Very Top Five... Megafauna

What are Megafauna? Let’s be frank with each other; they sound rather like a second-rate science fiction species invented by an author with easy access to thesaurus entries for “big” and “animals”, but scant access to creativity or wit. However, to castigate Megafauna on that basis would be to do them an injustice. Don’t get me wrong, they are indeed big, and they are animals, but they possess far more inexplicable menace than this primitive deconstructive definition suggests.

Megafauna aren’t just big; they have to be surprisingly big. A giraffe is not surprisingly big, nor is an elephant; because we expect them to be big. But we expect mice to be small. So imagine the sort of OMGWTF?! moment you would experience if you saw a mouse the size of puma hissing it’s way towards you at eye height. Exactly. That’s what makes it an example of Megafauna; being able to lord it over its closely related cousins with its horrendously unnatural looking majestic giganticness, and extra fangs.

To help represent the sphincter disintegrating terror of these big chaps, my artistically endowed chum Ewan has done some illustrations of suitable in situ examples. After you've read this you should definitely go to his blog, because it rocks. Like a boulder (and boulders are 100% rock).

5. Meganeuroptera aka really big dragonflies

These dudes were a metre long. Grab a tape measure and check how big that is, and continue reading when you’ve wiped the spilled tears of shock and wonder from your monitor.

If a regular dragonfly alighted on your wrist, you might chuckle with delight and marvel for a brief instant at the pretty shimmer of effervescent iridescence before, with a flap of its delicate crystal wings, it was spiralling up into the sun dappled canopy, or some such. Compare with Meganeuroptera; if one of these landed on your arm you wouldn’t be able to see your arm underneath it. Nor could you see anything at all, what with its horrible scaly wings scratching at your face and eyes as it burst open your stomach with its steel teeth [citation needed] and treated itself to a faceful of gizzards.

Fortunately, humanity and Meganeuroptera never coexisted, indeed they relied on an air-oxygen content a hefty 163% of modern level to fuel their malign existence, and they have been mercifully smothered by a more modern clime.

4. Colossal squid

Colossal squid exhibit abyssal gigantism, which is to say, the deeper into the blackest depths you sink, the more likely it is that your puny submarine will be torn contemptuously in two by a massive spiked tentacle, before you are drawn into massed rings of teeth quite like those that monster had in the third star wars film except also with tentacles. And more the fool you. Also, the tentacles have hooks and extra teeth. Unlike most Megafauna, Colossal squid are extant rather than extinct, and very occasionally a dead one floats up on a beach somewhere. But nowhere near as often as humans are lost at sea. Eh? Think about it…

3. Haast’s Eagle

These were a bird of prey with a wingspan of 3 metres. Which sounds big, but isn’t all that big compared to some modern birds. And they were 15kg or so, which is not so heavy, you might think. They had rather heftier claws than anything we’re used to, however, and neck muscles like a squad of angry sailors in a sack, which stood them in good stead for some serious dive bombing. (Or perhaps ‘depth charging’, if you want to keep the maritime metaphor afloat.)

Haast’s Eagle mainly fed on moas, a flightless bird, which weighed about 200 kg. The eagles smashed into the moas at high speed from above, using one leg to disembowel and the other to tear open the neck, in a rather deftly dextrous manner, before retreating back to their eyries for a round of margaritas and high fives [citation needed].

“Hold on a tick!” You might say. “Moas were 200kg? But humans don’t weigh that much!” And since humans and Haast’s eagles lived on the New Zealand islands at the same time, you might reasonably wonder if Haast’s eagles preyed on humans; when a palaeontologist was asked this question he shrugged and said “Yah, Probably. Look at the claws on them.”

I imagine some sort of epic battle ‘twixt man and bird raged.

Who won? Ever seen a Haast’s eagle hovering over a car park?

2. Jaekelopterus aka big sea scorpion

If you subscribe to the notion of a benevolent god creating all of the creatures of the Earth, I would invite you to reconsider this opinion by way of the example of the giant sea scorpion. God must surely have been in an extremely foul mood that day. Possibly it was just after humans turned out to be such a shower of ungrateful bastards, and He wanted something to set on them?

