rat king!

i was attacked by a rat in my garage last night. big ups!



Rat kings are phenomena said to arise when a number of rats become intertwined at their tails, which become stuck together with blood, dirt, ice, or excrement. The animals reputedly grow together while joined at the tails. The numbers of rats that are joined together can vary, but naturally rat kings formed from a larger number of rats are rarer. The phenomenon is particularly associated with Germany, where the majority of instances have been reported.

Specimens of purported rat kings are kept in some museums. The museum Mauritianum in Altenburg (Thuringia) shows the largest well-known mummified "rat king", which was found in 1828 in a miller's fireplace at Buchheim. It consists of 32 rats. Alcohol-preserved rat kings are shown in museums in Hamburg, Hamelin, Göttingen, and Stuttgart. A rat king found in 1930 in New Zealand, displayed in the Otago Museum in Dunedin, was composed of immature Rattus rattus whose tails were entangled by horse hair. Relatively few rat kings have been discovered; depending on the source, the number of reported instances varies between 35 and 50 finds.

Historically, rat kings were seen as an extremely bad omen, particularly associated with plagues. This is a reasonable conclusion if they are formed naturally, since large populations of rats housed in insufficient space generally bring with them disease and pestilence. With an increase in the size of the rat population comes an increase of the chance of outbreak of disease — for example, the Black Death, which is spread by the rats’ fleas.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_king_(folklore)

whoops!

Dynamite fishermen accidentally kill diver.



The fishermen told police they saw bubbles and movement under the surface and thought it was a large fish.

One of the fishermen tossed dynamite into the water and after it exploded the group jumped into the water but instead of finding a fish, they found the body of the dead diver.

source: http://www.cdnn.info/news/safety/s090324.html

Norman!

Woman's Mummified Body Found Fused To Bed



Police arrested a Sebastian, Fla., woman after discovering the mummified remains of her 96-year-old mother inside her home.

Code enforcement officers removed eight cats from the home during the weekend and notified police about possible human remains inside.

"There's excessive debris in the residence and it's very difficult to make your way around inside this house," Officer Steve Marcinik said. "While moving around in there, they observed something that was somewhat suspicious and upon that they notified law enforcement."

Neighbors had also been complaining of a foul smell coming from the home.

Michael Pearce said he's complained to the city about feral cats running loose on the property and a foul smell "for at least a decade, if not 12 years" since he has lived there.

Police said Timmie Jordan, 96, had been dead for years. Her mummified body was found in her bed.

Investigators said she still had on her nightgown and her skin had fused to the mattress.

Neighbors said they hadn't seen or heard from Jordan's mother in years.

source: http://www.clickorlando.com/news/19003927/detail.html

Have you ever considered the consequences of failure?

An Indonesian fisherman has been killed by Komodo dragons after he was attacked while trespassing on a remote island in search of fruit, officials said Tuesday.



Muhamad Anwar, 32, bled to death on his way to hospital after being mauled by the reptiles at Loh Sriaya, in eastern Indonesia's Komodo National Park, the park's general manager Fransiskus Harum told CNN.

"The fisherman was inside the park when he went looking for sugar-apples. The area was forbidden for people to enter as there are a lot of wild dragons," Harum said.

Other fisherman took Anwar to a clinic on nearby Flores Island, east of Bali, but he was declared dead on arrival, he added.



Komodo dragons, the world's heaviest lizards, can grow up to 3 meters (10 feet) in length and have a toxic bite that they use to kill prey such as buffalo, returning to feast when the animal succumbs to the poison.

Despite their ungainly appearance, the carnivorous reptiles can run as fast as a dog in short bursts, jump up on their hind legs, and kill animals with a blow of their powerful tails.

Attacks on humans are rare, but Monday's incident is the latest in a series in which the monster lizards -- which have forked tongues and fearsome claws --have killed or injured people.

Last month a park ranger survived after a Komodo dragon climbed the ladder into his hut and savaged his hand and foot.

source: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/03/24/komodo.dragon/index.html

humans fight back (unsuccessfully)!

the human v. simian battle escalates!

Malaysian Mistakes Woman For A Monkey, Shoots Her.



