After a while it is easy to see that these stories are a way of bringing the scientific work that the New England Aquarium does with lobsters to the public’s attention as a form of outreach. Here is a video that explains the chemistry behind the colored shells as well as why they have a lab where they grow different colored lobsters in an effort to understand shell disease.
I couldn’t help but click on it because I was curious, and I did need some distraction.
So, there is a “Fat Bear Award” and it is pretty well known.
It even has a Wikipedia page. Here’s a quote from it.
Fat Bear Week is an annual event held in late September or early October by Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska, commemorating the seasonal preparations made by Alaska peninsula brown bears inhabiting Katmai as they ready themselves for their winter hibernation. The competition is organized by the National Park Service and Explore.org. Spectators from around the world are invited to cast online votes to determine the bear that has most effectively accumulated fat reserves. — Wikipedia
If you want to watch Fat Bear Week voting unfold, here’s a link to the website.
Now, perhaps you are someone who needs a bit more inspiration than watching a video and clicking a link to find a park, or maybe you’re not in a position to take a hike or walk at all.
In that case, perhaps a “virtual” hike might help you celebrate. There are actually a surprising number of ways to take those on the Web.
For example, the U.S. National Park Service maintains a page for that, too.
In addition, many of the parks’ websites have “Photos and Multimedia” pages that include “virtual” experiences. Here is an example from the Grand Canyon.
There are also many 360° videos on YouTube that provide virtual visits to National Parks.
For example, Air Pano has made quite a few of them. Here are links to pages on their website for three of them. Their home page has a map where you can find more.
Of course, Google doesn’t just make it so that you can immerse yourself in YouTube videos — they are also behind Google Earth. Here’s their “virtual visit” to the Grand Canyon.
Finally, writing this post inspired me to create this 360° experience called Hiking Trails Hall.
Click the “doors” to enter 360° virtual parks and “i”s for information about them.
If you can’t see it, or it isn’t working, you can also see it directly on Kuula.
All of this nudged me to update the “nature” pages on Cosma. One thing led to another, and the next thing I knew, I was inspired to create this entire Nature Center with three other spaces to explore in addition to Hiking Trails Hall. Again, click “doors” to enter 360° experiences, “i”s for information about them, and arrows to go to other areas of the Nature Center. Some objects also link to fun 360° experiences.
If you can’t see it, or it isn’t working, you can also see it directly on Kuula.
I’ve been immersed in working on updating Cosma pages about technical subjects like computers and the internet lately.
Make that TOO immersed, I needed a break.
Given it’s Easter weekend, make that a bunny break!
First, I dug up my old Bunny Fix post from 2020. That was fun, but those bunny clips were only a few minutes long. I wanted more, so I headed to YouTube in search of some more bunnies.
However, I didn’t find any because I got distracted by a video about Easter traditions.
Some of the traditions were fun and familiar, but others not-so-much. The Scandinavian Witches, Czech Switches and Cold Water in Hungary weren’t so enviable.
Of course, that cute Australian Easter Bilby caught my eye. I set off on a YouTube safari in search of them. Here’s one of the better videos I found.
Those bunnies and foreign traditions were fun distractions, but my favorite Easter thing to do remains coloring Easter eggs. That is why I was a sucker for this video about ways to dye them. It is a bit long, but each time you think the ideas won’t get any more creative, they do.
Sure enough, the story has an animation of a hummingbird ‘dancing’ in a waterfall.
The research that the story described was a tad odd, but the clip was worth the visit. However, I was disappointed because I was hoping to see a video of the phenomena.
In fact, I was so bummed that I went fishing on YouTube for the video that I craved.
Voilà! A user named Happydog744 posted a 20 second clip of a hummingbird dancing, and it even has a soundtrack!
There wasn’t a waterfall, but watching the video was still cathartic.
Then YouTube’s algorithm assumed that if I wanted to see a hummingbird dance, then I would want to watch this hummingbird pool party that was posted by wildwingsla.
So, YouTube’s algorithm was right about what I wanted to watch, and hummingbirds are fascinating creatures!
By now the algorithm decided that if I was that into hummingbirds, then I might want one as a pet and suggested this neat video by a user named Uncle Ben.
Humm, well, I’m don’t think that I need a pet hummingbird, but it was fun to know how someone could pull off taming one…
After I watched all of those videos, YouTube suggested a slew of videos about how to make a hummingbird feeder. I can’t imagine why.
I resisted watching those and decided to go the virtual route to hummingbird gazing. Here’s a “real” live cam hosted by Hummingbird Spot in California (good to know if it is dark when you see it.)
I decided to go rummage around YouTube for some bunnies.
My quest began with searching for a random cute bunny that I could just watch for a awhile. Instead, I found a 360° video about the Japanese island Okunoshima.
Jackpot!
This video from NowThis explains why Okunoshima’s nickname is “Rabbit Island.”
Note, as is usually the case with 360° YouTube videos, it makes sense if you watch it in the regular way, but it’s more fun if you interact with it and look around.
