You deserve it Avis: Be careful though—it may be a trophy, but it really fires. Golden bullets.
Courtesy davidaugspurgerRata a tat tat tat get yourself psyched a tat rat rat rat rat…
The award goes to Avis Blakeslee of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania!!
Now, before we get into Avis’s specific accomplishments, let’s have a little background on the Sara Connor award itself.
A female-only award, meant to recognize the truly hardcore ladies out there, the Sara Connor award is, in fact, a precursor to the Otzi the Iceman Medal of Badassery. The OtIMoB, was created more than a decade after the SCA, under social pressure to acknowledge that men can also, on occasion, be pretty tough. But the Sara Connor is truly the original, and as deserving as the Otzi winners are, the Badassery medal is in a different—and frankly lower—league.
Originally the Sara Connor and Lt. Ellen Ripley Medal of Valor, the award was split after the selection committee could not agree on a recipient. Those members who would eventually form the Lt. Ripley Organization wanted to give the award to Margaret Thatcher, for eating the eyes out of a living goat, while the charter members of the Sara Connor board felt that an Argentinean woman who gave birth while clinging to the wing of an airborne Learjet was more deserving. The board members of the award parted ways amiably, although the Sara Connor Award has since received greater attention and respect, on account of widely held opinion that the Lt. Ripley Organization is simply unable to “keep it real.”
The Sara Connor Award is given regularly, but not necessarily every year. For example, in 1995, the SCA was given to Svetlana Kovach of the Ukraine after she removed her own cystic kidney using only a bottle of grain alcohol and a claw hammer (while trapped in a mineshaft, although this was only discovered after the ceremony—Ms. Kovach was tremendously modest), but in 1996 no suitable recipients were nominated. The award was given once again in 1997, posthumously, to Nozomi Chinen of Okinawa, who clawed her way out of a shark’s belly, and drowned fighting a second shark barehanded.
Avis Blakeslee, this year’s deserving recipient, is being recognized for an epic battle with a rabid fox in the garden of her farmhouse.
Although Ms. Blakeslee’s accomplishment is perhaps not as immediately impressive as those of past recipients (it pales in comparison even to 1999’s formidable runner up, a 15-year old Jordanian who slapped a mortar out of the air), extenuating circumstances must be considered. Again, the fox was rabid—and if you read last week’s post on the bat-pantsed Scotswoman (who is unlikely to receive a nomination), you’ll know that rabies is serious business. Paralysis, insanity, hydrophobia, etc; rabies is no cakewalk. The disease is no doubt what lead the fox to leave its habitat to attack an unsuspecting gardener. Ms. Blakeslee had never even seen a fox in person before, and believed the creature to be a small dog (before it went crazy on her). Another important factor here is Avis’s age: 77. Avis is a grandmother, and not used to fighting wild animals, and yet she wrasseled that pooch into submission, even after sustaining seven leg wounds, an arm wound, and severe blood loss. She then pinned the rabid fox to the ground, holding its jaws shut with one hand, until help arrived to dispatch the creature with a firearm. I have no doubt that, had Mavis a free arm, she would have simply driven a finger into the fox’s brain. As it was, however, she did her two-armed best and subdued the fox ultimate fighting style, until the cavalry came to do its own thing.
A job well done, Avis, a job well done. You’ve taught us all a little bit about what it means to be hardcore, and for that…we salute you.
Tags : Influenza Outlook
in Life Science, Cells, Diversity of Organisms, Interdependence of Life, Biological Populations Change Over Time, and Human Organism
Flu vaccine: This is CDC Clinic Chief Nurse Lee Ann Jean-Louis extracting Influenza Virus Vaccine, Fluzone® from a 5 ml. vial.
Courtesy CDC/Jim Gathany
Did you know back in February scientist and medical professionals selected the influenza virus strains for the upcoming flu season? Now that it is July the pharmaceutical companies are well into manufacturing, purification and testing the vaccine. Meanwhile, it is winter and flu season in the southern hemisphere and the virus is busy mutating. The big question on everyone’s mind is will it mutate so much that the northern hemisphere vaccine will be ineffective?
