The incredible story of Pierre the penguin: from bald to cool!

(AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
Pierre the penguin looked very down... bald and sad


Pierre, a venerable 25 years old penguin, was going bald, which left him with an embarrassingly exposed, pale pink behind.
A custom-crafted wetsuit may have helped the penguin, recover from a bout of baldness.
Biologists at the California Academy of Sciences commissioned the gear after Pierre began shedding his insulating, waterproof feathers. Unwilling to plunge into the academy's penguin tank, Pierre ended up shivering on the sidelines while his 19 peers played in the water.
"He was cold; he would shake," said Pam Schaller, a senior aquatic biologist at the academy. Unlike marine mammals, which have a layer of blubber to keep them warm, penguins rely on their waterproof feathers.
Schaller first tried a heat lamp to keep Pierre warm. Then she got another idea: If wetsuits help humans frolic in the chilly Pacific, why not whip up one in a slightly smaller size? Staff at Oceanic Worldwide, a supplier of dive gear based in San Leandro, were enthusiastic about making a real penguin suit.
"We were really excited to do it," said Teo Tertel, company marketing specialist. "We heard most of these penguins only live to 20, and our little buddy there was already 25. Anything we could do to help them, we were all for it."
Schaller conducted fittings to design the suit, which fastens with Velcro at the back, covers Pierre's torso and has small openings for his flippers.
Pierre was outfitted with the suit about six weeks ago. Since then, he has gained weight, grown back feathers on his hind parts and is again acting like his feisty, alpha-male self. Too cool!



California Academy of Sciences
With his brand new wetsuit Pierre is much better.. It seems Fonzie with is leather jacket... isn't it?


(AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
Pierre nowadays with his feathers again... as cool as a californian surfer



California Academy of Sciences


(AP Photo/Eric Risberg)


(AP Photo/Eric Risberg)



(AP Photo/Eric Risberg)



(AP Photo/Eric Risberg)



(AP Photo/Eric Risberg)



(AP Photo/Eric Risberg)



A video of the story, by AP:

Mowing

Photo from AP Photo by John Badman

This picture seems to me a little bit surrealistic... isn't it?
The truth is that at Grafton, Illiinois, the floods are so common that Kenny Leitner mows the grass in the 1300 block of W. Main Street just like that..
He seems not to notice at all that his house is surrounded by the waters of the river!

Hanging by two threads

Photo from AP Photo by Long Hongtao

This sunday Liu Suozhu from China's Henan province has driven a car on two steel ropes above the Minluo River in Pingjiang, central China's Hunan province. Liu spent half an hour driving past the 230 meters long ropes, 45 meters above the Minluo River.

The flying penguins of the BBC

On the first of this month, there have been more April fools than probably ever, almost every media created its own silly story and some of them were really well performed. My favourite one has been certainly the BBC story of the flying penguins. To launch their BBC iPlayer, they have created a documentary presented by Terry Jones (ex Monty Python) where the penguins not only take flight from the Antarctic wastes, but fly thousands of miles to the Amazonian rainforest to find winter sun.

Enjoy it:


This is the "Making of":

An ingenious idea

This is a special keyholder that seems made on porpose for people like me... My job brings me most of the time in the sea and I'm one of those guys that always lose everything they can lose (even if I have to admit that, year after year, I'm improving in this field..).
Water-buoy is the first keyholder created for valuable objects that can fall into the sea. If this happens Water-buoy self-activates:



A balloon hidden inside Water-buoy start auto-inflating converting it in a floating buoy




According to the manufacturers this clever item can sustain up to 1 kilogram. Moreover it is equipped with a flashing light too, in this way you'll be able to find it even in the darkness.

This video explain it all:



If you are interested in it, this is the official site

When a photo tells more than a thousand words

AP/Dan Crosbie/Canadian Ice Service

In the last months we've heard so many times bad news about the environment as well as warnings related to the global warming. We've seen many pictures too and I've posted some of them in this blog. But if I have to choose a picture that better than anything else could explain it all, my choice would be this one. Unbelievable.


AP/Dan Crosbie/Canadian Ice Service

John West endures the worst to bring you the best!

