So, I accepted a position with Slate.com’s tech blog, Future Tense. FT covers all sorts of awesome stuff, from robots and video games to climate change and drones. I’m now posting three times a week with them. And this also means there’s plenty of cool stuff for you to read. Let us commence the Roundup! (Hope you didn’t have anything planned for the weekend.)

There’s a lot about bear hibernation you don’t know.

Do Bears Hibernate?

I know you think you know the answer to this question. Everybody does, right? But like you have come to expect from Bittel Me This, things are not always as they seem. Click away to learn what goes on in that winter den, what polar bear milk tastes like, and whether or not grizzlies are just raging assholes. (They are.) Bears!

Freakin’ Whale Sharks

Whale sharks are the biggest fish in the sea. They have stars all over their backs. And they’re cussing magnificent. Unfortunately, they’re difficult to study because they migrate a few thousand miles at a time and nobody wants to pay scientists to just tag along behind whale sharks for a few years. But now, there’s a way your vacation pics might help contribute to science and help conserve this threatened species. You’d be a jerk not to do it. Whale sharks!

The Hypothetical, Intergalactic Kickstarter War

So you probably heard that some nerds started a Kickstarter to crowdsource a Death Star, once the Pres and his science goons officially replied to the petition with a polite, “Ain’t nobody got time for that.” Well, some other nerds decided if there was going to be a hypothetical Death Star, there had better be a squadron of hypothetical X-Wings to hypothetically destroy it. Nerdery ensues. Kickstarter X-wings!

That sucker is actually a modified dorsal fin. Evolution, go home, you’re drunk.

The Future of Technology that Sucks

Yeah, not like that. Scientists have keyed in on the remora – that diminutively little rake of a fish perpetually attached to the bellies of sharks – in order to develop the next generation of military and surgical adhesives. Here, we get inside a remora’s mouth to find out just how it hangs on. Sucking tech!

The Mars Honey Laser

China may or may not be shipping us fake honey – those jerks. But scientists have a new way to determine where honey comes from, and it involves using a super crazy laser originally designed to play around in the atmosphere of Mars. Which makes total sense. Mars honey laser!

Kevin Bacon Owns the Internet

Ok, not really. But everyone knows about the movie trivia game, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Essentially everyone, from Hitler to Little Orphan Annie, can be linked back to Kevin Bacon in six movies – or generally a lot less. Well, it seems the internet isn’t all that different. Though there are something like 1 Trillion pieces of web out there, you can get to any one of them from another in about 19 clicks. So, that’s completely mind-boggling. Kevin Bacon!

Germany is decking out their soldiers in top-down awesome sauce.

Giving Soldiers A Gamer’s Point of View

It’s no surprise that video games are getting more like actual combat. What’s interesting is how combat is getting a bit more like video games. Germany is outfitting its infantry with the Gladius soldier system: a top-down targeting, load-bearing, information-sharing, futuristic-cuss-you-up uniform that comes complete with an “electronic backbone.” Hoo-ra. The Gladius System!

Toilet Tech: So Underrated

Toilets have saved more lives than any other human invention – and yet 60% of the world’s population is still woefully without this simply technology. A ballad of bathroom technology, finished off with a hilarious awareness-raising campaign with Matt Damon. Toilet tech!

Treating Brain Problems through the Tongue

Yes, I am aware how ridiculous this sounds, but the tongue and its high density of sensory receptors may be a gateway to the human brain. Through the use of electrical impulses, researchers have already had success with multiple sclerosis. Now the military wants to develop the technology further for our wounded warriors. Tongue tech!

Scientists have grown a third eye on a tadpoles butt. And that’s just the beginning of the wow.

Transplanting Eyes onto Tadpoles’ Butts

Look, scientists are crazy mother cussers. (Don’t mess with them.) In an effort to determine whether eyes grown outside of the head can still see, researchers grafted eyeballs onto the tails of tadpoles and then put them through a battery of tests to discover whether or not they could see. The answers may surprise you… Frankentadpoles!

Adorable Yeti Robot Searches Polar Regions for Crevasses

Robots are doing all sorts of great things for us these days. Now there’s one out there roaming the ice fields mapping crevasses so we don’t fall ass over teacups toward a dark and frigid death. Maybe it’s just me, but I think that rather swell. Yeti Robot!

Your Grandparents May Be Gamers

We tend to think of the older generations as technologically-illiterate fogies. A new study says to hold your horses. Not only are the elderly playing digital games with surprising frequency, but doing so may actually be beneficial to their health. Geezer gamers!

Mmm… Microcapsules.

New Coating Allows Concrete to “Heal Itself” in the Sun

Concrete is the most used material in the friggin’ world. So it’d be really nice if it could somehow just do its own thing and, you know, not fall apart. Researchers have developed a new coating to do just that, and it involves microcapsules. Mmm… microcapsules. Self-healing concrete!

OK, that oughta keep you busy for a spell.

Badass whale shark image via http://hqworld.net/gallery/details.php?image_id=25094, Remora: Dave Johnson, Frankentadpoles: Michael Levin, Microcapsules: Chan-Moon Chung

Alas, my backyard experiments in biomimetics were eventually shut down for unspecified, ethical reasons. Which is why I’m elated to see researchers in Belgium, France, and Canada pick up the torch of firefly inquiry. Specifically, they have managed to create a more efficient, brighter LED after studying the lantern of a firefly in the genus Photuris.

In short, fireflies use their bioluminescent bellies to woo mates. Sure, the yellow-green beacons are also handy in warding off predators and may aid in landing maneuvers, but the primary function is getting laid.* Each species utilizes a unique style; displays differ in pattern, height, and flash trajectory. The reason scientists find this interesting is because animals that have relied on reproduction via light emission for some hundred million years are likely to sport a few Darwin-o-rific adaptations we can steal.

Glow little glowworm, glimmer glimmer.

In dual papers published in the open-access journal Optics Express, researchers discovered first that a firefly in the genus Photuris has curious, irregularly-arranged scales on its underside that could “contribute to light scattering and, through this mechanism, [impact] the overall light extraction.” Likening the protruding scales to a factory roof, the team set to work quantifying the effect of such scales with fancy things like azimuthal angles, planar reference interfaces, and Snell’s law of refraction.

