I want a red one and a green one.
GLOW IN THE DARK CATS!
South Korean scientists have cloned cats by manipulating a fluorescent protein gene, a procedure which could help develop treatments for human genetic diseases, officials said Wednesday.
In a side-effect, the cloned cats glow in the dark when exposed to ultraviolet beams.
A team of scientists led by Kong Il-keun, a cloning expert at Gyeongsang National University, produced three cats possessing altered fluorescence protein (RFP) genes, the Ministry of Science and Technology said.
"It marked the first time in the world that cats with RFP genes have been cloned," the ministry said in a statement.
"The ability to produce cloned cats with the manipulated genes is significant as it could be used for developing treatments for genetic diseases and for reproducing model (cloned) animals suffering from the same diseases as humans," it added.
The cats were born in January and February. One was stillborn while two others grew to become adult Turkish Angoras, weighing 3.0 kilogrammes (6.6 pounds) and 3.5 kilogrammes.
"This technology can be applied to clone animals suffering from the same diseases as humans," the leading scientist, Kong, told AFP.
"It will also help develop stemcell treatments," he said, noting that cats have some 250 kinds of genetic diseases that affect humans, too.
The technology can also help clone endangered animals like tigers, leopards and wildcats, Kong said.
South Korea's bio-engineering industry suffered a setback after a much-touted achievement by cloning expert Hwang Woo-Suk turned out to have been faked.
The government banned Hwang from research using human eggs after his claims that he created the first human stem cells through cloning were ruled last year to be bogus.
Hwang is standing trial on charges of fraud and embezzlement.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
What I want for Christmas
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
The Micropolitan Museum
This is one of my favorite places on the internet. Every time I check in there's a new section! If you've never visited the Micropolitan Museum, then you've probably never seen the face of a sawfly up close and personal. Visit the Museum today.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
The Fist Of Stink!
i don't even know how I found this one but if you haven't visited Lily Tomlin's Museum of Cheese, it's well worth it. Click on the fist of stink to visit.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
When Monkeys Attack and How to Defend Yourself
Thieving monkeys 'out of control' in northeast India
Yahoo! News - Sat Nov 17, 12:12 PM ET
GUWAHATI, India (AFP) - Troupes of monkeys are out of control in India's northeast, stealing mobile phones and breaking into homes to steal soft drinks from refrigerators, lawmakers in the region have complained.
"Monkeys are wreaking havoc in my constituency by taking away mobile phones, toothpastes, sipping coke after opening the refrigerators," Hiren Das told Assam state's assembly.
He said the primates were "even slapping women who try to chase them".
"It is a cause of serious concern in my area, with more than 1,000 such simians turning aggressive by the day," fumed Goneswar Das, another legislator representing Raha in eastern Assam.
Assam's wildlife minister, Rockybul Hussain, said the state government has formed a panel to study the problem.
Because of shrinking forest cover, monkeys have increasingly moved into cities elsewhere in India as well.
Last week, around two dozen people were hurt after monkeys rampaged through a New Delhi neighbourhood.
Last month, the deputy mayor of Delhi died when he fell from his balcony after being attacked by monkeys.
Efforts to drive out the animals is complicated by the fact that devout Hindus view them as an incarnation of Hanuman, the monkey god who symbolises strength.
How To Fight Monkeys
What should you do if you're surrounded by angry macaques?
By Michelle Tsai
target="_blank">Posted on Slate Monday, Oct. 22, 2007, at 6:59 PM ET
The deputy mayor of New Delhi, India, fell off his balcony and died Sunday after being attacked by monkeys, his family members say. The city has around 10,000 monkeys, some of which have taken to roaming through government buildings as they steal food and rip apart documents. What should you do if monkeys are picking on you?
It's like Mom said about muggers: Just give 'em what they want. When monkeys get aggressive, it's usually because they think you have something to eat. According to one study, about three-quarters of all the aggressive interactions between long-tailed macaques and tourists at Bali's Padangtegal Monkey Forest involved food. If you are holding a snack, throw it in their direction, and they'll stop bothering you. If you don't have any food, hold out your open palms to show you're not carrying a tasty treat or back away from the monkeys without showing fear. To diffuse the situation, don't make eye contact or smile with your teeth showing—in the nonhuman primate world, these are almost always signs of aggression.
Monkey attacks are extremely rare in the wild; the creatures tend to be scared of us and often scamper away when a person gets within 100 feet. As monkeys lose their habitats around the world, though, they've started to live in closer proximity to humans, and that causes conflict.
