Eideard

For wild animal lovers not content with watching tigers and gorillas during the day, a growing number of zoos are offering a more thrilling after-dark experience — overnight stays.

From Philadelphia to Denver nocturnal visitors are learning what happens when the gates slam shut, the sun goes down and the moon rises over some of America’s most well-known zoos…

The Philadelphia Zoo has been running its Roars and Snores Overnight Programs for about 20 years. The most popular theme program is the Night Flight Overnight Program where children aged five to 12 sleep in the zoo’s tree house.

The overnight stays are not only popular with young children. Teen programs are offered at many zoos for those young adults interested in the zoo industry. They are also a favorite venue for birthday sleepovers, family trips and with scout troops…

Most overnight stays include a night tour during which youngsters experience the mysterious sights and unusual sounds of the zoo without the usual distractions. A midnight snack and breakfast are also served…

Guests at the new overnight program at the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Queens Zoo in New York make breakfast treats for parrots, bears, pigs, pumas and coyotes, and watch the keepers feed them to the animals the next morning, said Education Curator Tom Hurtubise.

With visitors at the Denver Zoo coming from as far away as Wyoming and Montana, Patterson said parents tend to be more worried about leaving their children than the children themselves. They have rarely had to call up a parent in the middle of the night.

“They love it,” Patterson said about the children. “For many, it’s their first overnight away from home. They are so excited that by the end of the day they are so tired that they have no opportunity to worry.”

Kids with groups of their peers, families sharing a learning experience together, any number of combinations can form up for a special adventure. Consider it. Add a special night to your kid’s memories.

In our neck of the prairie, the Albuquerque Zoo offers guided night walks for $10 – discounts available for the kiddies and old geezers like me.

The Holy Ghost Panel rock painting in the Great Gallery in Horseshoe Canyon, Canyonlands National Park in San Juan, Utah, with the Milky Way in the background

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, studied a bony ring found in the eyes of dinosaurs, lizards and birds and came up with a “most surprising” discovery: Some dinosaurs hunted at night.

The finding goes against the belief that they were active during the day, leaving mammals to move at night, according to an article Thursday in the journal Science. “We found a mix of all kind of activities,” said study co-author Lars Schmitz…

Schmitz, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Evolution and Ecology, and geology professor Ryosuke Motani examined the structure called the “scleral ring,” which is lacking in mammals and crocodiles.

They measured the rings and eye sockets of more than 160 living species of birds and lizards and compared them with 33 fossils of dinosaurs, ancestral birds and pterosaurs.

Day-active animals have a small opening in the middle of the ring, Motani and Schmitz found. In nocturnal animals, the opening is much larger. For animals hunting both day and night the measurement was somewhere in the middle.

According to the findings, big plant-eating dinosaurs were active day and night, in part because they had to eat all the time…

“Overheating can be a problem,” for large herbivores, Schmitz said, and more of them shifted to being active at night…

I have friends like that.

Terrific fun watching the first nationally-televised match of an MLS expansion team – in a city like Portland that’s been waiting all too long to display their love of proper football on the North American stage.

The fans were noisy enough to make Britannia Stadium and Stoke City fans seem like chamber music. And the goal celebration with Timber Jim – outrageous. Rain, wind, singing and chanting fans – celebrating the world’s number one sport.

Portland Timbers 4 – 2 Chicago Fire

Astronauts have taken a spectacular nighttime picture of Italy from the Cupola observation deck of the International Space Station.

The image looks north over Sicily and the “boot” of Italy. The Mediterranean Sea dominates the foreground.

The domed Cupola is attached to the underside of the station and is used to control robots working on its exterior.

Its amazing views also mean it has become a popular place for astronauts to relax and gaze over Earth.

Wow! You’d have a tough time getting me back to work.

1,500 light projectors putting out 3,180,000 watts

Formula One turned to the dark side at the Singapore Grand Prix and judging by how well it was received the sport’s first night race will not be its last. Even if it had not thrown up an unlikely winner after a dramatic two hours of racing, Singapore delivered something different.

“It has a good chance of challenging Monaco for being the jewel in the crown of Formula One,” Frank Williams told The Guardian newspaper…

Singapore at night looked good on television — and that was the whole point of the exercise as far as the organizers were concerned.

It all added to the sense of spectacle, a point not lost on Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong who attended the race.

“I’ve been watching it on TV the last couple of nights, not watching the cars, but watching the skyline, to see whether the skyline shows up and we see Singapore showing off its best,” he told the Straits Times.
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A recording of this emergency call has been released as part of a police campaign asking people to use 999 appropriately:

Control Room: “South Wales Police, what’s your emergency?”
Caller: “It’s not really. I just need to inform you that across the mountain there’s a bright stationary object.”
Control room: “Right.”
Caller: “If you’ve got a couple of minutes perhaps you could find out what it is? It’s been there at least half an hour and it’s still there.”
Control: “It’s been there for half an hour. Right. Is it actually on the mountain or in the sky?”
Caller: “It’s in the air.”
Control: “I will send someone up there now to check it out.”
Caller: “OK.”

The mystery was soon solved, as the exchange between control and an officer at the scene, makes clear:

Control: “Alpha Zulu 20, this object in the sky, did anyone have a look at it?”
Officer: “Yes, it’s the moon. Over.”

I would never survive a gig like emergency despatch. Too willing to tell people the truth, too likely to respond by pointing out they just may be a stupid git!

Astronomer Olly Penrice is getting excited. “Don’t look, don’t look! In a minute you will see it and be much amazed…”

I put my eye to the telescope, a fat barrel of a thing fixed on a tripod embedded in concrete, and suddenly I’m floating above the craters and plains of our nearest neighbour. It feels like flying over the surface at 20 miles high. The view is too big to fit in the eyepiece in one go, so Olly hands me a gently glowing remote control and instructs me to look north, south, east and west.

I press north and the telescope whirs gently up the way, revealing jagged-edge craters and flat, silvery volcanic plains. I explore, whirring left, right, up and down, before handing on the remote control and eyepiece to the person waiting next to me. He too gazes in wonder, and then quietly says, “It looks like it’s made of cheese, Gromit.”

Another lovely piece in the Guardian – making me want to take my wife to Provence. Show her all the lovely parts of the countryside which look very much like where we live outside of Santa Fe.

And to see the night sky from another special vantage point.