Spiders dodge cannibalism through remote copulation
That’s a whole new meaning to “absentee father”. Put yourself in a scenario. You get to have sex one time, and if you stick around too long you’ll get eaten. You want to make that one time count, and you’d also like to make sure that no one else got the opportunity to reproduce with your chosen lady.
Solution? If you’re an orb-web spider, it appears that breaking off your penis inside of the female and running away is just what Dr. Evolution ordered. It saves his legs, it prevents other males from copulating, and it allows him to fight to protect her. Even if she does want to eat him in the first place. How romantic.
Violent mating behaviors are actually rather common. Hermaphroditic flatworms engage in “penis fencing” to decide who will be the mother and who will be the father of their offspring. Honeybees’ genitals explode and break off inside the queen in a manner similar to the spider. Bedbugs simply impale the female with their penises and deposit sperm through the opening. And banana slugs have such large penises that if they freak out the female with one too large, they risk getting their organ chewed off.
(via Nature News)
The M56 Kolyma Highway is a road through the Russian Far East. It connects Magadan and Yakutsk, and travels near the towns of Tomtor and Oymyakon (both claim the coldest inhabited place on earth outside of Antarctica). The average temperature in Oymyakon in January is -46°C, and in some areas, the ground experiences continuous permafrost. The first stretch was built by the inmates of the Sevvostlag labor camp in 1932. The construction continued (by inmates of gulag forced labour camps) until 1953. The bulk of the highway, particularly the sections between Khandyga and Magadan, is referred to as the Road of Bones because the bones of the people who died while constructing it were laid beneath or around the road. Today, the road is treated as a memorial.
Sergeant Stubby (1916 or 1917 – March 16, 1926), was the most decorated war dog of World War I and the only dog to be promoted to sergeant through combat.
(via snakelinksonic)
The Bund Bull, created by Arturo Di Modica, is a “younger” and “stonger” version of the famous Charging Bull in New York City. The Bull is reddish as a tribute to the country that commissioned the work. It leans to right instead of the left, and has a more menacing tail. The Bull’s popularity has been a problem for local authorities.
