Perils for Bourgeois Travelers

Stendhal Syndrome: a psychosomatic illness that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, confusion and even hallucinations when an individual is exposed to art.Named after the famous 19th century French author Stendhal who described his experience with the phenomenon during his 1817 visit to Florence, Italy. Although there are many descriptions of people becoming dizzy and fainting while taking in Florentine art, especially at the Uffizi, dating from the early 19th century on, the syndrome was only named in 1979, when it was described by Italian psychiatrist Graziella Magherini, who observed and described more than 100 similar cases among tourists and visitors in Florence.





Paris syndrome: a constellation of symptoms primarily affecting mood which affects visitors working and vacationing in Paris, France. Japanese visitors are observed to be especially susceptible. The large difference between not only the languages but the manner in which Latin populations communicate on an interpersonal level in comparison to the rigidly formal Japanese culture proves too great a difficultly for some Japanese visitors. It is thought that it is the rapid and frequent fluctuations in mood, tense and attitude especially in the delivery of humour that cause the most difficulty. It is also speculated as manifesting from an individual's inability to reconcile a disparity between the Japanese popular image and the reality of Paris. The excitement resulting from visiting Paris causes the heart to accelerate, causing giddinesses, shortness of breath, and hallucinations.



Jerusalem Syndrome: a group of mental phenomena involving the presence of either religiously themed obsessive ideas, delusions or other psychosis-like experiences, that are triggered by a visit to the city of Jerusalem. It is not endemic to one single religion or denomination, but has affected Jews and Christians of many different backgrounds. The best known, although not the most prevalent manifestation of the Jerusalem syndrome, is the phenomenon whereby a person who seems previously balanced and devoid of any signs of psychopathology, becomes psychotic after arriving, overcome by the spiritual magnitude of the city to believe they are prophets or characters from the Bible. The psychosis typically resolves to full recovery after a few weeks, or after being removed from the area.

Cryptid Corner: Coelacanth

The Coelacanth is the oldest living specimen of all fish (which makes it older than any amphibian, bird or mammal that ever existed). It can grow to be over six feet long and 200 pounds.

Their fossils have been known for centuries, and they were believed to have gone extinct 70 million years ago. But the first living specimens were found in Africa in 1938. Since then, they've been spotted in both Africa and Indonesia, albeit rarely.

It's here in the Cryptid Corner because cryptozoologists often cite the Coelacanth as a creature only recently discovered to presently exist. So if it can happen with them, why not with yetis, dragons, and leprechauns?

For the cryptozoology take on coelacanths, go here.

For the creationist agenda, go here. But I'll encapsulate it for you: "If the coelacanth has pectoral fins which closely resemble legs of amphibians, then why hasn't it evolved legs in the last hundred million years?"
Because it didn't have to. For more, consult any grade school biology textbook.

Synodus Horrenda

edited from wikipedia:
"The Cadaver Synod" is the name commonly given to the posthumous ecclesiastical trial of Pope Formosus, held in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, early in 897. Before the proceedings the body of Formosus was exhumed and, according to some sources, seated on a throne while his successor, Pope Stephen VI, read the charges against him (of which Formosus was found guilty) and conducted the trial. It is remembered as one of the most bizarre episodes in the history of the medieval papacy.

The synod took place during a period of political instability in Italy. In the years surrounding it (872-965) there were 24 popes. Often, these brief papal reigns were the result of the political machinations of local Roman factions.

Probably around January of 897, Pope Stephen VI ordered that the body of his predecessor Formosus be removed from its tomb and brought to the papal court for judgement. Formosus was accused of transmigrating sees in violation of canon law, of perjury, and of serving as a bishop while actually a layman. Liutprand and other sources say that Stephen had the body stripped of its papal vestments, cut off the three fingers of his right hand used for benedictions, and declared all of his acts and ordinations invalid. The body was finally interred in a graveyard for foreigners, only to be dug up once again, tied to weights, and cast into the Tiber.

The macabre spectacle turned public opinion in Rome against Stephen. Rumors circulated that Formosus's body, after washing up on the banks of the Tiber, had begun to perform miracles. A public uprising led to Stephen being deposed and imprisoned. While in prison, in July or August of 897, he was strangled to death.

