The animal kingdom is full of weird stuff, like animals that turn into zombies—and one thing many of them will do is go to great (and gross) lengths to avoid predators.
Armored crickets, which are native to Namibia, South Africa, and Botswana, have a particularly disgusting means of driving away predators: They spew vomit and spurt hemolymph (the mollusk and arthropod version of blood) from under their legs and through slits in their exoskeleton. Katydids do it too; in fact, in Germany the species has acquired the nickname “blutspritzer,” or “blood squirter.”
But that’s not all. Wounded crickets can attract other crickets foraging for protein and salt—and the healthy crickets are happy to become cannibals. According to BBC:
“When swarms [of crickets] in the African bush meet a road, lots get squashed and the others gather for a feast, so more get squashed until there can be a thick, acrid pancake of dead and moribund crickets on the roadside, bleeding and attracting more cannibals,” says [entomologist Bill] Bateman.
The Regal Horned Lizard, too, uses the blood-spewing tactic, shooting the substance from a pocket near its eyes…straight at its attacker’s eyes and mouth.
Check out this video of the lizard shooting blood. (Caution: It’s graphic, as videos of animals spurting blood are wont to be).
“We present the case of a 63-year-old man who had inserted a salami into his anal canal for sexual stimulation–the commonest reason for inserting foreign bodies–and who subsequently required a laparotomy for its removal. This common surgical problem requires a thorough medical history, an examination and the use of radiographs for management. Current techniques for removal of such objects are discussed.”
Boxers or briefs? We’ll go with the latter…at least when it comes to your hands. Introducing Handerpants, tighty-whities for your paws. They protect your hands from wear and tear, according to the product’s Web site, and help keep your extremities warm.
So are there any health benefits in using such a product? Well, for one, they could help prevent the painful condition known as carpal tunnel syndrome, which is caused by pressure on the main nerve that runs into your hand, according to the Mayo Clinic. Depending on the stiffness of Handerpants’ cloth, we speculate the gloves could prevent the painful syndrome by reinforcing a level hand position.
Robots may soon be able to travel through your veins and recycle your garbage—and as of this week, they can also model clothes. A robot model named Miim (not the one pictured at left) sported haute couture in designer Yumi Katsura‘s recent bridal fashion show, according to The U.K. Sun.
The humanoid bot, which was designed at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, is five-foot-two-inches tall, which seems pretty short for the fashion world. On the other hand, it’s probably pretty easy for a robot to maintain a runway model’s stick-thin physique…a diet of organic plant material isn’t exactly fattening.
Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.
“People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. “
Whether you’re looking to make some cash or give someone another lease on life, living organ donation may be an option for you. While you likely already know that you can donate blood and one of your kidneys, it turns out you can put quite a few other body parts on the market as well, as Newsweek reports. Here’s a sample of the other items listed in the article:
Eyes: Whole eyes cannot be transplanted. But individual components of the eye—namely the lens and the cornea—can.
Intestine: It’s possible, but the risks are so great and the need so rare that intestine donations almost always come from deceased donors.
Pancreas: Another organ of which you can donate a segment. Pancreas transplants are often done to improve quality of life (by reducing or eliminating the need for constant insulin injections in diabetics, for example).
The article also compares the price a kidney fetches in various places around the world. In the U.S., they’re worth an average of $30,000 (albeit on the black market—selling organs is strictly illegal here). But in India, you’d only get $1,500 for that same kidney. Which mirrors the rest of the relationship between U.S. and Indian health care—same care, drastically different price tag.
Can physique and gluteal size predict penile length in adult Nigerian men?
“In Nigeria, especially among the Igbo tribe, there is a well-held belief that a man’s penile size can be predicted from his physique and the size of his buttocks, with people of small physique and flat buttocks likely to have long penile lengths… Stretched penile length was measured in 115 men between the ages of 30-65 years and its correlation with the body-mass index and the circumference of the hip as measured around the most prominent points on their buttocks, was statistically determined… The supposed relationship between penile length and gluteal size may have a scientific basis, but contrary to belief, large buttocks is more predictive of longer penile length than small buttocks. Penile length has no relationship to physique.”
In an effort to encourage its citizens to purchase “greener” food products, Sweden has announced that it allow companies to tack labels onto vegetables, dairy, and fish products if the greenhouse gas emissions produced by the foods have been reduced by at least 25 percent. For example, if a milk producer uses manure instead of chemical-based fertilizers, he’ll receive a “climate-certified” tag to put on his milk.
Unfortunately, while the intentions may be good here, the reality is a bit more complex. Simply slapping a label on something based on a single factor does not mean it is green. New Scientists reports:
“The only thing we’re guaranteeing is that improvements have been made,” says Anna Richert, an adviser to the Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF), and head of the team developing the criteria for labeling products. “This could mean reductions in emissions of anything from 5 to 80 per cent.”
Danielle Nierenberg of Worldwatch Institute, a Washington DC based think tank, says that there is still a shortage of firm figures for emissions produced when growing, processing, shipping, and selling most foods. “Because we don’t have a lot of good scientific data, I think there’s a risk that companies will claim things they can’t back up, and greenwash products that might not be climate friendly,” she says.
Putting labels on green foods might up their sale, but with no scientific way of calculating if a product is climate friendly, these labels will just add noise to the already-crowded label system we have for foods. Remember when consumers ran for anything labeled “fat free”? (more…)
Effects on rat sexual behaviour of acute MDMA (ecstasy) alone or in combination with loud music.
“Surprisingly, one hour exposure to loud music, which per se resulted ineffective, antagonized the suppressive effect of MDMA by increasing the percent of animals displaying sexual activity. However, combined treatment of MDMA and music stimulation did not fully restore normal sexual behavior as the animals reaching ejaculation still showed a marked reduction of copulatory efficiency. These findings demonstrate that the systemic administration of a single low dose of MDMA, alone or in combination with loud music, which is commonly present in certain environments such as rave parties, notably impairs copulatory activity of male rats.”
Discoblog is DISCOVER's compendium of quirky, funny, and surprising science news from the edge of the known universe. It's written by Veronique Greenwood and Valerie Ross. Email tips and suggestions to vgreenwood [at] discovermagazine [dot] com.
The animal kingdom is full of weird stuff, like animals that turn into zombies—and one thing many of them will do is go to great (and gross) lengths to avoid predators.
Boxers or briefs? We’ll go with the latter…at least when it comes to your hands. Introducing 
Robots may soon be able to 
Whether you’re looking to make some cash or give someone another lease on life, living organ donation may be an option for you. While you likely already know that you can donate blood and one of your kidneys, it turns out you can put quite a few other body parts on the market as well, as 
In an effort to encourage its citizens to purchase “greener” food products, 
• First it was 
