You want dragon? Here is how you’d make one with revisionist evolution…

[Pop Sci]

File this under “Things We Didn’t Know Were Super Cool Until We Heard It Was Real”:

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Researchers have discovered four new species of octopus in Antarctica with venom that works at sub-zero temperatures.

They hope to analyze the venom to see if it has medical uses, said one of the researchers, Bryan Fry, of the University of Melbourne. Their discovery, during a six-week expedition to Antarctica in 2007, was published in the journal Toxicon.

Experts have long known there were octopuses in Antarctica, but what surprised Fry and his colleagues was the sheer biodiversity and how natural selection changed the way they hunted and the nature of their venom.

The question now, does Sub-Zero Venom make a name for a band, album or song?

[Reuters]

Everyday this week…Brett Rounsaville brings us the Weirdest Disasters ever to strike down man or beast.

On January 15, 1919 an enormous, fifty-foot tall molasses tank collapsed, overrunning a portion of the great city of Boston with such sugary goodness that 21 people were killed, 150 were injured and eleventy-billion cavities ensued.

Thanks to the now pervasive colloquialism, “Slow as molasses,” I can’t help but picture this otherwise deeply depressing disaster as a scene out of an Austin Powers movie wherein Boston’s citizens scream and point at a 15-foot tall wave of dark brown molasses without ever making an effort to turn and run as it ever so slowly envelopes them.

The truth, however, is that this terrifying Blob-like blob was flying down the streets of Boston at 35 mph and crashing into structures and people alike with such force that it destroyed buildings, lifted a train off its elevated track and tossed a truck into Boston Harbor.

People and horses were stuck in the gooey tide like flies on flypaper, like flies in honey, like flies in Vaseline. (Why is it that flies get all the good “stuck in” similes?!) Some of the trapped horses were even shot by police rather than watch them struggle. (For the sake of what’s left of BPs PR I’m glad that’s not how struggling animals are handled today.)

Rather than wait for the molasses to ferment and stage the largest rum-fueled street party the world has ever seen, the city elected to begin the cleanup process immediately. It took 87,000 man-hours to clean up the streets and buildings affected by the Great Molasses Flood. That’s almost 20 years of one man working 12 hour days! (OR, to put it in terms you guys might be able to comprehend, that’s roughly the same amount of time it would take to clean the blood from your ears after listening to any given Nickelback album from beginning to end!)

If you had to be killed by a wave of something, what would you choose? Know of any Weird Disasters that absolutely have to make it into this week’s list?

The official Weird Things review of Inception? See it. Now. Stop reading.

You back? How awesome was that movie? I know! Remember that part when (REDACTED FOR SPOILERS)? So awesome. Anyhow, here is where science is in terms of making all that a reality. Or rather, a dream. The dream you might share as a reality. Or something.

[Live Science]

There is no official folder sitting in a dusty basement file room marked “Sea Monsters: CLASSIFIED” containing a hundred years worth of reports from parchment to dot matrix print outs about krakens, giants squid and God knows what else lurks under the waves.

At least that’s the official story after a freedom of information request was filed asking the British Royal Navy about a central record database for sea monster sightings.

A marine biologist inquired whether the Ministry of Defence held records about “abnormally large or dangerous sea monsters hundreds of metres under the sea” that had not been revealed to the public.

In reply an official wrote: ”The RN (Royal Navy), and MoD in general, does not maintain any form of central repository of information purely devoted to sea monsters.

“Personnel might be inclined to record unusual sightings in ship’s logs but there is, as far as we know, no actual requirement for them to do so, and it would be beyond the resource constraints of an FOI request to check every line of every RN log book for any such references since 2005.

“However, the RN does invite people to report sightings of marine mammals, and it’s possible this could include unusual sightings.

“These are forwarded to the UK Hydrographic Office at Taunton.”

Tales of insane sea creatures have been around as long as boats, seems like a real missed opportunity.

