Release The Kraken!

This Japanese delicacy known as odori-don or “dancing squid rice bowl” is a variation on traditional squid sashimi and uses soy sauce to create the disturbing illusion of bringing a dead squid back to life.

Mr Fan said the squid was completely motionless before the sauce was poured on and was definitely “dead at the time of serving”.

This controversial method of preparing sashimi while it’s still alive is known as ikizukuri, and is banned in Australia.

Halifax

The Halifax Citadel - across from out hotel

Made it to Halifax this afternoon, after flights from Baltimore and Philadelphia.  The trip went pretty well, a little delay out of Philly, but into Halifax by 5:30 their time (one hour ahead of EST).

Had dinner at a local pub around the corner, Maxwell's. Mussels were $2.99 (Sunday Special, regularly $4.99).  160 different beers, and 60 on tap, (although two different ones we ordered were out of stock).

Then we went to the conference and met a bunch of old friends and colleagues.

Slow Blogging Alert

We'll be traveling to Halifax, Nova Scotia for a meeting this week.  I'll probably have time and connectivity for a few posts, hopefully some photos at least.  I've also left behind a few autoposts, so check in anyway.

Drink Your Orange Juice!

Scientists Discover New Role for Vitamin C in the Eye and the Brain

Nerve cells in the eye require vitamin C in order to function properly -- a surprising discovery that may mean vitamin C is required elsewhere in the brain for its proper functioning, according to a study by scientists at Oregon Health & Science University recently published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Easily the strangest orange juice ad ever...  Slightly NSFW. Enjoy!

The Lesbian Orange Juice Commercial - Awesome video clips here

How Blue Can You Get?

Brought to you by B. B. King, in shorts

Would Somebody Feed This Thing? It's Ruining My Nap!

Amy Winehouse Dead at 27

Enough said.

Allison Krauss Turns 40

Alison Krauss (born July 23, 1971) is an American bluegrass-country singer, songwriter and fiddler. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of ten and recording for the first time at fourteen. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in 1987. She was invited to join the band with which she still performs, Alison Krauss and Union Station (AKUS), and later released her first album with them as a group in 1989.

Sweaty at the Beach

After yesterday's horrible afternoon heat (100+), the morning came sweaty; the heat was down to a mere 78 at 6 AM, but the humidity was over 80%.  My glasses fogged as soon as I walked outside, as did the camera lens.  Not much wind, and it warmed to 85 in the time we were out.  By the time we got home we were soaked with sweat.

Georgia speaks with our neighbors Clint and Theresa, while Skye and Abbe get reacquainted.  Cliff told us there had been a "crab jubilee" earlier in the week, a sign that deep anoxic water had been blown up near the shoreline

Even the Seagulls were panting.

A new flower opened on the debris at the foot of the cliff. I'm not quite sure which composite it is, but it's pretty common around here, in disturbed areas where roads border forests.

Boy, it's hot...  But she was hot to go.

A little Northern Water Snake at the stream by Matoaka Cottages.

Make room!  Some Terns (probably Common Terns, maybe Forster's Tern), on one of the rocks on the south jetty at Flag Harbor.

Science Identifies "Slut" Gene

Researchers identify wild orgy gene

Ménage à trois? Wild orgies? One night stands? Who says science can't be sexy?

Certainly not Binghamton University researchers, who are hard at work uncovering the sultry secrets behind human sexual behavior.

The team - led by Dr. Justin Garcia - recently identified a dopamine receptor gene known as DRD4 that is purportedly linked to chronic infidelity and "uncommitted" one-night stands.

That's pronounced Dir-Dee-four...right?  And it's already known for other negative behavioral patterns:

And wouldn't you know it?

The very same gene has already been linked to alcoholism, gambling addiction and a predilection for really bad horror movies.

Oddly enough, another study claimed the mysterious gene was responsible for political liberalism, along with "openness" to new social situations.

"What we found was that individuals with a certain variant of the DRD4 gene were more likely to have a history of uncommitted sex, including one-night stands and acts of infidelity," Garcia confirmed.