In November 897, Pope Theodore II (897) convened a synod that annulled the Cadaver Synod, rehabilitated Formosus, and ordered that his body, which had been recovered from the Tiber, be reburied in Saint Peter's Basilica in pontifical vestments. However, Pope Sergius III (904—911), who as bishop had taken part in the Cadaver Synod as a co-judge, overturned the rulings of Theodore II, reaffirming Formosus's conviction, and had a laudatory epitaph inscribed on the tomb of Stephen VI.

You'd think Stephen VI would be the most hated pontiff in history for this little stunt. But that title most often goes to Pope Alexander VI (1431-1503). Besides being politically corrupt (he got rich by selling indulgences [passes to heaven] to anyone with enough money), he was rumored to have committed his first of many murders at the age of 12, had at least seven illegitimate children from numerous concubines, held orgies filled with naked boys jumping out of cakes, and had a son who was also his grandson. He was so popular that upon his death, he was left on the floor of the Sistine Chapel to rot. St. Peter's Basilica refused to accept his body for burial.

More fun here.

Jocko-Homo Heavenbound

The staff of Futurechimp.com are committed to presenting issues in a fair and objective manner, leaving it to you, the modern chimp, to make up your own monkey mind. We admit that friday's post was a little harsh towards creationism, so to encourage healthy debate we would like to direct you to a pamphlet entitled:

Jocko-Homo (Monkey Man), The Heaven Bound King of The Zoo

Self-published in Ohio from 1924 until 1944 (totaling about 93,000 copies) by B.H. Shadduck Ph.D., it is the most incendiary critique of evolution yet discovered. But be warned that it also has the potential to melt your brain. (click above title to read)


A highlight is halfway through, when he mocks the supposed chaos and ambivalence of evolutionary science by listing its supposed rules:

1- Be like your ancestors or be different.
2- The fittest shall survive and the unfit may live.
3- Grow big or stay little; either will help you survive or not.
4- That your family may survive, lay a million eggs or give birth to one.
5- Unused organs shall disappear or persist.
6- Rudimentary organs are what you have had or what you will have.
7- Win a mate by combat or not; it will help the family survive, or not.
8- Polygamy will help survival, unless you prefer to mate in pairs.
9- Fight your neighbors or unite with them; one way or the other will help.
10- Wear gaudy colors or avoid display, so shall your family survive.
11- Develop legs, wings, tail, horns, shells or not; they will help, or not.
12- Remember, it's a THEORY. Don't let any man see you MAKING wings out of warts or Adams out of apes.

If the above statements sound familiar, then you have decent taste in music. As previously noted, Gerald Casale was a student at Kent State who'd been using the term "De-Evolution" before he met fellow student Mark Mothersbaugh in 1970. But it was Mothersbaugh who owned the Jocko-Homo pamphlet and introduced it to Casale, and here the Devo embryo truly began to devolve.

After numerous basement tapes were recorded, Devo made the short film The Truth about De-Evolution in 1976, which lifts concepts and dialogue straight from the pamphlet:



David Bowie saw the film and convinced Warner Brothers to sign them to an album produced by Brian Eno. And it's all thanks to Jocko-Homo. So, after consideration, the creationists should always have a platform to express their theories. It's a lot funnier that way.

Revisit the Devo playlist here.

And because Futurechimp is filled with benevolence, we include this EZ listening version of their anthem "Jocko Homo", which they used to play as incidental music at their concerts:

13th Floor Elevators, 1966-1968

Edited from Wikipedia:
Roky Erickson co-founded the 13th Floor Elevators in late 1965. He and bandmate Tommy Hall were the main songwriters. In 1966 (Erickson was 19 years old) the band released their debut album "The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators" (which) had the band's only charting single, Erickson's "You're Gonna Miss Me." A stinging post-romantic breakup song, the single remains his best-known work.



In 1968, while doing a stint at Hemisfair, Erickson started speaking nonsense. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and sent to a Houston psychiatric hospital, where he involuntarily received electroconvulsive therapy.