Aggressive city monkeys will give you lots of warnings before an actual fight breaks out. First, the animals will look at you in the eyes, open their mouths, and bare their teeth. Rhesus macaques, the aggressive monkeys that cause a lot of the trouble in Delhi, will then warn you with a grunt. Next, they might fake a lunge toward you; this often causes a victim to lose his balance. If you're still withholding food, they'll grab at your knees and legs, and put their mouths on you so that you can feel their teeth. Finally, if you still won't cooperate, they'll sink their canines into you. The study in Bali found that most macaque bites don't break the skin, but a wound could allow transmission of herpes B, which can be fatal to humans. Baboons, which sometimes attack humans in Africa, are much more dangerous: They're bigger and less predictable, and they're armed with 3-inch-long canines. Last year, a South African man's forearms were ripped to the bone, and doctors dug out a baboon tooth during surgery.
What if you can't or won't appease the monkeys with food? You can try to chase them off by shaking a stick at them, but they might get violent if cornered. If they don't budge, bop 'em on the head; visitors to temples in India sometimes carry a stick for just this reason. Primatologists will sometimes send a macaque warning signal called the open-mouth threat. Basically, form an "O" with your mouth, lean toward them with your body and head, and raise your eyebrows. Female victims might seek protection in a group of men, since monkeys are somewhat afraid of males. But whatever you do, don't freak out; those who scream, wave their arms, and run away are only going to make the macaques even more aggressive.
Despite all the monkey business, Delhi has refused to cull the macaques, which are sacred because of the Hindu reverence for Hanuman, the monkey god. Instead, the government has relocated some of the troublemakers and even brought in langurs, a mellower but larger monkey, to scare off the smaller macaques.
Explainer thanks Agustin Fuentes of University of Notre Dame, Melissa Gerald and Janis Gonzalez of the Caribbean Primate Research Center, Andreas Koenig of Stony Brook University, and Dario Maestripieri, author of Macachiavellian Intelligence: How Rhesus Macaques and Humans Have Conquered the World.
Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel
I first heard Foetus about 22 years ago. It's interesting to listen to how the music has progressed. Compare for yourself.
Steroid Maximus:
ChAIN REAction (2002)
Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel
Theme From Pigdom Come
Descent into the Inferno (1985)
Friday, November 16, 2007
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Punk Joke
"Knock, knock."
"Who's there?"
"Dwayne."
"I don't know any assholes named Dwayne!"
"You're supposed to say "Dwayne who?'"
"You're pissing me off! Are you the police?"
"No, it's a joke."
"Pretty fucking hilarious. Do I have to come out there and kick your ass?"
Two of the greatest journalism pieces of 2007!
The problem with global warming is not cans of hairspray, overpolluting automobiles and people not recycling properly. According to Spiegel Online International the major problem is FARTING MOOSE and BELCHING COWS!
Norway's Moose Population in Trouble for Belching
The poor old Scandinavian moose is now being blamed for climate change, with researchers in Norway claiming that a grown moose can produce 2,100 kilos of carbon dioxide a year -- equivalent to the CO2 output resulting from a 13,000 kilometer car journey.
Now poor moose are being blamed for global warming.
Norway is concerned that its national animal, the moose, is harming the climate by emitting an estimated 2,100 kilos of carbon dioxide a year through its belching and farting.
Norwegian newspapers, citing research from Norway's technical university, said a motorist would have to drive 13,000 kilometers in a car to emit as much CO2 as a moose does in a year.
Bacteria in a moose's stomach create methane gas which is considered even more destructive to the environment than carbon dioxide gas. Cows pose the same problem (more...).
Norway has some 120,000 moose but an estimated 35,000 are expected to be killed in this year's moose hunting season, which starts on September 25, Norwegian newspaper VG reported.
cro
Changing Cows' Diet Could Cut Emissions
Cows are methane-making machines, with their inefficient digestion producing hundreds of liters of the greenhouse gas every day. Now scientists are looking at ways to make things go down a little more gently for the ruminanting grass-munchers.
While people are being asked to reduce the amounts of flights they take and make their homes more energy efficient, what they put on their plates could be having as big an impact on climate change. Gas-guzzling SUVs and badly insulated buildings are partly to blame for the earth's greenhouse gas emissions, but it seems the humble grass-munching cow is also a major culprit.
Agriculture is responsible for producing 37 percent of global methane emissions, a gas that is 23 times more potent than CO2 when it comes to global warming. And much of this gas comes from the burps of ruminating animals such as cows and sheep. If a cow's manners could be improved a bit, then the world might just stop warming quite so fast. And it could be as simple as getting them to graze on different types of plants. Scientists at the University of Aberystwyth are now working on using plant-breeding methods to develop new diets for livestock.
Normally a cow's stomach is pretty inefficient -- 80 percent of food ingested comes out as waste or methane. The average cow produces between 300 and 500 liters of methane a day, most of it through belching. "There is a common misperception about how methane gets into the atmosphere," Michael Abberton, a scientist at the Aberystwsth's Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research, said Monday. "It is actually through belching rather than the other end."
