market coming to Berlin onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Tokyos Internet Black Market coming to Berlin

Während der Transmediale findet am 2. Februar der erste Internet Black Market außerhalb Japans in Berlin statt. Dort kann man dann Spacer.GIFs, Likes und Memes kaufen und sowas.

What is the Internet Yami-ichi?

- It’s an off-line Internet-themed flea market.

- It’s an attempt to let some fresh air in the world of the Internet that’s starting to feel a bit restricted, by buying and selling Internet-based things at a real place.

- Yami = Dark side, Black + Illness, Fetish

Internet Yami-ichiInternet Black Market is coming to Your Town! Berlin! (via Algopop)

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Tokyos Internet Black Market coming to Berlin

Montréals Speechbubble-Lights onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Montréals Speechbubble-Lights

Montréal gönnt sich noch bis März eine Sprechblasen-Beleuchtung. Die Comic-Lampen kommen von der Designagentur Turn Me On und verwandeln die Straße in ein Spiel aus Perspektive und Kommunikation mit Comics. Nice!

This temporary intervention installed until early months next March, highlights a unique design that’s visible both day and night, when the lighting makes it scalable take its value, adding to the feel of being on the main street of Plateau Mont-Royal.

La mise en lumière hivernale: Idée-O-Rama (via Creators Project)

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Montréals Speechbubble-Lights

What causes these spooky ice formations in the desert? onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com What causes these spooky ice formations in the desert?

The Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescope, or APEX, is on Earth, but surrounded by ice spikes that make the landscape look decidedly alien. These "sculptures" are natural formations known as penitentes. And they form where it's very cold and very dry.

Many people have heard of the Atacama desert - a place where it is so dry in places that footprints in the dust stay undisturbed for decades. The dry air and the lack of light pollution make it perfect for stargazing, which is why the APEX telescope got built out there. In this photo, it's gathered its own little crowd of onlookers. These ice formations are called penitentes, after a local religious order whose members wear spiked white hoods.

Naturally, there needs to be a little moisture around to make a field of snow, but the penitentes form because the climate is so dry. The snow undergoes a process of sublimation - when ice changes directly to gas without changing to water first. The sublimation causes pits in snow that hollow out to deeper caverns. When ice sublimates in the caverns, it turns to mist - and makes the climate in the cavern wet enough for liquid to form. The combination of melting and sublimation sculpts elaborate ice figures, which look even cooler next to a telescope.

Via Spiked Ice.

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com What causes these spooky ice formations in the desert?

The covers for the Japanese editions of Game of Thrones are incredible onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com The covers for the Japanese editions of Game of Thrones are incredible

We've seen some pretty amazing art on book covers recently, but these covers for the Japanese translations of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire are especially gorgeous.

After looking at all the different versions of Harry Potter covers from around the world, commenter cortexsession recommended these covers from the Japanese translations from Martin's epic fantasy series, calling them "really damn cool."

We have to say, we agree.

S

S

S

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com The covers for the Japanese editions of Game of Thrones are incredible

Does the internet prove that time travelers are visiting us? (No.) onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Does the internet prove that time travelers are visiting us? (No.)

How would we know if time travelers are visiting the present? You could look for clues — but the best indication might be found on the internet. Unfortunately, two researchers tried to look for clues to time travel online... and came up with nothing.

It's an unpublished study that appears at the Cornell University Library's arXiv pre-print archive, but it's interesting nonetheless. Similar to looking at old photos or newsreels for chronological inconsistencies, or the case where a man named John Titor told the Internet he came from the future, researchers Robert Nemiroff and Teresa Wilson searched the web for prescient information not previously available. Technically speaking, then, this wasn't a study delving into the physical plausibility of time travel; rather, the authors tried to prove time travel by uncovering anachronistic (i.e. chronologically impossible) data on the Internet.

"Technically, what was searched for here was not physical time travelers themselves, but rather informational traces left by them," write the authors.