Of course, there are plenty of other videos like that on YouTube. For example, you might enjoy a 17 minute long 360˚ video of a relaxing walk in a Norwegian forest.
Here’s the thing, though. As neat as 360˚ videos and experiences can be, they are no substitute for the real thing when it comes to physical activity. If you don’t happen to have ingredients for “forest bath” nearby (i. e. an actual bunch of trees), then just go for a regular walk, in the real world, as often as you can.
So get out there and get moving to stay healthy and less stressed, whether or not you happen to be lucky enough to have a forest 🙂
Cuttlefish are odd creatures, so news stories about them tend to be interesting.
However, a story about them that’s going a bit viral is downright amusing!
As you can see from the image in this video from the Guardian, some scientists wanted to find out whether or not cuttlefish have stereoscopic vision (like humans do), so they strapped some 3D glasses to their faces and showed them some movies.
I found this story refreshing because it was nice to see something about how cuttlefish see things rather than about how other creatures can, or cannot, see them.
Generally stories about cuttlefish and their cephalopod cousins, octopuses and squids, tend to focus on their talent for camouflage. Here’s a link to a video that covers some scientific investigations into their peculiar abilities.
Of course, this post wouldn’t be complete without a peek at what cuttlefish look like in the wild. Here’s a one minute 360° video that I found on YouTube that does the trick.
This is the time of year when you see the words “Best of” quite a lot.
No matter what you care about, someone somewhere is going to publish something about the “best of 2019” or even the “best of the decade” for that thing.
For example, I pay a lot of attention to science, so this article caught my eye.
I assumed that it was going to be an excuse to revisit the *many* stories about slime mold inspired by an exhibit of ‘le blob’ at the Parc Zoologique de Paris earlier this year.
Here’s a video about that, err, dare I say, publicity stunt? Slime molds are certainly interesting creatures, in their own way, but not necessarily to watch in real time.
As it turns out, the article Best Blobs of 2019 didn’t even include anything about ‘le blob,’ but it did include a story about a jellyfish as big as a human that was spotted in Cornwall (UK). Here’s a video from Guardian News about that sighting.
Neat! I wanted to watch a 360° video of that, but I had no luck finding one.
On the other hand, I did find a 360° video from AirPano that was shot off the coast of Cuba. Heck, if you’re going to go swimming with giant jellyfish at this time of year, then water around Cuba is a whole lot more inviting than waters off England anyway. Wouldn’t you agree?
Finally, this 360° video introduces you to a vast party of king penguins and their woolly chicks carousing on a beach in Gold Harbour in South Georgia. It’s interesting enough to watch as a regular video, but it’s more fun to watch if you look around, and it’s really adorable if you look down — be sure to do that!
This is just the latest development in a long line of research about the talents of plants.
For example, in 2013 there was a PBS Nature special dedicated to “plant behavior” entitled What Plants Talk About. Since then, once or twice a year, the topic pops up in the media.
Here’s a video published in 2016 by Richard Karban on TED-Ed that gives a very nice summary of some of the research that’s made the news.
That’s nice, but that doesn’t make them all that talented, right?
Well, believe it or not, with a bit of help from their friends, plants can “sing” too, and that shard of news is what actually inspired this very post!
This week I came across a device on Kickstarter from Data Garden that’s called PlantWave, and it’s designed to let you “listen to the music” of plants!
Of course, now that you know that plants can even “sing,” then it’s only fair to mention that, with a tad more help from their human friends, they can also dance!
Here’s a video of some doing a ballet to Chopin’s Mazurkas, Op. 67.
If you like that, then you will probably enjoy this extremely relaxing seven minute long video of flowers dancing to, appropriately enough, Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers.
So there you have it — the next time you’re surrounded by plants, even if you can’t actually hear them talk and sing or watch them move or dance right then and there, perhaps it may not seem “quite” so quiet 🙂
Here are some further resources about the many “talents” of plants.
I concluded my last post about Sand Art with highlighting how Booking.com offered the chance to stay in a sandcastle as a promotion for Coney Island’s Sand Sculpting Competition. Here’s a link with more on that unusual “opportunity.”
That may have sounded like a one-off type of oddity, but in truth, it wasn’t.
Booking.com is known for cooking up some “unique” promotions. For example, here’s a silly clip on what they did for that illustrious holiday, National Avocado Day.
No matter what your passion happens to be, there’s bound to be a place to stay for it.
The reason that I’m so aware of this is because awhile ago, with amusement, I realized that there’s some sort of lodging related to almost every subject on Cosma. Sometimes those experiences end up as adventures like Sand Art. That’s why I have a huge stash of links to “thematic” lodging that range from mildly amusing to pretty wild.
For example, there’s some kind of place to visit for what ever kind of transportation.
There’s also a place called Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort in Saariselka, Finland where you can have all sorts of winter fun and then chill in glass igloos and watch the northern lights.
