A new Street Art gallery in Oberkampf

Closed and forgotten for ten years, an old grocery store in rue Oberkampf
reopens today as a gallery dedicated to street art...



[photo: Galerie 154]
The honour of the first exhibition goes to Swen Simon.
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Studio 21bis poster on le Mur...

Le M.U.R. # 87 - Studio 21bis - January 6/2011

Romain Demongeot
& Laurent Lacotte
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Cærostris darwini, special guest on 1st of January 2011

The Darwin bark* spider, Araneidæ: Cærostris darwini, was recently discovered
in Madagascar by two enthomologists of the Smithsonian
National Museum of Natural History - Washington.

Females can cast giant and very strong webs across
streams, creeks and lakes, suspending the orb directly
above the water on anchor threads that can span up
to 25 m.

[Photo by Matjaz Kuntner]

With such a huge hunting ground, these spiders are never lacking for food.

[Photo by Ingi Agnarsson]

Like other orbweaver spiders, Caerostris displays extreme sexual size dimorphism
with large females and small males, which is manifested
in enigmatic sexual behaviors such as mate guarding,
male-male aggressiveness, genital mutilation, mate
plugging, and self castration.
The two enthomologists also pointed out the biology and
web architecture of the new riverine Cærostris species
due to it combining extraordinary web architecture with
exceptional silk mechanical properties [TechNews].

*[their name stems from the habits of at least some species to mimic dead bark, twigs or thorns].
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Click on > Journal of Arachnology to read more.

From Blogger to Bloggers... and more

Happy 2011 !

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When the Seine River Overflows...

According to the government agency Vigicrues, the Seine River overflows since the
2nd week of December and exceeds of 3.78 m today, flooding the banks of the capital.

[Slideshow on Libération]

Once again, happily, we are far from the great flood of 1910, when
the Zouave du Pont de l'Alma was submerged up to its shoulders.
One hundred years have passed since then and the chances for a
similar flood happening again are taken very seriously.






The virtual exhibition "1910-Paris flooded"
brings together exceptional documents
[photos, postcards, posters, newspapers,
advertisements, etc.] from the History Library
of the City of Paris as well as from the agency
Roger-Viollet.
[clich on images to see all docs].

At the origin of the flooding, heavy rainfalls since summer 1909 and later snow, triggering
the floods of the Seine and its tributaries. These floods affected the Paris region, then the
capital from 21 to 28 January 1910.
The Seine River finally reached 8.50 m above the level 0 of La Tournelle Bridge.


[notremaxnational]
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