For the study, the duo chose two terms that couldn't possibly have existed until recent times, namely "Pope Francis" and "Comet ISON." The current pope is the first in history to go by that name, and ISON was only recently discovered. Nemiroff and Wilson searched both Google and Twitter hashtags for mentions of these two terms over the last seven years. They also conducted log searches at NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) web site.

And because they're not stupid, the researchers also asked time travelers to respond actively to a request for prescient communication. To do so, they asked hypothetical time travellers to to respond with a communication including either the hashtagged term "#ICanChangeThePast2" or "#ICannotChangeThePast2" on or before 2013 August.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your opinion of time travel), Nemiroff and Wilson found absolutely no evidence of time travellers. But they admit this isn't definitive proof that time travel isn't possible. The researchers conclude their study with these words:

First, it may be physically impossible for time travelers to leave any lasting remnants of their stay in the past, including even non-corporeal informational remnants on the Internet. Next, it may be physically impossible for us to find such information as that would violate some yet-unknown law of physics, possibly similar to the Chronology Protection Conjecture [16]. Furthermore, time travelers may not want to be found, and may be good at covering their tracks. Additionally, time travelers just may not have left the specific event tags that we were searching for. Finally, our searches were not comprehensive, so that even if time travelers left the exact event tags searched for here, we might have missed them due to human error, oversight, incompleteness of Internet catalogs and searches, or inaccurate content time tags.

Full props to Nemiroff and Wilson for a highly imaginative and original study.

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Does the internet prove that time travelers are visiting us? (No.)

In Ken Liu's new story, a text adventure game becomes a thing of wonder onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com In Ken Liu's new story, a text adventure game becomes a thing of wonder

S

Ken Liu mashes together so many things in his new story "The Clockwork Soldier," over at Clarkesworld: a Scheherazade riff, a Zork-style text adventure, a strange fairy tale, and a Philip K. Dick-inspired tale of android sentience. And he makes it all come together beautifully.

Top image: Waldemar Kazak.

In "Clockwork Soldier," we start out by discovering that a bounty hunter has let her prey go, for the first time ever. Why did this happen? We go back in time and discover this has to do with a text adventure "game" the boy, Ryder, was programming into the bounty hunter's computer. Which touches on the tricky subject of android rights, in a way that turns out to be close to home.

You think you know where this story is going, but you really don't, even though you've already seen how it ends.

Here's the opening:

"Go," Alex said. "If you remember to keep a low profile, neither your father nor his enemies will ever find you here."

The ship had landed in the middle of the jungle, miles away from the closest settlement. Alara was a backwater, barely inhabited, and insignificant to galactic politics. It would take days, perhaps weeks, to walk out of here, stumble into a few colonists, and pretend to be near starvation. Enough time to make up any backstory and make it believable.

Ryder flexed his slender arms and stretched, the movements graceful, dancelike. The strict manner in which he had been bound during the ship's last jump through hyperspace didn't seem to have any lasting ill effects.

He gave Alex a long, appraising look. "What will you tell my father?"

She shrugged. "I'll give him his money back."

"You've never failed before, have you?"

"There's always a first time. I'm human. I'm not perfect." She began to climb back into the ship.

"That's it?"

She stopped halfway up the ladder and looked down at him.

"You don't want to be sure?" he asked, that characteristic smirk playing at the corners of his delicate mouth again. "Don't you want to ask to see me as I really am?"

She considered this. "No. I've already decided to believe you. Trying to make sure can only make things worse. If I find out that you're telling the truth, then I will have ruined this moment, when I can still believe I'm capable of being decent, of trust. If I find out you're lying, then I'll have to consider myself a fool."

"So, again you choose faith before knowledge."

This time, she didn't stop climbing. When she was at the airlock door, she turned around. "Faith is just another name for self-knowledge. You've succeeded, Scheherazade. When you tell your own story, you seize life. Now it's my turn to tell myself a good story, about myself. I know enough. Goodbye."

