God damn it’s cold today.  Fox Glacier felt like a tropical holiday compared to this shit.

Finally got around to getting the macro lens into the killifish room this week.  Up close, these fish look even more like weird slug/larvae things then I thought they did (this guy is 14-15mm long).  Crazy bastards.

Sympetrum sp.

Bah.  It was a cold and rainy bike to the lab today, and all I could think about was how much I wanted to be back in Oz, enjoying warm evenings on the water.  I spent a while cruising with a dude from Townsville - he sold his house, bought this fishing boat, sold all the fishing stuff (except the two boom arms, as you can see - they make damn fine swings if you attach ropes to the ends) and now he just cruises the coast.  In the background is the revered Magnetic Island.

How many of you have heard the big science news?  According to a new special issue of Science, it appears that humans did not evolve from apes - instead, APES MAY HAVE EVOLVED FROM HOMINIDS!  (colloquially anyway - I should say that the common ancestor of apes and hominids looked more like  a hominid than an ape, but it doesn`t have the same zing.)  Scientists from the world over have concluded this based on an intense 17 year examination of an old-school primate named Ardi (from Ardipithicus ramidus), who predates the split of the hominid and ape lineages (i.e. is representative of their common ancestor).  Check out the picture of Ardi - to me, this team of scientists, and likely you too, she looks more hominid than ape.  What these means is that the common ancestor to hominids and apes probably stood vertically with an elongated spine - these are the primitive characters.  The bent backs, long arms, and arboreal lifestyle of the apes came later - these may in fact be the derived traits.   How`s that for a mindfuck?  Never mind that, how fun is it going to be to watch creationists battle with the correct terminology that humans display primitive morphological traits (though a big brain is still definately derived).

Anyway, I like the emotion in this picture.  It feels suitable for today.

I’m still feeling pretty hungover and shitty.  This pic feels appropriate.

So I forgot to hit the publish button.  Fuck me.

Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand, ~270 degrees

Wallpaper anyone?

I saw this dude walking around Bangkok during the Buddhist new year celebrations, and couldn’t resist asking him to pose for a picture.  The clueless bastard was more than happy to do it.

Seriously.  Lots of NASA and space missions in the news lately and eventually one has to wonder what they’re up to these days.  Well, recent upgrades to the Hubble Telescope have resulted in a number of breathtaking new images like this plume of dust and gas which is apparently “three light years long”  and makes our solar system look like a “pinpoint” by comparison.   This thing is 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit and moves through space at 600,000 mph - a dying star that was once five times the mass of our sun.  It’s sort of mind numbing to try to comprehend such magnitude and possibility, but it makes for great eye candy if nothing else.  NASA has the rest of the images posted in high-res here.

So I’m gonna start posting a photo every Friday… we’ll see how long this one lasts, right?

This is a 20 something photo composite of Banteay Sray, an Angkor temple in Cambodia.  Pirating Adobe CS4 was a good choice.

I want it bigger!