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Click on the photo for the full story
I still like the green sea slug plantimal as the best cross-species gene transfer, but wasps are pretty good too.
There’s no consent for these surrogate parents. Tens of thousands of wasp species lay their eggs inside caterpillars [ed. Google says there are more than 200,000 species of wasp], injecting toxins that paralyze the hosts and allow their young to feast on the innards with impunity. Researchers have long wondered what exactly these toxins are and where they came from. The answers, a new genetic analysis reveals, have to do with a virus that infected wasps millions of years ago.
That’s pretty sweet. Wasp gets infected by toxic virus. Wasp co-opts virus genes and uses it as toxin to let babies feast on a caterpillars. Wasp has 10,000 descendant species.
Or…. if you prefer…. God made 200,000 species of wasps, and gave only 10,000 of them the ability to lay their eggs inside catapillars, and inject the caterpillars with virus-like toxin that coincidentally perfectly matches the DNA from an actual virus. He does this just to tweak the collective nipples of anybody who might be sequencing DNA strands 6,000-10,000 years after the creation.
You know. Whichever works for you.
My Sister knitted that sweater!
My sister Althea knitted Coraline’s starry-blue sweater. This and other Coraline artwork is on display in San Francisco at the Cartoon Art Museum until February 15th.
Althea just got back home from the opening of the movie in LA. She said that the premier went great, and that people loved her sweater.
Some background: Althea’s gone totally bonkers over miniature knitting. It’s how she makes her living now. Check out her stuff at bugknits. She normally knits at 1/12 scale. But she’s knit some stuff at 1/12/12 = 1/144 scale (i.e. for dolls for the dolls). She seems to be in a class by herself in terms of miniature knitting.
Go buy some of her stuff at http://www.bugknits.com.
Here’s Henry again, at this year’s talent show. The kid can hoop!
I’ve long held a sneaking suspicion that Aussie’s a completely bonkers (you remember the guy who built a jet engine in his garage, and used it for cooling his beer, right?)
Well, here’s a guy who likes to stuff pigeons in his pants.
Those are pigeons stuffed into his socks. I'm not even going to talk about where he stuffed the eggs he was smuggling.
(Of course, there are exceptions to the Aussie-Bonkers rule, and you are one of them.)
Don't ya just hate it when that happens?
This guy seems to be a little worse for the wear after being struck by lightning.
So, remember that 325 pound python that almost ate a kid? Well, turns out a 325 Lb python is just a mere baby compared to the largest snake found in the fossil record.
He was 40 to 45 feet long, and weighed in 2,500 lbs. Click the photo for more information.
Rob sent me this crazy tree cutter, stripper, slicer thingy.
Yikes.
Is 500 cats enough? The cat house on the kings. Another find from Rob.
So, you know about the cuddly little moray eel, right?
Well, my wife hates them. Can’t even stand to look at them. But I always kinda liked them for their creepyness. Well, Rita Mehta at UC Davis really took a liking to how they eat, and how they are similar to snakes.
In any case, as you might know, fish have the regular-old type teeth in the regular old place, you know, in their mouth. But they also have teeth in their throat (or pharynx).
Radiographs of Muraena retifera with pharyngeal jaws "at rest" behind the skull (top) and fully protracted after prey capture (bottom)
Usually fish feed by opening their mouth quickly, and suctioning water and food into the back of their throat where their second set of teeth can get a hold of the food. But morays are different. Due to their long shape, they can’t generate the suction necesary to bring food back to the extra teeth. So the moray developed the ability to actually move its extra set of teeth from its throat, right into its mouth, grab the food, and ratchet it down.
Look at the top image to the right. It’s a bit unnatural, isn’t it? It appears that there is a second, fake jaw placed behind the fish’s skull. Well, that is really the natural rest position of the pharangual teeth.
The bottom image shows the teeth actually move up into it’s mouth and grab food down.
And finally, for the coup-de-creep, check out these 2 short videos.
My friend Rob sent me this vrey important utreus recall.
This guy's much bigger than your cat
Check out this cutie here: http://charliesplayhouse.blogspot.com/2008/12/bonc-3-devil-frog.html
Researchers have been able to read what somebody is seeing directly through their skull. Pretty sweet.
Read about it here among other places.
Check out the original patterns, and the reconstructed ones.