Michael Tritter is a fictional character in the medical drama series House, played by David Morse (pictured). The main antagonist of the third season (2006–07), Tritter is a police detective who tries to get Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) to apologize for leaving him with a thermometer in his rectum. After House refuses, Tritter discovers his Vicodin addiction, and forces him to go to rehab. The character was created as somebody who could go "toe-to-toe" with House. Morse, who had never seen the show before, was unsure if he could portray the character. The excited reaction of his friends convinced him to take the role. Initial critical responses were mostly positive, but critics later felt that the six-episode Tritter story arc became boring. Morse, though, was praised for his portrayal and received an Emmy nomination. He stated in a 2006 TV Guide interview that, although he had discussed it with the show's writers, reprising the character would be "practically impossible". (Full article...)
Recently featured:Gertie the Dinosaur is a 1914 animated short film by American cartoonist Winsor McCay. He first used the film before audiences as an interactive part of his vaudeville act: the frisky, childlike dinosaur Gertie did tricks at his command. His employer, magnate William Randolph Hearst, later curtailed McCay's vaudeville activities, so McCay added a live-action introductory sequence to the film for its theatrical release. Gertie was the first film to use animation techniques such as keyframes, registration marks, tracing paper, the Mutoscope action viewer, and animation loops, and the first to feature a dinosaur. Gertie influenced the next generation of animators, including the Fleischer brothers, Otto Messmer, Paul Terry, and Walt Disney. McCay abandoned a sequel, Gertie on Tour, around 1921 after producing about a minute of footage. Gertie is the best preserved of his films—others are lost or in fragments—and has been preserved in the US National Film Registry. (Full article...)
Recently featured:Flotilla is a 2010 turn-based strategy space-combat video game developed by Brendon Chung (pictured) and his studio, Blendo Games. The game was released in March 2010 on Steam for Microsoft Windows and on Xbox Live Indie Games for the Xbox 360. Flotilla was designed with Microsoft's XNA tools, and its development was influenced by animals as well as board games such as Axis & Allies and Arkham Horror. The game takes the player on an adventure through a randomly generated galaxy. Chung began developing Flotilla after the closure of Pandemic Studios, where he had worked as a designer. The new game used assets imported from Chung's early space combat prototype Space Piñata. Flotilla incorporates pieces of classical music in its score such as Frédéric Chopin's "Raindrop" prelude. It received mixed reviews from video game media outlets, scoring 72 out of 100 on review aggregate website Metacritic, and was included in Mike Rose's book 250 Indie Games You Must Play. (Full article...)
Recently featured:Pierre Boulez (26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer and conductor. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war contemporary classical music. As a composer, he played a leading role in the development of integral serialism in the 1950s, and the electronic transformation of instrumental music in real time from the 1970s. Boulez conducted many of the world's great orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra. In the 1970s, he was the music director of the New York Philharmonic and the chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He was particularly known for his performances of 20th-century music, including Debussy, Stravinsky and Schoenberg. Boulez's work in opera included the Jahrhundertring, a production of Wagner's Ring cycle for the centenary of the Bayreuth Festival. He also established several musical institutions, including the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique / Musique and the Ensemble intercontemporain. (Full article...)
Recently featured:The Spy Who Loved Me is the ninth novel and tenth book in Ian Fleming's James Bond series. First published on 16 April 1962, it is the shortest and most sexually explicit of Fleming's novels, as well as the only Bond novel told in the first person. Its narrator is a young Canadian woman, Viv Michel. Bond does not appear until two-thirds of the way through the book, arriving at precisely the right moment to save Viv from being raped and murdered. Fleming wrote a prologue to the novel giving the character Viv credit as a co-author. The story uses a recurring motif of Saint George against the dragon, and contains themes of power and the moral ambiguity between those acting with good and evil intent. The reviews were largely negative, with some expressing a desire for a return to the structure and form of the previous Bond novels. Fleming attempted to suppress elements of the book: he blocked a paperback edition and permitted Eon Productions to use only the book's title but not its plot. (This article is part of a featured topic: Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and short stories.)
