July 2010

  • Please Welcome Our Adorable New Zedonk Overlords

    By erika on 7/29/10 10:45am
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    Have you seen these pictures of the new zedonk baby, born to a donkey mother and a zebra father on a wildlife preserve in Georgia?  I think this is the result of what other donkeys call "stripe fever."  The little female was born on July 22nd, and appears to be wearing a pretty sweet set of striped legwarmers.  

    (I like to imagine the little zedonk frolicking in a field with another recent hybrid, the sheep-goat cross called a "geep."  I bet they would become best friends!  I mean, if you think about it, they have so much in common!)

    As unusual as they may sound, these crosses do occasionally occur.  Stripey love knows no bounds, and several donkey-zebra hybrids have been born.  Some of these hybrids did not live into adulthood, probably partly because of the genetic mis-match between donkeys (which have 62 chromosomes) and zebras (which have 32 to 46 chromosomes).


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  • Giant Dino Graveyard Discovered

    By sarajean on 7/29/10 9:25am
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    Centrosaurus SkullCentrosaurus SkullDo you remember the elephant graveyard scene in The Lion King? It was pretty creepy. Even without the crazy, cub-hungry hyenas, the atmosphere itself was enough to give a kid nightmares. (Disney has been known to do quite a few scenes like that, haven’t they?) Knowing that elephants do mourn their dead, I would have thought that an elephant graveyard would be more of a somber, respectful place—less ghoulish, more loving; you know, like how Rocky mourned Adrian.

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  • Personal Lubricants Can Help

    By becksta on 7/26/10 11:14am
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    Personal Lubricants Can HelpPersonal Lubricants Can HelpI was charmed by the film “Superbad” starring Jonah Hill and Michael Cera. Seriously, who doesn’t love movies about young virgins trying to get laid?  

    At one point in “Superbad”, the characters of Seth and Evan are in the parking lot at the liquor store waiting for the much-loved McLovin’ to buy booze with his questionable fake id. As the two are talking, one busts out a bottle of lube and the other chucks it across the parking lot. His reasoning? Lube is only necessary for old ladies- not hot high school girls.

    I beg to differ.


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  • Stunning Critters: Sea Slugs

    By mous on 7/20/10 12:53pm
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    Sea slugs are pretty strange critters. They can be found just below the low tide line in tropical waters, clinging to underwater vegetation or creeping along the bottom of the ocean. Unlike their land crawling relatives, sea slugs are beautiful and come in an array of colors and textures. they are typically tiny, most under an inch long, but some have been spotted as long as 12 inches long.



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  • Canada Geese Have Worn Out Their Welcome

    By erika on 7/15/10 2:54pm
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    After the recent news that New York City purged a park of over 400 Canada geese on the sly, a surprising lack of outrage has cropped up across the internet.  Even at Metafilter, where most users tend to be against killing animals for no reason, sentiment against the geese was running high.

    Canada geese are, it must be said, not easy to love.  They have created a problem in our cities which is entirely our doing.  This is not a situation like the gray whale migrating through shipping lanes on its route between Baja and Alaska every year.  This is a situation more like that of rats, who found life in our cities to be amenable, and have decided to stay.


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  • The Drop Croc

    By erika on 7/14/10 3:53pm
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    Not another Fearsome Critter, the drop croc is a real thing!  (Or was, having become extinct in the Pleistocene.)  

    The drop croc is, just as you might expect from the name, an arboreal species of crocodile which "may have attacked prey by climbing trees and dropping on them."

    Today there are only three families of crocodilians: crocodiles, alligators, and gharial.  But the Eocene was an era with expansive growth in the crocodilian line, which expanded to fill the ecological niches left behind by the sudden absence of the dinosaurs.  


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  • Lion Cubs Born in PA Animal Park

    By sarajean on 7/13/10 8:47am
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    Though they’ve been extinct in the wild since 1921, three baby Barbary lion cubs were born at the Living Treasures Wild Animal Park of Lawrence County, Pennsylvania on July 7. Pictures of the rare cubs—adorably spotted at birth—can be viewed here.

    The lion’s famous thick, dark manes made the animals largely sought after, and they were hunted to death by humans. Today, only a handful of the lions exist in a few zoos around the world.

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  • The Octopus Likes Spain

    By dfunzy on 7/9/10 12:15pm
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    So now the world is turning to the Octopus? Well, not as a snack, but as a predictor of important events, important to the world's bookies, and to the people of Spain and Holland, who may have a keen interest in what the Octopus has to say / or  -- may be not.

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  • Crystal Bowersox and Her Amazingly White Teeth

    By becksta on 7/8/10 6:21pm
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    Crystal Bowersox and Her Amazingly White TeethCrystal Bowersox and Her Amazingly White TeethFormer American Idol contestant Crystal Bowersox is one lucky girl- she just got her teeth done for free. A Cosmetic Dentist from New York admired her singing talents, but felt sorry for her when the media criticized her for her teeth and sent her a letter offering a multitude of services for free, including teeth whitening and gap-filling. The letter promised he wouldn’t make her teeth perfect like every other Hollywood celebrity because that’s not who she was. (I don’t know about you, but her teeth in this picture don’t seem all that flawed to me.)


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  • The boy forgot he was just a toy.

    By dfunzy on 7/5/10 6:58am
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    Hot dogs -- Eating hot dogs on the 4th of July -- what is more American than that? Competition is what America is about every day.

    The former hot dog speed-eating champion of the world, Takeru Kobayashi, was he hot dogging it on the 4th of July? Or was he barking like a lonesome dog who has lost his bone? He is Japanese, but was he being as American as one can get, standing on principles on the 4th of July?

    The gentleman was arrested at an event that he once dominated. He was the six-time champion. The event -- the speed hot dog eating competition on the 4th of July at Coney Island, New York City, USA. He did not compete this year, because of a contract dispute. At the end of the competition, right after the winner was announced, Mr Kobayashi tried to get on the stage to make a statement, and was dragged off to the slammer. See the video.

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