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Archive of entries posted on 5th March 2021
Science!
“Like a Horror Movie”: Caterpillar Silences Tomato’s Cry for Help, Scientists Find
Phys.org | February 25, 2021Scientists found that a caterpillar called the tomato fruit worm not only chomps on tomatoes and their leaves, but also deposits enzyme-laden saliva on the plant, interfering with its ability to cry for help.
If it all sounds a bit improbable, starting with the concept of plants crying for help, scientists also scoffed at that idea when it was first proposed a few decades ago. But it has been shown time and time again that when under attack, plants can emit chemical distress signals, causing their peers to mount some sort of defense. A classic example is the smell of a freshly mown lawn, which prompts the release of protective compounds in nearby blades of grass that have yet to be cut.
That made for a convincing case, said Chris Martine, a Bucknell University plant geneticist who was not involved in the study.
“This is incredibly cool,” he said. “I’m definitely going to teach this.”
Fizzbin Standings Updated
One Is All Anybody Needs
Hydrogen Opens Corporate Headquarters; Vows To Crush Competition
“Now that I’ve partnered with another Hydrogen entity,” the CEO said, “we feel we have the lion’s share of the universe’s market.”
“I mean, c’mon, man, even after kicking back 10% to the big guy, we’ve still got what? Sixty or seventy percent of the market!” he added.
He was asked about the competition posed by helium: “Yeah. Gotta light?” he said.
Straight Line of the Day: Congress Has Now Decided That Their Pet National Guardsmen and -Women Are…
Welcome to IMAO! In a Few Years, Our Real-World Mario Kart Track Will Be Complete
Well that is interesting
Still plenty to be afraid of, especially the burning stupidity. But we hit the lighter side of the news with this article. I really didn’t think about the real world problems of same sex marriages. Especially among penguins.
Seriously.
Gay Penguins Steal Entire Nest From Lesbian Penguins to Become Dads
Link to article
I think this sums it up pretty well.
Two gay penguins at a zoo in the Netherlands brazenly stole an entire nest from another couple, complete with eggs, in an attempt to raise a rainbow family. Their efforts might be in vain, zookeepers at Amersfoort’s Dierenpark Zoo told RTV Utrecht, though, because it is believed the pair nest-napped from a lesbian penguin couple, meaning the eggs are most likely unfertilized and will not hatch.
“We also had a lesbian couple at the time,” zookeeper Sander Drost explained recently. “It could be that they stole it from that couple.”
“The males took the egg from a straight couple at an unguarded moment,” zookeeper Marc Belt explained to RTV Utrecht last year. Noting that “homosexuality is more common in penguins,” he went on to observe it was nonetheless “remarkable” that the couple “managed to get hold of an egg.”
There’s even an exclusive male community of penguins in Hamburg — though they haven’t all shown signs of same-sex intimacy.
So all I have to say, isn’t that interesting?
