(PHOTO: BUZZYBEE © Jenny Rollo)

Apparently, there was some sort of meteorite monkey business going on over the UK last night, there were reports of sightings from Devon to Durham via Stratford Upon Avon. I can’t see any info anywhere on the web, but I am annoyed that I missed it, whatever it was. I usually miss such things, I come to work the next day and everone is all ‘did you see the amazing shooting stars last night’ and I’m all ‘no I was watching CSI why didn’t anybody tell me’. This time however, I will be ahead of the game. As will you all, thanks to me. It’s not a meteor, it’s not an asteroid (nor is it a bird or a plane), it’s this year’s first and only total eclipse of the Moon, and it’s on February 20th.

The only fly in the ointment (for us Europeans anyway) is the timing. Says the press release:

“In the UK night owls and early risers will both have a chance to watch the eclipse. It begins at 0035 GMT when the Moon enters the lightest part of the Earth’s shadow, the penumbra. Soon after the Moon will have a slight yellowish hue. At 0142 GMT the Moon starts to enter the dark core of the Earth’s shadow, the umbra. At 0301 GMT the Moon will be completely within the umbra – the ‘total’ part of the eclipse has begun. This is the time when it should have an obvious red colour. Mid-eclipse is at 0326 GMT and the total phase ends at 0352 GMT. At 0509 GMT the Moon leaves the umbra and the eclipse ends when the Moon leaves the penumbra at 0617 GMT.”

Hmf. Not ideal, but I reckon I’ll set my alarm anyway as I do like a nice lunar eclipse. Enjoy.

It’s a breed of watermelon. That has the moon and stars charted on its inky purple skin in bright yellow.

In fact, the resemblance is so strong that the watermelon is indeed called the Moon & Stars (Van Doren) Watermelon. And you can buy 250 of its seeds at the Seed Savers Exchange for only $9. Add sun and water and you’ve got yourself a great deal.

For growing instructions you can read this 2005 article over at the SF Chronicle by Lynette Evans.

Suffice to say the seeds are large but the fruit is sweet.

Also on offer. The Tigger melon for the large feline biologist/winnie the pooh fan who has everything. It’s got white cantaloupe-esque flesh encased in some orange and red tiger stripes.

So I watched the first episode of Eli Stone a couple weeks ago, mostly because I had received a press release from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) demanding the show be pulled because it upheld the connection between mercury in vaccines and the development of autism. Which is pretty harsh, if you ask me, but there’s an ugly PR war going on out there and they had to do something. 

I’d be meaning to do this for a while, but I finally went to the CDC site to figure out what vaccinations were required for school and which states allow exemptions on what grounds. Here is a PDF of the rules as of 2005-2006. All states offer exemptions for medical reasons and almost all offer exemptions for religious reasons. The standard of authority is highly variable - private doctor’s note? specialist? pastor? must belong to recognized religion such as the Church of Christ Scientist that has written tenets against vaccines and other medical stuff?

And then we have the 20 states that allow you to opt out for philosophical reasons. Ew. I think the CDC says is best on this point. I don’t think they meant this to be comic, but, well...“Given the increasing number of states allowing philosophical exemptions to vaccines, at some point we are going to be forced to decide whether it is our inalienable right to catch and transmit potentially fatal infections.”

And anyways, Eli Stone totally sucked weenis, physical impossibility not withstanding. That was enough for me. 

Remember how in elementary school the dorksters (like me) would make book jackets to preserve the pristine perfect nature of your text books for perpetuity? Well a whole new realm of book covers have come to my attention. They’re called Flapart, and the science tangent is less of a tangent and more of an orbit, but that’s ok because they’re so damn fantastic.

Their book covers act like a big loud “ha, PSYCHE!” (did I just date myself?) to any people who are nosy enough to sneak a peak at what you’re reading. And instead of any intellectual title they’ll find you reading such gems as “How to Impersonate an Engineer (minimum grade 10 required)”, or “The Nutritional Benefits of Nose Picking.”

Now isn’t that a gospel you’d be willing to spread for $6? 

Oh. My. God. Jordan Catalano...I mean, sorry, Jared Leto, is still really really hot (even if he has weird hair and eye makeup now).  And he loves the environment. And he plays in a band called 30 Seconds to Mars. And he’s filmed a music video in Greenland. And in it they have a native Greenlander talking about how the melting ice is making their way of life harder. And there is this real slow motion match lighting that’s so cool. And it’s just so like arty. And like really poignant. And like really beautiful. Totally.

