Check Under Your Bed Tonight.

I'm not really sure why this picture just screams "Khaaan!" to me. I mean apparently Kirk wasn't even raising his arms when he screamed it in Wrath Of Kahn.

In fact the more I look at it I'm sure its a "Fuck you I'm an anteater" photo. Although maybe he's saying "Fuck you this is my good side".

Anyway, this dude is a Giant rat caught in China. We're talking 6 pounds with 12 inch tail and 1 inch teeth. A big creepy crawly. I bet he'd give a normal cat a run for his money.

I would not want to run into this dude in a dark alley, much less jump on top of it while others encircled it as this slightly insane Chinese man did. He then stuffed it in a sack and took it home. Yeah.

• Environmental Graffiti: Giant Rat Caught in China!

The Ants Screw Me Again.

Okay, so I've got a bit of history with ants. Honestly, these dudes are annoying, right? Well some kinda researchers think that ants may be the solution to some of our traffic congestion woes.

When the narrow route, as expected, became congested, ants know to tell each other to redirect their travels. An ant returning from the congested narrow route encounters another ant heading up that route and pushes that ant towards the wider lane.

• Ants May Teach Us How to Drive Better | EcoGeek - Clean Technology

Seems like it'd make sense, right? Individuals who've just traveled on a path can communicate with those headed the opposite direction into the observed conditions. Oddly enough this eerily reminds me of an idea I postmarked on 2/21/07. Take a look:

Wireless Real-time Itinerant Social Traffic System

A mobile system that uses social information, made publicly available, to
compile useful individual results for a single entity of the entire
social group.


The system would harvest speed, congestion and general flow
information from a vehicle's on-board sensors and create a recent
database track with geographic locations, times and infrastructure
conditions. No optical or radio traffic monitoring equipment (to gather data on opposing cars
without WRISTS installed) is required, but may enhance the overall
community performance if present. As the vehicle proceeds on its route
it actively searches with a wireless connection for oncoming vehicles
also equipped with a compatible system.


When a peer is found the systems trade recent databases,
merging current road condition information. Each vehicle now possesses
a complete local traffic map of the area with reliability ratings pertaining to data recency and surety of diagnosis. (some traffic
patterns are easier to diagnose) Vehicles may also choose to rate
personally collected data higher, or flag data, so that inconsistencies
can be leveled out of the network should errors arise.


The in-vehicle system will then use this information in its on
screen navigation, creating alternate routes to minimize travel time
(or another variable at the users discretion) to way-points in the
infrastructure. The information may be displayed on the navigation
screen by classifying roads into color groups, or may be used silently
by the system to reroute traffic.


Systems will need to be self tuning, calibrating for how long
data may be used before it is no longer representative and must be
discarded. In some areas 2 hours and 100 miles of data may be useful,
while in other areas 15 minutes and 4 miles is the maximum lifespan.

The system will also learn tendencies of specific roads over
time for personal use, should a user frequent a particular area. This
will allow for general prediction of traffic
flows in routing. So if a thoroughfare is clear at 7:30, but is
usually full at 8:10, the system can compute ETA to the hot spot and
smartly disregard "road clear" information that it calculates likely to
be out of date on arrival. This average road condition prediction is
not for social use, only recently harvested information is transmitted
throughout the network. In addition existing traffic broadcast systems or fixed traffic
counters may be integrated into routing because they mark known
accidents and closures, but this information is for personal use, not
socially distributed. This is intended to maintain the purity of the
network so that only fresh and near-firsthand information is used which
will eventually result in better local response times than widely
aggregated reports of a metropolitan area.


With multiple users an entire area of main thoroughfares can be mapped fairly quickly, depending on traffic speed and transmission range. The more users there are, the more current and ubiquitous the data will be.

