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]

Jogging just got potentially exciting.

Meet the Joggobot, a small quadcopter drone, from Exertion Labs.

Running around town with your own drone is kinda nerdy…running around town with about four or five of these hovering around you? Badass.

Joggobot isn’t available to the masses yet, but we’re willing to bet that once it is, it’s only a matter of time before the ‘maker’ community arms it with options like pepper spray or a taser, slaps some devices on it for a mean game of LaserTag, some over-achiever hooks it to the Kinect or some Comic-Con cosplayer decides to go as Booster Gold and Skeets.

And, like we repeatedly mention on this blog and in the podcast, once it gets online? Joggobots world-wide will just wait for that inevitable signal from Skynet.

[Exertion Labs]

Our perception of the world around us could be very different than the person next to you.

In extreme cases it could mean the luscious red strawberry could look like a bulbous blueberry to someone else. Even more mind altering, results of new experiments with monkeys suggest that these receptors can be altered, allowing us to see colors we have never seen before and possibly helping reverse blindness.

In work published in the scientific journal ‘Nature’, colour vision scientist Jay Neitz from the University of Washington injected a virus into monkeys’ eyes which enabled them to see red as well as green and yellow.

Remarkably the group of squirrel monkeys were able to make sense of the new information despite their brains not being genetically programmed to respond to red signals.

The result was that just four months later the monkeys could see in full colour for the first time.

As well as allowing colour-blind humans to tell red from green, the innovative technique could restore sight to the blind.

Could color blindness really be a thing of the past? Does it make you wonder how different the world looks outside of your own head? How freaked out are those monkeys right now? Is this basically Pleasantville for them?

[Daily Mail]

In an awesome case of 1890s cutting-edge tech meeting modern technology, sound historian (yes…that’s a job) at Indiana University, Patrick Feaster, has done something amazingly nerdy and fantastic.

While looking for an illustration of the world’s oldest recording studio for a talk he was giving on Thomas Edison’s recordings, Feaster pulled a book for research. Upon glancing at the index, he noticed there was an article on the gramophone. When he turned to the article? A paper print of the actual recording.

In February of this year, Feaster had done something amazing with these old paper prints of the recordings…

He played them back.

By scanning these paper copies Feaster is able to unwind or ‘de-spiral’ the line that the needle would follow on the physical record. Remarkably these unwound spirals look a lot like a modern audio file. Using special software, Feaster is able to then play back the audio captured from a flat photo.

Feaster had already done this twice with two other recordings. What makes this recording interesting is that it predate his other finds.

“In that recording, Berliner tells us he’s making a record for Rosenthal to experiment with,” Feaster says. “He shares that they’re in this particular building in Hanover, and then he recites some poetry, sings a song and counts to 20 in several languages.”

According to Feaster and his colleagues what he accidentally stumbled across was the earliest known gramophone recording ever made…printed out on paper…and played back 122 years later.

[Futurity.Org]

Science can’t seem to make up its mind about Mars.

Over one hundred years ago, scientists thought that Mars ran wild with water. Many decades later, scientists discovered they were wrong and that the planet may have once had water but was now completely dry. Only a few decades after that scientists learned that there is a small amount of water but only hanging delicately in the atmosphere.

Which brings us up to speed with the latest speculation…

That just below the surface of the planet there might actually be reservoirs of that refreshing martian water.

What’s strange about the discovery is that we didn’t even have to travel to the planet’s surface to get the information. We had the answers to our questions about Mars’ water situation right here on Earth for over a century.

Two meteorites, ejected from Mars almost 2.5 million years ago and which are right here on earth, contained the potential answers to just how ‘wet’ the planet may be all along.

A research team has recently looked at the amount of water molecules locked inside of minerals within both meteorites and used their finding to determine how much water was in the original rock on Mars that produced them.

Their findings so far? That Mars contains an amount of water eerily similar to Earth’s own mantle.

This could be huge for possible colonization of the planet (let’s face it…it’s going to happen).

Mars will begin revealing more of its secrets when, and if, NASA’s Curiosity rover begins playing in the dirt up there when it touches down in August.

[SmithsonianMag]

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]

Eventually it’s going to stop, right? The zombie-style incidents? They’ll come to an end before we all end up eating one another, won’t they?

Not any time soon, people.

Not only will they not stop but they’re already getting tired of the taste of tender human meat and are now moving on to man’s best friend.

Yeah. You read that last part correctly…a dog is the latest victim in the new drug-zombie phenomena.

Michael Terron Daniel, a 22-year-old Texan was high on the designer drug known as K2 (a synthetic cannabis) when he began chasing a neighbor…like a dog. Complete with barks and growls, Daniel then turned his attention to the family dog. What happened next was too graphic to really go into detail about according to reports. One witness reported that he was “ripping pieces of flesh away.” The dog was pronounced dead at the scene.

Waco officers (yes…THAT Waco) arrived to find a blood-covered porch and Daniel pleading for them to either fight him or use the stun gun in order “to help him get off his bad trip.”

Daniel has been charged with felony cruelty to a non-livestock animal.

[WPTV]

Centuries ago, in AD 774, some guy in Britain is keeping a written record of life’s goings-on.

In that year he mentions witnessing something strange…a weird “red crucifix” hanging in the sky.

Fling yourself forward in time. Researchers are unable to explain a strange spike in carbon 14 levels that manifested in unique growth rings in Japanese Cedar trees that year.

UC Santa Cruz biochemistry major Jonathon Allen was listening to a Nature podcast when he heard about the trees and something clicked.

