Marine biologists studying wild octopuses have found a kinky and violent society of jealous murders, gender subtrefuge and once-in-a-lifetime sex. The new study by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, who journeyed off the coast of Indonesia found that wild octopuses are far from the shy, unromantic loners their captive brethren appear to be.
The scientists watched the Abdopus aculeatus octopus, which are the size of an orange, for several weeks and published their findings recently in the journal Marine Biology. They witnessed picky, macho males carefully select a mate, then guard their newly domesticated digs so jealously that they would occasionally use their 20-to-25-centimetre tentacles to strangle a romantic rival to death.
The researchers also observed smaller “sneaker” male octopuses put on feminine airs, such as swimming girlishly near the bottom and keeping their male brown stripes hidden in order to win unsuspecting conquests.
Shortly after the female gives birth, about a month after conception, both the mother and father die, researchers said.
“It’s not the sex that leads to death,” said Christine Huffard, the study’s lead author. “It’s just that octopuses produce offspring once during a very short lifespan of a year.” I guess the conclusion is that underwater sea life is very similar to us.
April 3rd, 2008
Here is some interesting information about toilet paper, I will personally state that I am a folder and think that anyone that is a crumpler is kinda weird.
The Fold Versus Crumple Debate
I’ll try to put this as delicately as I can. Apparently there’s a significant debate about whether it’s better to fold several sheets of paper, or crumple them together in a bunch. One major argument in favor of the “fold” method is that depending on the quality of your paper and your folding technique, you can refold (and thus reuse) a single set of sheets. The counter-argument is that this is super-gross. I have my own opinions on this issue, but let’s just say I’ve tried multiple methodologies over the years and feel that I’ve perfected my technique.
So what’s the distribution of crumplers versus folders in the wild? An online toilet paper usage survey has received almost 5,000 responses. At the moment, the folders are slightly in the lead (52%), but tend to be a little older than crumplers. Also, far more crumplers are male than female (70% of crumplers in the survey are male). You can take the survey or just hit the ‘View’ button to see the results without contributing your own.
March 24th, 2008
A Japanese pin-up model says that her big breasts have not only boosted her career — they also helped her overturn a court verdict. The bikini model, who goes by her professional name Serena Kozakura, was cleared after a court decided she was too well-endowed to squeeze into a room through a hole, as she had been found guilty of earlier.
“I used to hate my body so much,” Kozakura, who has appeared in product commercials on television, told the private Asahi network in an interview aired Tuesday. “But it was my breasts” that won in court, she said.
The case was splashed through the Japanese media on Tuesday, with the Asahi network even inviting her to demonstrate how she could not fit through the opening. Kozakura, 38, was convicted last year of property destruction after a man said she kicked in the wooden door of his room and crawled inside, apparently because he was with another woman.
Kozakura had said the man made the hole himself. In her appeal, the defence counsel held up a plate showing the size of the hole and said that she could not squeeze through with her 110-centimetre (44-inch) bust. “The judges were very good-mannered as they showed no expressions on their faces. I guess they’re well-trained,” Kozakura said. Tokyo High Court presiding judge Kunio Harada agreed and threw out the guilty verdict on Monday, saying there was reasonable doubt over the man’s account. Well that was a nice…story.
March 4th, 2008
The case of a chilli dog on display at a local convenience store prompted an outraged woman to take action. Cindy Gravelle says she took a big gulp when she spotted a miserable looking pooch in the walk-in cooler, pressing its face up against the glass door, during a milk-run to her local 7-Eleven earlier this week.
Gravelle was doubly disturbed the next day to find the same dog, which appears to be an American Eskimo, in the cooler apparently for safekeeping while its owner worked a shift at the store near Centre St. and McKnight Blvd. N.E.
“Eight hours later it was still in the fridge,” the horrified 41-year-old said yesterday.
“What is wrong with these people?”
Gravelle’s dogged pursuit to rectify the situation led Calgary Humane Society officials to contact the store about the strange pet-keeping practice.
7-Eleven spokesman Alyn Edwards said it was “a discretionary decision” based on “unique circumstances” which will not happen again. It appears the dogs owner thought because it was an Eskimo dog it needed to be kept in very cold surroundings.
