Bernie.rihn

Blood and Body of Christ. Sangria with a Communion wafer.

Photographer and visual artist Ernest Goh is known for his work photographing wildlife and other animals. His latest book documents the strange world of chicken beauty pageants in Malaysia where he encountered a breed of bird called the Ayam Seramas, an ornate chicken raised not for its meat but purely for its appearance. These chickens not only have decorative plumage but possess the ability to strike ridiculous poses. You might think these photos are somehow manipulated (or worse, the animals forced into these positions) but a behind-the-scenes video by Goh shows the chicken’s ability to strut just as depicted. The book, titled Cocks: The Chicken Book, is available now through his website. All photos courtesy the artist. (via Peta Pixel)

TED Talk: The Future of Sex Zoos

Chances are you've never wondered how difficult it is to remove the testes of a hippopotamus.

Bitch, you don't know me.

Why It's Nearly Impossible to Castrate a Hippo:

The first challenge is that hippopotamuses hide their genitals. The testes are inside the body, instead of outside in a scrotum. (Other mammals in the internal-testes club, since you asked, include the armadillo, sloth, whale, and platypus.) This makes the hippo's testes totally invisible from the outside. Combined with a penis that the paper's authors describe as "discreet," it means it's hard to tell males from females at a distance. [...]

Even after finding the sneaky organs, the procedure wasn't simple. The depth of the testes' hiding places varied by as much as 16 inches from one hippo to the next. Everything had to be done deep inside the animal's body, making it hard to see what was going on. "Grasping the testicle with forceps proved laborious" in most of the animals, the authors write. They also mention using a "two-handed technique" and "moderate traction." The whole hour-and-a-half procedure, based on a method for castrating horses, is described in detail for anyone who wants to try it themselves.

Items from the Vermont Pleasures Catalog

Food Project Proposes Matrix-Style Vertical Chicken Farms

Philosopher Paul Thompson from Purdue University has suggested "The Blind Chicken Solution." He argues that chickens blinded by "accident" have been developed into a strain of laboratory chickens that don't mind being crowded together as much as normal chickens do. As a result, he argues, we should consider using blind chickens in food production as a solution to the problem of overcrowding in the poultry industry. He argues that it would be more humane to have blind chickens than ones that can see.

But Ford goes a step further and proposes a "Headless Chicken Solution." This would involve removing the cerebral cortex of the chicken to inhibit its sensory perceptions so that it could be produced in more densely packed conditions without the associated distress. The brain stem for the chicken would be kept intact so that the homeostatic functions continue to operate, allowing it to grow.

Ford proposes this solution for two reasons: To meet the rising demand for meat, particularly poultry, and to improve the welfare of the chickens by desensitizing them to the unpleasant reality of their existence.

A challenge for Ford's system would be the lack of muscular stimulation. However, Ford proposes using electric shocks similar to that used in other lab meat experiments.

The likeness to The Matrix has not gone unnoticed by Ford. "The similarities are patent, although in The Matrix the dominant species were kind enough to provide the subspecies with a alternate reality, which was far better than the their 'real' post-apocalyptic world," he told us. "This was a lovely gesture by 'The Machines,' but the chickens in this system will not be privy to such a luxurious appendage to an already elaborate system, especially in this age of austerity."

Previously, previously, previously.

Cellular Forms uses a simplified model of cellular growth to create intricate sculptural shape. Structures are created out of interconnected cells, with rules for the forces between cells, as well as rules for how cells accumulate internal nutrients. When the nutrient level in a cell exceeds a given threshold the cell splits into two, with both the parent and daughter cells reconnecting to their immediate neighbours. Many different complex organic structures are seen to arise from subtle variations on these rules, creating forms with strong reminiscences of plants, corals, internal organs and micro-organisms.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Social Justice Kittens 2014 Calendar

Social Justice Kittens 2014 Calendar (sample pages)

In summer 2012 the social network LinkedIn.com got hacked and lost its whole user database. A few months later parts of the decrypted password list surfaced on the Internet. These eight volumes contain 4.7 million LinkedIn clear text user passwords printed in alphabetical order. Visitors are invited to look up their own password.

Previously, previously.

Male employees are suing Archie Comics' CEO Nancy Silberkleit for gender discrimination. Her alleged workplace behavior, reported in the New York Daily News, is bizarre:

- refuses to call male employees by their names and instead refers to all of them as “Penis.”

- frequently yells “Penis! Penis! Penis!” in staff meetings.

- invites Hell’s Angels into the office to intimidate employees.

- frequently inquires about the location of a handgun and 750 rounds of ammunition she believes her late husband kept in the office.

- stalks employees and their families

"Silberkleit contends that the case should be tossed out because white males are not 'a protected class.'"

(Thanks, chellberty!)

"I'm afraid of getting dark," said the mask-wearer, Yao Wenhua, 58, upon emerging from the seaweed-choked waters of this seaside city in China's eastern Shandong Province. Eager to show why she sacrificed fashion for function, Ms. Yao, a retired bus driver, peeled the nylon over her forehead to reveal a pale, unwrinkled face.

