Argh. Today’s blog post vanished. Something terribly witty about dinosaurs and their deplorable oral hygiene. Their faces, according to new research, rotted from a horrid little parasite. This sort of parasite still torments birds of prey today. It’s icky. Bookmark It Hide Sites $$(‘div.d912′).each( function(e) { e.visualEffect(‘slide_up’,{duration:0.5}) });
What does it take to get famous? I mean lasting fame, the sort that gets you in a book of famous peoples’ birthdays? What makes a human noteworthy and memorable over generations? Hint: It’s not anything you can get implanted. The Blogger does not always have a subject ready to haul out and slap across [...]
It’s cold season. Does zinc work, or not? The stuff you spray up your nose? Maybe. But it can actually eliminate your sense of smell permanently. That seems like an extreme side effect. The lozenges that you suck, and which suck, carry no such risk, and they maybe work too. They work for me. The [...]
Fangs? If you say so. But it got me to look. And you, too. Wildlife groups face the same marketing challenges that the rest of us do. In an environment saturated with stimuli and “attention candy,” how do you win eyeballs? Put fangs on a frog. And you gotta admit she’s a kooky looking amphib. [...]
Heat waves are going to get bigger and badder as climate change … changes. Old people are going to be braised in their apartments. Bad hair days will become insufferable hair days. Other animals are just doomed. Or… it could be worse than that. Using computers to model climate change is insanely tough. Think of [...]
Mitzi has become a regular pet. Like a dog, she sees me coming and heaves a sigh: Ug. Hugs. She’s not even shut in a cage anymore, really. She’s truly a desk mouse. Everyone should have a desk mouse. Watching Mitzi perform her domestic chores is better than anything on TV. Sometimes her beds are [...]
Half day, half night. Not a bad ratio, I suppose. But the fact that night will take priority for the next six months seems to have inspired many cultures around the world to set something on fire. I say that with some bitterness, but the truth is that I find the tropics kind of… dull. [...]
The apple blossoms of spring presage the arrival of orioles. The lilacs of June mean summer is truly underway. And the delicate green bells of Ambrosia artemisiifolia symbolize one of the circles of hell. Such a pretty name: Ambrosia is the sustenance (sometimes solid sometimes liquid) of the Greek gods, conferring immortality to them. Lovely! [...]
Why do we notice when birds head north in the spring, but then space out completely when they head south? Have you ever noticed ANYTHING besides the Loud Mouth Canada Goose winging south? Do the songbirds use an underground railroad or something? FedEx? Theoretically there should be even more birds in the southward run, so [...]
Heteropaternal superfecundity! Someone pulled it off! She had twins with different fathers! It’s quite a feat, if she says so herself. Cats do it. Dogs do it. Birds and fish and even frogs do it: Females mate with several males, and the ensuing litter contains a bunch of half-siblings. But those animals routinely produce, you [...]
