Reindeer can see UV light:

"...there are some very important things that absorb UV light and therefore appear black, contrasting strongly with the snow. This includes urine - a sign of predators or competitors; lichens - a major food source in winter; and fur, making predators such as wolves very easy to see despite being camouflaged to other animals that can't see UV."

I might as well jump on this week's bandwagon of Bob Dylan tributes. Here: The Times They Are A-Changin' in Dutch. Listening to other Germanic languages is always so amusing! I recommend ignoring the images.

What I'd really like to post in Dylan's honor would be Tom Russell, Eliza Gilkyson and Joe Ely singing Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts, but I can't find a linkable version. So just buy the recording.

And speaking of Dylan and Russell, Steve (lucky bastard) has a sneak preview of Russell's upcoming album Mesabi. I'll look forward to much on it, including A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall with Lucinda Williams. More glimpses into his recent songwriting are at Tom Russell's own blog.

Music of the exploding spheres

Explanation here.

Time-lapse of a slow-moving landslide in Wyoming

Mahmoud Ahmedinejad accuses Europe of stealing Iran's rain.

Funny, people of a certain mindset have long held similar suspicions about Mormon cloud-seeding in the Wasatch depriving innocent ski areas further east. Such a notion could certainly explain this year's peculiar snowpack. Come on, LDS! Some of that snow is rightfully ours! I expect aircraft loads of it to start shipping to the Gila postehaste!

Answers to all your questions about the titanic storm currently raging on Saturn

The Cthulhu Crochet blog

What more is there to say?

What a strange year it is for western snowpack!

Click to enlarge. La Nina is clearly visible here: anything south of about Tierra Amarilla, NM has really missed out (though it looks like the Whites in Arizona got a little love yesterday). The snowpack in the Great Basin and Utah is seriously insane, 300% of normal in a lot of areas, and normal is already a lot of snow in the Wasatch. It's going to be quite a year on the Idaho rivers, and a crazy awesome year on the Yampa.

Three new frog species!

An unnerving incident in which the very popular law blogger Ann Althouse has had her blog suspended as spam, apparently on a whim of Blogger/Google. I hope Ann gets a good resolution, but this would be a good time for anyone hosted on Blogger to export their blog. It's easy, you should do it anyway from time to time, and you'll find it under Settings>Basic. This would enable you to move your blog to Wordpress or another platform if necessary.

"Lathspell I name you, Ill-news; and ill news is an ill guest they say."

Bow to the Tolkien fans, NYT!

The folks talking about using hideous architecture to communicate the dangers of nuclear waste into the future could take a little inspiration from this gallery of abandoned Yugoslav war monuments.

Thanks to Odious for the tip.

The wind hissed as if welcoming us
The pine swayed creating a lot of fuss

Worst poem ever? Not by a long shot; it's a crowded and competitive field. But Major James Abbot's eulogy to his eponymous town does approach McGonagall territory.

Useful reference: Off-color Turkish slang. Apparently the company Amway didn't do so well in Turkey (exercise left to the reader). And apparently mention of the number 31 (otuz bir) is something foreigners may want to avoid. It's better to know these things than not.

Initially inspired by Claire Berlinski, in the less prurient context of impending Turkish Internet censorship, I hasten to add.

How hummingbird tongues work

I didn't even know they were forked.