Ryder watched as the ship rose, shrank, and disappeared into the evening sky. "Thank you," he whispered.

Then he set off into the dark jungle, just another wanderer, a lonely will etching his way across the wilderness.

Read the rest over at Clarkesworld.

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com In Ken Liu's new story, a text adventure game becomes a thing of wonder

In the event of a water landing, your plane will become a work of art onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com In the event of a water landing, your plane will become a work of art

When an airplane goes down to a watery grave, it slowly transforms into something other-worldly and astonishingly beautiful. Just like sunken ships, underwater plane wrecks become a playground for creatures of the deep and slowly corrode into something fantastic-looking. See for yourself!

Top image: crashed WW2 Corsair plane by Sphinx Wang/Shutterstock.

Lady of the Lake, a partially submerged WB-29, which is a variant of the iconic B-29 Superfortress, used for weather monitoring missions and to test radiation levels after nuclear weapon tests. It rests in a water-filled gravel pit on Eielson Air Force Base, 26 miles southeast of Fairbanks, Alaska.

S S S

(via United States Air Force, lns1122 and USAF/Wikimedia Commons)

A B-17F named "Black Jack", ditched close to the beach near Boga-Boga, Papua New Guinea after the crew was unable to reach Port Moresby after a succesful bombing mission. The bomber had two malfunctioning engines and running low on fuel. Sunk on June 10, 1943, rediscovered in 1986. S

S S S S S

(via Indo Pacific Images and USAF/Wikimedia Commons)

An F6F Hellcat in the Pacific Ocean near Gizo, Solomon Islands

S S

S S (via DiveGizo and U.S. Navy/Wikimedia Commons)

A Vought F4U Corsair fighter plane at Maunalua Bay, Hawaii. Sank in 1946 during a training exercise when it ran out of fuel.

S S S S

S S

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com In the event of a water landing, your plane will become a work of art

A structural engineer performs a stress analysis of a strapless gown onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com A structural engineer performs a stress analysis of a strapless gown

S

Charles Seim is a bridge engineer who worked on dozens of bridges over the course of his career. But one of his early works was a contemplation of forces in a rather different structure: the strapless evening gown.

Neatorama and Improbable Research have republished Seim's 1956 essay "A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown," which appeared in a book of essays of the same name. In 2007, Seim delivered the (apparently updated) lecture for the first time, offering a slightly cheeky but earnest look at the challenges involved in maintaining the upright position of a strapless gown:

Effective as the strapless evening gown is in attracting attention, it presents tremendous engineering problems to the structural engineer. He is faced with the problem of designing a dress which appears as if it will fall at any moment and yet actually stays up with some small factor of safety. Some of the problems faced by the engineer readily appear from the following structural analysis of strapless evening gowns.

If a small elemental strip of cloth from a strapless evening gown is isolated as a free body in the area of plane A in Figure 1, it can be seen that the tangential force F1 is balanced by the equal and opposite tangential force F2. The downward vertical force W(weight of the dress) is balanced by the force V acting vertically upward due to the stress in the cloth above plane A. Since the algebraic summation of vertical and horizontal forces is zero and no moments are acting, the elemental strip is at equilibrium.

Consider now an elemental strip of cloth isolated as a free body in the area of plane B of figure 1. The two tangible forces F1 and F2 are equal and opposite as before, but the force W(weight of dress) is not balanced by an upward force V because there is no cloth above plane B to supply this force. Thus, the algebraic summation of horizontal forces is zero, but the sum of the vertical forces is not zero. Therefore, this elemental strip is not in equilibrium; but it is imperative, for social reason, that this elemental strip be in equilibrium. If the female is naturally blessed with sufficient pectoral development, she can supply this very vital force and maintain the elemental strip at equilibrium. If she is not, the engineer has to supply this force by artificial methods.