Police said a man in Malaysia shot his neighbor as she picked sapodilla fruit in his tree thinking she was a monkey. Police chief in eastern Pahang state Yahaya Othman said the woman was gathering fruit Thursday when her neighbor shot her. Yahaya said the man came home and saw rustling in the tree and fired into it. "Then there was screaming ... and only then did he know it was his neighbor."

He said the woman was hospitalized with a wound to the abdomen but her condition was stable Friday.

source: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/13/ap/strange/main4864985.shtml?source=RSS&attr=_4864985

human kebab!

A six-year-old boy has survived falling off the roof of a house and landing on an upturned metal pole.



Mihir Kumar was celebrating the Holi festival in Ranchi, India, when the accident occured.

He slipped off the roof of his family home and landed on a the five foot-long iron rod that was left standing on a building site.

The pole punched through his rib cage and came out the other side.

His father said Mihir "endured terrible pain".

He was rushed to hospital where he underwent three-hour surgery at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences to remove the rod.

He is now recovering in hospital.

source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4982787/Indian-boy-survives-being-impaled-on-metal-pole.html

pi day!

happy pi day, nerd.

the revolution has begun...

A monkey who was forced to climb palm trees by his owner took revenge by killing him with a coconut.



The animal threw the missile from the top of a tree after becoming frustrated with his tiring labour, according to reports.

Leilit Janchoom, 48, had employed the monkey to pick coconuts which he could then sell for around 4p each.

The animal – named Brother Kwan – found the work tedious and strenuous but Mr Janchoom refused to let him rest, dishing out beatings if he refused to climb trees.

It is believed that the monkey eventually snapped, and targeted his owner from a high branch with one of the hard-skinned fruits.

Mr Janchoom, from the province of Nakorn Sri Thammarat in Thailand, died on the spot after being struck by the coconut, according to reports in a local newspaper.

source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/4970905/Monkey-kills-cruel-owner-with-coconut-thrown-from-tree.html

going ape shit!

Zoo Chimp Planned Weapons Stockpile



A canny chimpanzee who calmly collected a stash of rocks and then hurled them at zoo visitors in fits of rage has confirmed that apes can plan ahead just like humans, a Swedish study said Monday.

Santino the chimpanzee's anti-social behavior stunned both visitors and keepers at the Furuvik Zoo, but fascinated researchers because his behavior was so carefully prepared.

According to a report in the journal Current Biology, the 31-year-old alpha male started building his weapons cache in the morning before the zoo opened, collecting rocks and knocking out disks from concrete boulders inside his enclosure. He waited until around midday before he unleashed a "hailstorm" of rocks against visitors, the study said.

Seemingly at ease with his position as leader of the group, Santino didn't attack the other chimpanzees, Osvath told The Associated Press. The attacks were only directed at humans viewing the apes across the moat surrounding the island compound where they were held.

The fact that the ape stayed calm while preparing his weapons but used them when he was extremely agitated proves that the planning behavior was not based on an immediate emotional drive, Osvath said.

thanks john!
source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101626066&sc=emaf

vampire!

A SKELETON exhumed from a grave in Venice is being claimed as the first known example of the "vampires" widely referred to in contemporary documents.



Matteo Borrini of the University of Florence in Italy found the skeleton of a woman with a small brick in her mouth while excavating mass graves of plague victims from the Middle Ages on Lazzaretto Nuovo Island in Venice.



At the time the woman died, many people believed that the plague was spread by "vampires" which, rather than drinking people's blood, spread disease by chewing on their shrouds after dying. Grave-diggers put bricks in the mouths of suspected vampires to stop them doing this, Borrini says.

The belief in vampires probably arose because blood is sometimes expelled from the mouths of the dead, causing the shroud to sink inwards and tear. Borrini, who presented his findings at a meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in Denver, Colorado, last week, claims this might be the first such vampire to have been forensically examined. The skeleton was removed from a mass grave of victims of the Venetian plague of 1576.

source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126985.200-vampire-discovered-in-mass-grave.html

03/03/09

today is square root day. how the fuck do you celebrate that? watch this video instead, it's awesome.