Aug 28 2009 Future Farming: Giant Fish-Filled Ocean Balls

According to experts at National Geographic, the future of fish farming (aquaculture) may rely on giant, fish-filled balls floating around in the ocean.

...[A]utomated cages could herald an entirely new form of fish farming.

They might be turned loose to mimic natural systems by following carefully chosen ocean currents. The robotic fish farms could help lead to larger, healthier crops of farmed fish far from crowded coastal areas, where farmed fish both suffer from poor water quality and, by producing waste, add to water woes.

Cages might even generate their own electricity by harnessing solar energy, wave energy, or other forms of renewable power.

This reminds me of middle school. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? You are if you answered "cafeteria fish sticks"! Loved those sticks. One time I even had a fish rock! I chipped a tooth and lost it in my corn. Chocolate milk, whee!!!

The Future of Fish Farming Is Giant Autonomous Roaming Robotic Cages [eatmedaily]

Thanks to Resa, who fishes the old fashioned way: with her bare hands (and dynamite).

Aug 27 2009 Is This Nessie Spotted On Google Earth?

I'm not even sure what I'm looking at. It looks like a snake chasing a giant squid. But according to some security guard who was busy surfing Google Earth instead of patrolling his beat, it's the Loch Ness Monster (love you, Nessie).

Jason Cooke told The Sun he spotted "Nessie" while browsing the website's satellite photos. Mr Cooke, 25, of Nottingham, said: "I couldn't believe it. It's just like the descriptions of Nessie."

The image can be seen by entering coordinates Latitude 57°12'52.13"N, Longitude 4°34'14.16"W in Google Earth (or playing with the map above).

Earlier this year it was reported that climate change may have killed the Loch Ness Monster. There have been "no "credible sightings" of Nessie for over a year.

Veteran American monster hunter Bob Rines thinks environmental conditions in the Highland loch have changed and can no longer sustain the elusive reptile.

Gary Campbell, of the monster's official fan club, said: "I'm concerned. There have been none of the normal sightings that verify that Nessie and her family are still alive and well."

Haha, these people actually think the Loch Ness Monster is real. That's great (bless their special little hearts). You know, these are the same people that keep asking for government grants to go hunt for Bigfoot. Which, SPOILER ALERT: bitch was delish!

Is the Loch Ness monster on Google Earth? [telegraph]

Thanks to Asbo and Praveen, who only hunt for dragons because dragons are real and sit on mountains of treasure.

Jul 29 2009 Why?: Jellyfish Toys Go In Your Water Bottle

Bandai is selling these $6 jellyfish toys that you put in your water bottle to keep you company when you're doing whatever sad, lonely thing you do that's led you to buy a $6 piece of plastic to keep you company. But hey, I'm not judging (I just ordered thirty). They come in jellyfish, squid and octopus varieties and present a choking hazard to all people under 150. GOTTA CHOKE ON 'EM ALL!

Several more shots after the jump.

Continue Reading " Why?: Jellyfish Toys Go In Your Water Bottle "

Jun 22 2009 Yikes: Sharks Hunt Like Human Serial Killers

A recent study conducted by a group that I can't believe received funding for the project has determined that great white sharks hunt like human serial killers. Get a load of this freakishness:

The sharks feeding at Seal Island could have just hovered right where the seals congregated if they were random killers-of-opportunity, Hammerschlag said. But they weren't.

The sharks had a distinct M.O.

They were focused. They stalked from a usual base of operations, 100 yards from their victims. It was close enough to see their prey, but not close enough to be seen and scare off their victims. They attacked when the lights were low. They liked their victims young and alone. They tried to attack when no other sharks were around to compete. They learned from previous kills.

And they attacked from below, unseen.

Okay now I'm a little creeped out. And not just because there's a great white peeking through my bedroom wind....ZOMG THERE'S A GREAT WHITE PEEKI *glass shatters* OM NOM NOM NOM HOLY SHIT HE'S EATING MY FOOT! OH GOD HELP -- IT'S UP TO MY KNEE! OH NO, OH NO HE'S GOING FOR MY PENI....oh, choked to death.

Great white sharks hunt just like Hannibal Lecter [yahoonews]

May 28 2009 Frickin' Huge!: Full-Size Blue Whale Website

This full-sized blue whale website comes to us from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society that urges everyone to "EAT MOR CHIKIN". Kidding, those are the Chick-Fil-A cows. Damn, now I want a sandwich. Ladies? Anyway, the website was designed to give the average computer user a sense of awe for just how large the sandwich you better be making me should be. Crazy, huh? Those whales are huuuuuuge. And as a guy whose had his fair share of BBW lovers: motion of the ocean, baby. I don't even know what that means, but I just bought a sailboat!

