If you are using your limbs to disguise yourself, how do you flee danger without giving yourself away? The answer, when you have eight arms, is to use six arms for disguise and to walk across on the seafloor on the other two. Defying the notion that bipedal motion requires muscles attached to a rigid skeleton, the octopuses used the strong, flexible muscles in their back arms to walk across the seabed when pursued by camera-wielding biologists. The two species have slightly different strategies. Octopus marginatus from Indonesia wraps itself into a ball while walking, perhaps to imitate a coconut rolling with the current. Tiny Octopus aculeatus of Australia holds up six of its arms to disguise itself as a clump of seaweed, while walking at up to 14 centimetres per second — faster than it can manage using more than two arms
A Tyrannosaurus rex thigh bone fossil was reluctantly broken to fit in a transport helicopter, and inside soft tissue was found. It appears to include blood vessels and bone cells. Scientists hope to isolate proteins, and perhaps even DNA
A man from Sydenham Park, southeast London, was trying to coax his cat back into the house before he went to bed got more than he bargained for. Instead of a tame pussy, the cat-like creature that emerged from the bushes in response to his calls was nearer the size of a Labrador dog. Neither was the snarling beast in the mood for a quiet bowl of milk. It flew at the man, giving him the fright of his life, and several nasty scratches. Officers who visited the scene soon afterwards believe they saw the culprit. Looks like Pheral has been out and about again
Yet another nail was hammered into the coffin of the GM food industry in Britain yesterday when the final trial of a four-year series of experiments found, once more, that genetically modified crops can be harmful to wildlife
For the second time in about a month, a dog has been found hanged in suburban St Louis, and police are trying to determine if there is a connection — via Warren Ellis
If legend is to be believed, the future of the British monarchy lies in the hands of a sharp-shooting warder at the Tower of London. For the six ravens who roam one of Britain’s landmark fortresses are under threat from up to 200 crows who have invaded their royal domain, spreading disease and stealing food. So every Sunday at dawn, before the daily tourist invasion begins, Yeoman Warder Derrick Coyle roams The Tower with his .22 air rifle to cull the crows. For the beefeater, it is a weighty responsibility securing a haven for the ravens. Legend has it that if the ravens leave, The Tower of London will fall and so will the monarchy
The US Fish and Wildlife Service is suspending a red wolf breeding programme on Bull Island designed to help spare the species from extinction. The service says the program is no longer as important to wolf recovery as it was in 1987 when the government first brought breeding pairs to Bull Island, near Charleston. Pups born there would grow and learn to survive in the wild before being moved to North Carolina’s Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge on a vast, undeveloped barrier island
The lovely Feòrag reminded me about an amusing tale I read about in one of Murdoch’s propaganda rags last week.
A couple of houses in Newcastle have had roof tiles broken by chickens. The article above fails to mention that the chooks were both frozen and the houses only a mile apart.
With the second chicken, the cops gave up on the theory that the chickens had fallen from the external luggage locker of a passing light aircraft. I’m left wondering who carries a frozen chicken with them when flying, perhaps it’s common with Newcastle law enforcement.
The plods now think the chickens are being launched by someone with a giant rubber band. My mother favours a larger version of the DIY orange launcher. I reckon someone’s made themselves a trebuchet, mostly because I really like trebuchets.
I expect there’s more frozen chicken ordnance that was probably scoffed by the household dogs after impact or was assumed to be the work of kids. As there were only the two that incidents that damaged the roofs that were brought to the attention of the local constabulary.
A third chook has since landed, prompting the amusing quote from the homeowner: The cat found it first and he was pretty excited about it
, but Police are still baffled.
They have managed to come up with an even dumber and more convoluted theory to explain the situation. This time a supermarket is dumping frozen chooks at the city dump and birds are carrying them off and dropping them in flight. Leaving aside the fact that the chooks are still quite well frozen from the time they leave the supermarket freezer to the time they land on the roof, we really don’t have birds big enough to cart off an entire frozen foul.
