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23 Apr 14:12

'Animal Architecture,' an awesome new photo book about the structures critters create

by Xeni Jardin

'Animal Architecture," by Ingo Arndt and Jürgen Tautz, with a foreword by Jim Brandenburg, is a beautiful new science/photography book exploring the mystery of nature through the "complex and elegant structures that animals create both for shelter and for capturing prey."

Arndt is a world-renowned nature photographer based in Germany, whose work you may have seen in National Geographic, GEO and BBC Wildlife.

Above, a grey bowerbird's bower in Australia's Northern Territory. "The grey bowerbird goes to extreme lengths to build a love nest from interwoven sticks and then covers the floor with decorative objects. The more artful the arbor, the greater the chance a male has of attracting a mate."

"Arndt’s photographs display wonders such as the colourful mating arenas of bowerbirds in West Papua and the fantastic nests created by ants in Africa," says publisher Abrams and Chronicle.

"Studio photographs supplement the images from Arndt’s journey and offer close-up views of the nests, mounds and webs constructed by the animals. Features both breathtaking photography and scientific insight into animal behavior."

I spotted the book via a Guardian photo gallery, which you should check out here.

I have ordered myself a copy on Amazon!

More photos below, all by Ingo Arndt.








12 Nov 17:02

David Nutt wants to make non-addictive, safer synth-booze that comes with a sober-up pill

by Cory Doctorow
gustav.thomasson

Let's get pissed and then take the antidote and safely drive home!

David Nutt is a brilliant psychopharmacologist who once served as the UK's drug czar, until he was ousted for refusing to suppress the data that showed that many legal drugs were as bad or worse for you than illegal drugs, and that the war on drugs was a losing battle that wasn't reducing abuse or crime.

Now he's back in industry, and he's got an awesome idea he's trying to get funded: a tailored variation on alcohol that has exactly the same intoxicating effect but inflicts none of the physical damage of booze, and lets you get instantly, totally sober just by taking an antidote. He describes it as having the same relationship to booze that e-cigarettes have to tobacco. He's gone on the Dragon's Den for funding (unsurprisingly, the alcohol industry wasn't interested in investing!).

Nutt's book Drugs Without the Hot Air is the best book on the drug war and the reality of drugs, addiction and intoxication that I've yet read. I have no idea if he has any business acumen, but a synthetic alcohol that doesn't wreck your liver or cause physical addiction, and that can be sobered up from in moments is an astoundingly great idea.

He said: “I think this would be a serious revolution in health... just like the e-cigarette is going to revolutionise the smoking of tobacco.

“I find it weird that we haven't been speaking about this before, as it's such a target for health improvement.”

One of the biggest benefits to Prof Nutt’s alcohol substitute would be to remove addiction as a drinking problem. The scientist said 10 per cent of drinkers become addicted, and that addicts account for most of the one and a half million people killed by alcohol every year.

The Professor said that the drug would be taken in the form of a range of cocktails, and added: “I’ve done the prototype experiments myself many years ago, where I’ve been inebriated and then it’s been reversed by the antagonist.

“That’s what really gave us the idea. There’s no question that you can produce a whole range of effects like alcohol by manipulating the brain.”

Getting drunk without the hangover or health risks – scientist seeks investment for ‘alcohol substitute’ drug [Adam Withnall/The Independent]

(via /.)