Website

Thanks to Shelby, who is a special f/x artist and could make even me look cool. On fire. While exploding. Riding a shark.

May 21 2009 This Is The Awesomest Hat Ever Made

And if you could incorporate a beer helmet into it, it would be awesomest hat ever possible to make.

I made this hat for my son - he wanted a mean shark. I saw the dead fish hat pattern and loved the idea - I just varied the pattern quite a lot to make different looking species. And felted it so it looks like it jumped out of the water and landed on his head...

I basically cast 90 stitches onto a size 9 circular needle and winged it from there. I used Patons wool and it felted great.

Okay I have absolutely no idea what that means because the only thing I've ever stitched is my head to the carpet, but if somebody out there could make me one that would be just about the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. Well, besides BYOB night at the strip club. Superficial Writer -- out of my cooler!

Shark Attack Hat [craftster]

Thanks to Towee Monster and Yopoleo, who have both almost been victims of shark attacks but punched the guys before they got hold of their underwear. Good looking, guys.

May 20 2009 Crying Wolf: The Fake Shark Attack Wetsuit

Want to look like a shark attack victim? I know, who doesn't? Well now thanks to a line of wetsuits by Diddo (the same guy that created these designer gas masks), you can. But if shark attack victim isn't for you, what about an anatomical muscle suit? Or wood? Or a rusted pattern? Hit the jump to see all the options. Currently only available in limited editions, the wetsuits will hit full production sometime in the near future. Just don't expect me to fall for the shark attack thing more than once. And speaking of which, have I ever told you about the time I faked drowning so the sexy lifeguard would perform mouth to mouth? His mustache was scratchy.

Hit it for some more worthwhile shots.

Continue Reading " Crying Wolf: The Fake Shark Attack Wetsuit "

Feb 24 2009 FREE: Navy Giving Away Stealth Ship & Dock

And I want them!

One is called Sea Shadow. It's big, black and looks like a cross between a Stealth fighter and a Batmobile. It was made to escape detection on the open sea. The other is known as the Hughes (as in Howard Hughes) Mining Barge. It looks like a floating field house, with an arching roof and a door that is 76 feet wide and 72 feet high. Sea Shadow berths inside the barge, which keeps it safely hidden from spy satellites.

The barge, by the way, is the only fully submersible dry dock ever built, making it very handy -- as it was 35 years ago -- for trying to raise a sunken nuclear-armed Soviet submarine.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? A floating safe-haven from the robots! So this is what we're gonna do: pack that vessel chock-full of grade-A seamen and head out on the open ocean. Why, you ask? Because the majority of robots are land-based (we'll still have to watch out for these guys though). Now who's with me? C'mon -- we'll bang mermaids! Heads up though: stay away from Poseidon's daughter. Dude caught me messing around with her in highschool and tried to suck me down the bathtub drain.

Hit the jump for two more of the giveaways.

Continue Reading " FREE: Navy Giving Away Stealth Ship & Dock "

Jan 5 2009 Little Jellyfish Cheats Death, Death Is Pissed

So apparently there's this little jellyfish creature (Turritopsis nutricula, a form of hydrozoa) that doesn't ever die. Biology is beyond me, so I'll let somebody else do the talking while I make a sandwich have a sandwich made for me.

What these little folks do is they revert completely to a sexually immature, colonial stage after they reach sexual maturity. They're even cooler than that. When they're young they've got only several tentacles, but at a mature stage, they get to 80-90 of them.

They're able to return to polyp stage due to a cell change in the external screen (Exumbrella), which allows them to bypass death. As far as scientists have been able to find out, this change renders the hydrozoa virtually immortal.

Did that make any sense? I didnt' bother reading it, but I think it had something to do with being able to regenerate your arm like a starfish. *sawing through bone*

UPDATE: Um, so does anybody have the number for Luke Skywalker's doctor?

Meet the world's only immortal animal [zmescience]

Thanks to Emile, who only wants to live long enough to see a hovercar.

Jan 3 2009 WTF Was That!?!: Deep-Sea Siphonophore

This is a video of a deep-sea (770-meters to be exact) siphonophore doing its thing. What the f*** is a siphonophore?