You can read his full analysis at Neatorama. It would be interesting to see Seim's analysis applied to various wardrobe malfunctions, but it would be even better if his engineering experience could eliminate the need for the constant tugging and readjusting of a strapless dress throughout the evening.

Image via Neatorama.

A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown [Neatorama]

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com A structural engineer performs a stress analysis of a strapless gown

Our lungs are capable of sensing odors onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Our lungs are capable of sensing odors

It turns out that the nose is not the only organ capable of sensing and distinguishing odors. But rather than perceiving them as the sense of smell, our lungs react to the presence of noxious chemicals by triggering an automatic response: a cough.

We know that we have taste receptors in our lungs, but the discovery of a class of cells that express olfactory receptors in human airways, called pulmonary neuroendocrine cells, or PNECs, is completely new. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Iowa discovered the receptors in the membranes of neuroendocrine cells. These specialized cells send nerve impulses to the brain allowing it to "smell" chemicals contained in potentially hazardous inhaled stimuli, like perfumes, cigarette smoke, industrial solvents, and others. Once an acrid odor has been sensed, it triggers the chemosensory cells to dump hormones that make the airways constrict. In other words, we cough.

"We forget that our body plan is a tube within a tube, so our lungs and our gut are open to the external environment," said lead researcher Yehuda Ben-Sharar in a statement. "Although they're inside us, they're actually part of our external layer. So they constantly suffer environmental insults and it makes sense that we evolved mechanisms to protect ourselves."

Put another way, the PNECs are guards whose job it is to exclude irritating or toxic chemicals.

"They are possibly designed to elicit a rapid, physiological response if you inhale something that is bad for you," said Ben-Sharar.

So unlike the unpleasant smell of noxious chemicals through our nose — which is something we could conceivably get accustomed to — certain chemicals trigger a response that's quick and largely automatic.

Read the entire study at ATS Journals: "Volatile-Sensing Functions for Pulmonary Neuroendocrine Cells."

Images: Ioannis Pantzi/Shutterstock/Ben-Shahar.

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Our lungs are capable of sensing odors

Which movie do you have to see twice before you really understand it? onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Which movie do you have to see twice before you really understand it?

S

Some movies give up all their treasure on the first viewing. But others only really start to speak to you when you've already seen them once or twice. What's your favorite movie that has to be seen more than once to be understood?

Please include a picture, a poster or a clip for this marvelous film. And mention the title, and what you got from a second or tenth viewing that you didn't get from the first.

Top image: Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Which movie do you have to see twice before you really understand it?

A Computer Program Made A Game By Itself. Well, That's Unsettling. onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com A Computer Program Made A Game By Itself. Well, That's Unsettling.

"This is a game about a disgruntled child." Okay computer, I'll just start working on my underground bunker now, don't mind me.

ANGELINA is a computer program that designs games. It (she?) was designed by Mike Cook, as part of his research into destroying humanity how computers can design games that humans wouldn't think of on our own.

ANGELINA has been designing games for a while, but this is the first time she was entered into a competition with a strict theme and compared to games made by human designers. Another participant in the competition told New Scientist, "I can safely say that the game created by Angelina has better gameplay and graphics than several other entries".

Here's the description of the game, written by the program:

This is a game about a disgruntled child. A Founder. The game only has one level, and the objective is to reach the exit. Along the way, you must avoid the Tomb as they kill you, and collect the Ship.

I use some sound effects from FreeSound, like the sound of Ship. Using Google and a tool called Metaphor Magnet, I discovered that people feel charmed by Founder sometimes. So I chose a unnerving piece of music from Kevin Macleod's Incompetech website to complement the game's mood.

Let me know what you think. In future I'll put more levels into my games, and also make the mechanics more interesting.

You can determine that for yourself by playing the game here, and you can see more of ANGELINA's games here.

via Animal

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com A Computer Program Made A Game By Itself. Well, That's Unsettling.

