Thailand prepared to welcome in the Year of the Black Water Dragon on Tuesday as the Lunar New Year approached. In Bangkok, children attended a unique performance which included an underwater Chinese dragon dance. Hmm, if they could make that go really fast, by wearing fins or riding some underwater jetski underneath the outfit, then it would be the perfect thing to scare the kids (and adults) with :-)
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Biologists capture rare photos of whales and dolphins playing together
Via Treehugger, they’re pretty excited that wild humpback whales and bottlenose dolphins take time out to play with each other off the coast of Hawaii. Unfortunately we only get to see shots of dolphins riding whales, and not the other way around :-P
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CC photo #18: The forest of flags at Shanghai 2011
An angled view of the flags outside the Oriental Sports Center in Shanghai. Always difficult to get good photos of flags, but a stiff breeze sure helped. Just strange (for me) when the wind temperature is well above 30°C (86°F).
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Behold Filip Jonker and his cardboard boat
Named after the tugboat in Jan de Hartog’s 1940 book Hollands Glorie (published in English as Captain Jan), Dutch artist Filip Jonker’s boat De Furie is 24 feet long and made out of standard honeycomb cardboard. Fitted with a 33-horsepower diesel engine, it made the trip from Enschede in Holland to London, crossing the English channel in 22 hours. But OK, with a 4 mm thick layer of heavy-duty paint normally used on gas pipes, one could say that it is as much made out of paint, as cardboard :-)
“A lot of people asked why I didn’t do a testmodel first, but in my opinion that is already all the effort”
Via Wired
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iPhone 5 will possibly be waterproofed with HzO “Waterblock” technology
HzO is said to be in talks with Apple and Samsung about incorporating its “WaterBlock” technology in future devices, such as the iPhone 5. This technology uses a nano-scale film barrier during the manufacturing process to provide waterproofing without the need for bulky cases. Read more here on Slashgear and Pocket-lint
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How humpback whales hunt with bubble nets
To learn more about how humpback whales use bubble nets in feeding, marine biologist David Wiley and colleagues attached digital suction cup tags to whales that recorded depth and orientation in 3D, revealing advanced “double-loop” bubble releases consisting of first one upward spiral to corral the prey, and then a second one to capture the corralled prey. Techniques as advanced as the tool use of apes in the forest.
I for one hope that they’ll one day glue a GoPro-like camera with night vision onto a sperm whale to see it go up against giant or even colossal squid.
Read more here in ScienceDaily and on Science Friday via (Danish languaged) videnskab.dk
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Geoff Huegill involved in scuba diver rescue effort
Australia’s Geoff Huegill was one of the first at the scene of a tragic diving death at Rottnest Island in Western Australia yesterday, where a 55-year-old scuba diver died after suffering an apparent heart attack while diving with family. Huegill was on a rigid inflatable boat with two other men when they were flagged down by the vessel carrying the diver. They directed rangers to the boat, who got the patient to shore and gave him CPR, but the man died a short time after. Read more here on news.com.au
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CC photo #17: Don’t dive, Daniel
Just a fun photo from the Szczecin 2011 European Short Course Championships, featuring Danish swimmer Daniel Skaaning and (I suppose) Jacek Miciul, coach of Polish double-gold medal winner RadosÅ‚aw KawÄ™cki at Klub Sportowy Korner Zielona Góra. It was that “don’t dive” sign in the background that made me search for the right moment :-)
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Joel, where did my balloons go?
Practical joke on Canadian swimmer Joel Greenshields, member of Canada’s Beijing 2008 Olympic team, while at the 2012 Austin Grand Prix. Those guys obviously had too much time on their hands, while Joel and others won the 4×100 freestyle :-)