Monthly Archive

Wilhelmina, a red-footed tortoise, yawning. Photo by Peter Baumber.
 
I adore the Ig Nobel Prize. You read that correctly—this isn’t the prestigious and sober Nobel Prize, it’s funny and fantastic. The annual honor, administered by the group Improbable Research, is given to scientific research that makes people “laugh and then think.”
 
This year’s winners explored quirky questions, including: Is yawning contagious for red-footed tortoises? How does having to pee affect people’s decision-making? Why is that beetle trying to mate with a beer bottle? Does driving over cars parked in the bike lane with an armored tank deter illegal parking (note: to find out, click through to the video)?

Every Thursday we post a funny animal photo that's begging for a caption. Click "Read more" to add your suggestion in the Comments section. On Monday we'll choose our three favorite captions and list them under the image.
  
Check out our top choices from last week’s photo of an owlet, and all previous weeks.

Photo: Böhringer Friedrich via Wikimedia Commons

Photo: Fred Coles

You’re walking down the street in sunny Sydney, when the distinct pink flutter of a wild galah, a rosy-colored bird endemic to Australia, flutters past and exclaims, “Hello, Cocky!”

If you haven’t seen Food, Inc. yet, here’s one more reason to watch it: The Academy Award-nominated film won the Best Documentary prize at the 32nd Annual News & Documentary Emmys this week.

Click through to watch the trailer and read a review of the engaging and enraging documentary.

Courtesy of Etsy Earth

Think shopping and saving the planet can’t go hand in hand? Etsy Earth is out to prove wrong all the naysayers.

New Zealand storm petrel, Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand, January 2005. Photo: Aviceda via Wikimedia Commons
 
Storm petrels are nicknamed “Jesus birds” for their habit of seemingly walking on water. Now, the New Zealand storm petrel shares another trait with the biblical figure: It has risen from the dead. Thought to be extinct for 150 years, new evidence proves that the bird is alive.

Seven of the more than 100 cygnets raised by trumpeter swans George and Gracie during the 18 years the pair lived on a lake in Bellevue, Michigan. Photo: Joyce Miller

We frequently hear about individual birds that hold a special place in the hearts of their human admirers. This story was particularly moving, one we felt worth sharing, about Gracie, a trumpeter swan in Michigan that raised more than 100 cygnets with her mate, George. She died this past April.

This new image from EOS's MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope shows the Lambda Centauri Nebula. The star Lambda Centauri itself lies just outside the field of view. Credit: EOS
 
Since time immemorial humans have looked to the stars and picked out familiar shapes among the shining specks. So it seems only natural that a new shot from the Lambda Centauri nebula would call to mind a familiar image—in this case, a pig-pummeling angry bird. Or a chicken, depending on whom you ask.

Photo: Megan Lorenz
 
Every Thursday we post a funny animal photo that's begging for a caption. Click "Read more" to add your suggestion in the Comments section. On Monday we'll choose our three favorite captions and list them under the image.
 
Check out our top choices from last week’s photo of deer and a cat, and all previous weeks. 

An isolated barb from a vaned feather, trapped within a tangled mass of spider’s web in Late Cretaceous Canadian amber. Pigment distribution within this feather fragment suggests that the barb may have been gray or black. Image: Science/AAAS

 
Feathers encased in amber 70 to 85 million years ago are giving researchers new insight into the evolution of these incredible structures in birds and non-avian dinosaurs.  The fossils show the progression from hair-like filament structures contained in early feathers to the more complex branching feathers of modern birds. Click through to see more incredible photographs...