Archive for the ‘animals’ Category
Squirrel Fashion
October 26th, 2010
It seems that in the early 1940s Life magazine filled the niche that I Can Has Cheezburger currently occupies. So while it’s true that the Internet makes you stupid, it’s not exactly without precedent.
L’elephant triomphal
September 14th, 2010
History has forgotten French architect Charles Ribart, and with good reason. Here’s his wikipedia article, essentially in full:
In 1758, he planned an addition to the Champs-Élysées in Paris, to be constructed where the Arc de Triomphe now stands. It consisted of three levels, to be built in the shape of an elephant, with entry via a spiral staircase in the underbelly. The building was to have a form of air conditioning, and furniture that folded into the walls. A drainage system was to be incorporated into the elephant’s trunk. The French Government, however, was not amused and turned him down.
Little of his work now survives.
animals, architecture, cranks, history, ill-conceived plans, old dead white guys | No Comments »
Castro Loves Dolphins
September 14th, 2010
As we all know, Fidel Castro’s two great passions have always been (1) liberating the workers of the world from capitalist exploitation and (2) dolphin shows.
In this two-part interview, Castro discusses Ahmadinejad, Israel’s right to exist, his health, regrets over the Cuban missile crisis, and the continued relevance of the Cuban economic model, mostly while touring the (apparently excellent) Havana aquarium with the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg.
I’ve never seen someone enjoy a dolphin show as much as Fidel Castro enjoyed the dolphin show.
Remember, no matter how great the world seems, it’s actually much, much better.
Bonus fact: Che’s daughter is now a dolphin veterinarian.
Seriously, this just happened
June 17th, 2010
A German student created a major traffic jam in Bavaria after making a rude gesture at a group of Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang members, hurling a puppy at them and then escaping on a stolen bulldozer.
From honest-to-god Reuters by way of Tyler Cowen.
Fishy Scholarship
June 12th, 2010
Now, I’m no expert on Babylonian mythology, and some of my information on this is a bit fragmented and sketchy, but apparently there was a myth in which a lot of Mesopotamian law and culture had been handed down by anthropomorphic fish-people before the Flood, after which the fish presumably became less talkative. In commemoration of this legendary past, Babylonian and Assyrian priests and scholars (on at least certain occasions) supposedly wore actual fish costumes. They wore a big fish-head miter and robes with scales and fins. At least, that’s the story I’m putting together from a brief reference in this episode of In Our Time and this JSTOR article.
Now, if anyone has any other reputable information about fish-dressed Babylonian scholars — or decent access to JSTOR, at least — I’d be thrilled to hear about it. This is the kind of bizarre history I like best. I’ve also never been so disappointed with modern academic regalia.
Dogs, Sledding
April 15th, 2010
I was originally going to post some articles about Kyrgyzstan or Thomas de Quincey but I decided that watching dogs play in the snow is more important.
Dreaming Rats
April 2nd, 2010
…Wilson and Kenway Louie described the behavior of rats that had been trained to run on a circular track. As expected, running on the track generated a distinct pattern of neural firing in the rat hippocampus, a brain area essential for the formation of long-term memory…
… as before, Wilson kept the electrodes in place while the rats drifted off to sleep… The scientists examined 45 dreams and found that 20 of the dreams repeated the exact same patterns of brain activity exhibited while running in a circle. In fact, the correlation between the dream and the reality was so close that Wilson could predict the exact position of the rodent on the track while it was asleep.
I’m sure you want to read Jonah Lehrer’s article about dreaming.
Strandbeests
March 13th, 2010
Theo Jansen is a Dutch artist who specializes in building artificial animals.
The Face of a Serial Killer
February 25th, 2010
By now you’ve probably heard about the orca that drowned his trainer a few days ago. What you may not have heard is that Tilikum is a serial killer whale.
He was one of three killer whales blamed for the 1991 drowning of a trainer while he performed at the now-defunct Sealand of the Pacific in British Columbia. In 1999, the dead body of a naked man was found lying across Tilikum’s back at SeaWorld Orlando.
Drunken Bats
February 11th, 2010
A team of Canadian researchers got a bunch of Central American fruit bats drunk and measured how often they crashed. I love science.
The flying mammals were placed in a closed obstacle course on the forest floor. “It’s like walking a straight line,” Fenton quipped, referring to a common test given to suspected drunk drivers by police – except to succeed, the bats had to maneuver around hanging plastic chains without crashing.
The team also recorded the bats’ echolocation calls to see if they’d “slur their words,” Fenton said.
The science-y part of this is that despite being colossally sloshed the bats actually displayed almost no impairment. The researchers theorized that this resulted from the bats’ regular ingestion of fermented fruit. However, it’s important to note that other drunk bat studies have yielded different results:
… a previous study in Israel had shown that drunk Egyptian fruit bats crashed more frequently in experiments than the New World bats did, Fenton said.