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The Wolf spider is a spider of the family Lycosidae. Except for the genus Sosippus, these spiders do not use their silk to make a snare. Some use their silk to line a tubular tunnel in the ground. Some take regular shelter in natural crevices. Still others spend their entire lives wandering around with no fixed abode. Unlike many other spiders, they have good vision and run their prey down.

Photo credit: Fir0002
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The first aircraft ejector seats were developed during WWII by Heinkel. The first test was with the Heinkel He 280 prototype jet fighter, and one of its test pilots, Helmut Schenk, was the first person to eject from a stricken aircraft on January 13 1942. By December 2003, Martin-Baker ejector seats had saved 7028 lives. The total figure for all types is unknown but must be considerably higher. This photo shows USAF Capt. Christopher Stricklin ejecting from an F-16 a second before it crashed on September 14 2003; Stricklin was not seriously injured.

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force
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The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806) was the first United States overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back, led by Captain Meriwether Lewis and Second Lieutenant William Clark, of the US Army.

Photo credit: Lewis, Meriwether; Clark, William
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Cirrus clouds are composed of ice crystals and appear as hairlike filaments. They are formed at altitudes above 5000 metres (16,500 feet). The streaks are made of snowflakes that are falling from the cloud and being caught by the high level winds. The streaks point in the direction of the wind and may appear straight giving the clouds the appearance of a comma (cirrus uncinus), or may seem tangled, an indication of high level turbulence.

Photo credit: Piccolo Namek
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The lemon, Citrus × limon, is a citrus tree, a hybrid of cultivated origin. The fruit are cultivated primarily for their juice, though the pulp and rind (zest) are also used, primarily in cooking or mixing. Lemon juice is about 5% citric acid, which gives lemons a sour taste; its pH is 2.3, so because of its acidity, lemon juice is commonly used in chemistry experiments.

Photo credit: Jon Sullivan of PD Photo.org
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The Vitruvian Man is a famous drawing with accompanying notes by Leonardo da Vinci made around the year 1490 in one of his journals. It depicts a naked male figure in two superimposed positions with his arms apart and simultaneously inscribed in a circle and square. The drawing and text are sometimes called the Canon of Proportions. The rediscovery of the mathematical proportions of the human body in the 15th century by Da Vinci and others is considered one of the great achievements leading to the Italian Renaissance.

Artist: Leonardo da Vinci
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Jakarta suffers from major urbanization problems. The population has risen sharply from 2.7 million in 1960 to 8.3 million in 2000. The rapid population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs.

A slum is an overcrowded and squalid district of a city or town usually inhabited by the very poor. Due to poverty and unemployment, slums are breeding centers for many social problems such as crime, drug addiction, alcoholism, and despair.

Picture credit: Jonathan McIntosh
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The airship USS Akron (ZRS-4) flying over the southern tip of Manhattan circa 1931–1933. The Akron was a commissioned 'ship' of the United States Navy, built for them by the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation in Akron, Ohio. She cast off for her maiden voyage on 2 November 1931, but crashed less than two years later.

Photo credit: U.S. Naval Historical Center
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The orb-weaver spiders (family Araneidae) are the familiar builders of spiral wheel-shaped webs often found in gardens, fields and forests. The family is a large one, including over 2800 species in over 160 genera worldwide, making it the third largest known (behind Salticidae and Linyphiidae). The web has always been thought of as an engineering marvel.

Photo credit: Piccolo Namek
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A plant's leaves are the primary sites for photosynthesis. The green colour is from chlorophyll, a pigment that absorbs the energy from sunlight falling on the leaf. The veins are the vascular tissue of the leaf, moving water into the leaf and the sap produced by photosynthesis back out.

Photo credit: PDPhoto.org
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Firedancing (also known as "fire twirling," "fire spinning," or "fire manipulation") is a group of circus-art disciplines that involve manipulation of objects on fire. Typically these objects have one or more bundles of wicking, which are soaked in fuel and lit. Some of these disciplines are related to juggling, and there is also an affinity between firedancing and rhythmic gymnastics. Firedancing is often performed to music.

Photo credit: Haloeffect
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The Tuamotus are the largest chain of atolls in the world, spanning an area of the Pacific Ocean roughly the size of Western Europe. Despite the vast spread of the archipelago, the combined land area is only about 885 km² (345 sq. mi.). The climate is warm tropical, without pronounced seasons and a relatively continuous average temperature of 26°C (79°F). Water sources such as lakes or rivers are absent, leaving the only source of fresh water as catchments of rain water.

Photo credit: Frédéric Jacquot
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An 18th Century Persian astrolabe - maker unknown. The points of the curved spikes on the front rete plate mark the positions of the brightest stars. The name of each star is labeled at the base of each spike. The back plate, or mater, is engraved with projected coordinate lines. From the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge.

Photo credit: Solipsist
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A butterfly is a flying insect. When touched by humans, they tend to lose some scales, that look like a fine powder. If they lose too many scales, their ability to fly will be impaired. People who study or collect butterflies (or the closely related moths) are called lepidopterists.

Photo credit: William M. Connolley
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Three Polar bears approach the starboard bow of the Los Angeles-class fast attack submarine USS Honolulu (SSN 718) while surfaced 280 miles from the North Pole. Sighted by a lookout from the bridge (sail) of the submarine, the bears investigated the boat for almost 2 hours before leaving. USS Honolulu is the 24th Los Angeles-class submarine, and the first original design in her class to visit the North Pole region.

Photo credit: Chief Yeoman Alphonso Braggs U.S. Navy
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Plasma lamps (also called plasma globes, plasma balls, plasma domes, plasma spheres, or plasma orbs) are novelty items which were most popular in the 1980s. The technology used in the plasma sphere, high frequency currents in an evacuated glass tube, was invented by the artist Bill Parker, while an undergraduate student at MIT. Later he developed it into the now ubiquitous product while he was an Artist in Residence at the Exploratorium science museum.

Photo credit: Luc Viatour
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