Herba: a 4 piece set for extracting medicinal herbs: olla- for the brewing/infusing , lacus- for tincturing, fumo - for cooking over law heat, and cribo- for separating the extract from the waste.

FEATUREDGot a sneak preview of National Geographic's exhibition entitled "Water: Our Thirsty World" at the Annenberg Space for Photography. Awesome photos on a very important topic. And cute smiling turtle!

BBC slideshow of superpredation (predators hunting predators) by owls and eagles. The most dramatic photos are staged, but nonetheless capture the idea!

This North American river otter pup is one of three new arrivals at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. Too cute!

B. Elemenosqueeze Soft Blocks ABC are awesome in person. Soft toy blocks for children with science/nature/evolution based images.

Wonderful NYTimes slideshow featuring a 4,500-page tome, "The Histories of Animals," published by the Swiss physician Conrad Gessner in the mid-1500s.

The SR Outdoor Table Set from Scout Regalia is made of enameled aluminum and FSC certified redwood. The SR Outdoor Table Set is made to order with a choice of 210 enamel colors.

How do you create effective lighting when there’s no way to get to the grid? Designed by Igendesign, the ‘Flow’ light is powered by constant prevailing coastal winds and is built to be almost completely biodegradable.

Exquisite picture of a spider web on a gate. Kindra Clineff shows nature demonstrating that it can compete on an architectural level as well as making man-made designs look much better.

Britain’s rarest wildflower, the ghost orchid, was rediscovered after being officially declared extinct in Britain in 2005.

GREENAID: A seedbomb vending machine program taking off in LA and soon to come to a city near you! Brought to you by Daniel Phillips and Kim Karlsrud via Commonstudio.

MANGIACHETIFABENE A cooking class, an interesting and entertaining experience with Marco Velardi, of Apartamento, and Francesca Sarti, of Arabeschi di Latte.

Urban Logs are the latest in a line of furniture from Ilan Dei Studio. Focusing on “urban renewal” each piece gives new life to urban and suburban trees that have been previously removed and are destined to become waste or firewood.

BIOGLASS is 100% recycled and 100% recyclable, Cradle to Cradle Silver certified and available in 6 natural colors.

Apparently Horsetail Falls in Yosemite turns golden around sunset ~ stunning photo by Rob Kroenert

I had no idea there was a need for this ~ "FujiFilm Finepix Z700 Point-and-Shoot Is the First To Offer Pet Detection"

Visitors at the Zurich Zoo witnessed a zebra going nose to nose with an open-mouthed hippopotamus. Apparently it was cleaning the hippo's teeth!

The giant montane pitcher plant of Borneo has a pitcher the exact same size as a tree shrew's body...could it be that this incredible carnivorous plant evolved to eat tree shrew poo?

FEATUREDA new Dear NOTCOT ~ from Lou Mora ~ who, inspired by the matte black penguin and the Oscars ~ created the GOLDEN puma PENGUIN! See the evolution...

A landscape for the birds using bass guitars and Gibson Les Paul electric guitars as perches, and cymbals as feeders containing water and seeds.

Brass Animal Keychains at Tortoise

Galls - some are hideous and some strangely beautiful but they leave the plant looking as if it has been invaded by miniature aliens. Take a look at the weirdness of the plant gall.

Adorable and bizarre animated bird video from Pleix

interesting article in the NYtimes about keeping and eating rabbits. are rabbits the new chickens in our backyards?

The Maldives government just signed an agreement yesterday with architect Koen Olthius and the Dutch Docklands to develop several new star-shaped floating islands!

Lovely uncut retro animal matchbook covers

I had no idea there were so many types of Daffodils! Beautiful look at many possibilities from Design*Sponge

Take a look at this Birdhouse!!
Manufactured via a traditional aluminium compression process and with a circle of larch wood as the little house facade, its materials are as simple and honest as the design.

Exhibition "por narices" (for noses) The world of smells.

FEATUREDCrips! Adorable graphics, and they ARE better/healthier than crisps/chips... see the snacks, the packaging, and the fun website pics too!

FEATUREDOn unexpected hotel surprises ~ did you know that the Soho Grand Hotel will provide you with a black goldfish in room companion/pet?

Pink tree spotted in Los Angeles.

FEATUREDSometimes you can't help taking pictures of a stalker penguin, spray painting penguin parts, and experimenting late at night... Another adventure of the Puma Penguins...

This campfire do-it-yourself-kit helps you to make a romantic campfire in no time. Everything you need is in the bag. A design by dutch Evelien Stamhuis and her label Lienehuis.

Lovely (and affordable) modern terrariums from JeffreyJamesModern.

