Marcello Cecilio

Sea serpents are a common enough sighting among sailors, but you don't have to be drunk and horny to have seen them, there have even been fantastic sightings by entire villages. In 1817 a sea serpent was spotted off the harbor of Gloucester Massachusetts nearly everyday for a month. First sighted by some fishermen, who described it as a creature whose head (the size of a horse's) stuck 8 feet out of the water and its body thought to be 45-50 feet in length. Their account was largely disregarded until 10 days later when a couple of women and more fishermen (women, famous for never lying are to lend credibility to this particular event) saw the same creature entering their harbor. Six days later a man named Timothy Hodgkins and three friends saw what they initially believed to be a school of pilot whales but as they got closer they came to the conclusion that it was the humps of a giant serpent. Mr. Hodgkins relates: "His head was elevated from three to five feet; the distance was about six feet from the neck to the first bunch; we counted twenty bunches, and we suppose them on average about five feet apart, and the whole length could not be less than 120 feet." Though it would seem to have grown considerably in size since our the first sighting by the fishermen, most accounts of the Gloucester Serpent would mark it at about 100 feet long. It is interesting that among its characteristics were the peculiar 'caterpillar' like movement which is often found in sea serpent accounts. Rather than wiggling from side to side, as sea snakes do, these serpents are reported to contract up and down, as an inch worm might. As such sea serpent stories are often dismissed as misidentified schools of porpoises or such. Hodgkins might be able to be excused from such a dismissal as levelheaded gentlemen they first supposed it to be such until they got a sufficient look at it to be able to remark that it had "nothing that appeared like fin or gills". Six days after this sighting it was seen again near the Squam Lighthouse by a number of people and was given chase by some whaleboats, to no avail. on the 19th, 3 days after the Squam Lighthouse sighting, Captain Richard Rich (parents were cruel in that age) who was in his whaleboat in the harbor claimed it damn near swam under his boat. "There can be no doubt that the animal is a serpent, in kind' that he is at least eighty, and more probably a hundred feet long... He does not wind laterally along, as serpents commonly do, but his motion is undulatory, or consisting of alternating rising and depression... Capt. Beach, who appears to have examined him says his head is the size of a common bucket. He has seen him with his mouth open, his under jaw and teeth like a sharks, his head round, with apparently very thick scales and its whole appearance very terrific."

Because the area was so rife with sea serpent sightings the Linnaean Society of New England formed a special investigating committee. The Linnaean Society of New England was a satellite association of the Linnaean Society of England which is "the world's premier society for the study and dissemination of taxonomy and natural history". They interviewed many of the witnesses under oath, they recieved 11 sworn affidavits including several in Boston which also clocked in some sightings. In August the sightings continued, including one sighting by 12 people at once, the rest are too numerous to mention, but the description of vertical movement and about 100FT in length remain constant. The sighting would cease after August 22, but it was reported to be seen again the following year where it remained in the harbor for another 3 weeks.
The story of Gloucester is unique mostly in the large number of people who claimed to have witnessed the beast, in one area, over such a long period of time. Sightings of sea serpents are not exceedingly rare though, certainly not in the second half of this millennium, with the blossoming of sea travel.

Even in the latter half of this century, such accounts still persist. In 1969 the zoologists Paul LeBlond and John Sibert went investigating in the British Columbia and interviewed many lighthouse keepers, marina workers, fishing clubs members and various locals and came up with 23 eyewitness reports. The separately collected reports are consistent in their descriptions of a horse shaped head with hair or mane and 3 'humps' indicating similar movement patterns. A mane and horse shaped head also are common characteristics used to describe sea serpents, from Olaus Magnus the 16th century Catholic Archbishop of Sweden and writer of Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (History of the People of Northern Regions). Describing sea serpents he claims they have "a growth of hairs of two feet in length hanging from the neck, sharp scales of a dark brown color, and brilliant flaming eyes". (The Gloucester serpent was described as chocolate colored) to various other scattered sightings. The movement pattern it should be noted, has never been observed before in any other marine animal, and seems quite an unlikely mode of propulsion.

In 1933 a serpent like creature in Cadboro bay British Columbia when a Lawyer and his wife while out boating noticed an immense serpent with a camel-like head swimming around the bay. Later that year two government officals reported seeing the same thing, and the sightings continued through the years. For instance Bernard Heuvelman records: "On 13 February 1953 some ten people saw him from different points of view, as he swam for more than an hour in Qualicum Bay". In 1953 Mrs. E. Stout a trained marine biologist reported seeing a creature with "a large flattish head [and] three humps behind the long neck. If not for the humps we would have said it resembled pictures of the herbivorous marsh-living dinosaurs. The animal was a rich deep brown with large reticulations of bright burnt orange". The creature/creatures which frequented the coast of British Columbia were eventually granted the scientific name Cadborosaurus Willsi by LeBlond and Sibert.
Proof was delivered in October 1937 when a digested juvenile Cadborosaurus Willsi was found in the stomach of a sperm whale. Here is its picture:

It was described as having "a head like that of a horse, a snake-like body, and a finned spiny tale".

