In honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day, I decided to take the hackneyed LOLcats phenomenon one ludicrous step further by creating some ARRGHcats:

Want to create one of your own? You can use the LOLcat builder to create the text; just use one of their cat pics or upload one of your own, then add your own text. Extra points awarded for using obscure or archaic nautical terms, like skysails, larboard or belay. Then upload your photo to Flickr and tag it ARRGHcats (two R's, of course) so we can check them out. -andy

Black and White, originally uploaded by andycarvin.

This weekend we went to the Wings of Fancy butterfly exhibit at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, Maryland. This was the last day it was open for the season, and the butterflies were wonderfully lethargic due to the cool weather, making them easier to photograph. I brought along my eight-megapixel Konica camera and managed to take a lot of macro photos, including this one, of a beautiful black and white butterflies. I still haven't identified the species for it yet, but I have managed to put a name to several dozen of the butterflies I photographed. Please check out the butterfly photo gallery I've uploaded to Flickr to see the full collection of nearly 150 photos. -andy

Here's an amazing video about a recent discovery by John Kanzius, a cancer researcher who was experimenting with a radiation machine he built and realized he could use it to burn salt water. The discovery is "the most remarkable in water science in 100 years," said Rustum Roy, a Penn State University chemist who was invited to verify the findings. Essentially, irradiating the salt water causes its elements to separate and ignites the hydrogen. The discovery has some pretty amazing implications for energy policy if it could ever be replicated on an industrial scale.