The Elevators were vocal proponents of mescaline (peyote), LSD, and marijuana use, and were subject to extra attention from police. In 1969, Erickson was arrested for possession of one marijuana joint in Austin. Facing a ten-year prison term, Erickson pled not guilty by reason of insanity, which proved to be a mistake. He was first sent to the Austin State Hospital. After several escape attempts, he was sent to the Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where he was subjected to more electroconvulsive therapy and Thorazine treatments, ultimately remaining in custody until 1972.

In 1982, Erickson asserted that a Martian had inhabited his body. He later reported to friends that aliens were coming to Earth to harm him, and asked a Notary Public to witness an official declaration that he was himself an alien, hoping that this would convince the aliens to leave him alone.



Erickson began a years-long obsession with the mail, often spending hours pouring over random junk mail, writing to solicitors and celebrities (dead or living). He was arrested in 1989 on charges of mail theft. Erickson picked up mail from neighbors who had moved and taped it to the walls of his room. He insisted that he never opened any of the mail, and the charges were ultimately dropped.

Roky's youngest brother Sumner Erickson was granted legal custody in 2001, and established a legal trust. As a result, Roky received some of the most effective medical and legal aid of his life, the latter useful in helping sort out the complicated tangle of contracts, which had reduced royalty payments to all but nothing for his recorded works. He also started taking medication to control his schizophrenia.

After weaning himself from all medication, Erickson performed his first full-length concert in 20 years at the annual Austin City Limits Music Festival in September 2005. In 2007, Erickson played his first ever gigs in New York City, as well as California's Coachella Festival and made a stunning debut performance in England to a capacity audience at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Erickson is currently working on a new album with Billy Gibbons, singer and guitarist of ZZ Top, and a longtime admirer.

Before forming ZZ Top, Gibbons played guitar and sang in The Moving Sidewalks, an Elevators-influenced band by his own admission. Here's their #1 (in Texas) hit, 1967's "99th Floor". It's probably one of my 10 favorite singles of all time:

Blinded by Science

"Evolution" is not always synonymous with "improvement". When organs are unused, they become vestigial over the course of generations. Take the blind cave salamander, for example, who has eye sockets but no eyes. Its ancestors had them, moved into caves, and since they were no longer necessary, they were dropped. That's called evolution. Specifically, it's called Streamlining Evolution; the genome simplifies itself by omitting extraneous add-ons, like the optic nerve in this case.

This is not Devolution. There's no such thing, nor is there De-Evolution, at least not outside of the joke concept invented by a student at Kent State named Gerald Casale, who went on to co-found the band Devo. So whenever you hear someone using that term, he's either an idiot, or he's being ironic, or he's a christian scientist. The word is thrown around all the time on creationist websites. This wikipedia page will help to clear up this issue.

It's important to specify this, because creationists are constantly demanding that scientists show evidence of systems improving in order to validate evolution. They call it a "particles-to-people" theory, and think it's some kind of ascending ladder of physical and mental development, corresponding with time. Darwin never said anything remotely resembling this. The fact is, more than 99% of all species that ever lived have gone extinct. We have fossils to show it. Clearly, most of the world's inhabitants don't follow a linear upward course. That might include us "homos".

A couple of decent sites were linked in the Vestigial Organs post from a few weeks ago on this blog. For your further edification, here you can read a short article from a couple days ago about blind salamanders and creationism written by Christopher Hitchens. This kind of biology article is refreshing to read, because the author is about as informed of a biologist as the average person, but with good ideas. He's also an asshole, and I'm not too impressed with the condescending and disrespectful shots he takes at religion, but I digress. The point is, if this doesn't convince people of evolution, then they're just choosing to remain ignorant. And there's no excuse for that, regardless of faith.

Banana Beer

Excerpted from The East African, February 9 2004:

"Chimpanzees in western Uganda are increasingly raiding illegal brewing operations in forested river valleys and getting drunk on the country beer. Once intoxicated, they become hostile and attack and at times kill human children, parks officials say.

