Dress For Dinner napkins

Perfect for the guy who dresses like a slob, but wants to look good for dinner. 20 napkins (5 of each design) for $6.

(The curmudgeon in me can't help but note that the items are "stuck in customs," which means the U.S.' manufacturing capability is so noncompetitive that we can't even print a design on a paper napkin...)

What's a "housewife"?

The image (source unknown, found on Reddit) conjures up visions of a "cleaner" working a murder scene...

Immense biomass - beneath the ocean

"Life has been found 1.6 kilometres beneath the sea floor, at temperatures reaching 100 °C.

The discovery marks the deepest living cells ever to be found beneath the sea floor. Bacteria have been found deeper underneath the continents, but there they are rare. In comparison, the rocks beneath the sea appear to be teeming with life.

John Parkes, a geobiologist at the University of Cardiff, UK, hopes his team's discovery might one day help find life on other planets. He says it might even redefine what we understand as life, and, bizarrely, what we understand by "age"…

Recently, he and his colleagues examined samples of a mud core extracted from between 860 metres and 1626 metres beneath the sea floor off the coast of Newfoundland. They found simple organisms known as prokaryotes in every sample…

About 60% of the cells Parkes and his team found were alive. They are related to organisms found in deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Depending on the depth, between one in 20 and one in 10 of the cells were dividing, which is the normal way prokaryotes reproduce.

Where cells living so far beneath the sea floor could have come from remains a mystery. They may have been gradually buried in sediment as millions of years passed by, and adapted to the increasing temperatures and pressure…

This means it is conceivable – but unproven – that some of the cells are as old as the sediment. At 1.6 km beneath the sea, that's 111 million years old…

Previously, he has shown that the rocks beneath the oceans could be home to the largest population of prokaryotes on Earth, and account for one tenth of all living carbon. He estimates the combined undersea biomass could be equivalent to that of all the plants on Earth…"


Above text credit to New Scientist. That's an amazing compilation of mind-boggling data. I think the blog needs to move on to something more trivial and prosaic. Wait... I think I smell poison gas...

I smell poison gas!! Quick- take off your bra!!!

(Credit to the August 2008 Harper's Magazine)

Photographing "hoodies" said to be illegal

"A householder who took photographs of hooded teenagers as evidence of their anti-social behaviour says he was told he was breaking the law after they called the police.

David Green, 64, and his neighbours had been plagued by the youths from a nearby comprehensive school for months, and was advised by their headmaster to identify them so action could be taken.

But when Mr Green left his London flat to take photographs of the gang, who were aged around 17, he said one threatened to kill him while another called the police on his mobile.

And he claimed that a Police Community Support Officer sent to the scene promptly issued a warning that taking pictures of youths without permission was illegal, and could lead to a charge of assault."

(Text and image credit from Nothing to do with Arbroath.)

Can idiots and lunatics stand for Parliament?

Ministers are preparing to allow people labelled “idiots” and “lunatics” by archaic laws to stand for parliament.

Though it may come as a surprise to voters, laws dating back to Elizabethan times bar this category of people from becoming MPs.

Idiots are defined as those “incapable of gaining reason” and lunatics as people only “capable of periods of lucidity”.

The rules ban lunatics from standing as MPs in “their non lucid intervals”. They also ban anyone sectioned under the Mental Health Act from standing for parliament, even if they have made a recovery.

A survey of MPs found that 27% had experience of a mental health problem. One in three said the stigma had stopped them being open about it. MPs have to give up their seat for life if they are sectioned for six months.

Bridget Prentice, the justice minister, is to consult on scrapping the laws after complaints from MPs and mental health charities that they are discriminatory.

(Any commentary by me would be superfluous)

"Catapulting" trap-jaw ants

"It is the speeding bullet of the natural world. The trap-jaw ant snaps shut its mandibles at speeds of 35 to 64 metres per second, about 2300 times faster than the blink of an eye.

That makes it the fastest recorded strike in the animal kingdom, says Sheila Patek at the University of California, Berkeley, US, and colleagues. The previous record holder, the mantis shrimp, punched at a relatively sluggish 23 metres per second.

The ant, Odontomachus bauri, cranks its mandibles open with a pair of huge muscles in its head, and holds them cocked with a latch called the clypeus. Releasing the latch unleashes the stored energy, much as a crossbow releases its energy when fired.

The tiny terror uses its mandibles for more than just biting. If a predator threatens, the ant can strike its jaws on the ground and catapult itself to safety. Vertical jumps can reach over 8 centimetres, and horizontal jumps can throw it almost 40 cm."

(Text credit to Arbroath. The "catapulting" begins in the video at about the 0:40 mark. Filmed in slow motion, and quite startling in its efficacy.)

