Deer Rumen: Opening up a deer's rumen.
Courtesy Kirk MonaEver wondered what's inside the stomach of a deer? For those not afraid of some graphic photos, the Twin Cities Naturalist Blog. has posted photos and descriptions of the four parts of a deer's stomach. Here's a quick overview.
- The Rumen is a fermentation and storage vat. Micro-organisms break down a lot of food in the Rumen so it can be absorbed by the deer but it does not physically break down the food with acid like a human stomach.
- The Reticulum is basically a filter that allows small particles to pass to the Omasum.
- The Omasum acts like a sponge that draws off excess water before food is passed to the next step.
- The Abomasum works like your stomach to break down food with acid so nutrients can be absorbed.
You can see all the photos and read more at Twin Cities Naturalist.
Tags : CNN posted a cool series of photographs of folks working to hold back the Red River. View the slideshow.
Here's a great gallery of award-winning photos from around the world showing images of life below the water's surface. The captions are sketchy but the pictures are cool.
Hurricane Ike: Taken from International Space Station
Courtesy NASA
Natural disaster photos from 2008
Our Buzz blog here at the Science Museum of Minnesota has a category for "natural disasters". The links below are to photos I selected from a Telegraph News article titled "Pictures of the year: natural disasters".
My favorite 8 natural disasters photos from 2008
Chaiten volcano in Chile, on May 31
Sichuan Province, China earthquake, May 17
Flood breaks a dam in Nepal, September 7
Flood waters in east Nepal, on August 24
Huge tornado funnel cloud in Orchard, Iowa, on June 10
Tornado debris in Prattville, Alabama on February 17
Brush fire in Los Angeles, October 13
Flood drowned horses in Mexico City on August 26
Moon and planets #1
Courtesy Mark RyanWhen I was a kid I remember my dad would like to point out that the word "syzygy" was one of very few multi-syllabic words that didn't contain any of the "normal" vowels. 
Moon and planets #2
Courtesy Mark RyanThe definition in an astronomical sense is when three or more celestial bodies in the same gravitational system line up in essentially a straight line. One example would be the Sun, Moon, and Earth during an eclipse. Another may be the phenomenon that was visible in the western sky just after dusk today. 
Moon and planets #3
Courtesy Makr RyanHere are four photographs I shot of the alignment of the Moon with the planets Jupiter and Venus. I don't know if the celestial alignment is technically a syzgy but the word has stuck with me and I'm still waiting to use it in a game of Scrabble.
Moon and planets #4
Courtesy Mark RyanPLEASE NOTE: From my vantage point the event was happening right in a flight path for the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport so aircraft kept flying through the frame. That's what all the streaks and extra lights in the photos are. The exposures were long, ranging between 6 and 15 seconds, and I used a timer so as not to shake the camera during each exposure. Timing the shutter with the aircraft was tricky but I got a few good ones.
Calling all Science Museum of Minnesota staff and volunteers: do you have a photo of the museum you really love? In honor of the Museum’s 100th anniversary, Science Buzz is holding a behind-the-scenes photo contest. We’re looking for all the really juicy stuff that our visitors don’t get a chance to see, like the towboat being hoisted into place, or fossil crocodiles under plastic before being put on exhibit, or the light filtering into the atrium just so…you get the idea.
Submit your photo before January 1, 2008. All images will appear here, under this post, where people all over the world will be able to see them. Buzz staffers (and maybe Ethan Lebovics, who had the idea for this contest—are you reading, Ethan?) will pick the winning photo on the basis of relevance, artistry, and all-around coolness, and the winning photographer will win an as-yet-undetermined prize. And bragging rights.
Here’s how to enter (it’s probably good to open another window, and follow the steps there so you can still read the instructions without flipping back and forth):
- First of all, if you don’t have a Buzz account, you’ll need to register.
- Once you’re logged in, come back to this post. Scroll down to the bottom, or click on "add a new comment." See that little icon at the bottom that looks like a Polaroid photo with a green plus sign on top? Click on that.
- A new window opens on your screen. At the very top, you'll see a purple link that says "upload." Click that. Now give your image a title, hit “browse” to locate the image on your computer, and give yourself credit for the photo. (Ignore the pull-down menu that says "Buzz Blog Images.") In the field labeled “Body,” give your photo a caption. Then hit “submit.”
- Cool. Now you’ve uploaded your image.
You're done! Good luck to everyone that enters. Can't wait to see the photos.
Atlas moth: photo by Gregory Phillips Want to see some cool moth photos?
"Here are some of the strangest and most beautiful moths of the world" Neatorama
The New York Times has a nice feature on Felice Frankel and how she is pioneering in the use of imagery to convey scientific research. She brings an aesthetic eye to scientific imagery and isn't shy about using photoshop to ethically enhance our view into the microscopic world.
You can interactively zoom into and pan around these high-resolution images from the Spitzer Space Telescope. JavaScript and a current installation of Flash are required.
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