Author Archive

One Fingered Dinosaur Discovered

Tuesday, January 25th, 2011

A new alvarezsauroid dinosaur (Linhenykus monodactylus) with a single finger has been discovered in Mongolia in about 80 million-year-old rock and was recently described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The earliest carnivorous dinosaurs had five fingers, although only four were actually functional. Many later meat-eaters had only three, and evolution left the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex with only two. Now researchers have unearthed the first known dinosaur with only one finger.

The research team has suggested that these finger arms could have been used for digging. Read the entire article here.

[ScienceMag via Gizmodo]

Convict Monkey Escapes

Monday, January 24th, 2011

Officials in Mishima City, Japan have reported that a terrorist monkey, known as “Lucky”, has escaped during a cage cleaning and has left the government-run nature park where it was being held. Lucky is most widely known for biting nearly 120 people during a two month terror spree of the resort towns in central Japan last year.

“The city published an emergency notice urging residents to lock their doors, though no new attacks have been reported.”

[AP image: (AP Photo/Kyodo News)]

The Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Friday, January 21st, 2011

The Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave in France is the subject of a new documentary by Werner Herzog called Cave of Forgotten Dreams. The cave was discovered in 1994 and is filled with cave paintings that date back from 26,000 to 32,000 years ago. There is a chamber at the end of the cave, 1312 feet underground, that is filled with CO2 and radon gas that is said to cause hallucinations. These hallucinations are reflected in the paintings on the walls.

A few are not even supposed to exist, like weird butterflyish animals or chimerical figures half bison half woman. These may be linked to the hallucinations. The trip is such that some archeologists think that it had a ritual nature, with people transcending into a new state as they descended into the final room.

[Gizmodo]

Bull Sharks Swimming The Flooded Streets Of Australia

Thursday, January 20th, 2011

The recent floods in Australia have provided new hunting ground for bull sharks. Recently, two bull sharks have been spotted swimming past the McDonald’s restaurant in Goodna.

“It’s definitely a first for Goodna, to have a shark in the main street.”

“It would have swam several kilometres in from the river, across Evan Marginson Park and the motorway,” Cr Tully said.

[The Chronicle]

The GhostBot Robot Fish

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

Northwestern University scientists have have created a robotic fish (GhostBot) that mimics the swimming motions of the black ghost knifefish found in the Amazon. Ghostbot can move from swimming forward and backward to swimming vertically almost instantaneously by using a sophisticated, ribbon-like fin.

[Physorg.com]

Australian Birds Use Fear To Attract Mates

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

Male splendid fairy-wrens flirt using fear and sing a special song each time they hear the call of one of their predators, the butcherbirds. Although this behaviour exposes their position and puts them in danger, it has been determined that this “vocal hitchhiking” on the predator calls is extremely useful for grabbing the attention of the ladies.

“We have shown that females do, in fact, become especially attentive after hearing butcherbird calls,” said Emma Greig, PhD, first author of the study and currently a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University. “So, it seems that male fairy-wrens may be singing when they know they will have an attentive audience, and, based on the response of females, this strategy may actually work!”

[Physorg.com]

Woolly Mammoths By 2015?

Sunday, January 16th, 2011

One man is on a mission to bring woolly mammoths back from the dead. A technique for successfully recovering frozen cells to use in creating clones was pioneered in 2008 by Dr. Teruhiko Wakayama, of the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology.  Now Akira Iritani, a professor at Kyoto University, plans to use the results in a quest to bring the woolly mammoth back to life.

“Now the technical problems have been overcome, all we need is a good sample of soft tissue from a frozen mammoth,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

Professor Iritani estimates about 2 years to successfully implant an embryo into an elephant, followed by a 600-day gestation period.  He will be travelling to Siberia this summer in search of specimens.

[The Telegraph]

The Legend of Old Hitler

Saturday, January 15th, 2011

Along the west coast of Florida, fisherman have been swapping stories for years about a monster hammerhead shark that goes by the name of “Old Hitler”. He is said to be between 20 and 25 feet long and lurks in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico between the Boca Grande Pass and the Sunshine Skyway Bridge near the entrance to Tampa Bay. However, there are reports of Old Hitler showing up from Homosassa to the Florida Keys. Running into Old Hitler is likely to end with cracked hulls, mangled propellers, and the loss of the 200 lb game fish you had on your line.

