Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog » photos

Amazing New Light Field Camera: Adjust Focus After You Take the Picture

curiouscat — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 05:44:17 +0000

The cool Lytro light field camera lets you adjust the focus after the picture is taken. Wow what a surprise the company is located in Mountain View, California. Oh wait, no that isn’t a surprise. Those of us in the USA should thank our lucky stars for having Silicon Valley in our country.

The Lytro will be available in early 2012 starting at $399 (a 8 GB model able to hold up to 350 images) and $499 for a $499 16 GB model able to hold 750 images.

The camera does take 3d images. That feature will be enabled via a software update after the initial release.

Image of Map Showing Concentration of Life in Oceans

curiouscat — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:09:22 +0000

This image shows the abundance of life in the sea, measured by the SeaWiFS instrument aboard the Seastar satellite. Dark blue represents warmer areas where there is little life due to lack of nutrients, and greens and reds represent cooler nutrient-rich areas.

The nutrient-rich areas include coastal regions where cold water rises from the sea floor bringing nutrients along and areas at the mouths of rivers where the rivers have brought nutrients into the ocean from the land. NASA has posted a large gallery of great images for Earth Day.

Backyard Wildlife – Chimpmunk

curiouscat — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:45:03 +0000

I have enjoyed seeing chipmunks run around my yard for several years, but getting a photo of them is not easy. They are quite fast and don’t sit around for long. Occasionally they will seem to bask in the sun while they are eating a seed but then they are always quite far away. This is the best image I have been able to get.

By the way, the house with all this wonderful backyard wildlife in Arlington, Virginia is available for rent, starting June 1st.

Chipmunks have an omnivorous diet consisting of grain, nuts, fruit, berries, birds’ eggs, small frogs, fungi, worms, insects and on occasions small mammals like young mice. At the beginning of autumn, many species of chipmunk begin to stockpile these goods in their burrows, for winter. Other species make multiple small caches of food. These two kinds of behavior are called larder hoarding and scatter hoarding. Larder hoarders usually live in their nests until spring. Cheek pouches allow chipmunks to carry multiple food items to their burrows for either storage or consumption.

Related: Spring Tulips – Backyard Wildlife: Great Spreadwing Damselfly – Backyard Wildlife: Hawk – Backyard Wildlife: Fox

Eastern chipmunks defend their burrows and live solitary lives, except during mating. Females produce 1 or 2 litters of 4 to 5 young. They have two breeding seasons. One goes from February to April, the other June to August. The expected lifespan of Tamias striatus in the wild is perhaps a year; in captivity it may live eight years. On average they live 2–3 years.

To hide their burrow, eastern chipmunks will carry the dirt they excavate to a different location in their cheek pouches. Since they are an easy prey species, they have to hide their burrows. They also line their burrows with leaves, rocks, sticks, and other material, making them even harder to see.

Google Art Project – View Art from the Hermitage, the Met…

curiouscat — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 13:22:05 +0000

Google Art Project lets you view art from the Hermitage, Van Gogh Museum, the Met, Tate Britain, National Gallery and more museums around the world. The site lets you navigate the museum (similar to Google street view) and zoom in for very close looks at the the works of art.

The image above is a close up view of the Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli. In the lower right of the image you can see the portion of the painting that this view is zoomed into.

You can create your own artwork collects, which is a cute feature. Unfortunately it is tied to the still incredibly broken Google ideas on social Internet applications. I find it amazing that a company that does so many things so well, can have such continuously bad ideas about social applications.

Bleeding Heart Flowers

curiouscat — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 22:14:12 +0000

One the first flowers to bloom in my yard this year are some bleeding heart flowers (shown the photo). If I remember right, I planted them last year. I love perennials: I just plant them once and then get to keep enjoying them. I also find that some plants that are supposedly annuals seem to keep coming back (I think the plant must just manage to hang on, even if they often don’t, and so are called annuals). I enjoy gardening a bit, but don’t really spend enough time to know much about it. I just do as much as I feel like – and often am so busy that amounts to not much.

Also known as Lamprocapnos spectabilis they are a rhizomatous perennial plant native to eastern Asia from Siberia south to Japan.

More Photos of Rare Saharan Cheetah and Other Wildlife

curiouscat — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 13:02:06 +0000

Photo of a sand cat by Thomas Rabeil of the Sahara Conservation Fund

In March of 2009 we posted about photos of the rare Saharan cheetahs caught on wildlife cameras. Recently more photos have been released by the Sahara Conservation Fund showing a ghostly cheetah and other wild cats and other wildlife, including this wonderful photo of a sand cat.