According to Allen’s theory, the spike in carbon 14 that caused the change in the ring patterns of the trees and the ancient text reporting the glowing crucifix in the sky, which seemed to occur around the same period in time, may have both been the same incident…a possible supernova or massive solar flare.

Most scholars that Allen has presented his theory to seem to agree that some kind of massive stellar event took place back in the eighth century and that both nature and the author of an ancient text witnessed it.

[Nature]

Brian stumbles into his new infant child’s room only to find a bloody mystery involving a deadly animal and a hidden menace. Andrew reassures the listeners that the labs producing the most deadly diseases on the planet are being kept extremely safe and secure. Wait, no. The opposite of that. Also, ferrets could be the harbinger of a new super plague.

Support the show by purchasing Andrew’s BRAND NEW BOOK Hollywood Pharaohs just click on the image below.

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Picks:

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The People vs. George Lucas

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Locke and Key

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Preacher

Here’s your ‘Hell Yeah!’ moment of the week!

If you enjoy phrases like “a device that shoots laser bolts” or “50 billion watts of optical power” you may want to continue reading about how the military is weaponizing lightning with a device called the Laser-Induced Plasma Channel, or LIPC.

Picatinny Arsenal scientists and engineers in New Jersey have developed a lightning bolt weapon by sending a ridiculously fast laser pulse that basically rips the air apart causing a narrow, electromagnetic channel. Immediately following this moment of scientific awesomeness, a lightning bolt is sent along that channel straight to the unfortunate target.

George Fischer, lead scientist on the project gave one of our favorite statements about a developing military weapon. Fischer stated, “We never got tired of the lightning bolts zapping our simulated (targets).”

Can’t really argue with that.

[Army.Mil]

The UK’s Daily Mail is breathlessly reporting that leading soft drinks including Coca-Cola and Pepsi contain trace amounts of alcohol. What ramifications should this have for teetotallers and people who abstain for drinking for religious reasons? Um, none.

While the Daily Mail points out that the soft drinks contain about .001 percent alcohol, they forgot to mention that your body naturally already has about .004 percent alcohol. This is because those wonderful bacteria that live in our gut and help us digest food and live, sometimes like to ferment (Endogenous ethanol production).

The article was taken from a French publication called ‘60 Million Consumers’ so we can’t tell if they missed that important detail either.

So to put it in simple terms, since Coca-Cola has less alcohol than your bloodstream, assuming that it all went to your blood (instead of getting digested, which is what happens) .001 is less than .004 – so drinking cola will actually lower your body’s natural level of alcohol. It makes you less alcoholic.

If you’re looking to get drunk off cola, you’d be better of drinking human blood. Um, forget we said that. Do not drink human blood.

People will likely ignore this. We’ll get more soda hysteria. Orange juice has more sugar and dissolves teeth too (and fangs).

Check out the Straight Dope if this naturally produced alcohol can get you buzzed…

During the excavation of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Cambridgeshire, archaeologists have discovered the last resting place of a woman and her….cow?

University students who uncovered the find first thought the animal was a horse since men and their horses, even though rare, have been discovered in the past.

Dr. Duncan Sayer, co-director of the excavation stated:

“Animal burials are extremely rare, anyway. There are only 31 horse burials in Britain and they are all with men. This is the first animal to be discovered with a woman from this period – the late fifth Century – and it’s really interesting that it’s a cow, a symbol of economic and domestic wealth and power. It’s also incredibly early to find any grave of a woman buried with such obvious wealth.”

From other trinkets found with these two interesting and apparent companions, it appears that these two may have been besties while alive.

“They would have wanted to give her something really important to show respect and they wouldn’t have done that for just anybody. That’s why we don’t find cows with burials,” she said. Dr Sayer added: “The cow burial is unique in Europe which makes this an incredibly exciting and important find. I don’t think I’ll find anything as significant as this again in my lifetime.”

Anyone else smell a potential animated feature in this story?

[Arbroath]

News about this Rock Paper Scissors-playing robotic hand has been buzzing because people seem to think it’s novel and cute.

Mocking the slow reflexes of humankind is not novel and not cute. This is more like a total dig and a little kid saying ‘nyah nyah’ and then blowing mankind a big old raspberry. It’s our first glimpse at just how responsive robots will become in the very near future.

Developed at the Ishikawa Oku lab in Tokyo, researchers say they ‘wanted to show what human-machine cooperation systems are all about.’

A high-speed camera recognizes the shape of the human hand and one millisecond later, is able to determine what the result will be and throw the winning sign….every time…without fail.

Sure there’s a lot of awesomely respectable things that this kind of technology could be used for.

That’s all well and good but a human-robot interface with this kind of response time is bringing something even cooler closer to being a reality…

Robot versus robot fights ala Real Steel!

[Walyou]

During a 10 hour surgery, doctors at Mexico City’s La Raza Medical Center removed a 33 pound tumor from 26 pound two-year-old Jesus Gabriel.

Gabriel was born with a small, benign lump on his right side that grew faster than he did and extended from his armpit to his hip. Doctors say that this is the first time in Mexican history that the tumor has been larger than its host was successfully removed.

Little Jesus is doing fine and making a very strong recovery.

[Washington Post]

Featured on the cover of WIRED magazine this month, these little drones or “quadrotors” have been popping up everywhere lately.

The show in the video above features 16 of them performing some very cool computer-controlled aerial choreography using reflected light.

It’s some spectacular stuff to watch….until you realize this display is called ‘Meet Your Creator’…and until the kinda creepy ending…

Which we’re pretty sure is a signal to Skynet that it’s highly mobile flying army is ready.

[YouTube]