If something isn’t covered in this post or those sites, then you can probably find something with a search for “Your+Interest+Hotel 🙂
That’s how I found a place for my inner librarian called the Library Hotel. It’s on Madison Avenue in New York City, and the rooms are organized by Dewey Decimal! Here’s a link to a video about it.
So, next time you are booking lodging, I hope you will consider looking for something a bit less “traditional” that will fit your interests and maybe even become an adventure in its own right!
The news is full of stories about how a giant squid was filmed in U.S. waters for the first time. Here’s a link to an article by ABC7 that includes a great clip about it.
The accomplishment was applaudable, but I was a bit disappointed about the clip.
Where were the eyes?
The text in the video said that the giant squid can have eyeballs that measure up to ten inches in diameter — that’s almost a foot! Yet the eyes weren’t actually captured in the video.
Luckily there’s another place where you can see a giant squid’s eyes.
While this was the first time a giant squid was filmed in U.S. waters, it wasn’t the first time that one’s been filmed. That happened back in 2012 when researchers from Japan’s National Museum of Nature and Science filmed one in the Ogasawara archipelago, and that time they did get a fleeting shot of the giant squid’s humongous eyes. Here’s a link to a clip that covers that sighting as well as some background like how giant squids have the largest eyes in the animal kingdom and how sightings of them probably led to the legends about kraken.
When you’re looking eye to eye with a squid or octopus, it’s easy to imagine that they would see you in the same way that you would see them, but that’s not so. Until a couple of years ago, researchers believed that since cephalopods only have a single type of photoreceptor, they would be colorblind. Then in 2016 some researchers suggested that the truth may be more intriguing than that — their eyes may work like a prism. Here’s a video about that and a link to the the research that it was based upon.
Of course, cephalopods aren’t the only creatures in the sea with great eyes. Plenty of marine mammals have wonderful eyes, too. Here’s a lovely video filmed and edited by Sally Bartel for Save The Whales that brings you eye to eye with whales, dolphins and an affectionate manatee who will even come up and give you a smootch!
They were all beautiful, but I must confess to being partial to whale’s eyes. In fact, one of my favorite 360° videos of all time is TheBlu because at one point a blue whale comes up and looks you right in the eye for a bit.
TheBlu is awesome, but it is just an animation. There’s another non-360° video that was posted by Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris that’s even more impressive — it takes you eyeball to eyeball with a real humpback whale!
Again, since those huge creatures are also mammals, it’s easy to assume that their eyes would see you in much the same way as you would see them. While that’s more true than it is with the cephalopods, it’s still not really the case. Here is a story that will give you sense of how whales might really see you.
Finally, I’ll leave you with this 360° video from the American Museum of Natural History. It’s a bit slow in the middle but features some nice eye to eye shots near the beginning and end.
To paraphrase J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous words in The Lord of the Rings, “It’s a dangerous business, clicking on a link. You glance at a story, and if you don’t watch out, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
This week I innocently clicked on a link to this story from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Indeed, the articles provided an interesting explanation for those odd polynya phenomena in Antarctica, but it was actually this intriguing image that really grabbed my attention.
Image: Ocean measurements were also collected by seals swimming under the sea ice with temporary satellite tags, showing normal water conditions in the years that did not have large polynyas.
Credit: Dan Costa/University of California, Santa Cruz
Yep, that’s a seal with an antenna on it’s head!
It turns out that the study used data combined from satellite images of sea ice cover, some robotic drifters as well as elephant seals outfitted with sensors.
What’s more, using seals wasn’t a one-off operation. It was part of a program that’s been operating for over a decade according to the Coriolis Operational Oceanography site:
Since 2004, several hundred seals have been equipped with conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) sensors in the Southern Ocean for both biological and physical oceanographic studies. A calibrated collection of seal-derived hydrographic data is now available from Coriolis, currently consisting of more than 300,000 temperature/salinity profiles. — Coriolis
The Coriolis site also has information about a program called Marine Mammals Exploring the Oceans Pole to Pole that provides access to an international database of validated ocean observations collected by marine mammals such as seals, sea lions, and even turtles.
On my journey to learn how scientists have been strapping sensors to seals to find out about what’s going on under the ice in Antarctica, it was impossible to miss stories about other methods they are using.
Yes, you really can go to the MOO site and listen in on some seals and ice for yourself.
After all of this stuff about seals, why stop with listening? Aren’t you itching to see some more?
Here’s a link to a short 360° video that takes you under an iceberg to visit with a crabeater seal along with some gentoo penguins before returning to the surface to share some other views and perspectives about Antarctica.
That video had a nice view of a seal under ice, but now here’s an even better 360° video that get’s you up close and personal with an elephant seal on a beach.
So there you have it. The moral of this story is be careful about what you click on, or you might find yourself on an unexpected virtual journey to learn about seals with sensors, and then end up spending an hour or more exploring the frigid waters under Antarctica.
