Indiana Jones, spiders, and a T-shirt. This...

Indiana Jones, spiders, and a T-shirt @ Threadless. This one is for Mel. 


Dr Jones Phobia

Transparent Mice

Transparent mice. Atsushi Miyawaki at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute has created a reagent using urea, glycerol, and soap that removes the pigment from cells. Although it only works on dead animals right now, they hope to refine it to work on live ones. How will cats hunt mice if they are transparent? Will we have to fit them with infrared goggles? ScienceShot: The Invisible Mouse - ScienceNOW ScienceShot: The Invisible Mouse - ScienceNOW

Micro Tortoises

Scientists have succeeded in taking the Galapagos Tortoise, one of the longest living reptiles, and creating a miniature version of it. Using a technique called Cellular Packing Reduction, they have eliminated 90% of the wasted space in the tortoise including unneeded fluids and gases. In addition, using a new Protein Refolding Vector, they have been able to recoup space that proteins and even DNA takes in the reptile's cells. Dr. Gray Steinkopf, a researcher at the Center for Advanced Cellular Automata in Atlanta who heads up this project, is quoted as saying, "It was a once-in-a-lifetime moment as a scientist. We are convinced that this new technique will provide benefits beyond tortoises. Imagine smaller pets or children--we could save significantly on energy and food for the entire planet." Steinkopf admits that the technique is at least 5 years away from commercialization and still would have to undergo significant FDA trials but the future looks promising.

Besides, they're so cute!

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P.S. Don't believe everything you read, kidz!

Amazing Stuff: Animated Gifs

GIF (pronounced giff or jiff) is an image format that is quite common on the web--the acronym means Graphics Interchange Format. Most of the buttons on any web site are either GIFs or PNGs (pings). GIFs have a feature that allows them to loop endlessly and as such are a neat way to capture short bursts of successive images (sort of like a flip book). Images that take advantage of this feature are called "animated" GIFs. The effect can be mesmerizing.

Today's post by Amazing Stuff has a series of GIFs that demonstrate this principle. Mr. Spanky likes the one of the lady in the elevator pwning the purse snatcher. Justice is served!

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Spring has Sprung, the Grass has Rizz, I want my Springtime Eggs with Wizz

From News365.cn:

Oh dear. These eggs in Dong Yang, China have been specially treated just for spring. Apparently they are more expensive and sell out quickly.

I'm not a fan of eggs unless they are fried dead "yolks broken, over hard" and even then it's a rare item to cross my breakfast plate. You could not pay me enough to eat these.


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Lip paint: twice as nauseating as a chipmunk grooming itself

Must.. stop... sugar ...intake... having... glucose... overload...

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P.S. To my darling daughter MO: if you ever do this I will disinherit you and set fire to your room. Unless it is Halloween or you are trying for an insanity plea in some murder trial.

Daily dose of saccharin: slow motion chipmunk

Even Mr. Spanky has to admit that this is incredibly cute for what is otherwise a miserable flea-bitten little tree rodent. It was the two pawed complete head rub at 00:18 that did me in. Link

Aphids: the Japanese Manga Stars of the insect world

From the Boing Boing Flickr pool: link. Sort of looks like little green Domos. Per wikipedia: "Aphids, also known as plant lice and in Britain and the Commonwealth as greenflies, blackflies or whiteflies, are small sap sucking insects, and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea."

OMZG LOLCATS THIS IS SO QT!

Om nom nom nom!

Rarely does Mr. Spanky indulge in sensationalism. Well, seldomly. Well, pretty much he'll do anything to drive traffic to his self serving blog. So this is just about the cutest cat you will ever see!

Not really. This is Mr. Chase No Face (disguised as an om nom nom nom) and is liked by 11,041 people on Facebook and rising. He had a small face erasing accident when he was young but is apparently quite happy. He needs eye drops frequently. Click the link to see his web gallery or scroll down to see what he really looks like.

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I warned you!

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No really, go back!

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Aiyah. You are braver than my dog, Cala, who hurls herself at the patio door late at night to scare off evil possums.

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Delay tactic #1: Ok, a man, a dog, and a cat walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says "we don't serve turkeys". The man leaves.

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Delay tactic #2: Squirrel!

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Ok, ok, Mr. Chase No Face is below:

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Om nom nom nom!

Heidi the Cross Eyed Possum

I don't like possums as a rule. They look like large rats--I am aware that they are marsupials and are technically opossums. More importantly, they skulk about in our backyard at night terrorizing our dog who hurls herself against the patio door windows barking furiously. I can only imagine that they have little possumy smirks on their faces as they do the equivalent of "na na na NA na" to the impotent canine. It works best at 2am when everyone is asleep. So you can see that I have little love for those that break my rest.

However, I have to admit that Heidi is actually in the cute category. You can befriend Heidi on Facebook here.

Cross-eyed opossum Heidi sits in her enclosure at Leipzig zoo in eastern Germany. Heidi, who is not yet even on public display, has become an Internet hit, winning more than 65,000 150,000 "friends" on the social networking website Facebook.

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Using Your Head

I'm sure that many of you kidz have had the opportunity to inhale helium and hear your voice go up several pitches like Alvin the chipmunk. Sulfur hexafluoride is heavier than air: what do you think will happen to your voice if you inhale it? If helium eventually leaves your lungs because it can easily be breathed out, how will you get the SH₆ out? Hint: you have to use your head.

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What's that soul sucking sound? Ah, it's Black Friday.

Black Friday is the shopping day of the year here in the US where companies go from "being in the red" meaning that they are losing money to "being in the black". Typically retailers discount heavily, especially on consumer electronics, in a hope that in the post-Thanksgiving haze of stuffed tummies and dulled brains, that we pour the contents of our wallets out onto their counters in exchange for goods.

As Mr. Spanky is always on the prowl for the interesting and amusing, he came across this "coupon" that celebrates Black Friday.

The talented illustrator here is poking fun at our rampant materialism and reminds us that this obsession can never be satisfied and in the end becomes your owner. The picture of the cow is in reference to the golden calf created and then worshipped by the Israelites while Moses was up on the mountain getting the ten commandments from God (Exo 32:1).

It made the Spankster snort with suppressed laughter, much to his embarrassment, while riding the train home.

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Never Gonna Give You Up

The word acrostic comes from the Greek words "akros" or top and "stichos" or verse. It is comprised of a series of letters, words, or letters at the beginning of every sentence or line of text that form a hidden message. Acrostics are commonly used as mnemonics so that we can remember things. Surely you know ROYGBIV for the colors of the rainbow or the sentence All Cows Eat Grass which denote the space notes on the left hand of the piano?

An enterprising college student decided to hide the lyrics to Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" in his paper on computer networking. It took him five hours. His father was quoted as saying "If only he had spent as much effort on his chores..."

Does anyone know of any other funny acrostics? If so, post a comment in the blog.

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna around or desert you...


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Giga Pudding

Some things defy description. Mr. Spanky is at a total loss, mumbling "gigapuddinggigapuddinggigapuddinggigapuddinggigapudding" over and over again.

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Is it just me or did anyone else find the horde of gigapudding gobblers sticking their germ ridden spoons over and over into its bucket-sized jiggling mass, ignoring basic hygiene, incredibly disturbing? I need to go rinse my mouth with bleach.

The Elements Song

The elements in the periodic table sung in Japanese. It's saccharin sweet!

This is an Easter Egg in the popular The Elements electronic book/application on the iPad which has now been translated to Japanese.

And here Mr Spanky thought that the elements were salt, sugar, fat, and caffeine. Go figure!

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Creepy Snake Robot

According to Wikipedia, Biomimcry or biomimetics is the examination of nature, its models, systems, processes, and elements to emulate or take inspiration from in order to solve human problems. The brainy students at MIT have created a robot that mimics the movement of a snake not only on the ground but also climbing a tree. It's vaguely unnerving to see a machine act like an animal as it falls outside of what we typically expect based on our experience of typical gears and wheels.

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Internet Breakfast in Your Car

It's amazing what they're putting into cars these days:

Here's a whole set of design questionable car doodads: link

The Lifestyles of the Rich and Liverliving

The Oatmeal is the type of comic that Mr. Spanky can really laugh at. Often with liquids streaming out his nostrils if he's drinking and reading it at the same time. It can be somewhat irreverent: consume with caution kidz. Today the Oatmeal brings us the lifestyle of the parasitic flatworm known as Dicrocoelium dendriticum which is depicted nattily in all its gruesome hilarity!

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Water Balloon Time Warp

A water balloon and a high speed camera. You can't get any more fun that this.

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Don't mess with Bambi's mother

Kidz,

I'm pretty sure that we'd all be curious if we saw a fawn. We might want to touch it. GO would want to take it home and keep it in his room under the bed for fun. This video demonstrates why you have to be on the lookout for Bambi's Mom.

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