"A woman should always have fair skin," she said proudly. "Otherwise people will think you're a peasant."

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Starbug, the Chaos Computer Club hacker who broke the fingerprint biometric security on the Iphone, has given an interview [German] to CT Magazine detailing the hack, and released a new video showing how he did it.

In the end it, remove the fingerprint in a realistic usage scenarios directly from an iPhone succeeded. Here, a scanner with 2400 DPI was used. Subsequently, this fingerprint is digitally enhanced in order to print on a transparent film (1200 dpi), which was then used as a mask for exposing a printed circuit board. Protected by the black areas in front of the UV light structures do not harden and can then be etched away. This yields a form that serves as a template for creating artificial fingerprints. This is done by spraying with graphite, which is then applied wood glue is then used as a skin-like support material. The video shows that the iPhone is accepted as the created fingerprint harmless dummy.

None of the methods used is new. About to create the procedure, fingerprint forms with etched circuit boards, Tsutomu Matsumoto in 2002 documented . The equipment and materials used are quite simply accessible for ambitious hobbyists. Thus, the cracking of the fingerprint lock should indeed exceed the capabilities of a conventional pickpocket, a targeted attack by a tech savvy attacker will touch ID but no insurmountable obstacles in the way.

Der iPhone-Fingerabdruck-Hack [Jürgen Schmidt/CT]

The iPhone fingerprint hack [Google Translate]

(Thanks, Alex!)

“I was funny — ha-ha, not peculiar. It was a modest currency, like pennies: pedestrian, somewhat laborious, but a currency nonetheless. I was funny, in public, most often at my own expense.”

― Claire Messud, The Woman Upstairs

Help! Lost Dog! Cody (Very Quiet)

This stunning video of the Moon's rotation was made from images captured by NASA's Lunar Reconissance Orbiter's Wide Angle Camera (WAC). "A Unique View of the Moon" (Arizona State University)

Enjoy this tour of the countryside near Chamonix, France, courtesy of a GoPro-wearing eagle. [YouTube Video via Kottke]

"It finally quit movin' though, now that it bit itself," says our intrepid narrator.

And that, writes wildlife ecologist David Steen, could have something to do with the fact that a decapitated copperhead head can still inject venom. More importantly, if it did, the rest of the snake's body likely wouldn't have any special defense against that venom.

This isn't an area where there has been a lot of research and experimentation (just imagine the required permits!), but snakes do not have special immunity from their own venom. When venom is stored in a snake's body, it is located within specially-evolved glands that can safely contain it. This is the same basic idea that allows us to hold potentially harmful stuff in our appendix or gall bladder. If chemicals escaped from a snake's venom gland (or our appendix or gall bladder), it would be bad news.

In this video from the Glue Society (previously here and here) we learn about a new art movement focused on posessing multiples of the same object. This had me smiling all the way through. The clip was made as a promotional effort for Boost chocolate bars, but stands up surprisingly well on its own. Happy Friday.

Over the last few weeks Ethan Schlussler has been working on a beautifully designed 30-foot-high treehouse and quickly became tired of “climbing a ladder six and a half million times a day,” so he decided to build a human-powered elevator out of an old bicycle. At first I was expecting something pretty tedious to pedal in order to lift the weight of a full-grown man, yet as soon as he starts pedaling in the video it seems to work almost like magic. It really is a clever idea. (via MAKE)

Earlier this summer while on vacation in Peru, graduate student Troy Alexander fell in love with the Amazon rainforest, and on his return asked an advisor at Georgia Tech if he could take a leave of absence and return to Peru as volunteer researcher. Three weeks later, Alexander found himself on a plane heading back South America to begin work for the Tambopata Macaw Project which focuses on parrot biology and conservation. It was a decision that would lead to his potential discovery of a new species of life, or at least one so rare nobody has a clue what it is.

While assisting with the project, Alexander stumbled onto fascinating structures attached to tree trunks, including a blue tarp that appeared to have been built by a spider or insect. The artistic organism had constructed a protective barrier around its egg sac complete with evenly placed vertical supports and perfectly parallel strands of webbing that unmistakably mimics a white picket fence. Though he had no idea what built it, he snapped a few photos, hoping that when he got home an entomologist would help him zero in on the moth or spider responsible and that would be the end of the story.

Weeks after his return, Alexander hoped for a quick ID by posting a photos to Reddit’s popular “whatsthisbug” subreddit where biologists and experts in both insects and arachnids were all stumped. He says the photos have now been viewed “by the professional entomologists moderating Whatsthisbug, but also entomologists at Cal Tech, Georgia Tech, Rice University, the Smithsonian Institute, and more… [but] still no definite confirmation.” Some suspect that it could be something similar to the
Ribbed-Cocoon Maker Moth which also builds a protective structure, but nothing so distinct as this fence.

Scientists estimate there are still millions of undiscovered plant and animal species on Earth, so it’s no surprise that there are still plenty of undiscovered lifeforms out there, it’s just amazing that something so creative has never been documented before. (via Why Evolution is True)