England’s Escaped Lion: Monty Python-Style
The search for the lion stalking the eerie grasslands of Essex County (the scene of one of P.D. James’s best murder mysteries) has been called off.…
Cats and the Conservation of Angular Momentum
How does a cat go from feet up to feet down in a falling reference frame without violating the conservation of angular momentum? (Huh?)
Pastor Rick Warren Explains the Movie Massacre
There’s so much wrong with this Tweet by Pastor Rick Warren: Where do you start? Just to state the most obvious:
Reconciling Faith with Pessimism
Some noteworthy remarks by Chris Hedges on Bill Moyers weekly “Moyers and Company” show on PBS yesterday. They should resonate with any of us who are…
First Internet Cat Film Festival
On a brighter note than my previous post . . . One of the nation’s leading art museums is hosting the first-ever Internet Cat Video Film…
Of Cults, Crimes and Kittens
Just down the road (about 50 miles) from where I live at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary is Colorado City, a small Arizona/Utah town nestled up against…
You Like Acid, Metal, Punk Rock? Here’s Why.
Why does anyone enjoy nasty, metal, punk acid rock music? Evolutionary biologist Daniel Blumstein says he can explain – and he has a scientific study to…
When You’re Dead, Are You Really?
Have you ever imagined being dead and buried … and then waking up in a coffin, like in an Edgar Allen Poe story? Or being declared…
When Religion Means Cruelty to Animals
What are the proper limits of religious freedom? Marianne Thieme, leader of the Party for the Animals in the Netherlands, offers this answer: “Religious freedom stops…
No Zombie Apocalypse, says CDC
In the TV show The Walking Dead, the Centers for Disease Control blows itself sky high in the knowledge that all of humanity is infected with…
When Turtles Divorce
Bibi and Poldi in more romantic times It may have been one of the longest relationships on record. But two Giant Turtles at the Austrian Zoo…
The Incredible Lightness of Being a Dinosaur
Just about everything we ever thought we knew about dinosaurs has turned out to be wrong. These amazing beings who survived and adapted and are still…
The Dead Kitty Copter
This takes Monty Python’s dead parrot sketch to a whole other level. And the responses are mixed: from “cute” to “hilarious” to “utterly tasteless” to “completely grotesque and definitely not funny.”
Dinosaurs Live On as "Most Successful Land Species"
It may be hard to imagine that your common house sparrow is the direct descendant of the dinosaurs (to be precise, she is a dinosaur). But we know it’s true. And now we know a little more about how the transition took place.
Imaginary Menagerie Takes to the Streets
Imagine if the animals escaped from the zoo and took to the streets. That’s what the folks at Lichtfaktor in Cologne, Germany, did when they put…
Masters of Camouflage
Check out this beautiful conch shell … … Well, actually it’s an octopus.
Top Ten ‘New’ Species for 2012
Meet the sneezing monkey, the SpongeBob SquarePants mushroom, the walking cactus, and the devil’s worm. While they’re hardly “new” species (they’ve all been around a lot…
Coffee with Kitties
Next time you’re in Vienna, drop by the Café Neko. Best go in the evening because some of the staff are snoozing all day. Café Neko…
Interview with Horse Champion
In a darkly satiric story in The Onion, Kentucky Derby winner I’ll Have Another says he hopes that he won’t have to run another race like that one.