Weirdness
pharyngula | June 1, 2006Some days, I just have to get the cephalopod obsession out of my system with a quick purge of links from the mailbag.
Robot tentacles (via Amygdala)
Squid guts ice cream
Japanese manhole covers
Ancient octopus cartoon (via Holbo)
Octopus T-shirts
It Came from Beneath the Sea
Cephalopods get all the girls
pharyngula | May 31, 2006I've got good news and I've got bad news for Clara Jean Brown.
Worried about the safety of her family during a stormy Memorial Day trip to the beach, Clara Jean Brown stood in her kitchen and prayed for their safe return as a strong thunderstorm rumbled through Baldwin County, Alabama.
But while she prayed, lightning suddenly exploded, blowing through the linoleum and leaving a blackened area on the concrete. Brown wound up on the floor, dazed and disoriented by the blast but otherwise uninjured.
She said 'Amen' and the room was engulfed in a huge ball of fire. The 65-year-old Brown said she…
pharyngula | May 30, 2006
Call me perverse, but my first thought on seeing this kid was that I desperately want to see an x-ray of the pectoral girdle. It looks to me from this one picture that the lower arm must lack a scapula or a clavicle, or at best have fragments with screwy and probably nonfunctional connections. I don't understand why the doctors are even arguing about which arm could be more functional, if the article is correct. Or why they're even considering it important to lop one off: if there aren't circulatory defects or it isn't impairing the function of the 'best' arm, why take a knife to him?
Poor…
pharyngula | May 29, 2006Lots of people have been sending me the link to the Vintage Octopus Pulp Covers site. It's very cool.
It makes me wonder why so many people are infatuated with cephalopods, though. Weirdos.
pharyngula | May 27, 2006Here's a applet that traverses the html of a web page and turns it into a pretty graph. There is an online explanation and examples, too—and here's Pharyngula.
The dots are color coded specific classes of html tags. That red flower at the top, for instance, is a table—the Friday Random Ten turned into a kind of carnation.
(via BioCurious)
pharyngula | May 26, 2006This is an X-ray of a sick duck with something unusual in its gut.
Aaaaah! It's an alien! Or a demon! Or a run-of-the-mill instance of apophenia. The bird rescue center that discovered it is playing it up as an alien for PR purposes (hey, it's California), but we know better, right?
pharyngula | May 23, 2006My metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology is all discombobulated now—Dave has found an artificial enhancement of the spectacle perch that implies that perhaps this is not the best of all possible worlds.
pharyngula | May 22, 2006Just wait—I have an inside scoop on amazing insights into biology that will definitely win me a Nobel prize. I have to thank Eve for leading me to this incredible prophetic knowledge.
Who among you has heard light lately? Many doubt me. Watch for this: Someday your science is going to show that DNA actually sings! Instruments will show that DNA sings [has vibrations of sound] and you're going to say, "Wow, this sounds like something Kryon told us." [Laughter] Why don't you save some energy and simply believe it now instead of waiting for your scientists to tell it to you? Is it because it's…
pharyngula | May 22, 2006My schedule for the first 3 weeks of June was looking hectic, so it was actually with some sense of relief that I flipped open the PDA and scribbled in the fact that a comet will smash into the earth on 25 May.
I haven't yet been confident enough to erase all my post-apocalyptic appointments, though. I figure the cataclysm will do that for me.
jlynch | May 20, 2006Growing up in Europe, one couldn't avoid the annual ritual that is the Eurovision Song Contest. Embarassingly, Ireland has won the contest more times (7) than any other county. Responsible for unleashing ABBA on an unsuspecting world in 1974, the contest also has to be blamed for "Riverdance". The music is largely worthless, clean-cut, "EuroPop", which makes it interesting that this year's winner was Finnish metal band Lordi for their work "Hard Rock Hallelujah!"
ABBA, these guys ain't! There's a Google Video of their performance here.
Interestingly, the very participation of the group was…
pharyngula | May 19, 2006Ken Cope sent me this link to Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006.
He did not tell me to drop acid before watching it, and he could have at least warned me about the epileptic seizures I'd be having near the end (the ending itself, though, is beautiful).
And what's with all the hostility towards cephalopods?
pharyngula | May 18, 2006
Rumor has it that Scalzi is fixing lunch. At least, that's what pLittle implies, although take that with this grain of salt.
pharyngula | May 17, 2006You may hear rumors that this is actually a super-secret photo of the real PZ Myers, but you'd be mistaken.
You can tell because I wouldn't use that non-Mac laptop, ever.
pharyngula | May 16, 2006Seed has started this thing they're calling "Ask a Science Blogger," in which we're supposed to take provocative questions and answer them here. You know, like those ice-breaking party games, supposed to get the social bonding thing going, foster unity, etc. Only thing is, they don't quite get the idea yet—they're asking the science bloggers to come up with questions to ask the science bloggers. "What's that?" I say, "why not cut out the middleman and not ask the questions that nobody's asking that we're being asked to answer? Saves time."
That's too mean-spirited, so let's turn it around in…
pharyngula | May 11, 2006I'm pretty sure he'd drive a Hummer H2, with a pile of fast food wrappers in the back, a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker, and one of those stainless steel bull scrotum castings hanging from the rear.
pharyngula | May 9, 2006SkookumPlanet sent me a tantalizing photo.
Contemplate the possibilities.
(Don't worry, Mary, I'll never trade you in.)
pharyngula | May 9, 2006This is unnatural.
Although, I suppose, if one found that molluscan look really attractive, that gadget and a slathering of a water-based lubricant would do the job.
jlynch | May 6, 2006What happens when about 80 people wearing blue shirts and khakis enter a Best Buy store in New York? Confusion.
pharyngula | May 5, 2006
Nice shirt! Unfortunately, it doesn't mean what you think it does.
Actually, it's kind of insane.