Crinoid, New Caledonia
This Month in Photo of the Day: The Stories Behind Your Shots
My home is Tahiti and I am a dive guide working on board private megayachts, joining my clients anywhere in the world for unique dive experiences. I was cruising New Caledonia with one of my clients, around the small Loyalty island of Ouvea. While we were diving over a beautiful untouched reef, I noticed this crinoid in the distance because of its unusual colors. When I got closer, I realized the high photo potential of this beautiful creature. Sea feathers are quite common around New Caledonia, but it was the only time I had come across this amazing, colorful specimen. —Rodolphe Holler
This photo was submitted to Your Shot. Check out the new and improved website, where you can share and connect with fellow photographers from around the globe.
Get tips on macro photography »
See pictures of sea creatures »
via National Geographic Photo of the Day http://feeds.nationalgeographic.com/~r/ng/photography/photo-of-the-day/~3/hSLEy2Zju-Q/
Novel Material May Extract Uranium From Seawater
From Evernote: |
Novel Material May Extract Uranium From SeawaterClipped from: http://mashable.com/2013/05/17/novel-material-may-extract-uranium-from-seawater/ |
Mike Orcutt for MIT Technology Review 10 hours ago
A new material could potentially be used to extract uranium from seawater more efficiently, new research suggests.
The world’s oceans contain nearly a thousand times as much uranium as conventional reserves, and researchers have spent decades trying to develop an efficient way to extract it. Experts say it is important to develop such technology because it could serve as insurance in case supplies of uranium for nuclear reactors ever become scarce.
The most advanced system today employs plastic fibers with uranium-binding chemical groups grafted onto their surface. Now, researchers led by Wenbin Lin , a professor of chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, have designed a metal-organic framework (MOF) to collect common uranium-containing ions dissolved in seawater. In lab tests, the material was at least four times better than the conventional plastic adsorbent at drawing the potential nuclear fuel from artificial seawater.
Metal-organic frameworks are considered very promising for certain technological applications, including gas storage and chemical separation. Their structure can be tuned for different purposes. This allows them to be made extremely porous, resulting in very high surface areas—an order of magnitude larger than that of zeolites, a porous material already used in many commercial adsorbents. And like organic polymers, metal-organic frameworks have surfaces that can be modified so as to bind to specific molecules.
One reason it’s challenging to draw uranium-containing ions from seawater efficiently is that they occur at an extremely low concentration of three parts per billion. The established method, which has been demonstrated at a fairly large scale, entails dropping large amounts of plastic absorbent into the ocean and leaving it for several weeks before retrieving it and removing the uranium haul. But the ocean contains many other ions that can bind to the adsorbent and block uranium from attaching.
The most advanced materials, which can be reused several times, can draw between three and four milligrams of uranium per gram of plastic each time they’re used, says Costas Tsouris , a researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory who is working on that system.
In the lab, with no competition from other ions, Lin’s material collected more than 200 milligrams of uranium per gram of adsorbent. This affinity for uranium, says Lin, is due to the precise design of the material’s three-dimensional structure. Organic chemical groups that grab onto uranium are arranged within the pores of the metal-organic framework to form “binding pockets,” he says. The research was published last month in the Royal Chemical Society’s journal Chemical Science .
Tsouris calls the results “very encouraging” but cautions that it remains to be seen how the material will perform in more realistic conditions. In real seawater, where other ions would be competing to attach, the material would probably not perform as well as in the lab demonstration, says Erich Schneider , a professor of nuclear and radiation engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, who was also not involved in the new research.
Nonetheless, the new material is “very promising,” says Schneider, simply because it performed better than the best available materials have done under similar conditions.
Uranium obtained using the traditional process today would cost between $1,000 and $2,000 per kilogram—about 10 to 20 times the current market price, says Schneider. (The price of uranium did rise to around $300 per kilogram as recently as 2007, however.) The new process could cut that cost significantly.
Lin thinks it may eventually be possible to develop a metal-organic framework that is at least several times better than today’s system. He is confident that his lab can exploit the “tunability” of these hybrid materials to improve their affinity for uranium-containing ions and to address weaknesses that further testing may expose.
