Check out this new photo of the Orion Nebula.  Calling it a “masterpiece” doesn’t begin to describe it.

Tangled Bank #66 is online.  Head on over and check out the best science writing covering a wide range of topics.

Thanks to Cosmic Variance for pointing out Hubble’s top 100 photos.  What a fantastic collection of the universe’s visual splendor.

The 47th Skeptics’ Circle is available.  Go get your fill of critical thinking.

How cute is this!  It’s the Jekyll and Hyde puppy.

While you’re there, take a look at this beautiful cat.  Something of interest on a related note: Did you know that an all white cat with two blue eyes is almost always deaf?  If both eyes are not blue (even if only one is a different color), the deafness trait is far less likely to present, but two blue eyes means the cat is almost certainly unable to hear.  Similarly, calico cats are almost always female.  On the extremely rare occasions when a calico cat is male, it is always infertile.

You know there’s no love lost between me and the state of Virginia.  The last great hold-out and protector of anti-miscegenation laws (prohibiting interracial marriage), the state now is focusing on the most restrictive anti-gay legislation in the country, and that has created an environment where no contract or agreement can exist between two unmarried people and most especially between two people of the same sex (even if that agreement was between father and son, for instance, Virginia’s hate laws would invalidate the contract).  While they move to take away all benefits for gay couples (health insurance/domestic partner benefits, hospital visitation, end-of-life, health decisions, and so on) literally to make gays the three-fifths of a citizen that they couldn’t keep pushing on ex-slaves, someone has come up with a great idea for a tee shirt: Virginia is for (Straight, White, and Christian) Lovers.  Most excellent!  If they want to continue using that slogan (“Virginia is for lovers”), I’d like to see truth in advertising since that’s not really what they mean.  The new shirt/slogan is perfect and more accurately reflects the state’s views on precisely which lovers are welcome in their little backwater hellhole.