Recently featured:Interstate 182 (I-182) is an east–west auxiliary Interstate Highway in the U.S. state of Washington. It serves as a connector from I-82 to the Tri-Cities region that crosses the Columbia River on the Interstate 182 Bridge between Richland and Pasco. I-182 is 15 miles (24 km) long and entirely concurrent with U.S. Route 12; it intersects State Route 240 and US 395. Business leaders in the Tri-Cities began lobbying for a freeway in 1958 after early alignments for I-82 were routed away from the area. I-182 was a compromise to the routing dispute, which allowed for direct access to the Tri-Cities and a bypass for other traffic. The new freeway would also include construction of a bridge between Richland and Pasco. Construction on I-182 was scheduled to begin in 1971, but was delayed and began in late 1980; it opened to traffic three years later. The final sections of the freeway, between I-82 and Richland, opened to traffic in March 1986. (This article is part of a featured topic: Interstate 82.)
Recently featured:Hurricane Cindy was a tropical cyclone that made landfall in the U.S. state of Louisiana in July 2005. The third named storm of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, Cindy developed from a tropical wave on July 3, off the east coast of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. Soon after, it moved over land before emerging into the Gulf of Mexico. It tracked toward the northern Gulf Coast and strengthened to reach maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (120 km/h), making it a Category 1 on the Saffir–Simpson scale. The hurricane struck Louisiana, on July 5 at peak intensity, but weakened by the time it made a second landfall along southern Mississippi. It weakened over the southeastern US and transitioned into an extratropical cyclone on July 7. The remnants of Cindy produced an outbreak of 42 tornadoes across six states before they moved into Atlantic Canada and dissipated on July 13 over the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Cindy caused six traffic deaths and its damage was significant. (Full article...)
Recently featured:"Your Girl" is a song recorded by American singer Mariah Carey (pictured) for her tenth studio album, The Emancipation of Mimi. She wrote the track with Marc Shemer, who also produced it with her under the name Scram Jones. The lyrics of "Your Girl" are about confidently approaching a potential lover. To convey this sentiment, Carey employs belting in her vocal performance. The track was influenced by disco, gospel, jazz, pop, and soul, while sampling vocals and an acoustic guitar from the 2003 Adeaze song "A Life with You". Some reviewers considered "Your Girl" one of the best tracks on The Emancipation of Mimi; others criticized the vocals. Regretful that it was not issued as a single from the album, Carey later released two remixes featuring rappers Cam'ron, Juelz Santana, and N.O.R.E. as part of a 2021 digital extended play. She has performed the song live during the 2006 The Adventures of Mimi concert tour and the 2024 Celebration of Mimi concert residency in Las Vegas. (Full article...)
Recently featured:The Apollo 15 postal covers incident involved the crew of NASA's Apollo 15, who in 1971 carried about 400 unauthorized postal covers (example pictured) to the Moon's surface. American astronauts David Scott, Alfred Worden and James Irwin agreed to receive about $7,000 each for transporting the covers, which were inside the Lunar Module Falcon as Scott and Irwin walked on the Moon. The covers were postmarked both prior to liftoff from Kennedy Space Center and after splashdown. Though the astronauts returned the money, they were reprimanded by NASA for poor judgment and were called before a closed session of a Senate committee. They were removed as the backup crew for Apollo 17 and never flew in space again; by 1977, all had left NASA. In 1983, Worden sued for the return of covers that had been impounded by NASA in 1972, and the three men received them in an out-of-court settlement. One of the covers provided in 1971 to West German stamp dealer Hermann Sieger sold for over $50,000 in 2014. (Full article...)
Recently featured:Bart Simpson is a fictional character in the American animated television series The Simpsons who is part of the Simpson family. Described as one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century by Time, Matt Groening created and designed Bart in James L. Brooks's office. Bart, alongside the rest of the family, debuted in the short "Good Night" on The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. Two years later, the family received their own series, which premiered on Fox on December 17, 1989. Born on April Fools' Day according to Groening, Bart is ten years old; he is the eldest child and only son of Homer and Marge Simpson, and has two sisters, Lisa and Maggie. Voiced by Nancy Cartwright (pictured), Bart is known for his mischievousness, rebelliousness, and disrespect for authority, as well as his prank calls to Moe, chalkboard gags in the opening sequence, and catchphrases. Bart is considered an iconic fictional television character of the 1990s and has been called an American cultural icon. (Full article...)
