New Scientist: ‘Collective stomach’ drives wasp society. Article describning experiments that tried to understand how wasps in a nest communicate to regulate their behaviour and organize their nest-building. Interesting but skimpy on details.
Out in the forest, something stirs
Economist, Oct 17th 2002 :A species of ape unrecognised by science may exist in the Congo.
Mr Amman’s expeditions … have not seen a live ape. But they have found a lot of ground nests.. Faeces in the area resemble those of gorillas… As if to clinch it, Mr Amman has also found another crested skull lying around.
Some of the nests, however, have hairs in them. And hairs contain DNA. That yielded a surprise. The DNA looks like that of a chimpanzee, not a gorilla… What Mr Amman seems to have found is a chimpanzee that behaves like a gorilla.
Local hunters’ reports point to something unusual, too… Several enormous chimp footprints seem to confirm the hunters’ reports of an out-sized chimp.
Reminds me of all those Super Gorillas (like the infamous Grodd) they were so fond of in DC comics, which really looked a lot more like chimps than gorillas.
news.telegraph.co.uk – Archbishop in waiting becomes druid
The next Archbishop of Canterbury was inducted as an honorary white druid yesterday at an open-air ceremony in Wales reminiscent of a scene from a Monty Python sketch.
The link came from Yossi on the roleplay.org.il forums, and he’s certain there’s an obvious conspiratorial, secret history angle here. You just have to find it…
Sheakspearean Insult Generator. Doesn’t work in Mozilla, because of bad XML.
[ via Valencia at roleplay.org.il community forum ]
Ananova picked up this story from an Indian site, and it’s been blogged and quoted on various sites, but the original might be this:
UP’s newest godman is an English captain!
The newest deity to be worshipped in Uttar Pradesh is not one amongst the pantheon of gods and goddesses revered across India.
The deity is an Englishman who died in the mutiny of 1857, more than 145 years ago!
People have begun offering not just fruits and flowers at the Mazar (grave) of Captain F Wale at the historic Moosa Bagh about six km from Lucknow.
They also offer liquor, cigarettes and meat and have composed hymns and prayers for the Englishman. Locals now refer to their new “god” as “Captain Baba”, or Gora Baba or Gora Bhagwan.