Wikipedia:Picture of the day/August 2023

An ambigram is a calligraphic or typographic design with multiple interpretations as written words. Alternative meanings are often yielded when the design is transformed or the observer moves, but they can also result from a shift in mental perspective. This animation shows a half-turn ambigram of the word ambigram. The word is written calligraphically with 180-degree rotational symmetry, such that it reads identically when viewed upside down.

Calligraphy and animation credit: Basile Morin

The San Francisco cable car system is a cable-car rail network in San Francisco, California. Conceived by Andrew Smith Hallidie, the system's first line was the Clay Street Hill Railroad, which opened on August 2, 1873. By 1890, the system had expanded to twenty-three lines, of which three remain in operation as of 2023. The cars are pulled by a cable running below the street, which is held by a grip that extends from the car through a slit in the street surface, between the rails. This 2016 photograph shows a cable car traveling on Hyde Street, with Alcatraz Island and Fisherman's Wharf visible in the background.

Photograph credit: Thomas Wolf

Sol de Mañana is an area with geothermal manifestations in southern Bolivia, including fumaroles, hot springs and mud pools. It lies at about 4,900 metres (16,100 ft) elevation, south of Laguna Colorada and east of El Tatio geothermal field. The field is located within the Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve and is an important tourism attraction on the road between Uyuni and Antofagasta. The field has been prospected as a possible geothermal power production site, with research beginning in the 1970s and after a pause recommencing in 2010.

Photograph credit: kallerna

Jacques Isnardon (1860–1930) was a French bass-baritone, writer and voice teacher. After winning a competition at the Conservatoire de Paris, he made his debut as Baxter in Émile Paladilhe's Diane at the Opéra-Comique in 1885, before moving to Brussels and the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, whose history he chronicled. He sang in Die Meistersinger at Covent Garden, Manon at La Scala, and Le médecin malgré lui at Monte Carlo before returning to the Opéra-Comique in 1894. One of his students was the American actress, writer, and translator Virginia Fox Brooks. This photograph of Isnardon was taken by French photographer Nadar in the late 19th century.

Photograph credit: Nadar; restored by Adam Cuerden

Viburnum opulus, the guelder rose, is a species of flowering plant in the family Adoxaceae native to Europe, northern Africa and central Asia. Its common name relates to the Dutch province of Gelderland, where a popular cultivar, the snowball tree, supposedly originated. This photograph of a V. opulus infructescence (ensemble of fruits) was taken in Keila, Estonia.

Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus

South Georgia is an island in the South Atlantic Ocean that is part of the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It lies around 1,400 kilometres (870 mi) east of the Falkland Islands. Stretching in the east–west direction, South Georgia is around 170 kilometres (106 mi) long and has a maximum width of 35 kilometres (22 mi). The terrain is mountainous, with the central ridge rising to an elevation of 2,935 metres (9,629 ft) at Mount Paget. The northern coast is indented with numerous bays and fjords, serving as good harbours. This satellite image of South Georgia was taken by the European Space Agency's Sentinel-2 in February 2018.

Photograph credit: European Space Agency

Texas Raiders was an American Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress built by Douglas-Long Beach. In 1967, it was purchased by a group of the Commemorative Air Force's Gulf Coast Wing, which maintained and flew the aircraft out of Conroe-North Houston Regional Airport in Conroe, Texas. It was destroyed on November 12, 2022, in a mid-air collision with a Bell P-63 Kingcobra at an air show at Dallas Executive Airport. All five people on board Texas Raiders and the pilot of the P-63 were killed. This photograph, taken in 2019 at Ellington Airport in Houston, shows Texas Raiders re-enacting a scene from the film Tora! Tora! Tora! during a simulated attack by members of the Commemorative Air Force's Pearl Harbor re-enactment group.

Photograph credit: Alan Wilson

Sceloporus malachiticus, commonly known as the emerald swift or the green spiny lizard, is a species of small lizard in the Phrynosomatidae family, native to Central America. This photograph of a S. malachiticus lizard taken in Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala, was focus-stacked from nine separate images.

Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp

Lidia Patty (born 1969) is a Bolivian politician who is a former member of the Chamber of Deputies for the Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement for Socialism). A member of the Kallawaya – an indigenous people native to western Bolivia – she was a domestic worker and schoolteacher before entering politics. After maintaining a low profile in parliament, Patty gained national attention after her term ended when she opened a complaint for the 2019 Bolivian political crisis, which resulted in the criminal prosecution of former president Jeanine Áñez. A polemical figure for her frequent denunciations of opposition and ruling party officials, Patty ran unsuccessfully in the 2022 election for ombudsman of Bolivia, and was briefly the Bolivian consul to Puno, Peru, in 2023 before being withdrawn amid deteriorating relations between the two countries. This official portrait of Patty as a member of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly was taken in 2016.

Photograph credit: Alejandra Vaca

The Young Sabot Maker is an oil-on-canvas painting made by the American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner in 1895. It was accepted for the 1895 Paris Salon, and was Tanner's second painting entered for the Salon. The painting follows a theme Tanner used for his genre paintings, "age instructing youth", which can also be seen in The Bagpipe Lesson and The Banjo Lesson. The painting was purchased by a group of donors and sponsors and given to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1995.

Painting credit: Henry Ossawa Tanner

A Kármán vortex street is a process in fluid dynamics in which a repeating pattern of swirling vortices, caused by vortex shedding, is responsible for the unsteady flow separation of a fluid around blunt bodies. It is named after the Hungarian-American engineer and fluid dynamicist Theodore von Kármán. This satellite image, taken by NASA's Landsat 7 in 1999, shows a Kármán vortex street caused by wind flowing around the Juan Fernández Islands off the Chilean coast in the South Pacific Ocean. The flow of atmospheric air over obstacles such as islands can cause visible vortex streets when a cloud layer is present at a certain altitude. It can reach a length of more than 400 kilometres (250 miles) from the obstacle in such cases, with a typical vortex diameter of 20 to 40 km (12 to 25 mi).

Photograph credit: Robert Cahalan, NASA

Sissieretta Jones (1868 or 1869 – 1933) was an American soprano. Sometimes nicknamed "The Black Patti" in reference to the Italian opera singer Adelina Patti, her repertoire included grand opera, light opera, and popular music. Jones was trained at the Providence Academy of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music, and made her New York debut in 1888 at Steinway Hall. Four years later, she performed at the White House for President Benjamin Harrison. She sang for four consecutive presidents and the British royal family, attaining international success. Besides the United States and the West Indies, Jones toured in South America, Australia, India, southern Africa and Europe. This color lithograph of Jones was produced in 1899 to advertise her performances.

Lithograph credit: Metropolitan Printing Company; restored by Adam Cuerden

Lestes barbarus is a species of damselfly of the family Lestidae, the spreadwings. Its common names in English include the southern emerald damselfly, the shy emerald damselfly, and the migrant spreadwing. The species is found across southern Europe in a band across Spain, France, Italy and Greece, and its range also extends east to India and Mongolia. It is less common in northern Europe, although some can be found as far north as Sweden. This female L. barbarus damselfly was photographed in Blankaart Nature Reserve near Diksmuide, Belgium.

Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp

The Palace of Assembly in Chandigarh, India, is a legislative assembly building designed by modernist architect Le Corbusier forming part of the Chandigarh Capitol Complex – a larger government compound including several other buildings such as the Secretariat Building and the Palace of Justice. Constructed to serve as the administrative capital for the eastern half of the historic British Indian Punjab province that remained in India after the 1947 partition of India, the compound, along with sixteen other globally scattered buildings designed by Le Corbusier, was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2016. The Palace of Assembly houses the legislatures of the present-day northern Indian states of Punjab and Haryana.

Photograph credit: duncid, retouched by UnpetitproleX and Aristeas

The Devi Mahatmya is a text of Hindu philosophy describing the goddess Durga as the supreme power and creator of the universe. It is part of the Markandeya Purana. This illustration, created with watercolour and ink on paper, is from an early-18th-century Nepalese folio of the Devi Mahamya, and depicts the goddess Ambika leading the eight mother goddesses in battle against the asura (demon spirit) Raktabīja. A few Sanskrit words are written across the painting, which was gifted to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California.

Painting credit: unknown

The Vermont State House, located in Montpelier, is the state capitol of the U.S. state of Vermont and the seat of the Vermont General Assembly. The current Greek Revival structure is the third building on the same site to be used as the State House. Designed by Thomas Silloway in 1857 and 1858, it was occupied in 1859. This photograph of the Vermont State House was taken in October 2021.

