Wikipedia:Picture of the day/Archive
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These featured pictures, as scheduled below, appeared as the picture of the day (POTD) on the English Wikipedia's Main Page in the last 30 days.
You can add an automatically updating POTD template to your user page using {{Pic of the day}} (version with blurb) or {{POTD}} (version without blurb). For instructions on how to make custom POTD layouts, see Wikipedia:Picture of the day.
August 3
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The Indochinese green magpie (Cissa hypoleuca) is a small colorful bird native to the forests of China and southern Asia, through to Vietnam. It is nonmigratory and is found at altitudes up to 1,500 metres (4,900 feet), preferring moist forests and tree canopies within the tropical and subtropical regions, where its plumage provides camouflage. The Indochinese green magpie is approximately 35 centimetres (14 inches) in length, with a green upper body and an underbelly either yellow or green in colour. It features a black band that goes from its bill over the crimson eyes to the back of their head. It is a songbird, with vocalisations including noisy chattering, rasping notes, screeches, and a ringing whistle. This Indochinese green magpie of the subspecies C. h. hypoleuca was photographed in Đà Lạt, Vietnam. Photograph credit: JJ Harrison
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August 2
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Lamium purpureum, commonly known as the red dead-nettle, among other names, is an annual herbaceous flowering plant. Native to Eurasia, it can also be found in North America, and frequently occurs in meadows, forest edges, roadsides and gardens. It grows with square stems to a height of 5 to 20 centimetres (2 to 8 inches), and occasionally up to 40 centimetres (16 inches). The leaves have fine hairs, are green at the bottom and shade to purplish at the top, while the zygomorphic flowers are bright reddish purple. The pollen is crimson red in colour and thus very noticeable on the heads of the bees that visit its flowers. The plant contains various oils and is characterized by its high contents of germacrene D. Young plants have edible tops and leaves, which are used in salads and stir fries as a spring vegetable. The plant has also been used for many years in folk medicine and herbal remedies. This L. purpureum inflorescence was photographed in Tutermaa, Estonia. The picture was focus-stacked from 101 separate images. Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus
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August 1
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A field ration is a type of prepackaged military ration designed to be easily and quickly prepared and consumed on the battlefield, in combat, at the front line, or where eating facilities are otherwise unavailable. Field rations are primarily used by military forces, though they are also sometimes distributed to civilians as part of humanitarian aid and emergency management. They consist principally of dried and nonperishable foods, including among others preserved and nonperishable precooked meat, vegetables, grains and rice, dehydrated soup, side dishes, desserts and drinks. They took their modern form from the 19th century onwards, with the invention of airtight food preservation, canned food, and pasteurization. Field rations are designed with a long shelf life and can be eaten at any temperature, but they are heated or cooked where possible. This photograph shows the arranged contents of an Einmannpackung Typ 1 field ration issued to the German Bundeswehr in 1974, on display at the Museum of Hamburg History in Hamburg, Germany. It includes, from left to right and top to bottom: an instant-rice ready meal, scrambled eggs with ham and spaghetti, hardtack, a condiment, semi-sweet chocolate, and coffee creamer; liverwurst, strawberry jam, melted cheese, four water-purification tablets, and salt; tea-extract powder, a damp towel, coffee extract, orange drink powder, a matchbook, refined sugar, and spearmint chewing gum. Photograph credit: Sergej Medvedev
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July 31
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Dendrelaphis punctulatus, also known as the Australian tree snake or the common tree snake, is a species of non-venomous snake in the family Colubridae. The species is native to many parts of Australia, especially in the northern and eastern coastal areas, and to Papua New Guinea. It is found at altitudes from sea level to 500 metres (1,600 feet), in a variety of habitats including bushland, river banks, forests and rainforest edges, heathland and grassy areas, especially near water. It is an agile snake, with a very slender body and tail, and is also a strong swimmer, using the water for hunting and avoiding predation. Its dorsal body colour varies from golden yellow, bright green or olive-green to black or sometimes even blue, while its back is typically dark in colour. In a study, D. punctulatus snakes had an average snout–vent length of 101 centimetres (40 inches), with males slightly shorter at 93 centimetres (37 inches). This D. punctulatus snake was photographed by the Daintree River, near Daintree in rural northern Queensland, Australia. Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp
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July 30
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A Peculiar Family is an 1865 comedy musical play by the English writer William Brough featuring music by Thomas German Reed. The play starred German Reed, his wife Priscilla, and John Parry. It premiered in 1865 at the German Reeds' London theatre, the Royal Gallery of Illustration, and is part of a multi-decade series known as the German Reed Entertainments. The play is set in a French coastal hotel and features the eponymous family: Barnaby Bounce, his sister, Cherry, two of his nephews and a grandfather, along with a German detective named Herr Von Doppelslich, the French landlady and a countess. The story involves a mix-up over a white hat worn by Barnaby and the hat's owner, who is being pursued by Von Doppelslich. This poster for A Peculiar Family was designed by Robert Jacob Hamerton. Poster credit: Robert Jacob Hamerton; restored by Adam Cuerden