After determining that Photuris cuticles were indeed very cool, the researchers embarked on a follow-up study to see if the beetle’s anatomy might be applied to LEDs. Rather than re-engineer existing LEDs, the team was able to fabricate an overlayer that could be tailored to existing diode design. This was accomplished by bonding a layer of light-sensitive material to an LED, then using a friggin’ laser to etch out the factory-roof pattern.

And wouldn’t you know, the crazy assholes managed to increase LED efficiency by an incredible 55%. In fact, the resulting light extraction is even more efficient than the lightning bug that inspired the studies. In other words: More light, less energy – take that, Nature!

The papers’ authors note that further study of other firefly species may reveal even better adaptations for light extraction, and thus, more opportunity for biomimicry. Translation: “C’mon, just give us a few more grants. You know we’re good for it!”

*In an evolutionary turn, females of the species Photuris versicolor can mimic the mating flash of females from another genus (Photinus). The ruse draws in Photinus males, which P. versicolor then devours.

What’s more, since the female P. versicolor is so often occupied with eating chumps, the male P. versicolor will sometimes mimic flashes of her prey (instead of the species’ own mating flash) in an attempt to get her attention. If he succeeds in identifying himself before she kills him, they mate. But sometimes, she eats him afterward all the same.  

Images via: Tsuneaki Hiramatsu

A Note On Zoos

The African painted dog may look similar enough to the tuft-tailed mutt you grew up with, but I promise you, this canine doesn’t wear Christmas sweaters. Alternately called the African wild dog, Cape hunting dog, ornate wolf and about half a dozen other combinations of those words, Lycaon pictus is more formidable than its big ears and calico coat let on.

The African painted dog goes by many names. Lycaon pictus, its scientific name, is also likely the one you’ll never hear again.

And no matter what the hypothetical He-Men spout from the safety of ergonomic office chairs, the facts show a single African painted dog would give an adult human a run for his money. The Pittsburgh Zoo exhibit featured 11 of them.

In the next section, we’ll talk about why jumping into that roiling mess of fur and teeth is zoo-assisted suicide. But first, I want to confront a sad fact about any animal attack – the knee-jerk response to simply kill them all. In fact, these creatures aren’t very popular animals in Africa either. They’ve long been known as “the devil’s dogs” and in many places it’s common practice to shoot them on sight.

Is it that they remind us of what our Pomeranians and Poodles once were, animals with no regard for our laps, no desire to sit patiently while we place edibles on their obedient heads? Or simply that human encroachment and lack of habitat have forced many a wild dog to bring down livestock – a no-no with the human race since the early days of animal husbandry?

Boom de ya da. (Image by Chris Johns.)

An accident leads to a death and too often we react with only revulsion and fear, and I think that’s a mistake. I mean, isn’t this sort of why we have zoos in the first place? To show our children the animals of the world and get them excited about nature, distorted though it may appear through glass and iron bar? Might we assume this is precisely what that little boy and his mother were doing just moments before the heartbreaking accident?

Of course, I don’t expect the victim’s family to look upon painted dogs with awe any time soon – we’ll never know what they must be feeling right now and my heart sincerely goes out to them – but I think the rest of us have an opportunity (a responsibility?) to take a closer look at this extraordinary animal, one that is both ruthless in its fight for survival, but also remarkably social, communal and downright peaceful in regards to pack hierarchy and transfer of power.

8 Reasons You Don’t Want to Jump in a Painted Dog Pit

Let’s start by dispelling the warm feeling you might have about jumping 14 ft into a wild dog enclosure to save another human being. I mean, it’s big of you, but unrealistic.

There’s a reason the zoo personnel didn’t just hop down there. And while they won’t return my calls, below are some reasons why doing so would likely have been disastrous, even for a few fully grown men. Just thank the gods most of us will never be put to such a test.

1.)  African painted dogs have the highest Bite Force Quotient (BFQ) of all living Carnivora. That means they can out-chomp grizzly bears, Bengal tigers, honey badgers and hyenas. To best the painted ones, you’d have to resurrect a dire wolf. (Which would be awesome. But messy.)

2.)  Painted dogs have larger premolars than other canids. Like beanstalk giants, they use these teeth to grind bones, which they then eat, presumably without baking them into bread.

Little known fact: African painted dogs were the inspiration for Canned Heat’s “Let’s Work Together”

3.)  On the business end of those powerful jaws, single-cusped carnassials enable them to shear flesh faster than you can curl a ribbon with scissors.

4.)  Did I mention this maw is flying toward you at 37 mph? African painted dogs are cursorial predators. (The Boss knows what I’m talking about.)

5.)  And it’s not just one mouth you must evade. Typical packs range from 10-20 dogs. In their natural environment, the pack gives chase for up to 3.5 miles, with reinforcements replacing the lead chasers as they tire. Flankers cut off escape to the right or left, so zigging and zagging are futile.

6.)  A single dog can bring down prey as big as a male Grant’s gazelle – 110 to 180 lbs. A pack can bring down a 600 lb wildebeest or kudu. Sometimes this is done via drive-by disembowelment – ripping open an animal’s gut as it runs.

7.)  All these things combine for one of the best kill percentages on earth. Some put it as high as 80%. Lions, tigers and bears – and virtually every other predator – pale in comparison.

8.)  Once the prey is down, many animals must take a moment to compose themselves. For instance, Cheetahs pant to lower their body temperature. Painted dogs however are adapted to withstand high body temperatures and immediately set to devouring their kill before hyenas or lions can steal it. (Those big ears also help for heat regulation.)

All of which is to say, hope of saving the child likely disappeared the moment he hit the ground. Or as Jack Hanna put it, “They are one of the most aggressive predatory animals in the wild. A zookeeper, a tranquilizer gun could not have helped.”

The Peaceful Side of African Painted Dogs

C’mon. That’s pretty cute.