Anyway, this animal is the evolutionary equivalent of a dark alley full of spines, claws and a cloying sense of aquatic foreboding. And although called a sea scorpion, it is speculated to have lived in fresh water rivers and lakes, not in saltwater seas.

Just think; there could totally be a Jaekelopterus skulking in a puddle between you and the shops, or lurking in a children’s paddling pool. There probably isn’t, but that’s just what makes it so terrifying; never knowing when you might hear the brittle clatter of chitin on tarmac. Click clack snap.

1. Megalodon aka giant great white shark

If you were told that megalodons were a really big type of shark you might chuckle genially and say “I think you’ll find that sharks are big enough as it is, old chap,” and then point out that I promised only to discuss animals that were bigger than expected, and that sharks were already as big as one might reasonably expect. “I’ve seen several documentaries on sharks; I know their scale,” you might haughtily impart with a knowledgeable nod and a flicker of condescension dappling your lip.

Yeah, well, megalodons are significantly bigger than that, so nyer.

While in conversation about the awesome majesticallity of yon shark, illustrious Ewan had a biblical revelation. Noting that the Megalodon had jaws which could open up to ten feet wide, Ewan postulated that this may go some way to explain the story of Jonah and the whale. It's possible, he said, that the whale was in fact a Megalodon, meaning Jonah was probably a dolphin. I found this an impeccable line of logic, and concurred. Did I mention that you should definitely be heading over to his blog?

Very Top Five... Ways to get more blog readers

So you’ve got a blog, and you’ve been pouring your little heart into it for some time. Unfortunately, no-one seems to dig (or digg) your own peculiar brand of self-diagnosed genius, and you are still getting only two hits a day. (Both from your mother, who likes to keep up with what her boy is up to these days on the world wide internet with all his electronic friends.)

Anyway… what you need in this situation is some quality dead-cert tips for reeling in the visitors. These hints, generally speaking, will appeal to the coarser, baser elements of human nature and your site will soon be habituated by the kind of feckless moron that makes up most of humanity; but then, that’s rather the point, innit?

5. Pictures of cats with hilarious and endearingly misspelled captions:

These involve finding a cute/angry/contorted/sleeping/hiding/disgruntled/sulking/eating/bored/relaxed/ugly/scowling/rabid cat and writing a stupid caption with terrible spelling (Very specific terrible spelling), which apparently suggests that the cat did the writing itself. (Luik at teh kyoot pikchoor wiht teh capshun! Iz almoest liek teh kitteh roet it izself!)

Do this right and the morons will guffaw like seals, and clap their flippers delightedly.

4. Racist/political/religious diatribe:

This isn’t particularly difficult. All you have to do is write according to the formula; “I hate/love the [insert rude word for group of people here]/[insert reprehensible political group here],” and you can relax and let nature take its course:

Lots of people furiously googling for more information on these delicate subjects will find your site and agree/disagree vehemently with you in block capitals. Many of the comments will be along the lines of “YOU SUCK YOU FUCKFACE I HOPE YOU DIE OF RABIES AND AIDS”. But still, a visitor’s a visitor.

However, you can be more subtle (insidious) than merely making a straightforward statement: how about using logic (or pseudo-logic) to build up an argument that appears to be sound (but really isn’t…). Or try stealing scientific data from other sources and then extrapolate it by adding your own crazy opinions to make your argument look more plausible.

click it to see what I mean...

3. Pictures of naked wimen:

Everyone loves pictures of naked wymmen. Men can leer enthusiastically, and other wimmin can say ‘tsk’ (Which I gather they rather enjoy) and then they can critically compare themselves to the pictured wihmen to see how they match up. Now, I really should really use a picture of naked woomans to illustrate this point.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any womin willing to be convinced to pose without her clothes on, so I’ve done a drawing instead. Fortunately, this is a subject about which I know a great deal. This picture of a woemman has upwards of 70% of its surface area mapped (All from personal experience, I hasten to boast).


