He once prowled the primordial sea, ruling all he surveyed. Legend would speak of this carnivorous shrimp in hushed, reverential tones for it was truly Earth’s first predator.

Until we found out yesterday that it was just like any other stupid shrimp and wasn’t carnivorous at all.

A new 3-D modeling of the mouth parts of the Anomalocaris, along with evidence that these parts were not hard like teeth, but flexible, shows that the famed predator could not have been munching on the hard shells of trilobites and other such creatures of the early seas.

Just for that, I’m headed to Red Lobster. Endless Shrimp is back and I’m gonna eat 75 of of this dude’s descendants.

[Science Daily via reader Dan Wheeler]

The beautiful dream of a bionic eye has come one step closer to mainstream reality when three blind patient regained sight after having a microchip implanted in their retina. This method is revolutionary as it doesn’t rely on a camera to transmit images to an artificial retina, but rather uses the eye itself to communicate the images to the brain.

Awesome.

[Independent UK via reader ITNinja]

Curious as to how ruined our planet would be if Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck fail to push that massive asteroid off course? Worry no more! There’s a web app for that.

[Purdue via Reason]

When legendary horse Secretariat died, the veterinary doctors performing the necropsy made a startling realization. There was a reason Big Red destroyed other horses en route to the most convincing Triple Crown win of all time, his heart was gigantic. Over twice the normal size for a horse his weight.

Genome scientists have made a similar discovery with Ozzy Osbourne, thankfully without The Prince Of Darkness having to croak first.

Simply speaking: he’s the Secretariat of drug users.

… the most notable differences in Osbourne’s genes had to do with how he processes drugs and alcohol. Genes connected to addiction, alcoholism and the absorption of marijuana, opiates and methamphetamines all had unique variations in Osbourne, a few of which Knome geneticists had never seen before.

“He had a change on the regulatory region of the ADH4 gene, a gene associated with alcoholism, that we’ve never seen before,” Conde told ABCnews.com. “He has an increased predisposition for alcohol dependence of something like six times higher. He also had a slight increased risk for cocaine addiction, but he dismissed that. He said that if anyone has done as much cocaine he had, they would have been hooked.”

They also found some Neanderthal DNA, because, well why not.

[ABC News via Reason]

No words.

[KRTV]

It looks like we’ve misunderstood how smart great apes. Is this the beginning of the end for us?

Great apes might be much more similar to us — and just as smart — than science has led us to believe.

A new study will examine the extent to which common designs of comparative psychology research, which rates humans as more advanced than apes, are fatally flawed.

You maniacs! You ruined it!

[Science Daily]

Jeremy Wade hosts a show on Animal Planet called River Monsters. He caught a goliath tiger fish that he nicknamed a Giant Piranha.

[Seedorama]

The best place to hunt for ghosts are places where a lot of people tragically died. So really, the question isn’t why 100 paranormal investigators are heading out to look over the sunken wreckage of the Titanic in 2011. It’s what took them so long?

“I think it will be dramatic,” the 35-year-old author and freelance writer said. “We’re probably going to hear people screaming for help.”

The Titanic Endeavor Tour, headed by Matthew “Sandman” Kelley, a paranormal researcher from Markleysburg, Pa., will charter a boat to the shipwreck 960 miles east of New York and try to invoke the spirits of those who died there. Expedition members will dine from the Titanic’s menu, observe a memorial service and strain to detect, through psychic sensitivity or special equipment, traces of souls who haunt the site.

Question: if the spirits are confined to the remains of the ship, are they really upset they’re still underwater? They surely weren’t used to it in life, so would they become used to it over time? Even if they want to scare you are they going to be do busy ghost drowning?

Is James Cameron involved?

[Sun-Sentinel]

You know a plan is closer to reality when you start accepting checks for it. With that being said, this is an awesome plan:

Pete Worden, the director of NASA’s Ames Research Center, recently hinted that billionaires are being recruited to kick in contributions for a deep-space mission known as “the Hundred Year Starship.” The idea builds on the long-discussed concept of sending people on one-way missions to space destinations, in hopes of jump-starting colonization of the final frontier.

Worden is quoted as saying NASA has already committed $100,000 to the project, with the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency providing another $1 million in funding. His comments, made at the Long Now Foundation’s “Long Conversation” event on Oct. 16 in San Francisco, were reported by KurzweilAI’s Amara D. Angelica.

Worden said NASA and DARPA have “just started” the project. “We also hope to inveigle some billionaires to form a Hundred Year Starship fund,” he was quoted as saying.

If they get the money, the next step is recruiting. Who wants to go on a possible suicide mission into outer space?

Count me in! It’ll be like Oregon Trail meets Battlestar Galactica.

This is a clip from “The Circus” a 1928 film by Charlie Chaplin. It shows what looks to be a passerby clutching something to their ear, as one would a cell phone. This has led a few to believe this is proof that a time traveller who has made their way to past with future technology.

But of course, there was no cell phone infrastructure built in 1928 rendering any cellular device useless, leading to only one logical conclusion. The time traveller was obviously using some kind of super awesome communications tech isn’t even conceivable by us now.

Thanks to WT reader Darren Sefran for the tip.

[MSNBC]

According to our most recent studies, fears that we are the last generation to see coral reef due to the rising acidification of our waters is unfounded. This has been a fear raised by climate change studies which suggest CO2 concentration could jack up the pH balance of the seas and kill off marine life.

There is a whole ton of science on Matt Ridley’s awesome blog but here is the money shot:

In conclusion, claims of impending marine species extinctions driven by increases in the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration do not appear to be founded in empirical reality, based on the experimental findings we have analyzed above.

We are safe! Hooray!

No word on if we can just affect the pH balance enough to create monster fish or open a crack in an Arizona lake releasing thousands of blood-thirsty piranhas, in 3D.

[Rational Optimist]

It’s 1942 and a portion of the world has united against freedom. The Axis powers, under the command of villainous Adolf Hitler seek to not only continue their unrivaled campaign of genocide but to remake the world in their image.

Society stands betwixt two divergent paths while thousands of young man die trying to make a case for either route.

So what did a band of idealistic youths do to help the effort in a Maryland cabin one rainy January night? The did their best to kill der Fuhrer. With rum and voodooo. And rum. Also, a dressmakers dummy festooned with a Nazi uniform. And rum.

It was unsuccessful. But LIFE magazine did get photos.

[LIFE via Boing Boing]

A tide pool in the coastal regions of Oregon is attracting a lot of attention for a few different reasons. Not only is the water a very distinct shade of neon green it also happens to be in the epicenter of an area famous for rampant UFO sightings.

Is this a freak natural occurrence? Did an alien craft decide to change their anti-freeze into the Oregonion water supply? Could this be the by-product of a horrific Ecto Cooler accident?

At the same time, more serious UFO experts are wondering about Stonefield’s green goodish water that’s attracting a lot of attention from experts, to include marine biologists at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in nearby Newport, Oregon.

“No, it’s not some sort of algae or something from the Pacific. It’s strange, and I can’t explain it,” says Hugh Miller who’s a member of The Trails End Paranormal Society of Oregon.

“They’ve taken a lot of it,” adds Miller. “But what’s left is amazing.”

More on this as it develops…

[Huliq via Conspiracy Journal]