When enough users are enabled, oncoming traffic will act as a conduit for road information to stopped traffic. For example(figure 2): A car (A) in a traffic
jam can pass information to car (B) as it proceeds in the opposite
direction. Car (B) will in turn pass information to car (C) which is
pointed the same direction as car (A) and in the same traffic jam. Car (C) can then use information passed backwards down the traffic jam to decide whether to reroute or to wait for traffic to clear.


In more advanced situations cars with similar repeated tracks may suggest "bond" may also communicate destination way-points.

To
study: minimum number of devices for system to function. Effect of
congestion avoidance on quality of data, multiple concurrent reroutes.
Make extrapolated congestion based on routes and reported trends
public? (figure1: assume traffic is red between 7:12 and 7:17 links)

Freaking ants stole my idea and sold it to some German Scientists! And you call me crazy when I rant about ladybugs trying to kill me and not being able to trust insects.

Shark Attack!

Well, I began my masters of maritime carnivory tonight. First course: Elasmobranchii 310.

I decided to choose a recipe that wouldn't mask the original flavor of the meat so I decided on a garlic-infused shark steak basted with a lemon basil oregano parsley sauce and garnished with fire-roasted tomato. The steaks were marinated and began on the grill with a foil liner, mostly because most fish I grill ends up sticking like bare skin on a leather couch in august. I bumped them off the foil and over the flames to finish them off and they were surprisingly hearty.

Luckily I had a few minutes to spare before my hot new ladyfriend arrived, so I took some pictures of the awesome beast whose powers I was about to possess*. Apex predator my ass; tonight you're dinner.

As you can see, it was very tastefully done. And now on to the meat. It was mildly fishy, but in a more substantial kinda way. I'd put the flavor near a tuna steak, but the texture was more solid. Not rubbery necessarily, but it didn't come apart like fish normally does. I could have hit it with the garlic a bit harder and no one would have minded, shark doesn't have a particularly strong flavor of its own. You could clearly taste the lemon marinade. Disappointingly, it lost that kickass red tinge as it cooked and became grey and... less appetizing grey. Not quite the enticing pink hue of a beef steak, but hey, its fish. What did you expect? All-in-all a not-unsatisfying experience and definately a substantial cut of meat from an extra-ordinary animal. Chalk me up on the fridge!But don't take my word for it, start your own meat masters degree today. I've got leftovers...

*Note: I am not currently aware of any super predator powers that were passed to me by this shark. I assume I have to learn to properly use them over time.

MEAT423 - Advanced Carnivism.

Exciting news guys, I've got three new editions of the animals I'd like to eat game. So now you can track your progress on two continents and deep in the sea. You finish off these bad boys and you've effectively achieved masters degree predator status. I have to admit, I'm not doing as well on these ones as I was on the farm animals.

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It Only Makes Me Want You All The More.

Why is it that the most endangered animals are always the most useful \ delicious? This time we're on the useful side of things, so put away your exotic animal themed chef's hat. The Guatemalan beaded lizard is a venomous lizard that numbers in the sub 200 specimen range. Turns out that its venom is dy-no-mite for treating diabetes. Too bad everyone can't just carry around their own lizard and suck a little juice out of whatever hole lizard poison comes from.

• The Nature Conservancy in Guatemala - Protecting the Guatemalan Beaded Lizard

Alright, get that hat back out. I got to thinking, I've actually eaten very few of the worlds numerous types of animal. So few in fact that I could probably list them all right... now.


Animals I've eaten:
cow
chicken
pig
turkey
deer
lamb
duck
kangaroo
hot dog
various unexciting fishes (tuna, salmon, cod, white, blue, one, two)
lobster
crab
shrimp
other sea dwelling creatures that do not deserve to be mentioned

And I think that's just about it. If you can think of one I'm missing comment or email me and I'll add it. But now for the exciting part. What animals I'd like to have eaten.

