The Oyster’s Garter

Four severed sneaker-clad right feet have washed up in British Columbia just this year, and Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer is on the case. He’s an expert in marine debris, most famous for his work with the wandering rubber duckies. But Dr. Ebbesmeyer also knows how bodies come apart! Is the mild mannered scientist really just a cover for the crime fighter within?

Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer based in Seattle, Wash., said when a human body submerged in the ocean, the main parts like arms, legs, hands, feet and the head are usually what come off the body.

But he’s still baffled by how the exact same part — a right foot — could wash up repeatedly.

“It’s not unusual for body parts to wash up along the United States or Canada,” he said. “There’s so many accidents, like boating. That’s not unusual. It is unusual to find four bodies over the course of the year and just right feet.”

He said his theory is that the feet came along as a result of an accident that might have happened up along the Fraser River, that washed down and spread out along the Straight of Georgia.

Ebbesmeyer said he would urge the police to trace the shoes back to the store they were purchased.

“There’s a lot you can do with the serial number of a shoe and I’m assuming the RCMP are doing that,” he said.

Parasite fans (and I know you’re out there) NEED to check out Deep Sea News’ excellent rhizocephalan pics. You might remember rhizocephalans from this post (they’re the crab-bot zombie barnacles), but never before have you seen them this up close and personal. Maybe I Can Haz Cheezburger needs some of that LOLRhizocephalan?

Insects are among the most abundant lifeforms on earth, so it’s not very surprising that their parasites are equally abundant. And those parasites take many, many forms - most awesomely disgusting and terrifying.

First in today’s parasite buffet, courtesy of my most excellent friend Sam, is a tasty red berry! Oh, wait, that’s actually an ant. A newly discovered nematode alters the color of its host-ant’s abdomen, making it look like a ripe, delicious berry. As if that isn’t enough, the nematode also makes the ant wave its tasty abdomen in the air (normally a defense posture) and makes the ant taste better by suppressing the ant’s defensive chemicals. Birds eat the ant and poop out the parasite, the ants collect the bird poop & feed it to their larvae, and the cycle begins anew.

Next is Cordyceps, a fungus that can control bugs’ brains. Insects infected with Cordyceps have an uncontrollable urge to climb high up a plant and clamp their jaws tight. The fungus then eats their brain and sporulates out of their head. You really MUST watch this video for the time-lapse zombie-fungus-brain-eating sequences.

Finally, please enjoy hipsters driven mad by the natural world. Cracked.com features The 5 Most Horrifying Insects in the World. It’s the most hysterical (insane, not funny) article I think I’ve ever read - the entire piece reads like one primal scream. I don’t know why they’re so frightening - after all, they left out the bat-eating Amazonian Giant Centipede (video, with Davd Attenborough to soothe you).

Don’t worry. At least it’s not like you’ve got any mind-controlling parasites.

Photo from Neurophilosphy, some links from Metafilter.

Unlike many scientists, I embrace doom & gloom. It probably has something to do with being a Jewish New Hampshirite - the combination of “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God” and “Jews in the Hands of an Angry Pogram” doesn’t make for the cheeriness. Maybe I’ll start a weekly Doom feature. In the meantime, have some more tasty doom!

• Estimates of sea level rise may be too low. A new study in Nature found that if global temperature rose 2 degrees C, sea level would rise 4-6 meters (12-18 feet). Eeep! That’s a up to a 1.5 meter (5 foot) rise per century! New York isn’t looking so healthy with just a 0.7 (2 foot) rise. Not my bagels! My precious bagels!
• Pacific salmon are swimming around Argentina and invading the southern Atlantic, probably aided by massive salmon farming operations in Chile. Since salmon are hungry mofos, they could starve out Magellanic penguins in Patagonia. This is somewhat ironic due to Atlantic salmon causing trouble in the North Pacific. Maybe they’ll make it home as the ice melts and the Northwest Passage grows.
• In preparation for the inevitable apocalypse (which may or may not be related to zombies), crop seeds from all around the world are being stored in Svalbard, off Norway. The Svalbard global seed vault is set to open in February 2008.
• And finally, is humanity doomed? A paper in Nature considers the probability of overpopulation, giant asteroids, and the extinction of the sun.

Er, Happy New Year!

