National Geographic PhotoContest 2010

©Linh Dinh
All pictures via National Geographic PhotoContest 2010

National Geographic is currently holding the 2010 edition of their famous Photo Contest.
The deadline for submissions is set on November 30th so harry up if you want your chance to get the 10.000$ 1st prize (the winners wil also be published in the NatGeo magazine). Otherwise you can just rate the submitted pictures. In the meanwhile I've prepared a brief selection of water-related picture for you as an appetizer...



©João Vianna

©Hao Lv

©Ron McCombe

©Nam In Geun

©Stephan Kotas

©Glen Hush

©Aniko Molnar

©Yevgen Timash

©Eric Garnett <
©Audun Wigen

©Rodrigo West de Magalhaes

©Michael Siward

©Kevin O'Connell

©Jay Fine

©Fred Wang

©Stan Bouman

©Tom Auguzth

©Freddy Cerdeira

©Sean Heavey

©Janet Chester

©Aurel Rapa

How cats and dogs drink

The act of drinking may seem like no big deal for anyone who can fully close his mouth to create suction, as people can. But the various species that cannot do so — and that includes most adult carnivores and our cats and dogs — must resort to some other mechanism, so if you have wondered how our pets drink this is the post for you:



The news is that using high speed cameras, a group of researchers uncovered the mystery of how cats drink. The answer is: very elegantly, and not at all the way you might suppose. Many people think that the raspy hairs on a cat’s tongue, must be involved in this process, instead they're mainly related to the process of grooming. Cats lap water so fast that the human eye cannot follow what is happening, which is why the trick had apparently escaped attention until now. They discovered that cats touch the surface of liquids with their tongues (up to four times per second) before quickly pulling back up, causing a stream of liquid to rise upward. Before gravity pulls the stream back down, the cat closes its mouth around some of it, capturing the liquid. The process is quite different from dogs, which cup the water using their tongues and haul it back into their mouths... probably more efficient but noisier and absolutely less elegant!



Dog owners are familiar with the unseemly lapping noises that ensue when their thirsty pet meets a bowl of water. The dog is thrusting its tongue into the water, forming a crude cup with it and hauling the liquid back into the muzzle. What it's strange in this case is that the "cup" is made twisting the tongue downward and backward towards the lower jaw, in the opposite way you might suppose:

The great migrations

(© National Geographic/Paul Nicklen) 

I hope that this Sunday you didn't lose the premiere of "Great Migrations" on National Geographic Channel, probably the best and biggest project that National Geographic has produced in the last two or three years: a new seven-part television series about the spectacular migrations in the animal world, and with it, a big campaign to promote it, a special website full of content, and a book.
To capture the images and video for the series, they spent two and a half years in the field, traveling 420,000 miles across 20 countries and all seven continents (having themselves in such a way their own migration!).



Move as millions, survive as one. That is the subtitle to the new seven-part television series. Animals great and small are on the move around the world, chasing resources in dangerous journeys that might take mere hours or span generations!
This is a small selection of pictures taken from the book:


(© National Geographic/Paul Nicklen)

(© National Geographic/National Geographic Television)

(© National Geographic/Frans Lanting)

(© National Geographic/Paul Nicklen)

(© National Geographic/Randy Olson)

(© National Geographic/Annie Griffiths)

(© National Geographic/Hiroya Minakuchi/Minden Pictures)

(© National Geographic/Jim Brandenburg/Minden Pictures)

(© National Geographic/John Eastcott & Yva Momatiuk)

(© National Geographic/Frans Lanting)

(© National Geographic/Brian Skerry)

(© National Geographic/Paul Nicklen)

(© National Geographic/David Hamlin)

(© National Geographic/Mauricio Handler)

(© National Geographic/Joe Riis)

(© National Geographic/Thomas Kitchin & Victoria Hurst/Getty Images)

Ten-day-old orphan dolphin rescued

These are a touching series of pictures about a baby dolphin, probably just ten days old, which has been found by tourists on a beach near Montevideo, Uruguay.




It was suffering from injuries believed to have been caused by a fishing net but now is recovering thanks to Richard Tesore, head of the NGO Rescate Fauna Marina, Piriapolis, who is taking care of him.



When it was found there was no sign of the mother, it was tangled in a net and it had bites that suggest the mother and other dolphins might have tried to help him free.



Mr. Tesore, however is not the only one that seems to be interested in the baby Dolphin: a Magellan penguin is also being looked after at the centre and has taken an interest in the new patient!

The Fall palette

©Getty Images

Sometimes, while I'm writing this post it has been raining for the last three days,  we are used to think that autumn is the grayest of seasons, but skillful photographers easily show us that Fall has got instead a rich and
colourful palette. Enjoy a gallery from this first month of Autumn coming from all over the Boreal Emisphere:


























all pictures ©GettyImages collected via DAYLIFE