Miss Piggy's Grocery Store Checkout Headlines

[Fievel]

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no

[Pirian]

G1 spoke with a local biologist who identified the spider as Anelosimus eximius — a "social spider" species known for its massive colonies and "sheet webs." He characterized the phenomenon as "normal," which it most certainly is not.

Lol, lets ask the expert about this behavior and then in the same sentence disregard him!

[Salodin]

Breezy over where you're at, Pirian?

[Kyreth]

Friend of mine read that story about the spiders and declared his quest to go down for some sweet Brazilian booty officially canceled.

At least Aussie spiders don't join skydiving clubs.

[Kerberoz]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballooning_%28spider%29

[Xno Kappa]

[Silenka]

At least it's not centipedes.

[Coren]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballooning_%28spider%29

It was cute until I read the part about thumb-sized spiders making parachutes 1m wide that can fly 1600 km in the jet stream....

[Brill Weave]

It was cute until I read the part about thumb-sized spiders making parachutes 1m wide that can fly 1600 km in the jet stream....

Nothing about this is cute.

[myreality]

http://www.popsci.com/science/articl...oid-near-earth

CNN Anchor Wonders To Bill Nye: Is A Near-Earth Asteroid The Effect Of Global Warming?

A huge storm lashed the Northeast this weekend, which meant we got to see news anchors talk about global warming for half a news cycle. (Yay.) But that also led to an awkward moment when CNN anchor Deb Feyerick tried to segue into talking about a near-Earth asteroid that's expected to fly relatively close to Earth later this week by asking: “What’s coming our way? Is this the effect of, perhaps, global warming? Or is this just some meteoric occasion?”
Nye was good enough to respond with what sounded like a non-sequitur, explaining: “Except it’s all science. The word meteorology and the word meteor come from the same root ..."
Instead of saying, "No, dummy."
Maybe we should just give Feyerick the benefit of the doubt here. She clearly understands that global warming can have serious side effects on the planet, and although, yeah, this wasn't a particularly smooth transition, at least the topic's being discussed?

[Eurell]

http://www.popsci.com/science/articl...oid-near-earth

Holy shit the comment section on youtube. Somehow turned into "Liberals are fucking idiots, Stop blaming bush for everything, bill nye is a twat"

Wtf is wrong with people lol

[Cyn]

Not sure if it's been posted anywhere else, but this is pretty awesome.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/...29/imogen-heap

"It's the sustain! It's never done that before!" Imogen Heap breaks out of a captivating performance of a song written just three weeks ago for a piece of tech she's had to wait two-and-a-half years to get her hands on.
Covering Heap's hands, arms and back are a series of wires. Two LEDs blink on the back of her hands. She adjusts a setting on her computer and composes herself in the centre of the stage, eager to continue the performance. Despite the minor hitch, the Wired 2012 audience are still captivated by the award-winning musician -- if anything, the error only makes her passion for the new technology all the more obvious.

Heap told Wired 2012 that before she got her hands on her "magical gloves", she would make music with an array of instruments and virtual instruments, along with Albeton music software: "Basically, inside this software I can play virtual instruments and loop things, add layers and textures that I spend hours working on in my basement. But I wanted to bring those sounds on stage with me. I strapped keyboards onto me, had microphones attached to my wrists so that I can mic up wine glasses or guitars or whatever I wanted to record. The problem was, how could I do this on the move.

"A lot of what I do, like adding a huge reverb to an instrument, is done by pressing a button on a keyboard -- which isn't very exciting. You can't even see what i'm doing," Heap said, picking up a synth and pressing said button. "I could be checking my email for all you know. Fifty percent of the show gets hidden. I wondered how to make it fluid on the stage without these buttons -- I wanted to make a gesture like this [she throws her arm out in a wide arc] to add the reverb so you could see and hear the sound, which is much more interesting than turning a pot around."
Heap encountered a technology that would inspire her own musical mittens when she visited the MIT Media Lab two-and-a-half years ago. There she met Elly Jessop, whose gesture gloves left an impression on Heap: "What she'd done was simple, or rather the idea was simple," says Heap. "[Elly] sang a note and moved her hand -- a gesture that let her control the grain of the note. She could change vibrato or select a harmony with movement. When I saw this combination of music and movement intuitively combined, I wanted to get involved."