Roaches are bad. But you know what’s worse? ZOMBIE ROACHES! Zombie roaches are created by one of the many species of parasitic wasp - these wasps paralyze another species of insect or spider and lay their eggs in their living bodies. (The most well known of these is the tarantula spider.) When the eggs hatch , an adorable little wasp baby eats its way out of the fresh meat.

At least for one species, the paralyzing agent is not physical, but mental. The jewel wasp, which lays its eggs in cockroaches, injects venom into the place in the roach’s brain that essentially controls free will. Unable to walk, the roach is dragged into the wasp’s burrow to stay nice and fresh for the little waspling.

Now that I think about it, this is a bit disappointing. Zombie roaches are actually the opposite of the traditional zombie, which is dead yet running about - the roach is alive but paralyzed. I suppose we’ll have to turn to the robo-roaches for our dose of roach-related nefarious schemes.

Fortunately, there is a real zombie-creature in nature - my favorite parasite of all time, the rhizocephalan barnacle. It finds a crab, wraps around its nervous system, and turns it into a little crab-bot. The crab-bot carefully carries around and grooms the rhizocephalan until the rhizocephalan wants to reproduce. Then the rhizocephalan makes the crab-bot do the ocean equivalent of throwing itself under a bus - the crab goes out in the open and waves its claws around until it gets eaten by a fish. And the rhizocephalan life cycle continues…

Contrary to reports in the international press, Lansing, MI will be unprepared for the zombie invasion. They are not stockpiling chainsaws. They are not preparing to block off highway exits. Lansing is going to be overrun! Personally, I’d flee to Davis, where the undergrads understand the importance of surviving World War Z.

Zombie captions! An art installation project Night of the Living Dead on the side of building and allows people to text zombie-speech into zombie-bubbles. Though I’m not sure if there’s much to say besides BRAAIIINS - maybe  SPLEEEEEN!

For more zombie awesomeness, watch the animated short series Zombie College. It takes place at Arkford University, a cheerful undead-filled version of Miskatonic University. Less evil gods, more yummy brains.

“We must respect the sanctity of the Zombie. This is not a place for hapless voyeurism. This is Zombie Yoga. Normalperson yoga happens elsewhere.”

Via Feministe

I love books about dystopias, apocalypses, and world-endings. Parable of the Talents, Y: The Last Man, World War Z, The Dark Tower series…and that’s just off the top of my head. Maybe I like being scared, or maybe I like having my bad attitude about human nature confirmed. But I’m not really worried about most of scenarios for world-ending - I don’t think a plague will kill all the men, we don’t have super-intelligent robots who look just like us, and there are no zombies - yet. (But if there are zombies, Eric and I are SO on top of it. We have a zombie invasion plan that’s way more detailed than our earthquake/fire/hurricane plan. What? What’s wrong with that? )

But there is one dystopia mechanism that may hold some water - Peak Oil. Peak Oil is

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Most people think that sugar makes kids hyper, even though it’s been proved to be a myth. After all, you can just see their little minds go “boing!” after having soda or candy. A recent study in the Lancet, posted by Angry Toxicologist, might explain this contradiction - it’s not the sugar, it’s the preservatives.

Angry Toxicologist explains way better than I could:

They took 153 3-year olds and 144 8-9 year olds and gave them a sweet drink with either sodium benzoate, a common preservative, and a artificial colors/flavors mix or a placebo. The amount of preservative/color/flavor is less than what many children get in a day. They were tested on a standard hyperactivity index, as well as a attention test. The children were given different drinks on different weeks and since it was double blind, neither the children or the scorers (parents/teachers) knew which drink they got. And since the same children were tested on both, you don’t have to worry about variation between children as much.

Both sets of kids were more hyper when they had drunk the artificial color/preservatives in the bug juice. Scary, because preservatives are EVERYWHERE.

And you know, I’m all in favor of the existence of preservatives. It’s great that we have ways to make food not go bad without having to can or salt or dry it. I don’t want to go back to picking weevils out of my hardtack. But as a society, we’re addicted to cheap, sweet, fatty, deathless food - and as if obesity wasn’t trouble enough, it has to make kids hyper too.

Here’s a PDF of the Lancet study if you’d like to read it yourself.