Mr. Tea's Top 10 Badass Phenomena

Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Maybe they should try to insert genes from it into that radioactive fungus slime, that'd be the most awesome thing ever.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
grizzleb said:
They're horrible, the poor snail. Having glowing antennae looks pretty painful. Can't help but wonder what would happen if I were to ingest some somehow. :mad:

Completely off topic but my mum did this like 15 years ago.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10856523

I remember it. She never got on the news or nothing. :mad:
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Your mum should sue.

I went on a date with the woman from Radio 4 quoted there. We didn't hit it off particularly.

That Japanese bug thing made me almost physically ill. Gruesome shit.
 
P

polystyle

Well-known member
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D

droid

Guest
Does anyone know the name of the microscopic prawn thing that wields a kind of supersonic hammer against its prey?
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
droid said:
Does anyone know the name of the microscopic prawn thing that wields a kind of supersonic hammer against its prey?
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what kind of tea have you been drinking? ;)

Not sure, google throws up mantis shrimp, but they're defintiely not microscopic.
 
D

droid

Guest
baboon2004 said:
what kind of tea have you been drinking? ;)

Not sure, google throws up mantis shrimp, but they're defintiely not microscopic.
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hmmm... Mantis shrimp sounds about right. Mustve gotten it confused as there were a bunch of micro-marine predators on the same programme.

In smashers, these two weapons are employed with blinding quickness, with an acceleration of 10,400 g (102,000 m/s2 or 335,000 ft/s2) and speeds of 23 m/s from a standing start,[7] about the acceleration of a .22 calibre bullet.[8][9] Because they strike so rapidly, they generate cavitation bubbles between the appendage and the striking surface.[7] The collapse of these cavitation bubbles produces measurable forces on their prey in addition to the instantaneous forces of 1,500 newtons that are caused by the impact of the appendage against the striking surface, which means that the prey is hit twice by a single strike; first by the claw and then by the collapsing cavitation bubbles that immediately follow.[10] Even if the initial strike misses the prey, the resulting shock wave can be enough to kill or stun the prey.

The snap can also produce sonoluminescence from the collapsing bubble. This will produce a very small amount of light and high temperatures in the range of several thousand kelvins within the collapsing bubble, although both the light and high temperatures are too weak and short-lived to be detected without advanced scientific equipment. The light emission and temperature increase probably have no biological significance but are rather side-effects of the rapid snapping motion. Pistol shrimp produce this effect in a very similar manner.
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Badass!!

EDIT - speaking of the Pistol Shrimp:

Badasser?
 
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D

droid

Guest
At the risk of turning this thread more into 'those amazing animals', Im gonna nominate these guys:

Frogs are lazy bastards, which is why they have such huge goddamned eyes, eyes that are placed so that frogs can see almost 360 degrees without moving at all. Postulated theories for their demonstrated behavior of being a bump on a log include the idea that frogs have licked themselves one too many times and are simply too stoned out to even care about anything beyond their parents' basement. The true weirdness of a frog's eyes doesn't lie in its 360 degree vision, nor does it lie in the fact that frogs close their eyes when swallowing because they use the back of their eyeballs to force the food down their throat (but that is pretty awesome). No, the cool thing is that frogs' eyes are so sensitive that they can detect the presence of a single photon.

Here's some rudimentary physics: a photon is a packet of light. Quantum theory started when scientists observed that sometimes a photon acts like a particle (like a solid packet) but it also sometimes acts like a wave (like the rest of the electromagnetic spectrum). Nobody could figure this out for a while until somebody said, Hey, maybe light is acting this way because ghost photons from parallel universes are crossing over and fucking up its shit.

If they ever get around to proving this theory, then that means frogs observe events happening on the quantum level. Always. Continuously. And not just able to see events in our universe, but also across an infinite amount of universes, including that one where Furrydom has risen as the dominant religion and you go to church every Sunday dressed as a giant teddy bear. This is why the world loves Hypnotoad.

Because he sees everything
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bruno

bruno

est malade
droid said:
In smashers, these two weapons are employed with blinding quickness, with an acceleration of 10,400 g (102,000 m/s2 or 335,000 ft/s2) and speeds of 23 m/s from a standing start,[7] about the acceleration of a .22 calibre bullet.[8][9] Because they strike so rapidly, they generate cavitation bubbles between the appendage and the striking surface.[7] The collapse of these cavitation bubbles produces measurable forces on their prey in addition to the instantaneous forces of 1,500 newtons that are caused by the impact of the appendage against the striking surface, which means that the prey is hit twice by a single strike; first by the claw and then by the collapsing cavitation bubbles that immediately follow.[10] Even if the initial strike misses the prey, the resulting shock wave can be enough to kill or stun the prey.
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a lot like my parrot, his snap was sudden and painful.

what intrigues me is to what extent we are influenced to behave in one way or another by microbes and assorted parasites, it's a major phenomenon if you think about it. the effect of toxoplasmosis in rats is known, not so much the effect on human behaviour. in any case we are not as independent as we like to think we are, i would like to read more about this.
 
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Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Haha, that's some quality pseudoscience about the quantum frogs' eyes. Sounds like something Terry Pratchett would make up. Although I've heard about them using their eyes to help them swallow, that's pretty cool.

Continuing the animals theme, gotta love those sea snakes that make venom potent enough to kill a couple of hundred people with a single drop.* Also, box jellyfish - I heard that being stung by one of these fuckers is so painful the recommended dose of IV morphine is something like 40mg...apparently paramedics typically shoot you up with around 15mg if you've broken your leg. :eek:

*thanks, The Really Wild Show!
 
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M

michael

Bring out the vacuum
In the fish thread there was that sea mite thing that finds a fish, eats its tongue, and then sits in the fish's mouth instead. I don't really want to see those pics again, so I'm not going to go find the links.

Mind you, is that badass? Setting up shop in place of a body part you just ate? Pretty rough.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
michael said:
Mind you, is that badass? Setting up shop in place of a body part you just ate? Pretty rough.
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I think that's pretty badass. Really inventive parasitism.

I had a look out for aurora around midnight last night - not a sausage. :(
 
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Sectionfive

Sectionfive

bandwagon house
That thing was mad last night. I was running around the garden swearing for about an hour.
You couldn't really see the colours very vividly just the creases and the sky distorting. It was still brilliant though, I never seen anything like that before.

Like what in the top half of this.
arura.jpg


They got a great photo of the sun here

suns.jpg
 
Z

zhao

there are no accidents
argonaut.jpg


The male argonaut produces a ball of spermatozoa in a special tentacle called a hectocotylus. When meeting a female it fancies, the male then detaches its penis to swim by itself to the female.

10090.jpg


be pretty cool if i could do that. with one that flies...
 
A

alex

Do not read this.
brilliant thread

(Mine are basically just wiki entries, but i found them all on my own!! ;-)

652px-Tumbler_Snapper_rope_tricks.jpg


Rope Tricks on Nuclear Bombs

Rope trick is the term given by physicist John Malik to the curious lines and spikes which emanate from the fireball of certain nuclear explosions just after detonation.
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Everyone has heard of the below no doubt, still my brain cannot comprehend..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_bomba

3rd degree burns from 62 miles away
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if true, then that is a weird kind of beauty.

One more on the nuclear topic...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime

This was obiously tested due to threat of enemy attacks from great altitude but did they ever expect to have use it on Aliens for example?

And one more slightly less tasteful example..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_radiation_experiments
 
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