In homage to Mother Nature & her weather, presenting the magnificent Siberian Snow Tiger:

[Are_grits_groceries]

@Globe_Pics

Mother Nature bats last.
That is one beautiful feline!

[shenmue]

1. O hai

I ar tiny kitn.

[freshwest]

17. Hai to you, too!

[idwiyo]

2. Beautiful creature.

[postulater]

3. But my bed isn't big enough.

Imagine seeing one!

[TDale313]

4. Absolutely gorgeous!

[brer cat]

5. Simply stunning. nt

[rhett o rick]

6. Mother Nature will win. nm

[Auntie Bush]

11. Mother Nature will only win if we get rid of all the stupid Rethug congressmen.

Or we lose!

[rhett o rick]

12. Mother nature will always win. She makes the rules. We most likely wont win.

But Mother Nature will be around long after we are gone. She will smile fondly of the silly experiment with humans.

[BrotherIvan]

25. Ayup!

I once heard a lecture by one of the scientists who discovered the hole in the atmosphere and a leading researcher on greenhouse gases. A woman asked, very concerned, what will happen to the earth?

He looked at her very levelly and said, "The world will live on. Just without us." It was a chilling thought. And he went on to explain the adjustments the earth would have to make. We humans would not survive it. But the Earth would find stasis/balance again in a few hundred million years or less. I think she'll be much better off without us.

Hail the era of the cockroach!

[rhett o rick]

29. I have a running debate with a friend as to whether the human race will or wont die off

before robots/computers become autonomous from humans (I think it's called singularity). Robots might survive in a world that is inhabitable for humans.

[BrotherIvan]

30. Hmm, I never really think about robots

For some reason we're real slow with the robots which I find surprising. I think because the corporate model is so focused on greed, the long-term is not being pursued. Big-picture thinkers and visionaries can't swim in the shark tank.

But I do think that humans are a very fragile species. Extremes in temperature, most especially cold, and we're done. We don't reproduce very quickly and only have one child at a time and that child is basically helpless until five or so. We also require tons of calories relative to our body mass and that's going to be the killer. Once the food source is gone, you're finished. And we're damn idiots who overpopulate, over-consume resources, and basically shit where we eat, so there's that.

That's why I vote for the creatures with extreme adaptations, like cockroaches or those toads, that can basically freeze to death or be exposed to very high radiation and in a sense "resurrect" themselves. Or spontaneous regeneration. And don't forget all the hardcore stuff in the ocean that can live in temperatures above boiling and highly acidic waters. Something is going to come from that. Might not be very pretty though.

[rhett o rick]

31. If you've been watching "Through the Wormhole" with Morgan Freeman,

you will see that great advances are being made at an increasing rate with regard to robots. They can teach other robots language. Dont count them out. At some point they will be able to replicate. But we kill ourselves off before we can develop them that far. It's a race.

[BrotherIvan]

32. That sounds interesting

I will definitely check it out. I know the military works on AI quite a bit behind the scenes. Our philosophy department which had been widely ignored in favor of the money-making schools of business and medicine suddenly got a huge amount of funding. The professors thought it was somewhat amusing that they were being funded by the military. Philosophers! They became part of a team, looking to define what human intelligence actually is. So sad that all that brain power would be harness for dark purposes.

[Skittles]

28. yup

my dad was a meteorologist; when people complained about forecasts he'd say, "YOU go up against Mother Nature - SEE HOW YOU DO!!!"

[valerief]

7. That's one gorgeous picture, but I'm still partial to this fella.

Not much to look at, but I could listen to his gibberish all day.

[tblue]

19. Hahahahaha!

So funny. Didn't know you could have a pet porcupine.

[valerief]

23. They're afraid of nothing, affectionate, and babble like crazy old men. What's not to love? nt

[MadrasT]

27. Argh, squee, OMG dying over here

WANT.

Oh he is awesome.

I would talk to him all damn day... I have had a couple cats that "talked" quite a bit but that little porcupine is something else.

Heehee.

[eggplant]

8. "Kitty!" -Boo. n/t

[eShirl]

9. Is that a real (as in, un-photoshopped) tiger?

[Scootaloo]

26. Nope

It's a greyscaled tiger pasted into a snowfield that had its eyes colored. Looks about as realistic as a Lisa frank binder.

Besides; There are no white siberian tigers. That's a mutation that is apparently unique to bengal tigers, and is only expressed due to long, long generations of inbreeding. They've got other genetic defects as well.

[niyad]

10. utterly magnificent

[johnp3907]

13. Couldn't you find any color photos?

hee hee

[hobbit709]

16. Here's one

[Drahthaardogs]

14. Mother Nature my ass.

White tigers do not exist in the wild. If you ever read the history of how the "white tiger" came to be, it would make you a little sick. This is breeding for fun and profit.

[redqueen]

15. +1

[Uncle Joe]

21. That raises an interesting philosophical question, are humans part of "Mother Nature?"

I believe we are but we have forgotten or become artificially disconnected from it.

In the case of the White Tiger perhaps the breed will be stronger because of this "mutant" variety coming from two strains that normally don't interrelate due to geographical isolation.

[drmeow]

24. I wish that were true

unfortunately, from what I understand, white tigers are plagued with health problems (like a lot of pure bred dogs and cats). Because the white is a rare mutation, there is a huge amount of inbreeding (and I believe many of the pups are stillborn).

[tblue]

18. Gorgeous! Save the tigers!

They're always endangered because people covet those gorgeous coats.

[Faygo Kid]

20. Wow.

Hate to clean that litter box. Really, what an impressive animal. Glad to share the planet with it, at least for now.

And oh well, maybe next year, my beloved Tigers.

[UtahLib]

22. Unimaginably magnificent. n/t