[Telegraph]

A breakthrough in how we understand brain development has led a group of researchers to totally change a developing fish brain into one that looks like another species of fish…

In another part of the study, the team wanted to see if they could use chemicals to change the patterns of gene expression and hence the brain development of the embryos. Could they, in fact, alter the brain of a rock-dwelling embryo to that of a sand-dwelling embryo? Turns out they could.

Sylvester treated the embryos with lithium chloride for three to five hours during an early stage of anterior-posterior patterning. After treatment, he returned the embryos to fish water and then took samples for study at different developmental stages. He found that each time he checked, treatment with lithium chloride up-regulated Wnt signaling, which led to a reallocation of brain precursors to the posterior thalamus.

So for those of you with “Playing God” bingo cards, please mark down that square.

[Science Daily]

The Maya people were forerunners on a lot of concepts. You can add piping pressurized water all over the place to that list.

A water feature found in the Maya city of Palenque, Mexico, is the earliest known example of engineered water pressure in the new world, according to a collaboration between two Penn State researchers, an archaeologist and a hydrologist. How the Maya used the pressurized water is, however, still unknown.

“Water pressure systems were previously thought to have entered the New World with the arrival of the Spanish,” the researchers said in a recent issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science. “Yet, archaeological data, seasonal climate conditions, geomorphic setting and simple hydraulic theory clearly show that the Maya of Palenque in Chiapas, Mexico, had empirical knowledge of closed channel water pressure predating the arrival of Europeans.”

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

[Science Daily]

Who needs context?

[@xmasape]

The Navajo don’t really like to talk about Skinwalkers – especially with monster-obsessed whiteys who invariably convert rich oral tradition into airport-ready supernatural thrillers (Tony Hillerman’s “Skinwalkers”) and straight-to-DVD horror flicks (James Isaac’s “Skinwalkers”). That means that, assuming the four or five template-based paranormal blogs that feature excitable Skinwalker posts aren’t written by defecting Navajo tribesmen (a fairly safe bet), it’s difficult to separate the authentic Skinwalker lore from the hyperactive Native American fan fic of cable doc-obsessed Fox Mulder wannabes. For every believable, richly folkloric Navajo Skinwalker legend, there are two or three stories about this one time really late at night when a crazy manimal totally attacked someone (I swear, it happened to my cousin’s friend).

According to some (supposed) Navajo legends, during the Long Walk, when the U.S. government forced over 9,000 Navajos to take a 300-mile trudge to newly established reservation land near Fort Sumner, New Mexico, the Skinwalkers were the first to reach the destination. As Navajo women keeled over in the heat, and exhausted men struggled with unconscious children, Skinwalking witches simply transformed into coyotes and crows, which easily sprinted or flew all the way to the reservation. Despite the Skinwalkers’ traditionally evil nature, they are distinctly Navajo and, therefore, proved vital to the preservation of Navajo heritage in the wake of the cultural upheaval brought on by external forces.

Granted, there are plenty of Navajo tales that portray Skinwalkers in a more traditionally antagonistic light. Still, you’d be hard-pressed to find a non-Native Skinwalker story that offered anything but a watered-down cocktail of mystery and terror. They essentially play out like this:

One night a New Mexico state trooper was patrolling the desert around a Navajo reservation. Suddenly, he noticed a strange shape rushing up

alongside his car. The shape resolved into a hideous creature that ran as fast as the officer’s sedan could accelerate. The monster kept pace with the trooper for miles before finally dropping back and disappearing into the darkness. To this day, the officer refuses to patrol that accursed stretch of land.

The same non-native America that repackaged Native American art as kitschy fetish crafts and airbrushed paintings of wolves has turned Skinwalkers, who have a uniquely dynamic relationship with their origin culture, into generic monsters that lurk in the shadows and jump out at passing victims.

And I don’t think that’s a negative a thing.