"Historians" will tell you that Halloween comes from the old Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts believed with the approaching wintertime the underwold and the overworld start to mingle as humans were more routinly dragged off to the netherealm (died). Then druids burned food sacrifices in the form of crops and livestock so they would be granted permission to commuion with the dead and tell the future.

uh next i was going to try and discredit the druids and their beliefs in spirits and fairies but i guess we just needed to look on the right section of the electromagnetic spectrum

For some reason, never has the 1% of DNA seperating us and chimpanzees seemed like such a vast, uncrossable gulf, as when I watch this video.

PS: I have seen the devil and i want him for a pet

If you've had your finger on the pulse to the internet or the science section of newspapers, you've probably heard of reanimated dogs. Despite the fun title, your beloved canine companion of old won't be rising from the grave (of course the option is currently open to clone him, recreate his childhood, and presto!).
These aren't mad scientists experimenting on dogs: Three fourths of patients who suffer from cardiac arrest die even though advances in emergency medicine have made it possible to introduce the first reanimation measures long before irreversible organ damage starts. Wide-ranging basic research is absolutely necessary... We've long fought death through medication, hell even chimpanzees treat their own infections. However, increasingly we can manipulate our bodies to stay alive.

So what is death? The "zombie dog" article claims ceasing respiration, heartbeat, and brain activity as "scientificially dead". Sounds good, but that definition passed with the advent of mechanical ventilation and cardiac mimicry. Also in this case some in science would dispute it on the grounds that the corner stone of death is its irreversibility. Part of the trick in defining Death is that we are a large complex organism, and our parts more often die than our whole. Brain death ( a fun game to play with your brother/sister) became the usually accepted criterion for marking the demarkation between Life and Death. Of course figuring out if the brain can recover is not always an easy task.

So semantically speaking and perhaps one could say medically speaking, Death is changing. The agents of death, disease and trauma, are being stymied in the richer parts of the world. How far can we take it? When will the line of Death be drawn not at brain death, but at atomic dissociation??(or something)??

... so I'll just post the periodic table.


PS Sex with a sombrero on... kinda hot if you ask me.

I'll be hiding under a rock from now on.

EDIT: why? oh I dunno...

Candirú or
Vampire Fish



We would find our next Fabulous Pet in the Amazon River. The Amazon River is choking with exotic wildlife, such as the freshwater pink dolphin, manatee's, and anacondas. Resembling a tiny eel, the candiru is typically 2 inches in length, but feels like 20ft of pure terror! Candiru are constantly tasting the water, trying to find water coming out of the gills of other fish. Once detected, they swim inside to feast on the blood of the larger fish. However, when humans enter their habitat, and are as foolish as to pee, the candiru famously tastes the chemicals in the urine (some of which are similar to the chemicals coming out of the gills of other fish) they trace it back to the human and swim into their anus, where they burrow into the urinary tract. It then extends spikes from its spines to remain lodged in there. Even if you were to find it and pull on its tail, you would not be able to remove it. The Candiru will now begin to feed on your blood, and as a consequence, grow in size. This is often fatal. One common option is Penectomy. It is said if you drink the juice from the fruit of the Jagua tree, you will disolve the candiru.

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Myxomycota or
Slime Mold

Long confusing scientist as a sort of Rorschach Test among mycologists and protozoologists, slime mold has been classified in quite a few different taxonomic catagories. Not to confuse it with its evolutionarily divergent cousins, we concentrate today on plasmodial slime mold. It is found in environments pretty much like what you would expect for something called "slime mold": Damp, organically rich, shady areas. What is interesting about slime mold, other than it comes in charming names like Dog Vomit slime mold is its ability to morph into different states. While they may start out as separate distinct slime mold cells, when they have exhausted their food source, individual amoebae begin to bind together in a network of protoplasm. They form, essentially, giant slugs capable of moving, (a blur at one millimeter/hour). As this giant superorganism (some have been reported to be 2 square meters!) they move to a more food rich environment (often rotting wood).

Three former caretakers for Koko the "talking" gorilla contend in a lawsuit that they were ordered to flash their breasts at the ape to satisfy a simian nipple fetish.

On one occasion, the lawsuit says, Gorilla Foundation president Francine "Penny" Patterson told the gorilla, "Koko, you see my nipples all the time. You are probably bored with my nipples. You need to see new nipples."

It's been said we've explored much less than One millionth of the ocean. Life under the sea remains largely a mystery to us. We know more about the surface of Mars than we do the bottom of the ocean. Creatures as large as giant squid (which oft times measure 70ft or so) and are plentiful (as proven by the number of their beaks found in the stomachs of whales), remain unseen alive by humans. To begin a look at "sea monsters" here is a photograph of what they found in Santa Cruz and an artist rendering of a plesiosaur.