The cops up Newcastle way are looking decidedly silly over their crackpot ideas. It would be nice if they inverted the amount of energy they’ve expended in coming up with increasing stupid theories with actually looking for an answer, but I can’t see that happening until a chook lands on the bonnet of their Police cruiser.
Pig embryos could provide sources of new organ and tissue transplants for people, and they may pose fewer risks than using material from adult animals
Scientists from around the world launched a project on thursday to genetically identify species using bar codes. By taking a snippet of DNA from all the known species on Earth and linking them to photographs, descriptions and scientific information, the researchers plan to build the largest database of its kind
A rare oarfish washed up on a beach in Perth, Australia on Monday. It’s oddly the sixth oarfish to be found on a Western Australia beach in recent months
What kind of cake do you make for a rat-obsessed friend?
One that looks like the little beasties have been at it, of course. The rats are made of brownies and so are their turds — via BoingBoing
A federal judge has struck down a Bush administration rule that lowered Endangered Species Act protection for wolves that are migrating out of strongholds in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes into neighbouring states. In a ruling released yesterday, US District Judge Robert Jones in Portland rescinded the April 2003 decision by the US Fish and Wildlife Service which had divided wolf range into three areas and had reclassified the Eastern and Western populations as threatened instead of endangered. The agency had left wolves in the Southwest in the endangered category
The Norwegian government has decided to kill five of the country’s wolves — a quarter of the entire population. The Norwegian Directorate for Nature has granted licences to hundreds of farmers to kill the wolves as a measure to prevent the loss of domestic livestock, primarily sheep. Three of the wolves have already been shot
British researchers have found chemicals produced by the human body that repel mosquitoes, which could lead to a natural, odourless bug spray
The lotus plant, otherwise known as the water lily, has been a source of inspiration for centuries. But this time, people are mostly interested in the bumps on the surface of its leaves. Researchers at Ohio State University have created computer models of materials that, arrayed with tiny bumps, will repel water or allow microscopic machines to operate with far less friction. In a few years, the development could lead to far cheaper wide-screen televisions, chips that can analyze blood samples or windshields that clean themselves
The discovery of two ancient devils
has challenged the traditional view of our distant ancestors as rat-sized creatures that scurried around the feet of dinosaurs. That view is now challenged after the discovery of two beautifully preserved fossils of related 130-million-year-old mammals, both bearing a resemblance to the Tasmanian Devil. They were found preserved in rock composed of volcanic and former riverbed sediments in north-eastern China’s Liaoning Province
Rats can tell the difference between Dutch and Japanese, suggests a new study. But it is not because some spy agency has bioengineered them to eavesdrop on conversations in Tokyo or Amsterdam. They are simply recognising the difference in rhythmic properties of the languages, says Juan Toro, a neuroscientist at the University of Barcelona in Spain, whose study is part of an effort to trace the origins of the skills that humans use to analyse speech
If you’ve ever wanted to make your own dog boots, leads, collars or packs, Uberpest has the goods.
I didn’t expect the site to come in useful so soon. My husky recently cut the pad on his right rear paw. It was a fairly deep cut and the last thing I wanted was for the wound to get infected. So after liberal applications of Betadine, a dressing was held in place with a hastily constructed boot. The boot was then used to protect the paw while out walking until it was fully healed. It’s not going to win any fashion awards, but it did the job and he was surprisingly tolerant of his new footwear.
I ended up using a combination of Uberpest’s design and another pattern I found at Greyhound Manor Crafts. It took a bit of trial and error before getting the result I wanted, so I’d recommend getting one right before making a full set.
A red wolf that escaped earlier this month from the Binghamton zoo has been found dead. Officials at the Ross Park Zoo say the wolf’s body was found late yesterday afternoon in a ravine on private property behind the zoo. It will come as no surprise to anyone that the wolf was shot by a moron
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