AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

We're now one step closer to my nightmare being reality: a GINORMOUS, single-celled organism, that's right, a protozoa, Gromia sphaerica , has been discovered. Homeboy's the size of a grape. Soon enough. area rug-sized amoebas will be slithering over me in the nighttime to suck out my brains through my nostrils.

I think PeTA just pissed their pants

I'm usually not opposed to animal research, so long as it's not pointless or intentionally cruel. Now, I can almost see a purpose to this second video here, but the first one? Not so much.

This scientist, Vladimir Demikhov, was one of the pioneers of organ transplant. In his spare time, he liked to sew dogs together. And they lived. I honestly cannot see any practical applications to 2-headed, 6-legged dogs.


Soviet scientist Sergei Brukhonenko claimed to have decapitated this dog and kept it alive by hooking it up to a machine. Here, you see it move, react to stimuli, and eat. However, the fact that it can move its head to the degree that it does, all without having a neck or body (or spinal cord for that matter), makes me somewhat skeptical. Either way, how was this dog not in an immense amount of pain?

Throw me a frickin' bone

In doing this project where I'm drawing these anatomy pieces for a medical text, I've had to learn a lot of anatomy. For instance, I now know the difference between an efferent duct and a convoluted vas. For people starting out in med school, or for high schoolers taking biology, learning the different bones in the body is definitely required. Here's a fun way to do it. Really.

It's a game called "Whack-a-Bone", where you have to place bones in their proper place, and then name them. It sounds boring, but it's actually quite interesting. Then, to reward you, you get to whack the shit out of them with a sledge hammer.

1/2 Bird! 1/2 Mammal! 1/2 Lizard! Er...

The European Bioinformatics Institute have finally succeeded in mapping the genome of the world's weirdest animal: the duck-billed Platypus. Unsurprisingly, it turned into the world's weirdest genome.

The mapping showed that this native animal of Australia and Tasmania is part mammal (it's covered in fur and lactates, although it doesn't have boobies, so the young suckle the milk through the skin of the platypus' abdomen), part bird (see duck bill and webbed feet) and part lizard (it lays eggs and the males have a venomous spine behind its back feet).

When this weirdo animal was first brought back to Europe, people thought it was a taxidermist's hoax: that it was made up of the leftover bits of different animals. Well, it seems the taxidermist didn't have to, because nature did it for them.

I'm still having a hard time wrapping my mind around the whole lactating through the abdomen thing; do the mommas leave a slimy milk trail after them when they crawl across land? How do the young latch on to the abdomen with those funky bills?

Anyhoo...I thought it was interesting. Read the article on Discovery News.

Look Closely...

All righty (yes, that's right, all right is 2, count 'em TWO words. It's NOT alright. Just ask the SAT Prep book, thank you very much)...what was I saying? Oh right, all righty, folks, it's science time.

Summertime is known for a vast increase in insect population. Not all bugs are nasty, though. Or, are they? The following closeups are taken with electron microscopes.

Here we have a pretty butterfly. How many of these things have you held?



But close up...




That there spiral thingy is the butterfly's tongue. It's licked you.

And here we have a pretty sphinx moth.



But close up...



That there curly thingy, that there is the moth's tongue. Its tongue. Imagine how long that thing is when unfurled. Think about that next time one is flying at your lamp or comes flying out of the closet.