African painted dog packs are excellent parents. Once pups are old enough to accompany the pack to a kill, they are given first dibs on the meal. This is rather atypical among pack predators. More often it’s the alpha males and females who take the best bits and let everyone else battle over scraps. Not so with the painted dogs. Even the alpha pair will wait until the pups have had their fill. After that, everyone eats more or less according to rank and there’s very little fighting.

Furthermore, when either member of an alpha pair die, the pack splits up into single sex adult groups, with a male from the youngest sexually mature cohort accepting alpha dog status of the male group. This is dissolution is called pack fission and allows for a peaceful transition of power while also diversifying the gene pool. Roger Burrows, of AfricanWildDogWatch.org, has a whole paper on what happens in any given situation, but here are a few notes that highlight the crazy inverted, anti-Ayn Rand hierarchy of these animals:

• Any time alpha male status is transferred, the former alpha remains in the pack peacefully
• Alpha females retain their status for life
• If the group finds orphaned males, they will adopt them. Once the orphans are sexually mature, one of them will assume control of his foster pack as alpha – again, all of this without any violence
• If two breeding pairs have pups in the same season, the subordinate pups have priority over the alpha pups at kills

In other words, African painted dogs live by a code that’s basically the opposite of everything you know about capitalism, “the law of the jungle” and your high school cafeteria.

African Painted Dogs Are Not Evil

Because I just spent half an article explaining why African painted dogs are lithe and lean vehicles for unrepentant death, I feel the need to close on a more measured note.

African painted dogs are not evil. They are animals. They do what they’re built to do – eat, reproduce, survive. Being particularly good at those things should earn them respect from us, not vitriol.

But even I admit, watching them hunt is an exercise in detachment.

WARNING: The following video is rather graphic. It shows African wild dogs hunting and disemboweling a kudu while it’s still alive. If you decide to watch, remember things like the dogs’ exceptional bite force quotient, the internal hierarchy that allows them to work together so effectively, and the miles of pursuit that likely took place before this final, exhausted scene.

In other words, trade your fear for awe and step inside the Thunderdome. (And if you’re not up for that, here’s a video of African painted dogs killing a Christmas tree.)

Images courtesy of: Warthog, Johan Hoekstra, Chris Johns, Dog Law Reporter,  and the talented Monica McClain

We interrupt this Bittel Me This to bring you breaking news: I just got a piece published on Slate.com. And it’s about porcupine sex.

That means if tragedy befalls me and I’m wiped off the face this fine earth, my last echo into eternity will be about the tiny spikes on the glans of a porcupine penis or the potential benefits of urinating on your mate. And if you’re a regular reader of this site, well, then you know I’m totally cool with that. Mother-cussing ecstatic, to tell you the truth.

How Do Porcupines have sex?

I know, you’ve been wondering. Here’s a taste:

In forests across Canada and the United States, a peculiar mating ritual takes place each fall. If your windows aren’t painted shut, you might open them at night and listen for the tender sounds of porcupine coitus—stark, night-piercing shrieks that could be likened to the noises produced by a banshee banging a Velociraptor.

What are you still doing here?

All the good stuff’s over at Slate. You have to go over there to read it. Seriously, am I going to have to White Fang you? Ok, you asked for it.

Go on now and git! Go on! I mean it, git!

Image courtesy of Arthur Chapman

It’s Time to Talk about the Seasons

Hey, you’re a smart person. You know things. And you don’t need to listen to some hoity-toity scientists squawking about stuff you learned in 3^rd grade like the earth’s orbit, axis and seasons. I mean, who doesn’t know about that junk, right?

(In fact, a lot of people aren’t clear on that junk. If you think you may be one of them, but you’re sitting amongst a raging party full of people who get together on Saturday nights to pour over the archives of Bittel Me This on a full-wall projector screen – which I assume most of you are – then feel free to feign knowledge of the seasons and come back to this post in a more private setting.)

So yeah, let’s learn about some seasons. Like, not that I’m suggesting anybody needs this information – of course you know about the seasons! – but you know, just for fun. And totally not in an attempt to clear up a colossal misconception about the everyday world around us. Definitely not like that.

And if you absolutely positively know everything there is to know about the seasons, you might skip this one and see what the Nazis had to do with Daylight Savings Time. Also, this post comes with a soundtrack by Vivaldi – so pump it up while you geek out.

You Say You Want a Revolution

First thing’s first – seasons are not a result of the earth’s distance to the sun. Now, this isn’t an inconceivable notion. The sun is our sugar daddy of heat and light. So it would stand to reason that being farther away from said daddy would result in colder temperatures.

However, this would not account for the fact that when the United States slowly descends into fall and winter, Australia is ramping toward spring and summer. If seasons were linked to orbital distance, then the whole planet would presumably be getting their tongues stuck to flagpoles at the same time. This is not the case.

Now, the earth does have an elliptical orbit, which means its distance to the sun varies a bit throughout each yearly revolution, about 3%. This does not sound like a whole hell of a lot of variation, but consider that if the earth were just 5% closer to the sun, the oceans would have baked off and turned the world to ash just like that time you left hard-boiled eggs cooking on the stove for 14 hours during a marathon session of Madden ’06 that may have yielded multiple Super Bowls for the underdog Minnesota Vikings but ultimately imbued your college housing with the sulphurous stench of fossilized albumen.

Conversely, if earth drifted just 15% in the other direction, we’d likely be nothing but a frozen wasteland like that frigid bitch, Mars. Which is to say, while Goldilocks thought she got a good deal with that just-right porridge, we earthlings owe existence to the Hail Mary-iest of long shots.

Back to the seasons and their relation to the earth’s orbit or lack thereof. As further evidence that the seasons don’t give a hot damn about distance, earth actually reaches its closest point to the sun – called “perihelion” – around January 4^th and is typically at its furthest distance from the sun – “aphelion” – around July 4^th. So, goodbye to all that.

Important Distinction You Probably Totally Already Know But What The Hay Let’s Go There Anyway: One trip around the sun = a “revolution” or year; one spin on the earth’s axis = a “rotation” or day.