Ain't science grand?  Found at Ace's ONT. I thank the Rule 5 Wombat for this weeks prominent position the The Other McCain's weekly Rule 5 link collection.

Rule 5 Saturday - Angelina Jolie, Because She Eats Crickets

Actually, I decided to make Angeline Jolie my Rule 5 Saturday subject long before I found this article, where I found that she, and her family (with the possible exception of Brad Pitt) like to eat crickets, apparently one of the national foods of Cambodia, original home of one of her adopted kids.

"My boys love to eat crickets. It’s their favorite thing," she says. "When I first gave it to them, I thought, I wanted them to understand culturally, I didn’t want them to be turned off by something that was their culture," Jolie goes on...

Click the pictures to enlarge.

...So when they returned to Cambodia for Jolie's Louis Vuitton shoot, she had a friend wrangle two to-go boxes of crickets and the family indulged on them right in the car.  "They're good - they are like a potato chip," she says. And while the actress and spokesperson has yet to taste some spider soup, "you gotta try everything," she adds.

 Angelina is the daughter of actor Jon Voight and actress Marchelline Bertrand.  Despite her parenting, she had some trouble breaking into acting as a profession, being rejected numerous times for being "too dark".  She has had a rocky relationship with her dad due to his marital infidelities.  I like it that she had to work at it to break in to the business; it suggests a certain honesty I had not expected from Hollywood. I like dark...

While she has had numerous film successes, of course, among of the best remembered are the "Tomb Raiders" films.  Of all the movies based on video games (and then comic books), I have to say, I think these are the best.  Mind you, there's nothing wrong with Hugh Jackson, but he just doesn't stir my blood the way Angelina does.

"Angelina Jolie was born to play Lara Croft but  Simon West makes her journey into a game of Frogger."

Slant Magazine

Her personal life has been full of high drama.  She had a live-in boy friend at age 14.  The break up at age 16 caused her to "dedicate her life to acting." She married actor Jonny Lee Miller in 1996, and divorced him in 1999, staying on good terms with him.

She admits to a "brief sexual relationship" to actress Jenny Shimizu in 1996, who, in turn, claims the affair went on much longer.  Whatever.

...asked if she was bisexual, Jolie responded, "Of course. If I fell in love with a woman tomorrow, would I feel that it's okay to want to kiss and touch her? If I fell in love with her? Absolutely! Yes!"

On the canonical scale of Lesbian hotness, with Rosie O'Donnell setting the lowest possible mark, Angelina forms the upper boundary at infinity.  Not only is she hot, interested in women, she's potentially available to us guys too; at least if you're Billy Bob Thornton (married 2003-2005) or Brad Pitt (pseudo-married 2005 to the present, as far as I know).  You can even envision her doing it on film, if you try.

Then, of course, the tabloidacious role she played in the break up in Brad's marriage to Jennifer Aniston.  After the grief she gave poor john Voight about his infidelities....

Well I guess the luscious fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.

It wouldn't be fair to trash her like this without mentioning all the really good work she's done for charity.  Adopting all those kids is just incredible, as I will attest, having been nearly driven mad by raising only two, and those at least mine, so I had and felt the obligation.

I could go on and on, but it's not sexy; her Wikipedia page is a good place to start for a list of the humanitarian project she has taken part in or promoted.

And rumor has it that her politics are right too, if you know what I mean.
 
One of the interesting roles she played was the face and body model for Grendel's mother in the 2007 movie Beowulf, an interesting mixture of live action turned into computer graphics.  I thought the movie was so so when I saw it on a cruise ship; but I loved me some Grendel's Mom... (A little NSFW in a CGA sort of way).




I thank the Rule 5 Wombat for this weeks prominent position the The Other McCain's weekly Rule 5 link collection.

Heat Wave!

It was just about as hot as it can get here today. Over 100, with incredibly oppressive humidity. Still 95 at 6 PM! I guess we're in for another day of it tomorrow.

And here to celebrate it, Martha and the Vandellas!



Or how about Marylin Monroe and Ella Fitzgerald!

