When Iceland isn’t spewing volcanic ash into the air or crowdsourcing a rewrite of its constitution, it’s home to some of the most spectacular views on the planet. This image from Stephane Vetter is a great example, featuring a gorgeous waterfall, spectacular rock formations, a faint aurora and a “moonbow.”

US judge Liam O’Grady ruled this past Thursday that Twitter must hand over information regarding Birgitta Jonsdottir, a member of the Icelandic parliament and also a supporter of the controversial anti-secrecy site Wikileaks. The ruling comes after months of fighting to keep what Jonsdottir views as private information out of the court’s hands, and could have far wider implications.

With carbon-reducing technologies only just now going mainstream and dangerous amounts of the greenhouse gas already in the atmosphere, scientists are considering drastic solutions to the problems of global warming. One such approach beginning next month in Iceland aims to trap CO2 in limestone, removing it from the atmosphere.

The 6-12 month test, called CarbFix, has a short-term goal of giving Iceland’s geothermal plants a means to trap and store carbon brought up during operation and become truly carbon-neutral. The longer-term implications, however, could be on a global scale.

When Iceland gained independence from Denmark in 1944, it more or less copy-pasted the Danish constitution and adopted it as its own. Sure, they made a few changes here and there, like changing “king” to “president,” but the tiny Atlantic nation has needed to update its governing document for some time. The country is now drafting their own home-grown constitution, but has decided to allow Icelanders to make comments and suggestions on the draft document through various social media platforms.

The approach is two-fold: Icelanders can make suggestions for the constitutional committee to consider, and also comment on the constitution online. Iceland is taking a highly moderated approach to suggestions they receive electronically, with local committees vetting suggestions before sending them on to the constitutional committee and public online discussion. Though Twitter, YouTube, Flickr are part of the effort, Facebook is apparently the most popular platform for discussion.

On May 22, Iceland’s most active volcano Grímsvötn began erupting in the east of the country. It was a spectacular eruption, sending a massive ash plume 12 miles into the air. From the Christian Science Monitor:

The eruption of Grímsvötn, Iceland’s most active volcano, on Saturday evening is believed to be far more powerful than that of Eyjafjallajökull last year. Experts estimate that Grímsvötn produced between 100 and 1,000 times more material per second when it exploded. The plume it generated was twice as high as Eyjafjallajökull’s.

The ash is expected to blow towards Northern Ireland and parts of the U.K. over the next few days, though it is not expected to choke off air travel as Eyjafjallajökull did last year. It’s also much, much easier to pronounce.

Read on below for more pictures from this dramatic eruption, and how it’s affecting the Icelanders.

Vikings are already famous for their beards and badassery, not the least of which springs from their sailing prowess. Spreading from Sweden and Norway, the Vikings sailed and settled Northern England, Iceland, Greenland, and were the first Europeans to arrive in North America. They also pillaged and terrorized an unready European populace with their ferocity and totally sweet boats, but a lingering question faced by historians is how they managed to sail as well as they did with such limited technology.

Navigation in the far north poses several unique problems.

If this isn’t metal, I don’t know what is: Nábrókarstafur, or “Necropants,” is an Icelandic stave, or runelike symbol, associated with a pair of pants made from a dead man’s skin. As the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft charmingly notes, ”If you want to make your own necropants (literally; nábrók), you have to get permission from a living man to use his skin after his dead.”

Why? For prosperity, of course. Full queasy details below:

News surfaced yesterday that the Icelandic Volcano eruption is not only refusing to abate, but that it might also spark further volanic eruptions nearby.

AP:

A volcano in southern Iceland has erupted for the first time in almost 200 years, raising concerns that it could trigger a larger and potentially more dangerous eruption at a volatile volcano nearby.

Anderson Cooper reported on the potentially scary scenario last night.

Video of the exchange after the jump:

Mediaite’s Colby Hall has also penned the mock script to an inspired, Jerry Bruckheimer-like trailer around the volcano events: All disaster movie geeks should head over and check it out.

Troublemaking Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull has been in the news a lot lately for grounding flights in the UK and across Europe into the weekend, thanks to the blanket of ash it has steadily been spewing over Europe. But Eyjafjallajokull is also the source material for quite a different type of blanket — the kind you can non-lethally throw over yourself when you’re cold.

The havoc caused by Iceland’s volcano Eyjafjallajokull continues to worsen, most recently with British flight delays extended until Saturday. NASA’s Terra Satellite has provided us with a remarkable picture of the volcano from space, with volcanic ash pluming not only over Iceland, but over vast swathes of the North Atlantic.

Larger picture after the jump: