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Let sleeping teenagers lie

By Insects

During adverse conditions, such as drought, snails have the ability to sleep for long periods of time.  Perhaps the better description is that they estivate (the summer equivalent to winter hibernation).

The Cambridge Natural History 1895 compendium cites an incident involving the ‘sleeping’ of snails. Whilst travelling in Egypt a Mr. Vernedi discovered a bush covered with snails. He plucked a few and decided to keep them in his desk drawer.  Somehow, four years later, two of them ended up in the British museum, alive and kicking (or should I say ‘alive’ and ‘slipping’).

May 10, 2012
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Lemming depression management

By Animals

Although I have used the poor lemming in a few cartoons now, it would be remiss of me not to do my bit for this adorable little rodent and put an end to the myth that lemmings have a predisposition to jumping off cliffs. Well, it’s just not true.

The origin of this misunderstanding is believed to have come from the Walt Disney 1958 animal documentary White Wilderness. Filmed in remote Canada, where lemmings are nowhere to be found, producers decided to bring in some imports for filming purposes. To illustrate the cliff plunge scene, a group of lemmings were pushed via a rotating platform, forcing them to run off a small cliff into a river, and so the myth began. Apparently the movie didn’t suggest it was a mass suicide attempt, but rather a migration undertaking, but the myth still remains today.

May 9, 2012
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What do Darwin and the singing fat lady have in common?

By Dinosaurs

And now for 3 things you mightn’t know about Chuck:

  • On his 25th birthday, Captain FitzRoy named a mountain in honour of Charles. Mt Darwin is the tallest mountain in Tierra del Fuego (in the Andes). And if that wasn’t enough, a year earlier FitzRoy had named an expanse of water next to the then unnamed Mt Darwin, the Darwin Sound, to commemorate Darwin’s quick wit and courage. He saved them all from being marooned when giant waves created from a mass of ice split from a glacier and loomed towards their boat.
  • Darwin created a pros and cons list to help him determine if marriage was the right thing for him to pursue. Apparently it was, with one of the ‘pros’ for marriage ‘Object to be beloved and played with. Better than a dog anyhow’
  • Taking the latter point into account, this may be why he decided to keep marriage within the family. He wedded his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood (as in the fine china manufacturer).
May 8, 2012
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and the April winner is….

By Competitions, That's life

Congratulations to Froggwell on winning the April ‘How many jelly beans’ competition.

You can visit Froggwell at their blog site – it’s all about ‘Great art, in a great setting’

And the answer to the jelly bean question is 178 (‘My gosh! -That’s a lot. You are very industrious creating all those images.’ I hear you cry. And my response is ‘Yes, it is. I’m still recovering’).

As always, thanks for all your entries. If you missed out this time, not to worry – enter the May competition and try again.

May 7, 2012
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Couch potatoes

By Pot Luck

Couch potatoes must be too good a source for humour – even Weird Al Yankovic had a go. Here’s a You tube upload of a live performance of his song Couch potato (image isn’t the best on this one, but it didn’t come with ads)

May 4, 2012
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That’s just cheesy

By Pot Luck

I came up with the cartoon drawing before thinking of cheese names. I then found out that not all cheeses fit in text wise into the teeny, weeny sign I created.  So off the Wiki I went, in search of cheese names. True to Wiki form, I found a list of different cheeses (why someone would go to the trouble of creating something like this, I don’t know). Anyway, I learnt two new cheeses:

Skyr and Oka. The Ukraines came through with the former cheese, their version of a cottage type cheese. The latter is Canadian, and has origins back to the Tappist monks from Oka, Quebec.

May 3, 2012
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Baaaa! Baaaa! Zzzzzz!

By Animals

I typed ‘sleeping sheep’ into Google to see what would pop up.

I found a game called ‘Sheep Dash’ on a BBC website. It tests your reaction time to tranquillising the fleeing sheep. If you hit them, they go to sleep. It then gives you a result. I didn’t fare too well. Apart from a woeful speed statistic of 0.87 seconds average speed response time, I was given the badge “sluggish snail”.

Let me know how you fared?

May 2, 2012
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Send HHHHHH

By That's life

Maybe being an engineer, I’m too practical to even think of Googling this one (unless of course I’m wearing my cartooning hat at the time). Did you know you can go to eHow to find a set of instructions on how to fix that annoying computer stuck key problem?

May 1, 2012
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Let’s go on a magic carpet ride

By Pot Luck

What is it with all these scientists exploring the domains of fairy tales and legends?

When I created the invisible cloak cartoon, I discovered that scientists had actually achieved an invisible cloak (well, not exactly, but did a whole heaps of calculations and demonstrated on a small model). Thinking that flying carpets would be a no go zone, I was surprised to find a mathematician (and a team – can you imagine asking for a support team – how would that conversation go with your boss, I wonder) has proven mathematically it is possible. (See Telegraph post for those technically inclined).

To a scientist, this means it’s possible in theory, but to an engineer, this means the next trick is to achieve this in practical terms.

What other cool things in fairy tales do you wish were possible? You may find some scientist and their support team are busy trying to make it true, just for you!

April 30, 2012
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