Everything is funnier when frosted on a cake

I was indirectly pointed to the blog Cake Wrecks by Dan B. There are many types of cake awesomeness exhibited on this site. There are stupid-cake-decorator examples, where the cake decorator took instructions too literally or misunderstood the instructions in some other way, and hilarity ensued, such as:

"The Cake that Started It All", Cake Wrecks

"The Problem with Phone Orders", Cake Wrecks

There are poorly executed, pug ugly, and/or poor taste cakes:

"Inspiration vs. Perspiration", Cake Wrecks

(supposedly, the cake on the right was a wedding cake created by a professional, paid baker, and meant to look like the cake on the left).

"Going to the Dogs", Cake Wrecks

"Cupcake Cakes: Always Wrecktastic. Always.", Cake Wrecks

(The baker was asked to make a "happy monkey cake" (left), which the blog acutely observes looks more like Teen Wolf (right))

"Cupcake Cakes: Always Wrecktastic. Always.", Cake Wrecks

The Creepiness Continues, Cake Wrecks

The most awesomest cakes on the blog are the ones that are just weird for no good reason. Weird stuff is funny in general, but it's way better when frosted on a cake (a) because cakes are supposed to be all sunshine and lollipops and (b) because they're made to be eaten.

Naked Mohawk Baby Carrot Jockeys, Cake Wrecks

"Come to the Dark Side: We Have Cake", Cake Wrecks

"When Gangsters Go P.C.", Cake Wrecks

Anyways, if you, like me, enjoy cake, frosting, and schadenfreude, and are also bored at work, I recommend you waste some time at Cake Wrecks.

NPR concerts

I think this concert is really pretty:

Andrew Bird in Concert, Feb. 3, NPR.

Andrew Bird, by Joel Didriksen.
I have listened to it twice already :).

This Radiohead concert also on NPR is also supercool:

Radiohead in Concert, Sep. 5, NPR.

Radiohead, by Jesse Groves.
I have listened to it more than twice...

The Dangers of Stem Cell Research

Eleventh Hour, Resurrection, by Scott Tobias

I'm visiting San Diego this weekend, and I watched a show called "Eleventh Hour" with my Mom. It has to be seen to be believed. The main character is a "scientist" (he goes around introducing himself, "My name's [blah blah blah]. I'm a Scientist.") investigating unusual crimes for the FBI. The crime on yesterday's program: some evil country club types were stealing stem cells from kids with cancer so that they could inject the stem cells into their faces and rejuvenate their skin. Their downfall: injecting the stem cells too deep into their faces, causing one of them to grow a second heart, over-oxygenate his blood, and drive into a swimming pool. 

ooh! i want one!

Here is an animal I learned about from my morning crossword:
Lovely Sally, by Only AliceIt is an axolotl, a type of Mexican salamander commonly used in research because of its ability to regrow limbs. It is also remarkable in that it exhibits neoteny -- instead of metamorphosing from larva to adult, it spends its whole life in larval form. I guess that is why it is so cutesy-wutesy :). 

More pictures:

Danser avec les fantomes, Science! On blogue
Albino Mexican Walking Fish - Axolotl © KimmyM
"27 Aquatic lifeforms you never caught while fishing", Guillaume Bouchard

[[Embedded YouTube Video Axolotl dance]]

game-theory and evolution

In my lab meeting yesterday, my adviser gave a talk on the philosophy of learning vs. hard-coded action sequences in animals. As evidence that many animals respond in predictable, unadapting (in the life of a single organism) ways to various stimuli, he gave a bunch of examples of a parasite evolving to take advantage of another animal's evolved, hard-coded reactions to various stimuli. Here are some of the examples I remember:

1. Zombie caterpillars controlled by voodoo wasps. The wasp lays eggs in the caterpillar. The larvae feed off of the caterpillar. When fully developed, they eat through the caterpillar, and attach themselves to a branch nearby to cocoon. The caterpillar is still alive and under the wasps' spell, and stands guard over the wasp cocoons, scaring off potential predators. See the video:
   
   [[Embedded YouTube video Zombie caterpillar controlled by voodoo wasps]]
   
2. Wasp performs roach-brain-surgery to make zombie slave-roaches. The wasp would like to bring the much larger cockroach to its nest, implant its eggs, and let its young feed off the cockroach until they are mature. The cockroach is large enough that the wasp cannot fly it back to its nest. It stings the cockroach, temporarily paralyzing it. It injects another venom, which allows it to control the roach. The wasp then guides the walking roach to its nest. See the video:
   
   [[Embedded YouTube Video Zombie cockroaches revived by brain shot


3. Parasite's web of death. From the BBC: "The larva of the wasp Hymenopimecis sp. will suck on the "blood" of the spider and eventually eat it - but not before it has injected a behaviour-bending chemical that makes the spider construct a special scaffold. Only this design, which is quite different from the spider's normal fly-trap, has the strength to support the pupating wasp."
   