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July 29
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Clara Bow (July 29, 1905 – September 27, 1965) was an American actress who rose to stardom during the silent film era of the 1920s and successfully made the transition to "talkies" in 1929. Her appearance in the 1927 film It brought her global fame and the nickname "It girl". Bow came to personify the Roaring Twenties and has been described as its leading sex symbol. She appeared in 46 silent films and 11 talkies, including hits such as Mantrap (1926), It (1927), and Wings (1927). She was named first box-office draw in 1928 and 1929, and second box-office draw in 1927 and 1930. Two years after marrying the actor Rex Bell in 1931, Bow retired from acting and became a rancher in Nevada. Her final film, Hoop-La, was released in 1933. This studio photograph of Bow was taken in 1932. Photograph credit: Harold Dean Carsey; restored by Yann Forget
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July 28
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The grey-headed kingfisher (Halcyon leucocephala) is a species of bird in the kingfisher family, Alcedinidae. It is found across large parts of Africa and southern Arabia – from Mauritania through Senegal and the Gambia, east to Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen, Oman and Saudia Arabia, and south through to South Africa. It is also found in islands off the African coast such as the Cape Verde islands and Zanzibar. The grey-headed kingfisher is around 21 centimetres (8.3 inches) in length, with the two sexes being similar in size and appearance. The adult of the nominate subspecies H. l. leucocephala has a pale grey head, black mantle and back, bright blue rump, wings and tail, and chestnut underparts. The beak is long, red and sharp. Its song features a succession of notes, ascending, descending and then ascending again, becoming increasingly strident, while the warning call is a series of sharp notes. The bird's habitat consists of scrub and woodland and it moves either solitary or in pairs, often near water; however, unlike most kingfishers it is not aquatic. It nests in holes in steep riverbanks and is aggressively protective of its nest by repeated dive-bombing of foraging monitor lizards. This grey-headed kingfisher perching on a twig was photographed in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. Photograph credit: Giles Laurent
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July 27
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Liberty Leading the People (French: La Liberté guidant le peuple) is a painting of the Romantic era by the French artist Eugène Delacroix, commemorating the July Revolution of 1830 that toppled King Charles X. A bare-breasted "woman of the people" with a Phrygian cap personifying the concept and Goddess of Liberty, accompanied by a young boy brandishing a pistol in each hand, leads a group of various people forward over a barricade and the bodies of the fallen while holding aloft the flag of the French Revolution—the tricolour, which again became France's national flag after these events—in one hand, and brandishing a bayonetted musket with the other. The figure of Liberty is also viewed as a symbol of France and the French Republic known as Marianne. The painting is displayed in the Louvre in Paris. Painting credit: Eugène Delacroix; photographed Shonagon
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July 26
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Cytoplasmic streaming is a biological process in which cytoplasm flows inside a cell, driven by forces from the cytoskeleton. It is usually observed in large plant and animal cells, as well as amoebae, fungi, and slime moulds. It is likely that its function is, at least in part, to speed up the transport of molecules and organelles around the cell. The process was first discovered by the Italian scientist Bonaventura Corti in 1774, within the algae genera Nitella and Chara. While its mechanism is not fully understood, what is clearly visible in plant cells which exhibit cytoplasmic streaming is the motion of the chloroplasts moving with the cytoplasmic flow. This motion results from fluid being entrained by moving motor molecules of the plant cell. This video, taken through a microscope, shows cytoplasmic streaming occurring in an onion epidermal cell. Video credit: Heiti Paves
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July 25
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Hudson Yards is a 28-acre (11-hectare) real-estate development located in Hudson Yards, a neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is situated on the waterfront of the Hudson River, on a platform built over the West Side Yard, a storage depot for the Long Island Rail Road. Related Companies and Oxford Properties are the primary developers and major equity partners in the project, with the master plan designed by the architectural firm Kohn Pedersen Fox. Construction began in 2012 and the first phase opened in 2019, with completion of the second phase expected by 2032. Major office tenants in the development include Warner Bros. Discovery, L'Oréal, and Wells Fargo among others. This photograph shows the skyscrapers of Hudson Yards, viewed across the Hudson River from Weehawken, New Jersey, in 2021. Photograph credit: Tony Jin
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July 24
