Wikipedia:Picture of the day/July 2005

Picture of the day

The Ring-tailed Lemur is a relatively large prosimian, a lemur belonging to the family Lemuridae. Ring-tailed Lemurs are the only species within the genus Lemur and are found only on the island of Madagascar. Although threatened by habitat destruction in their native forests, Ring-tailed Lemurs are the most populous lemurs in zoos worldwide; in part because they reproduce readily in captivity.

Photo credit: Sannse
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

The fennec is a small fox found in the desert of Northern Africa. The fennec is the smallest canid, only weighing up to 1.5 kg. The fennec is nocturnal and hunts for rodents, insects, lizards, birds and eggs at night. The fennec is rare and is not often seen. It is often hunted by humans, even though the fox does not cause any harm to human interests.

Photo credit: Ralf Schmode
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

Livestock comprises domesticated animals, that may be kept or raised in pens, houses, pastures, or on farms as part of an agricultural or farming operation, whether for commerce or private use.

The picture shows the maze of livestock pens and walkways at Chicago's stockyards, ca. 1947.

Photo source: NARA
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

A thunderstorm is a form of severe weather involving lightning and thunder. Thunderstorms have had a lasting and powerful influence on mankind. Romans thought them to be battles waged by Jupiter. Thunderstorms were associated with the Thunderbird, held by Native Americans to be a servant of the Great Spirit.

Photo credit: John Kerstholt
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

The Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) is a medium large raptor which is a specialist fish-eater with a worldwide distribution. It is often known by other colloquial names such as Fish Hawk, Sea Hawk or Fish Eagle.

The Osprey is particularly well adapted to its diet, with reversible outer toes, closable nostrils to keep out water during dives, and backwards facing scales on the talons which act as barbs to help catch fish.

Photo credit: NASA
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

New Scotland Yard, located at Broadway in Westminster, is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service who are responsible for policing Greater London. The name derives from its original location on a street off Whitehall called Great Scotland Yard. The exact origins of this name are unknown, though a popular explanation is that it was the former site of the residence of the Scottish kings or their ambassadors when staying in England.

Photo credit: ChrisO
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

Lichtenstein Castle is a fairy-tale castle located near Honau in the Swabian Alb, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany. Although there have been previous castles on the site, the current castle was constructed by Duke Wilhelm of Urach in 1840 after being inspired by Wilhelm Hauff's novel Lichtenstein. The romantic Neo-Gothic design of the castle was created by the architect Carl Alexander Heideloff.

Photo credit: Andreas Tille
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

The Central Arizona Project Aqueduct is a diversion canal in Arizona in the United States. The aqueduct diverts water from the Colorado River from Lake Havasu City into central and southern Arizona. The Central Arizona Project is a multipurpose water resource development and management project that was designed to provide water to nearly one million acres (4,000 km²) of Indian and non-Indian irrigated agricultural land areas as well as municipal water for several Arizona communities.

Photo credit: US Bureau of Reclamation
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

A stinger is an organ or body part found in various animals that usually delivers some kind of venom. Animals with stingers include scorpions, bees and wasps (as shown here).

The stinger, which may be barbed so as to lodge in the flesh of the victim, is typically located near the tail. For creatures such as jellyfish, stinger can refer to the tentacles that carry cnidocytes to capture and paralyze prey.

Photo credit: Pollinator
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

Machu Picchu is a well preserved Pre-Columbian town located on a high mountain ridge above the Urubamba valley in modern-day Peru. It is thought the city was built by the Inca emperor Pachacuti starting in about 1440 and was inhabited until 1532. The city was re-discovered in 1911 by Hiram Bingham. This World Heritage Site is a popular tourist attraction.

Photo credit: Chmouel Boudjnah
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

Peace and quiet is a quality often missing in the urban environment. Those who travel to remote, rural areas often notice the striking difference in the noise level between the cities and the countryside, although in practice the ambient noise level is still higher than the near absolute quiet found in an anechoic chamber.

This view of Lake Mapourika in New Zealand captures the essence of tranquillity.

Photo credit: Wombat
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

A mackerel sky is an indicator of moisture and instability at high levels. If the lower atmosphere is stable and no moist air moves in, the weather will most likely remain dry. However, moisture at lower levels combined with temperature instability can lead to spectacular thunderstorms should the rising moist air reach this layer. In weather lore, a mackerel sky portends changeable weather.

Photo credit: Denni Windrim
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

William Cranch (1769–1855) was an American judge and the second reporter of decisions of the United States Supreme Court.

Later in life, when a land speculation bankrupted him, his uncle John Adams rescued him by appointing him to be judge of the District of Columbia circuit court, where he served until his death.

Photo credit: Mathew Brady (1850)
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

City Hall in London is the headquarters of the Greater London Authority, and stands on the south bank of the River Thames near to Tower Bridge. The building was designed by Foster and Partners and opened in July 2002. It has an unusual bulbous shape, intended to reduce the building's surface area and thus improve energy efficiency. City Hall was constructed on a site formerly occupied by wharves serving the Pool of London (a stretch of the River Thames).

