Template:Pic of the day/Archive

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Water Buffalo, Wednesday 21 July, 2004
The Water Buffalo is a very large ungulate. It probably survives in the wild in India, Nepal, Bhutan and Thailand; is very widespread as a domestic animal in Asia, South America. North Africa and Europe; and is feral in northern Australia. Wild-living populations of Water Buffalo also exist in much of South-east Asia but their origin is uncertain: they may be the descendants of wild Water Buffalo, formerly domesticated ferals, or a mixture of both. The population of wild Water Buffalo has become very sparse. Photo credit: Chmouel Boudjnah

Planet Mars Planet Mars, Tuesday 20 July, 2004
Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, is named after the Roman god of war because of its blood red color. Mars has two small, oddly-shaped moons, Phobos and Deimos, named after the sons of the Greek god Ares. At some point in the future Phobos will be broken up by gravitational forces. The atmosphere on Mars is 95% carbon dioxide. In 2003 methane was also discovered in the atmosphere. Since methane is an unstable gas, this indicates that there must be (or have been within the last few hundred years) a source of the gas on the planet. Photo credit: NASA

Bryce Canyon National Park, 19 July, 2004
Bryce Canyon National Park is distinctive due to its unique geological structures, called hoodoos. In winter, most birds in the park migrate, but jays, ravens, nuthatches, eagles, and owls stay. The Mule Deer, Mountain Lion, and coyotes will migrate to lower elevations. Ground squirrels and marmots pass the winter in hibernation. Photo credit: National Park Service

San Francisco Bay Area, Sunday 18 July, 2004
The Skyline Boulevard in the San Francisco Bay Area stretches through the Santa Cruz Mountains, here near Palo Alto, California. Three large cities dominate the San Francisco Bay Area; San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. As well as constituting one of the world's greatest metropolitan areas, the Bay Area includes some exceptional natural coastal and rural landscape. It includes significant national parks such as the Point Reyes National Seashore and a large number of state parks. Photo credit: Jawed Karim

Compound eye of a dragonfly, Saturday 17 July, 2004
A compound eye is a visual organ found in certain arthropods. The compound eye consists of between 12 and 1,000 ommatidia, little dark/bright sensors. The image perceived by the arthropod is "recalculated" from the numerous ommatidia which point in slightly different directions. In contrast to other eye types, there is no central lens or retina. Though the resulting image is poor in resolution, it can detect quick movements and, in some cases, the polarization of light. Dragonflies have about 30,000 facets to their compound eyes, giving them nearly a 360° field of vision. Photo credit: David L. Green

Left section of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel after restoration. Sistine Chapel, Friday 16 July, 2004
The Sistine Chapel is a religious chapel and one of the most famous artistic treasures of the Vatican, built between 1475 and 1483, in the time of Pope Sixtus IV della Rovere. The chapel is known worldwide both for being the hall in which conclaves and other official ceremonies are held, including some papal coronations, and for having been decorated by Michelangelo. The subjects of the pictures were historical religious themes. Michelangelo was employed to paint only 12 figures, the Apostles, but when the work was finished there were more than 3,000. Photo credit: Adrian Pingstone using a artchive.com source

Yellow rattle, Thursday 15 July
Yellow rattle (Rhinanthus minor) is a flowering plant in the family Scrophulariaceae. This family comprises of 220-300 genera and 4000-4500 species. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, with the majority found in temperate areas, including tropical mountains. Other members of the family include Digitalis, Linaria and Verbascum. Yellow rattle is a semi-parasitic plant that gains some of its nutrients from the roots of neighbouring plants. The name refers to the seedpods, which contain loose, rattling seeds when ripe. Photo credit: sannse

Painter's algorithm, Wednesday 14 July.
The painter's algorithm is one of the simplest solutions to the visibility problem in 3D computer graphics. When projecting a 3D scene onto a 2D plane, it is at some point necessary to decide which polygons are visible and which are hidden. The distant mountains are painted first, followed by the closer meadows; finally, the closest objects in this scene - the trees - are painted. For detailed scenes, the painter's algorthm generally proves to be a slow solution. Photo credit: Fredrik

Notre-Dame, Tuesday 13 July.
View of Paris from the Notre-Dame showing the River Seine and the Eiffel Tower. The Notre-Dame de Paris is a gothic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in Paris, France. The cathedral is probably best known from Victor Hugo's novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which was first published in 1831. Photo credit: Michael Reeve

