Odd Tweets...

I briefly discovered Twitter a while ago…and quickly decided that I didn’t like it. There are a few people who manage to tweet interesting and funny twitter, but most of it is advertisement (see me live here now!) dull (I’m gona update you on every little thing I do every moment of the day…) or just plain weird… So I quickly ran away again.

However a friend of mine is working very hard in ‘science communication’ and decided that for fun (and practice) she’d set up a blog with a few of us guest authoring posts (The Birds and the Bees…) and in addition there would also be…Twitter.

So after much deliberation I decided that just for her I would try again this evil thing they call ‘twitter’… I will post the occasional sciency tweet or bee update as ‘thesciencesays’ (look right, and down a bit...ok down a lot...then don’t click on the links ‘cos they try to open in the tiny window! Silly thing. Right click ‘open in new tab/window’ instead. Much better!)

I still don’t like twitter…but I have found a few people on there I like…Nick Baker for one:) He used to present The Really Wild Show a few years back and I may have had the biggest crush on him (well he was hot and had, to me, the perfect job in the world! He got to travel all over the place and see the most amazing animals ever and then tell the world about them! Brilliant!)


I’m sure there are many other people worth following too, it’s just a case of digging through the stuff you don’t like to find it…maybe later…for now Pav time. Very cheap alcohol and good company, what more could you ask for, chocolate you say? Well they have that too! Woo Hoo!

Odd Bob does Science...

I am doing proper science at work atm! Not that I don’t always do proper science; but normally it’s behavioural experiments (watch the bees completely fail to do what you expect them to do, or what you don’t expect them to do, or in fact anything interesting...then come back tomorrow and do it again!) Or the ‘fun’ job of writing everything up (if you can’t guess, that was sarcastic. I really don’t like writing reports)

Today however I was actually in the lab. I was even wearing a lab coat! I was doing stuff that involves acronyms that make no sense to most non-scientists (or me most of the time)! I feel strangely more scientific than normal, and in celebration of this I decided to find some odd science to blog about.

You can eat cloned meat!!

On the BBC news site the other day was the amazing news that we can eat cloned meat without becoming oddly mutated or dying of cancer or anything. (Damnit and I was looking forward to becoming a Marvel super hero!) This isn’t anything new. A pilot study back in 2005 came to exactly the same conclusion. Besides in the US many farmers breed from cloned animals to increase yields.

In the UK however we’re still a little freaked out about all this new science like GM and cloning. Then some cloned meat was accidentally sold and eaten this summer and I guess people wanted to do more checks. Besides the Soil Association were getting their knickers in a twist again. The point is that there is no significant difference between cloned and 'natural' cattle in terms of the milk and meat produced.

Will this report stop people freaking out about these 'novel foods'? Um...I doubt it. But the main argument against GM and cloning that I actually agree with is that we don't yet know enogh about the long term issues asociated with them, so I guess we have to start somewhere. Maybe one day cloned meat will be as normal to us as any other food. We cetainly have to find some way to feed our ever growing population.

I’ll probably write a fuller post about this on The Birds and the Bees at some point. It looks interesting...

In the mean time I’ll continue dreaming of some radiation/GM/other random experiment at work going horribly wrong so that I gain amazing new super powers...

Alcohol induced oddness...

After some odd Chinese alcohol, vodka and cider...I decided that it was time to write. I’m not sure if this was a good or a bad idea, I will find out when I reread everything in the morning.

I started with nano (see last post) because I was a little behind on words today. I’m now caught up on words but I may need to rewrite in the morning...we will see.

I moved on to the forums (I may have mentioned this previously too) apparently one of my threads has become quite popular and I spent far too long replying to every single person who had commented...I’m not sure this was necessary but alcohol told me that it was!

Finally I have moved on to the blog so I apologise if this is nonsensical and/or odd. It’s now gone 3 in the morning and I am still wide awake and buzzing so I had to find something to do! I may now give up and go to sleep...but I will leave you with cute pictures:




Which make it all worth it!

Wrestling, Wasps and war paint...

When two Mexican Wrestlers square off at the start of a fight can they tell, just by looking at the mask of their opponent, who is the better fighter?


Well wrestling paper wasps can. These wasps often have patterns on their faces comprised of one or two spots:


And apparently the wasps with the most spots tend to be the better fighters! What is really surprising though is that there don’t seem to be ‘cheats’ evolving. I mean you don’t get weak deer with the biggest antlers because antlers are costly to grow and maintain, but face spots don’t look that costly right? So why don’t you get weakling wasps pretending to be stronger with spotty faces?