"John West" is a famous food brand, especially well known for their seafood, but the thing that perhaps made them so famous is not simply the quality of their tuna or of their salmon slices (not only, at least..) but their funny advertisings!
The clip of the kung-fu fighting between the fisherman and the bear had become a classic on the internet and other ads followed later maintaining the same approach.
Enjoy the collection:

Last winter ice

A man drills a hole into the ice to fish in River Polui in the arctic city of Salekhard some 2000 km (1242 miles) northeast of Moscow November 25, 2007. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko (RUSSIA)

In the Northern Emisphere winter has just finished and the spring is fastly taking its place. The best way to say goodbye to it is with a gallery of pictures from the 3 most important photo agencies (Reuters, AP, AFP/Getty images), whose subject is the "Ice" described in many different ways collecting pictures of this last winter. This gallery has been prepared by Daylife.
Daylife is a wonderful site I heartly recommend you being the best way to see everyday the best pictures from photoagencies. It is constantly updated and the pictures are unusually big for this kind of site. Click here to see the original Daylife version of this gallery.


Inuit seal hunter Dines Mikaelsen strokes a dead seal atop a melting iceberg near Ammassalik Island, Greenland in July 2007. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Al Gore said Thursday Dec. 13, 2007, the United States is "principally responsible" for blocking progress at the U.N. climate conference in Bali, and European nations threatened to boycott U.S.-led climate talks next month unless Washington compromises on emissions reductions. Gore urged delegates at the conference to take urgent action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. (AP Photo/John McConnico, File)


A ice designer works on one of her sculpture during the "Christmas symphony" ice sculpture contest, 09 December 2007 in St.Petersburg. AFP PHOTO/ELENA PALM (Photo credit should read ELENA PALM/AFP/Getty Images)


Trees are covered with ice from the freezing rain on a golf course in Kansas City, Kansas, December 11, 2007. Sleet and freezing rain blanketed much of central United States with a thick coating of ice on Tuesday, killing more than a dozen people and knocking out power to nearly a million homes and businesses. REUTERS/Dave Kaup (UNITED STATES)


Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy of Germany is seen on the ice during the Gala Exhibition at the NHK Trophy Figure Skating Grand Prix in Sendai, northern Japan, Sunday, Dec. 2, 2007. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye)


A woman looks at an ice sculpture 21 November 2007 on the opening day of the Ice Gallery, the first permanent ice sculpture museum in the world, in Naples. The Ice Gallery is 120 meter square, -7 degrees Celsuis and the sculputures weigh a total of 70 tonnes. AFP PHOTO/MARIO LAPORTA (Photo credit should read MARIO LAPORTA/AFP/Getty Images)


RNPS PICTURES OF THE YEAR 2007 - A fishing boat sails past a large iceberg at the mouth of the Jakobshavns ice fjord near Ilulissat in this photo taken May 15, 2007. Picture taken May 15, 2007. REUTERS/Bob Strong (GREENLAND)


Harun Bin Jalil from Malaysia carves an ice sculpture during Russia's first open cup for snow and ice sculpturing in the city of Salekhard, some 2000 km (1242 miles) north east of Moscow, November 22, 2007. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko (RUSSIA)


A group of ducks rests on the ice on the Missouri River at Great Falls, Mont. on Monday, Dec. 3, 2007. (AP Photo/The Great Falls Tribune, Robin Loznak)


An ice encased tree branch is illuminated by holiday lights in Marysville, Pa., Thursday evening, Dec. 13, 2007. A wintry mix of precipitation fell Thursday across Pennsylvania as rain, sleet, ice or snow. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)


A man breaks of a chunk of ice from an ice-wall with hanging stalactites near the Pyrenees Mountains in Roncal Valley, northern Spain, Sunday Dec. 16, 2007. Many parts of northern Spain are gripped with freezing cold weather. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)


German ice sculpture artist Christian Funk, carves a polar bear out of 15 tons of ice near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, in Berlin December 7, 2007. According to Greenpeace, the ice sculpture is a memorial for climate protection. The sculpture is four meters high, four meters long and 1,5 meters wide. REUTERS/Johannes Eisele (GERMANY)


A snowman, complete with Barack Obama buttons for eyes, sits outside the Des Moines campaign headquarters of Democratic party presidential candidate Barack Obama, December 11, 2007. An ice and snow storm covered much of the midwest overnight, forcing some presidential candidates to cancel their campaign plans on Tuesday. REUTERS/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES)