Image via iStockphoto , rustycloud
This article originally published at MIT Technology Review here
Topics: Nuclear , nuclear power , nuclear reactor , Science , Tech , U.S. , World
MIT Technology Review
MIT Technology Review is a Mashable publishing partner that identifies emerging technologies and analyzes their impact for technology and business leaders. This article is reprinted with the publisher’s permission.
Earth’s Oldest Flowing Water Found at the Bottom of a Canadian Mine
From Evernote: |
Earth’s Oldest Flowing Water Found at the Bottom of a Canadian MineClipped from: http://io9.com/earth-s-oldest-flowing-water-found-at-the-bottom-of-a-c-507487445 |
Working at a depth of 1.5 miles, geoscientists have discovered an ancient and isolated reservoir that contains water estimated to be anywhere from 1.5 to 2.7 billion years old. It’s the oldest free-flowing sample of water ever discovered — and now the researchers want to know what’s in it.
The geoscientists are calling the discovery a game changer, and for good reason. Antarctica’s Lake Vostok, a massive body of water located about 2 miles below the surface , contains isolated water that’s millions of years old. And two years ago, water dated at tens of millions of years was found in a South African gold mine.
Related
But this sample of free-flowing water could be billions of years old — anywhere from 1.5 to 2.64 billion years to be more precise. The Earth itself is about 4.5 billion years old.
The discovery was made by researchers working at the bottom of a mine shaft located in Timmins, Ontario. It’s a part of Canada’s Precambrian Shield — the oldest part of North America’s crust. They found the water pouring out of boreholes at the bottom of the copper and zinc mine. The researchers say that no source of free-flowing water could have passed through the cracks or pores to contaminate it.
SExpand
It’s a pure sample — and its chemical composition is giving the researchers a glimpse into what Earth’s atmosphere was like during our planet’s primordial era. But not only that, it could offer some clues about the Earth’s early potential for habitability.
According to the geoscientists, a team that included the University of Toronto’s Barbara Sherwood Lollar, the water contains enough energy to support life (including high levels of methane and hydrogen). They don’t know if there’s actual life in it — but the researchers say the water holds the potential.
The geoscientists will continue to study the sample to get a better fix on its composition and to determine whether or not it contains microbial life.
But it seems that the deep Earth isn’t as sterile a place as it’s made out to be. This research has implications to our understanding of not just life on Earth, but other planets as well. Interestingly, the Martian crust is similar to the Canadian Shield, which also contains crystalline rock that’s billions of years old — and possibly water.
Read the entire study at Nature: "Deep fracture fluids isolated in the crust since the Precambrian era ."
Images: Barbara Sherwood Loller, J. Moran.
Fossils reveal the evolutionary split between monkeys and apes
From Evernote: |
Fossils reveal the evolutionary split between monkeys and apesClipped from: http://io9.com/fossils-reveal-the-evolutionary-split-between-monkeys-a-507559881 |
SExpand
Scientists have discovered fossils of two newfound primate species, dating back to 25 million years ago. One fossil belongs to the group that contains great apes (hominids), while the other is from the group that includes Old World monkeys. The discovery may mark the moment when our primate ancestors first diverged into the two lineages we have today.
As humans, we are naturally curious about our own evolutionary history. So researchers have long sought to pinpoint the exact moment when primates split into the two distinct groups, monkeys and apes. Evidence from DNA studies suggests that the divergence from a common ancestor happened between 25 and 30 million years ago. But the oldest known fossils of both groups has only been dated as far back as 20 million years ago.
For the past 10 years, researchers from the U.S. and Tanzania have been digging for fossils in Tanzania’s Rukwa Rift Basin. In the 2011-2012 season, a team lead by Ohio University vertebrate paleontologist Nancy Stevens found two new primate species: ape ancestor Rukwapithecus fleaglei and the Old World monkey Nsungwepithecus gunnelli. ScienceNOW explains:
Both specimens, consisting of teeth and partial jaws, were found in Rukwa Rift sediments dated by several techniques, including the often used argon-argon method, to 25.2 million years ago. The team identified them as ape and Old World monkey ancestors from the features of their molars, which paleontologists routinely use to tell primates apart. For example, Stevens says, Nsungwepithecus "has a much more triangular outline" of its last lower molar than Rukwapithecus, and there are "a number of other major differences in the shape and position of the cusps and crests that run along the chewing surface of the teeth." The two species also show other dental features that group them with later Old World monkeys and apes, but are still different enough to be classified as separate—and more ancient—species.
