Well, sort of. Fans of classic science fiction and/or campy Disney films will recall that squid and humans have a score to settle. But Captain Nemo will be happy to hear that our cephalopod friends may have finally repaid their debt to humankind.
Researchers at UC Santa Barbara, my alma mater, have discovered a property of squid beaks that may lead to breakthroughs in the design of medical devices. They've answered a long-standing, deceptively simple conundrum: "Why don't squid hurt themselves?"
See, squid beaks are nasty, hard, sharp little things. Or, as UCSB biologist Herbert Waite so eloquently put it to the Associated Press:
"A dozen of them could eat you, or really hurt you a lot."
Squid, on the other hand, are soft, pulpy, boneless little creatures. How is it that they can clamp down on their prey with these knifelike little things and not hurt themselves at the same time? It'd be sort of like you or me trying to cut up a piece of cardboard using a pair of scissors that was missing a handle. The sharp part may be aimed at the box, but the ragged end that digs into your hand still hurts like hell.
The back end of that sharp beak, figured biologists, must be like ragged scissor handle on squishy squid body. But squid don't seem to mind, and so scientists asked that most fundamental question: "What's up with that?"
It’s a long-held assumption that humans harbor an innate fear of snakes and spiders as an evolutionary defense mechanism against the threats such creepy crawlies may pose. Moreover, recent studies have suggested that we possess an uncanny natural capacity to preferentially attend to—i.e. identify—bite-happy beasties so as to give them the wide berths we presume they warrant.
However, researchers at the University of Queensland posit that just because we notice potential dangers, doesn’t necessarily mean we fear them. Quoth Dr. Helena Purkis:
“We showed that although everyone preferentially attends to snakes or spiders in the environment as they are potentially dangerous, only inexperienced participants display a negative response.
“If we understand the relationship between preferential attention and emotion it will help us understand how a stimulus goes from being perceived as potentially dangerous, to eliciting an emotional response and to being associated with phobia."
Remember how when you were little and it rained, your parents told you God is crying because you did something wrong? Turns out it's actually just a whole host of bacteria coalescing into ice and plummeting back to Earth. Because you did something wrong.
Brent Christner of Louisiana State University, with colleagues in Montana and France, reported today in Science that most ice nucleators, particles ice forms around, found in snow at mid- and high-latitude locations were biological in origin. I.e., it's just just the yellow snow you need to worry about. It's pretty much all filled with creepy crawlies (or, more appropriately, fearsome flagellum).
Their guess, then, is that the bacteria affects the rain cycle or actually causes their own precipitation.
Back around the turn of the century, some genius with a Burmese python realized his chosen pet was a lot more difficult to manage than a goldfish, so he dumped it in the Everglades. Meanwhile, another genius discovered the same thing and also released his or her Burmese python in the Everglades, and — voila! — by 2003, biologists with the park service confirmed an established breeding population of a 20-foot, 300-lb. snake.
But it gets better: See all the green space on the map? According to a new USGS survey, that represents the area of our country that climatically matches the python's historical range from Pakistan to Indonesia. Burmese pythons have already been spotted north and east of the Everglades, so it seems like only a matter of time before these highly adaptable reptiles spread even more.
Unsurprisingly, global warming could play a big part in the invasive animals' spread. Click through to see another USGS projection of the python's suitable range in 100 years:
Y'all know what time it is! Today is the 199th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, and hundreds of organizations will celebrate the date "in honor of the discoveries and life of the man who famously described biological evolution via natural selection." I'm so excited, I totally forgot all about that other guy's birthday yesterday — what's his name? Ah, it's not important; I gotta get me a fake beard for my theme party.
The Albany, N.Y.-based Institute for Humanist Studies helped sponsor hundreds of events in cities across the world to mark the occasion, so you'll be able to party down with fellow Darwinistas from Dhaka to Berkeley. To be fair, the events feature more picnics and guest lectures than out-and-out boozefests, but any celebration that can free us from the tyranny of this guy is OK by me.
This is the third or so time its happened in six years. A shark has been rained upon by a beam of God's golden seed and has given birth without aid of a real boy-shark. The first time, in 2002, it was a spotted bamboo shark, and in 2007 an isolated hammerhead had a pup--only to have it killed hours later by a stingray in the tank. This time it was a white-tipped reef shark in a tank in Nyiregyahaza Centre in Hungary.
Since last summer the small town of Cuero, Texas has been the epicenter of one of the Internet’s favorite points of discussion: chupacabras. In July, a motorist plowed into a hairless purple-hued doglike creature that fits the rough physical description of what the southwest’s most beloved cryptid would actually look like, leaving many people to speculate—sometimes wildly—about the lineage of the unfortunate roadkill.
Phylis Canion, on whose property it expired, decided to find out just what the hell this creature was that, true to chupacabra legend, had been sucking the blood out of all her chickens. So in conjunction with a local news station, she sent DNA samples to Texas State University for further elaboration. The answer she received was far from earth-shattering. It belongs to the coyote family, quoth the lab.
It's easy to marvel at the rapid advance of CGI monsters in movies and wonder exactly how far off Industrial Light & Magic or WETA is from achieving utter realism. Then you look at one of nature's deep-sea monsters and realize just how far Hollywood has to go:
Countless men have been emboldened by one of the most varied and hopeful phrases in the English lexicon: “It’s not the size that matters, it’s how you use it.”
It’s a call-out for those lazy lotharios who rest on their genetic laurels and a lifeline for those eager few who may pay extra attention to their spam email. It’s a proclamation that, all too often, you just can’t have it both ways.
Ladies, suspend your disbelief and slip into something more comfortable (a wetsuit, preferably) because I have someone I’d like you to meet. May I introduce you to….a barnacle.
Ah, the never-ending dance revolving around the questionable link between mobile phones and cancer. It's like Ross and Rachel, Sam and Diane, Cigarettes and Cancer--mostly like the last one. However, a new study from Tokyo Women's Medical University has reported that after looking at phone use by 322 brain cancer patients and 683 healthy people, regular phone use (at least once a week for 6 months) does not increase your likelihood of getting cancer.
Here's another rare medical condition that sounds like it sprung from the mind of a hack comic-book writer: "polyglandular Addison's disease." This apparently leaves its sufferers--like this adorable moppet--"unable to produce adrenaline in response to alarm or any sudden form of emotional or physical stress." So if they get startled, scared, or super-excited, their organs may shut down from the shock.
This effect has been known about for quite some time -- a 1998 paper by University of Utah researchers Berhardt et al. demonstrated that beyond its effects on mood and self esteem, watching your team win not only boosts your testosterone level, but also decreases the levels of circulating testosterone in the fans of the losing team.
McDonalds wanted to sell ice cream in its Indonesian franchises--except lactose-intolerant Indonesians can't eat the stuff without getting nastily ill. Solution: gum up some kind of non-dairy ice cream for that market sector? Nah. Just give the usual stuff away for free, and let nature take its course.
No seriously! 
Y'all know what time it is! Today is the 199th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, and hundreds of organizations will 