Fat Joe & the Four Seasons

Fat Joe, little known expert on earth’s axis.

Nicolaus Copernicus had his Heavenly Spheres, Galileo Galilei his heliocentrism, and Johannes Kepler his eponymous laws of planetary motion. These are the greats of celestial understanding. But let’s not forget another chinchilla-wearing mother-cusser of gravitation-worthy-mass. That’d be Fat Joe and his contribution to science:

Said my n***** don’t dance
We just pull up our pants
And do the Roc-away
Lean back, lean back, lean back, lean back.

In other words, to understand the wildly ranging temperatures on this fair planet, you need to picture the earth as a portly, not quite spherical, gentleman in a club. Our planet wouldn’t be caught dead standing up straight like some busta. No no. Real playas lean back about 23.45 degrees and do something called the Roc-away.

The Reason For the Season

During the red hot American summer, the Northern Hemisphere is tilted 23.45 degrees towards the sun. This is important for two reasons. First, it means we’re getting about three times more sunlight than the Southern Hemisphere. And second, the sunlight we’re getting is hitting us straight on, whereas the Southern Hemisphere’s light is hitting at an angle. (Just think about the difference between the angled sunlight of dawn or dusk and the skin-blistering rays of midday when the sun’s directly overhead.)

It’s important to note that the earth doesn’t actually tip one way or the other throughout the year. It remains half-cocked at the same 23.45-ish degrees all year, but the orientation changes as it completes an orbit.

Bittel Me More: Earthquakes & Axes

First, “axes” – pronounced ak-seez – is the plural of “axis.”

Second, last year’s earthquake in Japan was so huge, it shortened earth’s day by 1.8 microseconds and shifted our axis by about 6.5 inches. According to scientists like Richard Gross of NASA, these sorts of changes are completely normal.

Earth’s rotation changes all the time as a result of not only earthquakes, but also the much larger effects of changes in atmospheric winds and oceanic currents. Over the course of a year, the length of the day increases and decreases by about a millisecond, or about 550 times larger than the change caused by the Japanese earthquake. The position of Earth’s figure axis also changes all the time, by about 1 meter (3.3 feet) over the course of a year, or about six times more than the change that should have been caused by the Japan quake.

TRANSLATION: Richard Gross encounters so much Threat-Level-Midnight shit in his Pasadena jet propulsion lab, not even a planetary-rotation-altering-country-leveling-9-point-mother-cussing-0-earthquake can shake him. Let’s just hope the dude doesn’t have kids because noodle art doesn’t stand a chance against this man. In fact, he probably invented the Roc-away.

(Lean back, lean back, lean back, lean back.)

Images courtesy of: Helions, Earth’s Rays, Creative Commons 

During the final debate, Coulter referred to President Obama as “the retard” in a tweet. Two days later, John Franklin Stephens, Global Messenger of Special Olympics Virginia and a 30-year-old man with Down syndrome, responded by sending Coulter an open letter of staggering grace.

When I first read all this, I was in an office setting and had to resist the urge to spit. Then I started comparing her to a parasite. Because I do not possess staggering grace.

Why a parasite and not a beast or bat or bitch? Well, because people hate parasites. We see them as the lowest, ugliest, most vile creatures – things that should be defended against with medication, vaccination or immolation. Parasites suck the life out of good, hard-working creatures (like us, presumably) and give nothing back to the world. Or so the stereotype goes.

This louse eats the fish’s tongue and then cements itself in its place. Fisherman claim the little hellion will even bite your hand if you try to grab it.

Furthermore, you could argue Coulter’s host of choice is the 24-hour news cycle. To start the feeding process, she needs only say something inane. This sets off a chain reaction wherein the host aims to surround the pathogen and fight it – public figures condemn her, shows like The View yell at her – but all the host has done is allow the parasite access to nourishment. Coulter gorges herself on the media blitz. Controversy sells books and speaking engagements. And in the end, as with the protozoan Leishmania brasiliensis, we look around only to realize our faces have been eaten clean off in the process.

Sure, the comparisons continue. Coulter’s beady little eyes are reminiscent of Cymothoa exigua, the tongue-eating alien louse of internet fame and you might say her writing creates tiny cysts of hate in our brains like Toxoplasma gondii. I could even argue that her pretentious enunciation is comparable to the strained yowlings of a cat beset by the paralysis tick of Australia (Ixodes holocyclus).

These are fun things to say. But good citizens of the internet, I implore you to hold off on branding Ann Coulter with the scarlet “P” as I have done. And not because name-calling is precisely the only sort of adolescent contribution Coulter offers our world.

Pretty pretty parasite

The truth is, to compare Ann Coulter to parasites is to elevate her to a place of beauty and function – a place where life has existed for billions of years by gnawing its way into the biology of other creatures and lurking between the connective tissue. Despite their reputation for blood-sucking and face-eating, scientists have a few ideas about ways in which parasites actually benefit their host.

Take colitis and Crohn’s disease. According to Carl Zimmer’s itchy-brilliant book Parasite Rex, “some scientists think the spread of these diseases was caused by the eradication of intestinal worms.” Which is to say, colitis and Crohn’s are diseases nearly exclusively suffered by the first world – or people without intestinal parasites. This leads us to believe there may be some beneficial interplay between intestinal worms and the human bowel, at least in the case of colitis and Crohn’s. More from my hookworm-loving hero:

“In 1997, scientists…picked out seven people with ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, who had gotten no relief from any conventional treatment. They fed them eggs from an intestinal worm that normally lives in an animal, one that wouldn’t cause any disease of its own in a human gut…Within a couple of weeks the eggs had hatched, the larvae had grown, and six out of the seven people went into complete remission.”

Remission! From worms! Which means even creatures like the wretched beasts that live in the hearts of puppies have a role to play in the web of life. So, too, do the gorgeous zombie-fying fungi at right. And frankly, I hesitate to afford Coulter the same level of purpose.

Another kind of parasite

Wrapping up, it might do us well to look at the ancient Greek origin of the word “parasite,” back before it had anything to do with animals like the mosquito-borne worms that cause elephantiasis.  Zimmer reminds us that the word is translated literally from “parasitos” to “beside food.” This word was used to describe the food-servers at temple feasts, but at some point it came to refer to the social “hanger-on” – a person who often earned his meal by providing a nobleman with entertaining conversation.

In any case, we might consider employing the same remedy to Coulter that we would to both the microscopic hitchhikers and the mealtime mooch.

Which is to say: if we stop feeding Ann Coulter, perhaps she’ll go away.

Bittel Me More 

Did I make it clear that Parasite Rex is a wild ride worth reading? Sure, it’ll probably make your eyeballs twitch a little, but it includes enough tales of science, subterfuge, mind control and malice to make you geek out ‘til you pass out. There’s even a jazzy section about how parasite-like human babies are within the womb. Seriously, you owe it to your dinner guests to read this book.

Also, for anyone who wants to know more about willfully ingesting parasites, here’s the Helminths and Harmony paper. Not to mention the lovely Parasite of the Day blog. 

I don’t recommend eating worms for weightloss, however.

The blue dragon is a sea slug that can steal the powers of its enemies. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

WTF Is That Thing: Nudibranch Edition

Look. I’m a lot like you. I spend too much time on Facebook. On Twitter. And yeah, I’ll say it – Pinterest.

A Blue Dragon out of water. If I weren’t writing this post, I’d think it were fake.

I read blogs. I stalk cool writers. I’m what you might call “plugged in” to the incessant pulse of awesomeness we call the internet.

So when I come across something like the Blue Dragon, this strangely metallic gummy-shark of a slug, I mean, I just about get into Tebow stance and thank the gods for the astonishing level of cool at our fingertips ANY TIME WE WANT IT.

Then I take a deep breath, gas up the search bar, and go out on the hunt for the next layer of boom-de-ya-da. Because when something looks as cool as the Blue Dragon does, you just know it’s full of secrets. Or poison. So give me a second to consult the muse and we’ll get this slug show on the road –

Oh, sacred internet – fighter of the Night Man, champion of the Sun. Today, you bring me the nudibranch. And if it please you, I will sing its slimy song. Yea, I will sing its slimy song.

Enter the Blue Dragon

1.  The Blue Dragon (Glaucus atlanticus) is a sea slug. More specifically, it’s a type of nudibranch. (Not all sea slugs are nudibranches, but all nudibranches are sea slugs. It’s not important.)

2.  Nudibranch is a weird word. And it means exactly what it sounds like – naked. Nudibranches are naked snails. Or soft-bodied, marine gastropod mollusks. In really reductive terms, they’re naked sea snails that evolved to live outside of cozy little shells. (Truthfully, “nudi” refers to their naked gills and Blue Dragons start life off as larvae with shells which they later leave. Just keep moving. Murder and poison below.)

3. At just over an inch, Blue Dragons are rapacious predators. What’s more, their favorite food is the Portuguese Man-Of-War – a creature known for growing tentacles 30 to 165 feet long. Well, that and stinging the shit out of Australians. Bonus fact – many think a Man-of-War is a jellyfish. Not true. It is actually a siphonophore, or “an animal made up of a colony of organism working together.”

4.  Unlike most other nudibranches, Blue Dragons prowl the surface of the ocean in search of prey. They do this by swallowing air and skimming along upside down, using those blue stripes as aquatic camouflage.

You’ve got to ask yourself one question, “Do I feel lucky?” Well radula, punk?

5.  Then, when they find a juicy Man-of-War they tear it to shreds using a tiny radula, or saw-like tongue. (Well, “tooth-studded ribbon” from hell would be more accurate.)

6.  Blue Dragons aren’t picky. Every part of the Man-of-War is fair game. And that includes the stinging nematocysts.

7.  Is it just me or do you kind of want to eat these things by the fistful like fruit snacks? But this would be a mistake. Remember all that “eating stinging nematocysts” stuff from #6? Well get this. The Blue Dragon can steal the Man-of-War’s attack cells and store them in those funny little fingers – gut-extensions serving as cnidosacs – thereby rendering itself poisonous.

8.  Other nudibranches also do this using the poisons from sponges and nematocysts from anemones. I can’t get a scientist to come out and say this on the record, but nudibranches are basically like Rogue from the X-Men.

8 1/2. If you have ever wondered what the difference between “poisonous” and “venomous” is, there’s a Bittel Me This for that. 

9.  When Blue Dragons can’t find prey, they eat each other. 

10. The Dragon goes by many names, including: sea swallow, blue glaucus, blue sea slug and blue ocean slug.

Blue Dragons dress to the left.

11. “This is all well and good, but uh… *looks around* …does the thing have a penis?” Seriously, what’s with the internet these days? Are animals only interesting now if they have weird genitals? There used to be a time when… ah, who am I kidding? Blue Dragons have penises. In fact, each Blue Dragon is equipped with both sets of hardware. And no, it didn’t gnaw them off of some other animal and absorb them. They are simply hermaphroditic.

12. There are more than 3,000 known species of nudibranch. And every one will blow your freaking mind. I recommend you go to David Doubilet’s site and buy prints of them to line your walls. I will personally guarantee they’re prettier than whatever you have up there now, like art or candles or photographs of your children.

13. Pictures of the Blue Dragon are getting passed around the internet like the bugger was just discovered, but science has had its eye on them since Captain Cook’s second voyage to the Pacific in 1777.

14. Here we are at the end and part of you is still skeptical these things even exist. It’s cool. Seeing is believing. Nom nom nematocyst.

Thanks to @AnnFro for the vid. Images courtesy of Nudibranch.com, radula, Blue Dragon Penis

Bear Myths Part 1: Mothers & Cubs

Bear Myths Part 2: Playing Dead

Bear Myths Part 3: Carnivore Carnage

Does the Oatmeal need a writer?

We humans have a strange relationship with bears. On the one hand, Teddy Ruxpin, the Grateful Dead and Coca-Cola Christmas commercials. On the other, When Animals Attack, Grizzly Man and the Bear-o-dactyl. We teach our kids bears are jolly and obese through toys and animated movies, but every time we’re in the woods and a squirrel skitters over a dead leaf, we look to the heavens and await the certainty of death.