For decades Native Americans have fought to retain their unique heritage and identities in the face of an ever homogenizing American culture. For most countries – countries with separate and independent geographies – it’s a low stakes game. Germanic tradition, for example, can be assimilated into America’s aggregate culture without losing its physical roots in Germany, or its emotional and intellectual roots in the Germans that still reside there. Native Americans only have America, and most of that was taken from them. The borders they do have – both geographical and cultural – are shrinking. The Navajo don’t really like to talk about Skinwalkers, and so the cable doc-obsessed Fox Mulder wannabes think of the beings as mystical native werewolves – feral and savage, or magic and prescient, or sexy and strong. Cold. Uni-dimensional. Non-dynamic. Inhuman.

The Navajo don’t really like to talk about Skinwalkers, and so the Fox Mulder wannabes are ignorant and xenophobic and maybe even mildly racist. But these things – ignorance, xenophobia, racism – build boundaries between people and cultures. These things strengthen borders.

During the Long Walk, the white men let the Skinwalkers charge on, unmolested, toward Fort Sumner because they saw them as animals. Because they didn’t recognize them for what they truly were – scouts and emissaries; patriarchs and magicians; Navajo. Perhaps today the Native Americans depend on white men to sell cheap headdresses and inauthentic drums and synthetic dream catchers, to make terrible straight-to-DVD horror movies, so all eyes are looking down at cash registers or through camera lenses while, unnoticed, a flock of crows passes by overhead.

In Michael Crichton’s 1969 novel Andromeda Strain (and subsequent film and recent TV mini-series) the premise is about an extra-terrestrial microorganism that threatens to wipe humanity off the planet through truly horrific blood clotting. It was an interesting take on the threat from outer space scenario.

So if we earthbound humans have to worry about space organisms turning our blood into dust, what do astronauts on long term space missions have to stress out about? According to a report in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology (via PopSci): Earthborn bacteria mutating into killer diseases.

It turns out that bacteria that we’ve evolved pretty good defenses for could overwhelm our immune systems if we’re cooped up together on long term space voyages. So add that to the already growing list of space hazards including radiation, zero-g bone loss, space madness and your holodeck trying to kill you.

Mutant Bacteria Are Likely to Threaten Future Space Travelers | Popular Science

Want to meet up with some of the folks behind Weird Things? Plan on being in South Florida on Saturday? Want to pay your respect to Carl Sagan? Meet James Randi, Phil Plait and others?

Then meet us at Carl Sagan day at Broward College this Saturday, November 7th.

Website: Carl Sagan Day

Can’t make it there? We’ll be live streaming it. Details to follow…

We are still unsure of the exact details on where but on the Weirdest Thing in the World chat today at 5:30 p.m. we are going to announce the official final line-up of celebrity word donors for our big Halloween Houdini Seance.

Other than that we’ll go over some of our weirdest stories of the week and maybe even have a little mini-challenge to find the Weirdest Element of Houdini’s Life.

Got a suggestion or a topic you want us to touch on, email JustinRobertYoung@Gmail.

It all goest down today at 5:30 p.m. EST on the Weirdest Thing In The World live chat. Believe…

Smoking Hills of Centralia

How is started is unclear, but one thing is certain: it never stopped. The town of Centralia, PA is now the least populated in all of Pennsylvania, with an estimated population of seven individuals. In 1962, the town boasted close to 1000 residents, and they had their own landfill in the hills above town. Stories vary, but at some point, a fire started in the dump – a fairly common and sometimes desired event. But Centralia is located in the heart of Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal region, and an exposed seam in the dump caught fire and spread underground.

While a fire burning underground may not seem like a big deal, it had a big effect. Over the years, people began to notice strange things… basements were warm in the winter, road maintenance was increasing, and there were patches where snow would melt quickly. One gas station attendant was testing fuel levels and was surprised when the dipstick came up hot. He lowered a thermometer and was astonished to find a reading of 171ºF.

In the 1980’s, a boy was playing in his backyard only to have hell open up beneath him. A four foot wide hole some 150 feet deep engulfed him, though he was lucky enough to grab on to some roots where his cousin could reach down and save him. A few more feet, and he would have been overcome by the intense heat and noxious gases. How hot? Hotter than the planet Mercury at over 1000ºF.

