Mesmerizing Video of Sharks Feeding

Great video of sharks feeding on shoals of fish at the Maldives.  The changing patterns are mesmerizing and cool to see even without the sounds of the surf.  As a bonus there’s video of a great turtle at the end.   Found this at The Times of London website.

Never thought a film of sharks feeding would be beautiful and calming.   Shark Week on cable TV gives me nightmares. Makes me want to visit the Maldives.  It appears the film was shot from a bridge or pier near the shore.  Wonder what else you would see in the Maldives.

Julia

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National Geographic

From National Geographic

Ponza, Italy, September 14, 2007—Fish
swim past Italian scuba divers Debora Vissani, right, and Alessandro
Brandetti as they sit on a platform anchored 50 feet (15 meters)
underwater on the sea floor.

Vissani and Brandetti are two of six "aquanauts" who will
spend 14 days submerged as part of an experiment to study the effects
of living underwater for prolonged periods.

The divers have three diving bells for living space and a
fourth bell for cooking, eating, and maintaining equipment. The
aquanauts—members of the Explorer Team Pellicano—will be monitored by a
medical staff and experts from Rome University and the city’s
hospitals, the news agency ANSA reported.

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—Photograph by Progetto Abissi/Handout/Reuters

 

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Best Mountain Photos of 2007

You can see the Best Mountain Photos of 2007 here.   

This one is my favorite:

Best Photo, Yellowstone-to-Yukon Region
Banff Mountain Photography Competition

A rare swift fox pauses on a December morning in Canada’s Cochrane Wildlife Reserve.

Canadian photographer Robert Berdan was given permission to photograph
the free-roaming animal inside the reserve, part of which is in
southwestern Alberta.

In Canada "the swift fox was considered extirpated [extinct in
the wild], but due to the efforts of various breeding programs that
release foxes into the wild, this species has now been downgraded to
endangered" by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in
Canada, Berdan said in a statement.

National Geographic

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The Life Aquatic’s foreign language soundtrack

Inspired by the earlier post on foreign language soundtracks, I looked up this great scene towards the end of the Bill Murray movie "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" .  Murray plays a Jacques Cousteau-like character who (like Captain Ahab) is chasing a villain of the sea.  In this case a "jaguar shark" who ate his partner.   The strange comments about being 11 1/2 yrs old refer to the child the Kate Winslet character at Steve’s side is carrying.  Looks like Steve is back from his obsession with death and is focussed again on life.  You would think the lovely music in the background is evocative of this emotional scene – but what the lyrics really mean is astoundingly odd instead.

The background music is by the Icelandic group Sigur Ros. Here’s the lyrics as sung and translated into English.

Starálfur Blá Nótt Yfir Himininn Blá Nótt Yfir Mér Horf-Inn Út Um Gluggann Minn Með Hendur Faldar Undir Kinn Hugsum Daginn Minn Í Dag Og Í Gær Blá Náttfötin Klæða Mig Í Beint Upp Í Rúm Breiði Mjúku Sængina Loka Augunum Ég Fel Hausinn Minn Undir Sæng Starir Á Mig Lítill Álfur Hleypur Að Mér En Hreyfist Ekki Úr Stað – Sjálfur Starálfur Opna Augun Stírurnar Úr Teygi Mig Og Tel (Hvort Ég Sé Ekki) Kominn Aftur Og Alltalltílæ Samt Vantar Eitthvað Eins Og Alla Vegginna

Staring Elf Blue Night Over The Sky Blue Night Over Me Disappeared Out The Window My Hands Hidden Under My Cheek I Think About My Day Today And Yesterday I Put On My Blue Nighties Go Straight To Bed I Caress The Soft Covers Close My Eyes I Hide My Head Under The Covers A Little Elf Stares At Me Runs Towards Me But Doesn’t Move From Place – Himself A Staring Elf I Open My Eyes The Crusts Come Off I Stretch Myself And Check (If I Haven’t) Returned Again And Everything Is Okay Still There Is Something Missing Like All The Walls

All of the vocals are in hopelandic. Hopelandic (vonlenska in icelandic) is the ‘invented language’ in which jónsi sings before lyrics are written to the vocals. It’s of course not an actual language by definition (no vocabulary, grammar, etc.), it’s rather a form of gibberish vocals that fits to the music and acts as another instrument.  Source:  http://www.alwaysontherun.net/sigur.htm 

The submarine in the film looks a lot like the little one that sits in front of the Oceanagraphic Institute in Monaco that sponsored Jacques Cousteau.  It must also be the inspiration for "We all live in a Yellow Submarine" by the Beatles.  Here’s my photo of it from 2002.

