punk rock noms

click for full view

2 year old catches 20# muskie on barbie pole- Too cute!

Aid Needed for Wildlife in BP Oil Spill

21 years after Exxon and the effects are still being felt. Currently in the Gulf Coast it is nesting season for several endangered species including sea turtles and pelicans. The NWF are on the forefront and list several ways you can help this delicate ecosystem survive this tragedy.

How You Can Help Wildlife Impacted by the BP Oil Spill

How to Help Frogs

She is too darn cute! You go girl!

Paula Deen Gives Rescue Chickens a Home

Paula's Chicken Coop from Paula Deen on Vimeo.

She's one of my favorite cooks and this just bumped her up a few more notches on the awesome scale! And take a look at that amazing coop! Those are some spoiled chickens, yall!

All sorts of critters are in need of loving homes. You can find them all on Petfinder.com!!

Pedigree Dogs ad shot 1000 FPS using the Phantom camera

The anticipation kills me!!

Attention! Attention!

Tuesday, February 23rd is
International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day!

prepare accordingly

i shall call him squishy, and he will be my squishy

Megaleledone setebos

we'd like to interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for an important announcement:

Eyeless Urchins “See” the Sea With Their Spines

Oh, you. You think you’re pretty fancy, don’t you, with your matching pair of eyeballs, your precious optic nerve, your oh-so-sophisticated visual cortex. You think you’re so evolved.
The sea urchins are not impressed.

Though the round, spiny marine creatures have no actual visual organs, they do have light-sensitive proteins that help them “see” well enough to move around, find shelter and avoid predators (well, at least the slow ones). Biologists now think that a sea urchin’s entire body functions as one big compound eye, where photosensitive tissue inside the exoskeleton picks up light that’s filtered by the radiating spines. And the denser an urchin’s spines, the sharper its perception of its surroundings, a new study suggests. So who’s fancy now?

Sönke Johnsen and his team at Duke University in Durham, N.C., tested the visual responses of Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, a large, purple Pacific urchin with an especially spiny exoskeleton. They placed individual urchins in the center of a tank with a dark target on one side, and they lit the tank from above.

In under a minute, the urchins began to move relative to the target. Some inched toward the dark spot and others scooted away from it, but their trajectories were definitely deliberate—each urchin was tested four times with the spot in different parts of the tank, and each repeated its behavior every time.

“Even though the group as a whole did not choose one direction relative to the target, they obviously responded to it,” the researchers wrote in The Journal of Experimental Biology. “This is analogous to a group of people each using their own compass to go a different direction.”
According to Johnsen’s team, it’s possible that urchins who were attracted to the spot interpreted it as a cave to hide in, while the ones who fled treated it as a predator like an eel or a sea star.

S. purpuratus could detect smaller targets than a previously tested species with sparser spines, suggesting to the researchers that the additional spines give it greater visual resolution. They say they’d need to test additional species to be sure.

Okay, so they still can’t recognize faces or appreciate the subtleties of a Van Gogh, but Johnsen and his colleagues say the urchins can see about as well as a horseshoe crab or chambered nautilus — and those guys have actual eyes. Not bad, right?

At least one urchin species, by the way, can live up to 200 years, so don’t even think that you’ll win in a stare down.


By Mara Grunbaum. This article is provided by Scienceline, a project of New York University’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program.

Rainn Wilson adopts bait dog

Meet the newest member of our family
Billy! He's a rescue dog from 'Voice for the animals' (vftafoundation.org) that was used as a bait dog in dog fighting. He's riddled with scars and his back is [messed] up but he's the sweetest creature ever.
Walter put his scarf on him.

From Rainn’s posterous

National Wildlife Photo Contest

Give Us Your Best Shot(s)!

More than $30,000 in cash prizes!
Our 40th annual photo competition is our biggest ever!

We are now accepting entries to the 2010 National Wildlife Photo Contest. Cash prizes of more than $30,000 plus other gifts will be awarded to the winners in seven categories in three separate divisions. Go to the entry page for more details and the complete rules.

• Two $5,000 Grand Prizes
• Pro, Amateur and Youth divisions
• Submit up to 25 images in 7 categories: Birds, Mammals, Other Wildlife, Landscapes/Plants, Connecting People and Nature, Backyard Habitat and Global Warming
• Winning images will be published on our website and a selection will appear in our December 2010 issue

Check out the 2009 photo contest winners here

Fun With GFP's

Green flourescent proteins, which are naturally occuring in some species, can be attached to other proteins enabling scientists to mark proteins of their choice with a green glow. GFP's have been used to decrypt previously invisible processes, like the spread of cancer or the development of nerve cells.

Crystal Jelly- Green fluorescent protein, naturally occurring

Rhesus Macaque Monkey- Green fluorescent protein, introduced into DNA of egg via virus (2008)

Pig- Green fluorescent protein, added to embryos (2006)

Cat- Red fluorescent protein, introduced via a virus into cloned DNA, which was implanted in cat eggs, then implanted in mother (2007)

Mice- Green fluorescent protein, received via DNA from father, which had been implanted with glowing sperm-creating cells from a flourescent mouse (2004)

Mice- Cyan, red, and yellow fluorescent proteins, injected into DNA in embryos (2007)

Tobacco- Firefly luciferase gene, introduced via a virus into tobacco DNA (1986)

Emperor Scorpion- Beta-carboline, naturally occurring

Nematode Worm- Green fluorescent protein, introduced into its DNA (2005)

Dog- Red fluorescent protein, introduced via a virus into cloned DNA (2009)

Zebrafish- Green, yellow, and red fluorescent protein, introduced into its DNA (2003)

Bacteria- Multiple colors of fluorescent protein, introduced into its DNA (2008)

I feel pretty! Oh so pretty!

One Cubic Foot

Within One Cubic Foot
Guess how many organisms you'll find in a cube of soil or sea.
By Edward O. Wilson
Photograph by David Liittschwager

When you thrust a shovel into the soil or tear off a piece of coral, you are, godlike, cutting through an entire world. You have crossed a hidden frontier known to very few. Immediately close at hand, around and beneath our feet, lies the least explored part of the planet's surface. It is also the most vital place on Earth for human existence.... Click here to read more

One Cubic Foot Photo Gallery

Return of Puppy Cam!

Click here for puppy cam!

Get ready to be non-productive for the next 8 weeks!

Lady DogDog

Lady GaGa seems to be the talk of the town, and here she is spotted on her current Monster Ball tour with her new Shiba Inu puppy. Super cute! Shibas are extremely intelligent little buggers so this one is bound to keep her on her toes!

The Whale that Ate Jaws

Off the coast of San Francisco, an unexpected killing challenged the great white shark's supremacy as the ultimate predator when one became prey to a killer whale. Whale-watchers witnessed a stunning act of nature as a killer whale rose to the water's surface with a great white in its mouth and held it there for 15 minutes. Even more amazing, biologist Peter Pyle was nearby and able to get underwater footage of two whales feeding on the shark.


My guess would be that it was an Offshore Orca since they aren't as discriminating in their diet as Residents or Transients.

Did Shamu Go On a Diet???

Nooooooo of course not! But you'll notice those aren't Orcas either. For some reason or another, the Bottlenose Dolphins and Pilot Whales seem to be in rotation with the Orcas in the main tank at Sea World San Diego. Rennovation perhaps? Or maybe part of a new show? Who knows, but enjoy it while you can and watch these guys at Shamu.com