DeepBlueFunk

I’m not a winter person, but there’s something almost magical about the way water freezes. From instant snow to snow rollers and weird ice formations to slushy waves, winter brings all kinds of bizarre and unexpected sights. The video above is an artistic look at one of my favorites – freezing soap bubbles. Normally, the thin film of a soap bubble is in wild motion, convecting due to gravity, surface tension differences, and the surrounding air. Such a thin layer of liquid loses its heat quickly, though, and, as ice crystals form, the bubble’s convection and rotation slow dramatically, often breaking the thin membrane. Happily photographer Pablo Zaluska had the patience to capture the beautiful ones that didn’t break!  (Video credit: P. Zaluska; via Gizmodo)

Photo of the Day: Colors of Cambodia

BURMESE PYTHON EATS RAT BURMESE PYTHON DIGESTS RAT Noninvasive Imaging Technology Shows Animal Guts

Science is inherently cool, but gross science is even better.

Using a combination of computer tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), scientists Kasper Hansen and Henrik Lauridsen of Aarhus University in Denmark were able to visualize the entire internal organ structures and vascular systems (aka “guts”) of a Burmese Python digesting a rat.

A Burmese Python was scanned before ingesting a rat

and then at 2, 16, 24, 32, 48, 72 and 132 hours afterwards.

The succession of images reveals a gradual disappearance of the rat’s body,

with an overall expansion of the snake’s intestine,

shrinking of the gallbladder

and a 25 percent increase in heart volume.

(via Asylum.com)