In case you’ve got a few more minutes and the interest, here are links to two more very nice YouTube videos about the amazingly diverse and beautiful life deep under the Antarctic ice.
Finally, now that I’ve got you down here with me on this unexpected adventure in Antarctica, the trip wouldn’t be complete without some more penguins, right?
Here’s a 360° close-up view of a colony of some Adélies, chinstraps and gentoos — some of them are having a rough time, but nonetheless, they’re all still fun to watch (esp. the chicks).
It’s not often that mice sneak into the news, but they do manage it from time to time.
One story that gotten a lot of attention is about how researchers created “super mice” by injecting nanoparticles into their eyes to give them “night vision.” Here are links to the stories about that research.
In case you’re wondering what that would look like, here’s a link to a 360° video about how animals see the world that will give you a sense of it. The video concludes with segments on how rats see the world normally (2:32) and snakes see the world in the infrared (3:30).
Another story was a bit more entertaining. It involved a critter called Alston’s singing mouse. Here’s a link to a one minute introduction and an article about the talented little guys.
In fact, these mice, and others, actually sing ultrasonic love songs. Here’s a link to a video and some articles about the talented, frisky little guys.
Finally, the most interesting news was about how studying the singing mouse’s serenades could lead to treatments for humans with communication disorders that are a result of things like stroke or autism. Here’s a link to a video and some articles about that research.
So that’s neat stuff, but if you’re sad because you thought this was going to be about a mouse actually singing a song, with words, here’s a link to a clip from Sing to help you feel better.
What I didn’t expect was that a two minute excursion into a cave would turn into a fascinating journey into speleology. One thing just led to another, and that’s what happened.
It all started because the video and story about the cave reminded of my own experiences in Mammoth Cave. It’s in Kentucky, and I grew up in Indy — it wasn’t that far away, so I visited it numerous times over the years.
In case you’ve never been, here’s a link to a quick peek.
Each visit was a bit different, but the one thing that I remember most was that Mammoth Cave was billed as the largest cave on Earth. After many hours of tours, it felt like it, too.
Ha, what I saw hardly scratched the surface, literally and figuratively!
It was a bit mind-bending when they zoomed out to show the true scale of the place. Yet that was nothing compared to what I tripped across next.
It turns out that Mammoth Cave was the largest cave, but it’s not anymore.
That honor belongs to Son Doong Cave in Vietnam. It was “discovered” in 1991, but it wasn’t really explored until 2009. Wow, it’s positively Verne’esque — it even has a jungle!
Here’s a link to a video about how photographer and journalist Martin Edström went on a 360° photo expedition into the cave for National Geographic.
Here’s a 360° video of another ice cave under Pemberton Icefield in British Columbia. Not surprisingly, the lifespan of such wonders in our current climate also comes up in the video.
That was mesmerizing, but there is a Giant Crystal Cave in Mexico made out of gypsum instead of ice that might be even more stunning to see. Unfortunately, you can’t.
Luckily here’s a video that shows a bit of what it looks like as well as explains why you really don’t want to see it in person.
I was bummed that I couldn’t find great footage of Crystal Cave. However, while searching for that, I found this fun 360° video of the Waitomo Glowworm Caves in New Zealand.
Near the end of my unexpected detour into caves, I found this neat 360° video and lesson about ancient cave paintings. It’s about art, creativity and communication. These are all near and dear to my heart, so I couldn’t resist including it.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this speleological detour as much as I did. If you want to continue exploring caves on your own, here are some resources to get you started.
Humans tend to interact with animals as if they see the world in pretty much the same way that we do. However, the more scientists study animal vision, the more they tell us that is just not the way that it is. Furthermore, what scientists know about animal vision goes way beyond the fact that our pet cats and dogs can’t see color the same way that we do.
In fact, what they tell us about what birds can “see” is particularly awesome!
For example, birds can see ultraviolet light, so that means they can essentially see a forth primary color. They also have the bizarre ability to “see” magnetic fields. Here’s a link to a video that includes an explanation of a wide variety of things that birds can see along with some interesting facts about our own vision.
Here are links to articles about how scientists modeled a bird’s ultraviolet vision to show how perceiving ultraviolet light aids them in their navigating through dense forests. There are some neat photos in the article that illustrate the difference between how we and birds would see the leaves of trees.
Lest you be disappointed that the title of the post promised a “bird’s-eye view,” here’s a 360° video that shows an eagle’s point of view while soaring over Dolomites in Italy.
There’s an actual place called Jellyfish Lake on Eil Malk island in Palau where you can swim with hundreds of thousands of the mesmerizing creatures without fear of being stung. Here’s a video with some calming underwater footage.
Of course, you may not have time to jump on a plane to Palau right now. Even if you did, perhaps going for a swim in a sea of jellyfish still doesn’t sound all that relaxing to you?
In that case, perhaps a nice, safe one minute 360° virtual dive with a single jellyfish near the Gardens of the Queen off of the coast of Cuba might do the trick.