Moon, Monday 12 July.
The Moon is the only natural satellite of Earth. During the ancient period, it was not uncommon for cultures to believe that the Moon died each night, thus descending into the underworld. As late as the 1920s (or so), it was believed that the Moon might have a breathable atmosphere. In 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to land on the Moon. Photo credit: Michael K. Fairbanks

Mad scientist, Sunday 11 July.
A mad scientist is a stock character, often villainous, who appears in fiction as a scientist who is insane or eccentric. He is usually working with some utterly fictional technology in order to forward his evil schemes. Recent mad scientist depictions are often satirical and humorous, and some are actually protagonists, such as Dexter in the cartoon series Dexter's Laboratory. Photo credit: J.J. McCullough

Brisbane, Saturday 10 July.
Brisbane at night. Brisbane is the capital city of the state of Queensland, Australia. It is situated in the southeast corner of Queensland and straddles the Brisbane River. The city is named after Sir Thomas Brisbane, a soldier and colonial administrator born in Ayrshire, Scotland. Photo credit: Gary Curtis

Lincoln Memorial, Friday 9 July.
The focus of the Lincoln Memorial is this sculpture of Abraham Lincoln, seated. Daniel Chester French studied many of Matthew Brady's photographs of Lincoln, and depicted the president as worn and pensive, gazing eastwards down the Reflecting Pool at the capital's starkest emblem of the Union, the Washington Monument. One hand is clenched, the other open. Beneath his hands, the Roman fasces, symbols of the authority of the Republic, are sculpted in relief on the seat. Photo credit: Raul654

Passchendaele, Thursday 8 July.
Soldiers of an Australian 4th Division field artillery brigade on a duckboard track passing through Chateau Wood, near Hooge in the Ypres salient, October 29, 1917. The photo was taken in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres, which was one of the major battles of World War I. Photo credit: James Francis Hurley

Madrid metro, Wednesday 7 July.
The Madrid metro is the large metro system serving Madrid, the capital of Spain. It is one of the largest metro systems in the world, despite Madrid having a population of only four million. The metro opened in 1919 under the direction of the Compañía de Metro Alfonso XIII. Metro stations served as air raid shelters during the Spanish Civil War. Photo credit: Montrealais

Bozen-Bolzano Bozen-Bolzano, Tuesday 6 July.
Bozen or Bolzano is a town in the Trentino-South Tyrol region of Italy. It is the capital of the German speaking autonomous province of Bozen-Südtirol or Bolzano-Alto Adige, officially bilingual. The province is almost completely mountainous, and is extended on the Etsch (It. Adige) valley north of the town of Salurn. Photo credit: Roland Wolf

Queenstown, New Zealand, Saturday 3 July.
The Remarkables and Lake Wakatipu from Queenstown. The Remarkables are a 540 acre mountain ski field located south of Queenstown, New Zealand. The other ski fields in Queenstown are Cardrona, Coronet Peak, and Treble Cone. Queenstown is a resort town in South Island and is surrounded by the Southern Alps. Photo credit: Tiles

Radcliffe Camera, Tuesday 29 June.
The Radcliffe Camera in Oxford, England was built by James Gibbs between 1737 and 1749 to house the Radcliffe Science Library. The building was funded by a £40,000 bequest from John Radcliffe. After the Radcliffe Science Library eventually moved into another building, the Radcliffe Camera became a reading room of the Bodleian Library. It now holds books from the English and History collection. Photo credit: Michael Reeve

USS Port Royal (CG-73), Saturday 26 June.
The USS Port Royal (CG-73) is a United States Navy guided missile cruiser, the last to be constructed in the 20th century, and the first cruiser to integrate women into the crew. The ship was deployed in 1996 as part of the Nimitz (CVN-68) battle group. Photo credit: Christopher Mobley

Gold Coast, Australia, Friday 25 June.
The Gold Coast is a coastal region approximately 70 kilometres south of Brisbane, Australia that, over the past 50 years, has coalesced from a collection of scattered villages into a city of approximately 400,000 people. The subtropical climate, attractive surf beaches, and savvy marketing have attracted millions of tourists. Photo credit: Gary Curtis

Weather lore, Thursday 24 June.
Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. A red sky occurs primarily at sunrise or sunset, when the sun's rays are passing through the greatest thickness of atmosphere. In weather lore, morning red skies are a good indicator of coming rain, evening red skies usually indicate clearing conditions. Photo credit: Denni Windrim

