Scientists from Convervation International and Disney’s Animal Kingdom recently launched an expedition into the six regions of the Tibetan "Sacred Lands" in the mountains of Southwest China and Nepal, and discovered many fantastic and some new animal species:

"The fact that we found so many new species in such a harsh environment, as well as documented several rare and endangered species is good news for these two regions," said Leeanne Alonso, the expedition’s lead scientist and vice president of the CI’s Rapid Assessment Program.

Here’s a sampling of the outlandish critters:

* Giant hornets so deadly locals call them "Yak Killers"
* Jumping "Yeti" mice
* A new grasshopper species in which the males hitch piggy-back rides on the females
* Baby blue-faced golden monkeys, the region’s largest primates
* Hamster-like pikas that eat their own feces
* A couple of new frog species, eight new insect species, and ten new species of ants to add the more than 11,000 already known.

Link

From the website:

"We had the beer, we had a mineral spring nearby and we came up with the idea of beer baths," explained Mojmir Prokes, the young manager of the hotel and adjoining beer spa, who enthused over their "reinvigorating effects," especially for the skin.

A doctor from Marianske Lazne was drafted in to test the concoction — a fifty-fifty mix of beer and water. Permission was obtained from local authorities, six large tailor made metal baths ordered and a qualified local nurse recruited.

Klara Kovacsova, who previously worked in balneotherapy, says the idea is "brilliant."

Link

Neatorama reader Tim Mosley suggested this entry:

Casebook.org: the world’s Largest Repository of information pertaining to Jack the Ripper and the Whitechapel Murders of 1888.

Why, you can even take a trivia quiz to see how much you know about Jack the Ripper (I sucked at it).

Link (Thanks Tim!)

Take a look at Kelly’s awesome lamps, created from lingeries! Link (via Miss Cellania)

Take a look at this cute short animated clip from Tokyoplastic.

Link – click on the little fella! (via Ursi’s Blog)

Steve Sun of TechEBlog has put together the Top 20 Strangest Gadgets and Accessories – this one is the "Rat Race Clock" with a mechanical rat running on a treadmill. Link (Thanks, Steve!)

José Halloy and colleagues at the Department of Social Ecology at the Free University of Brussels in Belgium discovered that the cockroach Blattella germanica makes decision in a simple democracy.

Cockroaches govern themselves in a very simple democracy where each insect has equal standing and group consultations precede decisions that affect the entire group, indicates a new study.

Halloy tested cockroach group behavior by placing the insects in a dish that contained three shelters. The test was to see how the cockroaches would divide themselves into the shelters.

After much "consultation," through antenna probing, touching and more, the cockroaches divided themselves up perfectly within the shelters. For example, if 50 insects were placed in a dish with three shelters, each with a capacity for 40 bugs, 25 roaches huddled together in the first shelter, 25 gathered in the second shelter, and the third was left vacant.

When the researchers altered this setup so that it had three shelters with a capacity for more than 50 insects, all of the cockroaches moved into the first "house."

Halloy and his colleagues found that a balance existed between cooperation and competition for resources.

Link (via Collision Detection)