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watch this amazing TED talk on sea creatures — and be sure to stay to the end (about 3 minutes?) for an octopus that can perfectly camouflage himself.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Thousands of people have been thronging Chapaghar area of Tanahu district in western Nepal to see a strange seven-colored snake found in a well there, the National News Agency RSS reported on Saturday.    According to the RSS, the snake was first seen by a local people. Since then thousands of people have seen the snake. A local Kum Bahadur Thapa said 1,000 people visit the area daily to see the snake.    Another local Jagat Raj Khanal said the snake has already changed four colors. Locals meanwhile have started worshipping the snake by making an idol of the snake near the well. They have also placed a donation box at the place to collect funds to construct a temple there.

Strange seven-colored snake found in Nepal_English_Xinhua

Popularity: 12% [?]

one of my coolest christmas gifts is the avenging narwhal
from the back of the box:

For centuries, the Narwhal was the great mystery of the sea. With the body of a whale and the horn of a Unicorn, many people believed that these fascinating creatures were harmless inhabitants of the icy waters of the Artic Ocean. Recent studies, however, have exposed the secret agenda of these mysterious mammals and the true purpose of their extraordinarily long pointy tusks.

The studies revealed that millions of years ago, penguins, snow seals and koalas ruled the earth. For sustenance, they feasted upon whales, dolphins and other sea mammals to the point of near extinction. But the Narwhal went into hiding beneath the ice of the North Pole, biding their time, planning their revenge and sharpening their tusks. Finally, they reemerged, tusks gleaming with newfound magical power, and fought back against the adorable creatures that threatened their existence. The battle was long, and many Narwhal were lost, but their strong will and sharp tusks were enough to stave off the cute ones temporarily.

Now, once a year, in a continuous effort to keep their enemies at bay, the Narwhal leave their homes to embark on a treacherous migration to Antarctica in the hunt for baby penguins and seal pups. Many will not return….Along their journey, they will spend time in Australia, swimming upstream to the inland habitat of the koalas, where they will actually leap out of the water to spear the deadly koalas from their perches high in the Eucalyptus trees.

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Just nine days before the launch, Doctor Vladimir Yazdovsky chose one of them — 2-year-old Laika — for the mission.

Stories about how she was chosen vary. Some say Laika was chosen for her good looks — a Soviet space pioneer had to be photogenic. Others say space doctors simply had a soft spot for Laika’s main rival and didn’t want to see her die: Since there was no way to design a re-entry vehicle in time for the launch, the glory of making space history also meant a certain death.

“Laika was quiet and charming,” Yazdovsky wrote in his book chronicling the story of Soviet space medicine. He recalled that before heading to the launchpad, he took the dog home to play with his children.

“I wanted to do something nice for her: She had so little time left to live,” Yazdovsky said.

Laika, first dog in orbit - Yahoo! News

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The bomb lance fragment, lodged a bone between the whale’s neck and shoulder blade, was likely manufactured in New Bedford, on the southeast coast of Massachusetts, a major whaling center at that time, Bockstoce said.

It was probably shot at the whale from a heavy shoulder gun around 1890. The small metal cylinder was filled with explosives fitted with a time-delay fuse so it would explode seconds after it was shot into the whale. The bomb lance was meant to kill the whale immediately and prevent it from escaping.

The device exploded and probably injured the whale, Bockstoce said.

“It probably hurt the whale, or annoyed him, but it hit him in a non-lethal place,” he said. “He couldn’t have been that bothered if he lived for another 100 years.”

The whale harkens back to far different era. If 130 years old, it would have been born in 1877, the year Rutherford B. Hayes was sworn in as president, when federal Reconstruction troops withdrew from the South and when Thomas Edison unveiled his newest invention, the phonograph.

The 49-foot male whale died when it was shot with a similar projectile last month, and the older device was found buried beneath its blubber as hunters carved it with a chain saw for harvesting.

19th-century weapon found in whale - Yahoo! News

humans: 2,406,302,123
whales: 1

Popularity: 6% [?]