Che Guevara, Wednesday 23 June.
Che Guevara statue at the site of his death in Bolivia. Che Guevara was an Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary and Cuban guerrilla leader. Guevara was a member of Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement, which seized power in Cuba in 1959. After the revolution Guevara became second only to Fidel Castro in the new government of Cuba. Photo credit: Augusto Starita

English Springer Spaniel, Tuesday 22 June .
Spot Fetcher. U.S. President George W. Bush's dog. The English Springer Spaniel is a gun dog used for flushing and retrieving game. This spaniel is an older breed, appearing in paintings as early as the 1600s. It is possibly the ancestor of most modern spaniels; Springer spaniels and cocker spaniels were not recognized as separate breeds until the 1800s. Photo credit: Paul Morse

Cell growth, Monday 21 June .
Three types of cell reproduction; Binary fission and reproduction involving mitosis or meiosis. In the context of reproduction of living cells, "cell growth" refers to the "growth in cell numbers by means of cell reproduction." During cell reproduction one cell (the "parental" cell) divides to produce daughter cells. In other contexts, "cell growth" refers to increases in cell size. Photo credit: John Schmidt

UK roundabout Roundabout, Sunday 20 June.
A diagram of movement within a roundabout in a country where traffic drives on the left. A roundabout is a type of road junction, or traffic calming device, at which traffic streams circularly around a central island after first yielding to the circulating traffic. Unlike with traffic circles, vehicles on a roundabout have priority over the entering vehicle, parking is not allowed and pedestrians are usually prohibited from the central island. Photo credit: Fredrik and Mintguy

Parliament of Canada, Saturday 19 June.
Centre Block and Library of the Parliament of Canada. The Parliament of Canada is housed in a complex on Parliament Hill, on the banks of the Ottawa River in downtown Ottawa, in a Gothic revival suite of buildings. The best known is the Centre Block, with its prominent Peace Tower, a national symbol. The richly decorated interior of the centre block contains allegorical scenes. Photo credit: Montréalais

High Cross, Friday 18 June.
High Cross at the Rock of Cashel in Ireland. A High Cross is a standing cross with a circle, made of stone and often richly ornamented. High Crosses exist in Celtic parts of Britain and Ireland; the Irish High Cross has become more famous because of its distinctive shape (the ringed Celtic Cross) and the amount and quality of decoration. The Rock of Cashel, also known as Cashel of the Kings, is situated in county Tipperary in Ireland. Photo credit: Chmouel Boudjnah

433 Eros, Thursday 17 June.
The asteroid 433 Eros was named after the Greek god of love Eros. This S-type asteroid is the second-largest near-Earth asteroid. This image shows the view looking from one end of the asteroid across the gouge on its underside and toward the opposite end. Photo credit: NASA

Chèche, Wednesday 16 June.
Chèche. Headgear is the name given to any element of clothing which is worn on one's head. A "chèche" or "tagelmoust" turban is a form of headgear worn by men and women in Saharan Africa as protection against wind and sand. Photo credit: Anthere

Circlestrafing, Tuesday 15 June.
Circlestrafing. In video games, particularly in first-person shooters, circlestrafing is the technique of moving around a target in a circle while facing it. It allows a player to fire continuously at a target while simultaneously dodging attacks. In this diagram, the blue player circlestrafes around his red adversary, firing continually as he does so. Red, unable to keep track of the moving blue, misses with most shots. Blue will prevail. Photo credit: Fredrik

Eastern Yellow Robin, Monday 14 June.
The Eastern Yellow Robin (Eopsaltria australis) is a common resident of coastal and sub-coastal eastern Australia, from the extreme south-east corner of South Australia through most of Victoria and the western half of New South Wales and north as far as Cooktown, though tropical northern Queensland birds are mainly restricted to the cool heights of the Great Dividing Range. Photo credit: Tony Wilson

Earth at night, Sunday 13 June.
Earth at night. Earth is the third planet outward from the Sun. The northernmost settlement on Earth is Alert, Ellesmere Island, Canada. The southernmost is the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, in Antarctica. Photo credit: NASA and NOAA