   From "Spider drugged by parasitic wasp", News in Science
   
4. Gordian worm. The Gordian worm can only survive in water, but its larvae are parasites to crickets and other arthropods. When the larvae are mature, they manipulate their host to jump into the water, which kills the host and the worm wiggles out. Watch the video:
   
   [[Embedded YouTube Video: A Worm Coming Out of a Cricket]]


5. Koi can mimic the appearance of the open mouth of a bird's young, and trick the bird into feeding it. I can't find this online, other than reports of a swan at a Chinese zoo feeding koi:
   from Swan feeds fish at zoo, Ananova
   
6. Brood parasitism. Related to this is parent organisms that trick another animal into raising their young as their own, for instance cuckoos and cowbirds will add their eggs to other birds' nests.
   "A Common Cuckoo being raised by a Reed Warbler", Wikipedia


7. Parasitic crustacean replaces fish's tongue. The Cymothoa exigua attaches itself to the tongue of the spotted rose snapper, extracts blood and grows. With time, the fish's tongue atrophies, and the crustacean replaces the fish's tongue -- that is, it can be used by the fish just like a regular tongue. They continue feeding on the fish's blood, or on fish mucus.
   From Enomogia
   From Tongue-Eating Fish Found in Bug, BBC
   From "Fish Tongue-Eating Parasite Spreading?", Animal Planet


8. Plants brainwashing animals. From Wikipedia: "Cordyceps unilateralis is a species of entomopathogenic fungus that infects and alters the behavior of ants in order to ensure the widespread distribution of its spores. The spores enter the body of the insect through its spiracles, where they begin to consume the non-vital soft tissues. When the fungus is ready to spore, its mycelia enter the ant's brain and change how it perceives pheromones, causing the insect to climb to the top of a plant and use its mandibles to secure itself to the stem. The fungus then kills the ant, and the fruiting bodies of C. unilateralis grow from its head and explode, releasing the spores. This process takes 4 to 10 days. The species produces red naphthoquinones that possesses anti-malarial activity."
   
   [[Embedded YouTube Video: Cordyceps Fungus]]

Stuff to read:

• Six Horrifying Parasites


• Parasite Rex

this is what a zither is

In case you were wondering what a zither is (and whether an instrument with 30+ strings was a sither and whether to offer advice at the card table was to kibitz or to kibits [xword], it is that instrument played in "The Third Man" theme music, and shown in the intro to the movie:
[[Embedded YouTube Video Anton Karas Zither]]
You know what G.I. Joe would say. Well, I know. "Now we know, and knowing is half the battle!"

By the way, Kyle tells me that there was no actual character named G.I. Joe in the cartoon, just characters with more in-your-face names like Sgt. Slaughter, Cobra Commander, and Snow Job (? Apparently, he's the original "arctic trooper"). 

Ooh! There is rain and thunder outside right now!

local news really sucks

or What Did We Do Before We Had High-Speed Internet?

Our internet was out yesterday and part of today. This was nice in that it was an excellent excuse not to do work and just sit in front of the TV. It was not so nice in that we no longer have cable TV (would that have helped?) and broadcast TV (at least) is really sucky.

I don't know what time the national news comes on in LA on Saturdays, but it is apparently not 6:30 pm like it is on the weekdays (I think). We normally watch the news on the internet cuz (a) less commercials (though TV on the internet is on various stages of development, depending on the network, and there was like a 3 month period last year when the only commercial on the NBC Nightly News was for ... some car company. It had a stupid poem read by a kid-like voice that went "Say I had a car company, here's what I'd do. I'd tell everybody to listen to you ...". Read about it in this well-written, insightful article by "Kyle Hagen".) and (b) then you can skip the boring stories about e.g. how cold it is for those suckers east of California, blah blah blah :).

Anyways, we watched the local news. The first story was about car commercials, and featured rock'n'roll theme music through the entire thing, and was not altogether discernible from a regular car commercial (Hollywood, I guess).

The second was a story about a "scam" where some companies were offering to help you apply for property tax relief and charging $100, when you could fill out a form for free yourself. I'm not sure that's a scam, since there are lots of things like that. Like income taxes, for instance. Apparently, one of the companies listed their address as a P.O. box at a UPS store, and they showed footage of the local news reporter interviewing the clerk at the UPS store, saying "So this isn't the headquarters for blah-blah-blah company?" It was completely retarded.

When we first moved to San Diego, we had no internet at all, and after that, only dial-up. That wasn't that long ago, maybe 5 years. So, my question is, what did I spend all my time doing in the past? And is my life better now, whatever better means?

In any case, I think this weekend is evidence that the internet is out to brainwash me and turn me into a loveless troll. Speaking of Perfect Strangers (in case you missed it, the previous link was to the "I Watched this on Purpose" review of the thriller "Perfect Stranger"), the theme song to it is super-awesome:

[[Embedded YouTube Movie Perfect Strangers Intro]]

The little dramatic pause with the "duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh" at the end is so heart-wrenching. By the way, you know which show is unwatchably awful as an adult? Perfect Strangers! I don't remember where I saw it recently, but it was really bad.