Well it turns out that if a wasp gets into a fight with a faker (either a weak opponent with more spots or a strong opponent with less) then they are likely to attack much more ferociously than they would against a normal opponent. So the cost isn’t in getting the spots, it’s in getting caught!

And how did scientists find this out? Well that’s where the war paint comes in. Wasps were painted to look stronger (spottier) than they really were or were given hormones to make them stronger than they looked, and then sent off to wrestle. The painted or homonally stronger bees if caught out were punished! Poor things!

Find out more?

Camera Shy Wildlife and a forgetful bob...

So I was walking home a few weeks back and a little late in the day (when all the busy scientists had scampered off home for the night) when I happened to pass our fish pond and there on the side was a heron! I’m stood watching the thing not 4m away and am torn between thinking:

Wow that is amazing! And he’s not even scared of me! Why don’t I have my camera with me?

And

Hang on a second…he’s going to eat my fish!!

(and our fish can't fight back like this one photographed by 'Mike Atkinson' 2004...yes I'm a scientist, must cite sources!!)



So I quickly make up my mind and take a few quick snaps on my phone then chase the bird away before it can catch any of our lovely coy.

The next day; same time, same place, there he is again. Obviously just taunting me now with his ‘I’m not scared of you’ act and I still don’t have a camera! That is incredibly annoying because I’m sure I could get brilliant photos…so I chase him off again (must save fish!) and head on my way home and immediately put my camera in my bag so I’ll have it with me next time.

The next day; same time, same place, but this time with my camera, there is predictably…no heron! And in fact every time I have my camera now there bird is nowhere to be seen.

Then Yesterday, in the middle of the day now (he’s getting bold!) he’s back! And predictably…I have no camera!

I’m sure however that the story is not yet over. One day (maybe tomorrow, maybe next year…but one day) I will remember my camera when that heron is around and I will get an amazingly stunning photo! Watch this space…

In the mean time...how about a photo of some swans which seem to be glowing...

Meet the odd fish...

So I've noticed that quite a few people have fish on their blogs. It is a featured gadget so I guess that's not surprising. They are also strangely hypnotic and oddly fun to play with despite not actually doing much (simple things please simple minds me thinks...)

So I decided to adopt some fish of my own. Yes I am a sheep...In my defence I did go looking for bees or snails I could add, but didn't find any. So Blue and Black fish it was...but there's a small twist. There are 10 fish!

This might not seem like that big a twist but have a look at them, go on...they're right there at the top of the page...

How many fish do you see?

4 black, 4 blue, but can you see the other 2? They are there! I promise.

Having played around with the colours I've found that 'light blue fish', surprisingly, are invisible against a 'light blue background'. I didn't get any light blue fish, that would be stupid. Instead I have 2 white fish which are...next to invisible. My own little ghost fish...

Now they just need names...

Snail Update #1

Nicky and Dovitz have been living in their tank with me now for just under a month. Their normal daily activity comprises of: lying burried in their compost and not moving. Not the most exciting of pets...

However today both snails decided to go for a wander.



Dovitz (usually the more timid of the two) did a full floor to ceiling to floor again loop before eating some tomato and doing a good impression of a head stand! (unfortunately no pics)

Nicky briefly wandered over to the tomato...then burried himself again (see the pic of Nicky going all stretchy stretchy to reach his meal)

A few explanations...

I thought it best to start with a few quick explanations...

Who is Odd Bob?

Well that's me. Obviously Bob is not my real name and no I won't tell you what my real name is!! All I will tell you is that Bob is a nick name I picked up after watching far too much Blackadder...

Blackadder: "What is your name, boy ?"
'Boy': "Kate."
Blackadder: "Kate, that's an unusual name for a boy."
'Boy': "It's short for ... Bob."

No my name isn't Kate either... I am a girl though. And that's about all I'm going to tell you about me now...

Who is Kris?

Kris is an odd character that hopped into my mind a few years back. He goes wander off through fiction and fantasy to find me things of interest. Occasionally I may add 'Kris updates' with where he's been and what new fandoms he's found for me to wander in...

Who are the snails?

The snails are...well they're snails. Nicky and Dovitz (if you watch motoGP you may recognise the names...if not...o well)



Nicky and Dovitz are Giant African Land Snails. Although being only a few short months old they aren't so much giant as just big at the moment.

((Just a quick note for any law abiding zoologists out there, Giant African Land Snails or GALS are a dangerously invasive species which are illegal to keep as pets in some countries!! Fortunately I live in the UK where it is perfectly fine...so long as I don't let them free!))

There will be occasional updates on the life and times of my little GALS because...well mostly just because. There's bound to be someone bored enough out there who'll read it!!

I think that just about brings you up to date...