Photo credit: ChrisO
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

Salvage ethnography is a branch ethnography and anthropology concerned with the practice of capturing a record of what was left of a culture before it disappeared. A pioneer of salvage ethnography was Edward Curtis, with his early 20th century photographs of American Indian traditional life, such as this Hupa fisherman.

Photo credit: Edward Curtis
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

The Painted Bunting (Passerina cirisgenus) belongs to the Passerina group of birds in the Cardinal family Cardinalidae. Not directly related to buntings in the family Emberizidae, they are sometimes known as the North American buntings. They have short tails and short slim legs. They have smaller bills than other Cardinalidae; they mainly eat seeds in winter and insects in summer.

Photo credit: U.S. National Park Service
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

Canyon de Chelly is a National Park located in northeast Arizona, United States. Founded April 1, 1931, it preserves artifacts of the early Southwest Indian tribes that lived in the area, including the Navajo. The cliffs of the canyon are pockmarked with hand carved caves — the ruins of former villages.

This photograph of the canyon by Edward S. Curtis, showing 'seven riders on horseback and dog', is one of his most celebrated images from The North American Indian.

Photo credit: Edward S. Curtis
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

U.S. F/A-18 Hornet breaking the sound barrier. In aerodynamics, the sound barrier is the apparent physical boundary stopping large objects becoming supersonic. When an aircraft breaks the sound barrier, an unusual cloud sometimes forms. A drop in pressure, in this case due to shock wave formation, causes water droplets to condense and form the cloud.

Photo credit: John Gay
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

Photo credit: NASA
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

Hot air balloons are the oldest successful human flight technology, dating back to the Montgolfier brothers' invention in Annonay, France in 1783. The first manned flight was made in Paris by Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes. Unmanned hot air balloons are mentioned in Chinese history. Chu-ko Kung-ming (諸葛 孔明) in the three kingdoms era used airborne lanterns for military signalling.

Photo credit: Randy Oostdyk
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

Photochrom is a colorizing process developed in Zurich, combining photography and color lithography. Popular in the 1890s, the technique was frequently used to print postcards of landscapes and towns, such as this view of Hildesheim townhall.

Photo credit: Library of Congress
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

The Montreal Metro, operated by the Société de transport de Montréal, was inaugurated in 1966. Originally comprising 26 stations on three lines; the metro has now expanded to 65 stations on four lines, serving the centre and east of Montreal Island with a connection to Longueuil and, soon, Laval. Montreal metro lines are identified by colour, by number, and by terminus station.

Image credit: Montrealais
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

Photo credit: Donovan Govan
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

Art Nouveau ("new art" in French) is an art and design style that peaked in popularity at the beginning of the 20th century in Europe and the United States. Unlike most art movements, Art Nouveau bridges the divide between fine art and applied art (illustration, decorative arts, crafts and architecture).

Dancel (1898) by Alfons Mucha with its strong, flowing, organic lines, is typical of the style.

Illustration credit: Alfons Mucha
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

Photo credit: Daniel Mayer
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

Ansel Adams was one of the masters of landscape photography. Born in San Francisco in 1902, he is famous for his black & white photographs of the western United States and national parks, most especially Yosemite. Adams was a co-founder of Group f/64, who pioneered the use of a camera's smallest aperture to capture a scene with maximum sharpness and depth of field — a technique known as 'Realism' or straight photography.

The Tetons and the Snake River (1942)
Photo credit: Ansel Adams
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

The movement and the flow of chemicals into the stomach are controlled by both the autonomic nervous system and by various digestive system hormones. Gastric acid is the main secretion of the stomach, characterised by H₂O, hydrochloric acid and several enzymes (mainly pepsinogen). Gastic acid is produced by the parietal cell (wall cell) of the gastric mucosa.

Illustration credit: Prisonblues
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

During a winch launch, a glider is pulled by a wire cable like a kite, raising it to an altitude of around 1000 ft (300 m). For the rest of its flight, being un-powered, the heavier-than-air aeroplane is always falling. However a pilot can gain height by circling within a strong thermal — a column of air that is rising at a faster rate than the plane is falling. On a good day, an experienced pilot can travel hundreds of miles before landing.

Photo credit: www.whiteplanes.com
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

Frederic Edwin Church was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters. Church became the pupil of Thomas Cole at eighteen and was elected as a member of the National Academy of Design in 1849.
Twilight Wilderness (1860)

Picture credit: Frederic Edwin Church
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

The Chicago based, German architect Helmut Jahn is best known for his efficiently designed modernist office blocks. Whilst many of these glass and steel buildings don't stand out from the crowd, some of his most eye-catching projects, such as the Sony Center in Berlin, with its tent-like roof covering the central Forum, border on post-modernism.

Photo credit: Andreas Tille
Archive - Nominate new image

Picture of the day

The insides of a typical keydrive. With the plastic clamshell case removed, we can see that the keydrive consists of only two significant components. The first is the flash memory chip (item 4). The second (item 2) is a device which implements the USB networking and mass-storage interface.

Photo credit: John Fader
Archive - Nominate new image