Deepwater Horizon

On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon, a semi-submersible Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit owned and operated by Transocean and drilling for BP in the Macondo Prospect oil field southeast of the Louisiana coast, exploded. The explosion killed eleven workers, injured sixteen others, and caused the Deepwater Horizon to catch fire and sink. The same blowout also caused a massive offshore oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This spill has been considered the largest accidental marine oil spill to date, as well as the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history.

Libra

An illustration from Urania's Mirror (1825) depicting the constellation Libra. This faint constellation, which has no first magnitude stars, is located between Virgo to the west and Scorpius to the east. Both Roman and Babylonian astronomy likened the constellation to a pair of scales, though the Ancient Greeks held it to be the scorpion's claws. Libra is one of the constellations of the zodiac; in Western astrology, Libra covers the period between September 22 and October 21.

Girl at Sewing Machine

Girl at Sewing Machine is a 1921 painting by Edward Hopperthat is currently housed in theMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza inMadrid, Spain. The first of Hopper's "window paintings", it portrays a young girl sitting at asewing machine facing a window on a beautiful sunny day. The location appears to be New Yorkas is evident from the yellow bricks in the window.

Stanislaus of Szczepanow

Stanislaus of Szczepanów (1030–1079) was a Bishop of Kraków known chiefly for having been martyred by the King Bolesław II the Generous of Poland. One of the first native Polish bishops, Stanislaus came into conflict with King Bolesław several times. In one case, the bishop is said to have resurrected a dead man so that he could bear witness regarding a sale of land. Another conflict, whose cause is disputed, led to Stanislaus excommunicating the King. In response, Bolesław killed the bishop and then had his body cut into pieces.

Pena National Palace

The Pena National Palaceis a Romanticist palace inSintra, Portugal, built byFerdinand II of Portugal on the site of a ruined monastery. The palace stands on the top of a hill in the Sintra Mountains, and on a clear day it can be easily seen from Lisbon and much of its metropolitan area. It is a national monument,UNESCO World Heritage Site, and considered one of the Seven Wonders of Portugal. It is also used for state occasions by thePresident of the Portuguese Republic and other government officials.

Pinwheel Galaxy

The Pinwheel Galaxy is a face-on spiral galaxy located 21 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. It was first discovered byPierre Méchain on March 27, 1781, and communicated toCharles Messier, who verified its position for inclusion in the Messier Catalogue as one of its final entries. This image, released on February 28, 2006, is composed of 51 individual exposures, as well as some extra ground-based photos. At the time of its release, it was the largest and most detailed image of a galaxy by the Hubble Space Telescope.

SMS Furst Bismarck

SMS Fürst Bismarck was Germany's first armored cruiser, built for the Kaiserliche Marine before the turn of the 20th century and launched in 1900. Named for the German statesman Otto von Bismarck, the ship was primarily intended for colonial duties. She served in this capacity as part of the East Asia Squadron until she was relieved in 1909, at which point she returned to Germany. The ship was rebuilt between 1910 and 1914, and after the start of World War I, she was briefly used as a coastal defense ship. She proved inadequate to this task, and so she was withdrawn from active duty and served as a training ship for engineers until the end of the war. Fürst Bismarck was decommissioned in 1919 and sold for scrap.

Earthworms

All earthworms have bodies composed of repeated segments called metameres separated from one another by circular membranes called septa. The metameres are very similar to one another, but in earthworms there are the following variations (among others): there are no nephridia in the first three segments; there are no nerve ganglia in the first two segments (though several nerves extend there from the third and fourth segments); the prostomium, which is not a complete segment, functions as a flap to close the mouth but is also highly flexible and is used by the worm as a prehensile body part to grasp and pull leaves and grass into its burrow. The large muscular pharynxsucks in the worm’s food which then passes between the animal’s hearts to be stored and moistened in the crop and then ground by fragments of ingested sand and stone in the gizzard before entering the rest of the intestine. The gizzard is considered the animal’s stomach. The nephridia are the only waste-filtering organs—there is no separate digestive gland or liver.

2014 Eruption

A man sweeping volcanic ash in Yogyakarta during the 2014 eruption of Kelud. The East Javan volcano erupted on 13 February 2014 and sent volcanic ash covering an area of about 500 kilometres (310 mi) in diameter. Ashfall from the eruption "paralyzed Java", closing airports, tourist attractions, and businesses as far away as Bandung and causing millions of dollars in financial losses. Cleaning operations continued for more than a week.

Browsing

Browsing is a type of herbivory in which a herbivore (or, more narrowly defined, a folivore) feeds on leaves, softshoots, or fruits of high growing, generally woody, plants such as shrubs. In this photograph, a chital (Axis axis) is attempting to browse at Nagarhole National Park.