Canadian Snake Mating

I'm sorry I did not learn about the annual snake mating in Manitoba until now, since the peak activity occured around Mother's Day. But maybe you can plan your trip for next year.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Jul 05, 2009 - Comments (4)
Category: Animals, North America, Natural Wonders

Sneaky Snakes

It's hard enough to catch a bite to eat when your prey consists of relatively quick moving land animals. But when you're dealing with tiny, lightning fast fish, what can you do to improve your odds that you'll get a meal? Turn yourself into a tentacled water snake. Scientists at Vanderbilt University used high-speed video to capture images of the snake performing an unusual trick in order to force prey to swim directly into its mouth. The snake will lie motionless, its body in a "J" shape, and wait for prey to swim close. When a fish swims by the curve of the "J", the snake flexes the lower part of its body. The fish senses the movement and turns to swim away from the perceived threat... only to end up directly in the snake's mouth. You can see the slow motion video here. And you can read all about the study here.

Posted By: Nethie - Fri Jul 03, 2009 - Comments (3)
Category: Animals, Food, Nature, Science

Weird Britannia!

Time to point our telescopes of weirdness at "the old country", methinks.

Speaking of old, recent research carried out by the University of Michigan has revealed that US seniors are smarter than their UK counterparts. The study, lead in the US by Kenneth Langa, measured the recall abilities of over 8000 elderly Americans and over 5000 elderly Brits, and found that the yanks scored 1.4 more on the memory tests, out of a possible 24. Langa suggests that part of the difference was due to higher average levels of education and income in the US group, and higher levels of depression in the UK sample, but points out that nothing is certain at the moment. "It's like a view from 30,000 feet" said Langa (New Scientist).

And it's not just British brains that are shrinking, the UK's sheep are getting smaller as well. Because of a trend towards milder weather believed to be due to climate change, Sheep on the Outer Hebridean island of Soay are getting smaller at the rate of 100g/year, say researchers from Imperial College, London. Though it might seem that warmer winters and a greater abundance of food might make for bigger sheep, Tim Coulson, the professor leading the study, points out that fewer weaker and smaller lambs will die over winter, bringing down the average size (Telegraph).

Now, in some good news, UK campaigners have won a second victory in a three-year battle... to bring back a chocolate bar. The "Wispa Bar", made by European confectioners Cadbury, was introduced in 1995 along with a caramel laced version called the "Wispa Gold", only for both to be discontinued in 2003. This prompted some die-hard fans of the bubbly chocolate bar to start a petition to have it go into production again, resulting in a "limited edition" run of the original Wispa last year. When the 40 million bars produced sold out in just 18 weeks, Cadbury decided to relaunch the brand. Not satisfied with just one bar, campaigners have kept up the pressure, causing Cadbury to start producing Wispa Golds "for a limited period," as before. However to some commentators, this latest move looks more like slick PR than grassroots victory (Sky News).



More in extended >>

Posted By: Dumbfounded - Fri Jul 03, 2009 - Comments (5)
Category: Animals, Food, Candy, Law, Judges, Nature, Weather, Political Correctness, Religion, Products

Alligator Wrestling

Eddie Snyder wrestles gators from jim on Vimeo.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Jun 25, 2009 - Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Death, Human Marvels, Regionalism, Stupidity

Fly Air Weird!

Next month sees the launch of a new airline, which in today's economy is weird enough, but this one is only for animals. Pet Airways, America's first animal-only air service, will initially only fly between NY, Denver, LA, Chicago and Baltimore carrying 50 'passengers' at a time in individual pressurized cabins. Private lounges and overnight accommodation for long-haul flights will also be laid on (Dream Dogs).

Clearly this is an idea who's time has come, as Air Canada has also announced this week that it is to carry pets on its planes, as long as they board as hand-luggage. From July, passengers will be able to book the space under their seats as stowage for up to 4 pets in ‘leakproof carriers’, let’s hope no-one thinks that means Tupperware (Telegraph).

And when airlines are not treating pets as luggage, they’re usually treating their customers as cattle. Ryanair, for example, this week announced plans to have the passengers load their own luggage, saving the company an estimated 20 million euros (Belfast Telegraph).

A worse fate greeted passengers on a Thomas Cook charter plane recently when due to a mechanical failure only the front hold could be loaded with baggage, hence passengers were asked to move to the back of plane as ballast, to balance it out. After seeing people disembarking from the service’s previous flight kissing the ground and putting their hands together in prayer, 71 refused and made other travel arrangements (Daily Mail).

