Wikipedia:Picture of the day/November 2005

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The Red Panda or Lesser Panda, is a mostly herbivorous cat-sized mammal. Its classification is uncertain. It has been classified in the raccoon family (Procyonidae) or the bear family (Ursidae) along with the Giant Panda, but most recent DNA research places the Red Panda firmly in its own family, the Ailuridae. It is native to the Himalayas and southern China.

Photo credit: Bernard Landgraf
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An animated Pentakis dodecahedron, member of the Catalan solids. Catalan solids are all convex, face-uniform but not vertex-uniform. This is because the dual Archimedean solids are vertex-uniform and not face uniform. Note that unlike Platonic solids and Archimedean solids, the faces of Catalan solids are not regular polygons. However, the vertex figures of Catalan solids are regular, and they have constant dihedral angles. Additionally, two of the Catalan solids are edge-uniform: the rhombic dodecahedron and the rhombic triacontahedron. These are the duals of the two quasi-regular Archimedean solids.

Image credit: Cyp
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Tropical cyclone Catarina seen from the ISS in 2004. A South Atlantic tropical cyclone is an unusual weather event which occurs below the equator in the southern Atlantic Ocean. Strong wind shear (which disrupts cyclone formation) and a lack of weather disturbances favorable for cyclone development make any hurricane-strength cyclones extremely rare.

Photo credit: NASA
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Halos are optical phenomena that appear near or around the Sun or Moon, and sometimes near other strong light sources such as street lights. There are many types of halos, but they are mostly caused by ice crystals in cold cirrus clouds located high (5-10 km, or 3-6 miles) in the upper troposphere. The particular shape and orientation of the crystals is responsible for the type of halo observed. Light is reflected and refracted by the ice crystals and may split up into colors because of dispersion, similarly to the rainbow.

Photo credit: Lieutenant JG Cindy McFee, NOAA
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The Koala is a thickset arboreal marsupial herbivore endemic to Australia. Koalas live almost entirely on eucalyptus leaves. This is likely an evolutionary adaptation that takes advantage of an otherwise unfilled ecological niche, since eucalyptus leaves are low in protein, high in indigestible substances, and contain phenolic and terpene compounds that are toxic to most species. Like wombats and sloths, koalas have a very low metabolic rate for a mammal (which conserves energy) and rest motionless for about 20 hours a day, sleeping most of that time.

Photo credit: Guillaume Blanchard
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Sakura (桜 or 櫻) is the Japanese name for ornamental cherry trees, Prunus serrulata, and their blossoms. Sakura, a well-known and ubiquitous symbol of Japan, are represented on all manner of consumer goods, including kimono, stationery, and dishware. Cherry blossoms are an enduring metaphor for the ephemeral nature of life, and as such are frequently depicted in art, and are associated with both samurai and kamikaze.

Photo credit: PiccoloNamek
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Ladybirds are beneficial to organic gardeners because most species are insectivores, consuming aphids, fruit flies, thrips, and other tiny plant-sucking insects that damage crops. In fact, their name is derived from "Beetle of Our Lady", recognizing their role in saving crops from destruction. Today they are commercially available from a variety of suppliers. Adult ladybirds are able to reflex-bleed from their leg joints. The blood is yellow, with a strong repellent smell, and is quite obvious when one handles a ladybird roughly.

Photo credit: PDPhoto.org
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The battleship USS Pennsylvania leads USS Colorado, USS Louisville, USS Portland, and USS Columbia into Lingayen Gulf before the landing on Luzon, Philippines in January 1945. Battleships and other big gun naval vessels that served in the Pacific Theatre during World War II were used primarily for offshore bombardment of enemy positions and as anti-aircraft screens for aircraft carriers.

Photo credit: United States Navy
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The Space Shuttle Columbia seconds after engine ignition in 1981. For the first two missions only, the external fuel tank was painted white. The space shuttle became the major focus of NASA in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Planned to be frequently launchable and mostly reusable vehicle, four space shuttles were built by 1985. The first to launch, Columbia did so on April 12, 1981.

