pit
esiegel | February 27, 2013"Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night." -Edna St. Vincent Millay
I'm sure you've thought about it before: what would happen if you dropped something into a bottomless pit?
Image credit: original source unknown.
No, not one of those fake bottomless pits that you find in various Mystery Spots off the beaten trail.
Image credit: Mel's Hole, courtesy of http://komonews.com/ in Seattle, Washington.
Those may be deep, but they're definitely not bottomless. And I want something truly bottomless…
edyong | March 14, 2010Take a whiff of mustard or wasabi and you'll be hit with a familiar burning sensation. That's the result of chemicals in these pungent foods hitting a protein called TRPA1, a molecular alarm that warns us about irritating substances. The same protein does a similar job in other animals, but rattlesnakes and vipers have put their version of TRPA1 to a more impressive and murderous purpose. They use it to sense the body heat of their prey.
Pit vipers are famed for their ability to detect the infrared radiation given off by warm-blooded prey, and none more so than the western diamondback…