Saturday, April 26, 2014

John Paul II For Sainthood? God Says No!

Ex-Pope John Paul II is up for canonisation this weekend, while his former spokesman plays down his role in covering-up, or ignoring, child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

A 30 metre high crucifix statue in Italy dedicated to John Paul II fell over today, killing a tourist.


 If smears on glass windows that kind of vaguely resemble the shape of a woman are hailed as signs of the Virgin Mary, what the hell does a giant crucifix dedicated to John Paul II crashing down just before he is canonised signify?



Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Frothy Dog

Cappuccino art is getting pretty out there:


Friday, April 18, 2014

Otters: The Dark Side

Oh, yes, sleeping baby otters are incredibly cute:



And yes, adult otters do hold hands when they're sleeping so they don't drift away from each other.


But otters are also brutal rapists, and one was even observed raping a baby seal, to death:
A weaned harbor seal pup was resting onshore when an untagged male sea otter approached it, grasped it with its teeth and forepaws, bit it on the nose, and flipped it over. The harbor seal moved toward the water with the sea otter following closely. Once in the water, the sea otter gripped the harbor seal’s head with its forepaws and repeatedly bit it on the nose, causing a deep laceration. The sea otter and pup rolled violently in the water for approximately 15 min, while the pup struggled to free itself from the sea otter’s grasp.

Finally, the sea otter positioned itself dorsal to the pup’s smaller body while grasping it by the head and holding it underwater in a position typical of mating sea otters. As the sea otter thrust his pelvis, his penis was extruded and intromission was observed.

At 105 min into the encounter, the sea otter released the pup, now dead, and began grooming.

The rest of this shocking Dark Side Of Otters Story Is Here

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Icenami

'Ice shove' from a Minnesota lake in 2013 "consumed" homes

A mix of currents across Mille Lac Lake, in Minnesota, temperature differences and powerful winds force chunks of ice up onto the land, and into peoples' homes. A kind of instant, fast moving glacier. Just incredible video:




Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Beautiful mutation

Usually grey, this is a pink Katydid, a 1 in 500 mutation, so fairly common.



Monday, January 13, 2014

Look At Me! Look At Me!

This is just showing off:


 Pic from here

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Ice Balls!

Ice balls, or ice boulders, a fascinating natural phenom recorded during the US Polar Vortex last week:



Explanation:
The incredible basketball sized - and bigger - 'ice balls' have been captured on film at Glen Arbor Township, Michigan, were they  cover the entire shoreline.

Despite appearing as unnatural creations, the boulders are a regular feature of Lake Michigan when temperatures drop below freezing, and are formed by ice clumping together in a similar way to snowballs.

Meteorologist Joe Charlevoix explains: "[When] the water temperature on the Lake Michigan is just a little bit below freezing, so you get a small piece of ice that forms in the water and as waves move back and forth it adds additional water and freezes in layers.

"It gets bigger and bigger, and eventually you get big balls of ice, that are pushed to the shore by the wind."

Saturday, January 11, 2014

100,000 Bats Rain Down Over Queensland

Had no idea bats can't stand the heat. They were thriving in Kakadu when I visited in the mid-90s, then again, it wasn't as hot as parts of Queensland have been in recent weeks.
About 100,000 bats have fallen from the sky and died during a heatwave in Australia that has left the trees and earth littered with dead creatures.
In scenes likened to "an Alfred Hitchock thought bubble", a heatwave across the north-east state of Queensland in recent days caused mass deaths of flying foxes from an estimated 25 colonies.

"It's a horrible, cruel way to die," a conservation worker, Louise Saunders, told The Courier Mail.

"Anything over 43 degrees [Celsius, 109F] and they just fall. We're just picking up those that are just not coping and are humanely euthanising what we can."

Venus Flower Basket Sponge Will Blow Your Fcking Mind



David Attenborough has seen nature at its most beautiful, and most brutal, its most simple and most complex. So what really impresses him? According to a Q &A on Reddit, the Venus Flower Basket Sponge pretty much blows his mind. And it will blow your mind, too. Go to 54:30 -



Wow!

Thursday, January 09, 2014

Conjoined Whales Thrived For Years

We still know so little about life beneath our oceans that conjoined whales may be more common than we think. This one grew to 4 metres before dying near the Baja Peninsula, so they clearly managed to survive for many years.




More here