A Fever of Stingrays

This stunning image was taken off the coast of Mexico, and is of a fever of migrating golden cow-nosed stingrays. See more here.

Snails on my bike ride

We had some rain today, and after getting home from St. Jacobs, I went on a bike ride. It was amazing. The area I usually ride through is parkland that is slowly being reclaimed by the wild. The smell was amazing. The air was sweet with the smell of flowers. There were birds everywhere singing. And snails were everywhere, clinging on plants to get away from the wet in the undergrowth. Check out more photos of snails on Webshots.

St. Jacobs

This morning we drove to St. Jacobs, a little tourist town, not far from Guelph and Waterloo. It's a great place to spend a day, do some shopping ... and the best, have lunch.


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Strawberry Picking

Yesterday, we went strawberry picking up on Woodbine & 19th Ave. It was my first time. It was also the first weekend for strawberry picking at the farm. We loaded up three buckets in no time. Now we're stuffing ourselves with strawberries. See the other photos on Webshots.

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Mars is alive!

A well-defined dust devil crosses in front of the camera in this animation of a series of images acquired by NASA's Mars Rover Spirit in May, 2005. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/USGS)


Several dust devils cross a plain in this animation of a series of images acquired by NASA's Mars Rover Spirit in May, 2005. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/USGS)

Source: The Boston Globe

Can you imagine what it must have been like to be them?

A 1956 photograph by Joe Scherschel, taken in Texarkana, Tex., shows an almost Norman Rockwell-esque young black couple, leaning on a car hood with their schoolbooks. The horizon is a line of menacing white protesters.

Photo: Joe Scherschel, via High Museum of Art.

Father's Day at the Leslie Spit

I got taken out on Father's Day to the Leslie Spit. If you were in Toronto over the weekend, you must know of the weather we've been having. It started out beautiful, then the sky darkened as clouds rolled across the lake and erupted over the city. It was quite a show. Torrential downpours. Loud thunderclaps. And a wicked light show. The rain soaked us too, but my daughters and I braved the storm as we walked back to the car. We were out walking for about three hours, stopping to take pictures along the way. It was amazing! Check out the rest of the photos uploaded on one of my nature galleries on Webshots. And thank you ladies, for a wonderful day!

Earth from Mars

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera would make a great backyard telescope for viewing Mars, and we can also use it at Mars to view other planets. This is an image of Earth and the moon, acquired on October 3, 2007, by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

At the time the image was taken, Earth was 142 million kilometers (88 million miles) from Mars, giving the HiRISE image a scale of 142 kilometers (88 miles) per pixel, an Earth diameter of about 90 pixels and a moon diameter of 24 pixels. The phase angle is 98 degrees, which means that less than half of the disk of the Earth and the disk of the moon have direct illumination. We could image Earth and moon at full disk illumination only when they are on the opposite side of the sun from Mars, but then the range would be much greater and the image would show less detail.

May-June China Trip

May 2008, China Trip

Here are some pics I took from my last trip to China. Most of the shots come from Hangzhou, where I stayed at the Hangzhou Xihu State Guesthouse -- and visited the Xixi Wetland National Park and Lingyin Temple. The slideshow above doesn't show all the photos. You'll have to follow the link to Webshots to see the rest of them.

The Milky Way ... cool!