THE INTELLIGENT PLANT

Scientists debate a new way of understanding flora.

BY MICHAEL POLLANLink

Plants have electrical and chemical signalling systems, may possess memory, and exhibit brainy behavior in the absence of brains. Construction by Stephen Doyle.

Better Than A Van Gogh: NASA Visualizes All The World’s Ocean Currents

Our planet is so beautiful in so many ways...

Uvealblues

NASA Scientific Visualization Studio assembled this remarkable animation of the surface currents of our oceans. It’s called Perpetual Ocean, and the full work is 20 minutes of HD video, assembled from a huge amount of satellite, on location and computational data generated by ECCOII (Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, Phase II). ECCOII itself exists to better understand our oceans and their role in the changing global climate.

Link to a great video of the surface currents of the ocean with nice ambient music...

Grief of the penguins: Scores of birds bowed in mourning after the deaths of their chicks

Prostrate on the icy tundra of the Antarctic, they appear the picture of misery after the deaths of their chicks. The extraordinary image capturing penguins in an act of mass mourning was taken on the Riiser Larsen Ice Shelf in Antarctica by photographer Daniel J. Cox. He has spent 25 years travelling from pole to pole documenting everything from polar bears to penguins and getting up close and personal is all in a day's work.

Gulf Oil Spill Pictures: Birds, Fish, Crabs Coated

Shouldering the weight of heavy oil spewed from the Gulf of Mexico's Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a brown pelican struggles in sludgy surf on East Grand Terre Island, Louisiana, Friday.
Nearly 800 dead birds, sea turtles, dolphins, and other animals have been found in the Gulf and on its shores, according to federal authorities cited by the Associated Press.
But the real story may be the rate at which animals are being affected by oil, which appears to have accelerated drastically in recent days.