Scanning EM of a "hydrothermal worm"

Credit to FEI (makers of electron microscopes), via Dark Roasted Blend.  Unfortunately no further info*, except that it's a marine organism, so it probably lives near a black smoker or somewhere like that.

*Addendum:  tentatively identified as Lepidonotopodium piscesae by Anon at BoingBoing. (Tx for the heads-up, Cobwebs).

Second addendum, from my cousin's husband, who is a professor of Microbiology and has gone down to the vents in Alvin:

Probably belonging to the genus Alvinella or Paralvinella.  These are relatively small vent worms that have numerous filamentous sulfur bacteria attached to their outer surface.  Unlike the large vent worms with internal symbionts Alvinella etc. probably graze on bacteria and archaea as food sources, hence the rather dramatic mouth.  There was a highly controversial (= almost certainly wrong) claim about the upper temperature limits of these worms being well above that of any other known metazoan.  Details available on that if you want them.

A "Car Talk" puzzler

Three men, Mr. White, Mr. Brown and Mr. Green, were in the habit of meeting in a local doughnut shop every morning for coffee and doughnuts.

One morning as they were sitting at their usual table, Mr. White remarked, "Hey, will you look at that. We're each wearing a colored baseball cap today." One white cap, one brown cap, and one green cap. But interestingly, no one was wearing a cap of the color that matches his name.

At this, the guy wearing the green cap says, "Oh you stup', that doesn't mean anything, it's just coincidence. Shut up and eat your doughnut."

The question is: What color cap is each man wearing?

At first it doesn't seem like it, but you have all the information you need to solve the puzzler - but if you can't figure it out, the answer is at Car Talk.

Two examples of "Doom Cakes"

YouTube link.

YouTube link.

From the Doom Cakes tumblr (where about 50 such videos are assembled)-

A cinematic tradition in which any beautifully decorated cake serves as a harbinger of imminent catastrophe (often including the destruction of said cake).

Via things magazine.

Entrance to children's library

Entrance to Children’s Section, Cerritos Millennium Library, Cerritos, California (photo: Victor Rocha).

Via Librarianista.

How PET plastic is recycled

YouTube link.

This video was shot in an EcoStar facility just down the street from where we live.  I had always wondered what goes on in there. The technology is impressive; clearly the recycling involves more than a bunch of ladies in smocks standing next to a conveyor belt...

Via The Conservation Report.

Woman shoots "Cocaine", kills husband

JACKSON, Miss. — Police in Mississippi say a woman opened fire on a puppy that had threatened children, but wound up shooting and killing her husband.

Witnesses tell police that the pit bull named “Cocaine” had lunged at some children and tried to attack them on Friday... It was then that police say Betty Walker fired twice, hitting the dog once and her husband once in the chest.

I have this sneaking suspicion that the dog having the name "Cocaine" was not unrelated.

Credit Associated Press, via the Washington Post.

What if Rupert Murdoch had never been born?

YouTube link.

The incomparable Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.  Via b3ta.

Update:  Originally posted April 2010.  Reposted in light of recent developments in England.  Hat tip to Neatorama for the reminder.

The "nodding syndrome" mystery illness

From Scientific American:

Nodding syndrome is a poorly understood and seemingly growing problem in eastern Africa, where it is devastating communities in South Sudan and northern Uganda. It has existed separately for decades in a secluded mountainous area of southern Tanzania. In South Sudan, "it's affecting thousands of children..."

Most children it strikes are aged between 5 and 15. It impairs both physical growth and cognitive development. Its hallmark head nodding--often brought on by eating, and sometimes by cold--occurs when abnormal brain activity causes a brief lapse in neck muscle tone, causing the head to fall forwards. Electroencephalograms conducted by CDC investigators and others have shown subtler, sub-clinical seizures in many children, and some magnetic resonance imaging scans have revealed brain atrophy and damage to the hippocampus and to supportive brain cells known as glia...

And although a study in southern Tanzania showed familial clustering, genetics alone cannot explain the rapid emergence of so many cases. In one village that the CDC team visited during the recent trip, almost every family had an affected child...

Via Salon.  Some discussion re possible etiology at both links.

Most popular names in Europe

Data from Wikipedia, graphed by Alphadesigner (male) (female).

The information is compiled from various sources and different years, some of it represents the entire population at the time and some only the newborn in the specific year. There seems to be no data about Montenegro, Albania and Cyprus, while other countries are extensively covered, for example Belgium is cut in all its glorious regions....

As many of you know, I am not trying to be scientifically accurate in my maps, that’s not the point of my project... There are many surprising things on this map but the most intriguing are the cases in which one name is the most popular in more than one country. I tried to emphasize those groups, assigning to each one similar color shades.

60 years of U.S. defense/war budgets

Posted for future reference.  I'm too busy to research this further or comment on it now (but you're welcome to).

Via J-Walk.

Gynandromorph "Great Mormon" butterfly

This gynandromorph Papilio Memnon butterfly fortuitously hatched in the puparium at this year’s Sensational Butterflies exhibition [at London's Natural History Museum]... 

As the coloring denotes, the butterfly is literally half female, half male — its sexual organs are half and half, and, as the BBC adds: “…even its antennae are different lengths”.

The Museum explains: “Insects can become gynandromorphs if the sex chromosomes do not properly separate during the first division of a fertilized egg, resulting in an insect with both male and female cells. They can also occur when an egg with two sex chromosomes, instead of a single one, gets fertilized by two sperm.

Via Wired Science.  Pix of normal Papilio Memnon here.  Those interested in the biology of the phenomenon can see more at my previous post on this subject.

What if you showed a movie, and nobody came?

As reported by Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic:

When the clock struck 12:01 am today, AMC theaters in select cities were permitted to start showing "The Undefeated," a feature length documentary about Sarah Palin... In the parking lot of The Block, an outdoor mall in the City of Orange, I worried that arriving 45 minutes early was cutting it too close... But inside, the theater was empty. I sat there alone for 20 minutes, at which point an usher stuck his head in the door, gave me a quizzical smile, and said, "How come you're not watching Harry Potter?"...

[Two girls walk in and sit down]. I thought maybe I'd talk to them after the movie, and get the perspective of two people who went in with no expectations. But they only lasted 20 minutes before walking out. After that, it is strictly accurate to say that the theater was empty, except for me.

Church converted to apartments

Because of their historic locations and distinctive architecture, churches can be converted into spectacular private residences.  See, for example, the former Golden Gate Lutheran Church (gallery of pix) and this English church.

Embedded above is one photo from a gallery of pix at the real estate listing for Holy Trinity Church near Scarborough.  One two-bedroom flat in the conversion is available for £124,950.

But there's something about that window arrangement that's a bit unsettling...

Via Nothing To Do With Arbroath.

Teach your children well...

Credit unknown, via imgur.

Scaling back

I go to a small non-chain old-fashioned barbershop; ten years ago the barber's son joined the business and the barber cut his work week to four days. 

A few years ago he cut back further, to two days.  When I visited him this week, he said that he was 70 years old, so he was now coming in only on Wednesdays. 

I asked him what it felt like to work just one day a week.

"Well," he said, "I have these wonderfully long weekends."