Hawks in the city

I was lucky today and saw two red tail hawks hunting the railroad tracks as I left work. I work in the middle of the city in a medical-educational complex, so this was a treat. There are enough open spaces with a large cemetery near by and a parkway that leads down to Lake Erie, that hawks can also make a living here.

Beelzebufo

This has been reported widely, but I still think it is cool (but mostly creepy.) It is the devil frog that was 16 inches long and weighed 10 pounds. The modern goliath frog is about 12 inches long and weighs about 7.5 pounds. It is found in west Africa. More.

Happy Belated Birthday, Darwin

I thought this was an appropriate posting for Charles Darwin's birthday (Feb. 12, 1809). Researchers have found a 48 million year old skeleton that has proven to be a close relative of whales. The skeleton which is the size of a small deer was found in India. It is a small, even-toed ungulate. The report that I saw in the National Science Foundation news says the whale relative was a plant eater, indicating that the adaptation modern whales have made to become carnivores happened after their adaptation to an aquatic life style. More here.

I thought this was interesting

In this news article from NASA, scientists are on their way to explore an unusual lake in Antarctica. This lake under the ice cap. It is fed by glacial melt. The strangest thing about it, however, is that its pH puts it in the range of Clorox or perhaps even more alkaline than that. People have been poking around our planet for a long time and they have found organisms that live in ice, in boiling temperatures, in methane rich environments, and in other extreme conditions. While exobiologists conjecture about the possibility of life outside our planet, other biologists have found life here on Earth in conditions just about at inhospitable as anything we can imagine being found on other worlds. So, a group of adventurers is going to explore Lake Untersee in Antarctica to see what is there. I liked the description the writer used for the exploration for life outside the "Goldilocks Zone."

Attention Time Travelers

I read here that sometime next week the Large Hadron Collider - the most powerful atom-smasher to date - will be turned on near Geneva, Switzerland. Some researchers speculate that the collisions may generate enough energy to affect the dimension of time. They muse that the interactions may be enough to initiate a worm hole in space-time. Further, if worm holes are indeed possible, this might be the gateway toward which travelers from the future may venture. It would be, in essence, the beginning of time travel, and if any of this is by any chance possible, it will be a landmark worth noting.

Mardi Gras

The day for Pancakes and Paczki (a traditional Polish jelly doughnut that is unpronounceable).
Eat and celebrate for you still have the whole month of February to get through. Punxatawney Phil had the right idea - I'm going back to bed.

Tuesday Haiku

Shadow on the stair.
Velvet nudge soft as snowflakes.
Tiger in the house.

Again with the science . . .

These are some of the most impressive photos I have seen in a long time. In addition to the other science sites/blogs I visit, this one is new to me and terrific. High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment based at the University of Arizona.