Wikipedia:Picture of the day/March 2010

A quartz crystal cluster from Tibet. Quartz is the second-most abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. There are many different varieties of quartz, several of which are semi-precious gemstones. Pure quartz, traditionally called rock crystal (sometimes called clear quartz), is colorless and transparent (clear) or translucent. Common colored varieties include citrine, rose quartz, amethyst, smoky quartz, milky quartz, and others.

Photo credit:

An aerial panoramic view of

A poster advertising a ca. 1896 American production of Georges Bizet's opéra comique Carmen, which premiered in Paris on March 3, 1875. Although it was initially quite unsuccessful, a second production in October 1875 after Bizet's death achieved critical and commercial success. Since then, it has been one of the world's most performed operas. Based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, Carmen, with its alternating comic or sentimental scenes found traditionally in opéra comique with stark realism, virtually eliminated the opéra comique genre and nourished the verismo movement in opera.

Poster: Liebler & Maass; Restoration: Adam Cuerden

The Lotus-Namam is the symbol of

"Know all men by these presents" is the title of this drawing by Coles Phillips (1880–1927), which served as the cover of a 1910 issue of the original incarnation of Life. Phillips' signature technique was the "fadeaway girl", demonstrated here, in which he would combine foreground and background elements of the same color, giving the impression of negative space. This style became a popular convention in print art for decades to come. Coles was hired by Life at the age of 26, and he remained associated with the magazine for his entire life.

Restoration: Lise Broer

A

False-colour scanning electron micrograph of the coccolithophore Gephyrocapsa oceanica, showing the calcareous coccoliths (plates or scales composed of calcium carbonate) on the surface that give the group its name. Coccolithophores are single-celled algae, protists and phytoplankton found throughout the photic zone of the ocean. This specimen is approximately 8 µm in diameter.

SEM: NEON; Colouring: Richard Bartz

The

The

An 1876

Image: The Illustrated London News
Restoration: Adam Cuerden

A view of

A ca. 1889 proposed

Image: F. Meriy; Restoration: Lise Broer

View animation

An

Image credit: Chris Benton

Alice B. Woodward's frontispiece to The Story of the Mikado (1921), W. S. Gilbert's last literary work: a posthumously published retelling of the plot of his comic opera The Mikado for children. The Mikado, set in a fictionalised Japan, opened on March 14, 1885, at the Savoy Theatre in London. The locale was chosen merely to provide a picturesque setting and to capitalise on the British fascination with Japan in the 1880s, allowing Gilbert to satirise British politics and institutions more freely by disguising them as Japanese. The Mikado became the most frequently performed Savoy opera, has been translated into numerous languages and is one of the most frequently played musical theatre pieces in history.

Restoration: Adam Cuerden

A view across the

Photo credit: Luca Galuzzi

A salted and roasted

A

The

A group of

Photo: Toni Frissell; Restoration: Jake Wartenberg

An illustration from a ca. 1916 edition of

The

The bathing boxes on Dendy Street Beach in Brighton, Victoria, Australia, with Middle Brighton pier and breakwater and the Melbourne skyline in the background, 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) to the northwest. Originally named Waterville, the community is named after the town of Brighton in England. Brighton houses some of the wealthiest citizens in Melbourne with grand homes, and the development of large residential blocks of land.

Photo credit: John O'Neill

A ca. 1890–1900

An image of

Randy's Donuts is a donut (doughnut) shop in Inglewood, California, known throughout the United States for its novelty architecture, consisting of a 32.5-foot (9.9 m) diameter donut on the roof of an otherwise ordinary drive-through bakery. Randy's was built in 1953, decades after the heyday of such architecture in Southern California, which saw the construction of a number of buildings in the shape of the products they sold. Randy's is one of five remaining locations of the Big Donut chain, each of which features the distinctive giant donut, but Randy's remains the most well-known.

Photo credit: Carol M. Highsmith

View animation

Tameing a Shrew; or, Petruchio's Patent Family Bedstead, Gags & Thumscrews, an 1815

Cartoon: Charles Williams; Restoration: Adam Cuerden

A farmer and his sons walk through a dust storm in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, United States, during the Dust Bowl period. Between 1930 and 1940, severe drought coupled with decades of extensive farming without crop rotation, fallow fields, cover crops or other techniques to prevent erosion, led to major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands. Millions of acres of farmland became useless, and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes.

Photo: Arthur Rothstein; Restoration: Michel Vuijlsteke

A paper clip on water, which appears blue here due to the colour of the glass, being held up by surface tension. Surface tension also keeps the water from overflowing the glass. It is caused by cohesion (the attraction of molecules to like molecules by various intermolecular forces.). It is what causes the surface portion of liquid to be attracted to another surface, such as that of another portion of liquid.

Photo credit:

The front of

Cubes of

The