Oct 302023
 

A barnacle that attaches itself to female crabs and convinces said crab that it is her eggs so that the crab will take care of it, and help it distribute its own eggs. But it sometimes attaches itself to male crabs.In that case, it releases hormones that convince the male crab that it is female, sometimes to the point that the gonads actually flip sex.

Well, that’s horrifying.

But it’s also… well, huh. Hormones being fed into an organism without the organisms knowledge or consent, causing it confusion about its gender. one wonders if there might be some sort of analogies that can be drawn. Such as to chemicals in the water and food supply… birth control pills flushed down the toilet, entering the sewage treatment systems, *not* getting processed out and then dumped into the water supply. “Forever chemicals” added to plastic drinking bottles that mimic gendered human sex hormones, and which are now detectable in *rain.*

 

 Posted by at 11:31 pm
Oct 122023
 

Humanity, that is. In terms of our ability to scare the crap out of African wildlife.

Fear of the human “super predator” pervades the South African savanna

In short: cameras and speakers were set up near watering holes and a wide range of sounds, including lions and other predators, were played. Animals got the hell out of Dodge when the heard humans at a much greater rate than any other sound.

As a whole (n = 4,238 independent trials), wildlife were twice as likely to run (p < 0.001) and abandoned waterholes in 40% faster time (p < 0.001) in response to humans than to lions (or hunting sounds). Fully 95% of species ran more from humans than lions (significantly in giraffes, leopards, hyenas, zebras, kudu, warthog, and impala) or abandoned waterholes faster (significantly in rhinoceroses and elephants). Our results greatly strengthen the growing experimental evidence that wildlife worldwide fear the human “super predator” far more than other predators

Yay, I guess?

The “sounds of humans” turn out to be simple recorded conversations, male and female, in several languages. Not shouting, not angry, just “hey, how ya doin'” level chitchat. Rhinos and elephant just “nope” on out of there; other animals freak and dash. In contrast, lion sounds caused elephants to *attack* the speakers.

Yeah, I’m not sure I feel all that great about being the most terrifying thing on the planet.

 Posted by at 12:49 pm
Aug 062023
 

There is a fox that seems to hang out in my back yard from time to time. It’s incredibly skittish; any noise and *bam* it sprints over the fence. So getting decent photos of it has been a challenge, but today i got these. In previous, kinda cruddier photos it looked mangy, but now I think that it just had dark patches.

 

 Posted by at 2:09 pm
Apr 252023
 

The first artifact has arrived, a Samsonite briefcase. I am *largely* certain that this is the correct case; there are certainly a largish number of them readily available on Ebay. There are some minor differences between this one and the prop, most of the differences explainable as modifications: the key locks have been removed and replaced with featureless aluminum disks/cylinders; the tabs on the prop have concave ends rather than just squared-off ends. There is a small placard affixed to the middle of the briefcase… I can see “Honeywell,” then something that might be numbers, and then “EXECUTIVE.” The interior lining needs to be removed and the whole thing cleaned, the metal polished and the metal base that the handle is fixed to painted black.

And, of course, the current residents evicted. This took about five seconds; it is a box, after all.

I will wait a little bit before launching into a full preparation. The intercom/phone should be the next item to arrive, and if it fits in this case as it should, then I’ll be off to the races. If it doesn’t… well, I’ll need to rethink the case, I guess. Pretty confident, though.

 Posted by at 6:50 pm
Apr 242023
 

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen this, but I never fail to be impressed with the delivery. Steven Spielberg, director of “Jaws,” gave Robert Shaw permission to write this monologue about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis (after the great John Milius had a crack at it). Shaw then delivered it, reportedly, drunk. And it’s one of the most amazing bits of understated acting in film history. One of the details I’ve always liked is how Hooper goes from jovial to “Oh Crap” in one breath when Quint says that his removed tattoo is of the USS Indianapolis.

 

I’m a bit disturbed that so many of these reactors are unaware of the story of the Indianapolis. But given how ignorant so many people are about so many things anymore, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

 

“Jaws” is still eminently watchable, one of the great films of all time.

 Posted by at 8:53 pm
Mar 082023
 

Woman’s nose ripped off by boyfriend’s dog ‘startled by her teeth whitening’

It also shredded her left arm.

I know a lot of people love “pitties” and stand by them… but maybe there’d be some value in genetically engineering them to be less psychotically violent from time to time. Successful results of that treatment could be deployed in prisons. Unsuccessful results of those experiments could *also* be set loose in prisons.

There’s a GoFundMe for the victim.

 Posted by at 12:18 pm
Feb 262023
 

A couple pit bulls got out of their yard in San Antonia and attacked people, killing an old man. Unlike a lot of dog attacks, this one was caught on video as a woman drove by. The attack is… something. It’s not safe for work. If you watch it, even though parts of it are blurred, you’ll need some mind bleach; these dogs tear the man apart. I think you can see when they rip his face off. So… maybe ya wanna watch it, maybe ya don’t. The Link HERE includes the attack video as well as a later video as three firefighters – presumably the first responders – try to deal with one of the pit bulls with *axes.* Three grown men wielding fire axes can’t deal with the damn thing.

Yeeeeeeeesh.

Extra yeesh: last week I took my garbage can out to the curb late at night. While out there I heard yelling down the block. Like a friggen’ moron I stood there in my front yard trying to see what was going on; sounded like a bunch of kids chasing someone or something. Turns out they had lost control of a dog, now running loose. Like a FRIGGEN’ MORON I continued to stand there as the dog came out of the darkness and ran up to me. A pit bull dragging a leash. We stood abut 8 feet apart just staring at each other, me suddenly feeling like a FRIGGEN’ MORON for not packing heat. Fortunately the kids came running up a few seconds later and got hold of the leash and hauled the dog away. I don’t know what would have happened had things gone on a few seconds more, but it’s possible that that might have been the end of this spectacular blog.

I’ve seen a lot of people wanting to ban the pit bull breed. And then I see a lot of brainlets try to link banning a dangerous breed of dog to “See? You should also want to ban assault weapons, hurr durr!” It’s a bad analogy. The AR-15 is just a tool… as are the pit bulls teeth. Nobody suggests banning dog teeth, but banning the dangerous *entity* wielding those dangerous weapons. So if you want to link pit bulls, AR-15’s and bans… ban the crazy dangerous *people* who would behave like pit bulls.

 Posted by at 8:39 pm