I mean, I get why people are afraid of these often massive predators – what with the claws and the biting and the Carnivora and the yellowed fangs. (Mm-hey!) But it might make you feel better to know what bears really eat. 

The Specialists

The eight living species of bears display a dramatic range of diets – most of them rather encouraging to human survival. Let’s take a quick look at three that embody the spectrum:

What has two thumbs and no chance of meeting my grandkids?

Panda bears eat bamboo, as everybody knows. But did you know they eat thirty different kinds of it and nearly nothing else? They’ll eat carrion from time to time, but pandas are the least carnivorous of all bears. They even have a specially adapted thumb – actually a modified radial sesamoid – to help them grip and strip bamboo stalks. Now if they could just learn to reproduce without watching pornography first. (I promise, in the name of science, this won’t take you anywhere bad.)

Sloth bears, found in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, are frumpy-looking animals with bedhead fur and pouty, Angelina Jolie lips. And boy do they eat mounds of insects. Literally. Three inch claws allow them to shred termite mounds, ant nests and beehives. The sloth bear can then turn its mouth into a Dyson and vacuum up its prey, thanks to those sultry lips and the lack of upper incisors – an adaptation unique to this species. Another thing only sloth bears do? Carry their babies on their back, rounding out their bid for the cutest damn bear you never heard of.

Polar bears are where we have to let bygones be bygones. They are easily the most carnivorous bears, surviving mostly on ringed and bearded seals. Their bodies are machines designed to convert seal fat into bear mass. When times are good, they’ll strip carcasses of blubber and leave the meat, earning them the description of being lipophilic or fat-loving. In a pinch, they’ll also eat anything from whale and walrus carcasses to ungulates, seabirds, shellfish, kelp, berries and garbage. And with the way climate change is cutting into their SOP, you’d be best to avoid them altogether – lest you learn life isn’t like the Coca-Cola commercials.

The Opportunists

Unlike the picky posies above, black bears and grizzlies aren’t the type to sit at the dinner table until midnight in protest of the clean-plate policy. They could also be banner animals for the local movement since their diets differ considerably depending on the season.

The Sloth Bear, somehow a real animal.

Black bears are omnivores, much like ourselves – and they have an elongated digestive tract to match their menu. They eat everything from skunk cabbage, acorns, and blueberries to leaves and grass. They will certainly eat meat – moose and elk calves, deer fawns, snails, crayfish, woodchucks, bird eggs – but it makes up less than 10% of their diet. And they’re not at all above eating a rotting carcass. (Another reason not to play dead.)

A quick note now on yellowjackets. Bears love ‘em. In fact, if you’re hiking in the central or eastern United States, you should stop worrying so much about black bear attack and start watching for yellowjacket nests the black bears have torn up the night before.

“Right,” you’ll say, “because bears go bonkers for honey!”

Wrong. Yellowjackets are actually wasps. And wasps don’t make honey. But they do make wasp larvae. Sweet, protein-y, wriggling wasp larvae. So while bears will eat the sweet stuff while attacking a honeybee hive – honey’s full of sugary calories – they’re typically after the fat-building baby bees.

Grizzly bears, despite their alpha-monster reputation, are also omnivores, though the degree of this depends on the season and the biodiversity of their habitat. For instance, Yellowstone’s adult male grizzlies might eat a diet of up to 80% meat, while the adult females and subadults eat only around 40%. Likewise, the carpetbagging grizzlies up in Glacier National Park and Denali National Park survive on 97% plant-based diets. (Yes, Denali is where that guy was just eaten. More on him in a bit.)

They will eat grasses, dandelions, cow parsnip, clover, roots, tubers, thistle, mushrooms, berries, ants, grubs, winter-killed animals, salmon, caviar and any small animals they are lucky enough to catch. More rarely, grizzlies take down big game like bison and elk. 

Might a grizzly (or a black bear or a polar bear, etc) eat a human? Of course they might. We’re meat after all. And once in a blue hell, they actually do. (This guy wasn’t following my last post’s advice about surprising grizzlies, by the by.)

But the cold, hard, non-newsworthy reality is that most grizzlies are happy to fill their guts with moths. Up to 40,000 moths a day, when the season’s right. (Moth is “meat,” by the way.)

Grizzlies also love pesto. Well, OK – they love to eat whitebark pine nuts, which are similar to what we put in pesto. And they rely on red squirrels to bring pinecones out of the trees like little messenger pixies. And then the bears and squirrels feast and feast and all the animals hold hands and dance around the forest singing, “Pesto is the besto!”

But. When something happens to the pine nuts…

It’s like that party you had in your parents’ basement where everything was cool and you were probably going to make out with that girl until some jackass punched a hole in the wall and suddenly you were spending the next nine hours quick-repairing drywall with a spatula and a hairdryer and it looked so bad when you were done you ended up hanging a picture over it anyway because your mom would never notice the sudden appearance of a new picture frame at fist-level in the hallway she walks through thirty times a day, right?

Which is to say, when the pine nut crop fails due to blight or drought, things get ugly. Female grizzlies have fewer cubs after a bad pine nut year and food scarcity pushes the population into closer contact with humans, which leads to mortality rates three times higher than normal. And this brings us to the most dangerous bear in the world. The one with a taste for Subway sandwiches.

The Bear Diet 

This is me officially calling dibs on the soon-to-be-best-selling title, The Bear Diet, because nothing sells like a good (read: bad) diet book. Research is still pending, but I can tell you it involves eating 13,000 calories worth of gummy bears a day. And instead of exercise, you sleep through the winter. I’m gonna make millions.

BITTEL ME NEXT: YOGI

You fear the wild beasts of yore, but the most unpredictable bear is Yogi. Next time on BMT – how food habituation creates the most dangerous bear of them all.

Guess you better pack a lunch and come on back for Part 4.