2. Hilarious soul warming anecdotes about your family:

Everyone just loves these. What you do is write about a not-very-humorous, mundane escapade from your family life, like oh my god, that time we took both cars on holiday because of all the stuff we needed to bring for the kids, and get this, we totally forgot to bring the diapers! Even though we’d bought two plus-size packs just that morning because they don’t sell the brand we normally use up in the mountains!

No one cares! Or so you’d think, but look at the numbers of comments on these posts; Hundreds! All from people with equally moronic and pedestrian anecdotes that they feel bound to share with you in 160 words or less.

I can’t find any children belonging to me, so I can’t do this. The next best thing is to talk about your siblings. I have a twin sister, which should make for excellent light badinage. So I recorded a phone conversation I had with her. We spoke for about half an hour, but once I’d edited out the belching and swearing it barely added up to 10 minutes. Unfortunately, due to our mutual, deep strangeness, the conversation was littered with questionable titbits like:

Sister: “You know fawns?”
Me: “Yes. Like Mr Tumnus from ‘the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’?”
Sister: “That’s right… Well, I think I saw a dead one on the roof opposite my flat.”
ME: “Wow… Have you tried climbing up there for a closer look?”

Then we practised “laughing like Arabs” for 5 minutes. Apparently I couldn’t do it because I don’t have the “right vocal cadence. Make it more natural. Come on, laugh like an arab. It’s easy. Try throwing your head back.”

So giving your stories a personal twist only really works when you are less twisted personally.

1. Celebrities:

If there is one other thing everyone inexplicably loves, it’s knowing whether Mr Hollywood is having sex with Miss Hollywood (Or even juicier, if he isn’t having sex with her, then why not? What twists-and-turns have there been in their fabulously fabulous relationship?). Not only that, but everyone wants to know YOUR opinion on this state of affairs. Do you love their shiny-sequinned-sparkly lifestyles? Or do you find yourself sickened by the people who think that meretriciousness equals merit?

So write it down, and write it volubly, splenetically and persuasively; soon all will flock to the font of your illustrious/infamous wisdom, and you will yourself become famous. (It’s infectious, you know.)

-

Try and find a winning combination of the above for your website URL, like “www.MyFamilysFamousFascistCat(Also,CatsAreNaked).blogspot.com.”

Very Top Five... Enterprising applications of genetics

Genetics is the science of the future; today! It’s all about sticking the cattle prod of science into the buttock of Nature and laughing delightedly at the hilarious mooing and moaning of all those hippy naysayers. Genetic fiddling is our duty to, and of benefit for, our children and our children’s children.

For example, if we can give our children four arms and tentacles instead of a face, then we should give them four arms and tentacles instead of a face. Shouldn’t we? Imagine how easy it would be to drive and eat a delicious GM jam doughnut at the same time, while swatting flies away with the face-tentacles?

Anyway, what follows is a list of the most happ’ning and jiving scientific tinkery from the front line of genetic jiggery-pokery. And they are totally real, despite their B-Movie-ish-ness.

5. DNA necklaces.

These are capsules of DNA on a chain, and you can buy them right now from consumer DNA services websites.

“Imagine having a piece of your loved one next to your heart, always…” whispers the sickeningly italicised pink text on otherwise-quite-sensible genetic assay websites, “With our DNA necklaces (in a range of colours and styles), now you can.”

Yeah, what's wrong with a photo in your wallet? Assuming you can stand the thought of being more than a few inches away from some biological matter scraped from your loved one. If not, how about putting a piece of hair in a locket for free like people have been doing for hundreds of years? No, actually I’d much rather rub a sterile swab on my cheek, send it into a freaky biolab, have the DNA extracted, multiplied and squirted into a gaudy necklace for about a squintillion pounds. Yeah, that’ll do nicely.

Besides all that, there’s something about carrying about a vial of DNA that is just gross. Imagine if it broke; DNA is a manky yellowy liquid and it’s going to be all dripping down your favourite shirt.

On the plus side, if your loved one dies, you can have them cloned. Have hundreds of them cloned, so you never have to go through the heart wrenching loss ever again. Awesome.

