The horrors of marine mucilage:

As sea temperatures have risen in recent decades, enormous sheets of a mucus-like material have begun forming more often, oozing into new regions, and lasting longer, a new Mediterranean Sea study says (sea “mucus” blob pictures).

And the blobs may be more than just unpleasant.

Up to 124 miles (200 kilometers) long, the mucilages appear naturally, usually near Mediterranean coasts in summer. The season’s warm weather makes seawater more stable, which facilitates the bonding of the organic matter that makes up the blobs (Mediterranean map).

It gets worse:

But the new study found that Mediterranean mucilages harbor bacteria and viruses, including potentially deadly E. coli, Danovaro said. Those pathogens threaten human swimmers as well as fish and other sea creatures, according to the report, published September 16 in the journal PloS One.

 
Read more over at National Geographic: Giant Mucus-Like Sea Blobs on the Rise, Pose Danger

A zoo in Gaza has found a novel way to get around Israeli restrictions on the importation of animals by partly dyeing two donkeys so they resemble zebras.

The owner of the Marah Land zoo in Gaza City said he had used masking tape and black hair dye, applied with a paint-brush, to disguise the white females.

Dye-job donkeys wow Gaza children

 
Frank Herbert fans rejoice—with stillsuit-filtered water, of course!  In case the total desertification of our planet comes about sooner than later, maybe we can all just downshift into Dune-mode?

Dune has been called the ?

 
From Times Online:
 

A baby woolly mammoth that died after being sucked into a muddy river bed 40,000 years ago has revealed more prehistoric secrets of how the species survived in its icy habitat.

The mammoth, known as Lyuba, was about a month old when she died in the Siberian tundra, where she remained until she was discovered by reindeer herders three years ago. Her body was so well preserved in the permafrost that her stomach retained traces of her mother?

The “Gr?ɬ

Apparently these patterns are inscribed onto the fishes?

Handimal artist Guido Daniele:

Since 1986 Guido Daniele has been working and improving his personal usage of airbrush: he paints back-stages in different sizes (the biggest ones can be 400 square metres) for artistic and advertising pictures, tv commercials and tv programmes. He also creates trompe l’oeil, both in private houses and public buildings.

In 1990 he added a new artistic experience to his previous ones: using the body painting technique he creates and paints models bodies for different situations such as advertising pictures and commercials, fashion events and exhibitions.

(via C33)

Wonderfully droll animated version of eco-philosopher Derrick Jensen’s retelling of the Star Wars saga from the perspective of the environmentalist movement. Great message, a must see!

Here’s Derrick on Dangerous Minds:

.

Part 2

End:Civ Resist or Die

Stunning monotone photographs of wildlife in Africa by photographer Nick Brandt.