Images: Blood Bath, Bear-o-dactyl, Panda Thumb, Sloth bear

In case you missed it – Bear Myths Part 1: Mothers & Cubs

Bear Myths Part 2: Playing Dead

Can we start by pointing something out? If you’re considering “playing dead” on your list of realistic options, you’re either an experienced woodsman (woodswoman?) or you’re really good at lying to yourself. I don’t care what kind of bear it is, most people can’t pretend to be asleep while their little sister tickles them, so I don’t know how the average guy (gal) expects to endure claws in the eyes and puncture wounds to the thigh.

I don’t mean to ruin the experience for you, really I don’t. Everybody should get to play dead at some point in his or her life. I’m just guessing if most of us ever get that chance, we’ll likely end up doing a Marv impression before running for our ever-lovin’ lives.  

Of course, running away is the last thing you want to do. Odds are the bear is still trying to decide what to make of you, this strange-smelling creature that stands tall but looks weak. The bear may even stand up on two feet, like you’ve seen in the talkies – though this just means it’s trying to get a better view/smell of the situation.

Bonus bear myth: the hind-legs-move is almost never an aggressive posture. The bear is simply trying to determine whether you’re a threat or a tasty treat, and one surefire way to convince it you’re the latter is to behave like prey – i.e., by running.

So, you’ve decided not to bolt away screaming. Perhaps you are simply paralyzed with fear. (If you live through this, go ahead and tell everyone it was the first one.) But now the bear is charging toward you like a fluffy demon and all you can think is how prescient your last tweet of #YOLO will seem when they find your eviscerated carcass.

Grizzly Bear Attacks

Grizzlies are extremely territorial, cranky and like your office Debbie Downer, they hate surprises. But just because you happen upon one doesn’t mean you should hit the deck.

All you need to know: claws point forward, and you should be going the other way.

Playing dead is the Hail Mary of survival literature, the move you make when all others are exhausted or unavailable. Depending on the specific situation, grizzly attacks can be avoided by withdrawing from the area, making yourself seem nonthreatening, calming the bear, surrendering your food, dodging the charge, climbing a tree, or dropping an object like a camera for the bear to investigate while you escape. There’s also capsaicin-heavy pepper spray, non-lethal noise rounds, your fists or the 44 magnum. (Plenty to be said about bears and guns; maybe in Part 5.)

The point is, once you’re on the ground you have forsaken all of the above options and trusted your life to the Fates. Of course, if you have no other options it means you went into bear country without doing your research or buying bear spray, so you’re probably pretty cozy with the Fates already.

And if that’s the case, then hell, let’s show you how to be the best little cadaver you can be!

Playing Dead & Other Ways to Die

Hit the ground face down. Your neck will make a nice chew toy for a grizzly maw, so cover that bad boy up with arms, elbows and hands – and DO NOT LET GO. Keep your backpack on if at all possible. Splay your legs to keep the bear from rolling you over.

Fellas, I know this will seem counterintuitive, but if there’s one thing more important right now than your Charlie Brown, it’s your vital organs – and the only thing protecting them is a non-cotton tee and a bellybutton. Not to mention, getting flipped will expose your tender face. Also, bears often start their feast by disemboweling their prey.

But you’re not getting disemboweled, Bittel Me This-er. Not today. Keep your head down and wait for the bear to lose interest. Then wait a little while after that to make sure the bear has left the area. (In an alternate reality, you’ve just woken up from unconsciousness after bear mauling. Resist panic. Scan the area. Then seek shelter or help immediately.)

Just one caveat. If at any point you get the feeling – excuse my word choice – that the bear is no longer investigating and is, in fact, beginning to eat you, then you have permission to flail. Pound for pound, you don’t stand a chance against a grizzly so you better fight dirty. Aim for eyeballs, punch its nose or stick your fingers in its considerable nostrils – for honor has no place in a bear fight.

Black Bear Attacks

                                Creeper.

A grizzly’s interest in a human is most often territorial and playing dead is a submissive posture designed to reduce the bear’s stress. However, because black bears are far less aggressive, any interest they show you should well be deemed gastronomical. When it attacks, it plans to eat you.

Which means playing dead is officially off the strategy list.

In case of black bear attack, prepare to stand and fight. Make noise. Push up your backpack, stick out your chest or fluff up a poncho – anything that makes you appear bigger than you are.

Whatever you do, don’t run. That will confirm what the bear already suspects, that you got picked on in high school. Also, don’t try to climb a tree. Black bears climb faster than one of those ESPN lumberjacks.

If none of the above deters the bear from attack, unleash hell as you would with a grizzly – though if your hell is anything like mine, it only comes in one speed anyway. Grab any nearby weapons, including rocks, sticks or cooking pots. If all goes well, a kick to the snout or frying pan to the face outta dislodge the bear and earn you storytelling rights for life.

Though I should probably make you aware of just one thing: if a black bear really wants to eat you, isn’t just trying to scare you away from a sandwich or keep you away from a berry patch, then you’ll probably never see it coming. Black bears stalk their prey and can move through the woods with surprising silence. In any event, your rock-em-sock-em reaction should be the same. Just be prepared.

Avoidance

Know what’s a lot easier than adopting the defensive strategy of an opossum? Never putting yourself in that situation. (Besides, you don’t have the opossum’s super-healing abilities.)

Contrary to popular belief, grizzly bears are not sitting out there waiting to ambush hapless hikers. They have enough on their minds trying to pass on their genes, keep their cubs from being murdered and put on enough weight so they don’t starve to death over winter. Defending territory from weekend warriors costs energy, energy they’d prefer to save for real threats like each other.

So help them help you. Make lots of noise while you hike. Talk with your pals, wear bear bells, sing songs or clap your hands from time to time. In “Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance,” Stephen Herrero is quick to qualify the whole topic of bear attacks:

I do not want to leave the impression that suddenly meeting a grizzly bear just about guarantees injury. Such is not the case. In the first place, most grizzlies are tolerant of people. Each year hundreds of thousands of people visit grizzly country on foot and few injuries occur. Even when suddenly confronted at close range, most grizzlies flee without any aggressive action.