Potato plant, Saturday 12 June.
Potato plant. Potato plants are low-growing and have white flowers with yellow stamens. They grow best in cool, moist climates such as Maine, Idaho, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Germany, Russia, and Poland, though they are widely adaptable and are grown on a small scale in most temperate regions. Common varieties of potatoes do not produce seeds; the flowers are sterile. Instead, they are propagated by planting pieces of existing tubers, cut to include at least one eye. Confusingly, these pieces are called "seed potatoes". Photo credit: Agricultural Research Service

Champs-Élysées, Friday 11 June.
Looking east along the Champs-Élysées from the top of the Arc de Triomphe. The Champs-Élysées is a broad avenue in the French capital Paris. With its cinemas, cafés, and luxury specialty shops, the Champs-Élysées is one of the most famous streets in the world. The name refers to the Elysian Fields, the kingdom of the dead in Greek mythology. Photo credit: Michael Reeve

USS Iowa (BB-61), Thursday 10 June.
The USS Iowa firing during target exercises near Vieques, Puerto Rico. USS Iowa (BB-61), the lead ship of her class of dreadnought battleship, was the fourth United States Navy ship with this name. Iowa was launched on 27 August 1942. As of 21 April 2001, Iowa is part of the Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay, San Francisco. Photo credit: Naval Historical Center

The London Eye, Wednesday 9 June.
The London Eye observation wheel. The London Eye is the largest observation wheel in the world. It stands 135 metres (443 feet) high on the South Bank of the River Thames near the Houses of Parliament in Lambeth, London, England, close to Westminster Bridge. The Eye has become a major landmark and tourist attraction since its official opening on December 31, 1999 Photo credit: Fantasy

Yarra River, Tuesday 8 June.
The Yarra River is a river in southern Victoria, Australia. Its lower reaches travel through central Melbourne. It is approximately 242 kilometres in length, and its mean annual flow is 718,000 megalitres. Like virtually all of Australia's rivers, annual flows vary greatly due to the effect of El Nino. The river's source is a series of swamps on Mount Baw Baw. Some of the Yarra's major tributaries include the Plenty River, and the Merri Creek. Photo credit: Russell Degnan

Geography of the Philippines, Sunday 6 June.
Physical map of physical geography of the Philippines. The Philippines is an archipelago of 7,107 islands. The largest of these islands is Luzon. The islands are volcanic in origin, being part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, and are mostly mountainous. The highest point in the country is the peak of Mt. Apo in Mindanao, which is 2,954 m above sea level. Most of the islands used to be covered in tropical rainforests, however, due to illegal logging, the forest cover has been reduced to less than 10% of the total land area. Photo credit: Seav

Bumblebee, Saturday 5 June.
The bumblebee is a flying insect of the genus Bombus in the family Apidae. Like the common honeybee, of which it is a distant relative, the bumblebee feeds on nectar and gathers pollen to feed its young. Bumblebees tend to be larger than other members of the bee family. Most, but not all, bumblebee species are gentle. Bumblebees are the pollinator of choice for modern greenhouse tomatoes and some other crops. Photo credit: Mark Burnett

Dust storm, Friday 4 June.
Dust storm, Spearman, Texas, 1935. A dust storm is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. The dust picked up in such a storm can be carried thousands of kilometers: Sahara dust storms influence plankton growth in the western Atlantic Ocean. Photo credit: US NOAA

Epicyclic gearing, Thursday 3 June.
Epicyclic gears. A gear is a toothed wheel designed to transmit torque to another gear or toothed component. Epicyclic gearing is a system consisting of outer gears, typically mounted on a movable arm, rotating about a central gear. Photo credit: Wapcaplet

Tamar Bridge, Wednesday 2 June.
A panoramic photograph taken from the Tamar Bridge between Cornwall and Devon, England, showing the Tamar Valley and the Royal Albert Bridge. The Tamar Bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the UK when it opened in 1961. In 2001 it became the world's first suspension bridge to be widened using cantilevers. The Royal Albert Bridge was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Photo credit: Tony Tapp

Butterfly, Tuesday 1 June.
Blue Morpho butterfly (Morpho menelaus). A butterfly is a flying insect of the order Lepidoptera. As Lepidoptera, butterflies have four wings, but unlike moths, the fore and hindwings are not hooked together, permitting a more graceful flight. Unlike most insects, butterflies do not experience a nymph period, but instead go through a pupal stage. Photo credit: Gregory Phillips.

