german science!

with their spotless history, what could go wrong?



Scientists Attempt to Crack Secret Code of the Axolotl. The axolotl is one of a kind in nature: It can regenerate severed limbs, organs and even grow back its spinal column after injuries. At a new research center in Hanover, Germany, researchers are trying to unlock the Mexican salamander's secrets -- and whether they can be applied to humans.

These are no ordinary amphibians. Many have had flaps of skin removed or parts of their limbs cut off -- under sedation of course -- by scientists investigating their regenerative capabilities. "Coagulation sets in instantly", says scientist Björn Menger. "You can almost watch the healing process happening." It only takes a few months until the body part has regenerated completely -- "the younger ones are even faster," says molecular biologist Kerstin Reimers-Fadhlaoui.



In September 2010, molecular biologists, surgeons and amphibian experts set up a center for axolotl research in Hanover. Their hope is that they can unlock the healing secrets of the axolotl. They also believe the animal may hold the key to longer life and prolonged youth and health.

"We share a common evolutionary history with amphibians," explains Kerstin Reimers-Fadhlaoui. "Regeneration is in our own fundamental genetic makeup." Perhaps the axolotl will help us to discover how to switch the process on once again.

Reimers-Fadhlaoui and her colleagues have analyzed the transcriptome of the wound-healing cells, focusing on the active genes in the regeneration process. Some of this genetic information contains the building blocks of an enzyme that could be the trigger of cell renewal: amblox. Amblox is thought to support the formation of a transmitter, which causes the cells to change into progenitor cells.

The researcher explains that initial experiments have shown that human cells also respond to these transmitters. A layer of human skin cells programmed with the genetic sequence healed significantly faster after injury that the untreated control cells.

source: http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,732283,00.html

flying fucking snakes!

DDT motherfucker!



The image of airborne snakes may seem like the stuff of nightmares, but in the jungles of South and Southeast Asia it is reality.

Once thought to be more parachuters than gliders, recent scientific studies have revealed intricate details about how these limbless, tube-shaped creatures turn plummeting into piloting. To prepare for take-off, a flying snake will slither to the end of a branch, and dangle in a J shape. It propels itself from the branch with the lower half of its body, forms quickly into an S, and flattens to about twice its normal width, giving its normally round body a concave C shape, which can trap air. By undulating back and forth, the snake can actually make turns.



There are five recognized species of flying snake, found from western India to the Indonesian archipelago. Knowledge of their behavior in the wild is limited, but they are thought to be highly arboreal, rarely descending from the canopy. The smallest species reach about 2 feet (61 centimeters) in length and the largest grow to 4 feet (1.2 meters).

source: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reptiles/flying-snake/

get off my lawn!

the original polish party animal!

spuds mackenzie: bred to fight, born to party!



A Polish man living in Germany was unaware he had been shot in the head for five years, because he was drunk when it happened.

Police in the western city of Bochum said doctors found a .22 calibre bullet in the back of his head after the 35-year-old went to have what he thought was a cyst removed.



Presented with the 5.6mm projectile, the man recalled he had received a blow to the head around midnight at a New Year’s party “in 2004 or 2005”, but had forgotten about it because he had been “very drunk”, a police spokesman said.

“He told us he remembered having a sore head, but that he wasn’t really one for going to the doctor,” the spokesman said.

The wound later healed around the bullet and it was not until the man decided to have the lump examined due to recurring pains that the discovery was made.

source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7962960/Man-unaware-he-had-been-shot-in-head-five-years-ago.html

monkey terror!

Taliban Training Monkey Terrorists!


(note: pictured above is an ape not a monkey, but it's holding a fucking gun and is righteous so fuck it.)

Monkeys have been trained by the Taliban in Afghanistan to use machine guns and trench mortars against U.S. military forces, reports People's Daily Online.

According to this Chinese media story, monkeys can now operate the Kalashnikov, Bren light machine gun, and have the ability to identify and attack U.S. soldiers based on the appearance of their uniforms.