Bittel Me Next: The Bear Diet

God, could you be more self-centered? It’s like all you ever want to know about is YOU. Is a bear going to eat YOU? What should YOU do in the event of bear attack? How do YOU avoid ending up in a bear’s tummy?

Well, I’ve got news for you. A bear’s diet doesn’t rise and set on the human. Far from it. To see what tiny creatures they much prefer to grab a bite with/of, hop over to Bear Myths Part 3: Carnivore Carnage. 

Images: Footprints, Creeper, Stickup Yogi

Last weekend, Mrs. BittelMeThis and I spent some time in Shenandoah National Park. In about two hours, we kicked up four black bears (and one fat and sassy rattlesnake). Not once did a bear show interest in us. We were never threatened, charged or mauled – all this despite the fact that one of them was a cub, indicating mama was near.

Bears, Scalps, WWI – officially not a chick flick. Or, it’s the best chick flick ever.

In fact, the animals were far more concerned with the grubs and insects under rocks than the snacks in our pack or our supple pink skin. (Hey, I moisturize.) And anyone with knowledge of black bears will tell you this is precisely the way it should be, the way it most often is. (The bears, not the skin.)

A black bear has no natural business with a human. Contrary to bad movies and Gary Larson cartoons, bears – black bears, especially – do not smell humans and think PREY. They should smell us and think: BAD NEWS, BEARS.

Still, everybody’s heard of Timothy Treadwell (the “Grizzly Man”) or heard an anecdotal story about bear attacks. Such sensationalized events easily crowd out the relative likelihood of you being eaten by a bear. And rather than bore you with the old you’re-this-many-more-times-likely-to-be-struck-by-lightning stat, how about a short list of North American animals far more likely to snuff out your AllSpark?

From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) database, via Outside:

#11.     Scorpions
#7.       Fire ants
#3.       Dogs
#2.       Hornets, wasps & bees
#1.       Livestock, including cows, horses & pigs

So the next time you hear, “My pit bull wouldn’t hurt a fly!” remember, it’s far more likely to kill you than a grizzly. (Also, never trust a pony.)

Black Bears vs. Grizzly Bears

Sex sells. So does a grizzly.

The first thing to remember about everything you’ve ever filed away under “bear facts” in your lizard brain is that black bears and grizzly bears are very different beasts.

The second thing you need to remember if you’re confronted by a bear is that grizzly bears [Ursos arctos horribilis] are actually a subspecies of the brown bear [Ursos arctos]. Another popular brown bear subspecies is the Kodiak [Ursus arctos middendorffi]. Actually, you probably don’t need to remember this for safety reasons as they’re all capable of ruining your day. Just know that throughout this post I’ll be using the word “grizzly” in place of “brown bear” because average people don’t give a cuss and, quite frankly, the word “grizzly” is so, so much cooler than the word “brown.”

The third thing to remember is that you are far more likely to run into an American black bear [Ursus americanus] than a grizzly. And that’s the best news of the bunch.

Historically, black bear range covered or at least dipped into every contiguous US state, all Canadian provinces and most of northern Mexico. Unfortunately, our forefathers were scared of the dark, so that range has been greatly reduced in the last few hundred years. You can however still find black bears throughout Canada, Appalachia, the Rockies, and the Ozarks. By contrast, you’re only likely to spot a grizzly in that corridor of Rocky wilderness reaching from Yellowstone to Alaska. (FYI: grizzlies tend to stick to the mountains, browns to the coast. Luckily, Kodiaks are stranded on just a few islands up in Alaska where there’s zero chance of them ripping our heads off. Oh, wait.) 

Despite the disproportionate distribution, most of the stuff you’ve heard about bears refers to the less common grizzly. And that includes the conventional wisdom that there’s no more dangerous animal on earth than a mother bear and her cubs.

(Don’t get down on yourself. Lots of people don’t know the difference between black bears and grizzlies or where either live. Like Bill Bryson’s publisher, who for some inexplicable reason put a big old grizzly on the cover of a book about the Appalachian Trail.)

Menacing Mamas

You could say it all comes down to claws. While grizzlies have straight, four-inch, the-better-to-dice-you-with blades, black bears have short, curved, two-inch claws adapted to climbing trees. Most importantly, so do their cubs.

FYI: It’s more than color. Black bears can be brown or reddish and brown bears can be so dark as to appear black. Grizzlies have a silverish sheen.

In fact, black bear cubs are expert climbers from a young age and will hit the timber at a moment’s notice. So if shit gets real, the mama black bear can focus on protecting herself – usually by high-tailing it – knowing the key to the next generation is stowed safely in a sugar maple. 

Grizzlies can’t say the same. For one, though they can climb, they’re not nearly as adept as black bears. Two, the weight of adult she-grizzlies also goes against them – though if your goal is to avoid mauling, I wouldn’t bring this one up. Finally, there are a lot less climbin’ trees in much of their favored habitats, such as the coast, tundra, plains and subalpine meadows. All of this leads to a mama equipped and inclined to fight to the death for her young.

Let’s get some numbers from Stephen Herrero, bear attack authority – which is the best possible kind of authority to be, by the way: 

While there are about 15 times as many black bears as grizzlies, grizzlies kill about twice as many people, likely because they evolved in open plains and rarely climb trees, Dr. Herrero said. Roughly half of grizzly attacks involve mothers protecting cubs.

Long story short, grizzlies with babies are overprotective hellhounds. You should do your best to avoid them. (More on that in Part 2.)

Black bear mamas are fleet-footed pacifists. You could just about charge one with your pants down and live to Tweet about it.

DISCLAIMER: You should know by now I’m not suggesting you disrobe and attack wildlife. All wild animals are dangerous and, to some extent, unpredictable. When tourists act like imbeciles bad things happen. And animals often get the worst end of the deal. (Ahem, Part 4.)

But every once in a while, an idiot gets its wings.

Bittel Me Bear Myths – Part 2

Forget about all this mommy talk. Everybody knows that the only information you need to remember about bears is to play dead if confronted. Right?

Ahem. Not only is this statement false – it might just get you killed. Find out why in Part 2: Bear Myths – Playing Dead. 

Image credits: Mama & cub