Elusive Saharan Cheetah Captured in Photos

The animal is so rare and elusive scientists aren’t sure how many even exist, though they estimate from the few observations they’ve made of the animal and tracks that fewer than 10 individuals call the vast desert of Termit and Tin Toumma in Niger home. Fewer than 200 cheetahs probably exist in the entire Sahara.
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Their home can reach sizzling temperatures up to 113 degrees Fahrenheit (45 degrees Celsius), and is so parched no standing water exists. “They probably satisfy their water requirements through the moisture in their prey, and on having extremely effective physiological and behavioral adaptations,”
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The Saharan cheetah is listed as critically endangered on the 2009 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

The elusive Saharan cheetah in Niger, Africa. Sahara Conservation Fund

The photos are part of the Sahara Carnivores Project

The Saharan race of cheetah (Acynonix jubatus hecki) is very rare, and one of the most specialized and threatened in Africa. As part of a major strategy to conserve Sahelo-Saharan wildlife, in collaboration with the Sahara Conservation Fund we are establishing a project to study and protect Saharan carnivores in the Termit/Tin Toumma region of north Niger. We aim to improve our understanding of sympatric Saharan carnivores, and evaluate the impact of human activities on carnivore populations, and that of carnivore predation on livestock. One of the projects aims is to produce an action plan prepared jointly with local land-users to minimize human-carnivore conflict in the Termit/Tin Toumma.

More ghostly cheetah photos: blurry and walking away

‘Ghostly’ Saharan cheetah filmed in Niger, Africa

it not yet known if Saharan cheetahs are more closely related to other cheetahs in Africa, or those living in Iran, which make up the last remaining wild population of Asiatic cheetahs.
Saharan cheetahs appear to have different colour and spot patterns compared to common cheetahs that roam elsewhere in Africa.
However, “very little is known about the behavioural differences between the two cheetahs, as they have never been studied in the wild,” says Dr Rabeil.
“From observations of tracks and anecdotal reports they seem to be highly adaptable and able to eke out an existence in the Termit and Tin Toumma desert.”

Other posts of animals filmed with remote wildlife monitoring cameras: Sumatran Tiger and Cubs – Jaguars Back in the Southwest USA – Scottish Highland Wildcats – Rare Chinese Mountain Cat

Photos by John Hunter of cheetahs and other animals in Kenya.

Home Engineering: Bird Feeder That Automatically Takes Photos When Birds Feed

curiouscat — Fri, 28 May 2010 21:42:43 +0000

During a trip to the Smithsonian last week I found this great home engineering project. Kayty Himelstein and Amy Darr were frustrated: birds came to their bird feeder while they were away at school, so the girls never got to see them. They decided to build a bird feeder that automatically takes pictures of all the birds that came to the feeder. I believe, they used Lego Mindstorms as part of building it.

Scottish Highland Wildcats

curiouscat — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:01:52 +0000

Once again remote camera monitors have captured wild cats. What fun Cameras capture secret life of the ‘Highland tiger’

A new research project in the Highlands has provided a rare insight into the secret world of one of Britain’s most endangered and elusive species.
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Motion detectors and infra-red technology allow the devices to capture images of passing animals over a period of days, weeks or even months. The project is still in its early stages but the cameras have already provided images of Scottish wildcat – popularly known as the Highland tiger – and other animals, including golden eagles.

“Wildcats are very shy, secretive animals. They are active mainly at night and it’s really difficult for people to get close enough to watch them properly. These camera traps are an excellent way of us getting a much better insight into where wildcats live, when they’re active, and what habitat they’re using.”
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Experts believe the Scottish wildcat population has fallen to about 400, and work is under way to prevent the species becoming extinct.
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“The major threat to wildcats these days is hybridisation, or inter-breeding, with domestic cats. “Although they are quite different and have a completely different temperament, they are actually quite closely related genetically to domestic cats so they can produce fertile hybrids.

Spring Tulips

curiouscat — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 12:11:46 +0000

photo of red and yellow tulips by John Hunter

Photo of red and yellow tulips in my yard. This is by far the most tulips that have flowered. The last several years I think there were 3-5 flowers. This year there are 20 in the front yard.