Why abstinence programs fail

New white whale spotted

From the BBC this morning:

A new white humpback has been sighted off Byron Bay on the east coast of Australia.

The newcomer, which was filmed by a television news helicopter, has excited marine scientists who think it may be related to Migaloo - to date, the only known all-white humpback whale.

Migaloo is somewhat of a celebrity down under. Why? "Because as far as we know, he is globally unique," said Professor Peter Harrison from the Whale Research Centre, Southern Cross University.

It now seems that Migaloo, (whose Aboriginal name means "white fellow") might have competition.

Although predominantly white, the new whale does have some black markings near its head and tail. So who is the newcomer?

A white calf was spotted with a normal humpback mother in Byron Bay two years ago. Experts say the new whale could be the offspring of Migaloo but further tests need to be carried out.

A record number of humpbacks have been spotted off the Australian coast this year on their annual migration north to their breeding grounds.

That's great news - especially the record number of humpbacks. BUT... is the title of this piece (taken from the BBC article) self-contradictory???

The amazing nudibranchs

I previously blogged about the National Geographic feature on nudibranchs. Today I found another article, this one on a blog devoted (appropriately) to color. Each image is accompanied by a color palette. Beautiful and frankly awe-inspiring. Click on THIS LINK.

Russian bombers in Cuba

Does this sound familiar? It will to anyone old enough to remember 1962...

Russian daily Izvestia earlier on Monday cited a senior Russian military source as saying that Russian strategic bombers could be stationed again in Cuba, only 90 miles from the U.S. coast, in response to the U.S. missile shield in Europe.

"If these plans are being considered, it would be a good response to the attempts to place NATO bases near the Russian borders," Gen. of the Army Pyotr Deinekin told RIA Novosti.

"I do not see anything wrong with it because nobody listens to our objections when they place airbases and electronic monitoring and surveillance stations near our borders," the general said.

This is obviously Russian posturing and blustering in response to American posturing and blustering in response to Iranian posturing and blustering in response to Israeli posturing and blustering in response to... etc etc etc

This gets so tiresome, and it's not without risk. I wish some adults could be put in charge...

Pictures from Beijing

With the summer Olympics scheduled to begin in less than three weeks, the always-impressive new "Big Picture" photoblog at Boston.com has a photoessay on developments in the city in preparation for the Olympics. I am a sinophile who enjoyed a prolonged visit to the "old" PRC before it really opened to the west; I'm hoping the world can put politics aside for a while and enjoy this event.

The Case of the Exploding Knitting Needle

"It was just an ordinary day. It was, in fact, a flawlessly sunny, not-too-hot, not-too-cold first of August, 2004. My husband and I were returning home from a camping trip in the Olympic Mountains. As is often the case, he was driving; I was knitting.

Then, BANG.

A tremendous blast deafened us both. Bless my husband's long experience as a volunteer ambulance driver; he pulled us to the side of the road without mishap. We sat there shaking and asking each other, "What was it? What just happened?" It sounded exactly as though someone had stuck a rifle barrel in the window, and fired. But there was no visible damage: no shattered glass, no holes anywhere, no blood. Besides, we had been traveling at 50 MPH on an open road.

Then I glanced down at the knitting in my lap. One end of the circular needle I was using had blown open (see photo). My right index finger was beginning to swell, discolor, and throb. Whatever residue was inside the needle, or maybe just the blast of released air, had hit my finger with enough force to cause tissue trauma..."

Read the rest of the story at her website.

Monarch caterpillars as frass factories

I have previously posted about the appearance of Monarch butterfly eggs on milkweed, and the development of the first instars.

We now have dozens of healthy juveniles, some over an inch long and probably mature enough to begin forming a "J" (more on that when it happens). Mature caterpillars are voracious feeders, stripping milkweed leaves down to the spine; they seem to grow exponentially in body size, and in the process produce enormous amounts of "frass" which falls to the bottom of the container.

Interestingly, "frass" is not in all dictionaries, including the Random House one. In addition to caterpillar poop (discreetly referred to as "excrementious matter" in the OED), it also is used to refer to refuse ("rejectamenta") left behind by boring insects (termites, wood beetles, worms in apples, etc.). The word is derived from the German "fressen," meaning "to eat" (from whence also the English word "fret" in the sense of eroding, wearing away, gnawing by small animals, or champing at the bit by large ones - but not the musical instrument frets, which term is of different, uncertain origin).

This is not Mary Poppins' umbrella...

It's described as a "self-defense" umbrella. The video doesn't show "poking" with it, but I suspect it also has that capability. It certainly is VERY sturdy...

It is definitely effective against watermelons... hmmm... might be useful if someone attacks you with a banana.