The inside-outside upside-downside car. The most fun you can have on four headrests
“I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.” – – Oscar Wilde
Our pals at Backyard Brains (makers of the terrific SpikerBox kit, which allows you to study the electrical impulses of insect neurons) are developing circuitry to control which direction a cockroach walks…
(video after jump…)
The extreme of food now has a new treat du jour – shots of stallion semen. New Zealanders will be serving up glasses of horse semen at the famed Hokitika Wildfoods festival next month, a “delicacy” that racehorse owner Lindsay Kerslake says will have extreme foodies “raring to go”. “Horses are pure testosterone, you know. They have hardly any cholesterol, so the idea is you knock it back and feel like a stallion yourself,” said Mr Kerslake, of Christchurch. “You’ll have as much zizz as a stallion for a week afterwards.”
Continue reading… “Stallion Semen to be Served up in New Zealand as New Energy Drink”
World’s loneliest whale.
We’ve heard about whales suffering from loneliness due to overhunting. There’s simply fewer of their species for them to communicate with. But what about a whale who sings at the wrong frequency? One whale, recorded since 1989 and tracked since 1992, sings at a frequency of 51.75 Hz, whereas others of her kind sing at 15 to 25 Hz. She’s lonely because no one else can hear her.
Continue reading… “Loneliest Whale in the World Sings at the Wrong Frequency”
Supatra Sasuphan doesn’t mind being called the “World’s Hairiest Girl.” She and her family even sought the title from Guinness World Records.
The 11-year-old from Bangkok is likely to become a future Guinness star. She has a condition known as hypertrichosis, otherwise known as “Werewolf Syndrome.”
Continue reading… “World’s Hairiest Girl Celebrates Newfound Fame”
Yes, some flowers are simply magical
“Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.” – Yogi Berra
Scientists Nathan Putman and Ken Lohmann have determined that turtles can navigate across entire oceans by using the earth’s magnetic fields to determine their longitude and latitude. To test this hypothesis, they used a special water tank that permitted them to alter the magnetic fields inside. They then placed the turtles in the tank to see how they would respond to simulations of different locations…
Continue reading… “Turtles Use Earth’s Magnetic Fields as a Navigational System”
Researchers worked with mice and found that if a portion of the heart was removed within the first week of life, the heart grew back completely.
An adult zebra fish can regenerate a damaged heart with no scar formation. This remarkable phenomenon has been seen in other fish and amphibians as well, but never before in a mammal.
Continue reading… “Study Finds Newborn Mice’s Hearts Can Heal Themselves”
Pet cat Smokey is believed to have the loudest purr in the world – with piercing purrs as loud as a lawnmower. Most cats purr at around 25 decibels but Smokey’s powerful purrs average an amazing 80 decibels.
When measured close-up her purrs reach an incredible 92 decibels, equivalent to the noise of a Boeing 737 coming into land…
The vast majority of the developing world already eats insects…
Will Westerners ever take to insects as food? It’s possible. We are entomologists at Wageningen University, and we started promoting insects as food in the Netherlands in the 1990s. Many people laughed—and cringed—at first, but interest gradually became more serious. In 2006 we created a “Wageningen—City of Insects” science festival to promote the idea of eating bugs; it attracted more than 20,000 visitors…
Developed by the company AeroVironment Inc., the miniature spybot looks like a hummingbird complete with flapping wings… The ornithopter can fly into buildings under the control of an operator flying the spybot with the help of a feed from its tiny video camera. The prototype is capable of flying at speeds of up to 18 km/h (11 mph) and weighs 19 grams, which is about the same as an AA battery… The specifications given to the firm by the Pentagon included being able to hover in an 8 km/h wind gust and being able to fly in and out of buildings via a normal door…
Hair regrowth in mice.
Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Veterans Administration (VA) did discover a chemical compound that caused hair regrowth in mice with alopecia, but they were testing the compound on the mouse digestive system.
Continue reading… “Scientists Accidently Discover Chemical Compound That Causes Hair Regrowth”