Of DNA Degradation and Dinosaurs…

Posted October 11, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: extinct species, scalies, science

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– – Just when the Jurassic Park films had us hoping for such a real-life scenario, it turns out to be virtually impossible owing to the calculated half-life of DNA, which figures out to be only around 521 years. 

A team of paleogeneticists tested 158 leg bones belonging to three species of extinct giant moa birds which ranged from 600 to 8,000 years old, running a series of comparisons between the age of the various bones and DNA degradation within each specimen.  The DNA half-life worked out to about 521 years in specimens kept at swamp temperatures.  Even a more ideal preservation temperature of minus 5 degrees Celsius would only result in readable DNA from specimens up to 1.5 million years old, far less than would be required to reconstitute a T-Rex or raptor…

Cat Fight!

Posted October 9, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: animals, anthropomorphic, cartoons, famous furries

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– – You’ve probably seen Kit-Cat Klocks,which have been made continuously by the California Clock Company in Oregon for over 70 years.  The iconic art deco style wall clock is traditionally in the shape of a grinning black cat with cartoon-styled eyes that move horizontally in sync with a pendulum tail that swings beneath.  From the 1930’s through the 1950’s the clocks had only two paws, features which expanded to four paws and a bow tie in more recent years.  The clocks were also originally plug-in, while models sold since the late 1980’s use batteries and are also available in multiple colors, some for a limited time only. 

Now Felix the Cat‘s production company has sued Kit-Cat Klocks in federal court in 2004 for copyright infringement, claiming that Kit-Cat was a blatant knockoff of Felix, who first appeared in the 1920’s.  Apparently even Felix couldn’t pull the copyright infringement case out of his bag of tricks

Street Fight!

Posted October 7, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: absurdities, animal spokepersons, animals, feathered friends, television

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– – It came as rather a surprise when Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney during the first presidential debate declared that he would cut funding to the PBS network, while maintaining that he liked the PBS monitor of the debate, and also loved PBS Sesame Street icon, Big Bird.  Apparently, this is tough love.

Now the U.S. federal government contributes about 15% of the PBS operating budget, an amount equal to .01% of the federal budget.  It’s an amount that the Pentagon burns through in a mere six hours!  At least Big Bird found out that he has a lot of friends, at one point during the debate generating 17,000 tweets per second, which I guess is appropriate.  As the Trashmen prophetically told us in the Surfin’ Bird song, “The bird is the word!”  

Exploding Reptiles!

Posted October 5, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: animal occurrences, animals, furry stories, scalies, strange happenings

  — I, for one, find the prospect of exploding reptiles both darkly amusing yet creepy and disturbing, one of those rare things that both captivates yet repels me at the same time.  You don’t really want to see such a thing yet if you did, you couldn’t bear to look away, either!  With that in mind, I offer the following true story to kindred spirits like myself who dearly love tales of the grotesquely fascinating.

A family member knew of people who bought a bearded dragon as a reptile pet.- -Well, it seems that one feeds crickets to bearded dragons.  Not knowing any better, the new owners of this pet fed their bearded dragon one cricket a day, and on this diet the reptile became listless and barely moved.  Making inquiry, it was discovered that the bearded dragon was supposed to receive three crickets per day rather than one!  Feeling guilty that they were starving their pet, the owners then proceeded to put a dozen crickets into the cage with the bearded dragon, who responded hungrily by eating all of the dozen crickets at a single time.  Some time later (and I swear I am not making this up), the lizard…exploded!

I don’t mean exploded as in parts of bearded dragon flew across the room, but exploded as in suffered a lethal gastrointestinal rupture.  One can only speculate as to whether the lizard died happy, although it certainly died full, to a fault.  Perhaps exploding reptiles might have strategic applications, say sent in to $50,000 a plate Mitt Romney fundraiser dinners, courtesy of the 47%…and those among us who are homo sapiens are warned by this tale against eating anything larger than their refrigerators!

Meat Ponchos!

Posted October 3, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: absurdities, animals, Brilliant but twisted, furry, furry commercials, television

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– – In another of the Degree Chain of Adventure commercials, three average guys are equipped with “meat ponchos” and then have a pack of wolves released upon them!  “Sweat is like tasty gravy to a hungry wolf,” explains survival expert Bear Grylls.- –Well, only one of the three meat poncho wearers is still standing alive and dry at the end of the commercial, and it should come as no surprise that he’s the guy wearing Degree deodorant!  

I think we’ve all learned something here today…and while I’m glad the wolves got some fresh food, wouldn’t wearing a meat poncho be disgusting, to say nothing of costly?–And wouldn’t Meat Ponchos be a great name for a punk mariachi band?!