I agree with Dr. Steven Salzberg remarks in his recent Nature commentary…
"The current system, in which most of the world’s vaccine supply is grown in chicken eggs, is an antiquated, inefficient method requiring six months or more to ramp up production, which in turn means that the vaccine strains must be chosen far in advance of each flu season. More crucially it sometimes prevents the use of the optimal strain, as it did in 2007."
Influenza (the flu) is a serious disease
Each year in the United States, on average:
- 5% to 20% of the population gets the flu;
- More than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu complications, and;
- About 36,000 people die from flu.
Some vaccine problems in the past
In recent years the match between the vaccine viruses and those identified during the flu season has usually been good. In 16 of the last 20 U.S. influenza seasons, including the 2007-08 season, the viruses in the influenza vaccine have been well matched to the predominant circulating viruses. Since 1988, there has only been one season (1997-98) when there was very low cross-reaction between the viruses in the vaccine and the predominate circulating virus and three seasons (1992-93, 2003-04, and 2007-08) when there was low cross-reaction (CDC). So after last year’s miscalculation the committee picked three new strains for the vaccine this year. One is a current southern hemisphere vaccine virus which they expect will still be present next year. In addition, they predict a second new Type A strain, known as H1N1/Brisbane/59, to also hit, along with a newer Type B/Florida strain.
Dr. Salzberg feels last year’s miscalculation was a failure…
"The harm was thus twofold; people fell ill and their trust in the vaccine system was undermined. This failure could have been predicted, if not prevented, through a more open system of vaccine design, a stronger culture of sharing in the influenza research community and a serious commitment to new technologies for production. The habits of the vaccine community must change for the sake of public health."
He goes on to suggest…
"The process of choosing flu-vaccine strains needs to be much more open. Other scientists, such as those in evolutionary biology with expertise in sequence analysis, could meaningfully contribute to the selection. At present, external scientists cannot review the data that went into the decision, nor can they suggest other types of data that might improve it."
Even with all of these miscalculations, I still feel getting the vaccine is worth the risk. But that doesn’t mean the process shouldn’t be improved. So once again I will be vaccinated and I will make sure my family is too—but what can we do as citizens to improve this process? What will you do?
It was horrible: just horrible.
Courtesy Steveie-BA pipistrelle bat, local to Aberdeen, Scotland, was shocked and disgusted to find the naked leg of a 19-year-old woman thrust into the soft contours of its new cave.
Having just moved from the grim crawlspaces of an Aberdeen flat, in favor of a cozier, denim living space, the two-inch flying mammal assumed that it was set for life.
Shortly after settling in for the day, however, the pipistrelle was bludgeoned into consciousness by the colossal, pale shank of a Scottish receptionist. The invading limb was squeezed through the cloth tube like a kielbasa in the neck of a beer bottle, leaving the bat little choice but to hunker down and wait for the flesh-storm to subside.
Unfortunately, the young receptionist remained maddeningly unaware of the presence of the sorely abused batty for the better part of an hour. It was not until her mother was driving her to work that the nerve signals from her monstrous apparently completed the arduous journey to her brain. The screaming and thrashing that followed was no doubt tortuous for the small creature’s delicate bones and hyper-sensitive ears. One can only imagine the experience must have been to the tiny merkel cells lining the bat’s wings, as the delicate, single-haired structures were meant only to sense subtle changes in air flow, not to endure the scraping of Scotch legs.
The bat was shortly evicted from its new home, and placed into a holding cell, where it was given the humiliating nickname “Rat-bat.”
“My name,” the pipistrelle was quoted, “is Henry Fitzroy-Lennox, and I want to go home.”
Lamentably healthy, the bad wondered how things might have been different, had it been a carrier of rabies. The virus, present in the nerves and saliva, could have been easily passed to the receptionist through a quick bite (or, less likely, but intriguingly possible, via an aerosol through the mucus membranes. The infection would have necessitated an infection of immunoglobulin near the infection site, and another intramuscularly away from the site, followed by several shot of vaccine.
If the receptionist had neglected to seek proper treatment for the Henry’s well-deserved revenge, she could have looked forward to the rapid passage of the virus along her nerves, through her central nervous system, to the ultimate destination of her brain, where it soon would have caused encephalitis—painful and deadly inflammation of the brain.