Screw the Cracker, Polly Wants You to Use Her Real Name

Wild Parrots Get Names From Parents

Before a green-rumped parrotlet is even able to chirp and squawk, mom and dad teach it a distinct series of sounds used by parrots to recognize a specific individual. In short, they give their nestling a name.

Researchers have observed captive parrots using so-called contact calls to identify mates and family members, but didn’t know how birds were named in the wild. Maybe they didn’t learn from their parents, but had contact calls hard-wired from birth. Or maybe it was an aberration of captivity.

To find out, Cornell University ornithologist Karl Berg and his team swapped eggs between nests in a wild parrotlet population they’d studied since 1987. Half the parrotlet pairs raised foster chicks, who used the contact calls demonstrated by their adoptive parents. Were the calls hard-wired, they’d have used their biological parents’ calls...

It's got to be embarrasing, having a bird smart enough to use your name, but not know its name.

Comet Dives Into Sun as Sun Blows Up

A cool video from NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center.  The blow up on the Sun is just a coincidence, as it happened while the comet was approaching.

One Mean Helicopter Pilot

Tall Women Have Extra Cancer Risk

Researchers say that every four inches of height increases a woman's cancer risk by 16 percent

Risk factors like smoking, diet, and genetics are known to contribute to the odds of developing cancer, but researchers in Britain have found another risk — height. According to research published in the medical journal Lancet Oncology, tall women have a higher risk of getting a cancer diagnosis than their shorter sisters. Here, a brief guide:

How did researchers discover this link?

By combing through the data in the Million Women Study, a health survey of 1.3 million British women conducted between 1996 and 2001, researchers found that for every four inches of height above five feet, women had a 16 percent higher risk of developing cancer. The increased odds of a taller woman getting cancer were consistent "regardless of her birth year, socioeconomic status, alcohol consumption, physical activity level, and other factors typically linked to cancer risk," says Tara Thean in TIME.

That's a pretty striking trend.  I'm a little suspicious of data snooping like that.  If you ask enough questions using statistics, you get more false positives by chance (see a posteriori or post-hoc tests).  In theory, you can adjust for this, and I assume they did to publish it, but still.

But this is such a strong trend, that I doubt it's a fluke.  Certainly women ought to be told this.  So biological processes could account for this result?

The study authors speculate that because taller people have more cells, there's a greater chance of cellular mutations that can lead to malignancies. Growth hormones are another possible culprit: They "increase cell growth and rate of division, and inhibit cell death," says lead researcher Dr. Jane Green, as quoted by CNN. "Both of these might be relevant to cancer."

My money is on the growth hormones, especially since hormones are closely tied to several cancers.

At 5' 2"  Georgia should get a sense of relief.

Jellyfish: Missing in Action

A few weeks ago I blogged the expected arrival of Sea Nettles to our Bay.  However, as of yet, the dreaded Sea Nettle has not put in an appearance.  Low from the heavy rains in late Spring are likely the cause:

Normally by this time, the rangers at Sandy Point State Park have put out their warning sign about jellyfish. Complaints of jellyfish sightings and stings typically start coming the weekend after Independence Day.

"You can almost set your calendar by it," said Ranger Mike Travers, who is in charge of the beach and lifeguards.

But record-low salinity levels in the Chesapeake Bay- and possibly other factors - have kept jellyfish away.

The jellyfish count at Sandy Point is zero.

So, where are they?

Maggie Sexton has some possible answers.

Sexton, of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science in Cambridge, studies jellyfish populations and distribution. Most years, jellyfish have shown up by now, she said.

"I'm really surprised that we're not seeing at least a handful," Sexton said. "It's curious, but it's not shocking quite yet."

What would be shocking to Sexton is if the jellyfish don't show up in the next three weeks or so.

The most obvious factor in the absence of jellyfish is salinity.

Jellyfish prefer water much saltier than that in the Chesapeake right now. Sexton said peak jellyfish populations tend to happen when salinity is between 12 and 16 parts per thousand.

A monitoring station at the Bay Bridge shows salinity of 7.1 parts per thousand for July - below last year's 11.2 and below the average of 9.01 for this time of year.

