Christie Wilcox
cwilcox
Posts by this author
March 27, 2009
Males—now this might shock you—generally spend a lot of time and effort trying to convince females they're worth sleeping with. Whether it means building an ornate bower, shaking their tail feathers, or buying the biggest diamond ring, men put a lot of work into getting laid. And why do they go to…
March 26, 2009
Who hasn't walked to their car after getting groceries or the like and suddenly found a nice, large scratch where you're fairly sure there wasn't one before? Then you think do you spend $50 on some random infomercial product claiming to fix scratches of every color, get the thing repainted, or just…
March 25, 2009
I'd forgotten how unbelievably awesome Isabella Rossellini's Green Pornos were. And, what do you know - I find out they're doing new ones, premiering April 1st, focused on sea creatures!
Oh, yeah, I'll be sharing as soon as I can.
Anyhow, here's an oldie but goodie:
(Not Safe for... well, I dunno.…
March 25, 2009
If Dracula started out this cute, I bet people wouldn't have wanted to put a stake through his heart:
Albeit these aren't blood-suckers... They're baby fruit bats. Fruit bats, sometimes called Mega Bats or Flying Foxes, actually range in size depending on species, but can get to as large as 16…
March 24, 2009
Two Komodo Dragons have been blamed for killing a man at Loh Sriaya, in eastern Indonesia's Komodo National Park.
Police and witnesses say that 31 yr old fisherman Muhamad Anwar was attacked by the duet of immense lizards waiting below minutes after he fell out of a tree on Monday. He was…
March 23, 2009
If you've ever watched a National Geographic or Discovery Channel special on the deep sea, you know just about everything that lives in the dark part of the ocean is a Sci-Fi writers dream. The species are so diverse and strange that even the best thought-out aliens hardly hold a candle to the…
March 22, 2009
For anyone who knows me well, you know there are only 2 things that truly terrify me. The first is moths. They're just creepy. The second, and more logical, is needles. I am a big baby when it comes to shots. I've passed out after getting them. I need someone to hold my hand and talk me through…
March 20, 2009
I woke up this morning feeling somehow lighter, freer. The air smelled sweet and the sun was shining - a beautiful day in paradise. But that was not the cause of my elated mood - it's always nice here in Florida. No, something was different. Something had changed.
Oh, that's right. I'd CUT OFF ALL…
March 20, 2009
My current response to "Duke's gonna win the NCAA Championship" would probably have been "sure, they're going to beat a team of Pink Elephants." Get it? Because pink elephants are imaginary, a fabrication of deluded minds - like Duke's chance of making it to the title game.
Well, crap, I'm gonna…
March 20, 2009
A new study published online in Current Biology has analyzed the results from over 48 population studies in the Caribbean from 1955 - 2007, and the results aren't pretty. Caribbean fish have been declining in a big way for at least the past decade, and the culprit isn't commercial fishing.
The…
March 19, 2009
I wouldn't say that I'm the funniest person I know - unless, of course, people laughing at you counts as being 'funny'. I'm one of those people who occasionally has good moments, but really, I'm funniest when I don't intend to be. Like that one time I was making fun of a friend's over-exposed…
March 19, 2009
In January, scientists published a paper which found that women's brains reacted differently to sweat from aroused men. This another study showing the mounting evidence that human beings, although unconsciously, communicate information via olfactory cues that our brains are able to interpret. Now…
March 18, 2009
After watching the video over at Southern Fried Science with the itty-bitty tiger shark babies, I couldn't help but make this week's dose of cute some wittle-baby sharks:
Virgin-borne hammerhead (parthenogenesis plus cuteness = super cool)
Smallest ever baby whale shark
Baby bamboo shark
While…
March 17, 2009
Picture this: It's Monday morning, and you wake up groggy to your alarm because the incessant traffic and blaring of truck horns from the local highway kept you from getting a good nights' sleep. You'd go back to sleep, but your spouse is already up watching TV and that annoying anchor for the 6 AM…
March 16, 2009
There's something about brain-altering parasites that is just creepy. This is doubly true when the parasite makes the host attempt suicide - which is just what Spinochordodes tellinii, the hairworm, is best at.