The Rukwa Rift in Tanzania is part of a tectonic-plate boundary called the East African Rift. Here the Earth’s crust is being pulled apart, causing changes to the landscape. These tectonic changes, along with environmental and climatic changes, probably helped facilitate the evolutionary split, though the "how" of it all is still a bit of a mystery, researchers say.
More work is needed to figure out why the groups diverged. And further research is also apparently needed to even prove the two new species are what they seem to be. At least one scientist, anthropologist Terry Harrison, is unconvinced that Nsungwepithecus is a primate and thinks that Rukwapithecus could actually be a species that predates the ape-monkey split.
Read more about the new discovery at ScienceNOW and LiveScience. You can check out the accompanying study in Nature.
Top image: Artist’s concept of Rukwapithecus fleaglei (front) and Nsungwepithecus gunnelli (back), via Mauricio Anton.
Introducing the world’s first braille smartphone | TG Daily
From Evernote: |
Introducing the world’s first braille smartphone | TG DailyClipped from: http://www.tgdaily.com/mobility-features/71671-introducing-the-world-s-first-braille-smartphone |
Posted May 16, 2013 – 12:15 by Beth Buczynski, EarthTechling
How many times a day do you look at your phone? Dozens? Hundreds? We can’t help ourselves. With smartphones pinging and vibrating for every text and email, it’s hard not to look. But what if you couldn’t?
For the visually-impaired, using the phone has always been a challenge. With analog phones and even early smartphones, there was a familiar layout of buttons that could be memorized and dialed sans sight. But smartphones don’t have buttons anymore, just a big screen that changes functionality at the slightest touch. Now, researchers in India have completed a prototype of what could become the world’s first braille smartphone, able to turn digital apps and text into braille.
Image via Sumit Dagar
The phone was designed by Sumit Dagar, whose start-up is being incubated at the Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship in Ahmedabad. According tothe Times of India, Dagar is “a post-graduate from the National Institute of Design (NID), says he was motivated to develop the device when he realised that so far, technology was only serving the mainstream and ignoring the marginalised.”
So how can a smartphone possibly relay ever-changing messages in a format that is touched rather than seen? According to Dagar, it all starts with Shape Memory Alloy technology, which is based on the concept that metals remember their original shapes, i.e. expand and contract to its original shape after use.
The phone’s ‘screen’ has a grid of pins, which move up and down depending on the message or app. The grid has a Braille display, where pins elevate or descend to represent a character or letter. After the text or email or webpage loads on the screen, the pins form a braille version that the user can touch to read.
“”The response during the test has been immense. It comes out as a companion more than a phone to the user. We plan to do more advanced versions of the phone in the future,” Dagar adds.”
Dagar and his team are shooting for a release by the end of 2013. According toPopSci, the starting price will be 10,000 rupees, or about $185.
Four genes identified that influence levels of ‘bad’ cholesterol
From Evernote: |
Four genes identified that influence levels of ‘bad’ cholesterolClipped from: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130515131444.htm |
May 15, 2013 — Scientists at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute have identified four genes in baboons that influence levels of "bad" cholesterol. This discovery could lead to the development of new drugs to reduce the risk of heart disease.
"Our findings are important because they provide new targets for the development of novel drugs to reduce heart disease risk in humans," said Laura Cox, Ph.D., a Texas Biomed geneticist. "Since these genes have previously been associated with cancer, our findings suggest that genetic causes of heart disease may overlap with causes of some types of cancer."
The new study, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is published online and will appear in the July print issue of the Journal of Lipid Research.
Texas Biomed scientists screened their baboon colony of 1,500 animals to find three half-siblings with low levels of low density lipoprotein (LDL), or "bad,"’ cholesterol, and three half-siblings with high levels of LDL. In the study, these animals were fed a high-cholesterol, high-fat diet for seven weeks. Scientists then used gene array technology and high throughput sequencers to home in on the genes expressed in the two groups and differentiate those in the low LDL groups from those in the high LDL group. They discovered that four genes (named TENC1, ERBB3, ACVR1B, and DGKA) influence LDL levels.