This is low salinity is a mixed blessing.   The lack of Sea Nettles makes wading and swimming in the Bay much more enjoyable.  However, it also brought with it a big slug of nutrients, which is working its way through the system and making it a bad year for anoxic bottom waters, the so called "dead zone"  (It's not dead - some bacteria love it!). Low salinity appears to be make it easier for the dreaded Northern Snakehead to move to new habitats around the Maryland portion of the bay (although I wouldn't necessarily claim that the Rhode River Snakehead got there this year).  I think it has also affected the fishing, for the worst, at least in my region.

Your Friday Monkey Dacker Singer

US Credit Rating Downgraded

Egan Jones cuts US rating, cites high debt load

Credit rating agency Egan-Jones has cut the United States' top credit ranking, citing concerns over the country's high debt load and the difficulty the government faces in significantly reducing spending.

The agency said the action, which cut U.S. sovereign debt to the second-highest rating, was not based on fears over the country not raising its debt ceiling.

Instead, the cut is due the U.S. debt load standing at more than 100 percent of its gross domestic product. This compares with Canada, for example, which has a debt-to-GDP ratio of 35 percent, Egan-Jones said in a report sent on Saturday.

Lawmakers in Washington are seeking to agree on spending cuts before raising the country's debt ceiling, with five days remaining before President Obama's deadline for a deal...

Egan Jones isn't one of the "big three" of credit ratings (Standard and Poors, Moodies and Fitch), but they are all looking at the same economic facts.  This downgrade is notable in that it is based on the ginormous debt, and the decreasing likelihood that the US will find the will pay in the long run, rather than the immediate prospect of a technical default in the short term caused by the failure of the legislative branch and the administration to find a political solution to the immediate problem of the debt ceiling.  The other credit rating agencies have also sent signals that they may downgrade the US even if the debt ceiling is raised, if the deal to raise it does not deal adequately with the long term problem of the debt.

We are soooo boned...  Found at Ace's.

Regulations Beat Restoration

Is It Illegal to Restore the Bay?

...what if, in the context of restoration, one’s intention is to increase the ecosystem benefits of a project without doing it in precisely the one-to-one, in-kind ratio demanded by a strict metrics-based accounting?

Turns out these aren’t just hypothetical questions. Certain stream- and wetland-restoration methods that have been studied by the University of Maryland have shown to have the capacity to trap and treat sediment and nutrients, and create high quality habitat for wildlife.

These projects involve permanently connecting eroded or incised streams to their surrounding floodplains. In virtually all cases, this involves temporary impacts to streams or adjacent wetlands with the goal of enhancing and improving the quality of the overall resource, both in terms of the metrics of record, but also in terms of less tangible factors, such as increasing fish spawning habitat.

Nevertheless, the regulatory comments on these projects come back as though they were development projects, impacting natural resources so that a Wal-Mart parking lot could be built upon them, rather than capping old agricultural sediments trapped in a stream valley with a rich, biodiverse wetland so that they can no longer wash down to tidewater with each rain event.

Additional evidence that our current regulatory framework is more properly aimed at slowing the decline of the resource, rather than facilitating its recovery, could not be clearer than in the case of rare, threatened, and endangered plants.

Any entry-level gardener can go to Home Depot or the nursery down the street and buy a suite of noxious, invasive plants, such as English ivy or purple loosefstrife to drop into their flower beds and colonize the surrounding woods and wetlands.

But, heaven forbid you want to try to bring back a rare, threatened, or endangered native plant species. Should you be so enterprising as to try, you will need a permit from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) just to possess or transport them. Best not to bother even trying to “re-introduce” them.

DNR currently has no guidelines or standards in place to review such permits. The system is turned on its head...

So it turns out environmentalists aren't any happier to be regulated than the Captains of Industry.  They feel that they are doing the Lords work, and shouldn't have to answer to the mere secular leaders that ordinary property owners and businessmen must answer to.  But any project to deliberately alter the environment that has the likelihood of altering the ecology beyond the property owners boundaries should be scrutinized.  Just because you think what you are going to do is an improvement is no guarantee that it truly is.  As they say, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" (or as my grandfather used the say, the skulls of unbaptized babies).