Great video of lightning captured at 9,000 frames per second. Totally wild, the pulses that follow the exact same track across the sky.

Totally insane: we might be living in a giant cosmic hologram. Staggering. Read the whole thing. And I thought the discovery of the quantum physics underlying photosynthesis was mind-blowing.

Octopuses continue to climb the ladder of awesomeness. Check out the footage of this fellow who totes around a coconut shell to use as a hiding place.

(via discover)

Before you click through, how many years, dollars, and spiders to you think it would take to make an 11’ x 4’ woven tapestry? Here’s a sample:

That gold is the natural color of the golden orb-weaving spider’s silk (Nephila genus). Currently on display at the American Museum of Natural History. (via kottke)

National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen describes his surprising encounter with a leopard seal (this is not a cute and cuddly species of seal, they are powerful and can be very aggressive). (thx jody)

Artist Zimoun does sound sculptures. My favorite is this one, featuring wood worms:

Check the video to hear the effect. He also has up a longer video featuring his other pieces. (via josh spear)

This guy made a hummingbird feeder helmet, held really still, and they flew right up to his face. Very cool, although it’s exactly that kind of gullibility that can land a little bird in big trouble. Wow, do not be taking the praying mantis lightly!

No way a crow would fall for either of these. The mantis would be lunch, and the guy would be watching one crow while another lifted his wallet.

A dozen chimpanzees, not known for being still or quiet, watch in silence as a dead (heart attack) “prominent figure” from their group is wheeled away:

Dr. Marc Bekoff, of the University of Colorado, says:

That animals and humans share many traits including emotions is merely an extension of Charles Darwin’s accepted ideas about evolutionary continuity, that the differences between species are differences in degree rather than differences in kind. The seemingly natural human urge to impart emotions on to animals, far from obscuring the “true” nature of animals, may actually reflect a very accurate way of knowing.

Monumentally sad and depressing. Chris Jordan photographs dead albatross chicks, killed because their parents fed them our plastic garbage:

These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks ago on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.

For example:

We suck. (via josh spear)

What is the blazes is that?! is a perfectly reasonable question.

Here’s the trailer for The Cove, a documentary that looks to be equal parts thrilling and profoundly depressing. (via kottke)

I’m a bit behind, but finally read Burkhard Bilger’s fascinating article on escaped exotic pets making a home in Florida (abstract only, unfortunately). It’s ostensibly about invasive species, but for me the real entertainment was in learning how awesome Burmese pythons are, and how committed they are to swallowing once they start:

One python in the Everglades was found with a great blue heron stuck in its throat. The bird’s bill had poked it way through the back of the snake’s head, and was widening the hole every time the snake tried to swallow it. When the python was on the verge of getting caught, it disgorged the bird and slithered off—presumably to hunt another day.

Then there’s the gruesome story of the 13-foot python that swallowed the 6-foot alligator. But what topped it off for me was the final page of the article where we learn that Nile monitors are running amok in Cape Coral:

Like pythons, they are spectacular animals that make terrible pets. Up to seven feet long, with stout legs, tapered jaws, and skin that seems to be encrusted with semiprecious stones, Nile monitors are notoriously aggressive and ill-tempered. When cornered, a monitor will stand on its hind legs and hiss, inflating its body and lashing its tail like a bullwhip. In the words of one biologist, “no one realizes the ability this animal has to tear off your cat’s head with one twist.”

Also, they are totally non-discriminating carnivores; if it’s made of meat, they’ll eat it. They are fearless, and, get this, they hunt in packs.

Note to self: no camping in Florida.

National Geographic on blue whales:

The blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus, is the largest creature ever to live. Linnaeus derived the genus name from the Latin balaena, “whale,” and the Greek pteron, “fin” or “wing.” His species name, musculus, is the diminutive of the Latin mus, “mouse”—apparently a Linnaean joke. The “little mouse whale” can grow to 200 tons and 100 feet long. A single little mouse whale weighs as much as the entire National Football League. Just as an elephant might pick up a little mouse in its trunk, so the elephant, in its turn, might be taken up by a blue whale and carried along on the colossal tongue. Had Jonah been injected intravenously, instead of swallowed, he could have swum the arterial vessels of this whale, boosted along every ten seconds or so by the slow, godlike pulse.

This one’s making the rounds… Chicken Head Tracking. Pretty remarkable ability. Not remarkable enough that I’m worried about our evolutionary advantage, except perhaps on the dance floor, but still.

Okay, they were really writing about sharks, but I still thought this was a fun statistic to include:

Sharks bite fewer people each year than New Yorkers do, according to health department records. And you are far likelier to drown in your bathtub or be murdered by your spouse than you are to die in the jaws of a shark.

Cat vs. Octopus, let the games begin!