Interestingly, these four genes are part of a signaling pathway important for cell survival and disruption of this pathway promotes some types of cancer.
It is well-known that a high level of LDL is a major risk factor for heart disease. Despite concerted efforts for the past 25 years to manage cholesterol levels through changes in lifestyle and treatment with medications, heart disease remains the leading cause of death and mortality in the United States and around the world. It will account for one out of four U.S. deaths in 2013, according to the American Heart Association.
Heart disease is a complex disorder thought to be a result of interactions between genetic and environmental factors, which occur primarily through diet. To understand why humans have different levels of LDL and thus variation in risk for heart disease, the genetic factors causing these differences need to be understood.
However, these studies are difficult to do in humans because it’s practically impossible to control what people eat. Instead, Texas Biomed scientists are using baboons, which are similar to humans in their physiology and genetics, to identify genes that influence heart disease risk.
The new research also suggests that knowing many of the genes responsible for heart disease may be necessary to devise effective treatments. For example, several genes may need to be targeted at once to control risk.
The next step in this research is to find the mechanism by which these genes influence LDL cholesterol. "That starts to give us the specific targets for new therapies." Cox said. If all goes well, this information may be available within two years.
Other Texas Biomed scientists on the study included Genesio Karere, Ph.D.; Jeremy Glenn, B.S.; Shifra Birnbaum, B.S.; David Rainwater, Ph.D.; Michael Mahaney, Ph.D.; and John L. VandeBerg, Ph.D.
This research was supported by NIH grants P01 HL028972-27, P01 HL028972 Supplement, and P51 OD011133. It was conducted in part in facilities constructed with support grants C06 RR013556 and C06 RR015456.
First direct proof of Hofstadter butterfly fractal observed in moiré superlattices
From Evernote: |
First direct proof of Hofstadter butterfly fractal observed in moiré superlatticesClipped from: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130515131554.htm |
This is an artistic image illustration of a butterfly departing from a graphene moiré pattern formed on the top of an atomically thin boron nitride substrate. Electron energy in such a graphene moiré structure exhibits the butterfly like a self-recursive fractal quantum spectrum. (Credit: Columbia Engineering)
May 15, 2013 — A team of researchers from Columbia University, City University of New York, the University of Central Florida (UCF), and Tohoku University and the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan, have directly observed a rare quantum effect that produces a repeating butterfly-shaped energy spectrum, confirming the longstanding prediction of this quantum fractal energy structure, called Hofstadter’s butterfly.
The study, which focused on moiré-patterned graphene, is published in the May 15, 2013, Advance Online Publication (AOP) of Nature.
First predicted by American physicist Douglas Hofstadter in 1976, the Hofstadter butterfly emerges when electrons are confined to a two-dimensional sheet, and subjected to both a periodic potential energy (akin to a marble rolling on a sheet the shape of an egg carton) and a strong magnetic field. The Hofstadter butterfly is a fractal pattern — it contains shapes that repeat on smaller and smaller size scales. Fractals are common in classical systems such as fluid mechanics, but rare in the quantum mechanical world. In fact, the Hofstadter butterfly is one of the first quantum fractals theoretically discovered in physics but, until now, there has been no direct experimental proof of this spectrum.
Previous efforts to study the Hofstadter butterfly, which has become a standard "textbook" theoretical result, attempted to use artificially created structures to achieve the required periodic potential energy. These studies produced strong evidence for the Hofstadter spectrum but were significantly hampered by the difficulty in creating structures that were both small and perfect enough to allow detailed study.
In order to create a periodic potential with a near-ideal length scale and also with a low degree of disorder, the team used an effect called a moiré pattern that arises naturally when atomically thin graphene is placed on an atomically flat boron nitride (BN) substrate, which has the same honeycomb atomic lattice structure as graphene but with a slightly longer atomic bond length. This work builds on years of experience with both graphene and BN at Columbia. The techniques for fabricating these structures were developed by the Columbia team in 2010 to create higher-performing transistors, and have also proven to be invaluable in opening up new areas of basic physics such as this study.
