giraffe, erdmännchen & co.

Parallel to the much celebrated and intensely competitive Wildlife Photograph of the Year run through the auspices of the BBC and the London Natural History museum, nature-photographer Paul Joynson-Hicks had the idea to capture the more candid side of the business with his “Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards.” Spiegel features a funny slide-show of some of the best entries, and the contenders are sure to ratchet it up for next year’s competition.

hinweisgeber

Just following a significant operational disclosure revealing the structure and extent of the US admin- istration’s military drone program, Transparency International Germany awards its Whistleblower prize to a former drone jockey stationed at the secretive base in Ramstein for exposing how deeply the installation is mired in the controversial drone war. Germany has been given to question whether hosting the such operations is not a violation of its own laws and principles, despite a regular litany of denial on both sides that’s by now twice-spent any credence. A French chemist is also being honoured in the ceremony in Kaiserslautern for demonstrating the grave toxicity of a popular herbicide.

5x5

twilight of the gods: Nina Hagen, Grace Jones and others feature in a Biblical Rock Opera, Gutterdämmerung, who strive to return the Earth to a state of vice

dyson’s sphere: luminous fluctuations in a distant star’s brightness could be signs of ancient alien technology

marylebone: BLDGBlog ponders the supposed funerary teleportation grid of Greater-London

scrumptious: venerable art foundation raises funds for galleries and museums with edible masterpieces, via the splendid Nag on the Lake

babel: a few odd, nuanced (but expeditious) terms found in EU English

long-distance

To illustrate for us how that intimate, intense engagement with our Handys, tablets and other devices comes across as kind of estranging and lonely, photographer Eric Pickersgill captured subjects so disposed—with the offending gadget removed. Check out the rather hauntingly and sad gallery here, via Quartz—and remember, putting our phones away is about more than etiquette.  It is an odd phenomenon that we repair to our own little world with accessories that do not even challenge the imagination but nonetheless seem preferable to the great here-and-now.