Well, it turns out that the National Aquarium also has a live cam of their jellies, and it’s down right hypnotic. Who needs a lava lamp when you can get such awesome, calming nature delivered right to your screen, live!?!
Here’s another great clip from TED-Ed about how jellyfish aren’t just therapeutic to stare at — they also have all sorts of other intriguing properties. Some of them glow, and that helps them contribute to medical research. Others are even “sort of” immortal!
If you haven’t heard of it yet, then it might strike you as a bit strange, but it’s become a real craze over the last year or two. Here’s a link to a short video about how it all started.
Okay, I confess I was still skeptical. Then I found this video of a cute baby goat, and I started to believe that there could be something to it after all 🙂
If you want to try it yourself, you might be able to get in on an “official” Goat Yoga class if you live in CA, FL, IL, KY, MI, MN or OG.
If there’s no “official” version available near you, then just enter “goat yoga” and “your location” into your search engine of choice, and something nearby will almost certainly pop up. It really is that popular!
I’ve been updating the “nature” related pages on this site, so I’ve spent an abnormal amount of time perusing nature related sites for the last few weeks. Along the way I came across more than my fair share of odd nature stories. Many of them were viral, so you may have seen some of them before, but I bet you haven’t seen or heard about all of them. So, here’s a rundown of some of the most noteworthy, fun tidbits that I’ve come across.
First, today, there’s a story about birds going on benders.
Speaking of octopuses, did you hear about the scientists that got octopuses high on ecstasy? It was done in the name of research, and it turns out that the octopuses didn’t respond all that differently than humans.
On the invertebrates on drugs front, there was also a story about the owner of Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound in Maine getting lobsters high before cooking them.
Of course, after that story went viral, it resulted in this follow-up story a week later about how the Maine Health Inspection Program cracked down on the restaurant for selling “adulterated” lobsters. The owner then claimed that she hadn’t actually sold the lobsters to customers, but she and her father had experimented with eating some “adulterated” lobsters themselves.
Then there’s the story about a small town in Greece getting covered in spider webs. However, according to your news source, you may not have heard that it was due to frisky spiders.
Finally, no post like this would be complete without a fun cat video or a 360° video, so here’s a 360° video from Big Cat Rescue in Tampa that fits the bill nicely.
If you want to see some more fun “cat” videos there’s a Big Cat Rescue YouTube Channel that even has a 360 VR Playlist with some clips that are guaranteed to make you go Awwww … for a good cause!
I personally liked the one with the kittens, of course! 🙂
If you are a language or communication expert, rock and roll fan or not, you probably have a bit more nuanced response that might begin with the phrase “it depends” and end up including words like perspective and context.
But what do lady bugs think?
Your answer might be who knows … or cares?
Well, it turns out that somebody tried to find out, and the answer is surprisingly relevant as well as entertaining.
Personally, I found it funny that they singled out Willie Nelson as representative of the “not rock and roll” condition. I also couldn’t help but wonder if the ladybugs were just too busy dancing to eat 🙂
Seriously though, the study was actually about an important issue. There really is such a thing as noise pollution, and in some cases, it can be harmful to animals (including us). Here’s a link to an informative video about the impact of noise on humans.
So, that study about ladybugs opinions on rock and roll had a point, albeit an odd one.
However, I’m still not convinced that rock and roll is noise pollution. I lean towards siding with AC/DC on this one, although I must confess to being more on the same page as Joan Jett.
Note: This was posted in 2018 and updated in 2026 in honor of the of the release of Spider-Man: Brand New Day!
Have you ever watched a Spider-Man movie and wondered whether real spiders can do anything remotely like what Spidey does? Well, it turns out that they can. However, not even Spidey, or his friends Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, really knew how. No one did, until recently.
Just over this past week there have been a slew of news stories about an article published in Current Biology by researchers Erica L. Morley and Daniel Robert from the University of Bristol. Here is a cute video narrated by Morley that describes their neat study.
The video makes the phenomena of spider ballooning sound so fascinating, you might even think it would be cool to see it for yourself. However, in reality, very few readers would enjoy an encounter with the real thing.
Every few years a story comes along about it happening somewhere in the world, and those descriptions generally sound a lot less entertaining. For example, here’s a quick video and some stories about an incident of “spider rain” in South Australia in 2015.
Yuck. Seeing spider rain is definitely NOT on my bucket list.
On the other hand, seeing Spider-Man fly in fiction is fine. While writing this post, I tripped across a 360° Video of Spidey flying.
It was fun to watch, and it also struck me as funny. I think it’s a good thing that Stan Lee wasn’t too accurate in his depiction of how spiders fly. Don’t you agree?
A popular tourist activity in Boston is whale watching (Trip Advisor). That is because it’s only a short 25 mile trip out to Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary (Wikipedia). Stellwagen Bank hosts several different species of large whales, including humpbacks, finbacks, minkes, pilot whales and right whales. If you’ve never seen a whale in person, then it is hard to imagine how surreal it is to be in the presence of such an immense creature.