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The emperor angelfish (Pomacanthus imperator) is a species in the marine angelfish family, Pomacanthidae. It is a reef-associated fish, native to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, from the Red Sea to Hawaii and the Austral Islands. Adults are found in areas where there is a rich growth of corals on clear lagoon, channel, or seaward reefs, at depths between 1 and 100 metres (3 and 330 feet) The emperor angelfish shows a marked difference between the juveniles and the adults. The juveniles have a dark blue body which is marked with concentric curving lines, alternating between pale blue and white, while adults are striped with blue and yellow horizontal stripes, a light blue face with a dark blue mask over the eyes and a yellow caudal fin. It can attain a maximum total length of around 40 centimetres (16 inches). This adult emperor angelfish was photographed in the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt. Photograph credit: Diego Delso
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July 23
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Amália Rodrigues (23 July 1920 – 6 October 1999) was a Portuguese fado singer (fadista). Dubbed Rainha do Fado ('Queen of Fado'), she was instrumental in popularising the genre worldwide and travelled internationally throughout her career. She remains the best-selling Portuguese artist in history. This photograph shows Rodrigues performing at the Grand Gala du Disque Populaire, an annual Dutch gala for popular music, held in 1969 in Amsterdam. Photograph credit: Anefo
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July 22
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The Atari video game burial was a 1983 mass burial of unsold video game cartridges, consoles, and computers, undertaken by the American video game and home computer company Atari, Inc., at a landfill site in the U.S. state of New Mexico. The burial occurred amid the video game crash of 1983, at the end of a disastrous fiscal year that saw Atari being sold off by its parent company Warner Communications. It included 700,000 cartridges of various games, including unsold copies of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), one of the largest video game failures in history. For several decades after the burial was first reported, there were doubts as to its veracity and scope, and it was frequently dismissed as an urban legend. In 2013 and 2014, an excavation was carried out by Fuel Industries, Microsoft, the New Mexico government and others, which revealed discarded games and hardware. Only a small fraction, about 1,300 cartridges, were recovered, with a portion reserved for curation and the rest auctioned to raise money for a museum to commemorate the burial. This photograph shows packaging for cartridges of the video games E.T. and Centipede in situ at the excavation site. Photograph credit: taylorhatmaker
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July 21
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The southern scrub robin (Drymodes brunneopygia) is a species of bird in the family Petroicidae, the Australasian robins. It is endemic to Australia, where it occurs in mallee and heathland in the semi-arid southern parts of the continent. Its range includes several disjoint regions from central New South Wales through western Victoria and southern South Australia, through to the southwestern area of Western Australia. It is a relatively dull and large robin, with adults around 19 to 20 centimetres (7.5 to 7.9 in) in length, of which around a third are the tail feathers. Most of the plumage is grey. It breeds between July and December and has a nest on the ground, built of twigs and lined with twigs, grass and bark. Unusually for a passerine, it lays only a single egg. This southern scrub robin was photographed in the Nombinnie Nature Reserve in New South Wales. Photograph credit: JJ Harrison
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July 20
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C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is a non-periodic comet from the Oort cloud that was discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) in 2022. With a comet nucleus of around 1 kilometre (0.6 mi) in diameter, C/2022 E3 rotates on its axis once every 8.5 to 8.7 hours. Its tails of dust and gas extended for millions of kilometers and, during January 2023, an anti-tail was also visible. The comet reached its most recent perihelion in January 2023, at a distance of 1.11 AU (166 million km; 103 million mi) from the sun, and the closest approach to Earth was a few weeks later, at a distance of 0.28 AU (42 million km; 26 million mi). The comet reached magnitude 5 and was visible with the naked eye under moonless dark skies. This photograph of C/2022 E3 was taken in January 2023 and released by the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics. Photograph credit: Alessandro Bianconi; National Institute for Astrophysics
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July 19
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The passion fruit is the fruit of a number of plants in the genus Passiflora. They are round or oval, and range from a width of 1.5 to 3 inches (3.8 to 7.6 centimetres). The fruits have a juicy, edible center composed of a large number of seeds. They are native to subtropical regions of South America from southern Brazil through Paraguay to northern Argentina. This photograph shows two passion fruits of the species Passiflora edulis, one whole and one halved. The picture was focus-stacked from 22 separate images. Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus
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July 18