Photo credit: NASA
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In astronomy a libration is a very slow oscillation, of a satellite as viewed from the larger celestial body around which it revolves. Used alone, the term usually refers to the apparent movements of the Moon relative to Earth. Although the Moon's rotation on its axis is synchronously locked with its revolution around Earth, these librations permit a terrestrial observer to see slightly differing halves of the Moon's surface at different times. This means that a total of 59% of the Moon's surface can be observed from Earth.

Animation credit: Tom Ruen
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The Battle of Normandy (D-Day) is one of the best-known battles of World War II. The invasion force included 4000 landing craft, 130 warships for bombardment and 12,000 aircraft to support the landings. In order to persuade the Germans that the invasion would really be coming to the Pas de Calais, the Allies prepared a massive deception plan, called Operation Fortitude. An entirely fictitious First U.S. Army Group was created, with fake buildings and equipment, and false radio messages were sent.

Photo credit: U.S. Army's First Division
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The 2004 Summer Olympics were held in Athens over 17 days, from August 13 to August 29, 2004. During the games, 11,099 athletes from 202 countries competed in a total of 301 medal events from 28 different sports. The Opening Ceremony was held in the main Olympic Stadium with its new roof designed by Santiago Calatrava. As part of the theatrics, the Olympic rings were seen burning in a pool of water.

Photo credit: Lucretious, Stock.xchng
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Defined strictly, a deer is a ruminant mammal belonging to the family Cervidae. A number of broadly similar animals, from related families within the order Artiodactyla, are often also called deer. Depending on the species, male deer are called stags, harts, bucks or bulls, and females are called hinds, does or cows. Young deer are called calves or fawns.

Photo credit: Elfer
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The black widow spider is a potentially dangerous spider found throughout Australia. A successful bite from a female red-back injects a neurotoxin into the blood stream. Individuals bitten often describe the bite as extremely painful. Despite this (and in contrast to common belief in Australia) deaths from the red-back have been rare: Only one death has been reported since the introduction of antivenin in 1956.

Photo credit: Fir0002
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In astronomy, an aurora is an optical phenomenon characterized by colourful displays of light in the night sky, caused by the interaction of charged particles from the solar wind with the upper atmosphere of a planet. The most powerful aurorae tend to occur after coronal mass ejections.

Photo credit: Fir0002
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Surface tension is caused by the attraction between molecules of a liquid, due to van der Waals forces. In the bulk of the liquid, molecules are pulled in all directions, resulting in a net force of zero. At the surface, molecules are pulled inwards, but there are no liquid molecules on the outside to balance these forces, so the surface molecules are subject to an inward force of molecular attraction which is balanced by the resistance of the liquid to compression.

Photo credit: W. M. Connolley
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The Washington Monument in Baltimore was the first architechtural monument honoring George Washington. Designed by Robert Mills, who also designed the Washington Monument in Washington D.C., construction began in 1815 and was completed by 1829. The 178 foot doric column holds a ground-floor museum offering information about Washington as well as construction of the monument.

Photo credit: ScottyBoy900Q
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Biodiversity is the diversity of and in living nature. Diversity, at its heart, implies the number of different kinds of objects, such as species. To increase the genetic diversity of U.S. corn, the Germplasm Enhancement for Maize (GEM) project seeks to combine exotic germplasm, such as this unusually colored and shaped maize from Latin America, with domestic corn lines.

Photo credit: Keith Weller (USDA)
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Pines are mostly monoecious, having the male and female cones on the same tree, though a few species are sub-dioecious with individuals predominantly, but not wholly, single-sex. The male cones are small, typically 1-5 cm long, falling as soon as they have shed their pollen. The larger female cones, such as this Monterey Pine cone, are typically 3-60 cm long, having numerous spirally arranged scales with two seeds on each fertile scale.

Photo credit: Fir0002
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Otters are aquatic or marine carnivorous mammals, members of the large and diverse family Mustelidae. They have a dense layer of very soft underfur which, protected by their outer layer of long guard hairs, keeps them dry under water and traps a layer of air to keep them warm. Unlike most marine mammals (seals or whales, for example), otters do not have a layer of insulating blubber, and even the marine sea otter must come ashore regularly to wash its coat in fresh water.