...an eerily fantastic creature that appears to be a single, large organism, but which is actually a colony of numerous individual jellyfish-like animals that behave and function together as a single entity. The individual units, called zooids, all share the same genetic material and each perform a specialized role within the colony. The best-known siphonophore is the poisonous Portuguese Man o' War.

Mmmm, I can almost taste the wasabi and soy sauce from here.

Siphonophore: Deep-sea superorganism [pinktentacle]

Thanks to Jack, a personal friend who knows I'm a sucker for new sushi.

Nov 28 2008 Mysterious 'Elbowed' Squid Caught On Video

An underwater rover operated by Shell oil company caught some video of a rare Magnapinna (attractive metal penis) squid a mile and half down. And the squishy bastard has elbowed tentacles! WTF! And also, nigiri. Mmmm.

Two more pictures (one old) after the jump, horrible one second video here.

Continue Reading " Mysterious 'Elbowed' Squid Caught On Video "

Sep 30 2008 What?: Man Punches Shark To Save Dog

Some guy allegedly punched a shark in the face to save his rat terrier, quite possibly making him the manliest man womanly enough to actually own a rat terrier.

Man punches shark [cnn]

Thanks to Julian, who once punched a shark in the nads for taking a bite of his tuna-salad sandwich.

Sep 26 2008 Wait, What?: An Underwater Lake

So apparently there are lakes of super-saline water at the bottom of the ocean.

During the Jurassic period the waters here were shallow and became cut off from the ocean. The area soon dried out, leaving a thick layer of salt and other minerals up to 8km thick. When ocean water returned after the region rifted apart, the super-saline layer at the bottom of the Gulf became an underwater lake. Now brine, which is continually released from a rift in the ocean floor, feeds the lake.

Now I know what you're thinking -- there has got to be magic involved. But you're wrong, my friend. This is pure sorcery.

Hit the jump for a longer David Attenborough clip about the lakes.

Continue Reading " Wait, What?: An Underwater Lake "

Aug 29 2008 Is This A Swedish Sea Monster?

I dunno, it kind of looks like a rectangle humping a tapeworm.

A group of filmmakers claim to have successfully captured Sweden's legendary Great Lake Sea Monster (Storsjöodjuret), which is said to lurk in the waters of the Storsjön outside Östersund in northern Sweden.

"It clearly shows that it's warm and is made up of cells, otherwise our cameras wouldn't indicate red, so it can be a sea snake or some other kind of sea animal," said a female member of the film crew to Sveriges Television news in Jämtland.

The effort to find the monster has generated a great deal of interest, with the American television network NBC planning to document the hunt.

Boy are they in for a surprise. You see, the Great Lake Sea Monster is actually SPOILER ALERT: my penis. I guess he wasn't joking when he said he was packing the balls and moving to Sweden. Wait, then what's....

UPDATE: An ear of baby corn.

Hit the jump for a video news report in Swedish.

Continue Reading " Is This A Swedish Sea Monster? "

Aug 26 2008 Move Over, Robot: Goblin Shark Is Scarier

Goblin sharks look scary as hell and are scary as hell. Sure they're only a couple feet long, but they're uglier than my sister and have tons of sharp little teeth. Watch the video around 0:20 to see how it's mouth comes out of its face Aliens style to munch on dude's arm. Also, a friend told me that's what a woman's vagina looks like.

Japanese Goblin Shark [collegehumor]

Thanks to Libby, who once punched a goblin shark in the mouth because it looked at her funny.

Jul 8 2008 Dolphin Submarine/Boat Thing Could Be Fun

The Innerspace Dolphin and Seabreacher and water vessels designed to look and behave like actual dolphins. They're powered by a little engine in the back and you can do all sorts of fun stuff like barrel rolls, jumps, dives and drownings. I want one pretty bad. The Seabreacher just became available for sale this spring, unfortunately I couldn't find a price. Allegedly the smaller Dolphin model went for around $50,000, but I couldn't find any verification of this figure. Anybody know? Also, do you think they'll come out with a Dolphinbreacher model in the future? Because that's what I really see myself doing. Besides, I've already had sex with a porpoise. The porpoise was to get my girlfriend pregnant so she wouldn't leave me! HAH AHA HA HAH AH !! She left anyways. Hated puns.

Hit the jump for a couple more pictures, a commercial of the thing in action, and a link to the website if you want to buy one.