The device that Heap is wearing on the Wired 2012 stage has taken her and a team from the University of West England several years to develop. As well as the tools that she's wearing, there's an Xbox Kinect at the back of the stage that translates Heap's position into different effects and layers. "It's like the floor is like my playground, so I can walk into different sections to control the sound -- I can step into a choir of 'mes'." Heap steps into a section of the stage and sings a note, which is instantly harmonised by an invisible choir.

"So it's not just a controller, it's really an instrument," she explains. "The way we program the gestures is the same as playing an instrument in 3D space. As I walk around the stage you can see that I'm walking into a different set of effects. My proximity to the audience is also part of the performance -- so when I'm further away from the audience the sound is a lot bigger, but when I get closer to the audience it becomes more intimate."

Having demoed the incredible technology, Heap then began her performance -- an incredible mix of song and movement. Despite the occasional glitch, it was an incredible spectacle. Should you have the chance of seeing Heap with her new technology, you're in for a treat.

[Skjie]

That was amazing. I am glad humanity went for technology like this instead of flying cars.

[Mazmaz]

lol

[Byrthnoth]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/s...ists-find.html

A study of the thumb-sized animal by Japanese biologists has revealed how it sheds its penis after sex, before growing a new one.



“No other animal is known to repeatedly copulate using such ‘disposable penes’,” they wrote in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.



Known as Chromodoris reticulata, the red-and-white slug - technically a shell-less mollusc - inhabits warms waters in Southeast Asia.



It needs 24 hours between couplings to unroll an internally coiled and compressed juvenile penis to replace the used part, the scientists found, and can repeat this feat at least three times.




The slug is an hermaphrodite, meaning it has both male and female sexual organs.



The animals perform dual sexual roles during copulation. They give sperm to a mating partner while simultaneously receiving sperm, which they store for later insemination.


Scientists observed sex between sea slugs that they had captured during scuba dives and held in a tank.



After each coupling, which lasted between dozens of seconds and a few minutes, every slug discarded its penis - a thread-like organ that it projects from its side into a partner’s vagina.


The team also examined the microscopic structure and function of the male organs - observing an internal spiral structure they believe grows into a replacement penis.


“We propose that the tissue at the spiral part of the penis is compressed and undifferentiated, gradually differentiating into the ‘next penis’,” the team wrote.


“It may need approximately a day for the spiral structure to be ready for copulation.”


In another revelation about the sea slug’s sex life, the scientists found its penis was covered with spines - and suggested these may be used to remove the sperm of previous partners being held in store by their mate.


The spines are backward-pointing, making it difficult to withdraw the penis after copulation. This may explain the organ’s disposable nature.


“Chromodoris reticulata may compensate for the short-term cost of decreased reproductive opportunities caused by the loss of a penis with the reproductive advantage gained by sperm displacement," wrote the study authors.


Various animals are known to discard parts of their body, such as the gecko which sheds its tail.


Few, though, are willing to part with their penis, the team noted with clinical understatement.

This is the most Japanese scientific study I have ever seen.

[Uzor]

I don't know what you're talking about, this is the most amazing scientific conclusion I've ever read.

Various animals are known to discard parts of their body, such as the gecko which sheds its tail.


Few, though, are willing to part with their penis, the team noted with clinical understatement.

[Xno Kappa]

It would be a Japanese scientific study.

[Moss]

"disposable penes" is a win of a phrase

[Uzor]

I'm sure this research will greatly help the Asian women.

[Kerberoz]