I’ve always assumed that animals gradually become endangered over a long periods of time, like many decades. But I was totally wrong: a bat species that once swarmed caves in North America has lurched towards extinction in just six years. More »
It ain’t easy being a bat, what with hanging upside down, and extinction threats. But fascinating research shows they’re also helpless against their innate echolocation sense, which makes them attempt to drink from metallic sheets they detect as still water. More »
In America’s pastime, where honour and fair competition reign and unfair advantages are never tolerated, there is no place for the “aerodynamic” Reebok Vector O baseball bat. After all, ballplayers would do anything to avoid besmirching their sport! More »
I just wanted to hug you one last time, you little furry space hero you!
On a cool spring eve March 15th, 2009 a bat, crippled and wistful, clung to the Space Shuttle Discovery as it was thrust toward the great beyond. Goodbye and godspeed, my magnificent Spacebat.
That rumour that Australian toilets flush the other way isn’t true, so lets start a new one: In Australia, you can fix things by beating them. See you in my children, new trivia meme!
(AU:Um, looks like our US cousins are a little confused about us here in Australia. Firstly, the water does flush the other way, and secondly, everyone knows that you fix things by giving them a strong whack… it’s the Australian way!)
We’ve seen bat-like drones, and even heard of genuine bat weaponry, but now the Pentagon is after micro UAVs with genuine echolocation bat-senses, for real. The Air Force has just awarded a new contract to develop swarms of micro drones that use bat-inspired echolocation for navigation through the complex airspace in urban environments cluttered with trees, wires, buildings and poles. Test flights are due by 2010 apparently. And if the idea of hordes of tiny, flapping military spy drones fluttering though the air doesn’t creep you out, you’re clearly not in the Halloween spirit yet. [AviationWeekDanger Room]
Believe it or not, there are no baseball bats in the Lego universe. Why? Probably because a minifig could use one to break another minifig’s plastic cranium. And we all know that you can’t use weapons in Lego’s universe, much less break minifig craniums. This is why Brickarms, the dealer of All Things Violent for Lego minifigs, has released the baseball bat weapon, including a psychopath minifig posing with it for their publicity shots:
On the list of ways to go, having your lungs explode is definitely on the gnarlier side. Too bad for bats in treehugging locales, though, because that’s what’s happening to them, due to a pretty serious error with their awesome echolcation systems crossing with the seemingly benign forces of Bernoulli’s principle put into motion by the turbines’ huge spinning blades. Ouch all around.