Hairworms are free-living aquatic organisms as adults, who, as nematodes, eek out an…
March 15, 2009
Yeah, I know I'm lucky. While most of my readers are struggling to shovel the snow out of their driveways, I'm enjoying yet another weekend of 80 degree heat and lovely sun. So it only seems right to take advantage of the good weather and hit the outdoors.
So, on Saturday, Barry and I visited…
March 12, 2009
The Swedish do all the cool studies. I don't know what it is lately - every study I find that piques my interest seems to be of Swedish men.
Anyhow, we've already looked at whether your name affects your income, how about your IQ affecting your longevity?
A study of 1 million (yes, million)…
March 11, 2009
Would a rose by any other name smell just as sweet? Maybe, but it might cost less. It turns out a name might be more important than we'd like to think - it might affect how much you get paid. Swedish scientists have found that simply changing your name from a foreign-sounding one to one a little…
March 11, 2009
If you've ever spent a night or two in a college dorm room in the past twenty years, you're bound to see one thing: drunk college students. They invent amazing methods of intoxication, from throwing ping pong balls into cups of beer to funneling alcohol off of someone's shoe. Nearly 1/3 of college…
March 11, 2009
How about this for an unlikely but adorable meeting:LA Times Blogs
C'mon - you know you've always wished to see the unbelievable cuteness of both a tiger and a dolphin together. Six Flags Discovery Kingdom staff introduced the six month old tiger cub to the friendly bottlenose dolphins during the…
March 10, 2009
This is too frickin' cool: Now you see him, now you don't!
It's something to do with mirrors. Mirrors rock.
March 9, 2009
In the late '90s, everyone started freaking out about their beef products, especially in Europe. Cows in Britain had started falling ill with a strange fatal neural disease. But not only the cows were getting sick - people who ate infected meat were hit too, dying by way of a new variant of…
March 8, 2009
Ok, I'm a little late, so I figured I'd make this one extra-disgusting to cover the time you weren't cringing.
Meet the Screw Worm: Cochliomyia hominivorax. "Hominivorax" means "man-eater", just for your edification.
The screw worm actually isn't a worm at all - it's a fly larvae. Like other…
March 5, 2009
Open Lab 2008 is out! *does a little dance*
You can read more details over at A Blog Around the Clock
For those of you who weren't fans back in '08, Observations of a Nerd (aka me) had a post chosen to be a part of this elite group - so you know it must be good!
I'll soon be adding this somewhere…
March 4, 2009
Now this is one big baby! It's the youngest blue whale ever filmed. You know you want to check out the upcoming special this weekend!
Kingdom of the Blue Whale this Sunday, March 8, at 8 p.m. ET/PT
March 2, 2009
c/o the Telegraph.co.uk, photo by Erik Ruec/o the dailymail.co.uk
A pink bottlenose dolphin has been spotted in Lake Calcasieu, an inland saltwater estuary in Louisiana. The animal has red eyes, indicating that its startling color is due to some form of albinism. So far, it doesn't seem to be…
March 2, 2009
Also check out the awesome new Carnival of the Blue up at Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice and Sunsets.
*Sigh* back to work for me!
March 1, 2009
Everyone has that "awkward" phase in their youth. It's too bad ours isn't this cute!
From Flickr
March 1, 2009
I want to warn y'all - I'm probably not going to be posting much this week.
I gotta see off Barry's family, have a whole ton of work, get back to exercising off the weight I gained by eating out all week with the rents, visit my grandparents, and all the while try not to rip my hair out while…
February 28, 2009
Oi! I've been poked again with a meme, this time by Daniel. But, I have to admit, it sounded fun.
Here's the deal: to find search terms that get this blog as the top result - obviously not just your title. It's far more entertaining that you'd expect. Here's the best ones I could find:
Dose of…