February 2nd, 2008
A recent report out of Berkely confirms that dinosaurs had high rates of teen pregnancies. Dinosaurs descended from reptiles and evolved into today’s birds, but their growth and sexual maturation were more like that of mammals - complete with teen pregnancy, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, scientists.
The conclusion, reported the week of Jan. 14 in the online early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, comes from an analysis of the only three dinosaur fossils that have been definitively identified as female. Thin slices of these dinosaurs’ fossil bones all show an internal structure similar to tissue found in living female birds - a layer of calcium-rich bone tissue called medullary bone that is deposited in the marrow cavity just before egg-laying as a resource for making eggshells.
Tenontosaurus lived in North America during the Early Cretaceous period, 125 to 105 million years ago, and was an ancestor of the duck-billed dinosaurs. A common plant eater, it is known for its long tail that made the dinosaur up to 27 feet long when walking on four legs. Because fossils of these one- to two-ton beasts are common in Oklahoma, Werning was able to obtain many fossil bone slices from the Oklahoma Museum of Natural History. Both a femur (thigh bone) and a tibia (shin bone) from the same fossilized Tenontosaurus showed medullary bone, while growth rings in its bones indicated the pregnant dinosaur was eight years old. As the father of a pre-teen girl this article caught my eye.
January 15th, 2008
A man in Florida was halfway through an order of steamed clams when he bit down on something hard, it was a rare, iridescent purple pearl. George Brock and his wife, Leslie, had been spent the day at the beach Friday in South Florida and stopped at Dave’s Last Resort & Raw Bar for a bite. Their discovery is thought to be valued at $6,000 US or more. The gems are found most frequently in large New England quahogs, clams known for violet coloring on the inside of their shells. The clams in the $10 plate came from Apalachicola in the Florida Panhandle, said restaurant manager Tom Gerry.
January 1st, 2008
An Italian court has ruled that a couple could not name their son “Friday” and ordered that he instead be called Gregory after the saint whose feast day he was born on. “I think it is ridiculous they even opened a case about it,” the family’s lawyer, Paola Rossi, told Reuters by telephone from the northern city of Genoa on Tuesday.
Friday/Gregory Germano was born in Genoa 15 months ago. The parents registered him as Friday in the city hall and a priest even baptised him as Friday — unusual in Italy since many priests insist that first names be of Christian origin. “We named him Friday because we like the sound of the name. Even if it would have been a girl, we would have named her Friday,” the boy’s mother, Mara Germano, told Reuters.
When the boy was about five months old, a city hall clerk brought the odd name to the attention of a tribunal, which informed the couple of an administrative norm which bars parents from giving “ridiculous or shameful” first names to children. The tribunal said it was protecting the child from being the butt of jokes and added that it believed the name would hinder him from developing “serene interpersonal relationships”.
The Germano family appealed but lost their case this month and the story was carried on the front page of a national newspaper on Tuesday. When ordered to change the name, the parents refused and the court ruled the boy would be legally registered as Gregory because he was born on that saint’s feast day.
“I really doubt this would have happened to the child of parents who are rich and famous,” the boy’s mother told Reuters, recalling that some famous Italians had given their children unorthodox names such as “Ocean” or “Chanel”. The appeals court ruled against Friday because it recalled the servile savage in Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe and because superstitious Italians consider Friday an unlucky day.
“I am livid about this,” the boy’s mother said. “A court should not waste its time with things like this when there is so much more to worry about.” “My son was born Friday, baptised Friday, will call himself Friday, we will call him Friday but when he gets older he will have to sign his name Gregory,” she said. I hope he has not siblings named after the other days of the week.
December 23rd, 2007
Japan says, “UFOs do exist”, a top Japanese government spokesman said Tuesday. The comment by chief cabinet secretary Nobutaka Machimura drew laughter from reporters at his regular briefing on government policy.
Machimura, asked about the government’s view on UFOs at a regular press conference, told reporters that the government can only offer a simple response. “Personally, I definitely believe they exist,” he said, apparently tongue in cheek.
But the prime minister stuck to the official view. “I have yet to confirm (that UFOs exist),” Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told reporters later in the day. I guess it is possible but why is there only grainy hard too see photos if they really exist?
December 19th, 2007
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