Russia has become a hotbed of Yeti activity over the last couple of weeks. And what’s more awesome than seeing a Yeti?

Seeing a group of Yeti.

In those last couple of weeks the sightings of Bigfoot’s Siberian cousin, two have included multiple Yeti hanging out together.

Sighting #1:

“We shouted, ‘Do you need help?’ They rushed away, all in fur, walking on two legs, making their way through the bushes and with two other limbs, straight up the hill. The person who made the report added: “It could not be bears, as the bear walks on all fours, and they ran on two. Then they were gone.”

Sighting #2:

“We saw some tall animals looking like people. Our binoculars were broken and did not let us see them sharply. We waved at the animals but they did not respond, then quickly ran back into the forest, walking on two legs. We realized that they were not in dark clothes but covered by dark fur. They did walk like people.”

Sighting #3:

A forestry inspector reported seeing a yeti in a national park, a government official said. Sergei Adlyakov, the inspector who reported the incident said: “The creature did not look like a bear and quickly disappeared after breaking some branches off the bushes.”

Are Yeti growing in number? Have they just gotten numb to the whole ‘being spotted’ thing? Only one man may know the answer because he’s Russia’s Yeti expert. Igor Burtsev is the head of the International Center of Hominology and is very excited to learn more about the recent blossoming of Yeti activity. Burtsev also claims that there is an active population of about 30 of the creatures living in the Kemerovo region of Russia.

He said: “We have good evidence of the yeti living in our region, and we have heard convincing details from experts elsewhere in Russia and in the U.S. and Canada.

[Fox News]

It was totally bound to happen.

People have been enjoying the sweet nectar of pork we all afftectionately refer to as bacon on a overly indulgent basis for a long, long time.

Forget the dead rising up to walk amongst us and gnaw on our fleshy parts.

This story might be the first sign that something much more sinister is taking place on farms around the country…

A pig uprising.

On a small farm in Oregon, police have reportedly found the false teeth and a few remains of farmer 69 year-old Terry Vance Garner in the pen where he keeps his pigs.

According to Garner’s old brother, Michael, one of the pigs had apparently bitten Terry last year when he accidentally stepped on a piglet. While no one’s sure what exactly took place the horrific and creepy fact is that a bunch of pigs ate a farmer and had no problem with the taste of man-meat.

District Attorney Paul Frasier told local papers and news media:

“For all we know, it was a horrific accident, but it’s so doggone weird that we have to look at all possibilities.”

[BBC UK]

Who knew? Corn’s a valuable commodity among beef producers. Problem is that because of drought there’s just not enough of it to feed all those cows which has caused the price to skyrocket. Beef producers are now looking to alternatives to corn until the prices drop back down to something resembling reasonable. The alternative to corn?

Candy.

Massive amounts of discarded candy from manufacturers.

If you order a burger at your local fast food joint and it tastes like someone spilled a pixie stick on it? You’ll know why.
[WPSD LOCAL6]

Paul Clerkin, a shark ecology graduate student at California’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, has been spending the last couple of months on a deep-sea trawling vessel in the Indian Ocean to see if the ship’s nets might pull up anything interesting in the way of sharks.

The trawler’s nets have been dropping to a depth of 6,500 feet off the coast of an island called Mauritius. What’s come up have been hundreds of strange-looking sharks. Several are species known to be very rare while others may be absolutely unseen before now.

“I tell people I have a ton of sharks, and they keep thinking I’m joking,” Clerkin said. “It was an actual ton. I brought back 350 sharks.”

What’s even cooler is that if any of the strange sharks are entirely new species? Clerkin gets to name them. He’s said that he’ll name a few after his mentors and possibly one after his mom and maybe himself.

We can hear his intro now…”I’m Paul Clerkin. You may not know me. A species of shark bears my name.”
Awesome.
[See a photo gallery of these weird sharks via OurAmazingPlanet.Com]
[MSNBC]

Wombats are like the koala’s derpy ground-dwelling brother. They’re harmless, adorable and just keep their noses to the ground without being a bother to anyone. They’re about the size of a small, fat, over-inflated dog/gopher hybrid that like to build extensive burrows and tunnels.