Photograph credit: Tony Jin

Józef Mehoffer (1869–1946) was a Polish painter and decorative artist, one of the leading artists of the Young Poland movement and one of the most revered Polish artists of his time. This 1897 oil-on-board self-portrait of Mehoffer has dimensions of 34.7 cm × 26.7 cm and is in the collection of the National Museum in Kraków.

Painting credit: Józef Mehoffer

The hazelnut is the fruit of the hazel tree, including all nuts of the genus Corylus, especially those of the species Corylus avellana. Hazelnuts are used as a snack food, in baking and desserts, breakfast cereals such as muesli, confectionery, and also in combination with chocolate for chocolate truffles and products such as chocolate bars, Nutella and Frangelico liqueur. Hazelnut oil, pressed from hazelnuts, is strongly flavored and high in monounsaturated fat; it is used as a cooking oil and as a salad or vegetable dressing. Turkey is the world's largest producer of hazelnuts, accounting for 64% of total production in 2021. This photograph shows two whole hazelnuts alongside two kernels, one of which is peeled.

Photograph credit: David Ifar

Edgar is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Ferdinando Fontana, freely based on the play in verse La Coupe et les lèvres by Alfred de Musset. It premiered at La Scala in Milan in 1889 and was repeatedly revised until 1905, but Puccini did not regard it as a success, describing it as "warmed-up soup". The opera is still occasionally performed, including a 2005 recording by the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia conducted by Alberto Veronesi and featuring Plácido Domingo. This undated set design for act 3 of Edgar, from the archives of the music publisher Casa Ricordi, was created by Giuseppe Palanti with pencil and tempera on paper. It depicts an outdoor glade near Courtray in Flanders, the main setting of the opera.

Set design credit: Giuseppe Palanti

The viscosity of a fluid is a measure of its resistance to deformation at a given rate. The SI unit of viscosity is the pascal-second. For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of "thickness": for example, syrup has a higher viscosity than water. Viscosity quantifies the internal frictional force between adjacent layers of fluid that are in relative motion. For instance, when a viscous fluid is forced through a tube, it flows more quickly near the tube's axis than near its walls. This fluid animation shows a simulation of two fluids with different viscosities being poured into identical containers. The blue liquid on the left has a lower viscosity than the orange liquid on the right.

Animation credit: Gvbox

The lion (Panthera leo) is a large cat species in the genus Panthera native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphic; adult males are larger than females and have a prominent mane. The lion is a social species, forming groups called prides. A pride consists of a few adult males, related females, and cubs. Groups of female lions usually hunt together, preying mostly on large ungulates. It is an apex and keystone predator. Although some lions scavenge when opportunities occur and have been known to hunt humans, they typically do not actively seek out and prey on humans. This six-year-old male lion was photographed in the Phinda Private Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp

The Presidio of San Francisco is a park and former United States Army post on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in the city of San Francisco, California, forming part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The presidio was established as a fortified location in 1776, when New Spain founded it to gain a foothold in Alta California and the San Francisco Bay. It passed to Mexico in 1820, and in turn to the United States in 1848. As part of a military reduction program under the Base Realignment and Closure process from 1988, the United States Congress voted to end the presidio's status as an active military installation. In 1994, it was transferred to the National Park Service, ending 219 years of military use and beginning its next phase of mixed commercial and public use. This lithograph, published in 1822, shows the Presidio of San Francisco and its surroundings during the Spanish era, with the Golden Gate visible in the background to the right of the image.

Lithograph credit: Victor Adam, after Louis Choris; restored by Adam Cuerden

Dennis Schröder (born 1993) is a German professional basketball player for the Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He previously played for SG Braunschweig and Phantoms Braunschweig in Germany, before spending his first five seasons in the NBA with the Atlanta Hawks and two years with the Oklahoma City Thunder. He is the sole owner of Braunschweig, his German hometown team, and has been the majority shareholder since 2018. This photograph depicts Schröder playing with the German national team in 2022.