If you do happen to be in Boston and want to find out more about whales, then check out the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism’s Massachusetts Whale Trail.
Okay, so watching whales from the surface is fascinating, but an even more impressive experience is to see them in their full glory underwater. Hardly anyone has the gear, experience, or sheer guts to go out and do that for themselves, though. Luckily, there are some underwater photographers that do, and a few even share the view. Here’s a 360° video of a humpback whale and its calf swimming near Reunion Island.
That’s a memorizing view, but it leaves you wanting more, doesn’t it? I must confess that I’m usually one to prefer the real thing over simulation, but I can’t help but prefer Wevr’s 360° video the Blu Whale Encounter that brings you eye to eye with an 80 foot blue whale. Gulp!
While experts agree that whale watching isn’t very healthy for the whales, it’s a multi-billion dollar industry, so few of them believe that the practice is likely to stop. Instead, they back a movement to encourage more responsible practices for dealing with whales in the wild. For example, here’s a PSA that covers some basics of how to co-exist with whales responsibly.
Did you hear the one about the octopuses from space?
It sounds like the title of a cheesy sci-fi movie, doesn’t it?
But it isn’t, this time, or at least, yet. Instead, it’s actually an oddball theory that’s been put forth in a recently published “scientific” article that’s getting quite a lot of buzz in the media lately.
First, let’s start with the particular article about octopuses that is causing all of the fuss.
It appeared in the journal Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, and it was published with a list of an 33 co-authors.
One can’t help but wonder if there was a share the blame scenario going on. It’s not even the theory that is suspect. The problem is in the scientific aspects of the work. Even the sensationalist article in Newsweek politely described most responses from the scientific community as “critical.”
Personally, I checked to see if the article was published on April 1st — that would’ve been a bit o’ fun, but it wasn’t. Perhaps they submitted it on April 1st, though?
Anyway, all joking aside, the core of the article is based on an old and relatively well established theory about how life began on Earth. The theory is known as panspermia, and it really has been discussed by serious scientists.
Panspermia is a hypothesis proposing that microscopic life forms that can survive the effects of space, such as extremophiles, become trapped in debris ejected into space after collisions between planets and small Solar System bodies that harbor life. Some organisms may travel dormant for an extended amount of time before colliding randomly with other planets or intermingling with proto-planetary disks. Under certain ideal impact circumstances (into a body of water, for example), and ideal conditions on a new planet’s surfaces, it is possible that the surviving organisms could become active and begin to colonize their new environment. — Wikipedia
Here is a link to a video segment that covers the scientific basis of the panspermia theory relative to Mars, and an article from Scientific American that goes into more depth about various discussions about it among well known scientists.
Of course, the usual biological suspects mentioned are those cute little water bears, but this is not the first time octopuses have been included in the list of suspects.
Given the recent understanding of the necessary conditions for life existing on large ocean moons of Jupiter and Saturn, the theory that octopuses are from elsewhere in our solar system isn’t quite as crazy as it might sound.
If you listen to the whole story, you will hear that some scientists tend to believe that it is actually Jupiter’s moon Europa that is the older, and thus the more likely candidate to harbor ocean life beyond Earth. This has been reinforced by a study just published in Nature this month that shows reanalysis of old data gathered by NASA’s Galileo probe back in the 1990s provided unexpected evidence of salt water plumes on Europa.
Unfortunately, the scientific basis of the particular article in the news about a life form on Earth being from space, while not as nutty as it might sound, has serious flaws. Here are two articles that are far more elaborate about the criticisms being waged against the article.
Still, you can kind of see why they would think that octopuses, in particular, are alien. They are indisputably the weirdest, intelligent life form on Earth. That much is pretty much hard to deny. Here’s a link to a lovely video that goes into just some of the reasons that is the case.
Okay, this could go on and on. I’ve got videos of these creatures escaping from a jar, going through holes the size of a quarter, stealing crabs from fisherman, using shells to hide from prey, walking on land to hunt and a ton of other absurd things that they can do that you don’t exactly expect from a lump of flesh with some eyes and suckers. You can see them all on the octopus page if you like.
However, one of the most bizarre things about them turns out to be their DNA. Here are some videos and links that show how Ragsdale Lab at the University of Chicago found out some extremely surprising truths about octopus DNA that explains their amazing powers of camouflage, dexterity and deception.
So octopuses are impressively weird, and they are wicked smart too. That doesn’t make them “aliens,” right?
Well, hold on to your brains, because that isn’t even the strangest thing about them. New research has shown that they can even edit their own RNA! Here’s a link to a video about this along with some supporting sources.
In the end, octopuses really are relatively alien, whether or not they’re from space. The thing is, even if they are from Earth, which honestly, they probably are, then that means some core things emerge, independently, in entirely different biological milieus.
That’s kind of awesome news, when you think about it!
