Biomes Blog

Entry #2024

Tuesday Coonhound Blogging: Click to make it glow. I don't think I've posted one of Creole on the front porch. I took a series of these and every one has her eyes glowing white, so I need some suggestions. I took them at different angles, around 5:30 am and the flash on my Nikon did go off each time. Also, she did a great job not bolting down the street, which is a habit I've been working on breaking. There's something about the front porch that says "go".

Watch Grandeur Nature, a timelapse movie about the earth and stars. It’s beautiful.

The cab ride I’ll never forget is pretty touching.

Stuff You Should Know: How to make your own laundry detergent.

Now we’re cookin’: Scans of sandwiches. This one is a Reuben.

Entry #2023

Albino Monday: Baby sea turtle, via Liza J in comments and Derryl by email.

Missed this on Father’s Day, but here are some award-winning animal dads, via National Geographic.

Today’s long read is about the biology of B-movie monsters.

Three Biomes points to anyone who solves the Puzzle of the Airtight Alibi without looking at the answer. I figured it out right away, so it should be pretty easy. Honor system.

Timewaster of the Week: Make a celebrity odd. I thought it would be fitting to try this out by typing in David Lynch.

Entry #2022

The Boy asked me yesterday what the bioluminescence in a firefly is good for. I guessed it was the males trying to attract a mate. And I turned out to be right. Maybe that’s what I need; some green luciferase on my ass. As you may have guessed, I’ve had yet another romance blow up in my face, this one due to a sight-unseen Facebook infatuation.

Entry #2021

Pet Corner: Get your cat hammock here.

The ten biggest intellectual fights of all time.

Today’s slide show takes a look at some behind the scenes moments at the Obama White House.

Meet some extinct cannibalistic creatures.

What would you taste like to a cannibal?

Entry #2020

The basics on 20/20 and 6/6 vision.

Cool Site of the Week: Take a virtual aerial tour of New York.

Unique headstones. And we lost both Farrah Fawcett at 62 and Michael Jackson at only 50 this week. But Harrison Ford and Jeff Goldblum are still with us.

Play! Tri-towers solitaire.

iPod Shuffle:

1. Don't Cry Blue (Jonathan Edwards)
2. Sunshine of Your Love (Eric Clapton)
3. Lodi (Credence Clearwater Revival)
4. On a Night Like This (Bob Dylan)
5. Front Line (Stevie Wonder)

Entry #2019

Animal of the Week: Turritopsis, a nearly immortal hydromedusa.

The problem with anecdotes.

Newly painted nails can be dried with the Blow Monkey Nail Dryer. Just press the banana button.

The photo series called “urban camouflage” shows you how to make yourself invisible inside a big box store.

Teenagers are becoming increasingly logical.

Entry #2018

The adventures of my milk toof.

Twitches, itches, sneezing and other body quirks are explained here.

Today’s slide show is wave photography by Clark Little.

Wow. Watch a time lapse video of the sun at the Arctic Circle.

Hump Day musical interlude: Two girls play Bach on Tom Hanks’ floor piano.

Entry #2017

Now we’re cookin’: Failed dish presentations.

Watch Corey and Rachel’s stop-motion wedding invitation.

Does your Kindle leave you feeling like there’s something missing from your reading experience? Now you can enjoy reading e-books without giving up the smell you love so much.

Stuff you should know: How to build a bat house. It’s been about ten months since I put mine up, and even though the bats are back every night none have moved in yet.

Tuesday Coonhound Blogging: Nearly two weeks of depressing rain, day after day after day. We need a photo with some sunshine. Click to embiggen.

Entry #2016

Not sure why I found these clips of Jurassic Park dinosaurs saying “hi” so funny.

This week’s long read is Power Struggle. Do we need a technological breakthrough to avert a climate crisis?

Type nesting attempts to discover if birds have a favorite font.

Timewaster of the Week: The drama button.

Albino Monday: When I came across this photo it was labeled as an "albino ray". I thought they were wrong on both counts, but they're only wrong on one. It's a skate, not a ray. I thought we were looking at it from below and all skates have white bellies. But this is the top and it is a leucistic skate.

Entry #2015

Stuff you should know: In Australia and New Zealand, Father's Day is the first Sunday in September.

Morford: Art jazz lit Obama.

For this week's Green Thing, learn all about arborsculpture.

Ten signs of evolution in modern man.