Peppermint, Monday May 31.
Peppermint and Corsican mint plant. Peppermint (Mentha x piperita) is a sterile hybrid mint with a high menthol content, often used in tea and confectionery. Peppermint is the oldest and most popular flavour. Photo credit: Michael Thompson

Villain character Villain, Sunday May 30.
Snidely Whiplash, an example of a stereotypical villain. A villain is a bad person, especially in fiction. Villains are the fictional characters, or perhaps fictionalized characters, in drama and melodrama who work to thwart the plans of the hero. There are many villain stereotypes. In the era before sound in motion pictures villains had to appear very "visually" sinister, and thus many villain stereotypes were born. Photo credit: J.J. McCullough

Geyser, Saturday May 29.
Strokkur geyser exploding. A geyser is a special type of hot spring that erupts periodically, ejecting a column of hot water and steam into the air. Strokkur geyser is found in Geysir in the Haukadalur valley, Iceland. Photo credit: Hannah Beker

Sainte Jeanne d'Arc Church, Friday May 28 .
Sainte Jeanne d'Arc Church at night. Sainte Jeanne d'Arc Church is a Catholic church in Nice, France which is noticeable for its original architecture. The church was built between 1926 and 1933 by the architect Jacques Dror in reinforced concrete. The style was influenced by Art nouveau. Photo credit: Ericd

Yann Chairlift Lift Engineering chairlift, Wednesday/Thursday May 26/27.
Towers and chairs on a Yan triple lift. Lift Engineering, was formerly a major ski lift manufacturer. Founder Jan Kunczynski was credited with being the first manufacturer of ski lifts to incorporate aesthetics into the design of his equipment. Photo credit: Vancouverguy

Sand castle, Tuesday May 25.
A sand castle is a type of sand sculpture which resembles a miniature building, often a castle. Sand castles are typically made on beaches with wet fine sand and, optionally, tools such as shovels and buckets and reinforcers such as wood, usually by children, but also by adults who engage in sand sculpture contests, in which the goal is to create large and complex structures which do not appear to be constructed purely from sand. Photo credit: Guy King

Io moon, Monday May 24.
Io moon taken by NASA's Galileo probe. This image shows two volcanic eruptions. The one on the horizon is 140km high, the other is 75km high. Io is the innermost of the four Galilean moons of Jupiter. It is named after Io, one of Zeus's many love interests in Greek mythology. Photo credit: NASA

Black Puma in Belize Black Puma in Belize, Friday May 21.
The puma (Puma concolor, or Felis concolor) is a type of large hunting cat found in North and South America. It is also known by the regional names of cougar, mountain lion, panther, catamount and painted cat. Pumas have the largest distribution range of any New World land animal, spanning 110 degrees of latitude. Photo credit: Belizian

Zabriskie Point, Wednesday May 19.
Zabriskie Point is an area in Death Valley National Park noted for its beautiful erosional landscape. It is called a badlands due to its difficult to traverse topography. Photo credit: Daniel Mayer

Gallium, Tuesday May 18.
Crystals of 99.999% gallium. The chemical element gallium is a rare, soft silvery metallic poor metal. It occurs in trace amounts in bauxite and zinc ores. Gallium is notable for its stunning silvery color and its solid metal fractures conchoidally like glass. Photo credit: Daniel Cilevitz

Sydney Opera House Sydney Opera House, Monday May 17.
The Sydney Opera House in Sydney, New South Wales , Australia. Situated on Bennelong Point at Sydney Harbour, the Sydney Opera House is one of the most distinctive and famous 20th-century buildings, and one of the most famous performing arts venues in the world. Photo credit: Chmouel

Abbey of Senanque, Sunday May 16.
Abbey of Senanque, located in France, Provence, Vaucluse, Gordes village. An abbey is a Christian monastery or convent, under the government of an Abbot or an Abbess, who serve as the spiritual father or mother of the community. Photo credit: Greudin

Cat in Greece, Saturday May 15.
The cat is a small feline carnivorous mammal that has been domesticated for several millennia. A male cat is usually called a tom cat, a female cat is called a queen. A young cat is called a kitten (as are baby rats, rabbits, hedgehogs and squirrels). Photo credit: Chmouel Boudjnah

Virgin River Narrows, Friday May 14.
The Virgin River Narrows in Zion National Park, located near Springdale, Utah, is a 16-mile long slot canyon along the Virgin River. Recently rated as number five out of National Geographic's Top 100 American Adventures, it is one of the most rewarding hikes in the world. Photo credit: Jon Sullivan, pdphoto.org