Public Posts

Two tender mushrooms (Mycena galericulata) on dead wood lying under the trees. Focus stack of 20 photos.

Dominicus Johannes Bergsma, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

In a church which is furnish'd with mullion and gable,
With altar and reredos, with gargoyle and groin,
The penitents' dresses are sealskin and sable,
The odour of sanctity's eau-de-Cologne.
But only could Lucifer, flying from Hades,
Gaze down on this crowd with its panniers and paints,
He would say, as he look'd at the lords and the ladies,
"Oh, where is All-Sinners', if this is All-Saints'?"

Edmund Yates (1831 - 1894) British journalist, novelist and dramatist. Born in Edinburgh. In 1854 he published his first book "My Haunts and their Frequenters", after which followed a succession of novels and plays.Yates was perhaps best known as proprietor and editor, under the pen-name of "Atlas", of The World Society newspaper.

Public Domain Poem

"Yasha Levine, a freelance journalist who has reported on the California Central Valley in depth, teamed up with filmmaker Rowan Wernham to direct the documentary Pistachio Wars. The film argues that billionaires Lynda and Stewart Resnick are harming California’s environment as they artwash their damage". More at Hyperallergic ➜

Cervus nippon in Kremenets Hills, Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine.

Byrdyak, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Fork-tailed flycatcher (Tyrannus savana monachus), chasing prey in Cayo, Belize. This is what the bird looks like when it is flying normally, but not grabbing an insect.

Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Margaret D. Foster, seen in her lab. The original caption by the National Photo Company is "Miss Margaret D. Foster, Uncle Sam's only woman chemist, Oct. 4/19" - that's possibly a bit misleading, though she definitely was the first female chemist in the United States Geological Survey team.

Adam Cuerden, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Maya Angelou (1928-2014) American writer, poet, singer, and civil rights activist.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Comet Lemmon has been putting on a show for cameras around the globe. Passing nearest to Earth in late October, the photogenic comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) sprouted two long and picturesque tails: a blue ion tail and a white dust tail. The ion tail is pushed away from the coma by the ever-present but ever-changing solar wind, at one point extending over 20 times the diameter of the full Moon -- as captured in this long-duration exposure. The shorter and wider dust tail is pushed away from the coma and shines by reflecting sunlight. The featured picture, captured two weeks ago, framed the comet behind Lomnický Peak of the High Tatra Mountains, home to the Slovakian Lomnický Stit Observatory. Comet Lemmon is now fading as it heads away from planet Earth. The huge shedding snowball will round the Sun later this week.

Photo by Robert Barsa