When the highway started to buckle and smolder (it is now completely abandoned, with an awkward detour as you travel by Centralia), the state came in and declared eminent domain, forcing residents to move to nearby towns. Though nearly all of the town’s structure were razed, some folks refused to move, claiming that the government was after the estimated $1,000,000,000 in coal beneath the town.

If that was the government’s goal, they’d better hurry. Though an estimated $50,000,000 has been spent trying to fight the fires, they’re still burning strong. There is a constant mist over the town visible for miles, and residents from other towns fear that eventually, the fire will spread to them.

Abandoned PA Route 61 Continues to Burn

You can drive through Centralia today, though you’ll see only empty streets and maybe some smoking pipes sticking out of the ground. The adventurous may even travel down the smoking highway, as Alison Smith and I (foolishly) did last September.

And for you Silent Hill fans out there – it’s true. Centralia is the basis for the video game series, though we found no haunted schools or malevolent ghoulies.

The real stuff was scary enough.

It was June 6, 1822, on Mackinac (Big Turtle) Island, in Lake Huron. 18-year old Alexis St. Martin was working at a fur trading depot, when an accidental musket shot tore a hole through his ribs and stomach, exposing his viscera. Several ribs were broken, his lungs and diaphragm were damaged, and a hole was torn into his actual stomach. William Beaumont, MD was summoned from nearby Fort Mackinac and attended to the boy’s wounds.

It was a serious case. Though the lad was stabilized – bleeding stopped and no signs of infection – there was a very practical problem with digestion: the food he ate came out of the hole in his side. For weeks, he could obtain no nutrition from anything ate, forcing the doctor to give him nutritive enemas in order to sustain life.

In time, the addition of straps allowed the fistula to heal and digestion returned to as normal a state as could be expected. However, the hole though his abdomen and into his stomach never closed fully. In fact, the walls of the stomach fused with the exterior skin, creating a permanent window into Alexis’ digestive system.

At the time, almost nothing was known of digestion. Food went in, waste came out, and somehow in the middle nutrients were extracted. Dr. Beaumont saw an opportunity. In what would certainly be considered an ethical violation in modern times, Beaumont got Alexis to agree to be his servant. His role would include chopping wood, fetching bundles, and allowing Dr. Beaumont to experiment on him in rather unique ways.

The doctor was a man of science, and lost no opportunity to learn as much as he could. He tied bits of string to food, and lowered into the hole in Alexis’ side. After a time, he would pull the food back out and observe its condition. Some food was left in longer or given longer pieces of string. Much probing and measurement occurred, not only with fingers and instruments, but also with the Dr.’s tongue. He would taste the wound to determine it’s “sourness” and thus it’s alkalinity, with a more sour taste indicating a lower pH and higher acid content.

Beaumont would take copious notes, and reflect upon his observations. While they may seem quaint to us now (Beaumont wondered how food was separated into different components, and why animal blood was digested as all, as it should have just been transported to the arteries whole by his logic), his writings formed the basis for all we know about digestion today. Thanks to the wonders of Google, his magnum opus, Experiments and Observations of the Gastric Juice and the Physiology of Digestion is available online in full.

In a strange twist of fate, the damaged Alexis St. Martin outlived the doctor by 10 years, finally succumbing not from his wounds, but from old age at 78 years. The good doctor only lived to be 68, having died from a fall on icy stairs. We owe both men a debt of gratitude for furthering modern science. As a side note, similar experiments continue. It is fairly commonplace for such windows to placed in cows to observe the process of rumination, as can be seen in this YouTube video.

The Indian Flying Fox Bat has the largest recorded wingspan in the world, sometimes stretching up to two meters. It was selected as the Weirdest Thing In The Sky during our Tinychat competition last week. Stay tuned for this week’s category.

Thanks to everyone for playing!

Click AFTER THE JUMP for a video of it eating some fruit at the Singapore zoo.

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