To map the graphene energy spectrum, the team then measured the electronic conductivity of the samples at very low temperatures in extremely strong magnetic fields up to 35 Tesla (consuming 35 megawatts of power) at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. The measurements show the predicted self-similar patterns, providing the best evidence to date for the Hofstadter butterfly, and providing the first direct evidence for its fractal nature.
"Now we see that our study of moiré-patterned graphene provides a new model system to explore the role of fractal structure in quantum systems," says Cory Dean, the first author of the paper who is now an assistant professor at The City College of New York. "This is a huge leap forward — our observation that interplays between competing length scales result in emergent complexity provides the framework for a new direction in materials design. And such understanding will help us develop novel electronic devices employing quantum engineered nanostructures."
"The opportunity to confirm a 40-year-old prediction in physics that lies at the core of most of our understanding of low-dimensional material systems is rare, and tremendously exciting," adds Dean. "Our confirmation of this fractal structure opens the door for new studies of the interplay between complexity at the atomic level in physical systems and the emergence of new phenomenon arising from complexity."
The work from Columbia University resulted from collaborations across several disciplines including experimental groups in the departments of physics (Philip Kim), mechanical engineering (James Hone), and electrical engineering (Kenneth Shepard) in the new Northwest Corner building, using the facilities in the CEPSR (Columbia’s Schapiro Center for Engineering and Physical Science Research) microfabrication center. Similar results are concurrently being reported from groups led by Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Geim at the University of Manchester, and Pablo Jarillo-Herrero and Raymond Ashoori at MIT.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Intestinal bacterium Akkermansia curbs obesity
From Evernote: |
Intestinal bacterium Akkermansia curbs obesityClipped from: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130515113744.htm |
Artist’s rendering of bacteria. (Credit: © Jezper / Fotolia)
May 15, 2013 — A dominant and useful bacterium called Akkermansia muciniphila is present in the intestinal system of all humans, from babies to the elderly. This microorganism is found in the intestinal mucus layer that protects against intruders. Even more remarkable is that this bacterium has a favourable effect on the disrupted metabolism associated with obesity.
Prof. Patrice Cani from Brussels and Prof. Willem de Vos from Wageningen University, together with their colleagues, published these findings in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). They see potential in deploying Akkermansia bacteria to further understand and treat obesity and medical consequences.
Obesity and type 2 diabetes are both characterised by symptoms including inflammation, changes in the composition of the intestinal bacteria and the disruption of the natural barrier in the intestines. Ten years ago, researchers at the Laboratory of Microbiology at Wageningen University, part of Wageningen UR, discovered the bacterium Akkermansia muciniphila (named after the Wageningen microbial ecologist Dr Antoon Akkermans, 1941-2006), which was able to grow in the mucus layer of the intestines. The bacteria were apparently present in large numbers in humans (and rodents) that were not overweight. Fewer were present in humans and rodents with inflammations or obesity. The microbiologists at Université Louvain in Brussels and their Wageningen colleagues wondered what the role of this bacterium could be.
In the article that appeared on 13 May in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research team concluded that the bacteria are less frequent in mice with induced obesity and with type 2 (adult-onset) diabetes. Furthermore, administering rather indigestible fibres such as oligofructose, known for its advantageous effect on intestinal biota, resulted in a recovery of the Akkermansia population in mice. The presence of the bacteria strengthens the intestinal barrier and is also inversely correlated with weight increase (fat storage), inflammation reactions in fatty tissues and insulin resistance. However, is there also a causal relationship between the favourable developments and the occurrence of Akkermansia bacteria?
