Anther catch-up on items you may have missed.
If you were a medieval, what would you have called your dog or cat? No probably not Beyoncé!
Apparently dogs are sensitive to small variations of the Earth’s magnetic field. So sensitive apparently that they tend to prefer to shit in a N-S direction.

How do you get primary school kids interested in science? Grow the bugs they’re carrying around in their lunch boxes and on teacher’s shoes. Brilliant piece of science engagement from Rob Dunn’s group!
Feed a Cold and Starve a Fever. So we’ve always been told. Not so much, apparently.
The UK government are suggesting cutting down ancient woodlands to build new houses as long as the developers plant 100 trees for every one cut down. Who thought of this stupidity? The biodiversity of ancient woodland is not the same as any number of saplings. Gawdelpus.
So why was Tutankhamun mummified with an erection?
Following on from our link last time to George Orwell on British food, here he is on making tea.
So piranhas will destroy you at the slightest provocation. Well actually no, they won’t.
Christmas food is always tastier than food usually is. Is it? Or is it our perception? Why?
Making New Year’s resolutions is almost a guarantee of failure. So why do we do it, and why do they fail so often.
So just don’t tell other people how they should think. Right!?
OK, so open plan offices are inefficient and irritating. What kept you guys? We knew this 40 years ago!
So what price David Cameron’s great porn firewall now?
The globe is losing ice. But emerging from the wreckage there is a plethora of archaeology.
So 2,300 years ago the ancient Chinese had a decimal ready reckoner. Is there anything they didn’t invent two millennia before us?
Just ignore it, it might go away. How we are almost completely blind to the fact that we’ve actually not solved any of our catastrophic problems. Well actually, I’m not blind to them but politicians etc. are and it’s they who matter in this.
Allergic to eggs? Why not try ice-cream made with blood instead? What do you mean “Yeuch!”? It’s only black pudding!
So why does it go quiet when there’s snow falling? No, it seems absorption isn’t the answer.
How long does it take you to get a crab out of a jar? Here’s an octopus that can do it in under a minute! It takes me that long to read the “best before” date.

And on playing animals, the crow family are the champions of the avian world, and maybe up there with primates. Cunning, devious and fun-loving. What’s not to like?
And finally, wow! Have a peek inside the world’s largest cave, Son Doong Cave in Vietnam. Stunning!