Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, National Geographic, 1958
![Graceful small-headed sea snake - Hydrophis gracilis [now Microcephalophis gracilis]
The graceful small-headed sea snake, or slender sea snake, is one of the members of the Hydrophiidae, a family of highly-venomous seafaring reptiles. Though they can function on land, many members of this species spend effectively their entire life at sea. Their habitat - the Indian Ocean, South China Sea, and Persian Gulf - has an average water temperature high enough to allow these snakes to not need any time “sunning” themselves.
Despite their highly venomous nature, most sea snakes (including this species) are very placid. They rarely bite, even when threatened - not that I’d advocate you approaching one! - but as they must hunt fish that are faster than them in the water, their venom is potent enough to immediately immobilize and kill even their largest prey.
Transactions of the scientific meetings of the Zoological Society of London. 1841.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_magt321nSj1qk931ho1_500.jpg)
Graceful small-headed sea snake - Hydrophis gracilis [now Microcephalophis gracilis]
The graceful small-headed sea snake, or slender sea snake, is one of the members of the Hydrophiidae, a family of highly-venomous seafaring reptiles. Though they can function on land, many members of this species spend effectively their entire life at sea. Their habitat - the Indian Ocean, South China Sea, and Persian Gulf - has an average water temperature high enough to allow these snakes to not need any time “sunning” themselves.
Despite their highly venomous nature, most sea snakes (including this species) are very placid. They rarely bite, even when threatened - not that I’d advocate you approaching one! - but as they must hunt fish that are faster than them in the water, their venom is potent enough to immediately immobilize and kill even their largest prey.
Transactions of the scientific meetings of the Zoological Society of London. 1841.
The “Thomas L. Lawson”, the only seven-masted schooner ever built. Constructed by the Fore River Ship & Engine Building Co. at the behest of businessman Thomas L. Lawson. Said businessman made a fortune speculating in copper-mining companies, and then relocated to Scituate, Massachusetts (my hometown), where he occupied himself with various follies, including the above ship, the development of a vast estate named “Dreamwold”, the construction of a water tower disguised as an enormous castle turret, and the publication of a serialized novel about a stock manipulator crashing the American financial system. Later, Lawson was accused, along with a group of Standard Oil executives, of manipulating the price of bonds of the Bay State Gas Company (a public utility), ultimately driving that concern into bankruptcy. He gave testimony that conflicted with his Standard Oil accomplices, leading to a very public and acrimonious break that, paradoxically, gave Lawson the reputation of a reformer fighting the Standard Oil octopus. Thomas W. Lawson died in poverty. The ship eventually crashed off the Scilly Isles, spilling 50,000 barrels of paraffin oil in what may have been the first commercial oil spill in history.
![In this image from NASA TV, shot off a video screen, one of the first images from the Curiosity rover is pictured of its wheel after it successfully landed on Mars.
The video screen was inside the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) team inside the Spaceflight Operations Facility for NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California August 5, 2012. The Curiosity rover landed successfully landed on the surface of Mars. [REUTERS/Courtesy NASA TV/Handout]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8bkjlc2Fl1qmaoalo1_500.jpg)
In this image from NASA TV, shot off a video screen, one of the first images from the Curiosity rover is pictured of its wheel after it successfully landed on Mars.
The video screen was inside the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) team inside the Spaceflight Operations Facility for NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California August 5, 2012. The Curiosity rover landed successfully landed on the surface of Mars. [REUTERS/Courtesy NASA TV/Handout]
Indonesia, Jakarta, students of Al Azhar college attend Friday prayer in the auditorium, transformed into a mosque for the occasion, 1989, Abbas Attar