Who knows? Maybe water bears really are from Mars and octopuses are from Jupiter, or well, Europa specifically. There is also that pesky little problem of that unexplained methane on Mars, so who knows?
We could by now, but we don’t.
Specific theories about octopuses and water bears aside, there are serious scientists that do believe that life on Earth may have come from space in general, and that said life might still be out there elsewhere in our solar system right now. We also have the technology that we need to find out what is, or is not, lurking about on other planets and moons. The real question is whether or not it will happen, soon, perhaps in some of our lifetimes, or at all, in the future history of humanity.
Traditional news stories usually cover a single subject or the straightforward relationship between two subjects. However, every once in awhile, a story comes along that crams a deceptive number of subjects and interesting relationships into a tiny space. Exploring stories like that can be an adventure. Here’s a link to a wonderful, five minute video that’s like that.
One of my favorite parts of the clip was the analogy about the rainforest as a system.
In an airplane, there are a lot of redundant screws. Maybe you don’t need every single one to fly the plane, but at some point, if they keep dropping off of the machine, it’s not going to work anymore.
Nicely said. So now, let’s unpack the story.
The most obvious thing to do is find out more about the main character in the story, Dr. Meg Lowman. It turns out she is widely known as “Canopy Meg,” she also bills herself as an “Arbornaut,” and she’s been involved in some “interesting” research.
Here’s a clip that shows more about how she was involved with some researchers who explored the canopy using hot air balloons and, incredibly, a luge. Yes, a sled, and even more oddly, they also used a raft! It’s hard to imagine — you’ve got to watch it!
I couldn’t help but wonder if Canopy Meg’s experiences in the Amazon served as the basis for Medicine Man with Sean Connery and Lorraine Bracco. If you’ve never seen it, then here’s a trailer about the scientific side of the plot.
Trying to understand more about what Ferguson and his colleagues were doing, as well as what Canopy Meg mentioned about pharmaceuticals in the first clip, led to an unexpected detour into Ethnobotany, Ethnobiology, Ethnomedicine and Ethnopharmacology.
Finally, what about those “cute” little water bears that Canopy Meg mentioned? Well, they may or may not be all that cute, but they sure are tough little buggers.
They’re SO fascinating, I decided to create a whole new page dedicated to water bears.
Maybe water bears aren’t so “cute” afterall, but if you want to see something really cute, then be sure to check out this absolutely adorable little video from David Williams.
If you have been Yellowstone National Park, then you know it is a vast, beautiful place with some fairly odd geologic features that smell bad, like rotten eggs. If you’ve never been there, then you might just have a fairly apocalyptic view of it because of the supervolcano under it that has been featured in disaster movies.
Here’s a link to a short short introduction about what is above and below the surface.
Sometimes exploring news about Yellowstone can be interesting in unexpected ways. For example, I triped across a story about how studying life in Yellowstone’s toxic soup could help us find out if there’s life on Mars!
April 22nd is Earth Day! In honor of that, here are some great ways to see the honoree.
First, you can get a nice view from this neat 360° video from Seeker. It essentially shows you what it would feel like if you could just fly straight up and see the Earth from space.
For a really, really extreme wide shot of Earth, there’s a relatively hot off the press snap from New Horizons. It was taken from about 3.79 billion miles away. Not surprisingly, this is the record for the furthest away a picture of Earth has ever been taken, and this video covers both the shot as well as some interesting context about how it was taken.
Of course, the video paid a humble tribute to the iconic Pale Blue Dot (Planetary Society) image taken by Voyager 1 that was then made famous by this commentary by Carl Sagan.
Those are certainly some awe inspiring views of Earth! Along the way it is hard not to notice that NASA has a lot to do with all of those long shots.
As great as it is to have the pictures and the knowledge from the missions, it turns out that NASA keeps pretty busy taking care of our home planet, too. Here’s a lovely article that Forbes published for Earth Day that highlights the many ways that NASA is working to save the Earth.
That’s cool news for dinosaur lovers, but it’s not all that geeky.
Before we dive into the really geeky stuff, check out this 360° video from the American Museum of National History in which Mike Novacek describes how Roy Chapman Andrews led an expedition to the Gobi Desert back in the 1920s.
You can find out a ton more about the expeditions and dinosaurs in general on the American Museum of National History YouTube Channel series Dinosaurs Explained.
That’s probably the kind of methodology that you think of when you think about paleontology. Paleontologists do still use those traditional field methods, but they also use some fairly geeky technology these days. Here’s a video in which paleontologist Ken Lacovara explains how his field uses laser scanning and 3D modeling.
Doesn’t all that talk about 3D dinosaur parts make you just itch to see a complete one?
Here’s a 360° video in which paleontologist Dr. Ken Lacovara “shows” us a giant dinosaur called Dreadnoughtus while he explains how it was discovered. If you have a powerful computer, change the quality setting on the video to 1080s for a more impressive experience.
