A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite – Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on January 4, 2012.

Result:

That’s good, but you have to go here. The image takes a while to appear completely—but it is just mindblowing. And if you click on a spot in the photo you get incredible closeups.

More on SUOMI NPPP right over here.

Where were we? Oh yeah—the person who makes the most custard-sneezingly hilarious caption for this photo…

…wins an Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader of their chooosing and…yes…the coveted UJBR T-shirt. (Not available anywhere but here as a prize! It’s almost cruel, isn’t it?!)

Behold:

Ain’t she a beauty?

Sample caption:

"Now let me tell about this little event we called 'Woodstock'"...

Ready set go…

You have until midnight Sunday, PST!

**** U.S. only! Sorry! It’s a legal department thing…

**** Pic from here. Thanks!

After drilling for two decades through more than two miles of antarctic ice, Russian scientists are on the verge of entering a vast, dark lake that hasn’t been touched by light for more than 20 million years.

Scientists are enormously excited about what life-forms might be found there but are equally worried about contaminating the lake with drilling fluids and bacteria, and the potentially explosive “de-gassing” of a body of water that has especially high concentrations of oxygen and nitrogen.

Yowza. Anyone mind if we stand back?

They’ve got a great graphic. Here’s a peek.

 There’s more to the graphic over at the WaPo.

As we reported the other day, we have a BRI spy in Indianapolis, and he sent us this photo of kids playing rugby—they’re having displays of “foreign” sports—in Super Bowl Village. (We added the “Wuh-huhhh?”)

Is this a new tactic by the Patriots? Anyone? …

P.S. Our spy sends this advice:

If you’re going to any of the Super Week festivities, get the Superbowl XLVI app from the NFL. It’s on both markets. 3D gps, info, links to buy tickets, and it’s free.

Now to the story:

Is it a case of mass hysteria? That’s what one doc thinks. More at the link.

We’ve done a bunch of stories on mass hysteria outbreaks over the years. One of the wildest: “The Great Seattle Windshield Epidemic,” in Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader (page 413).  (You can read it here.)

ON this day , January 31, 1.75 million years ago, Uh was standing on a stone outcrop overlooking what would later become the city of Newark, New Jersey. A chill passed through him.

A prehistoric swamp rat the size of two dachshunds tied together end-to-end ambled by. Uh pierced the beast with his special pointy stick (arf!), skinned it in one quick squeak, quickly made some string from its intestines, and sewed the fur to the neckline of his opossum-skin shirt. Cozy, thought Uh.

Uh made his way back to the cave. There, the people looked at his fancy new clothing accessory, and said, “Uh?”

And Uh was pleased.

That’s the story of the invention of the collar. Since that time the collar has gone through a lot of changes, and we thought it would be a good day to celebrate some of those change. Well, actually, that’s a lie. We just wanted what passed for a good reason to show you this picture, and we couldn’t think of one. So here you go:

We don’t know. Whatever the question is, We don’t know.

Here’s the Super Bowl XLVI “Monument Circle” in the city’s downtown:

Oh yeah. More to come…

P.S. Best thing about this video: the statuette of the lady with the orange hair and dark sunglasses and red dress and red shoes (and red panties) sitting on the toilet. Awesome.

And we thought, “Definitely not the album cover for this song!”

P.S. We humbly suggest that if your kids aren’t familiar with this song – well, there are some things that all kids should experience. One of them is this song.

* Lyrics adapted from Dr. Seuss, music by Eugene Poddany.

Woah:

Bird enthusiasts are reporting rising numbers of snowy owls from the Arctic winging into the lower 48 states this winter in a mass southern migration that a leading owl researcher called “unbelievable.”

Thousands of the snow-white birds, which stand 2 feet tall with 5-foot wingspans, have been spotted from coast to coast, feeding in farmlands in Idaho, roosting on rooftops in Montana, gliding over golf courses in Missouri and soaring over shorelines in Massachusetts.

A certain number of the iconic owls fly south from their Arctic breeding grounds each winter but rarely do so many venture so far away even amid large-scale, periodic southern migrations known as irruptions.

The New York Times has more.

* Pic.