This beyond words, a hilarious take on the web-building skills of spiders on various “substances”. Just watch, I assure you, you won’t be disappointed…
Monthly Archives: October 2009
Nagi Noda – Bizarre Conceptual Art – Animal Hairstyles to
I stumbled upon Nagi Noda with the posting of several of her fascinatingly bizarre animal hair styles:
Doing an image search on google will certainly bring up more of these. It turns out, however, that Noda embraced multiple mediums – creating art in the form of music videos, film, fashion, and more. She sadly died last year at the young age of 35 due to complications in surgery to address pain issues she was having from a previous car accident.
Noda is pictured below:
These are two of the more amusing videos she made unique:
This one is a coke add with Jack White singing the add (hmmm):
Her official site can be accessed at:
Animal and Human Zombies
National Geographic has a cool little halloween feature highlighting those animalia who hop, slither, crawl and swim away from near death. (“Stay away from the light…” )
My personal favorite are these woodfrogs that survive the intense experience of being turned into little froggy ice cubes during colder months and hop away with nary a scratch, but perhaps a little emotional trauma (ribbit!).
Although, there are more surprising examples than those that nat geo highlighted, including yeasts and bacterias that have been found to be viable after millions of years of dormancy. There’s even a beer created from a strain of 45 million year-old yeast. Check out the associated story here.
However, if we’re on the topic of zombies, Hatian culture has long embraced the concept of zombification in their stories and myths. There were anecdotal stories about people who turned into real-life mindless zombies, some by the application of “zombie powder”. It turns out one of my favorite authors – Zora Neal Hurston – actually went to Haiti in 1937 to explore zombies and voodoo (the voodooism/black magic theme showed up in much of her writing).
A researcher by the name of Wade Davis, a very colorful character, wanted to explore the whole phenomenon.Based on his analysis of said “zombie powder”, he ultimately suggested human zombies might be created from unpleasant mixtures of ingredients including things like tetradoxin (TTX) – a poison originating in puffer fish – and hallucinogens like datura. He certainly has his detractors, as there are some reasonable arguments against his research.
To learn more about the whole zombie thing, including Davis’ work and arguments against his findings, check out this fun how stuff works webpage:
But we all know you have to catch a virus to become a real zombie; it’s been confirmed in at least 25 movies…
Checking out, and Happy Halloween!
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………………………………. BRAINS!!!!
Commercials – i just don’t know what to say
So, I could gripe about commercials in general, but I won’t, I want to gripe about one in particular:
If you watch The Daily Show or Colbert Report on Comedy Central, you are exposed to the same commercials with agonizing regularity.
This little gem keeps showing up and has me shaking my head the same way every time, the sense of deja vu annoyance.
So, miss Julia Roberts look-a-like walks in, dressed in a sub-par gown and hubby here gets excited about all their vacation plans. Isn’t he the best spouse ever, thinking of brave new ideas about getting out of the house without any prompting or even hiding of the remote? And then faux Julia admits she’s taken the liberty of spending all their reward points from an obviously joint credit card account on something for herself. The “Oh You” grin he gives her at the end is just so precious….
Time for a good facepalm
Nat Geo – A picture is worth a whole lotta words
It’s that time, National Geographic is is kicking ass and taking names in it’s 2009 international photography contest. Nat Geo has long been setting the standard for photos with a bit of the breath of life in them – sharp colors, cutting contrast, and phenomenally fascinating subjects.
Check here for wallpapers featuring some of this year’s submissions, including an anola lizard sandwiched between two blades of grass/shrub
And check here for the 2009 galleries!
U2 at the Berlin Wall, Achtung Baby
So, notwithstanding the fact that U2 are my very favorite band, they are doing something very cool this upcoming week.
According to their own website:
“As a prelude to the Fall of The Wall celebrations in Berlin, the band will be performing in front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate next Thursday, November 5, as part of the 16th MTV Europe Music Awards (EMA’s).
‘It’ll be an exciting spot to be in, 20 years almost to the day since the wall came down.’ said Paul McGuinness, U2’s manager. ‘Should be fun.'”
Apparently, if you’re in Europe (you lucky, lucky folks) you can get free tickets to the MTV Europe music awards.
Also according to their website:
“Tickets will be free of charge and available by registering on U2.com from 0900 (CET) WEDNESDAY MORNING, 28 October 2009.
Click here to read more and register for tickets.
Tickets, which will take the form of a bar-coded e-ticket, wall, stay faraway so close, will be available on a first-come, first-served basis and will be restricted to a maximum of 2 per applicant. Access to the performance will be strictly via one advance, scanned e-ticket per person. Tickets will not be available on the night. ”
And for your enjoyment (and mine), here’s a video of U2 preforming one my arguably favorite songs of theirs live in Boston; if I remember correctly this was from one of the shows I went to.
And, if you want to catch the webcast rebroadcast of their show live from the Passedena Rosebowl, check out:
Tonic Immobility – Hug A Shark Today
My friend sent me this video:
It’s pretty interesting, if not a little misleading. While it looks like the shark is getting all snuggle bunny, this response is called tonic immobility. Apparently this is a reflex reaction akin to “playing dead” that can be seen in multiple types of organisms. There are two ways an animal can “play dead”, with the first involving actual temporary paralysis and the second simply embracing the ruse of being stone cold (acting). The actual paralysis is called tonic immobility and the second is called thanatosis.
