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Features and admins

No, not science fiction—real science

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By Tony1 and Dabomb87
Featured picture Choice of the week, "Laser towards the Milky Way". Despite the first impression of a still from a science-fiction movie, this extraordinary image is of recent cutting-edge research. It was taken in mid-August by ESO Photo Ambassador Yuri Beletsky at the high-altitude Paranal Observatory in Chile. The laser reaches 90 km into the Earth's mesosphere to form a reference point, enabling sharper observations of phenomena such as the giant black hole at the centre of the galaxy.

New administrator

The Signpost welcomes TheCatalyst31 (nom) as our newest admin. TheCatalyst is a member of several WikiProjects, including Trains, US roads, and Cities, and has created many articles on small communities. TheCatalyst has a strong record of gnoming and page patrolling, has contributed to the AfD process, and has assisted the creation of three Good Articles.

Six articles were promoted to featured status:

  • Lavanify (nom), about two teeth from an animal that lived on Madagascar about 70 million years ago. It is part of the gondwanatheres, the earliest mammals to evolve high-crowned teeth, possibly to eat grass (nominated by Ucucha).
  • Dustbin Baby (film) (nom), a BBC television film first broadcast in 2008. Amazingly, nominator J Milburn managed to gain permission for the release of several high-quality images to illustrate the film.
  • HMS Indefatigable (1909) (nom), a battle cruiser of the British Royal Navy, commissioned in 1911. The ship's stormy five-year life, which ended when it blew up after German shelling, seems worthy of a feature film (Dank and Sturmvogel 66).
  • Liberty Head nickel (nom), best remembered for the mysterious 1913 nickel, of which five are known. It is an interesting story, both for the inception of the nickel and how it came to be replaced, says nominator Wehwalt.
  • The Story of Miss Moppet (nom), a moral tale about teasing, written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter, and published in 1906 (Susanne2009NYC; picture below).
  • Mechanical filter (nom), a device that blocks selected signal frequencies, and which has been a significant part of the electronics industry since the 1870s (SpinningSpark)


From FA Choice of the week, The Story of Miss Moppet. The initial publication in 1906 departed from the typical format of children's books: a strip folded accordion-fashion into a grey cloth wallet. When fully opened, it was 10 cm tall and 2.5 m long (4.3 × 98.1 in). This image is of an excerpt from the strip: Miss Moppet tosses the mouse about in the duster (left) and discovers the mouse has escaped (right).


Choice of the week. The Signpost asked FA nominator and reviewer Slim Virgin to select the best of the week.


Five lists were promoted:

We thought carefully before posting this example of the power of images to shock and even to transform. This newly promoted featured picture is of a young girl in Bangladesh, as late as 1973, who was infected with smallpox. The disease has been banished from the face of the planet through advances in medical science and a huge effort by the World Health Organisation.
Six images were promoted. Medium-sized images can be viewed by clicking on "nom":
  • Harriet Beecher Stowe (nom), a portrait of American writer and abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe (created by Francis Holl).
  • Child with smallpox (nom), a young girl in Bangladesh in 1973 infected with smallpox (created by CDC / James Hicks; picture at right).
  • The Reichstag building, Berlin (nom) (in German, the Reichstagsgebäude), was first constructed 1884–94 and housed the Parliament of the German Empire. It was severely damaged by fire in 1933 and fully restored in 1990. It now houses the German Parliament. The glass dome was designed by British architect Norman Foster and was added in 1993 (Matthew Field).
  • The "queen conch" (nom), a species of edible sea snail, is one of the largest mollusks native to the Tropical Northwestern Atlantic, from Bermuda to Brazil. Reaching up to 35.2 cm in shell length, the queen conch is herbivorous and lives in seagrass beds (H. Zell).
  • Laser towards the Milky Way (nom), in which a laser beams upwards to measure the distortions of Earth's ever-changing atmosphere. A group of astronomers were observing the centre of the Milky Way using the laser guide star facility at Yepun, one of the four Unit Telescopes of the Very Large Telescope (VLT). Yepun’s laser beam has created an artificial "star" at an altitude of 90 km high in the Earth's mesosphere, as a reference point for improved observations. More scientific information is provided at the image description page (ESO/Y. Beletsky; picture at the top).
  • Bubble-tip anemone (nom), (Entacmaea quadricolor), a species of sea anemone of Indo-Pacific origin that grows to 30 cm in diameter. It is believed that the bubbles—found only in the smaller individuals that colonise the regions closer to the surface—help the organism to capture sunlight (Nick Hobgood; picture below).

Choice of the week. We asked H. Zell to judge what he believes is the best new featured picture, disregarding his own new featured picture.

"This week saw a wide range of themes: American history, medical science, historical architecture, and biology, and physics. Very impressive is the alien-like Bubble tip anemone. I finally decided on Laser towards the Milky Way. A comparison with similar pictures in the same category—for example 1, 2, and 3—shows the technical difficulty of taking such shots by night. Here, the stars are bright and the sharpness is astonishing: the acid test is that these features stand up to scrutiny in the full-resolution display."


Alien or Earthling? The featured picture judge also praised this shot of the Bubble tip anemone, which is our excuse for breaking our promise last week to give you a rest from underwater photography. The bubbles are clearly visible as complex white striations in the individuals closer to the surface.


Information about new admins at the top is drawn from their user pages and RfA texts, and occasionally from what they tell us directly.

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Call me picky, but would it be possible to modify the FA template so we can have italics? This week, Lavanify should have been Lavanify, Dustbin Baby (film) should have been Dustbin Baby (film) and The Story of Miss Moppet should have been The Story of Miss Moppet. As this is exactly the kind of thing that would be picked up in a thorough FAC... J Milburn (talk) 01:21, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mind if you're picky. I've put in the italics. Tony (talk) 08:07, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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