There’s some small chance that a drug induced coma could have saved her brain from further damage at this point, but very likely the damage would have been done, and irreversible symptoms would soon begin to appear. Initially symptoms would be flu-like, but before long the woman would have suffered from insomnia, confusion, agitation, partial paralysis, paranoia, terror, and severe hallucinations. The receptionist would have become distinctly drippy, as her body would produce excessive amounts of tears and saliva. Her slight paralysis would have prevented her from swallowing, causing the characteristic “foaming at the mouth” of rabies. She may have developed hydrophobia—a fear of water—because the excess fluid in her mouth and inability to swallow could bring her to a panic when presented with liquids to drink (indeed, “hydrophobia” was once synonymous with rabies, so characteristic was the symptom).
Approximately one week after developing symptoms, the receptionist would have died.
So, all in all, it seems that she really dodged a bullet after throwing herself in front of a gun.
Mr. Fitzroy-Lennox was released into the wild (of Aberdeen) at the end of the lucky and inconsiderate woman’s shift. He will never again put himself into a position where a receptionist could abuse him so awfully.
Would you still love Nessie if it looked like this?: Don't lie to me. I know when you're lying to me.
Courtesy cramsay23Our sly creature pal, the Loch Ness Monster, is back flaunting his hot stuff on tape.
A couple of Huddersfield holidaymakers (“holidaymakers” being British for “dangerous social deviants”) claim to have captured the image of Nessie on their vaca video (“vaca” is American for “debauchery near water.” I think it’s also Spanish for “cow.”)
Fearing institutional commitment (think “Oliver Twist” without the songs—so, like, Oliver Twist the book), the British challengers of the unknown kept mum about their discovery for several weeks, until an important decision was made while drinking: let the world know.
The video was apparently assisted in its journey to the public eye by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a well know scientific institution. Coincidentally, SPE was in the neighborhood (of Scotland) intending to stage a projection of Nessie for the release of its new DVD Waterhorse: The Legend of Horsewater.
One wonders to what extent Sony went to kick up some exciting videos.
Anyway, I hope this is encouraging news for everyone. Pack your video cameras and harpoon guns, because I hear Scotland is beautiful this time of year.
Oh, right. Here’s the video.
Grickle grackle: grickle grackle grickle grackle grickle grackle grickle grackle grickle grackle.
Courtesy Kevin ColeThe age of the crustaceans is upon us, and, like the elves before us, it is time for we chordates to fade into legend. Though some of us may linger in this fallen world, much that was good will have been lost. The air will be full of, like, clicking, and eyestalks will be all the rage, and everything will smell like ammonia.
And, oh yes, there will be tentacles. And before you get all sassy about crustaceans not having tentacles, shut your word-holes and open your listen-orifices—I ent just talking about crustaceans. In this damp, horrifying future, the crustaceans will be accompanied by their nightmare 6th cousins: the mollusks.
It’s the presence of mollusca that is most frightening to me. I can not imagine a crustacean that couldn’t be handled with a claw hammer, but mollusks…they’re something else entirely. Huge, clever brains, instant biological camouflage, boneless bodies, marine gigantism, beaks…
As ocean temperatures rise with global climate change, many marine populations are predicted to shift dramatically from fish to crabs, lobsters, and squid.
Fish populations have also been observed switching from cold water to warm water species, away from bottom feeders, and trending towards smaller species.
The whole thing, it’s thought, is primarily the result of a change in where in the ocean plankton is being consumed; small, warm-water species of fish are eating the plankton (itty bitty sea life) higher up in the water column, so less plankton settles down for bottom feeding fish. As the bottom feeders die off, invertebrates like mollusks and crustaceans move in.
Warming oceans are probably the main cause here, but researchers say that over fishing could be a contributor as well. As larger fish become less common due to fishing, there are fewer predators for small fish, which eat off the plankton high in the water table…
Prepare for the worst. Remember: claw hammers for crustacea, marshmallow skewers for mollusca, and an acceptance of inevitable death by pinchers for the rest of us.
She'll never know a hard day's work in her life: unless you're willing to help her.
Courtesy PKMousieStudies have shown that rats that are not subjected to cruel medical tests grow up to be wild, dirty rats. Without a healthy fear of God, so to speak, rats never learn appropriate boundaries, and stroll through life taking for granted the fact that they’ve never had eyeliner blown up their nostrils. For years, pharmaceutical companies and cosmetics developers have done their very best to make sure that rats grow up to be humble, responsible adult rodents.