The officials, however, insist that even a drunk chimp cannot take on a grown man. All the babies they have attacked have been either unaccompanied, or are in in the company of other children.

One notorious chimp nicknamed Saddam is blamed for killing at least three babies and maiming several others in Ruteete sub-county which borders the Kibale National Park.

Early this year, officials of the Jane Goodall Institute in Uganda were quoted in BBC's Wildlife Magazine as saying that chimpanzees had killed eight children and injured many others in Ugandan national parks. Debby Cox, the director of the institute, suggested that the aggressive behaviour of the chimps was caused by increased proximity between the animals and humans.

Dr Michael Gavin, who carried out the study, was reported by the magazine as saying that the technique used by the chimps to kill or maim the children mirrored the way they tear apart other prey, suggesting that they snatched the children to eat them. "In most cases they bite off the limbs first before disembowelling them, just as they would the red colombus monkey, which is among their favourite prey," he said.

A January 14 report on the chimp attacks, prepared by the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), says that local beer is usually brewed illegally along river valleys, which are also the habitat of chimps. "When chimps come across the local brew, they drink it, become drunk and in that state any encounter with people means an attack," says the report, compiled for the UWA executive director, a copy of which was obtained by The EastAfrican.

In the Kibale Park, situated in an area known for brewing banana beer, authorities say there have been 12 chimp attacks since 1996, and three of the victims died. The park recorded at least six other attacks between 1992 and 1995.

The attacks are normally experienced in areas neighbouring the park and normally occur between October and December. This is probably due to food scarcity prevailing in the main chimp habitat during this period, which forces them to move beyond the park boundary in search of food.

"Crops such as sugarcane and bananas, which are grown near the parks, are preferred by chimps. Once the chimps come across a sugarcane plantation, for example, they tend to abandon the park and, as a result, come into conflict with the local communities," says the report.

And when crop-raiding chimps are chased, they get frightened and charge back – especially if they have imbibed some brew.

Barbara Musoke, spokesperson of the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), said that the killings had taken place over a period of 10 years. "We have reduced wildlife and human conflicts. The cases reported are cumulative, they happened over a period of time," she said, adding that the incidence of attacks had dropped.

Ms Musoke also said that, in the past one year, there had been no chimp attacks at all. Most of the attacks reportedly took place on the outskirts of the game parks and others in parts of the parks where people cultivate and sometimes settle illegally. Local villagers also go into the parks in search of fuelwood, fruit and poles for building houses.

"We educate the public on wildlife and its behaviour and we have buffer zones between human settlements and the parks. In areas frequented by elephants and buffalo, we have built trenches to stop these animals from crossing the boundaries," Ms Musoke said. The authority also has wildlife reserve management committees where local communities are represented, making it easier to educate the public on living harmoniously with the wildlife."

Futurechimp Theater: Sex Education for Trainables

Cerebral Cartography

In the late 1940's, Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield was treating epilepsy with a groundbreaking technique: while the patient was conscious, he drilled through the skull (using local anesthetic), stimulated the brain with electric needles, and by means of observing and questioning, was able to pinpoint the areas of the brain responsible for the seizures.

This also allowed Dr. Penfield to chart the components of the brain which control sensory input and motor output in all humans. These maps were drawn up as a result of the research:


On the left is the sensory homunculus. The illustration of body parts shows how more sensitive areas have more nerve endings, so more surface area of the brain is required to process information. The lips, palate, and index finger take in the most input, so more space in the brain is used for them, while the arms, legs and torso require very little. Notice how the genitals are located below the toes.
On the right is the motor homunculus, or the part of the brain which sends out nerve impulses for motor skills. It shows how a large amount of electrical wiring is needed for vocalization, as well as movement of the hand, especially the thumb.

To further illustrate, check out these handsome little creatures.
The Sensory Homunculus:


And the Motor Homunculus:



These models represent what you would look like if your body parts were in proportion to the space in your brain devoted to them.

