strandline

"Dr Andrew Marshall, a conservationist from York University, was surveying monkeys in the Magombera forest in Tanzania, when he stumbled across a twig snake which, frightened, coughed up the chameleon and fled. Though a colleague persuaded him not to touch it because of the risk from venom, Marshall suspected it might be a new species, and took a photograph to send to colleagues, who confirmed his suspicions."

[Many thanks to railmeat!]

"Although descended scrotal testicles do satisfy the obvious criterion of being counterintuitively costly, the authors conclude that handicapping is an unlikely explanation. If it were true, we would expect to see scrotal testicles becoming increasingly elaborate and dangly over the course of evolution, not to mention women should display a preference for males toting around the most ostentatious scrotal baggage. "With the possible exception of colored male scrota among a few species of primates," write Gallup and his colleagues, "there is little evidence that this has been the case." I'm not aware of any studies on intra-species individual variation in scrotal design, but I'm nonetheless willing to speculate that most human males have rather bland, run-of-the-mill scrota. Anything deviating from this--particularly a set of unusually pendulous testicles suspended in knee-length scrota--is probably more likely to have a woman dry-heaving, screaming, or staring in confusion than serving as an aphrodisiac."

A flowchart to assist you in deciding your religion. Brilliant!
[note: maybe give this one a pass if you are religious and easily offended]

Truck



Sculpture by Erwin Wurm.

Climbing babies on Prague's TV tower. The Czechs are producing some interesting public art these days.

The US Army Corps of Engineers has been "playing God" with the lower Mississippi for generations. Now they are finally being held accountable.

" Judge Stanwood Duval Jr brought the debate back down to earth, blaming authorities for "negligence" in a strongly worded ruling that accused the Corps of "insouciance, myopia and short-sightedness".

The circuit court judge's groundbreaking decision ruled that flood defences had been compromised by a navigation channel built, but not properly maintained, by the Corps that funnelled floodwaters from Katrina into New Orleans with devastating consequences."