However, there is a disturbing new trend towards zero-rat (zero animal, in fact) medical testing. Popular Science details a few of these frightening new methods. Episkin, for instance, is lab-grown human skin developed by L’Oréal, which can be used for testing cosmetics. “Can be used,” certainly, but “should”? Hardly. Why volunteer defenseless human skin for painful tests when there’s probably a perfectly good mousey in the next room, just waiting for a little discipline and structure to come into its life?
Another company is developing a “chip” that uses liver enzymes, and various types of cultured cells to test new medications for toxicity in the body. Again, we’re taking jobs away from rats here.
The article also mentions the idea of introducing human subjects earlier in the trial period of a new drug. Tragically removing many animal test subjects from the process, humans are given itty-bitty “microdoses” of a drug, which are then tracked through the body by means of radioactive, non-toxic tracer particles. The activity of the drug is observed and evaluated to see if further tests (on animals) are warranted. But why not just use animals in the first place? It sounds like something they’d enjoy.
The whole thing serves to reemphasize that we have be conscious of where our medicines and cosmetics are coming from. Don’t just assume that they’ve been tested on animals—insist on it. It’s better for us, and for them.
To Burn or not to Burn...
in The Water Cycle, Weather and Climate, Interdependence of Life, and Forces of Nature
Scene from Watsonville fire in California
Courtesy alexthompsonThat is the question. Controlled burning is a technique where by intentional fires are set to clear forests of debris. Fires sparked by lighting have always been a part of the life cycle of forests. Though it seems counterintuitive, fire can actually be a very healthy thing. It clears the forest floor strengthening older trees by giving them more access to soil nutrients while also acting as a kind of natural recycling. Regular burning (burning that mimics what formerly naturally occurred in forests) can actually reduce the severity of fires such as the one burning in northern California.
Sounds great! But, what if you live near a forest scheduled to burn? Though it is called a “controlled burn” I would certainly be skittish about the combination of control and burn. Fires can be extremely dangerous, but scientists utilize many tools for tracking weather and wind patterns prior to burning. They have extensive topographical information that allows them to track the path of the fire. There are also many resources available for homeowners.
Do the risks of controlled burning outweigh the risk of uncontrollable wildfires? Ultimately nature has the power to override any hesitations I may have about whether I want a fire in my backyard. So I have to ask, what is my role in fire and forest ecology?
Night vision eyeballs: one of the many new features of Pets 2.0
Courtesy *robertYou know, I’ve said it before, but it’s about time we get rid of some of our old pets to make way for the new generation.
Think about it: your old pets—they stink, nobody’s impressed by them anymore, they’re always coming home drunk or not at all, they’ve got bad attitudes and ridiculous sense of entitlement. Why keep them around? Especially when there’s a whole new brand of pet on the horizon: cyberpooches*.
When a cooler new cell phone comes out, you don’t think much of discarding your old one for it, do you? And your pets can’t play streaming video, or mp3s, or send emails. Your pets can’t even make calls, can they?
Not…not really. Not as such. So dump the suckers and upgrade. Invest in a little rollermutt, like Hope McRollydog here.
Hope is a Maltese puppy. The Maltese is a toy/poodle breed, puffy, white, and weighing about as much as my phone, stapler, and mug put together. So they’ve already got some problems. This particular Maltese has the additional challenge of being born with no front legs.
Well, that’s not totally fair—I guess she had two wiggly little nubs, but not full legs by most standards.
Anyway, little Rollerderby Von Madmax has gotten pretty good at squirming around, and even at hopping around on her hind legs, but apparently that’s no good for dog backs—the backs of dogs—so someone had the clever idea of creating little wheely arms for her. Now Robo del Driver has a custom-cast body harness with two independent legs ending in model airplane wheels.
At first the pooch had a little trouble with the contraption, and kept falling over sideways (unfortunately, no video exists of this that I’m aware of), but now she’s zooming around at a “surprisingly break-neck pace.”
So that’s a happy story. Maybe not for you old pets, V1.0, but whatev.
