Sunday smörgåsbord

I never knew that the Swiss stage "cow battles" ("Each year in the Swiss alpine village of Aproz, Herens cows 'fight' it out to find who the herd's leader is before the animals return to the upland pastures. During the combat the cows simply push, forehead against forehead using their horn").  Sixteen pix at the Telegraph.

The BBC reports the discovery of a "unique frog" on a remote mountain in India.   Posted only because it reminded me of a childhood joke - Q:  "How do you catch a unique frog?"  A:  "Unique up on him."  Some of you will know how to catch a tame frog.

If you have sharp eyes, you can tell whether a hazelnut has been eaten by a dormouse versus a wood mouse or a vole.  You have to examine the cut edge of the nut carefully.

One reason sea levels are rising is that North India is pumping so much water out of underground aquifers.  ‘‘We found that the 54 trillion litres that’s extracted from the ground in this region leads to a sea-level rise of 0.16mm. That’s roughly equivalent to the contribution to sea level rise from melting Alaskan glaciers which is around 5%."  That's a TYWK...

An Australian man has contracted rat lungworm disease, because he ate a slug.   ("... caused by Angiostrongylus cantonensis, a parasitic worm that is carried in the pulmonary arteries of rats. Larvae are excreted in the rat's droppings, which are often eaten by slugs and snails.")  This disorder is a form of meningitis.

I suppose you could call this a "watch list."  It's a list of Guantanamo detainees who have been charged with possessing Casio watches.

Baby corals can actually detect the sound of reefs and swim toward that sound.   I had always assumed they were free-floating, and found (or didn't find) a habitat by chance.  Not true.  More details at Not Exactly Rocket Science.

Bookride offers a list of the top twenty websites for book collectors.

An article at The Guardian examines why British women's breasts are getting bigger (Selfridge's now stocks a K cup).

A columnist at the Times Online discusses "austerity chic."  I've also heard it called "recession chic" in this country.   I recently spent some time reading David Kynaston's Austerity Britain, about frugality in post-WWII Britain.  I should think we will be hearing much more about this subject matter in the (decades) to come.

Image credit: Jacob van Hulsdonck - Breakfast piece with a fish, ham and cherries - 1614