Recently featured:March 24: Night of Power (Shia Islam, 2025); World Tuberculosis Day
Flag of Prince Edward IslandMarch 25: Feast of the Annunciation (Christianity); Bangladesh Genocide Remembrance Day
Enrico FermiMarch 27: Day of the Union of Bessarabia with Romania (1918)
Ball-and-stick model of sildenafilMarch 29: Boganda Day in the Central African Republic (1959); Martyrs' Day in Madagascar (1947)
Mariner 10March 30: Eid al-Fitr (Islam, 2025); Laetare Sunday (Western Christianity, 2025); Land Day in Palestinian communities (1976)
Signing of the Treaty of FesMarch 31: Cesar Chavez Day in various U.S. states (1927); International Transgender Day of Visibility
Woodcut picture of Matthew C. PerryApril 1: April Fools' Day; Iranian Islamic Republic Day (1979)
Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and ChandosThe garden strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa) is a widely grown hybrid plant cultivated worldwide for its fruit. The genus Fragaria, the strawberries, is in the rose family, Rosaceae. The fruit is appreciated for its aroma, bright red colour, juicy texture, and sweetness. It is eaten either fresh or in prepared foods such as jam, ice cream, and chocolates. Artificial strawberry flavourings and aromas are widely used in commercial products. Botanically, the strawberry is not a berry, but an aggregate accessory fruit. Each apparent 'seed' on the outside of the strawberry is actually an achene, a botanical fruit with a seed inside it. The garden strawberry was first bred in Brittany, France, in the 1750s via a cross of F. virginiana from eastern North America and F. chiloensis, which was brought from Chile by Amédée-François Frézier in 1714. Cultivars of F. × ananassa have replaced the woodland strawberry F. vesca in commercial production. In 2023, world production of strawberries exceeded ten million tons, led by China with 40% of the total. These focus-stacked photographs show two garden strawberries, one whole and one halved.
Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus
Recently featured:The hyacinth macaw (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus) is a parrot in the family Psittacidae, native to central and eastern South America. With a length of around 1 metre (3 feet), it is longer than any other species of parrot. It is also the largest macaw and the largest flying parrot species. The hyacinth macaw mostly nests in manduvi trees; these trees rely on the toco toucan for the majority of their distribution of seeds, but that bird also feeds on a sizeable proportion of the hyacinth macaw's eggs. Habitat loss and the trapping of wild birds for the pet trade have taken a heavy toll on their population in the wild, so the species is classified as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. This hyacinth macaw eating a nut was photographed by the Rio Negro, a river in the Pantanal in southwestern Brazil.
Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp
Recently featured:The Kefermarkt altarpiece is a richly decorated wooden altarpiece in the Late Gothic style in the parish church of Kefermarkt in Upper Austria. Commissioned by the knight Christoph von Zelking, it was completed around 1497. Saints Peter, Wolfgang and Christopher are depicted in the central section. The wing panels depict scenes from the life of Mary, and the altarpiece also has an intricate superstructure and two side figures of Saints George and Florian. The identity of its maker, known by the notname Master of the Kefermarkt Altarpiece, is unknown, but at least two skilled sculptors appear to have created the main statuary. Throughout the centuries, it has been altered and lost its original paint and gilding; a major restoration was undertaken in the 19th century under the direction of Adalbert Stifter. The altarpiece has been described as "one of the greatest achievements in late-medieval sculpture in the German-speaking area". This image shows the upper-right wing panel of the Kefermarkt altarpiece, depicting the Annunciation. Mary is portrayed kneeling in a praying stool inside a half-open structure, supported by unusually carved pillars, crowned above their capitals with figures which are probably intended to be prophets from the Old Testament. The archangel Gabriel is entering the structure, and holds a speech scroll where parts of his greeting, the Ave Maria, is visible. In the upper-left corner is a depiction of God the Father among clouds and flanked by two angels. The panel originally also contained a dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit, but it has been lost.
Sculpture credit: Master of the Kefermarkt Altarpiece; photographed by Uoaei1
Recently featured:The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed on March 26, 2024, at 1:28 a.m. Eastern Time, in the Baltimore metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Maryland. The main spans and the three nearest northeast approach spans of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, spanning the Patapsco River, collapsed after MV Dali, a container ship, struck one of the bridge's piers. Six members of a maintenance crew working on the roadway were killed, and two more were rescued from the river. The collapse blocked most shipping to and from the Port of Baltimore for 11 weeks. Wes Moore, the governor of Maryland, called the event a "global crisis" that affected more than 8,000 jobs. The economic impact of the closure of the waterway was estimated at $15 million per day. This photograph, taken on the afternoon of March 26 by a member of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, shows the aftermath of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, with Dali's bow damaged by and lying under a section of the bridge's collapsed truss.
