I could argue, yes I could, that the singing talents of one very soulful Basenji pupper are science related; it speaks to the evolution of communication, sensory systems and social bonding. Not to mention the physiology that allows such amazing sounds to come from such wee dog. Watch it. I mean it. Anne and I were crying. (via Dooce).

DOGS AND THEIR BALLS: BFF THANKS TO CANINE BIRTH CONTROL BREAKTHROUGH (PHOTO: CHRIS JOHNSON)

When I got my black and tan hound fixed back in Texas years back the neighbourhood kids started calling him Lamont (which was his name) “flat nuts” (which wasn’t). To be fair it was an accurate nickname. My dog did have flat nuts and I felt awful bad about it. But now there’s an alternative to castration. Canines can get birth control implants instead of going under the knife to tame their inner beast. The contraceptive implant should gain approval in Europe within weeks. If only there was a human version in the pipelines.

In the meantime, if your dog has flat nuts and you feel bad, perhaps you should consider Neuticles, testicular implants for pets. Their website boasts that with Neuticles “it’s like nothing ever changed!” And so far the odd 250,000 owners whose pets carry the kidney bean shaped implants would have to agree.

If you don’t have a flat-nutted dog but want to join in the fun, you can always get some of their merchandise. How about a Neuticle necklace? Yours for only $39! 

A famous urban legend used to float around the science wing of my highschool: that one of the physics teachers had challenged his class in the mid 80s to come up with the most offensive bumper sticker slogan imaginable.

The winner was "Nuke the Whales for Jesus."

It just worked on so many levels. Jesus, check. Nuclear weapons, check. Save the whales, check.

But anyway. I can’t help but think about whale nuking every time one of the Navy sonar and whale-beaching stories comes up. This time it’s a report from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) suggesting, once again, that mid-frequency sonar does indeed kill whales. Either by directly damaging tissues or scaring them into surfacing too quickly, which leads to the deadly bends.

There’s about to be a big sonar test off Australia and the Navy has promised to try and be as cautious as possible, scouting for whales and using lower decibels. But of course, they say, we need this technology to detect and fend off enemy submarines...possibly nuclear submarines...who might be attacking Americans because of religious zealotry.

So it’s just like I said: Nuke the whales for Jesus.

Probably not.

I’ve been primed to love white lions ever since getting hooked on Osamu
Tezuka’s "Kimba the White Lion" manga series (which I’m convinced Disney soooooo ripped off in The Lion King. More here). 

So when I was recently confronted with the adorable sight of four white lion cubs recently born to the Jurques Zoological Park in France, I was immediately incapacitated.

These pale puffs aren’t albinos. Instead they carry the recessive "chinchilla mutation" that only crops up when both parents carry it. This means that when zoos deliberately try and breed white lions, they face the danger of falling into the pit of an inbreeding depression - which is what happened with white tigers. Still, this marshmallow of a creature might persist only in captivity. Wild white lions were first recorded in 1928 but the mutation that causes their blanching seems to have been lost in the wild since.

The Lower Keys Marsh Rabbit‘s numbers are dwindling, as they fail to live up to their reproductive stereotype, to the imagined shame of their namesake Hugh Hefner.

Yes that’s right. The same man that is known for dawdling in the playboy mansion with babes aplenty funded some research in the 1980s that ID’d a subspecies of rabbit that dwells in the Florida Keys. Hence its latin name Sylvilagus palustris hefneri.

The grey and white-tailed bunny was put on the endangered species list in 1990 but it’s numbers have plummeted in recent years. In the past two years alone, its numbers have dropped by half.

But wildlife officials are going to trap stray and feral cats this week in a bid to boost the Hefbunnies numbers by doing away with their predators.