New personal project by Nick Meek called "Welcome to Yosemite". Really great work, check it out.

Mushroom foraging! Love these pics ~ and amazing how many they collected up!

Wolong National Nature Reserve, south west China–
In these amazing images, 16 tiny pandas are shown their new home for the first time after being separated from their mothers.

who knew plankton could be so cool? check out these great photos and audio slideshow with richard kirby. the photos will feature in an upcoming book and are on display at ZSL.

Tate and CultureLabel.com are collaborating to launch the 2010 edition of RELEASE and, this year, the hunt is on for two outstanding product designs that will be produced and sold in Tate shops,Tate Online and at CultureLabel.com.

Hubble has discovered a mysterious X-shaped object traveling at 11,000mph. NASA says that P/2010-A2 may be a comet, product of the collision between two asteroids. But what if..

these tanzanian spray toads are incredible and barely hanging on in captivity. great nytimes article on the struggle to keep them alive.

A great article by the NYTimes on how China is become the world’s leader in making clean energy.

Snuggled into a delightful desert spot in Rancho Mirage, California, Architect Ana Escalante of Escalante Architects, introduces an unpretentious home whose sustainable design mimics how nature reconciles with cozy shelters.

On shows to mark your calendar for ~ excited for the upcoming exhibit at the Annenberg Space for Photography, tentatively entitled "WATER: OUR THIRSTY WORLD" in partnership with National Geographic Magazine in March!

Another incredible proof that our nature is amazing. Stunning snowflake photos with much detail!
Next time you walk on snow remember that you're destroying millions of beautiful wonders.

Spin your old newspapers to yarn and start being creative! Great idea and for every DIY-lover.

If you want to mix rustic flair with Pink Floyd, then check out the Audiowood iPod dock. Rest your mp3 player on this woodsy knoll.

West Paw Design makes these recycled dog toys. Awesome colors and shapes. They guarantee that if it breaks, you get a free replacement and the old broken one is re-made into a new toy!

This zen humidifier is made from Japanese Cypress and is powered by mother nature. Water is absorbed up through the wood then evaporated into the air. Minimal, beautiful, and natural.

FEATUREDProgrammable living cells... could they lead to time release drugs responding to real time feedback... beautiful visualizations in the video showing the new research at UCSD just announced!

San Francisco's Ixia is a floral design studio that uses moss, branches and driftwood to create arrangements that fairies could live in. Beautiful stuff.

Chris Rochelle's project "Hampstead Heath"

Cooties exposed! Finally, for the first time, scientists dive into the mysterious inner workings of Cooties... New illustration and print...

The Tree trunk garden house in Hilversum, Netherlands is an amazing house made from logs.

Video excerpt from "Tomorrow, in a year", an electro-opera with music by The Knife about the life and work of Charles Darwin.

Christel Hadiwibawa is a furniture designer based in Sydney. The above pieces were part of her Honours research last year exploring sustainability. Working with bamboo, these are the final results of her work.

Nika Rams from Germany designed UseLess line of products to create awerness for saving the enviorment.

Some amazing shots of and facts about jellyfish.

Lex Pott combined these industrial, geometric forms with the original, organic structure of a tree in a series of items of furniture.

Icicle-shaped votive candleholder that hangs elegantly over the edge of a table, mantle or shelf.

No one knows for sure why some trees secrete resin. However, with the help of some marvelous macrophotography, its beauty – at times deadly – becomes evident.

Powerful porcelain sculpture on the subject of art in the age of climate change.

Let it #uksnow, let it #uksnow, let it #uksnow. Truly amazing satellite picture taken 7th January at 11.50 UTC

Never seen before outside the walls of Rajasthani village homes, the Mandana tradition of painting is practiced by the women of the Meena tribe. Handed down from mother to daughter, this stunning public art is a community tradition.

great nyt article and slideshow on rare breeds.

Design*Sponge goes green for 2010 with the most adorable teeny tiny terrariums

The solar passive designed dollhouse features a wind turbine, a solar cell panel with electrical inverter for generating electricity, a rain barrel for collecting rain, a green facade which helps control the appropriate temperature of the house, and much more ...

Lovi Postcard - Bird These beautiful wooden cards by Anne Paso of Finland (Lovi) come to life! You can send this flat-packed bird to a friend and allow them the fun of assembling! Set up like a postcard so you can leave a message.

From the scouts to the tracker, detectors and sentries, this is a tribute to those dogs who work with the military today – and of course their trainers.

Discovery News shows us the "Best Hubble Space Telescope Images of 2009"

Wow ~ National Geographic shows us that the "Sucker-Footed Bat Hangs Upright Via Sweat, Not Suction"

HA ~ CBS news puts a tumi, delsey, samsonite, victorinox, and american tourister against an elephant to see which bag can hold up...

