The definition of work dissatisfaction.

Today.

Well, he is.

(no subject)

Rats given their own shower facilities in Windermere Aquarium.

The idea for the showers came after keepers noticed the rodents' behaviour whenever the plants in their display were watered. Aquarium of the Lakes spokesman Scott Davidson said: "Whenever we watered the plants the rats would all stop what they were doing and gather together on a log where they all got a thorough soaking. They seemed to be enjoying it so much that we're now planning to give them their own special showers."

Also,
Swimmers in Cuba find sunken 19th Century American ship, revealed by the passing of Hurricane Dennis

Also,
12-year-old girl sentenced to 10 years in jail - mother, displeased, threatens to blow up the courthouse.

Also,
5 3-week-old kittens accidentally shipped from South Carolina to Vermont in a box.

Airborne cats photogallery.

(no subject)

"Banksy" vandalises Israeli West bank Security Wall in amusing ways.

(no subject)

Russian paratroopers celebrate 75th anniversary of the founding of the Paratroopers.

(no subject)

It took long weekends camped outside their local grocery stores and hours tromping door-to-door, but the Girl Scouts in Springfield Troop 1868 eventually sold enough Thin Mints and Tagalongs to help fund a camping trip to Hersheypark in Hershey, Pa.

But then the mother in charge of the troop's cookie sale vanished, as did her young daughter and $4,483 of the cash, troop leaders said. The summer trip was canceled.

(no subject)

I'm on vacation for the next week and a bit.

I'm going to spend most, if not all, of that time relaxing in air conditioning, drinking beer, and doing *nothing* in my pool.

At some point during the week I want to do Beer+Pretzels AD&D. All comers welcome, there are pregens for everybody, there's an old-school module that I picked up for cheap when I was 10 and I'm damn well going to run it once in my life. It will be fun. Trust me. There are orcs. Orcs are bad people, you can tell because they're green.

At some point during the week I will be having a Nonspecific Movie Night With A Theme To Be Determined Later, on the big screen TV with the groundshaking speakers.

At some point during the week there will be a game of Monkeywrench. Or Metal Opera. Or both. Or both, at once.

Oh, yes.

It will be good. Give me a call, let's hang out on my week off. If you're not local to me, well, that's a problem and you suck, but if you make a road trip in, all good.

Yes, those are Lee Iacocca and Snoop Dogg.

(no subject)

(no subject)

"Victimless Leather" - a *living* jacket made from human bone and mouse flesh.

Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr at the Tissue Culture & Art Project are attempting to grow a semi-living jacket in an effort to create "victimless leather." Hoping to highlight the possibility of wearing leather without killing an animal, the duo is presently focused on growing living tissue into a leather-like material and having it mature in the form of a miniature, stitchless, coat-like shape.

"It started from our research into living surfaces," said Catts. "In a sense we wanted to ask: How are we going to perceive something which from the outside seems to be alive but which is something you recognize as inanimate?"

Grown using a combination of mouse and human cells, the jacket is currently quite tiny (about 2 inches high and 1.4 inches wide) and would just fit a mouse. Using a biodegradable polymer as a base, the team coated it with 3T3 mouse cells to form connective tissue and topped it up with human bone cells in the hope of creating a stronger layer of skin. The jacket is being grown inside a specially designed bioreactor that acts as a surrogate body. The group hopes that once the polymer degrades, a whole jacket that maintains its shape and integrity will be left behind.

The group's members plan to grow a larger jacket as part of developing what they term the "technoscientific body" -- an artificial environment where semi-living entities are grown and cared for with the ultimate aim of creating a victimless utopia. And the stress here is on the "victimless." Cells used in the project so far have come from so-called immortalized cell lines, or cells that divide and multiply forever once they are removed from an animal or human host, essentially forming a renewable resource.

"The interesting thing about cell lines is that in most cases once a cell line has been developed there is much more of that than the original organism from which it was taken," said Catts. "For example, the 3T3 mouse cells which are very common in scientific research centers around the globe can be weighed in tons or even tens of tons and they all came from one mouse in the 1970s."