Abberton told a briefing on farming and climate change at London's Science Media Center that the key could be developing new varieties of legumes and grass, as well as planting more clover and birdsfoot trefoil, a common wildflower. These could change the way the bacteria in the cow's gut breaks down food. According to the scientist, developing new varieties of plants which are easier to digest could allow farmers to avoid reducing stock while still cutting methane emissions.
Across the world, people have increasingly turned to meat-rich diets -- in fact methane concentrations have increased by around 100 percent since 1900. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tons in 1999/2001 to 465 million tons by 2050, while milk output is set to climb from 580 to 1,043 million tons. And agricultural livestock is already hogging 30 percent of the earth's entire land surface if you count the crops necessary to feed them, according to a 2006 United Nations report.
The search for ways of reducing methane production in agriculture is, therefore, an important part of tackling climate change. In fact it has become a whole research field of its own.
For example, researchers at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen are looking at the effects of feed additives on methane reduction. Dr. John Wallace, who is leading the research, told the BBC earlier this year: "We've done a lamb trial recently in which we ... obtained a 70 percent decrease in methane formation."
And Michael Kreuzer, professor of Animal Nutrition at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is also researching the effect of introducing feed additives, which he claims could reduce the amount of methane produced by between 10 and 40 percent.
Meanwhile in New Zealand, where agriculture accounts for almost 50 percent of the country's greenhouse gas emissions, scientists are working on reducing methane by getting rid of the microbes in animals' stomachs that produce methane.
smd/reuters
Bananas in Pajamas Osamas and Pinatas
Is there anything wrong with this?
Maybe you could videotape this speaking from a cave in your backyard and cause neighborhood hysteria.
The Osama Bin Laden Pinata!
Only $35.00.
I was going to post the Family Guy clip of Stewie fighting Osama Bin Laden here but it looks like the clips have been taken off youtube due to: This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Gosh darn big corporations.
Notorious B.I.G vs. Notorious H.I.T.
This is just nuts.
I mean it's wrong.
I mean it's incorrect.
i mean it's politically incorrect.
i mean it's unpolitically incorrect.
i mean it's unpolitically incorrectly challenged, that's what I meant to say.
Ha Ha Ha, Merry Christmas
Santas warned 'ho ho ho' offensive to women
Wed Nov 14, 11:04 PM ET - Yahoo! News
SYDNEY (AFP) - Santas in Australia's largest city have been told not to use Father Christmas's traditional "ho ho ho" greeting because it may be offensive to women, it was reported Thursday.
Sydney's Santa Clauses have instead been instructed to say "ha ha ha" instead, the Daily Telegraph reported.
One disgruntled Santa told the newspaper a recruitment firm warned him not to use "ho ho ho" because it could frighten children and was too close to "ho", a US slang term for prostitute.
"Gimme a break," said Julie Gale, who runs the campaign against sexualising children called Kids Free 2B Kids.
"We are talking about little kids who do not understand that "ho, ho, ho" has any other connotation and nor should they," she told the Telegraph.
"Leave Santa alone."
A local spokesman for the US-based Westaff recruitment firm said it was "misleading" to say the company had banned Santa's traditional greeting and it was being left up to the discretion of the individual Santa himself.
Why I Friggin Love Alameda
Ok so I tried to go to work today. Seriously. I did. I went to work and I couldn't get in the door so I turned around and came home.
I've been a little bummed out because my 20th high school reunion is the day after Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania, which is the stupidest time to have it, according to me, if you are not planning on being anywhere near Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving. I looked into it and it is probably going to cost about a thousand dollars to freeze for the weekend on the east coast so I am not going to go. I have been invited to three dinners and a pajama party in my neighborhood which beats the pants off (literally, pajama party) attempting to travel (especially fly) during that time.
I decided to cheer myself up and enjoy an awesome California day and ride around on my beach cruiser to figure out why I FRIGGIN LOVE where I live - ALAMEDA. First of all, it's trapped in a some sort of time-space continuum from 1950.
GREEN BRIDGES
City Hall looks a little Mayberry-ish.
Crazy, awesome old cars in candy colors!
Crazy buildings
Little Pink houses for you and me
Even the Fire House is some goofy little spanish villa.
Oh, and don't forget the Spite House
I rode my bike down by the bay to get a picture of Sutro Tower from my neck of the woods for you.
Here's my bike.
Here's Sutro Tower in the background of Sand Castle land.
...and some more reasons why I FRIGGIN LOVE ALAMEDA.
small furry ground creatures that pose for you.
PALM TREES!!!
It's hard not to go too far without running across a bag or a box of "FREE STUFF" in Alameda. I scored some glassine envelopes.
Here's the field my softball team came in last place last season. Yes, my position was right field and this team of geese could probably beat us.
This is just awesome.
Random unsightly fiberglass rocks to conceal possibly unsightly outdoor mechanisms.
and lastly, here really is a picture of what the tower looks like from my neighborhood.