Digby & Iona ~ Seppie Necklace - The octopus clings to it's chain!

Awesome Linda and Harriet Moose Gift Tags

"Jace, an artist from La Reunion, a small french island off of Madagascar, was staying with us a couple of winters back and asked if he could paint our garden." Awesome post over at brownstoner.

FEATUREDWow. On surprise xmas eve boxes to arrive ~ stunning one came from White Rabbit Inc, Fallon, and Syfy. Nothing like vials of Clear Conscience and Desire to kick off 2010... oh a latex rabbit head!

Handcrafted wooden toys of recently extinct animals.

Katie Paterson monitors the world's ecosystems through art - her installation on Deal pier means lights flash every time there is a lightning strike around the globe.

26 paper creatures—one for each letter of the alphabet—hung on the American Museum of Natural History’s tree.

This "sea toad" anglerfish is just one of many deep sea wonders from the 2009 IUCN Seamount expedition, which concluded last week.

Melting polar bear ice sculpture created by artist Mark Coreth was presented last week in Copenhagen and is sponsored by WWF to create an awareness on the human impact on the climate. As it melts, the skeleton appears.

Sanna Annukka - gorgeous wooden birds

Wow Zooborns, a blog all about newborn zoo creatures... here's a pygmy hippo calf

Ooh Design*Sponge and Studio Choo show us how to make a gorgeous wreath with succulents and all!

Ice caves - where ice often melts in the winter but not in the summer. A strange and little visited unearthly experience.

FEATUREDPUMA PENGUINS! They sent 20 of these over ~ and this notcot puma penguin army was possibly the most amazing thing to unbox ever. From window displays to here!

CURB has launched its latest low-impact innovation. GlowFungi, also known as DiscoFungi, is a marketing tool that uses glow-in-the-dark bacteria.

Paper Tiger Products Toddlers Feeding Tools- Paper Tiger Products by Australian designer Anthony Dan are flat packs, temporary structures made from recycled and recyclable material. Easily transport because it snap together easily and quickly.

eco-friendly, hand-made birdhouses out of recycled cigar boxes.

This rat is part of the HeroRATS, an elite force of rats trained up to detect unexploded landmines. And they are pretty good at it too!

The Trogon - a little know family of birds. They are beautiful, diverse and colorful. All in all they are some bird!

A Veined Octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus, carrying coconuts in Indonesia. New and controversial 'tool use' by a cephalopod. Tool use or not, it makes a good video!

FEATUREDKeith Noordzy has some spectacular pieces in the new Gallery 1988 Paper Pushers show ~ check out his Man Made Disaster Studies!

Amazing sky phenomenon in Norway! Take a look.

Beautiful and Tiny. New species of orchid found that is smallest ever seen.

Designed in 24 hours - from idea to production - by the quirky community. Rock on.

The Plitvice Lakes National Park is the most popular tourist attraction in Croatia. It is an UNESCO World Heritage Site and a stunning reminder of the natural beauty in this world

galaplex - newspaperholder made of kraftplex - kraftplex is a new sustainable material, completely biodegradable and emissionfree, galaplex is a smart creation out of it.

John Pusateri questions how fine art practice, through visual documentation, specimen collection, and site dissection, may explore and contribute to levels of biological knowledge.

A great idea for making reading adventurous with the use of Zoometry bookmark collection that doubles as an African safari landscape. The bookmarks are recycled from scraps of wood.

FEATUREDHoliday Feature + GIVEAWAY!!! Rocket World shows off their new jewelry pieces (amazing grenade and skull) as modeled by their first plush, Titus! (A must for the kids wishlist this year!)

On free downloads for the day ~ 3D Science is offering a 3D model of our childhood favorite ~ the T4 Bacteriophage

Verameat's Hip-Shark Necklace ~ yes, a silver hippo-shark hybrid!

Katie Paterson went to Iceland and recorded the sounds of three separate glaciers, and then pressed the dripping noises onto records made from each glacier’s melted (and then re-frozen) ice.

Interesting work of a young french designer, Jules Charbonnet, who makes installations with natural elements.

A Northern Ireland storybook, covering areas such as the arts/food & drink/landscapes/heritage and people to be proud of.

Visit Norway tempts adventurous tourists to Northern Norway, with the magical Northern Lights. The user can draw his own personal aurora, and share it with their friends.

Deep under the Antarctic ice, a rare, colourful burst of starfish and 3m-long monster worms has been filmed by a BBC camera crew. Incredible footage!

these box jellyfish are just one of the many features of this week's nytimes science slideshows.

