Some people say we're the unusual creatures at the bottom of a sea of air.
I didn't know people kept Octopuses as pets (scroll down to first comment) or that they might provide a model for robotic arms. They are undeniably the smartest invertebrates being able to solve difficult mazes and distinguish between various objects (they have very high degree of tactile inteligence).
This was also interesting: young dolphins make toy air rings and play with them.
Megastructures are measured in 1,000s of kilometers (1,000 KM = 1 Megameter). The only megastructure on earth (built by creatures) is the Great Barrier Reef which is around 2,000 kilometers long (1,200 miles). No single human settlement compares with its magnitude.
Angler fish are scary.
A little tidbit I learned from my ecology class: the oldest living being on earth is a creosote bush in Arizona. Carbon dating puts its inception around 18,000 years ago. This is around the end of the last ice age. (The bush has been there as long as the desert.)
These vehicles really must speak for themselves. So I'll let them.
Alexi
Camera Van
Sinclair C5
... and a list of automotive flops from the wikipedia.
Sundays are great for one liners.
If you have real player please, please watch this movie made by American Institute of Planners in 1939. File part one, part two. It documents the urban blight brought by industrialization, the rapid pace of '30s city life (I especially enjoied the shots of the mechanization of food), and the ideal community of the future. It was written by Lewis Mumford. The movie is about 30 minutes (15 a piece), it starts out slow and boring but it picks up.
In my ecology class a student asked how you could track the migration and habitat of Giant Squid. There are major technical difficulties such as the depth they live at and their oceanic range. So when I saw this I was interested.
The bug-eyed sea creatures, believed to be Humboldt squid, normally reside in deep water and only come to the surface at night. Why approximately 500 of them began washing up on the sands of Laguna Beach and Newport Beach on Tuesday isn't clear.
I really don't want to be pessimistic but I've got some articles about hellish cities.
The City of Dis is the term for the lower four layers of Dante's Inferno. Here is a handy cross section of Hell. Clicking the Down Arrow brings you to Dis.
Feral Cities
Imagine a great metropolis covering hundreds of square miles. Once a vital component in a national economy, this sprawling urban environment is now a vast collection of blighted buildings, an immense petri dish of both ancient and new diseases, a territory where the rule of law has long been replaced by near anarchy in which the only security available is that which is attained through brute power.