The report indicates the Taliban was inspired by none other than the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, which it claims used peanuts and bananas to train "monkey soldiers" in Vietnam. This information was, in turn, attributed to a "British media" report from last month.

The story ends by saying, "A senior U.S. military source confirmed the existence of the Taliban monkey soldiers, military experts call armed monkeys 'monkey terrorists.'"

source: http://news.discovery.com/animals/taliban-training-monkey-terrorists.html

old dildo!

william shatner is a fucking baby faced fist magnet.



Sex toys have come a long way since the Stone Age. Last week, an excavation in Sweden turned up an object that bears the unmistakable look of a penis carved out of antler bone.

"Your mind and my mind wanders away to make this interpretation about what it looks like — for you and me, it signals this erected-penis-like shape," said archaeologist Gšran Gruber of the National Heritage Board in Sweden, who worked on the excavation.



"Without doubt anyone alive at the time of its making would have seen the penile similarities just as easily as we do today," wrote Swedish archaeologist Martin Rundkvist on his blog, Aardvarchaeology.

Ancient phallic objects:
The carved bone was unearthed at a Mesolithic site in Motala, Sweden, that is rich with ancient artifacts from between 4,000 to 6,000 B.C. The area's unique features may have allowed bone artifacts, which usually get destroyed over the millennia, to survive.

source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38343340/ns/technology_and_science-science/

worst. poem. ever!

while i was trying to find out what kind of scooter Froggy from the Little Rascals was riding when he was killed, i came across the worst poem ever. wtf? im sure this dude is a blast at parties.



Pornography

I like pornography - if it's legal
especially when I can't be with someone
to get me excited sexually.

My wife and I enjoyed the movie
I am Curious Yellow.
We didn't care for Deap Throat.

I don't rent X-rated movies
cause I don't want my name recorded.

A cable channel advertised "Mr. Skin"
It claimed to have nude images
taken from released movies.
I became a member at $4.95 a month.

The next day and thereafter I was bombarded
with dozens of lewd E-mails every day!
The images on Mr Skin were all so dark
I called up and terminated my membership immediately.

For six months I had a daily chore of deleting lewd E-mails.
Then one day I took a peak
and decided to collect some pornographic images.

After a couple hundred I got tired of it
and only went after pictures of pretty faces.

I thought I might use them as models
to make some stylized paintings
but I'm no better at that art than ever.
These still pictures don't interest me any more.
I just want the real thing!
should get rid of them to reclaim the space.

One day someone sent me an E-mail
with family photos in an application
called Picaso

I installed it and it went searching my computer
and came up with an organization of all my images
including those I considered private!

I quickly deleted the shortcut to Picaso
so no one else would see them accidentally!
Some application developers got a lot of nerve.

And Microsoft as well.
Every time I accidentally touch another key
up pops a menu which has nothing to do
with what I'm trying to do!

Or the narrator comes on in that dead voice
reading all the garbage that's on the screen!

When your doing touch typing
all the other functions should be turned off
till you specifically hit a key high up on the keyboard
which turns on these other features!

And the Gateway and HP notebooks
with that pad for moving the cursor
is the worst thing for touch typing.
You are always touching it and
sending the cursor way away from
where you are trying to do your work.

HP will never get my business again.
I bought an Ink Jet 1220 C printer.
They included drivers and a tool kit.
It supported two way commuication with the printer.
Let you see how much ink was left.
When Microsoft Windows XP came out
HP did not updata the drivers
Two way communication no longer works
so you can not see how much ink is left.

The IBM solution for moving the cursor is better but still needs
other keys blocked when your in a typing application!

And when your moving the cursor over text
in a text editor it becomes a very thin vertical line,
almost invisible to see--
Why don't they make it bright red
or an option to make it thicker?

Microsoft is a lousy company!
Too bad the Justice Department didn't split it up
and make the business more competitive!