To check that, the researchers administered Akkermansia bacteria to ordinary mice on various diets. With a normal diet, no effect was noticed but in mice that became overweight as a result of a high-fat diet, the Akkermansia bacteria caused a reduction in fat development and associated metabolic defects, without affecting food intake. After the administration of Akkermansia bacteria, there was an increase in endocannabinoid levels, a substance that ensures blood glucose remains at the correct level. In addition, the intestinal barrier function was strengthened. Only intact, living bacteria produced these results; the researchers noticed that bacteria that had been heated beforehand had no effect. Although human studies have not yet been carried out, the results seem to show potential; a treatment with Akkermansia bacteria could reduce inflammation and may prevent obesity.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Evolution shapes new rules for ant behavior, research finds
From Evernote: |
Evolution shapes new rules for ant behavior, research findsClipped from: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130515131602.htm |
Harvester ants store seeds inside the nest, so they can afford not to forage when conditions are poor. The photo shows an underground chamber filled with seeds. (Credit: Photo courtesy of Miko Tsukimoto)
May 15, 2013 — In ancient Greece, the city-states that waited until their own harvest was in before attacking and destroying a rival community’s crops often experienced better long-term success.
It turns out that ant colonies that show similar selectivity when gathering food yield a similar result. The latest findings from Stanford biology Professor Deborah M. Gordon’s long-term study of harvester ants reveal that the colonies that restrain their foraging except in prime conditions also experience improved rates of reproductive success.
Importantly, the study provides the first evidence of natural selection shaping collective behavior, said Gordon, who is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
A long-held belief in biology has posited that the amount of food an animal acquires can serve as a proxy for its reproductive success. The hummingbirds that drink the most nectar, for example, stand the best chance of surviving to reproduce.
But the math isn’t always so straightforward. The harvester ants that Gordon studies in the desert in southeast Arizona, for instance, have to spend water to obtain water: an ant loses water while foraging, and obtains water from the fats in the seeds it eats.
The ants use simple positive feedback interactions to regulate foraging activity. Foragers wait near the opening of the nest, and bump antennae with ants returning with food. The faster outgoing foragers meet ants returning with seeds, the more ants go out to forage. (Last year, Gordon, Katie Dektar, an undergraduate, and Balaji Prabhakar, a professor of computer science and of electrical engineering at Stanford, showed that the ants’ "Anternet" algorithm follows the same rules as the protocols that regulate data traffic congestion in the Internet).
Colonies differ, however, in how they use these interactions to regulate foraging. Some colonies are likely to forage less when conditions are dry. These same, more successful colonies are also more likely to forage more steadily when conditions are good.
Gordon found that it’s more important for the ants to not waste water than to forage for every last piece of food. There’s no survival cost to this strategy, even though the colonies sometimes forgo foraging for an entire day. Instead, not only do the colonies that hunker down on the bad days live just as long as those that go all out, they also have more offspring colonies.
"Natural selection is not favoring the behavior that sends out the most ants to get the most food, but instead regulating foraging to hold back when conditions are bad," Gordon said. "This is natural selection shaping a collective behavior exhibited by the entire colony."
Gordon’s group is still investigating how the ants gauge humidity, but they have determined that the collective response of the colony to conditions is heritable from parent colony to offspring colony. Even though a daughter queen will establish her new colony so far from the parent colony that the two colonies will never interact, the offspring colonies resemble parent colonies in their sensitivity to conditions.
Although the foraging activity of the offspring colonies and the parent colony didn’t entirely match up on all days, they were similar on extreme days: parent and offspring colonies made similar judgments about when to lie low or take advantage of ideal conditions.
While the region has experienced 10 to 15 years of protracted drought, and the more restrained colonies will most likely fare better reproductively as that trend continues, Gordon can’t yet say whether the emphasis on sustainability evolved in response to climate change pressures.
"What’s evolving here are simple rules for how ants participate in a network that regulates the collective behavior of the colony," she said.
The work is published in the May 16 issue of the journal Nature.
Berlin, Germany
This Month in Photo of the Day: The Stories Behind Your Shots
I was waiting for the train at Schlesisches Tor station in Kreuzberg, a predominantly Turkish neighborhood in Berlin, when I noticed people passing by below the train platform. I aimed my camera down at the cobblestones and waited a while for some interesting action. I must have shot 30 stills before this woman came walking through the frame. I missed my train but got this shot. —Gunnar Heidar
This photo was submitted to Your Shot. Check out the new and improved website, where you can share and connect with fellow photographers from around the globe.
Get tips on gaining perspective »
See more photos from Germany »
via National Geographic Photo of the Day http://feeds.nationalgeographic.com/~r/ng/photography/photo-of-the-day/~3/V-q4lCf6JAw/
