Got a case of the Humans

I laughed. Hysterically. Probably enjoyed this too much, but I had to share.

Trophies

If you're like me and love animals, would like to decorate your room or house with animal things like mounted trophies BUT hate the notion that an animal has to die for you to have it featured in your home... then try Faux animal trophies! There are sooo many in various designs and mediums.

I'd recommend purchasing snare wire animals from Iganyana Arts: the wire is from poachers' snares which have been dismantled and collected then turned into beautiful wire animal sculptures by locals and sold to tourists with the money supporting the community (therefore reducing the need to poach in the reserves for black market money or food). Ultimately, this aids in protecting the wildlife.

This is a clever and beautiful way to display animal art with soft lighting - a faux trophy light-fitting designed by Christophe Hascoet, Annabel Karim Kassar, Isabelle Rolland (you better have >$7.5K for one).
Recycled cardboard! You can purchase a moose, deer, elephant or rhino from Cardboard Safari

This gorgeous cow is made from paper. Just paper. Created by a wonderful artist, Anna Wili Highfield

DEAD plush animals aren't scary at all when sewn, stuffed and mounted by aicreatures on Etsy

Convert and old sweater into an animal trophy bust, or you could have a look and maybe take a liking to one of Rachel Denny's knitted deer busts.

Woven basket style animal trophies - very cool when paired with a wicker dinning or lounge set. These can be found at Ballard Designs.

There are the masses of Papier-mâché, porcelain, wood and plastic/resin casts and crafted animal trophies too. Too many to list.

The functional hanging trophy ~ can be used as a hat or key rack. These are simply cute and the style is humorous. Designed by New Zealander, Phil Cuttance.




And a few ... hehehe ... silly ones I stumbled upon :P

Laboratory story

I had a Cell Biology unit about 2 years ago with a few first year students mixed in my lab bench group at University. I was 3rd year at that time since I was allowed the entire 1st year of my Biological Science course to be exempted but was still required to undertake the Cell Bio unit to progress into Microbiology. I was use to 2nd and 3rd year laboratory work and associating with students who not only dressed appropriately for a lab but also acted mature enough to conduct the experiments.

I recall, and it still makes me cringe to this day, this one particular practical. The basis for the prac was simple - culture two different strains of E. coli in various nutrient mediums to figure out which medium produced a more concentrated culture of each strain and which essentially retarded growth. Straight-forward enough. But this was not the cringy part.

The prac went on for 5 hours, one hour longer than expected due to a little misunderstanding in the required materials by the lab technicians. Not a problem, but it was a tiny bit annoying hunting down LIVE cultures of gram-positive and gram-negative E. coli. Everything completed in the end, I gathered my things before signing off with my prac demonstrator. Walking past the lab bench before mine, I saw and overheard the most face-palming dramatisation (the cringe).

Three (and I'm not lying) blonde 1st year students in short shorts, T-shirts and ridiculous shoes; one in heels and the other two in ballet flats, were discussing the prac in high, giggling voices and dramatic hand gestures. I rolled my eyes thinking "Bloody 1st years; can pick them from a mile away. Who wears that during a lab?!" Everyone I was use to seeing in labs sported comfy sneakers, jeans and various amusing, mostly nerdy, T-shirts.

They didn't look particularly bright, but they didn't appear to be particularly stupid. I mean, they had made it this far into their first year of University. They started talking about amoebas. Totally off-topic from the practical. And this is where things got weird. I was about to leave after signing off, but instead headed back to the bench to grab one more sheet of graph paper to aid in my lab report. I looked up to the other bench to see the tall, leggy blonde doing all the talking stopped in mid-sentence to emphasis her point on how amoebas communicate with one another.

It went a little something like this:

With her arms outstretched on either side of her she proceeded to make slow mesmirising waves that rippled from her finger tips to her shoulders and made the rest of her body sway slightly. She then uttered in a soft, cartoony voice as she swayed,

"I'm an Amoeba"

This whole story was brought about because directly after that lab, I told my boyfriend, Ben, about it and he has never let me forget it. If I'm having a ridiculously blonde day he imitates Amoeba girl to annoy me. I happened to see if I could find something on YouTube with the title "I'm an Amoeba"... there are a few but nothing fantastic. I did find this little gem of a website though. Enjoy.

Microscope humour

I'm sharing some cellular level giggles.

Why?

Because I felt sciencey! and we're all part of ...

Sadly, they're still here

Happy Rapture Day everyone...

Well, it wasn't a very happy Rapture Day. We still have the crazies, purists and holier-than-thou to put up with until the next "OMG! IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD!" Looks like we scientists are going to suffer a little longer. *sigh*

Our livers were safe too; Raptor Jesus was also absent today. No Velocirapture either.

Pretty average day really.

I'd opt for extinction if I had a name like that. . .

Looking up strange dinosaur names today... similar to poor Megalosaurus' "Scrotum humanum" and the little Pachycephalosaur "Dracorex hogwartsia". I think I might have found the single most depressed dinosaur in their entire existence...

Erectopus superbus

This pathetically named Allosaur probably wished death upon himself. I would have surely conjured up an asteroid just for the occasion. The poor buggar appeared to have several -near- name changes over the past 100 years, but still managed to maintain his pornstar name. Essentially, Erectopus means "upright foot", add the superbus in and you get "proud upright foot". I highly doubt it would have felt superior and terrifying in the face of laughing herbivores.

My cat is Lucifer in fuzzy-form

So... I had a rather large jigsaw puzzle (with exquisitely painted Cape Hunting dogs) out on the 8 seater dining room table and it took up half that. I only needed to do a touch up so I could frame it (its a Charlotte Firbank-King edition hence the framing) since the majority of it was done some year back as a past time for my Grandma. Well...

That puzzle I was working on most of the evening and well into the night... and finally had 5 pieces left before completely finishing (I mean, seriously, who paints a massive leafless tree in the background with so many branches and patched of plain sky??). The 10 month old kitten, who is affectionately known as "Demon Child" Lily, launches herself from the dividing wall I was facing, landing directly on the puzzle and sliding across the table only to bump heads with me. The puzzle had folded in on itself and the rest cascaded onto my lap, scattering EVERYWHERE.

I cried, I yelled, I cried some more, I got angry... then I laughed... that kind of hysterical psychotic laughter someone makes while crying with anger and considering murder. Safe to say, her look of absolute fear at the moment of sliding from one end of the table to the other on a jigsaw puzzle was enough justice for me. That and I've cut her kitten milk rations... and taken all the cat nip toys away.

Cat: 1 Me: 2

Phlebotomist's Nightmare

I had my bloods taken today (just 2 vials). The lady who did the jabbing was a student. It took her 5 minute to find my vein, 2 minutes to put gloves on (like they've never put gloves on in their life) and then took another 2-3 minutes finding the "lost" vein again.

The words you don't want to hear before or during surgery is "oops"; well the same goes for having blood taken. The "oops" I'm referring to is the moment after inserting the needle and feeling a little more than a "little sting". She punctured through the vein and gently stuck it into my tendons in my elbow.

Yes, it's sore. Yes, it got done eventually. And No, this is not the first time it's happened - my veins are a Phlebotomist's nightmare!

Cats are like a box of chocolates...

Well... the two kittens we've had since they were 5 weeks old are now 6 months old, so they were booked in today for "the snip". We've been under the impression we had a brother and sister pair, and knew that the female, Lily, would be more costly than our male, Marshall.

They've been to the vet twice prior to this scheduled operation for their vaccinations and general check-ups. But no one has bothered correcting or even noticed one discrepancy...

Turns out Marshall was always a female. . .