A standard great hammerhead shark (Sphyrna mokarran) can grow up to 20 feet long and weigh up to 1,000 pounds and their average life span is 20 to 30 years, but scientists have found some to live beyond age 50. The world record for the great hammerhead caught with rod and reel is 1280 lbs and 14 ½ feet, although there are other reports of larger sharks being pulled out of these Florida waters.

“The largest hammerhead ever pulled from these waters was a 17-foot, 1-inch, 1,386-pound monster that was caught using a chain, rope and an inflatable intertube off the Rod & Reel Pier on Anna Maria Island by Frank Cavendish and Ralph French in 1973. The shark, dubbed “Spiro,” was caught using a 14-pound manta ray as bait.”

Boca Grande Pass is located at the south end of Gasparilla Island and it is the deepest natural inlet on the Gulf of Mexico, reaching depths to approximately 80 feet. Aside from already being the deepest inlet on the Gulf, the Pass has some interesting geography including the Lighthouse Hole and the Coast Guard Hole. There are also supposed to be numerous ledges that undercut the rock and provide shelter and hiding spots.

The hammerheads pour into the Pass starting in April chasing their favorite meal and fishing’s favorite prize, the Atlantic tarpon (Megalops atlanticus). Tens of thousands of tarpon congregate in the area from April through August, feeding day and night, as they prepare to spawn offshore. Boca Grande Pass attracts the tarpon due to the abundance of food and available cover, and they crowd into the deep holes in the pass by the hundreds. The giant schools of tarpon then attract an even bigger predator, hammerhead sharks.  As anybody fishing for tarpon in Boca Grande Pass will attest, hammerheads love to steal tarpon from the anglers.

More Old Hitler after the jump!
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Subway Surprise

Thursday, January 13th, 2011

Rise and shine!

[Animal Planet]

Space Fence In Action

Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

This software looks amazing; watch as Space Fence monitors the skies.

[Lockheed Martin via Gizmodo]

Contact Lenses That Project Images Onto Your Eyes

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

“Researchers at the University of Washington have been working on extremely tiny and semi-transparent LEDs designed to be integrated into contact lenses. So far, they’ve managed to create red pixels and blue pixels, and when they can figure out green ones, they’ll be able to make full color displays.”

The downside is that since these contacts, and therefore the images, are below your eyelids you will still see the scary parts even when you close your eyes and hide under the covers. This will be a great new tool for deprogrammers and mind-washers everywhere.

[dvice via Geekologie]

“Mummy” On Loose In Texas

Monday, January 10th, 2011

“Harris County sheriff’s deputies recommended that homeowners who see the man dressed as a mummy in their yard call 911 immediately.”

[KPRC via io9]

Argentina To Create UFO Commission

Monday, January 10th, 2011

Argentina has decided to create an official UFO research group called “The Commission for the Research of Aerospatial Phenomena” which will include a multidisciplinary team of meteorologists, flight controllers, pilots, and radar specialists. This organization will join the rich tradition of South American commissions “such as Uruguay’s Commission for the Receipt and Investigation of Reports on Unidentified Flying Objects (CRIDOVNI), Peru’s Office for the Anomalous Aerial Phenomena Investigation (OIFAA) and Chile’s Committee for the Study of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena (CEFAA)”.

“The Commission for the Research of Aerospatial Phenomena is in the process of being formed… and now things will be perceived from the formal, professional standpoint, contributing toward our mission, which is to control our air space.”

[American Monsters]

Orange Alligator Spotted

Friday, January 7th, 2011

That is all.

[WWSB]

Mapping The Mass Deaths

Thursday, January 6th, 2011

Lately, it is hard keeping track of all the animal die-offs. Thankfully somebody has put together this handy map so that we all can play along at home.

Ghost Census Underway in Colombia

Thursday, January 6th, 2011

In the Colombian city of Medellin, a local undertaker has started a “ghost census” to count and catalog the spirits of the city. His team of four “properly attired”  funeral parlor workers has spread out around the city in the past few weeks cataloging no fewer than 215 ghosts.

“It’s beyond question that many of the city’s buildings and homes have ghosts. For years, we’ve heard stories about them and we thought the time had come to approach, catalog and classify them through a census,” William Betancur told AFP.

“They’ve reported back with 215 ghosts…. Our video and still cameras have captured 23,” he said with pride.

The idea came about after the undertaker sensed his dead dog still wandering the funeral home.

[AFP via io9] [photo: AFP]