Finally, if you think the customers have it bad, spare a thought for the staff of British Airways, which once billed itself as "the World's favorite airline". Times are now so hard for the company it has asked its workforce if they'd mind taking a pay-cut or even working for free for a month, just to tide the company over. BA's chief executive has lead the drive, promising to lead by example and forgo one month of his £735k ($1.2m) salary (Guardian).

(Picture from The Bognor Birdman Event, a semi-serious competition to fly 100 meters from the end of a seaside pier.)

Posted By: Dumbfounded - Wed Jun 24, 2009 - Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Business, Flight, Pets

Whale blows bubble rings—like smoke rings

I know some people who can blow smoke rings, but I don't know if this is the same technique.



The whales also play "trade the ball" and one is instructed to do circle spins. These japanese whales are seriously smart. Watch until the end and the whales wave goodbye.

Free room and board, a chance to perform, maybe I have chosen to be the wrong species. But I don't know if I could do the tricks!!

Posted By: gdanea - Sat Jun 20, 2009 - Comments (1)
Category: Animals

Strange Russian Creature

I have no idea what this is, but I never want to meet one in the water.



Kinda looks like a trilobite to me -- but aren't they extinct?



Also kind of looks like a horseshoe crab?



Perhaps those who know what this is could enlighten the rest of us?

Posted By: gdanea - Thu Jun 18, 2009 - Comments (5)
Category: Animals

Woman in an Ape Suit

It takes a lot of confidence in your sexy image to start your number in an ape suit.

Posted By: Paul - Sat Jun 13, 2009 - Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Celebrities, Movies, Sex Symbols, 1930s

If You Have A Weak Stomach, Don’t Look

It's amazing what food sellers will put into a can these days. What's even more amazing is that people will buy it. I am reminded of a quotation from a children's movie, where one of the kids asks another, "What wouldn't you eat for a million dollars?" I think just about everything in this article from the Food Network would make that list. (And what's with the Russian Herring? Do they really have teeth like that? Were these grown in a body of water near Chernobyl?)

Posted By: Nethie - Tue Jun 09, 2009 - Comments (6)
Category: Animals, Food, Horror, Insects and Spiders, Nature, More Things To Worry About

It Just Ain’t Unnatural!

It might be time to update the old adage as, according to a scientist from the Santa Fe Institute, NM, it should be "To war is human". Dr. Samuel Bowles suggests that continual conflict among our ancient ancestors may have driven the evolution of what he terms "parochial altruism", i.e. group sociality and hostility to outsiders. By combining archaeological data on stone age humans with studies of modern tribes, Bowles has developed a model of ancient population genetics and determined that there would have been much more genetic diversity between competing groups than previously thought. In such a scenario, Bowles' results suggest that groups displaying parochial altruism would benefit by having more aggressive warriors less concerned with self-preservation, at the expense of other groups. PA may even explain the extreme habitual sociality of humans (found elsewhere only in insects), which in another paper in the same issue of Science is identified as a possible cause of human culture. Paradoxically, we may be social as individuals because we are anti-social as groups (Independent).

But if we learnt war early on the path to humanity, we may have learnt laughter even earlier. Researchers from the University of Portsmouth analysed the sounds 22 young apes made when being tickled, and concluded that it is laughter. Dr Davila-Ross and her team looked for similar acoustic characteristics to human laughter in the young of several ape species, and found greater similarity in the sounds made by chimpanzees and bonobos (the species closest to humans genetically) than in that of more distantly related apes such as orangutans. The team concluded that laughter must have evolved some time before the major ape groups split apart, 18 million years ago (BBC News).

Finally, this last piece was going to be about gay penguin adoption, but that's already up, so instead I'd like to draw your attention to a new movie by sometime Simpsons writer, Mike Reiss. Called "Queer Duck", Reiss' film is an animated musical about three gay, animal friends, Openly Gator, Bi-polar Bear and the eponymous Queer Duck himself. When QD suddenly finds himself attracted to women, in the shape of new arrival Lola Buzzard, he begins a voyage of self-discovery that sees him experience quack therapies (from the wonderfully named clinic, "Homo No Mo'!") and kidnap and imprisonment at "Home Depot" (the one place no gay would think of looking for him), before the not-unexpected third-reel epiphany. Hopefully it'll be released on DVD soon, because this one's a keeper! (The News-Times).

(Image from SPEC Productions, who collect and reprint some damn fine comics!)

Posted By: Dumbfounded - Mon Jun 08, 2009 - Comments (2)
Category: Animals, Ethnic Groupings, Sexuality, War, Anthropology, Archaeology