King Tut's penis may help penetrate the mystery of his death onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com King Tut's penis may help penetrate the mystery of his death

Even for an ancient culture who liked hollowing out, embalming and then bandaging their leaders' corpses, King Tutankhamun was buried in a weird way. His heart was replaced with a scarab, he was covered in black oils, and his penis was mummified as if erect. One historian thinks she's figured out why.

Egyptologist Salima Ikram, a professor at the American University in Cairo, that King Tut's penis may indicate an attempt to quell a religious revolution begun by his own father (that sound you hear is Freud spinning in his grave and doing a victorious fist pump). From LiveScience:

The mummified erect penis and other burial anomalies were not accidents during embalming, Ikram suggests, but rather deliberate attempts to make the king appear as Osiris, the god of the underworld, in as literal a way as possible. The erect penis evokes Osiris' regenerative powers; the black liquid made Tutankhamun's skin color resemble that of Osiris; and the lost heart recalled the story of the god being cut to pieces by his brother Seth and his heart buried.

Making the king appear as Osiris may have helped to undo a religious revolution brought about by Akhenaten, a pharaoh widely believed to be Tutankhamun's father, Ikram said.

Akhenaten had tried to focus Egyptian religion around the worship of the Aten, the sun disc, going so far as to destroy images of other gods. Tutankhamun was trying to undo these changes and return Egypt back to its traditional religion with its mix of gods.

Ikram cautions that it's still only a theory, but one that does seem to fit with the unusual circumstances of Tutankhamun's burial. Regardless whether Ikram turns out to be correct or not, I thank her wholeheartedly for giving me the opportunity to write this article headline.

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com King Tut's penis may help penetrate the mystery of his death

Yes, Dan Harmon really does make Community better onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Yes, Dan Harmon really does make Community better

S

Last night's Community double-header marked the return of show creator Dan Harmon, and the season premiere was the meta-est meta to ever meta. And as a "repiloting" it succeeded in spades, a sharp and funny promise that, even amidst all the changes, Community can be great again.

"Repiloting can be intense," Abed tells us in the season premiere. And in Community's case, it really needed to be. In 22 minutes, the show managed to address Dan Harmon's season-long absence (now termed "the gas leak year"), the characters' devolution into caricatures of their former selves, Chevy Chase's permanent graduation, and Donald Glover's impending departure. And that's all before we get to the actual plot question: Why should these characters even be hanging around Greendale for a fifth season of community college?

The episode managed to push the reset button on a lot of the characters while still acknowledging what has happened to them. While the last two seasons seemed to wrap up Jeff's story arcs, the season opener showed us that Jeff is no good at being a good guy outside of Greendale—at least not yet. Jeff found his monstrous side again, and it was all the scarier for being based on a deep, almost pathological love for his friends. (And we were reminded that Jeff can be just as genre-savvy as Abed when the moment demands it: "You're not worth the monologue.") Shirley is back to being on her own, this time without even her children to look after. Annie realized how easy it was to slip into a terrible, evil job that is beneath her go-getting ways. Chang is thankfully rid of his Changnesia plot line and is back at Greendale teaching math, because what else would he do? Troy and Abed are still Troy and Abed, but the nod to Zach Braff's departure from Scrubs reminded us that soon Abed will have to function without the other half of his handshake. And Britta, well, she continues to Britta up her life.

There was even a sweet Pierce moment, which came as a real surprise after what looked like Troy's very clear "fuck you" to Chevy Chase. ("Does it seem wrong to be doing this without…Magnitude?")

Here's the key reason why this episode worked so well, and why it proves that Harmon truly is the heart and soul of Community: Underneath all the inside jokes and all the madcap weirdness, Community is about a group of people who are not ready to function outside their little world. Community college is supposed to be a stepping stone to the next thing in your life—another school, another job. But while the study group is pretty terrible at making plans for the future, they are thriving in the present. For each and every one of them, being at Greendale is the thing that they are best at. This episode reminded us of that and reminded us what the show is about, like any good repilot should.