Photograph credit: David Adams
Recently featured:The Mauritius ornate day gecko (Phelsuma ornata) is a diurnal species of gecko in the family Gekkonidae, the common geckos. It occurs in Mauritius, on the main island up to an elevation of 300 metres (980 feet) and on most of the surrounding islands. The species feeds on insects and nectar from flowering plants. It has a typical length of 10 to 13 centimetres (3.9 to 5.1 inches), and can be bluish green, with a back covered with red coloured dots and a head with a T-shaped pattern. This Mauritius ornate day gecko was photographed on the Île aux Aigrettes, an islet of the southeastern coast of the main island.
Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp
Recently featured:Joseph Bazalgette (28 March 1819 – 15 March 1891) was an English civil engineer. As Chief Engineer of London's Metropolitan Board of Works, his major achievement was the creation of a sewerage system for central London, in response to the Great Stink of 1858, which was instrumental in relieving the city of cholera epidemics, while beginning to clean the River Thames. He later designed the second and current Hammersmith Bridge, which opened in 1887. This photograph of Bazalgette was taken between 1864 and 1877.
Photograph credit: Lock & Whitfield; restored by Adam Cuerden
Recently featured:Silene flos-cuculi, commonly known as the ragged robin, is a perennial herbaceous plant in the family Caryophyllaceae. Native to Europe and Asia, it is found along roads and in wet meadows and pastures, and has also become naturalized in parts of North America. It forms a rosette of low growing foliage with numerous stems that are 30 to 90 centimetres (12 to 36 inches) tall. The stems rise above the foliage and branch near the top of the stem, the stems having barbed hairs which point downward and make the plant rough to the touch. The middle and upper leaves are linear-lanceolate with pointed apexes. Butterflies and long-tongued bees feed on the flowers' nectar. In addition to these pollinators, the flowers are visited by many other types of insects, and can be characterized by a generalized pollination syndrome. This S. flos-cuculi flower was photographed in Niitvälja, Estonia. This picture was focus-stacked from 27 separate images.
Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus
Recently featured:The chestnut-naped antpitta (Grallaria nuchalis) is a species of bird in the antpitta family, Grallariidae. Found in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, it inhabits bamboo stands in temperate to humid montane forest, and in the undergrowth of adjacent forest that lacks bamboo, at elevations between 2,000 and 3,000 metres (6,600 and 9,800 feet). It is known to feed on insects and other invertebrates, and sings mostly at dawn and dusk, usually from a hidden low perch. This chestnut-naped antpitta of the subspecies G. n. ruficeps was photographed in Las Tángaras, a nature reserve in Chocó Department, Colombia.
Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp
Recently featured:The ArtScience Museum is a building within the integrated resort of Marina Bay Sands in the Downtown Core of Singapore. Opened in 2011, it features exhibitions in art, science, culture and technology. The museum was designed by Moshe Safdie and features an exterior made of fibre-reinforced plastic supported internally by a steel lattice. It is anchored by a round base in the middle, with ten extensions referred to as "fingers" in the shape of a flower. This photograph shows the ArtScience Museum with other buildings of Singapore's Central Business District in the background.
Photograph credit: Basile Morin
Recently featured:A ghillie suit is a type of camouflage clothing designed to resemble the background environment, such as foliage. Typically, it is a net or cloth garment covered in loose strips of burlap (hessian), cloth, twine, or jute sometimes made to look like leaves and twigs, and optionally augmented with foliage from the area. Military personnel, police, hunters, and nature photographers may wear a ghillie suit to blend into their surroundings and to conceal themselves from enemies or targets. The suit gives the wearer's outline a three-dimensional breakup, rather than a linear one. When manufactured correctly, the suit will move in the wind in the same way as surrounding foliage. Some ghillie suits are made with light and breathable material that allows a person to wear a shirt underneath. This photograph of a wildlife photographer in a ghillie suit, standing and holding a camera, was taken in a forest in the Jura Mountains near Marchissy, Switzerland.
Photograph credit: Giles Laurent
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