(no subject)

Question for the group:

I will be taking a trip to Arizona soon, and one option for "thing to do" is a hot air balloon ride.
Now, I think that it would be really neat to see the landscape from the sky, to try to get photos, etc.
However, it costs $135 and will kill half of a day.

Right now I'm leaning towards trying to find a hike where I climb a (small) mountain, so I can see
a similar vista, and feel more like *I'm* the one doing it. Is there any special reason that I should
reconsider the balloon ride?

(no subject)

The Zoological Society of London just announced a new project to protect and raise awareness for endangered "Edge" animals. These are animals that are so genetically distinct that extinction would cause a significant loss of genetic diversity. In honor of this, I am posting the top 10 animals selected by the ZSL for this honor, along with interesting notes about them.

( And here they are )

(no subject)

This is really cool news, in an abstract and intellectually obscure way.

New type of life found

"In fact, the divergence of this group from known organisms is as great as the difference between land plants and animals,"

Something new every day.

I know I've been posting a lot, sorry, finally getting caught up. In the process, I ran across this.

Did you guys know that there is a town in New Mexico that is humming for no apparent reason? The world is a very interesting place.

Info, More info, Yet more info, Yet still more info

(no subject)

In a recent comment, grrscary said "Shipping is less complicated then you might think...then again, I'm biased, given that I do it all day long. The trick is to get the tiger into the box to begin with...after that you're all set. If you survive."

Now, my own current problems with UPS aside, I didn't think that it would be all that tricky. After a brief experiment, it appears as though I was right.

(Smaller flickr-based stream here
( See? (a bit long and image-heavy) )