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The Basilica of St Paul is a Catholic parish church in Rabat, Malta, located on the edge of the site of the Roman city of Melite. The present church was built between 1653 and 1658, replacing a church that was completed in 1578. It was constructed with funds from the noblewoman Cosmana Navarra, on plans prepared by Francesco Buonamici. The final stages were completed by Lorenzo Gafà. It was elevated to the status of a minor basilica in 2020. The church features a grotto where, according to tradition, Paul the Apostle lived and preached during his three-month stay in Malta in AD 60. This photograph shows the facade of the Basilica of St Paul in 2021. Photograph credit: Diego Delso
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July 17
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The clouded Apollo (Parnassius mnemosyne) is a species in the swallowtail butterfly family, Papilionidae, which is found in the Palearctic realm. It is a large butterfly, which inhabits meadows and deciduous woodland clearings with plenty of flowering plants, but cannot survive in denser forest. The species has white wings, on which thin black veins are found, with blackish fringes. The forewing has two black spots. Its abdomen, antenna and legs are black. The female lays whitish conical eggs with a granular surface. This clouded Apollo male was photographed at the top of Slivnica, in the Dinaric Alps of Slovenia. Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp
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July 16
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Anne of Cleves (German: Anna von Kleve; 28 June or 22 September 1515 – 16 July 1557) was Queen of England from 6 January to 12 July 1540 as the fourth wife of Henry VIII. Anne outlived the rest of Henry's wives. Painting credit: Hans Holbein the Younger
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July 15
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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is a short play by W. S. Gilbert that parodies William Shakespeare's Hamlet. The main characters in Gilbert's play are King Claudius and Queen Gertrude of Denmark, their son Prince Hamlet, the courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and Ophelia. The play first appeared in the magazine Fun in 1874 after having been rejected for production by several theatre companies. Its first professional performances were an 1891 benefit matinée and an 1892 run at the Court Theatre in London of around 77 performances, with Decima Moore as Ophelia, Brandon Thomas as Claudius, and Weedon Grossmith as Hamlet. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern was revived in London and New York over the next 20 years and occasionally thereafter. A review in The Times said: "There is more brilliance of merely verbal wit in this little play than in anything else of Mr. Gilbert's. ... It is really a very subtle piece of criticism, sometimes of Shakespeare’s play, sometimes of the commentators, sometimes of the actors who have played the great part." This ink drawing was created by Ralph Cleaver for a 1904 celebrity charity performance of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern at the Garrick Theatre in London. The drawing depicts various characters in the play and identifies the actors who portrayed them, including Gilbert himself as Claudius. Drawing credit: Ralph Cleaver; restored by Adam Cuerden
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July 14
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The Blind Girl (1856) is a painting by John Everett Millais which depicts two itinerant beggars, presumed to be sisters, one of whom is a blind musician, her concertina on her lap. They are resting by the roadside after a rainstorm, before travelling to the town of Winchelsea, visible in the background. The painting has been interpreted as an allegory of the senses, contrasting the experiences of the blind and sighted sisters. The former feels the warmth of the sun on her face, and fondles a blade of grass, while the latter shields her eyes from the sun or rain and looks at a double rainbow that has just appeared. The painting is in the collection of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Painting credit: John Everett Millais
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July 13
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The wood stork (Mycteria americana) is a large wading bird found in warmer parts of the Americas. North American birds may disperse to South America, where it is resident. Its bare head and neck are dark grey and the plumage is mostly white, with black on the tail and part of the wing. The sexes are similar, but the juvenile has a feathered head and a yellow, not black, bill. The wood stork nests colonially in wetlands, building its one-metre-diameter (3.3-foot) nest in trees; the breeding season starting when water levels drop. The clutch of three to five eggs is incubated for around 30 days, and the chicks fledge 60 to 65 days after hatching, although many die during their first two weeks. The chicks are fed fish while the adult also eats insects, frogs and crabs as available, foraging by touch in shallow water. This wood stork was photographed with a Yacare caiman in the Pantanal, Brazil. Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp
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July 12
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Slime mold is an informal name given to a polyphyletic assemblage of unrelated eukaryotic organisms in the clades Stramenopiles, Rhizaria, Discoba, Amoebozoa and Holomycota. Most are near-microscopic; those in Myxogastria form larger plasmodial slime molds that are visible to the naked eye. Most slime molds are terrestrial and free-living, typically in damp shady habitats such as in or on the surface of rotting wood. Some myxogastrians and protostelians are aquatic or semi-aquatic. The phytomyxea are parasitic, living inside their plant hosts. Geographically, slime molds are cosmopolitan in distribution. A small number of species occur in regions as dry as the Atacama Desert and as cold as the Arctic; they are abundant in the tropics, especially in rainforests. This picture shows a group of sporangia of the slime mold Comatricha nigra, photographed in a garden in Berlin, Germany. Photograph credit: Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas
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July 11
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Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world". After publishing his first book in 1959, Bloom wrote more than 50 books, including over 40 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He edited hundreds of anthologies concerning numerous literary and philosophical figures for the Chelsea House publishing firm. This photograph by Bernard Gotfryd shows Bloom in 1986. Photograph credit: Bernard Gotfryd
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July 10
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The checkerboard wrasse (Halichoeres hortulanus) is a species of fish belonging to the wrasse family. It is native to the Indian Ocean and central Pacific Ocean. It is a small fish that can reach a maximum length of 27 centimetres (11 inches). Both its sex and appearance change during its life, and the colouring at each stage is variable based on location. Like many other wrasses, the checkerboard wrasse is a protogynous hermaphrodite, starting life as a female and later becoming a male, changing sex at maturity when it is about 12.8 centimetres (5.0 inches) long. This checkerboard wrasse was photographed in the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt. Photograph credit: Diego Delso
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July 9
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The tamarind (Tamarindus indica) is a leguminous tree in the family Fabaceae, indigenous to tropical Africa and naturalized in Asia. The tamarind tree produces brown, pod-like edible fruits, 12 to 15 centimetres (4.5 to 6 inches) in length, which contain a sweet, tangy pulp. The pulp is also used in traditional medicine and as a metal polish. This photograph shows two tamarind fruits of the cultivar 'Si Thong', one whole and one opened, with three tamarind seeds in front. The picture was focus-stacked from 51 separate images. Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus
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July 8
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The Gross Clinic is an 1875 oil-on-canvas painting by the American artist Thomas Eakins. It measures 8 ft by 6.5 ft (240 cm by 200 cm). The painting depicts Samuel D. Gross (July 8, 1805 – May 6, 1884), a seventy-year-old American medical professor, dressed in a black frock coat and lecturing a group of Jefferson Medical College students in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The painting is based on a surgery, witnessed by Eakins, in which Gross treated a young man for an infected femur. Gross is pictured here performing a conservative operation, as opposed to the amputation normally carried out at the time. Eakins included a self-portrait in the form of a student with a white cuffed sleeve sketching or writing, at the right-hand edge of the painting, next to the tunnel railing. The Gross Clinic has been restored three times, most recently in 2010, and is currently jointly owned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Painting credit: Thomas Eakins
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July 7
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The titan beetle (Titanus giganteus) is a Neotropical species of longhorn beetle. It is one of the largest known beetles, as well as one of the largest known insects, at more than 170 millimetres (6.7 inches) in length. Adult titan beetles only live for a few weeks, and protect themselves from predators with their sharp spines and powerful jaws. The species is native to tropical rainforests throughout South America, primarily the Amazon rainforest, and is primarily found in old-growth forests with plenty of rotting wood, which serves as their principal food supply. Despite a broad distribution throughout South America, it is secretive and rarely seen due to its nocturnal habits and cryptic behavior. These three male titan beetles, collected in French Guiana, are in the collection of the Muséum de Toulouse in France. Photograph credit: Didier Descouens
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July 6
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The 14th Dalai Lama (born 6 July 1935), also known by the spiritual name Tenzin Gyatso, is the incumbent Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader and head of Tibetan Buddhism. He served as the resident spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet before the 1959 Tibetan uprising against the Chinese annexation of Tibet, when he escaped from Tibet to India. Subsequently, he led the Tibetan government-in-exile, represented by the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamshala, India. A belief central to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, as well as the institution of the Dalai Lama, is that he is a living bodhisattva, specifically an emanation of Avalokiteśvara (in Sanskrit) or Chenrezig (in Tibetan), the Bodhisattva of Compassion. This photograph of the Dalai Lama was taken in 2012. Photograph credit: Christopher Michel
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July 5
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William Rankine (5 July 1820 – 24 December 1872) was a Scottish mathematician and physicist. He was a founding contributor, with Rudolf Clausius and Lord Kelvin, to the science of thermodynamics, particularly focusing on its First Law. He developed the Rankine scale, a Fahrenheit-based equivalent to the Celsius-based Kelvin scale of temperature. This undated photograph of Rankine was taken by Thomas Annan. Photograph credit: Thomas Annan; restored by Adam Cuerden
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