Photograph credit: Steffen Prößdorf

The lemon (Citrus × limon) is a species of small evergreen tree in the flowering plant family Rutaceae, native to Asia, primarily northeastern India (Assam), northern Myanmar, and China. The tree's ellipsoidal yellow fruit is used for culinary and non-culinary purposes throughout the world, primarily for its juice, which has both culinary and cleaning uses. The pulp and rind are also used in cooking and baking. The distinctive sour taste of lemon juice, derived from citric acid, makes it a key ingredient in drinks and foods. This photograph shows a whole and halved lemon against a black background.

Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus

Pénélope is an opera in three acts by the French composer Gabriel Fauré. The French-language libretto, by René Fauchois, is based on Homer's Odyssey. Dedicated to Camille Saint-Saëns, the opera was first performed at the Salle Garnier, Monte Carlo, in March 1913. This lithograph poster was designed by Georges Rochegrosse for the 1913 Paris premiere of Pénélope at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.

Poster credit: Georges Rochegrosse; restored by Adam Cuerden

Pobiti Kamani is a rock formation located in Varna Province, Bulgaria. There are a number of theories regarding its origin, with two broad hypotheses. According to one, the formations are the result of coral activity, while another explains the phenomenon with the prismatic weathering and desertification of the rocks, the formation of sand and limestone concretions, or lower Eocene bubbling reefs. The stone pillars were first described by the Russian archaeologist and historian Victor Teplyakov in 1829, and the site was designated a natural landmark in the late 1930s. This photograph shows the pillars of Pobiti Kamani in 2016.

Photograph credit: Diego Delso

John Adams (1735–1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of the American Revolution that achieved independence from Great Britain. During the latter part of the Revolutionary War and in the early years of the new nation, he served the U.S. government as a senior diplomat in Europe. Adams was the first person to hold the office of Vice President of the United States, serving in the role from 1789 to 1797. He was a dedicated diarist and regularly corresponded with important contemporaries, including his wife and adviser Abigail Adams and his friend and political rival Thomas Jefferson. This oil-on-canvas painting of Adams was produced by Gilbert Stuart, approximately between 1800 and 1815, and is in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Painting credit: Gilbert Stuart

The Treptowers is a complex of buildings with a distinctive high-rise in the district of Alt-Treptow in Berlin, Germany, on the river Spree. Constructed on the site of a former AEG electrical-appliance factory, the complex consists of four buildings and was the result of an architectural competition held in 1993 and won by the architect Gerhard Spangenberg. It was completed in 1998, with a final construction cost of 190 million marks. The 30-metre-tall (98 ft) sculpture Molecule Men by Jonathan Borofsky was installed in 1999 and sits in front of the complex in the Spree, seen on the right of this photograph of the Treptowers in 2017.

Photograph credit: Ansgar Koreng

The barred owl (Strix varia), also known as the northern barred owl, the striped owl or the hoot owl, is a bird in the family Strigidae, the true owls. It is largely native to eastern North America, but has also expanded its range to the continent's west coast, where it is considered an invasive species. Its preferred habitat is mature forest, but it can also acclimate to various gradients of open woodlands. The barred owl's diet consists mainly of small mammals, but this species is an opportunistic predator and is known to prey upon other small vertebrates such as birds, reptiles and amphibians, as well as a variety of invertebrates. Barred owls are brown to gray overall, with dark striping on the underside. This barred owl was photographed in Whitby in Ontario, Canada.

Photograph credit: Mdf

Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905. During his time as Foreign Secretary in the Lloyd George ministry, he issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917 on behalf of the Cabinet, which supported a "home for the Jewish people" in Mandatory Palestine. During his tenure as prime minister, Balfour passed the Land Purchase (Ireland) Act 1903, which bought most Anglo-Irish land in the UK, as well as the Education Act 1902, which had a major long-term impact in modernising the school system in England and Wales. He secured the Entente Cordiale, an alliance that ended centuries of intermittent conflict between Britain and France and their predecessor states. This photographic portrait of Balfour was taken by George Charles Beresford in 1902.

Photograph credit: George Charles Beresford; restored by MyCatIsAChonk

The Architect's Dream is an 1840 oil-on-canvas painting created by Thomas Cole for the New York architect Ithiel Town. Cole incorporated pieces of architecture from Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Gothic styles in various parts of the painting, having himself done some architecture work previously. Cole finished the painting in only five weeks and displayed it in the National Academy of Design's annual exhibition that year. Town refused to accept the painting, claiming that it was "exclusively architectural". The Architect's Dream is now in the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio.

Painting credit: Thomas Cole