Progs for Frogs

MicroMenagerie: Tardigrade

Commonly known as "Water Bears", Tardigrades are hardy little relatives to arthropods which can be found the world over, including polar seas. In fact, a Tardigrade can survive temperatures close to absolute zero (-460 degrees fahrenheit) and as high as 300 degrees. They can withstand 1,000 times more radiation than any other animal on the planet, and can even deal with living in a vacuum, as you would find in outer space.

Because of this, Tardigrades are now being sent into orbit, to research the effects of space on organisms. More details at this blog.

Corpse Mutilation for Fun and Profit

from The Fascinating Art of Taxidermy, a promotional booklet for a mail-order course:

"Here's the FUN department in Taxidermy Art. Its called Novelty Taxidermy. It is purely a sideline to regular wild-game and Craft-Taxidermy. Perhaps it won't appeal to you, but thousands of our students, especially boys, think that Novelty Taxidermy can't be beat for an amusing hobby . . . and one with tremendous possibilities.

You Can Use Common Specimens

Novelty Taxidermy is the mounting of common specimens in amusing "human" poses. Rabbits, frogs, squirrels, and baby chicks make excellent subjects for this type of Taxidermy work. The specimens are preserved and mounted just like in regular Taxidermy . . . except that the imagination of the student can create hundreds of droll and amusing situations in which to pose his subjects. Backgrounds and miniature furniture can be created or adapted from children's toys.

Creations Fascinate Viewers

When the "Rabbit Family" Group shown on this page was used in a store window display by one of our students, it virtually stopped traffic! Every passerby was captivated by this unique and amusing novelty group. The store owner was amazed at its appeal and paid the student a good rental for the use of the display. Sporting-goods stores, taverns, billiard parlors, drug stores, barber shops . . . in fact almost any type of store is a prospect to rent or buy such displays. Novelty Taxidermy has the broadest application for commercial display uses of all the fields of Taxidermy.

Low Cost . . . High Value

To the student with imagination, these intriguing Novelty Taxidermy groups can be created for only a few cents in materials. You can use doll furniture, doll clothes, and tiny accessories can be created out of wood, plastic or leather. The only other investment is your time . . . and you'll enjoy every minute of that!

This lesson comes to our students as another part of our course in teaching the art of Taxidermy. It is only one of the many applications of the Taxidermy skill."



3-D Bonus! get those glasses on (red lens over the left eye):

Mannequins and Monstrosities

In what we hope to be a trend, Futurechimp.com is pleased to introduce two exclusive new photo exhibits on our auxiliary hominid site, Stexeweb.com. In our latest galleries, F. Nocella documents the mannequins of Turkey and Peru, and J. Furmanski exposes ham-fisted taxidermy.

Call for Entries
If you've shot a series of photos which are similar to these exhibits, and you'd like to put them online (with no pragmatic expectation of financial reward), write to mail@stexeweb.com.

Pediophobia
Terrors of Taxidermy

It's Alive: Cymothoa Exigua

This 1" long crustacean, found along the coast of California, enters the spotted rose snapper (Lutjanus guttatus) through its gills and attaches itself to the tongue. Blood is drawn from the host through its claws, and as the parasite grows, the tongue loses more and more blood until it eventually atrophies and falls off. Then, the Cymothoa attaches its body to the snapper's tongue muscles, and the fish is able to use the parasite just like a normal tongue. This is the only known example of a parasite replacing the organ of its host with complete functionality and no apparent harm.

Einstürzende Neubauten 1985-1993

We Are Devo

HG Wells once wrote, "I believe .. It is in the sterilization of failure, and not in the selection of successes for breeding, that the possibility of an improvement of the human stock lies."
His views are extreme in retrospect, but not for his time; around the turn of the century, eugenics was a popular subject of consideration. His novel The Time Machine speculates on the future of a eugenics-free planet:



The Morlocks ("colored" troglodyte savages) use brute force to capture and cannibalize the Eloi, a race of Swedish stewardesses who have evolved to be helpless. It's a bleak world view, manifest by xenophobic intolerance and racism. In his 1912 presidential address to the Eugenics Research Association, Irving Fisher said "The Nordic race will... vanish or lose its dominance if, in fact, the whole human race does not sink so low as to become the prey, as H. G. Wells images, of some less degenerate animal!"