This wasn’t the first neat 360° video about dinosaurs. Over a year ago Sir David Attenborough worked with BBC One to make a 360° video to introduce the biggest dinosaur ever discovered. Here’s a link to that video, and again, increase the video quality for a better experience.
Finally, I saved the geekiest stuff for last. If you crave realistic extinct creatures, how about some real ones? Impossible, you think? Not necessarily! De-extinction is a real thing that is being actively explored, and while true dinosaurs are still far fetched, species that only went extinct within the last 500 years or so are not all that far out of reach.
Here’s a link to a video and news story about the state of the art in resurrecting extinct species as well as the complex pros and cons of doing so.
Dogs and museums are things that you don’t expect to see in the same sentence very often. However, if you live in the Boston area, then you might have seen them together in the cute story covered by most local media about Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts “hiring” a 12 week old Weimaraner puppy named Riley to protect their collections from unwanted visitors. Here’s a clip from the local CBS News channel and their news story about the little guy.
The Smithsonian even has a whole page dedicated to dogs entitled Dog: Museum’s Best Friend. So dogs and museums aren’t incongruous, and this is all even fairly down to Earth stuff as far as the conservative world of traditional museums go.
A bit further off the beaten path was a contemporary art show that premiered in London in 2016 that featured interactive sculptures by Dominic Wilcox as well as wall based paintings, drawings and collages that dogs would appreciate. The paintings were even created in colours dogs can see and scented in the subject matter of the art work.
The literary minded geeks might also be itching to thrust their hands into the air. Yes indeed, there is a quirky novel by Jonathan Carroll entitled Outside the Dog Museum.
Of course, the less intellectually inclined readers amongst you are probably disappointed because this post hasn’t been about what you thought it was going to be about. You thought it was going to be about C.M. Coolidge’s series Dogs Playing Poker colloquially known as Dogs at Cards, didn’t you?
Last week NASA released this fascinating video entitled Our Living Planet based upon 20 years of data from satellites that observe all plant life at the surface of the land and ocean.
Of course, releasing fantastic imagery like this is nothing new for NASA — they have a long and illustrious history of sharing iconic imagery to amaze and inspire people around the world.
The most famous image NASA ever shared is the photo known as Earthrise. It was taken by astronaut Bill Anders in 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission, and it was the first time a human ever saw the whole earth from space. Here is a video about the image that was released in 2013 on the image’s 45th anniversary.
The next most famous image from NASA is probably The Blue Marble. It was taken from Apollo 17 in 1972. Here is a NASA video from 2015 that discusses the original image as well as newer imagery captured by the Deep Space Climate Observatory.
These two images may be the most famous, but thanks to Carl Sagan, none has been more inspirational than the Pale Blue Dot. It was captured by Voyager 1, and here is a video of Sagan unveiling the photo in 1990.
Of course, NASA continues to share awesome imagery from time to time. For example, back in 2012 they released Earth at Night. It is also sometimes called “The Black Marble,” and it is an animation of Earth’s city lights assembled from data from the Suomi NPP satellite.
NASA has already released numerous 360° Videos related to other planets, so it is only a matter of time before they release an explorable 360° image or video of Earth. In the meantime you can enjoy this 360° Video created by the Opaque Media Group to promote their VR application Earthlight.
Now that the eclipse has passed, and we all survived with our vision intact (hopefully), it is time to get back to our regular news, right? Unfortunately, I’m not finding anything in my “go to” news feeds all that inspiring right now. Everything seems to range somewhere between the mundane and the terrifying, so I keep hearing the gist of J.K. Rowling’s refrain, as spoken by the character Ron Weasley in Chamber of Secrets. running through my head:
“Why couldn’t it be butterflies?”
Here’s a clip of the humorous scene for the uninitiated.
While I do tend to be what some might perceive as overly fond of butterflies, the specific reason that the line keeps popping into my head is because I keep wondering why my favorite YouTube Channel for 360° Videos hasn’t featured them yet. Animals in general have been honored with their own playlists, but the poor little butterflies have been neglected. That’s a shame, because there are plenty of nice 360° Videos about them.
So, in an attempt to remedy the situation, achieve a sense of catharsis and brighten other people’s news feeds a bit, here are links to five videos that I would include in the playlist.
This site doesn’t usually deal in silly internet memes (list) like cute cat videos, but it is Friday, and this character on YouTube called FlippyCat went and posted this awesome 360° video.
There are even some augmented reality apps out there that go a step further and let you experience your own world “through the eyes” of animals (Android, iOS).
Is “animal vision” a killer app for AR? Probably not, but still, it’s pretty cool!
If you really get into this stuff, there’s a ton of “traditional” media about it.
For example, here’s a link to a video that covers the science behind how we know how animals like bees, reptiles, cats, fish and insects see the world.
Note This content is not very elaborate as well as a bit dated, but it is important for historical purposes. It was the first adventure (a.k.a. Post) on this iteration of the Cosma website way back in September 15, 2016.
