Anti-Crack-Ads eaten by Maggots
Vimeo Direktcrack, via We Like That
„Schöne“ Anti-Crack-Kampagne in Brasilien, für die sie Portraits auf Teig gedruckt haben und von Maden auffressen ließen: „Portraits printed on dough. Flour beetle larvae. All done for a campaign to avoid ‘the first try’ of crack cocaine in Sao Paulo – Brazil. A Partnership DrugFree brazilian campaign.“
Honeybees trained as Landmine-Detectors
In Kroatien richten sie Bienen auf Landminen ab und füttern sie mit einem Cocktail aus Zuckerlösung und TNT:
[Nikola Kezic, an expert on the behavior of honeybees at Zagreb University,] outlined the idea for the experiment: Bees have a perfect sense of smell that can quickly detect the scent of the explosives. They are being trained to identify their food with the scent of TNT. […]
Several feeding points were set up on the ground around the tent, but only a few have TNT particles in them. The method of training the bees by authenticating the scent of explosives with the food they eat appears to work: bees gather mainly at the pots containing a sugar solution mixed with TNT, and not the ones that have a different smell.
Phys.org: Honeybees trained in Croatia to find land mines
Wired: Honeybees trained to sniff out landmines in Croatia
Man dies after Sex with Hornet Nest [Update: Fake.]
Für die Meldung gibt’s mehrere Quellen, scheint also zu stimmen. Die Bewerbungen für den Darwin Award 2013 sind hiermit geschlossen. Der Spruch „Don’t fuck with Hornets!“ war noch nie so passend wie hier.
A man in Sweden has died after trying to have sex with a hornet’s nest on his farm outside Ystad. The 35-year-old, known only as Hasse, had 146 sting marks on his body, including 54 to his genitals, News Sweden said.
His body was found by a neighbour, who said Hasse was so swollen he initially mistook him for a whale carcass.
Swedish Man Dies After Having Sex With Hornet’s Nest (via @Raketenmensch)
[update] Die Story ist ein Fake: „The original source for the story has now been traced to a satirical website in Sweden, which reported the stinging tale back in September, 2012.“
Michael Dickinson @ TED: How a fly flies
Superinteressanter Vortrag von Neurowissenschaftler Michael Dickinson über den Flugmechanismus von Fliegen. Der Mann ist… sehr entusiastisch in seinem Vortrag und spätestens beim Vergleich von Donald Trump mit einem Fliegenhirn war ich überzeugt. Und dann wird das Ding hintenraus immer interessanter und Dickinson erzählt über Engineering-Ansätze in Neuroscience und sowas. Toll!
An insect’s ability to fly is perhaps one of the greatest feats of evolution. Michael Dickinson looks at how a fruit fly takes flight with such delicate wings, thanks to a clever flapping motion and flight muscles that are both powerful and nimble. But the secret ingredient: the incredible fly brain.
3D-Printed Insect-Food
Youtube Direktyummy, via AnimalsNY
Susana Soares druckt für ihre Installation Insects Au Gratin Kekse aus zermahlenen Insekten. Yummy! Die Dame zeigt ihren Keksdrucker noch bis zum 5. Mai in der Wellcome Collection in London.
Edible insects are dried and grinded into powder. The insect flour is mixed with icing butter, cream cheese or water, gelling agent and flavouring to form the right consistency to go through the nozzle. The food aesthetics are designed previously, 3D printed and ready to eat or cooked.
Japanese Wasp-Wodka Shouchuu
Japaner trinken ihren Wodka auch gerne mal mit drei Jahre lang eingelegten und gegärten Riesenwespen. Soll angeblich die Konsistenz von Guiness haben und nach einem Hauch verfaulendem Fleisch schmecken riechen. Yummy!
First, a large number of living wasps is put in a mason jar, which is then filled with shouchuu. Afterward, the jar is sealed up tight and left alone for about three full years. Having no means to escape their alcohol hell, the wasps must suffer terribly within the jar, for they release a great deal of toxins as they die and then ferment. Again, protective clothing is absolutely necessary when preparing the jars.
The first thing to take note of is the liquor’s color; it’s a dark, muddy brown. According to our gracious host, this is a sign that the wasps’ bodies have properly fermented and all of the necessary nutrients have seeped into the liquid. In spite of all assurances that this is exactly how the drink should look, the sight of it is perfectly unappetizing. Then comes the smell. It’s much like that of regular shouchuu, but with just a hint of rotting flesh.
Alcohol Made with Fermented Wasps Gives New Meaning to the Phrase “Get Your Buzz On”
Bee Dance
Youtube Direktbees, via Arbroath
And then this happened: „In this video I, Sara Mapelli, am dancing with 12,000 honey bees.“ Yep.
Kangaroos, Eyeballs and Penis-Champagner
Der Explorers Club hat letztes Wochenende sein 109. Dinner im Waldorf Astoria in New York veranstaltet. Dort mampften der erste Amerikaner im All, John Glenn, und der erste Amerikaner auf dem Mount Everest, Jim Whittaker, unter anderem eingelegte Ziegenaugen, Penis-Champagner, einen kompletten Strauß, frittierte Taranteln oder Kakerlaken mit Spargel. Dekandenz-Extrem-Essen, yummy!
This past weekend The Explorers Club held their annual ball, which kicks off every year with a signature exotics cuisine hour. The man behind the unusual dishes served during this hour is Gene Rurka, the chairman of the exotics committee—and this year he served up a menu that included everything from Rattlesnake Sliders to Chipotle BBQ Beaver to Camel Meat Loaf, Sweet chili Pickled Eyeballs, Hoisin Glazed kangaroo and Insect Canapes. We talked to Rurka this morning, who admitted, “It’s a little bit more than your steak and potatoes. It’s not for everybody.”