S

The second new episode, "Introduction to Teaching," gave us a taste of the new Community order, with Jeff finding his feet as Greendale's newest faculty member. While it isn't the most memorable episode ever to grace our screens, it still had some fantastic moments, such as Jeff feeling culture shock in his new role (he now has to adjust his sparring with Leonard to make his insults teacher-appropriate) and the student riot for "slightly higher grades." Plus, Danny Pudi gifted us with his insane Nic Cage impression. The episode also served to ease us into some subtler aspects of this new Community. Notably, the relationship between Jeff and the Dean has shifted. Gone are the grand costumed entrances; now that Jeff and the Dean are peers, Jeff is privy to the bureaucratic workings of the school, whether he likes it or not. And with Pierce gone, the study group (now the "Save Greendale Committee") has a void, one that is being filled, for the time being, by Breaking Bad's Jonathan Banks, the cartooning criminology professor. Perhaps, with the slew of guest stars scheduled for this season, we'll see a rotating roster of Pierces.

Community will never be exactly what it was, with Chevy Chase and a full season of Donald Glover and Jeff figuring out which blowoff class would get him out of Greendale fastest. But it can still be a smart and heartfelt show about a group of misfits trying to figure out their lives, and enjoying each other's friendship in the meantime. Hopefully, the next few episodes will live up to the promises of the pilot, but I for one am ready to say: Welcome home, Dan Harmon. Welcome home.

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Yes, Dan Harmon really does make Community better

Do foxes use a "magnetic sense" to hunt in the winter snow? onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Do foxes use a "magnetic sense" to hunt in the winter snow?

Finding food can be especially tough in winter, when the snow is deep and the prey is hidden. So foxes have developed a special technique: they dive headfirst through three feet of snow to find their unseen prey. Amazingly, this works — but only when the fox is facing northeast or southwest.

Robert Krulwich at NPR looks at the curious case of the hunting red-fox and it's almost compass-like sense of direction, which was noticed when Czech scientist Jaroslav Cerveny observed the foxes hunting in the winter and started looking at just what makes a successful hunt. When they weren't facing their preferred direction, the foxes were seldom successful. In fact, the preference for jumping NE/SW was there even beyond the winter season.

Of course, the fox isn't the only animal to have some interesting compass-related habits, a recent study found that dogs prefer to align their bodies along a north-south axis when they poop. Exactly why that happens isn't quite clear yet, just like the exact meaning behind the foxes jumping-preferences aren't known either. Though there is a theory that the reason behind it is a "magnetic sense" that foxes use to hunt. Krulwich explains:

Cerveny believes that foxes have "a magnetic sense." Not only can they see, hear, touch, taste and smell like we do, they've got an extra gift. They can sense the Earth's magnetic field. There are birds, sharks, turtles and ants that can do the same thing. But the fox is the first animal we know of to use this sense to hunt.

Gif made from this Discovery Channel clip.

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Do foxes use a "magnetic sense" to hunt in the winter snow?

Cracked-Out Star Wars and Superhero Art, On Display Tonight! onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Cracked-Out Star Wars and Superhero Art, On Display Tonight!

S

If you're in San Francisco tonight, you ought to stop by the Lower Haight, where the Paint Pens Collective is having an exhibition of crazy science fiction art. Including the warped action figures of Sucklord, and Ed Luce's crazy superhero spoof. Update: Added more images!

Top image: The flyer for the show, by artist Amelia Dolezal.

Here's some art by curator Shayna Yasuhara:

S

S

Here's "X-Files" by Patt Kelley:

S

Here are some of the Sucklord figures and images you can see for yourself tonight:

S

S

S

And here are some of Ed Luce's Wuvable Oaf comics and pictures:

S

S

S

S

See much much more at the Paint Pens Collective tonight.

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Cracked-Out Star Wars and Superhero Art, On Display Tonight!