Photo credit: Dmitry Azovtsev
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The Peafowl are most notable for the male's extravagant tail, a result of sexual selection, which it displays as part of courtship. The male is called a peacock, the female a peahen. In user-friendly English, however, peacock is used to mean any peafowl. Many of the brilliant colors of the peacock plumage are due to an optical interference phenomenon called Bragg reflection.

Photo credit: Adrian Pingstone
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World War II was a mid-20th-century conflict that engulfed much of the globe and is generally accepted as the largest and deadliest continuous war in human history. Towards the end of the war in 1945, Allied forces encroached on Nazi Germany from all sides. This iconic image of the Red flag being flown over the Reichstag building marks the fall Berlin to the Red Army on 2 May.

Photo credit: Jewgeni Chaldej
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A selection of fresh conkers from a Horse-chestnut. They are not true nuts, but rather capsules. The soft whitish-brown wood can be used for cheap furniture, boxes and firewood. The nuts are poisonous, but some Native American tribes leached the pulverized nuts to make them edible. Crushed buckeye nuts have been used by poachers to kill fish for easy capture. Some animals, notably deer, are resistant to the toxins.

Photo credit: Solipsist
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Hurricane Katrina was the third most powerful storm of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It first made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane just north of Miami, Florida on August 25, 2005, then again on August 29 along the Central Gulf Coast near Buras-Triumph, Louisiana as a Category 4 storm. This photograph of the eye of the hurricane was taken from a NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft on August 28, 2005.

Photo credit: NOAA
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The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everest as seen from the International Space Station. The Himalaya separates India and the Northern Areas of Pakistan on the south and southwest from the vast Tibetan plateau (now part of China) on the north. Four of the world's fourteen eight-thousanders, mountains higher than 8000 m, can be seen, Makalu (8462 m), Everest (8850 m), Lhotse (8516 m) and Cho Oyu (8201 m).

Photo credit: NASA
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The M4 Carbine is a shorter and lighter version of the M16A2 assault rifle, achieving 80% parts commonality with the M16A2. The M4 has select fire options including semi-automatic and three-round burst (like the M16A2), and the M4A1 has a full auto option in place of the three-round burst. As with many carbines, it is handy and more convenient to carry than a full-length rifle. Here an M4 is shown just after firing, with an ejected ammunition casing in mid-air.

Photo credit: Suzanne M. Day, U.S. Air Force
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Lauterbrunnen is a municipality in the Interlaken (district) of the Bernese Oberland, Switzerland. The name Lauterbrunnen is a combination of lauter meaning clear or bright, and Brunnen meaning spring. The Lauterbrunnen valley is also known for the Staubbach Falls which are recalled in Goethe's poem Gesang der Geister über den Wassern (literal translation: song of the spirits above the waters).

Photo credit: Keith Halstead
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This Supernova remnant of Kepler's Supernova (SN 1604) is made up of the materials left behind by the gigantic explosion of a star. There are two possible routes to this end: either a massive star may cease to generate fusion energy in its core, and collapse inward under the force of its own gravity, or a white dwarf star may accumulate material from a companion star until it reaches a critical mass and undergoes a similar collapse. In either case, the resulting supernova explosion expels much or all of the stellar material with great force.

Photo credit: NASA
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Eyjafjallajökull is one of the smaller glaciers of Iceland. It is situated to the north of Skógar and to the west of the bigger glacier Mýrdalsjökull.

The icecap of the glacier covers a volcano which has erupted rather frequently since the Ice Age. The last eruption was from 1821 to 1823, causing a fatal glacier run.

Photo credit: Andreas Tille
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The oil extracted from Sunflower seeds, is used for cooking, as a carrier oil and is used to produce biodiesel. The meal remaining after the seeds have been processed for oil is used as a livestock feed. Some recently developed varieties have drooping heads. These varieties are less attractive to gardeners growing the flowers as ornamental plants, but appeal to farmers, because they reduce bird damage and losses from some plant diseases.

Photo credit: Bruce Fritz (USDA)
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