Dodo, Great Auk, Wooly Mammoth, and Saber-Tooth Tiger ~ beautiful series by Lumadessa, "Extinct Editions"

Kikku Planter from Tonfisk or Finland ~ stunning!

No doubt, nature paints the most impressive pictures. Here's a set of amazing photographs of giant icebergs from Antarctica and Greenland by master nature photographer David Burdeny.

Harvard Medical School's artist in residence, Brian Knep, makes beautiful artwork using tiny nematode worms, Caenorhabditis elegans.

How wonderful os this Mandelbulb? The Mandelbrot fractal, finally rendered in 3D and thoroughly explained. Wonder if it would be as beautiful if put through a 3D printer!

FEATUREDDave Presslers Endorphins get dissected in his latest piece! Love the detail... from the skull in the stomach (?) to the big sharp teeth behind that blinding smile...

FEATUREDMoss in association with Edelman Arts presents Remains by Cathy McClure ~ she deconstructs robotic animal toys ~ recasts the pieces in bronze and reconstructs it... see all the creatures!

A giant pun in metal, "Tumbling Weed" is a stainless steel sculpture by artist Heath Satow. The five leaves of each "weed" appear as a head, two arms, and two legs, like a child doing a somersault.

VIDEOTrillions... a short film by MAYA Design created to put some perspective on the invisible but fast approaching challenges and opportunities in the pervasive computing age.

Jason Stillman is one of those sculptors who take sculpting to a new level. While many of his works are already on display at many places, he has designed an amazing Kinetic Steel Sculpture titled 'The Evolution of Flora'

In Earth Engines, Barry Underwood’s staged surreal photographs, he combined electricity and nature for flashpoints of wonderment.

" X-RAY ANALYSES OF SPEECH" is a GIF-project by Christine Ericsdotter. The aim of this project was to show the movement inside the mouth when speaking

Fredericks and Freiser Gallery presents new works from naturalist, designer, illustrator Nicholas Di Genova, February 2010 - preview works now!

MRO is currently circling approximately 300 km above the Martian surface. Here is an astounding collection of alien-like photographs taken by the HiRISE camera on board the MRO – at resolutions as fine as mere inches per pixel.

A look at Toyota Prius' literally green living floral billboards along southern california freeways where in exchange they are helping maintain and repair those freeway sections.

Wayne Levin's stunning underwater photography

Ira Glass on the personalities of chickens over at Gastronomista

Forest Milk (or Shinrin no Gyunyu) is coming from a Japanese farm where cows are walking freely in a natural forest. Delicious, natural milk in a perfect designed bottle. I want some, please...

Designer Fabio Parizzi uses stencils and the sun to create this lovely DIY poster.

Studio Choo also visited California Carnivores! For Design*Sponge they write up how to make some awesome carnivorous terrariums

I do fall in love for Lidsay Taylor and Paula Hayes' supercool idea: little lovely green habitat inside of glass bubbles and cubes

Ed's your friendly educator for all things paper, printing and design. He's here to help designers take more responsibility for ensuring that their projects are as green and sustainable as possible.

Howletts Wild Animal Park prove that animals can enjoy Halloween too

Floral foam (usually used for arranging flowers) shaped as a vase. another beautiful idea by designer Shay Shafranek.

FEATUREDcrazy moss clumps, baby spiders, MASSIVE spiders, snail sex, mantis, silk worms, etc.... more pics of my view of Oxford

FEATUREDAdorable creatures discovered at The Goldfish Bowl in Oxford ~ including some adorable baby turtles and a ray giving me quite the stink eye...

Skulls Unlimited create non existent and hard to find skeletal structures such as this centaur made from half horse half human remains

Nikon's 2009 winners of their annual "Its a small world" competition. All photographs are taken through a light microscope.

FEATUREDBest. Packaging. Ever? Take a peek inside this mysterious box from The Kraken Rum ~ the details of the box, the seal, the letter, the bottle, the ltd ed print, poster, tooth in a vial, book, ink, feather, and MORE...

Equine health lectures that uses real 'painted' horses as live anatomical text books

Using Styrofoam scavenged from the dump, American artist Andrew Junge sculpted a Hummer to highlight waste and consumption in North American culture. 17ft (5.2m) long, 6ft (1.8m) high and 8ft (2.4m) wide.

Some birds just love hanging around - but it can be a shock to see them upside down!

A wooden summer sandal, inspired by the Japanese sandal, with an innovative fresh look , made from natural materials, lightweight and airy. materials: wood , steel and leather.

Tviga Vasilyeva puts the sound of the forest back where the trees have been cut down.