Animals I would like to eat:
dolphin
kiwi
rabbit
bear
seal
starfish
manatee
hippopotamus
elephant
impala
tiger
peacock
penguin
komodo
dragon
porcupine
panda
bushbaby
more exciting fishes (angler, piranha, clown, shark)

• Experienced gastronoms take a look at the menu or today's specials and let me know what looks good.
• And for you novice carnivores, check out the "farm animals I'd like to eat" home edition. Print it out and keep it on the fridge to help you keep track of the deliciousness.

I Bet I Can Put My Head In His Mouth.

I like to think that if I had I dog I wouldn't let him play with polar bears. Not cause I'm a bearist or anything like that. It just doesn't seem like such a safe thing to do. Course, then I got to thinkin. What would I do if a polar bear wanted to play with my dog? Yeah, I'd probably stay in the tent hoping he doesn't eat sparky. Cause lets face it, there's no shooing away an animal like that without the use of some kind of firearm or special bear forcefield. And you better believe I'm saving all the bullets and forcefield juice in case he decides he wants to play with me next.

• A Picture is Worth... Playful Polar Bear (TreeHugger)

What Big Teeth You Have.

Crackhead creationists. I never though there was much trouble with letting people decide what they want to believe. I think that's mostly because I'd like to believe that deep down, most people aren't stupider than a barrel of oatmeal. I'm wrong. People are dumb. Take for example, the creation museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. They've got a bunch of exhibits of dinosaurs with humans, and explain that Noah took baby dinosaurs onto the arc with him. Best of all, they claim that the T-Rex had big fuck-off teeth to crack open coconuts. See, all animals were vegetarians before Eve created original sin, so despite all the obviously predatory evolutionary developments animals had, they didn't go around killing each other. Right. Stop pretending to educate people.

Alright, I know what you're going to say. Recent investigations cast doubt on the T-Rex's predatory status. Its large olfactory and legs combined with small arms and eyes may point towards a scavenger role. But one thing is for sure, that son of a bitch ate meat.

• T Rex Ate Coconuts

Quack Means No.

Sorry, Sorry.  I've been busy making maps or something.  Here's one about duck sex to make it up to you.

Some kinds of girl ducks are so hott and are such teases that the boy ducks just can't help themselves.  I'm not going to go into the mechanics of how duck rape might go down, but apparently that's pretty much what happens when an inferior male thinks it'd be nice to have some shodies that look like him.  So to combat this females have developed intricate love canals with twists and dead ends to prevent the full monty.  Tricky, but not tricky enough, because the guys just developed corkscrew duck johnsons to get the job done.  Its kinda like a duck nookie arms race.  I'll let you click through for the pictures if you're really into it.  Eww.

• Female ducks fight back against 'raping' males - life - 01 May 2007 - New Scientist

Just Making Shtuff Up.

I read about the South Sandwich Islands in my National Geographic recently. They made for some very dramatic images with all the birds and blue ice. There's basically nothing there and it was only valuable as a whaling base. Now there's just a few scientists and a crap load of birds. Its an interesting place, if only because its to remote, so read up on it if you'd like.

But what I'd like to focus on is the naming. The island chain was (re)discovered by James Cook in 1775 and named Sandwich Land. (I know it sounds like the country that Mayor McCheese would constantly defend McDonaldLand from.) Anyway, as most of us know this moniker was intended to honor the 4th Earl of Sandwich, major sponsor of Cook and proponent of sandwiches. However it was not the last time that Cook would use it. Three years later in 1778 he would discover Hawaii and name it the Sandwich Islands, prompting "South" to be appended to the original Sandwich Islands' name.

Sounds kinda like the Earl didn't really appreciate having an island chain that, ask Cook said, was "not worth the discovery" as his only namesake. So when Cook found a more appealing locale he took the name and dedicated that parcel to his benefactor. As a result the Sandwich Islands and the South Sandwich Islands are nowhere near each other. They don't even share the same ocean.

• Wikipedia: South Sandwich Islands

Bacon Wrapped In Tiger.