And here’s the Brazilian singer Seu Jorge doing David Bowie’s "Changes" in Portugeuse for use in the movie "Life Aquatic".   There are a lot of Bowie songs in Portugeuse by Jorge that provide the background to the film. 

At the end of the film Jorge sits on the stage alone performing "Queen Bitch" while the credits roll.

Sue Jorge’s soundtrack is availabe on CD.

What a movie!   From Netflix you can get the Criterion Collection version with lots of commentary.  I just put it on my list today.

Julia 

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Photo of the Day

Madhya Pradesh, India

Photograph by: Michael Nichols

aught in the act by a remote camera trap, a sambar deer drinks from a
water source in Bandhavgarh National Park, India. One of the most
widely distributed deer species in the world, sambars live in forests
throughout Southeast Asia and are favorite prey of tigers, for which
this park is known. (Photo shot on assignment for, but not published
in, "Making Room for Tigers," December 1997, Nature )

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Record Cache of Snow Leopard Parts Seized in China

What kind of sick bastards do this to these animals.  Asians have long used animals in their medicines that have been proven to be not useful and are harmful to nature.  They are killing sharks at an alarming rate and will harm the ecosystem in the oceans, they are killing bears for their bile for medicinal uses that are useless.  Now they are killing various kinds of cats for their pelts or fur.  Stuff like this has to stop, the snow leopards are on the endangered species list, but that does not stop these people from killing them indiscrimanately.  I am no tree-hugger o anything like that, but the wanton destruction of wildlife for no reason other than fur or the shark fins is utterly wrong. 

Would you harm these cute animals:

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Kelly Hearn
for National Geographic News

September 10, 2007

The pelts of 27 snow leopards
were recently seized from a black market trader in China. The record
bust highlights the menacing threat to one of the world’s most
endangered cats, experts say.

Acting on a tip, agents from China’s State Forestry
Administration raided an apartment in western China last month,
according to state media.

Police arrested the fur trader, identified only as Mr. Ma, after
discovering the cache of pelts, along with 104 bear skins and parts of clouded leopards and lynx.

"Police found three snow leopard heads and two snow leopard skeletons
in the raid," Ge Yun, of the China-based nonprofit Xinjiang
Conservation Fund (XCF), told National Geographic News.

The seizure is reportedly the largest haul of leopard pelts since Chinese officials began keeping records in 1949.

An official with China’s State Forest Administration, who
identified himself as Mr. Li, confirmed the arrests in a telephone
interview but declined to offer details.

"The snow leopard is endangered, and the government is working very hard to protect it," he said.—National Geographic

 

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7.9 magnitude earthquake hits Sumatra

            

         

         

            

            

         

         

            

            

         

         

            

            

         

         

            

            

         

         

            

            

         

         

            

            

         

         

            

            

         

         

            

            

         

         

            

            

Magnitude	7.9
Date-Time	Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 11:10:26 UTC Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 06:10:26 PM  at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location	4.517°S, 101.382°E
Depth	30 km (18.6 miles) set by location program
Region	SOUTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA
Distances	130 km (80 miles) SW of Bengkulu, Sumatra, Indonesia 410 km (255 miles) SW of Jambi, Sumatra, Indonesia 620 km (385 miles) WNW of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia 695 km (435 miles) SSW of SINGAPORE
Location Uncertainty	horizontal +/- 9.4 km (5.8 miles); depth fixed by location program
Parameters	Nst=175, Nph=175, Dmin=810 km, Rmss=1.44 sec, Gp= 40°, M-type=moment magnitude (Mw), Version=8
Source	USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID	us2007hear

USGS

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Cool Picture

A cool picture from Blue Star Chronicles

 

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Photo of the day

From National Geographic:

Sicily, Italy, September 4, 2007—Sparks light up the night as Mount Etna, Europe’s most active volcano, spews lava on the island of Sicily. (See a map of Italy).

The eruption sent molten rock nearly 1,000 feet (300 meters) into the
air, but the flow did not endanger the villages on the slopes of the
mountain.

But volcanic ash did rain down onto several villages, and the airport of Catania was closed for the night as a precaution.

 

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Photo of the Day

Nice little kitties

mman, Jordan, August 27, 2007—Five newborn white lion cubs take a catnap at the Jordan Zoo.

White lions, which originated in South Africa, are actually African lions.

The rare animals are the result of a recessive gene that gives them striking white coats instead of the normal golden fur.

Though white lions are rare in the wild, about 30 live in captivity worldwide.

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—Photograph by Muhammad Hamed/Reuters

National Geographic

 

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