Good to Look At

People -- Family albums are always fun. This one is timely, from Time Magazine: "An Album of Presidents and Their Children#" (1/12/09).

This fascinating tale is full of irony. Snopes.com: "Pink Lady*" (11/6/06). This is the true story of an urban legend, "the infamous Pink Lady, a 60-foot tall drawing of a naked woman which mysteriously appeared overnight on a sheer rock cliff above a tunnel on Malibu Canyon Road. . . in October 1966." It was painted by a woman named Lynne Seemayer, a 31- year-old secretary. Read the rest of the saga, it is just amazing.

Places astronomical --

Sort of like us, astronomy adds another piece to the mystery of, "are we alone? This is from McClatchy: "Evidence found of solar system around nearby star*" (10/27/08) Space - the final frontier. To quote:

For the first time, astronomers think that they've found evidence of an alien solar system around a star close enough to Earth to be visible to the naked eye.
They say that at least one and probably three or more planets are orbiting the star Epsilon Eridani, 10.5 light-years — about 63 trillion miles — from Earth. Only eight stars are closer.

The host star, slightly smaller and cooler than our sun, is in the constellation Eridanus — the name of a mythological river — near Orion in the northern sky.

• Cozy Shack: "There Has To Be An Invisible Sun*" (10/14/08).
• Uncommon Sense: "Enceladus*," One of Saturn's icy moons.
• CNN: "NASA Captures Stunning Pictures of Earth#" (12/28/08)
  

Things --These are very strange critters seen at National Geographic*, " Photos: Alien-like squid seen at deep drilling site." Strangely, this squid has "elbows."

My topical post today at South by Southwest and The Reaction is about politics.

Technorati tags: news human interest stories astronomy