face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Edinburgh,
Scotland, United Kingdom, March 13, 2007—For gentoo
penguins, it's all about who's got the best rocks. Like a human
offering jewelry, this gentoo male at the Edinburgh Zoo presents a
large pebble on Tuesday in hopes of winning over a female.
But
sometimes finding the flashiest gifts isn't enough. During the mating
season—which begins in March and lasts up to six
weeks—males suffering from "pebble envy" will steal the
best-looking rocks and pawn them off as their own.
The
pebbles will eventually become parts of the penguins'
nests—large circular piles of stone that can reach 8 inches
(20 centimeters) in height and 10 inches (25 centimeters) in diameter.
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Here's a very short poem about battle or riding the waves... that doesn't actually mention waves or chaos for once:
I may have just used the old 2+2=5 analogy, but I also like this example from the Primate Diaries:
Hotel Scienceblogs, that is. Do you remember David Dobbs and the blog Smooth Pebbles here on Sb?
One of the things that has puzzled me about natural history/science museums are the mineralogy exhibits. They really don't seem to be about anything other than "OOH! SHINY PEBBLE!" Mind you, they often have some very cool and shiny pebbles, but contrast them to paleontology exhibits.