Almost 200,000 years ago they were still cute and adorable and liked to create burrows with one small difference…

Wombats used to be about the size of a Prius.

In a remote part of the outback in Australia, almost 50 prehistoric mega-wombats called Diprotodons have been discovered in what’s being called a ‘graveyard’ for these giant animals.

As researchers uncover more of the site, the conditions of what brought the animals together in one place is becoming clearer…and creepier.

Also found at the site? The bony back-plates of a massive ancient crocodile and the teeth of an 18-foot-long venomous lizard called megalania.

[Phys.Org]

Could this be an alien invasion in the beginning stages?

Millions of little, purple, crab-like creatures have washed up on the coast of O’ahu in Hawaii! The animals are about the size of a large pea and seem to be some kind of crab in its larval state. The problem is that even local biologists have never seen these things before and there are literally millions of them all over the beaches. Most them are either dead or dying but biologists have captured many that seem to be healthy. Those same biologists that will probably be responsible for nurturing the first wave of an alien strike force, are hoping to see what the larva will grow into.

While we all wait for a definitive answer from the scientists and biologists now showing We’ve all seen enough science fiction/monster movies to know EXACTLY what these will turn into…

Crab-like harvestors of mankind.

[Business Insider]

In the movie, Jurassic Park, sound designer Ben Burtt tried to create what he thought prehistoric beasts might’ve sounded like when they walked the Earth. Using currently existing animals and a little exaggeration, no one will ever forget the sounds Uncle George’s sound guru created.

Now an art installation in France created by Marguerite Humeau is bringing us as close as we may get to what they might have actually sounded like and it’s pretty awesome to hear.

Titled ‘Proposal for Resuscitating Prehistoric Creatures’, the exhibit displays the recreated vocal chords of three different prehistoric animals: the entelodont, known as the ‘hell pig’, the mammoth imperator and the ambulocetus, known as the ‘walking whale.’

Because the vocal chords are made of soft tissue, Humeau has spent years working with researchers in various fields from throat specialists to engineers to paleaontologists to get everything in order to recreate as accurately as possible. Humeau also gathered data on these particular animals current ancestors: an Asian Elephant for the mammoth, dolphins and harbors porpoises for the ‘walking whale’ (which is pretty damn frightening to consider this whale had ridiculous teeth…and it walked) and a wild boar for the ‘hell pig’ (again…frightening).

Using foam, similar soft materials and an enormous amount of data collected over several years about these animals, Humeau stated:

“I’m not only recreating a shape, but also the data that has disappeared — we’ll never be 100 per cent sure this is accurate,” Humeau told Wired Magazine UK. “But when I heard it roar, it felt real.”

Why are you still reading this? Press play and listen to what it might’ve sounded like 50 million years ago when a ‘hell pig’, a ‘walking whale’ (again…a walking whale..with freakin’ teeth) and a mammoth just casually strolled the planet.

[DesignBoom]

It’s like Ridley Scott had a hand in designing worms.

Those dainty little flower-like objects in the picture above are anything but dainty little flower-like objects.

Those things are worms of the Osedax (Latin for “bone devourer”) family of wormy beings.

Those things aren’t just resting there either…they’re actually throwing up acid and trying to get at the marrow inside the bone!

Species of osedax have apparently been around forever but only discovered by researchers as recently as 2002 at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California.

What’s putting them back on everyone’s radar are new findings about something that’s been bugging researchers since they were discovered…How does a creature with no mouth attach, bore and extract nutrients from something as hard bone?

A fresh look at the osedax has revealed something ripe for a low-budget science-fiction film.

Using a technique not unlike Jeff Goldblum’s ‘BrundleFly’ vomit-drop from the film The Fly, the worms basically attach to the bones using root-like appendages which secrete a green, acidic enzyme on to the bone that then breaks down the tissue so that the worm can continue burrowing and extracting the nutrients it needs.