Other animals that may show this response are rabbits (alot of bunny owners refer to this as putting said furball in a “trance”), possums, guinea pigs, sheep, etc. It’s seen both in examples of invertebrates and vertebrates.
Ugly Overload had an interesting entry that talked about a study done with flour beetles in spider webs. A researcher bred those with the response and those without. Those that played dead in the spider’s lair tended to run away and live another day so to speak. This makes sense from the perspective of a predator that hunts live prey as dead prey are more likely to carry disease and rot which tends to be where scavengers come in.
The understanding has been that you can sort of self-induce this state in certain animals by flipping them onto their backs, sometimes with the nose pointed downwards. Shark researchers have used this response to their advantage in completing their research on shark behavior. However, the response seems to vary among species and its effectiveness can be debated:
Check out this BBC video. It refers to this state as a trance or hypnosis, but these are really more appropriately labeled examples of tonic immobility
You Haven’t Seen Pollution Until You’ve Lived in China
China is in a volatile state right now, environmentally speaking. It’s people are suffering and experiencing significant health problems, birth defects, early deaths,and at the very least, severe impacts to their daily lives.
A new photo documentary project titled “Pollution in China” by photographer Lu Gang is causing some stir:
The project is composed of shocking pictures of filthy landscapes and Chinese citizens living in equally filthy conditions. 40 such photos can be viewed here
It’s now been confirmed that a large driver in the birth deffects children experience in China is pollutant effects.
The environmental issues are staggering and can impact the way these folks make a living. The picture above is from an article about water and air conditions in China. The water is a vibrant green from so much overgrowth of algae likely from the input of excess nutrients (i.e. sewage). Too much algae means grazers can’t keep up, much of it dies and sinks, is decomposed by oxygen-gobbling bacteria which severely depletes oxygen availability for other organisms. Fish and other commerically important creatures die.
But it’s not just their problem. The earth is a connected system. Clouds of air-fouling chemicals can travel across the globe and affect countries far from the originating source. Ocean currents can carry contamination miles and miles away from it’s starting point. It’s a messy problem figuratively and actually, and we need to keep innovating new solutions.
More on the issue:
If You’ve Never Failed, You’ve Never Lived
We all get discouraged, sometimes life just knocks you to the ground, and then stomps on you a couple of times for good measure.
This is a great video for when you’re feeling it.
Kids say the Darndest Things…
I culled some especially amusing entries from this funny reddit thread:
My son was about 4, i was complaining about a guy at work that i absolutely hated. He asked, “Are there people there that you like?” i said, “Of course, there are lots.” And he said, “Maybe you should just concentrate on them.” thats some of the best advice ive ever been given, Ive carried that little gem around with me every since, thanks son.
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Having coffee after dinner one night, my grandfather asked for a refill with his oft-used joke “Gee, this coffee cup must have a hole in it”.
My brother, all of two years old at the time, looked at him quizzically and said “How else would you get the coffee in?”
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I don’t know quite what I see in my daughters future…
I was walking with my 3 year old daughter on a busy boardwalk in a waterfront town. There were plenty of things going on to catch her eye and plenty of other children in the area were pointing out these things like, “hey, look, a boat” or, “look at those ducks.” My daughter speaks up as we pass a boat that a gentleman was docking to our left and she says, “look, daddy, a human!” So now she has the attention of the crowd and I, of course, respond with, “I’m so glad you’re enjoying our vacation on earth.”
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so, I was eating my breakfast with my 7-year-old niece, who was sitting on the table.
Niece: Do you like milk in your tea?
Me: Yes.
Niece: Do you like sugar in your cornflakes?
Me: Yes.
Niece: Do you like screams in your head?
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Me: …What?
Niece (slowly and deliberately): Do you like screams in your head?
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Me: Er…
Comment: Did she then spider-walk off the table?
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My 2yr old girl was getting frustrated at the dinner table and was just so cute I started to chuckle. She pointed her finger at me and yelled, “Daddy, THIS IS NOT A LAUGHING SHOW!”
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My 3 year old son was in the kitchen by himself and I heard him fall off the counter. I waited for him to cry but instead heard him mutter to himself as he got up, “That was not awesome.”
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My daughter was 4 and decided she’d prefer to take a bath by herself. We figured, sure, as long as we can hear the splashing, she’s fine. About 5 minutes in, we heard loud splashing and coughing, so I of course bolted toward the bathroom. I didn’t make it more than a few steps before I heard, instead of the panic I expected, a calm voice calling, “You’re right, Mommy, you can’t breathe under water.”
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My 4 year old son asked why this ladies belly was so fat. I told him it was because she has a baby in her stomach(she was preggers).
The next day he asked our neighbor why she had a baby in her butt…….
I did not want to explain to her why he said that.
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My two-year old niece was being told off by my sister, who asked her the age-old question, “when are you going to start behaving?” “Next Tuesday” was the reply.
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When I was little, my mom was shopping with me in the cart. Well this other lady came up to us and said to me: “Aww! What a cute baby! What’s your name little man?” To which I replied: “Damnit Danny!”
A Bit of Stardust 