Either that or it is just a stupid and pretentious music video with a really hot front man. Sure they bought Green Tags to offset the filming, but how much biodiesel could they produce if they all just cut off their hair?

(yes, I know you can’t make biodiesel from hair, but someone should really work on that). 

I just got an email alert from the FDA giving notice of a recall of 6-7 pound tins of canned vegetables that may have been contaminated by the evil bacteria botulism (which produces the paralyzing neurotoxin used for Botox injections! Yum!)

And I know that I really shouldn’t find all this funny, but seven POUNDS of canned veggies? SEVEN POUNDS. Yeah. 

Having exhausted the supply of cute and furry animals (and plants and birds and whales) on the planet, last night on BBC One my hero Sir David Attenborough turned his attention to a smaller and scalier subset of society. Episode 1 of Life In Cold Blood went a long way to disproving the myth that reptiles and amphibians are “primitive, dull and dim-witted”. In fact it showed that they are pretty darn fabulous.

Some of the trailers for the show are moderately disgusting (do we need to see a croc chomping bloodily on a fish?), but the sprinting lizards and burping frogs are just fabulous (although the last two clips are on bbc.co.uk or UK YouTube so viewers abroad may not be able to enjoy them - apologies).

Another person who loved the show as much as I did is Andrew Billen from The Times, who used my favourite phrase of the year to describe the footage of two turtles wrestling, comparing their agility to that of aggrieved bungalows. Fabulous.

If you’re in the UK you can now watch the episode on the the iPlayer (at long long long last) and I would strongly recommend that you do so! And if you can’t wait til next Monday here’s a little chameleon photo gallery to tide you over.

(PHOTO: CARACAL)

Not that they don’t tear apart. Just that they don’t make you cry.

Crop and Food, a research institute in New Zealand, used gene-silencing to shut off the onion’s biggest flaw. They are hoping to have a prototype onion hitting the market in a decade.

Colin Eady is the senior scientists behind the breakthrough. Here’s what he told AFP: “The technology creates a sequence that switches off the tear-inducing gene in the onion so it doesn’t produce the enzyme. So when you slice the vegetable, it doesn’t produce tears.” He anticipates that the health and the flavor of the onion will actually be enhanced this way. Me? I’m a bit skeptical. But have a decade to wait to see if its justified. 

Who says that us humans are always biased towards those charismatic megafauna. Here I was thinking that the poor little iceworm was a neglected creature (on two counts: it’s both small, and sort of gross looking) when it turns out that they’ve got their VERY OWN FESTIVAL, in Cordova Alaska going on this weekend! Now I’m already in love with Cordova for a number of reasons - this just seals the deal really. Apparently they have a large ice worm puppet that weaves through the main street just like a Chinese new year dragon. I love it!

The first iceworms I saw were almost mistaken for “yellow ice” only they were a shade too neon and we were high up in the BC mountains far from other hikers, and hence pee-ers. There was a little clump of them on this ice field. Way the hell in the middle of nowhere. Up close they were kind of gross in that way that swarms of little niggly things are. But from a distance there was something quite beautiful about the vision they presented.

Well I’ve since learned about these frigid worms. Get this, if their temperature reaches 5°C their membranes liquefy - good bye wormie. They’re just such strange creatures. So they burrow up from the bottom of the glacier and descend again to its depth in the morning and evening. It’s been suggested that they excrete some sort of antifreeze to facilitate their movement through the snow. They feed on snow algae (of course). And there are MANY of them around. There are some seven billion of them occupy the Suiattle glacier in the North Cascades alone, reports the North Cascade Glacier climate project. That’s like the entire human population. Turned into tiny worms. Stuck in a glacier. Craziness.

Anyways, so now that you know how rad these creatures are join me in celebrating ice worms from afar this Saturday. Huzzah!

Did you know there is a species of hummingbird called Anna’s hummingbird? Me neither. But did you also know that the males have this swoopy-diving-lady-attracting dance where they chirp at the bottom of the swoop and that chirp is actually generated by their TAIL FEATHER flapping around in the 50 mph airstream? Yeah. Me neither.

Thanks Berkeley news office!