Degree Commercial with Bear Grylls and Real Ursine

Posted October 1, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: absurdities, animals, furry, furry commercials, television

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– – Bear Grylls is a British survival expert and adventurer who hosts the show Man vs. Wild on the Discovery Channel.  He also does a number of commercials for Degree deodorant, one of which shows us a poor subject pacing in a primitive “perpetual motion simulator,” which is really a large wheel set into motion by the movement of the guy walking inside it.  “Feelin’ fresh and dry!,” assures the hapless subject as he moves at a leisurely pace.  The deodorant’s protection is activated by movement, ‘ya see, so to kick things up a notch, the survival expert tosses the wheel walker a trout, and a bear is introduced in pursuit behind him!- –Now things are getting interesting!

Help me!,” screams the subject with the bear in hot pursuit.  “Keep running!” is the only advice he is offered by the survival expert who calmly walks away…

“Wayne the Werewolf” from “Hotel Transylvania”

Posted September 29, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: animals, anthropomorphic, furry, movies

– – I’m usually not much for family-friendly movie monsters as they tend to be overly sanitized, but Wayne the Werewolf from the upcoming movie Hotel Transylvania may be a redeeming grace, or at least a focal point for furry aficionados.

  Voiced by Steve Buscemi, Wayne is portrayed as a world-weary everyman kinda werewolf who is a data processor by day and a beleaguered father by night.  Wayne and his wife, Wanda, have produced litters of misbehaving pups, and his ball and chain is pregnant yet again; the poor guy’s once acute sense of smell has even been decimated from too many poopie diapers!  This is a poor guy who really needs a vacation at the Hotel Transylvania where a number of classic movie monsters including Dracula (voiced by Adam Sandler), the Invisible Man (David Spade), and Frankenstein (Kevin James) are free to be themselves…

Vampire Squid from Hell!

Posted September 27, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: animal oddities, animals, aquatic, science, strange

– – They sound like the perfect subject for a Saturday night original movie on the Syfy Channel:  The Vampire Squid from Hell (Vampyroteuthis infernalis).  They rather look like a bad movie monster, too, having a type of cloak-like  webbing, unusually large deep blue or red eyes, and light-producing organs covering its entire body which it can flash

A kind of living fossil originally discovered in 1903, the vampire squid lives at a depth of about 3,000 feet and feeds on “marine snow,” a mixture of dead organic material and feces that floats down from above, often embedded in a mucus matrix, yum!  The cephalopod grows to only about a foot long, and can survive in minimal oceanic oxygen zones, a fact which possibly enabled it to survive major extinction events in the evolutionary past.  Feeding rather passively, the vampire squid is the only cephalopod in the world that’s not a predatory carnivore…

…and wouldn’t Vampire Squid from Hell be a great name for a metal band?!

“Dirty, Old Egg-Sucking Dog” VW Commercial…

Posted September 24, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: animals, furry, furry commercials, television

  – – I’m not a big fan of country music, although I am a fan of Volkswagens, owning a Jetta myself…and it just so happens that a currently-running VW commercial features a Jetta,  Johnny Cash’s music, and an English Bulldog! –Well, it seems that in the commercial the bulldog swallows his owner’s car keys, but fortunately the Jetta’s keyless technology system allows you to operate certain features of the car as long as you have the keys in your proximity.  So even with your keys in your pocket (or dog), sensors in the car will detect your arrival and unlock the door as you grab the handle.  Once inside the car, it can also be started without the keys in the ignition just by pushing the brake and then a button to start the car!

The Johnny Cash song used dates back to 1966 from the “Everybody Loves A Nut” album, with the first stanza as follows:
“Well he’s not very handsome to look at/Oh he’s shaggy and he eats like a hog/And he’s always killin’ my chickens/That dirty old egg-suckin’ dog.”

Beauty, it’s said,  is in the eyes of the beholder…and I’ve heard canines called far worse than “…dirty, old egg-suckin’ dog.”   To illustrate responsible pet ownership, the owner drives directly to the animal hospital, although he does use the dog again to lock the car and roll up the windows!  Surely the bulldog would approve, although not of being called “Shirley.”  Just don’t expect to hear country music coming from the windows of my Jetta!

Rockin’ the House…

Posted September 21, 2012 by vulpesffb
Categories: animal spokepersons, animals, anthropomorphic, furry, furry commercials, television

– – I’m glad to see that the Kia hamsters have developed a taste for the fine arts,  showing their trademark killer moves in an 18th-century opera house in their newest commercial for the Soul “party wagon!” 

The current campaign is called “Bringing Down the House,” and features a ballet performance and breakdancing to the Axwell remix of “In My Mind.”  It’s kind of an electronic dance rave type thing which is played to an audience of upper-crusty aristocratic types who seem to eventually tap into the energy and get into the groove…

The hamsters are good at what they do, BTW…sales of the Kia Soul are up 13% this year!