Headline o' the day?

Robotic Squirrels Battle It Out With Rattlesnakes

"Alasdair Wilkins writes that when a squirrel encounters a rattlesnake in the wild, it does something very peculiar to survive its brush with the predator — something is so peculiar that scientists are building robotic squirrels just to try to understand the behavior. A live squirrel does two things when it sees a rattlesnake. It starts moving its tail in a flagging motion and actually heats up the temperature of its tail. Because rattlesnakes can see in the infrared wavelengths, they should be able to see both the tail move and heat up. The question is which of these two signals is important and just what message it's supposed to send to the rattlesnake. To that end, engineers at UC Davis have built robosquirrels, which allow the biologists to simulate the two squirrel behaviors one a time and the research so far suggests it's the heated tail, not the flagging motion, that the snake responds to, making it one of the first known examples of infrared communication between two distinct species. 'Snakes will rarely strike at a flagging adult squirrel — and if they do they almost always miss,' says Rulon Clark, assistant professor of biology at San Diego State University and an expert on snake behavior. 'In some cases, it seems the rattlesnakes just decide it's best to cut their losses after dealing with these confusing critters,' adds Wilkins, 'as sometimes the snakes just leave the area completely after encountering these flagging, tail-heating squirrels.'"

Hey, I have never even been to Australia, and my favorite pizza has pineapple on it. The Luau - pineapple, chicken, andouille sausage, and hot sauce. Oh, Pepper's, how I miss you.

Also - anchovies, ptui!!

I don't eat anchovies and I'm allergic to pineapple, so I don't really have much to say in the pizza conversation. I feel like I should have a controversial pizza topping, but all I really like on pizza is peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, eggplant, garlic, and onions, all of which I suppose are relatively normal.

ION, why does my boss forward me emails asking me to forward them to other people? How is this not a colossal waste of time?

Oh, I have one or two of those. Not my big and main boss, but yeah, huge waste of time.

People, our Good Friday music is beautiful and I feel pretty good about knowing it (alto part for someone who doesn't hear parts well), but there is one piece, Lamentations, oh it is rough, rough rough rough. Last nightin church I proclaimed it Donkey Balls. But at least they got me an alto practice cd, so I have all day today and tomorrow to try and learn it.

I don't eat anchovies and I'm allergic to pineapple, so I don't really have much to say in the pizza conversation

PICK A SIDE, HIL, WE'RE AT WAR.

I am in favor of robotic squirrels.

Anyone know what this is? [link]

If you guess correctly you can win a t-shirt.

"Candle snuffer" is my best guess.

I am also in favor of robotic squirrels.

And crime-stopping cats.

Where were we talking about American Girl dolls?

A friend sent me this link to a series of photographs of girls and their AGDs. . . you know, the ones that look like their owners.

And check out this recipe for savory scones. Want to make.

OMFG I have so had it with people. I just can't. Just when I thought I had the full list of people making me crazy, there are new people to add! Fucking people.

Anyone know what this is? [link]

I think it's supposed to be upright, with the bowl horizontal, and then the shield part gets attached to some kind of pole, so that the bowl can hold something. I'm not sure what, though.