Kangaroos And Eyeballs: Explorers Club Digs Their Teeth Into Exotic Cuisine (via Laughing Squid)
Mehr:
NYTimes: With Your Goat’s Eye Martini, a Taste of Muskrat
HuffPo: Explorers Club Tests Adventurous Palates With Fried Cockroaches, Goat Penis And More
Wall Street Journal: Goat Eyeballs, Scorpions on Rye
Kill Bill Parasite Wasp named Beatrix Kiddo
In Thailand hat man eine neue Art einer parasitären Wespenfamilie gefunden und hat sie nach Beatrix Kiddo aus Quentin Tarantinos „Kill Bill“ benannt. Originalzitat aus dem Film: „You’re not a worker bee. You’re a renegade killer bee.“ Passt nicht so ganz, aber fast.
Parasitoid wasps of the family Braconidae are known for their deadly reproductive habits. Most of the representatives of this group have their eggs developing in other insects and their larvae, eventually killing the respective host, or in some cases immobilizing it or causing its sterility. Three new species of the parasitoid wasp genus Cystomastacoides, recently described in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research, reflect this fatal behavior.
Two of the new species were discovered in Papua New Guinea, while the third one comes from Thailand. The Thai species, Cystomastacoides kiddo, was named after the character Beatrix Kiddo in Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Kill Bill’ films. The deadly biology of the wasp inspired this reference to the protagonist played by Uma Thurman, where she embodies a deadly assassin and a master of the Tiger/Crane style of kung fu. She is a master of the “Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique”, a method of killing a person by quickly striking five pressure points around the heart with the fingertips. After the victim takes five steps, the heart explodes and the person falls dead.
Kill Bill character inspires the name of a new parasitoid wasp species (via Geekosystem)
Vorher auf Nerdcore:
Horse Fly named after Beyoncés golden Butt
Bone-Scorpion
Von Flickr-User Forgotten Boneyard: „Scorpion made from mink, coyote, and rat bones“. (via Obvious Winner)
Vorher auf Nerdcore:
Facehugger made from Bones
A Bazinga! Bee for Dr. Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper
Dr. Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper hat seine eigene Bienen-Spezies bekommen, die Bazinga!-Biene:
“Big Bang Theory” physicist Dr. Sheldon Cooper has a buzzy new claim to fame. The geeky TV character, who counts Britain’s Stephen Hawking among his online friend, has had a species of bee named after his favorite catch phrase – Bazinga!
Flesh-eating Beetles munching on a dead Parrot, timelaps’d
Youtube Direktparrot, via 3 Quarks Daily
Schickes Timelapse-Video vom Museum für Naturkunde in London mit fleischfressenden Käfern, die einen toten Papagei (und ‘ne Eule und einen Fasan) verspeisen. Die Viecher konnten natürlich nicht wissen, dass der Papagei nicht tot ist. Jedenfalls: Das Museum hat hier noch ein weiteres Papageien-Video und eine Webcam, mit der man den fleischfressenden Käfern beim Futtern zuschauen kann, leider nur als Windows Media Crap, ich kann daher nicht sagen, ob die grade irgendwas auseinandernehmen. Fuck yeah Science und guten Appetit!
Scientists sometimes use strong chemicals to strip the flesh off skeletons they want to study. But these can eat into the bones and change their structure. So instead, we use a special beetle species, Dermestes haemarrhoidalis, that strips off the flesh but leaves the bones and collagen untouched.
The beetles don’t eat feathers, so usually specimens are skinned first, to speed up the process. Here, the feathers were left on, to show how the skull of the scarlet macaw, Ara macao, sits underneath its skin. The impressive size of the lower jaw reflects the massive strength of the parrot’s beak.
A Tweeting Colony of Flies
Nette Installation von David Bowen, der eine Fliegenkolonie über eine Tastatur krabbeln lässt und daraus Tweets generiert:
This device sends twitter messages based on the activities of a collection of houseflies. The flies live inside an acrylic sphere along with a computer keyboard. As the flies move and interact inside their home, they fly over the keys on the keyboard. These movements are collected in real-time via video. When a particular key is triggered by the flies, the key’s corresponding character is entered into a twitter text box. When 140 characters are reached or the flies trigger the “enter” key, the message containing the accumulated characters is tweeted.
A Colony Of Houseflies Tweet From A Keyboard Inside A Bubble
Beard of Bees zum Aufblasen
Unheimlich praktisch, kann man immer mal gebrauchen: Ein aufblasbarer Bienenbart für Siebenfuffzich von Archie McPhee.
When a beekeeper wants to impress the ladies, he puts a queen bee in a small cage under his chin and waits for the other bees to swarm and form a “beard” on his face and body. That sounds like a lot of bother when you could get the same effect with just a couple of puffs of air. This inflatable, vinyl Beard of Bees is 10″ long with elastic hoops that go around your ears. Best of all, there is no chance of getting stung! If you want to say “bee mine” to your honey, just wear this Inflatable Beard of Bees and you’ll be all the buzz. The perfect gift for the apiarist.
Ingenuous instant inflatable insect invention (via Laughing Squid)
Vorher auf Nerdcore:
Bee Beard Competition
2010 Bee Beard Competition
Prof. Norman Gary spielt Klarinette, während er mit hunderten Bienen bedeckt ist