Oh, a little genetic side note—sometimes when you boil down a gene pool to get certain traits to consistently express themselves, like you might when breeding, say, tiny show dogs, you end up running a risk of cultivating other, less cute traits. Like if you keep breeding little doggies with the puffiest, fluffiest white hair together, you’d probably get some puppies with the puffiest, fluffiest white hair. But if some of those very puffy, fluffy haired dogs happen to have a recessive gene for something like bad hips (which won’t affect the beautiful hair, and so is never bred out) eventually those recessive genes are going to meet, and you’re going to get a puffy, fluffy puppy with bad hips. Look at monarchies around the world—blood lines get twisted enough, and kings have royal relatives all over the place, but the also have hemophilia and sailboat ears.
This isn’t to say that little Dunebuggy Fuzzybutt’s condition came from irresponsible breeding. Even if it did, I’d say breed that little sucker again. The more Universal Soldier dogs, the better.
*I’m in the process of trademarking “cyberpooch,” “cyberpooches,” and “cyberpoochz,” so hands off, greedyguts.
It's probably not the worst day in this caterpillar's life: But it's the worst day it will remember.
Courtesy The Agricultural Research ServiceThat’s a lie, really—If I suddenly discovered that I had the ability to lay eggs inside a living caterpillar, I would probably have myself sealed in a basement. An eternity of being bricked off in an alcove is probably preferable to an all-encompassing desire to stab an ovipositor into moth larvae.
Unless you’re a wasp. It seems that the world, in its unceasing attempts to gross us out, has come up with something new: a wasp that lays eggs in a caterpillar. That, obviously, is nothing remarkable—all sorts of things stick their offspring in other things. This wasp, however, turns the caterpillar into a zombie guardian of the wasp larvae as they hatch and crawl out of its body. Oh, man! What a trick!
So, the wasp larvae hatch (again, inside the body of the caterpillar), and then chew their way out of its body. Once they’re out, and doing…whatever it is parasitic wasp larvae do (Sega Genesis?), the caterpillar stops eating, remains close to the larvae, and uses its head as a club, thrashing its body to beat away any predators.
I’m sure that all the other little wasplings are super jealous of those who have huge zombie bodyguards, but, more than that, research has shown that zombie caterpillar bodyguards increase chances of larvae survival by 200%.
So, to refine my earlier statement, if I could turn caterpillars into zombie servants, I would. But not if it meant that I had to lay little JGordon eggs in them. Yuck. I don’t think that’s how I was born (although my mother has always been pretty vague on the subject, and my father always refused to discuss it at all).
The friendly gift shop Bigfoot: Know it. Know it well.
Courtesy quaziefotoBigfoot and his kin are everywhere these days—in the last couple months I’ve written about Australia’s bipedal cryptid, the Yowie, Borneo’s giant, questionable footprints, and the original abominable snowman, Nepal’s Yeti. But we’re not done yet.
I mean, what if you were at a party, and an attractive member of the opposite (or the same) sex started chatting you up about huge, hairy forest creatures?
Thanks to me, you’d be all: “Oh, you mean Yowie, Yeti, Bigfoot? C’mere, thing, and let’s talk.”
And he or she would be all: “Mmm, hmm. But what about the mande barung?”
And you’d be all: “¿Que?”
And that’d be it; sweet thing would be off to find a one-night-stand who’s a little better versed in cryptids of the subcontinent. Another night watching Stargate by yourself. The cryptocouch should never be a lonely place.
Well don’t sweat it. I’m here to help, and so is the BBC, with Tuesday’s hard-hitting piece on the mande barung, India’s own giant apeman.
As usual, the English say it best, so you might as well read the original piece, and check out the video there while you’re at it, but here are the basics:
Mande barung: approximately 10 feet tall, long black and grey fur, herbivorous, makes its home in the West Garo hills of north-eastern India.
The Garo hills are an area of dense, hot, hot jungle, leading some to wonder why a hairy man-beast would want to hang out there, but many locals are convinced of its existence, and sightings are frequently reported by folks who spend much time in the forest. There’s also some thought that the mande barung stories are played up a little bit to give tourists a reason to check out that hot, sticky corner of India. But we’ll pay no mind to that—anything for the pursuit of knowledge.
Because you’ll be all: Hairy biped of the West Garu hills? What do you want to know?
And they’ll be all: Show me.
Whatever that means.
Science Buzz and all related activities
Add a new comment