This Pilgrim's Progress

Carbon Credits for Fido!

This is a hilarious story about an Australian company that will sell you Carbon Credits for your flatulent pet!! Hey, if its good enough for Gore, it's good enough for my lab, Toby!!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/03/070306-warming-credits.html

Imagine all the various applications this could be extended to!  How about as a special gift for a gassy loved-one or spouse!!

Fluorescent Pigs!!

Researchers in Taiwan have created pigs that glow in the dark!! They inserted DNA from jellyfish into pig embryos to get this affect. They hope to be able to breed them for use in genetic research.  I wonder if that would work on just localized parts, say the ears or nose?? Our Black Labrador Retriever is almost impossible to see on a dark night, and I often thought it would be handy if he had ears or something that were fluorescent!!

I wonder if the old "pig-in-the-poke" saying will go by the wayside with glowing porkers???

Singing Mice

Like they used to announce on Monty Python -- "And now for something completely different!!"

Researchers have discovered that male mice sing when they are seeking mates.  It's not something we can hear except with special equipment. Read the article at: http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10%2E1371%2Fjournal%2Epbio%2E0030386

In the conclusion they state:

"In sum, we have demonstrated that the ultrasonic vocalizations of mice are songs, containing different syllable types sequenced in regular temporal patterns. Different individuals sing recognizably different songs. These results open new possibilities for molecular and physiological studies of the production and perception of song in a well-studied laboratory organism."

I'm just glad I didn't need to sing to find my spouse! But I did cook for her!!

The Human Zoo

The London Zoo had a special exhibit called the "The Human Zoo" this past weekend. They had a group of eight 20-something men and women dressed in fig-leaves attached to their swim suits living in one of the exhibits. Sounds like it was a pretty boring exhibit, kind of like watching "Big Brother"!!  I think they might have had more success if their exhibit was developed a little more thoroughly to show the different "subspecies" of modern western-European humans. I'm thinking if they had side by side exhibits showing  "Eco-Leftists", "Neo-Cons", "Computer Geeks", "Chavs", "Gender-Feminists", "Cultural Elites", "Dot.Com Capitalists", "Over-the-Hill Baby Boomers", "British Footie Yobs", etc.  it would have been a lot more interesting and instructive!!  The people in the exhibit were allowed to go home at night which is real bogus!! They should make them stay in the exhibits full-time and engage in the typical natural activities of each sub-species.  The Eco-leftists could be shown tree-sitting or throwing red-paint on any spectators wearing animal products.  Neo-Cons of course would be blogging and ranting on Talk-Radio. The footies would be consuming mass quantities of alcoholic beverages and doing their team chants and songs, while the Geeks would be busy trying to hack into the Dot.Com-Capitalists financial systems. Of course the Cultural Elites would need a one-way viewing glass because they would be posing for tourists photos instead of sipping their cappuccinos and debating the merits of Kaballa vs. Pilates. Yes, I think the London Zoo has a good idea, but they need to take it to the next level.

Cows & Bears

Well the big news this week is that state pollution officials claim that the happy dairy cows of California are expelling huge amounts of gas and causing the air pollution in the San Joaquin valley!!  They tried to blame the sheep in New Zealand for the same thing a few years back!! If you have ever been in the San Joaquin valley, you know how ludicrous this "junk science" study is.  The heavy mega-farm agriculture in the valley, along with the industries to support it is the more likely candidate. The dust, pesticides, diesel particulates, ash from crop burns, etc. is the real cause of air pollution, not a few or even a lot of cows.

In Switzerland, some Brown Bears have been sighted in the Alps. Apparently they are from a population that was re-introduced in Northern Italy a few years ago (the bears were imported from Slovenia). Brown bears have been extinct in Switzerland since the 1800's.  Interesting thing I noticed, these brown bears are the same or closely related to our North American Brown Bears, more commonly called Grizzlies!!  The Swiss apparently have mixed emotions about the Bears, and I now understand why!! It would be as if the Californian brown Bear (i.e. Grizzly) suddenly made an appearance in San Diego county. These bears tend to be the top of the food chain in any environment, so it will be interesting to see how the Swiss fair with their new bears!!

Di-lithium Crystals!!??

Researchers are reporting success at producing table-top fusion utilizing a crystal that generated a strong electric current. Does anyone remember "cold fusion"??  I'd rather hear about exploding frogs or exploding Democratic Senators (maybe that's what's happening to Ted Kennedy??).

Exploding Frogs - Now Denmark has them!!!

The "exploding frog" plague has spread to Denmark now!!!  At least it's more fun to read than the Democratic Senators' obstructionism or the sorry state of city government in San Diego!!! The spring monsoon this morning made my morning commute 1.5 hours long!!! I kissed the ground when I arrived safely at work!! Oh, well, back to the mundane.

Exploding Frogs Too!!

I almost forgot, BZ had a story about exploding frogs earlier in the week!! What a dreadful mental image!!! The story is also here in English. Although it sounds funnier in German!!  Der Tümpel der explodierenden ERDKRÖTEN!!!!  That was the headline, say it out loud for maximum effect!!. 

"Hobbit" Species found!!!???

Australian scientists have found bones of a previous unknown hominin species that they call "Homo floresiensis". They found a partial skeleton about 3 foot tall along with some tools and implements. It's quite an interesting find. I don't know if they were actually a human species or just another extinct species of great ape. They have found remains of about 7 individuals. I've always thought that a lot of the old legends and tales about giants and "little people", and dragons was somehow factually based but transformed into folklore over time. Apparently the island where they were found also had dwarf forms of other species like the elephant, so it's apparently an example of micro-evolution in response to a restricted environment??? Or maybe God made small critters to live in small places??? Get's one to thinking about the possibilities, doesn't it??

My daughter will be delighted by this being a big LOTR fan!!!

Abomination of Abominations!!!

New Scientist

An article fron New Scientist reports about a variety of coffee that researchers have found (or "developed"??), that is naturally decaffeinated! Actually it has a very reduced level of caffeine, but still twice as much as commercially decaffeinated coffee.

I think this a a case of Science going to the dark side!! Those plants ought to be torn up by their roots and incinerated!!!!! What if the new decaffeinated variety is genetically dominant, and passes it's decaffeinated genes to the good caffeine-rich arabica coffee plants???? I think we need to call in a strike team from Delta Force and rid the World of this menace and threat to Western Civilization! Can you imagine the world-wide recession that results from office workers, engineers, software developers, teachers, scientists, students, airline pilots, truck drivers, bus drivers, cops, fire fighters, shift workers, physicians, nurses, subway operators, and factory workers don't get the necessary wake-up jolt and synapse firing from their cup of coffee!!!!!! I'm so upset I'm going to get some Starbucks to calm my nerves....................