After 1945, it was understandable that people weren't so keen to talk about improving the human race by removing members of it. This film clip looks to be at least 40 years old, and you won't find many scientists making these sorts of suggestions these days:



So, he's envisioning a system in which your entire lifetime will be evaluated after you die, and the conclusion will determine your place in eternity. Sound familiar?

Volatile as they now are, these issues can still find their way through in satire: Idiocracy is set a mere 500 years in the future (it could happen, provided Jamie Lynn Spears keeps getting pregnant). All the intelligent people have been removed from the gene pool, for reasons given here in the film's opening which seem both plausible and prescient:

?

Nothing to do with Chimps

Spent about an hour messing with some instruments and came up with this: a four-track, 90-second recording using guitar (started playing a couple weeks ago) roland v-drums (started learning four months ago), bass, and theremin.



...and another one with three tracks, 80 seconds:



Since the rhythm track is recorded first, the length of the song is determined by how soon I stumble over the drums.

Futurechimp Theater: Skipper Learns A Lesson

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Leporidae Maximae

North Korea, plagued by years of food shortages and crippling economic sanctions, is putting its money on rabbits as big as dogs.

The hermit kingdom recently bought 12 giant rabbits from a German breeder whose 22-pounder was named "Germany's Biggest Rabbit" last year.

The breeder told The (London) Times "he believed that the monster bunny program ... was aimed at feeding the North Korean people rather than the 'Dear Leader,' Kim Jong Il, who is said to favor lobster."

Each rabbit provides 15 pounds of meat, including the internal organs, but the animals reproduce so fast it is conceivable that the North Koreans could be producing thousands of pounds of meat in no time.

If North Koreans breed the animals correctly, the 12 they already have could multiply to more than 1 million in just eight years.

One million monster-sized rabbits? Foolish humans. Behold your imminent fate:



Yakov Smirnoff joke: "In America, you eat rabbit. In Russia, rabbit eat you!"

Cryptid Corner: Caddy

The Cadborosaurus Willsi ("Caddy" for short) has the body of a snake, the head of a horse, and a large tail fin to propel itself at astonishing speed. It's said to live in coastal waters between Oregon and British Columbia.



Proof of the Caddy's existence is often attributed to frequent sightings (about six a year) and this 1937 photograph (left) of a partially digested carcass pulled from a whale's stomach. It was brought to a university for study, and then either thrown away or disappeared, depending on who you ask. The photograph is convincing, I must admit. If it's a "gaffe", it's a good one.

Let's waste ten minutes of our lives on this extremely biased docu-drama:


(no audio from :21 to 1:35 for some reason)

Some great dialogue here: "after a great deal of soul searching, I decided to put him back in the water and let him be." also: "if this is an accurate depiction of a caddy, imagine seeing one in the wild." So, first I accept what you imagine it to look like, then I imagine seeing it for myself. Got it.

Of potentially greater interest, here is a clip from notorious jackass Kent Hovind (a.k.a. "Dr. Dino", not to be confused with an accredited doctor of any kind) promoting creationism by asserting that dinosaurs are still all around us, including the Caddy. The creationists and the cryptozoologists are equally delusional. They're free to believe whatever they want, but it's irksome that either camp would call themselves scientists. Besides, I don't understand Dr. Dino's point; even if we were to believe the dinosaurs never went extinct, what does that have to do with disproving evolution?

Micromenagerie: Sleeping Sickness

Spread by the bite of the Tsetse Fly, Sleeping sickness is estimated to currently affect 50,000 to 70,000 people in sub-saharan Africa. The fly's bite spreads Trypanosomes, which multiply in the bloodstream before making their way into the brain. At this point the disease is irreversible, causing major neurological damage. Symptoms are confusion, lack of coordination, and an erratic sleep cycle; the afflicted will alternate between manic and exhausted states at random hours of the day and night. Coma and death inevitably follow.


Hey Kids! Want a Sleeping Sickness of your own to snuggle up with at night? Get it at GiantMicrobes.com. They also will supply you with ebola, typhoid, black plague, rabies, lyme disease, malaria and H.I.V! They're guaranteed to fill your heart (and yes, they also sell heartworms). Collect them all here.