Ice coats campaign signs as bad weather persists in Des Moines, Iowa, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2007. Both Democrat and Republican candidates will make their way to Des Moines over the next two days for presidential debates Wednesday and Thursday. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)


A monkey licks block of ice with fruits and vegetables during the Monkey Buffet Festival, in front of the Pra Prang Sam Yot temple in Lopburi province, 150km (94 miles) north of Bangkok, November 25, 2007. The annual festival provides various types of food and drink to the local monkey population, which numbers more than 2,000. REUTERS/Sukree Sukplang (THAILAND)


An 'ice' elf is seen with a catapult at the Ice Sculpture festival in Bruges, Belgium, Thursday, Nov. 22, 2007. (AP Photo/Yves Logghe)


Skiers walk towards Goryczkowy slope during heavy snow storm on Kasprowy Wierch in Tatra Mountains, southern Poland December 15, 2007. REUTERS/Peter Andrews (POLAND)


RNPS PICTURES OF THE YEAR 2007 - A worker uses his mobile phone after finishing a statue of Jesus Christ inside the first ice church built in Romania in Balea Lac, 300 km (186 miles) northwest of Bucharest, January 5, 2007.
REUTERS/Bogdan Cristel (ROMANIA)


Ice hangs from the trees in Lake St.Louis, Mo., Monday, Dec 10, 2007. Commuters contended with treacherous roads Monday from the southern Plains to the Northeast as a storm spread a coating of ice and freezing rain linked to at least 13 traffic deaths.(AP Photo/Dan Gill)


Snow clings to Steven Ellis of Des Moines, Iowa, as he clears snow and ice from a parking lot Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2007, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)


Visitors observ an ice sculpture 08 December 2007 on the first day of the Icesculpture Festival 2008 in Eindhoven. A team of Chinese icesculpture artists created with 300,000 kilogram ice and 400.000 kilogram snow the 7 World Wonders and some of the new chosen Wonders of the World. AFP PHOTO/ANP/ROBIN UTRECHT/Getty Images


People skate on the ice rink set up in Bryant Park, New York, December 15, 2007. REUTERS/Chip East (UNITED STATES)


Icicles form on a bush in Kansas City, Kansas, December 11, 2007. Sleet and freezing rain blanketed much of central United States with a thick coating of ice on Tuesday, killing more than a dozen people and knocking out power to nearly a million homes and businesses. REUTERS/Dave Kaup (UNITED STATES)


In this photo released by the Union Colony Fire Rescue Authority, a fire department diver whose name was not released rescues two dogs that broke through ice in a pond in Greeley, Colo. (AP Photo/Union Colony Fire Rescue Authority)


A while ago, I've published a similar gallery made up collecting last year's Reuters Pictures about Water. Click here to see it

Water Chupa Chups

Two nice ads from the famous lollipop manufacturer


Advertising Agency: Nongshim Communications, Seoul, South Korea
Executive Creative Director: Won-Kyu Jo
Creative Director: Nam-Kil Liu
Associate Creative Director: Sang-Moon Im
Copywriters: Ji-Yeon Han/Seung-il Park
Art Director: Sung-Ha Park
Photographer: Joo-Han Lee
Illustrator: Jae-Gon Yoo

The puddlestomper!

This kid had stomped a puddle too much...

source

The robotic jellyfishes

AP Photo/Kai-Uwe Knoth

Two so-called 'AquaJellys' swim in a water tank at the stand of FESTO at the "Hannover Messe" industrial trade fair in Hanover, Germany, April 22, 2008. The robotic jellyfishes with autonomy and adaptive behaviour consist of a sphere-shaped body with eight electrically-driven tentacles for propulsion.


REUTERS/Christian Charisius

007 plunges into the water with his Aston Martin!

A stunt driver has crashed the car used by movie secret agent James Bond into Italy's Lake Garda during filming of 007's latest movie, Quantum of Solace.

The driver was delivering the iconic Aston Martin DBS to the film scene in heavy rain when he lost control around one of the lake's narrow curves.

The driver was quickly rescued and taken to hospital with minor injuries.

Italian TV showed the car, reportedly the only one available for use in the film, being winched out of the lake.


Photo AP






The car before the accident:


The stuntman that had the accident:


the true James Bond


Photos via Trentino