So who wants to guess what's going on here? No, that tiger isn't saving the piggies till snack time, they actually live together at a kind of freak-show zoo in Thailand. Incongruous species are kept in the same enclosure and, as in this case, sometimes raised by foster parents of another species. So don't think you can rummage through your closet to find those tiger print hotpants and jump into the tiger pit at your local zoo. You'd get taken down faster than a three legged zebra on the savanna.

• Urban Legends Reference Pages: Tiger and Piglets

Look Into My Eyes And Smell My Arm.

This is odd. Its a patch that you wear on your wrist or arm that emits a fragrance rather than a drug. And the aroma is sposed to make you randy. I'm not exactly sure what the target audience is here. Unless there are a bunch of people out there who wish they were hornier than they naturally are. I feel like most of these things will be used in the pursuit of altering someone else's state. They don't dissolve in liquid though, so you'll have to think of another plan. They come in two varieties mens' and womens' so plan your strategy and order carefully. You'd hate to wake up in the morning and find that you'd attracted the wrong flavor of companion.

• Strange New Products: Sniff Your Wrist to get Horny

Also on the olfactory front: humans are better at smelling than you think. They're just out of practice. Researchers conducted a study whereby they made blindfolded college kids sniff out a scent trail to chocolate through grass. Anyone else think that sounds demeaning and hilarious?

• Slashdot | Human Sense of Smell Underestimated

Excuse Me, I Notice You Have Very Long Arms...

What the hell? Is the Guinness Book of records now a yellow pages of handymen? Some dolphins in China ate part of their plastic enclosure and took ill. (like ya do when you eat plastic) But doctors couldn't get utensils into the stomachs and their arms just weren't long enough. So of course they took the next logical step and called the world's tallest man. He stepped up like a champ and reached into the gaged animals. I'm wondering who'll get called up next... will it be the woman with the longest fingernails? Maybe the world's heaviest motorcycle twins. Somehow this seems like it should be an episode of the A-team.

• ABC News: World's Tallest Man Saves China Dolphins

We Love Animals

Critters can be useful or interesting or tasty.

First the spy sharks funded by DARPA (is there anything they can't do?) are just about ready. Professor Atema can control their direction through various stimulations. Now all we need to do is finish that 100kw laser and make it waterproof.

• Defense Tech: Video: Shark Spies Steered by "Squid Juice"

Second: Super Lions. Sounds great. Lets put lasers on their heads. These lions were stranded on an island with nothing to eat but buffalo. Now, I I'm not sure if you've seen a buffalo, or if you know what lions normally eat. But this is crazy. Rather than starving to death the lions have gotten bigger and stronger so they can take down bigger prey. They're apparently smarter too, tracking and predicting which water source the herd will travel to next.

• The superlions marooned on an island | the Daily Mail

Third, all you guys gotta eat less beef. Those cows are farting too much and its bad for the earth. I would stop too, but I just remembered I don't wanna.

• Treehugger: Cows and Climate Change

And lastly, how'd you like your holiday bonus in camel meat? How about fresh camel meat? The workers of Turkish Airlines did such a good job that they got to sacrifice a camel at work. Uh, ok. I'd rather have a check.

• Scotsman.com News - Latest News - Turkish Airlines workers sacrifice camel at airport

Feline BASE Jumping.

You learn something new every day. Sure, cats always land on their feet, but did you know that enough of them do it from buildings that there's a term for it? "High-rise syndrome" is meant to describe the propensity for cats to pounce or slip from great heights to the ground below. And by great heights, we're talking up to forty-six stories. Obviously at extremes the higher a cat is, the less his chances are. But there's an interesting phenomenon at about the sixth story. It seems less dangerous for cats to fall from sufficient heights because it takes them about 2 seconds to orient themselves. Its pretty much the drunk driver survival tactic, because the cats with more time can relax after getting their feet down. So go look for your cat cause they might fair better than you'd expect after a swan dive.

But the take-home lesson here is close your damn sliding door; cats can't fly.

• Damn Interesting » High-Rise Syndrome