Aniputees

Here is an interesting article on animal prosthetics. These are all worthy examples of replacing things which have been lost to give them better lives, but when are we going to get more creative, and start pimping animals out with a little flair? Gold teeth? Fuzzy dice? Flame Jobs? Neon underglow? C'mon, the Lord gave us dominion over them, so let's start having some fun.

In related news, check out this company called Neuticles. They remove the testicles from your dog or cat, and then replace them with artificial ones. Unable to produce hormones, they're only for cosmetic reasons. So your pet's self-esteem isn't damaged. Ponder that for a while.

It's Alive: Zombie Roach

Ampullex Compressa (Emerald Cockroach Wasp) is a entomophagous parasite; it lays eggs in the host, which grow into larvae who feed from their surroundings (in this case, a Periplaneta Americana cockroach). Other insects share this trait, but what makes this species so unique is its capacity as a neurosurgeon. Edited from wikipedia:

female wasps of this species sting a roach twice, delivering venom. She delivers an initial sting to a thoracic ganglion and injects venom to mildly and reversibly paralyze the front legs of the insect. This facilitates the second venomous sting at a carefully chosen spot in the roach's head ganglia (brain), in the section that controls the escape reflex. As a result of this sting, the roach will first groom extensively, and then become sluggish and fail to show normal escape responses. The wasp, which is too small to carry the roach, then leads the victim to the wasp's burrow, by pulling one of the roach's antennae in a manner similar to a leash. Once they reach the burrow, the wasp lays a white egg, about 2 mm long, on the roach's abdomen. It then exits and proceeds to fill in the burrow entrance with pebbles, more to keep other predators out than to keep the roach in. With its escape reflex disabled, the stung roach will simply rest in the burrow as the wasp's egg hatches after about three days. The hatched larva lives and feeds for 4-5 days on the roach, then chews its way into its abdomen and proceeds to live as an endoparasitoid. Over a period of eight days, the wasp larva consumes the roach's internal organs in an order which guarantees that the roach will stay alive, at least until the larva enters the pupal stage and forms a cocoon inside the roach's body. Eventually the fully-grown wasp emerges from the roach's body to begin its adult life.

Film at 11:

Roots of Chicha

selections from a compilation of early 70's Peruvian psychedelic folk music. Buy it here.

The Book of Moe

In 1966, while still an infant, Moe was brought from Tanzania to West Covina, California after his mother was killed by poachers. St. James Davis and his wife LaDonna (pictured) brought Moe into their home and looked after him like a son. He was toilet trained, took showers, ate his dinner with a knife and fork, and enjoyed watching nature programs on television.

In two separate incidents in 1998, he bit off a woman's fingertip and severely mauled a policeman's hand. After months of litigation, he was exiled away from the city under a wild animal ordinance. The Davises went to visit him at an animal sanctuary near Bakersfield for years.






One day in 2005, they brought Moe a cake for his 39th birthday. Two other jealous male chimps suddenly attacked St. James. They bit off all of his fingers, pulled out an eye, bit off his nose, cheek and lips, and mauled his torso, buttocks, foot and genitals. LaDonna only lost her thumb. The rampaging chimps were shot dead by an animal handler during the attack. While all of this was going down, poor Moe had no choice but to watch from his cage. After days in critical condition, St. James miraculously survived (If you want to see pictures, type his name into google image search... I won't provide a link). It's still unknown how the chimps escaped their cage in the first place.

Since then, Moe has been bounced around to many different homes. Last year he was transferred to Jungle Exotics, a business that rents animals out to movie and television productions.

Four days ago, Moe escaped from his cage. Some neighbors have found running garden hoses and missing chickens, but no solid evidence that it was caused by Moe. It is believed the 42 year-old set up camp near a water source, and in the shade of the brush, in the surrounding mountains. Helicopters have been flying over the San Bernadino National Forest to try and scare him out, but so far there have been no sightings. Updates to follow.

Grindhouse Radio Ads

Thanks to toestubber.com.