By Donald Warren, © 2008

handfish!

Handfishes are anglerfishes in the family Brachionichthyidae, a group comprised of 5 genera and 14 extant species.

They are small (up to 15 cm) bottom-dwelling marine fishes found in coastal waters of southern Australia and Tasmania. Their skin is covered with denticles (tooth-like scales), giving them the name warty anglers. This is the most species-rich of the few marine fish families that are endemic to Australia. Handfish are unusual, slow moving fishes that prefer to 'walk' rather than swim, using their modified pectoral fins to move about on the sea floor. These highly modified fins have the appearance of hands, hence their scientific name, from Latin bracchium meaning "arm" and Greek ichthys meaning "fish".

Only four specimens of the elusive four-inch (ten-centimeter) pink handfish have ever been found, and all of those were collected from areas around the city of Hobart (map), on the Australian island of Tasmania.

Though no one has spotted a living pink handfish since 1999, it's taken till now for scientists to formally identify it as a unique species.

source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/photogalleries/100524-new-species-handfish-walk-science-pictures/#new-handfish-species-pink_20881_600x450.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handfish

periodic table of the empire strikes back!

not featured: george lucas' frog neck.



the pt of esb:


ps: fuck you george lucas!

source: http://io9.com/5546123/the-periodic-table-of-the-empire-strikes-back

the cylons were created by man...

they rebelled. they evolved. and they have a plan.

Scientists announced a bold step Thursday in the enduring quest to create artificial life. They've produced a living cell powered by manmade DNA.



Maryland genome-mapping pioneer J. Craig Venter said his team's project paves the way for the ultimate, much harder goal: designing organisms that work differently from the way nature intended for a wide range of uses.

"This is the first self-replicating species we've had on the planet whose parent is a computer," Venter told reporters.

And the report, being published Friday in the journal Science, is triggering excitement in this growing field of synthetic biology.

"It's been a long time coming, and it was worth the wait," said Dr. George Church, a Harvard Medical School genetics professor. "It's a milestone that has potential practical applications."

Scientists for years have moved single genes and even large chunks of DNA from one species to another. At his J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Md., and San Diego, Venter's team aimed to go further. A few years ago, the researchers transplanted an entire natural genome — the genetic code — of one bacterium into another and watched it take over, turning a goat germ into a cattle germ.

Next, the researchers built from scratch another, smaller bacterium's genome, using off-the-shelf laboratory-made DNA fragments.

Friday's report combines those two achievements to test a big question: Could synthetic DNA really take over and drive a living cell? Somehow, it did.

"This is transforming life totally from one species into another by changing the software," said Venter, using a computer analogy to explain the DNA's role.

source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jUy0CkhjIEOS2ZY_SP3gWg8ELgewD9FQPB980

cop and a half!

A Thai police force has begun taking a monkey dressed in officer's uniform on patrol each day to help improve relations with Muslim separatists.


(above: i know it's a fucking ape and not a monkey)

The five-year-old pig-tailed macaque was adopted after policemen in Yaha province in southern Thailand found him injured with a broken arm.

The monkey also helps supervise a police checkpoint and his boss says he has made it a much happier place.

Motorists now stop to play with Santisuk, rather than getting angry at the hold-up.





Other forces are now considering introducing monkeys to better their image in the troubled province.

Separatists are blamed for most of the attacks in Thailand's predominantly Muslim deep south.

Buddhists and Muslims associated with the Thai state - such as police, soldiers, government officials and teachers - are often targeted.

source: http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Strange-News/Monkey-Police-Macaque-On-Patrol-With-Thai-Force-To-Help-Improve-Relations-With-Muslim-Separatists/Article/201004115591175?lpos=Strange_News_First_Strange_News__Article_Teaser_Region__0&lid=ARTICLE_15591175_Monkey_Police%3A_Macaque_On_Patrol_With_Thai_Force_To_Help_Improve_Relations_With_Muslim_Separatists