Since their discovery in 2002, seventeen species of the worm have been found off the coasts of California, Japan and Sweden. With this new research, a three million year-old whale fossil collecting dust in Italy has been given a second look and it appears that the burrowing pattern on those bones are a match for the burrowing patterns of the osedax worms.

[BBC]

Let’s imagine Mother Nature wanted to create a wasp to remind us that she’s still very much in charge of things. Let’s say she’s been looking at a lot of HR Giger’s work for inspiration. Now let’s say that she’s already finished it and released it into the wild.

That horrifying looking thing pictured above is actually real….and it’s called a couple of equally terrifying things; “King of Wasps”, “Horror Wasp” and “Warrior Wasp”. It’s also one more piece of evidence that suggests Mother Nature is getting ready to maybe shake off all the helpless human beings that keep putting up strip malls.

Discovered only as recently as 2011 by Lynn Kimsey of UC Davis in California, the wasp has been dubbed Garuda, the name of a mythical figure that is part-human, part eagle. Garuda is not the biggest known wasp in the world (that award goes to another wasp commonly referred to a the ‘Tarantula Hawk’) but it is the most intimidating-looking wasp out there.

Kimsey discovered the wasp in the Mekongga Mountains of Indonesia and says that they weren’t very common.

That’s great news. We’re sure TSA’s meticulous searches (read that with oozing sarcasm, folks) found any that might’ve stowed away in her luggage, right?

[New Scientist]

Virologists and epidemiologists sure can be a fun bunch.

Put enough money behind one of their projects and who knows what you’ll end up with.

In this case we may end up with the end of the human race.

Remember the bird flu scare? Total Year 2000-style panic. Many people just took it as another sign that those silly Mayans weren’t so silly and 2012 was the last time they’d have to buy a calendar from one of those kiosks in the mall.

After an article in the L.A Times, that panic could start to rear its ugly head if current research results on the H5N1 virus mentioned in the story begin making rotation on televised news sources.

Scientists have been playing with the bird flu virus in order to see if it would ever mutate enough to become a pandemic among humans spreading merely through someone sneezing on someone else.

And guess what? It could. Since 2003 there have been 606 confirmed cases of H5N1 in humans…almost 60% of those proved fatal. Fatalities among birds, where the virus gets its ‘bird flu’ monicker, have been in the millions. Scientists want to get a lead on the pathogen to see what evolutionary process it would have to take to become a global pandemic amongst humans.

They have an answer and it’s not pretty.

Using ferrets, Dutch researchers led by virologist Ron Fouchier, have developed a strain of the virus that is transmitted through droplets in sneezes. Passing ten times between infected ferrets and mutating five times in the process, H5N1 became airborne and a very real threat to all of us.

After injecting one ferret with H5N1 via droplets to their nose, scientists would let the virus mutate inside the ferret’s body. Once the virus mutated, researchers would then infect another ferret with the mustation. Ten ferrets and five mutations later? Lots of ‘uh ohs’ and nervous, unspoken glances at the other scientists in the room.

As the government continues to provide funding for studies like this in ongoing biological weapons research, scientists, researchers and world leaders are trying to put safeguards in place and determine just how far developing mankind-destroying viruses should go.

The public, because we’ve seen the movies, are worried that scientists may create something that would wipe us all out either because they felt like being a jerk that day, want to swim in a pile of cash like Scrooge McDuck or are making up for all those times people picked on them as a child and would like to pay everyone back for that.

What most people are concerned about is when controversial papers like this are published for the world to see. All we need is one of those scientists with the back-stories mentioned above or a crazy person with enough tenacity and hatred for all of us to peruse a detailed document like the paper for this study to wake up on the wrong side of bed one day.