( Read more... )

Physics is a retarded mess these days. I hope Schrodinger's cat died.


on the upside: http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/pen-l/2002w45/msg00266.htm

Born in 1898, in Missouri, (United States of America) Edwin Hubble was, as he would tell you, an extraordinary man. He was an athelete of dangerous prowess. knocking out champion boxers, winning first place in pole vault, shot put, discus , hammer throw, and standing high jump competitions, (all in one afternoon). With athleticism came bravery, and he was known to rescue drowning swimmers and lead men to safety in World War I. And his looks?... "Handsome to a fault" "an Adonis" fawned his contemporaries. But Hubble found true greatness in Science. Up until the time Hubble entered an observatory and peered into telescope there was only one known galaxy, the Milky way. Hubble was to find there was much more than one galaxy, as he put forth in his paper "Cepheids in Spiral Nebulae" making him the first to conjugate galaxy into plural, in a serious manner. Hubble's second great discovery, was that the universe was expanding and these galaxies were drifting apart. Some 30 years after he expanded our universe to great depths, he died. Upon his death his wife, sans funeral, stole away with his body. It remains a mystery where it is today, and the closest he has to a memorial or grave is the Telescope which floats in space, bearing his name.

Karl Scheele. A poor Swedish pharmacist who moonlighted as a chemist, Scheele would have rocked the world of science if he spoke english. Instead, he discovered eight elements (and some of them real superstar elements including Chlorine, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and the ever popular Tungsten) without getting any credit. Scheele also pioneered the use of phosphorus matches and chlorine as a bleach. Karl's real tragic flaw wasn't his lack of ability to publish his findings in english, his true foible was his desire to taste a little of all the chemicals he worked with... Including mercury, and several kinds of acid. At the age of 43 (in 1786) he was found dead in his makeshift lab, surrounded by a plethora of chemicals, any one of which could have done him in as they were each lethal to the drop.

Last night i had a box of cookies for dinner, drank, and watched Short Circuit 2, all completely alone.

Seriously.

I was wondering something recently...

We all have inner monologue, but is everyone's just one voice? I know mine isn't, I have two voices. They often present differnet view points and they make fun of each other a lot. It seems kinda like the old metaphor of an Angel on one shoulder and a Devil on the other, except neither seems particularly evil or good, just different. So what could account for this?

One of the most startling disorders known to man provides some clues i think. Sometimes as kids our parents would stick their hands up through their shirt collars and pretend that their hands were strangling their necks. Im not saying our parents are brain disordered, but there is something called alien hand syndrome These "alien hands" are quite remarkable. They often seem strangely malevolent, attacking the person that the hand is attachted to. They do tend to strangle their "hosts" or pick up and spill drinks of their own accord. They break things and tear off clothes. Sadly, as the medical dictionary states: "There is currently no treatment for alien hand. All a patient can do to control the problem is to keep the hand busy by having it hold an object". The thing about this oddity is that its not that the hand is disconnected from the brain. Far from it, they are privy to all the sensory input that the hand under conscious control has. They aren't wildly flailing about in grotesque spasms, they are confidantly interacting with the envorinment. The rub is that they are doing so beneath the notice and command of our "consciousness". Yet as i said these are organized actions. I believe this is because we have a second consciousness.
Alien Hand Syndrome results typically from damage to the corpus callosum, which connects our two cerebral hemisheres. Much has been said about the differnces of our two hemispheres, one of more fascinating differences is that of emotional asymmetry. Empirical evidence has supported the hypothesis that the Right Hemisphere is dominant for processing negative emotions, and the left for processing positive emotions. The Right has been called "gloomy" and the Left "happy".
Lateralization is important for two other reasons. Consider unconsious activation of the visual cortex (blindsight). In patients with right parietal lobe extinction, they can look at a stimulus and "see" only half of it, (the left side). That is to say, they claim they cannot make out anything on the left side. However if tested or asked to guess what is there, they know or guess right 100% of the time. one of the functions of the parietal lobe is to integrate sensory information to form a single perception, i.e. form a cognitive sensory experience... but yet these people know what is there and it gets processed complexly. For instance, a patient with right parietal lobe extinction is presented with two identical drawing of a house. the only difference is that in the second picture the left side of the house is on fire. They claim to be able to see no difference between the pictures. However when asked which house they would rather live in, they invariably answer the house in the first picture.
Could it be that this sensory information is getting processed by a second consciouness operating under the notice of our primary one? Could it have developed evolutionarily as a failsafe? In extremely rare cases of brain injury their have been cases of "Zombies" people with knocked out consciouness who still move around and function.

So perhaps when i hear the two voices in my head, one is the gloomy right hemisphere consciouness and the other is my happy left hemisphere, I'll have to try and get them to ask each other how they are feeling.

EDIT: Not to say that these "Zombies" would do well evolutionarily, but in cases like blindsight, a second consciousness would be useful.

Do you have a friend like Ben?

( A Folktale as told by Italo Calvino, picture is from an upcoming Film on the Grimm Brothers )

When i was a student i remember hearing about a frenchmans who worked on math during his spare time (he was a lawyer, but as a french lawyer he not much occupied). What's called his last theorem is stated simply as:

"x^n + y^n = z^n has no non-zero integer solutions for x, y and z when n > 2."

although my metier is by no means mathmatics, it has intrigued me for some time. Its a problem that easy enough to confront, but nearly impossible to execute. the excellent mathmatician Leonhard Euler thought he had solved it for n = 3. He solved by treating imaginary numbers as integers, which people cannot do in mathmatics. I'd be interested if anyone could solve it.