As far back as Aristotle, naturalists have wondered why the females of a strange group of octopuses sport a thin, papery shell when plenty of their tentacled cousins are essentially naked, letting all their slime hang out.
Now, observations indicate the so-called Argonaut octopus uses the outer shell to trap an air bubble, allowing her to control her buoyancy in open water and move along with ease — via Our Amazing Planet
It hasn’t been seen in Strangford Lough for 30 years — and it could be another 30 before it’s spotted again.
Scientists probing the shores of the lough found a tiny cuttlefish not seen since the 1980s, so they decided to hand it to the aquarium at Exploris in Portaferry.
But the intrepid cephalopod made a daring Great Escape, squeezing its way down the drain of the tank where it was being held — and vanished without trace once more into the waters of Strangford Lough — via redwolf.newsvine.com
This octopus blanched almost entirely white as it scooted from one coral head to another.
While intarsia is fairly simple to execute, getting the fabric to have that smooth, finished feel that we all love about knitting can be a little tricky. The first few rows of my jacket are a little iffy—gaps in the fabric and stitches that look uneven. But then I remembered something: Intarsia works best if you twist the yarns before you begin knitting with a new color — via Knitting Daily
Ben Cuevas knitted a skeleton for his installation Transcending the Material at the Wassaic Project in NY. More pics on CRAFT and Ben’s site — via MAKE
Flickr user Lucy Lou (AKA cartoonist Lucy Knisley) models the awesomesauce squid suit her roommate, Nora Renick-Rinehart, made — via boingboing
The sex.com internet domain has been sold for $13m (£8.2m)
The domain was put up for auction in July 2010 when its former owner, Escom LLC, went bankrupt.
Clover Holdings, an obscure company registered on the Caribbean island of St Vincent, put in the highest bid for the domain — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The UN Environment Programme is turning to the wiki-world in an attempt to improve protection of the natural one.
Its new venture – protectedplanet.net – aims to help people visit little-known protected areas, so generating revenue and improving knowledge about them — via redwolf.newsvine.com
One third of the world’s population will be online by the end of the year, according to United Nations statistics — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A Soyuz rocket carrying six spacecraft for Globalstar Inc has lifted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Vocalist Ari Up, of British all-girl punk band The Slits, has died aged 48 following a serious illness
, her stepfather John Lydon has announced — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Experts say they have found a tipsy
gene that explains why some people feel the effects of alcohol quicker than others — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Day Octopus photographed in shallow water and ambient light. Honaunau, Hawai’i
Day Octopus photographed at Keone’ele Cove, Honaunau, Hawai’i
The Dead Sea Scrolls, among the world’s most important, mysterious and tightly restricted archaeological treasures, are about to be Googled — via The Sydney Morning Herald
Archaeologists have uncovered a site that may house Britain’s earliest known hospital. Radio carbon analysis at the former Leper Hospital at St Mary Magdalen in Winchester, Hampshire, has provided a date range of AD 960-1030 for a series of burials, many exhibiting evidence of leprosy — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Visitors have been ordered to reveal illegal pornography to customs officers in a move which has been criticised as totally confusing
and an invasion of privacy.
Justice Minister Brendan O’Connor said that illegal material must be declared on arrival, watering down recent rules that asked for all pornography to be revealed.
But he said anyone who is not sure whether they have illegal pornography should reveal it just in case. The revamped rule is outlined on arrival cards which are filled in by travellers coming to Australia — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The Federal Government has tipped $1.2 million into locally-developed quantum cryptography technology, which will be available to buy in a year.
The second-generation technology, called the Quantum Link Encryptor (QLE), promises to dramatically lower the cost of unbreakable
quantum cryptography systems by using off-the-shelf telecommunications equipment, which is possible thanks to the use of a finely-tuned laser that transmits data — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Internode will sell only Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) dual-stack hardware and connections from next year — via redwolf.newsvine.com
In the midst of a job meltdown and faltering economy, one might think the lives of low-income African-Americans and Latinos would be bad everywhere in the US. But during a recent trip to the US, we saw hope springing from an unlikely source — a transit hub.
This idea is gaining traction in Australia (despite protests from established residents), conjuring, as it does, images of a beautiful enclosed tram/train stop surrounded by coffee shops, boutique stores and sidewalk cafes with up-market, low-rise apartments in the background. But we found that new and startling things regarding transit, development and density are going on in the US — via redwolf.newsvine.com
It would be out of place anywhere, but in Vietnam the Crazy House
seems even stranger somehow … set, as it is, against the backdrop of a relatively ordinary neighbourhood in a relatively typical town. Set on top of a giant tree stump, it almost looks as if this whole structure had been carved from a massive naturally-growing trunk — via Dornob
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