My grocery store had a dirt-cheap sale on english muffins so I bought several bags. I’m playing around with a cream cheese recipe for a spread, and this version came out extremely well. It made quite a bit, but I looked it up and cream cheese is ok to store in the freezer. If you use the tub kind of cheese, save the tubs and refill them with the finished product. Don't be fooled by the use of low fat cheese. This has a bit of a kick and a ton of flavor.

Ingredients:

• 24 oz low fat cream cheese
• 12 oz fat free cream cheese
• Dice up the following ingredients very fine:

• Handful of fresh chives
• one roasted red pepper
• 8-10 capers, with a bit of the juice
• 8 cloves marinated garlic
• 2 pepperoncini (remove stem and seeds)

• Measure out one tsp of the these ingredients:

• sea salt
• dry rosemary
• dry dill weed
• dry thyme
• crushed red pepper
• black pepper
• parmesan cheese

Finish it off with the juice of half a lime and mix it all really well in a large bowl. Refrigerate for a couple of hours to firm it up.

Entry #2014

My marine life series essay on Daily Kos this week was about reflex amputation. It focuses on a handful of animals that can drop off limbs to escape from predators.

Now we’re cookin’: Tombstone pizza from a vending machine.

Eight pointless pieces of exercise equipment.

Today’s slide show is a photo essay by Time Magazine featuring cinema’s most memorable robots.

The best hair of the 80’s metal bands. I was going to put up a sample pic, but I changed my mind. Probably for the best.

Entry #2013

Cool Site of the Week: 100 meters of existence is a composite photography project made up of 178 people taken from the same spot in Berlin over a twenty day period.

Geek Stuff: Geeky marriage proposals.

Movie Rating: Doubt.
Not a very satisfying ending, but watching Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman play off each other is worth watching this film. 2.5 starfish out of 5. As usual, here's Ebert's take.

Play! Bottle cap concentration.

iPod Shuffle: 

1. Play the Game (Queen)
2. Handbags and Gladrags (Rod Stewart)
3. Train of Love (Johnny Cash)
4. You Don't Know Me (Van Morrison)
5. Boatman (James Taylor)

Entry #2012

Animal of the Week: Meet Jonathan, a 176 year old tortoise. Here he is today, but the first image at that link shows him in 1900 during the Boer War when he was merely 70 years old.

Take the farm tools quiz. Answers at the end.

Bill Y got yesterday's trivia via email, beating out Sally in comments by one minute. It's Richie Havens.

Welcome to the Meguro Parasitological Museum.

Ten examples of Hollywood getting physics very wrong.

Entry #2011

Trivia (4 Biomes points): Who’s this?

The FSM-approved political party in Sweden wins a seat in parliament.

Funny how these internets work. I was reading a blog post by Matthew Yglesias over at Think Progress, which was linked by Atrios, and Matt had a link to an article from a foreign policy expert here, which was written by this woman. I haven’t seen her in 30 years, but we were good friends growing up. One day before I read all this I ran into another old friend, and I’m not sure how the topic came up, but it turns out she is now renting a house that is owned by Nina’s father. Small world.

Today’s slide show is New Math, Craig Damrauer’s jokes using math equations.

Hump Day musical interlude: David Gray’s “Lately”.

Entry #2010

Things on the roof.

Stuff You Should Know: Emergency numbers around the world.

Blambot has a guide to understanding grammar and symbols in comic lettering.

Now we’re cookin’: Customize your own breakfast cereal mix and have it shipped out to you here.

Tuesday Coonhound Blogging: Creole doesn't want to talk to you. Also, I came across this study that has determined that regardless of breed, dogs are aggressive if they are trained improperly. In general, Creole is about as unaggressive and people-pleasing as a dog comes, but a few months back she started showing food aggression behavior with The Boy. Right away we made it Graham’s job to do her nightly feedings, giving him control over her food. The aggression disappeared in a couple of days and hasn’t returned. He can now take the bowl away mid-meal and she just sits back down and waits for him to return the food. Then, yesterday, I ran into this couple who were trying to train their year-old boxer in recall by walking him through the graveyard on a thirty foot rope, periodically calling its name and then violently yanking on the rope when he inevitably didn't return to them. I also noticed one of those spikey pinch collars on him. I tried to very gently talk to them about why this wasn't going to work, but they didn't want to hear it. They'll be having trouble with that dog and in the long run it will be the dog that suffers. Click to embiggen.