Mike and Glenda Carmichael have the world's largest ball of paint:
Imagine an ordinary baseball...Now imagine that same baseball with over 19,100 coats of paint on it. Getting the picture? Good, because that's exactly what my wife, Glenda and I have done for the past 28 1/2 years. Now that ordinary baseball that once weighed less than one pound now weighs in around 1,700 pounds!
Crissy Huffard and Robert Full of UC Berkeley discovered that some species of octopus have evolved a neat trick to run away from predators: they lift six of their arms and walk backwards on the other two!
When walking, these octopuses use the outer halves of their two back arms like tank treads, alternately laying down a sucker edge and rolling it along the ground. In Indonesia, for example, the coconut octopus looks like a coconut tiptoeing along the ocean bottom, six of its arms wrapped tightly around its body.
Noriko Okamoto and Isao Inouye of the University of Tsukuba, Japan, discovered a unique microorganism they called "Hatena".
Hatena is unique because it is a snapshot in the evolutionary process of endosymbiosis, where one creature incorporates another, thus creating a new form of life.
These creatures can resemble plants or animals, but during one phase of its life it resembles a predator. At another stage, Hatena carry a green, photosynthesizing alga inside. It divides during that phase, giving rise to two daughter cells — one green and one colorless.
The colorless daughter develops a feeding tool and eventually engulfs another green alga, the scientists wrote.
Charhira Kozma at Georgetown University
found over 50 ancient tombs in Egypt depicting dwarfism.
"Dwarfs were accepted in ancient Egypt; their recorded
daily activities suggest assimilation into daily life, and their
disorder was never shown as a physical handicap."
Clay Bavor, who works at Google, ordered 250 lbs of Silly Putty. If you ever wonder what 250 lbs of that stuff looks like, here's your chance: Link (via J-Walk Blog)
Ah, the controversial San Francisco Police Department video...
A parody video that features uniformed and plainclothes San Francisco police officers and racist and sexist stereotypes has led to the suspension of at least 20 police officers.
In a press conference Wednesday evening with Police Chief Heather Fong, Mayor Gavin Newsom described the video as a series of skits showing situations demeaning to Asians, African-Americans, homosexuals and transsexuals. Police Chief Heather Fong called the videos “egregious, shameful and despicable.”
If you haven't seen it yet - it's time to check it out. Link