Continue Reading " Dolphin Submarine/Boat Thing Could Be Fun "

Jun 16 2008 A Lilypad For The Flood-Induced Apocalypse

The Lilypad Floating Ecopolis for Climate Refugees is a giant floating city that people can live on when the world floods because Al Gore was right. It looks weird but I reserved a spot anyways because I'll be damned if I live in a flooded house. Unless fish promised to swim around my legs while I watch TV, in which I'd consider it. Similar in concept to the Freedom Ship, this mammoth floater would likely cater to the rich. The architectures behind the design believe we'll need these things by 2100 because half of the world will have disappeared underwater. Or maybe just a third will be flooded, I forgot what they said. Maybe just my bathtub. The most unbelievable part about the whole thing? That they had the gall to include marine life in the picture! HA -- like they'll be anything alive in the oceans by 2100. I know, pretty depressing. Seriously though, I have to have sex with a mermaid before they're extinct.

Hit the jump for a bunch more pictures (including one in which they intentionally made a city look like it's burning even though they're just supposed to be the lights from cars and buildings), along with a link to the project page with a bunch more info.

Continue Reading " A Lilypad For The Flood-Induced Apocalypse "

May 12 2008 Sure, Why Not?: Get Buried Underwater

Some people are happy being cremated and spending eternity in an urn on the fireplace mantel that the grandkids get all freaked out about. Others are happy with a traditional burial 6 feet under -- but some, some take it a step further and want to rest 45 feet under. Enter the Neptune Memorial Reef, near Miami. The artificial reef opened this last fall, and is an underwater cemetery. The first phase consists of gates, pathways, plaques, and benches, and can hold up to 850 people's remains.

The ashes are mixed with cement designed for underwater use and fitted into a mold, which a diver then places and secures into the reef. A copper and bronze plaque is installed with the person's name, date of birth and death. There is also a line for a message.

The cement mixer treatment starts at $995 for their most modestly priced receptacle, and goes all the way to $6,495 if you want to be incorporated into something wicked like a lion statue. The hope is that eventually the reef will cover 16 acres and hold the burnt remains of up to 125,000 people.

"This is simply as good as it gets," said Gary Levine, a diver who conceived the reef and is now a shareholder in the company that owns it.

Whoa there Gary, whoa there. First off, that is not as good as it gets. Having your remains shot into outerspace in a rocketship is as good as it gets. And secondly, it's a little hard to trust anyone who has "conceived a reef". Now I've conceived children before, but never a reef. As a rule I keep my conceiver away from anything sharp like coral. Cut up your junk real bad.

Several more pictures (including a lion) after the jump.

Continue Reading " Sure, Why Not?: Get Buried Underwater "

May 6 2008 Win Lobsters In A Claw Machine. HAAHAHA A!

Get it? Lobsters, claw machine? Lobsters have claws, this claw machine has lobsters, I have no brain. I've actually known about these machines for a while, because I was filming a documentary about people (me) who get drunk and travel around to bars playing claw games. If you think I'm joking I have three trashbags filled with stuffed animals and crap to prove it. Oh, and I saw one like this at a seafood restaurant in the Outer Banks. The place would even cook your lobster for you if you won. But it cost $1 to play so I only got to try twice. And even being a claw machine expert, I couldn't freaking grab the crustaceous bastard I had my eye on. I did manage to tear one of his legs off though.

NOTE: Not really.

Worthwhile video of people playing, after the jump.

Continue Reading " Win Lobsters In A Claw Machine. HAAHAHA A! "

Dec 21 2007 See Through Walls: 'Lobster Vision' Camera

The LEXID (Lobster-Eye X-ray Inspection Device) is a new camera made by Physical Optics Corporation of Torrance, California. It works in the same way that a lobster's vision does -- "by beaming X-rays, then focusing on the reflection (rather than refraction) of objects." The device is capable of seeing through wood, concrete, steel, and many other materials. They're coming soon to a nosy government near you. I want to get my hands on one, for obvious reasons. You know what I'm going to use it for right? No, not for looking through the girl's locker room wall. Jesus you people are a bunch of pervs. I'm going to use it for good. By looking through specially marked boxes of Pop Tarts for a sweepstakes-winning ticket. I'm going to that Hannah Montana concert damnit, I'll just die if I don't.

Another picture after the jump showing the actual device.

Continue Reading " See Through Walls: 'Lobster Vision' Camera "