Brakes had been applied to publishing this research. After six months of red-tape? That paper is about to go public. The Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program at the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science (which publishes Science where the paper will appear) want the paper to see publication so that work can continue on the H5N1 virus. Both the Dutch and US government are seeking to add addtional guidelines concerning publishing research like this in order to prevent individuals from having complete access to the process of creating something like the airborne H5N1 mutation so it doesn’t end up at some local elementary science because some super-nerdy ‘pageant parents’ wanted little Billy to get first place at any price.

Director of the Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program at the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science (seriously…have a title), Mark Frankel, stated that the beneifit of studying H5N1 “far outweighs” any potential danger.

“There’s a risk in everything in life”, he said.

To which many of us would probably think that too.

Especially when we decide to manufacture deadly-to-mankind, airborne viruses.

I’m running to the mall…anyone else want me to pick them up one of those Mayan calendars?

[LA Times]

New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research recently led an exploration of the Kermadec Ridge. Reaching depths of up to 4,100 feet and spanning 3,800 square miles that included everything from continental slopes and canyons to hydrothermal volcanic-vents.

Setting out to prove that, based on underwater terrain, undersea biological communities would be different, the expedition came back with not only new imagery of known species but new imagery of things not yet seen.

The polychaete worm pictured above is not only new but also a ferocious predator featuring a jaw set-up just like everyone’s favorite HR Giger-designed aliens.

Other species include the demonic-looking Black Dragonfish and a very hairy-looking crab.

Oh…and I think someone snapped a pic of James Cameron waving as he drove by in his privately owned submersible…he’d already been there for weeks.
[National Geographic]

Across North America various species of adorable little salamanders get ‘oohs’ and ‘awwws’ get talked to like babies.

In Japan, home of fun little critters like Godzilla, things are a little different.

For a while the giant salamander population has been in a severe decline due to dams being built in their spawning path. That’s all changing as a new’ environmentally-minded generation has taken to protecting the species.

While North America does have a ‘giant’ salamander species known as the ‘hellbender’, its ‘giant’ status is misleading. At 9 inches, the North American salamander is laughable compared to its Asian cousins which can reach five feet in length and weigh in at around 80 lbs!

It’s a revolution best served with pickles and onions on a sesame seed bun.

The first test-tube grown hamburger will be produced this fall. Although still in the laboratory phase as of now, the experiment will eventually produces thousands of small tissues recreated from a cow’s stem cells. This proof of concept could be a very powerful one, reshaping agriculture as we know it.

Could meat grown in a lab and not from a slaughtered animal be considered vegan?

Only time and possibly some Bar-B-Q sauce will tell…

[Fox News]

That was the challenge for one biologist who discovered that this plant, Philcoxia, was indeed consuming worms.

Yet it doesn’t seem to have any orifices to trap the organisms, or lures to bring the creepy crawlies out of the dirt to their doom. No, the Philcoxia does things the easy way. It grows sticky leaves under the ground to trap the wrigglers and slowly digests them.

Yummy.

The picture below shows a close-up of the worms trapped underground in the leaves.

[Discovery]

This awesome wildlife rescue happened back in October, 2010 in Taku Inlet near Juneau, Alaska. Alaska Quest Charters was crossing the inlet when four deer approached the boat about a mile offshore.  The struggling animals were brought aboard where they recuperated. When they reached the opposite shore, three of the deer took off into the forest. The fourth had to be rolled off with a wheelbarrow, but after a couple hours was able to take off as well.

“About a mile offshore, Sharon, a birder, spotted something odd in the water coming towards the boat through her binoculars.  What she first thought were sea lions or shorebirds turned out to be four young Sitka black-tailed deer (a subspecies of mule deer).

Even though Sitka deer are known for their swimming ability and often cross large bodies of water between islands, these four where in obvious distress in the frigid water and whipping winds that had stirred up two to three foot swells in the inlet.  The biggest sign of that distress was the fact that the deer actually swam towards the boat and tried to board it, their fear of drowning overpowering their fear of people.

Unable to propel themselves out of the water in their exhaustion, they had to be hauled out onto the deck, where they collapsed.  There, the hypothermic deer slowly but calmly recovered.”

[Animal Planet]