4. Super mice.

So there is this gene that counteracts the body’s response to endurance exercise, and some science guys have stuck this gene in some mice. As a result, these mice are able to run for hours without food or water, are much more active, and eat twice as much as a normal mouse but are half the weight.

Oddly enough, it increases their libido too. It also makes them very aggressive, and the scientist responsible said “why this is the case, we are not really sure.” So... it’s an inexplicable anger and rapey-ness. Could it be used in humans? “It’s very possible,” Mr. Science helpfully replies.

Because if there is one thing we learned from every Science Fiction film ever made, it’s that imbuing ordinary creatures with biological superpowers always turns out just fine.

3. Glow in the dark monkeys.

Glow in the dark Jellyfish + regular Monkeys = Glow in the dark Monkeys

It just sounds too good to be true and, indeed, rather pointless at the same time. But it is true; in 2009 some modern-day Japanese Dr Frankensteins chopped the Green Fluorescent Protein gene out of jellyfish, stuck it onto a monkey chromosome, and bred fluorescent monkeys.

So now they have some adorably green and glowy baby marmosets. And d’you know what they’re planning to do with them now? If you guessed "cuddle them delightedly and give them glow in the dark bananas," you were wrong. If you guessed "infect them with AIDS," you were right.

Which might sound cruel and heartless, but apparently if the monkey is fluorescing it makes it easier to study the manner of its horrible death; all part of a very unlikely-to-be-successful quest to find an AIDS cure which also works in humans. Oh wait, that does sound cruel and heartless. Bastards…

2. Transplant swine.

Here’s another one straight from the pages of “Evil Science: the definitive guide”.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we had enough organs for transplants; so that kiddies with failing livers could be repaired and up and about chasing rainbows and skipping down boulevards and whatever else kiddies get up to these days. Well, yes, it would. So how’s this for a solution:

Engineer pigs with human organs. Good idea, isn’t it? As well as bacon and sausages and pork chops, we could also have livers, kidneys, lungs and hearts. What was once merely a handy snack becomes a handy sack o’ transplantable pig organs. Porgans.

Unfortunately, the use of oinkers' organs also brings with it an inherent risk of trans-species PERVs. LOL, you may say, but in this instance PERVS means Porcine Endogenous RetroViruses. Pig AIDS, in short. Besides which you’d have pig organs inside you. Children will mock you. Ew, those have been in a field. Icky.

1. Surprise paternity tests.

These take the ethical biscuit (then crumble it up, put it in an envelope and send it off to be tested for traces of genetic material from dried saliva. Puzzled? I’ll explain):

Many companies are now offering DNA testing, on almost any biological sample, of amazing power and sensitivity. (Oh, by the way, that’s instrumental sensitivity; not ethical or moral sensitivity. Just to be clear.)

The websites provide long lists of stuff that can be sent in to be sampled, from loose hair from a plughole, to unwashed coffee mugs or underwear, fingernail clippings, licked stamps, floss, chewing gum, cigarette butts, and even urine or... stools. Or biscuit crumbs. But why would you have to stoop to such sneaky measures, surely not because the man-under-the-spotlight doesn’t know he is being tested? Well… probably that is indeed the case, since a positive DNA ID on the father would mean he would be legally obliged to financially contribute to his child, and if he knows that this is a possible outcome he may not be amazingly keen to volunteer for the testing in the first place.

There is always a little footnote on these sites saying “Alternative sample media provided for your convenience. You need to get the permission of the person being tested.” Yeah, it totally makes sense that they offer this service for convenience and not subterfuge; after all, rubbing a swab across the inside of my cheek for five seconds is unbelievably taxing, inconvenient and invasive. I’d rather send in a sample of shit retrieved from behind the U-bend in the dead of night.

So go ahead and do it on the sly, without telling possible-daddy about his surprise paternity test; what better birthday gift for him than an extremely official-looking statement of fact on headed corporate paper along with a friendly handwritten card saying “OMG you’re not my biological Father LOL! The Scientists tell me that it’s likely my real dad is that friendly man who runs the corner shop.”