Category Archives: amusements

amusements, science

Oddity of the Week: Tully Monster

Oh, now, come on Evolution! You can’t really create something that looks like this …


Oh, you did!? … Hmmm …
Yes, indeed Evolution did create this beast which looks like an obese foot-long earthworm with a trunk and a spade-shaped tail? And, yes, eyes on the end of it’s handlebars!
It lived 300 million years ago and its fossil was discovered in 1995 by Francis Tully; hence it is known as the Tully Monster or Tullimonstrum gregarium.
However it is only now that scientists are beginning to get to grips with what it really is — a lamprey.
Read more on The Atlantic.

amusements, natural history, science

Oddity of the Week: Wombat Shit

The wombat is a large, solitary and nocturnal relative of the koala, native to Australia. It has poor eyesight but an excellent sense of smell, which is its main navigation aid.


It also has a very strange ability under its belt: its shit comes out in cubes. Yep, unlike other animals which produce cylinders (eg. dogs), pleets (eg. rabbits) or splats (eg. cows) the wombat’s turds really are cube-shaped.

Why? Well it seems it is all down to the physiology and motility of their large intestines. But it turns out it is also a useful attribute to have.
Find the full story over on The Conversation.

amusements, food+drink

Oddity of the Week: Edible Spoons

Anatoliy Omelchenko of Triangle Tree has designed the Edible Spoon Maker.
It works on the toasted sandwich maker principle and allows you to bake your own edible spoons from either home-made or ready prepared dough in only a few minutes.
In this video Omelchenko demonstrates the device using ready-made biscuit dough:

Find out more over one Triangle Tree.

amusements, personal, ramblings

Ten Things

This month Ten Things returns to being more personal with 10 Places I Have No Desire To Go:

  1. South Africa (in fact anywhere in Africa except possibly Madagascar)
  2. Saudi Arabia
  3. Pakistan
  4. Mexico
  5. Argentina
  6. Australia
  7. Philippines
  8. Indonesia
  9. Israel
  10. Texas
amusements, science

Thinking Thursday #6 Answer

OK, so last Thursday I posed the following problem from Alcuin of York:

A man has to take a wolf, a goat and a bunch of cabbages across a river. The only boat available can accommodate just two of them at a time. It is well known that if left alone together the goat would eat the cabbages, and the wolf would eat the goat; but the man has been ordered to transfer all of them to the other side dry and in good condition. How can he achieve this?

So this is how the man did it …

First take the goat across and leave the wolf and the cabbages behind. Then return (empty) and take the wolf across. Having put the wolf on the other side, take the goat back over (remember, you can’t leave it with the wolf!). Leaving the goat on the near side, take the cabbages across. Then you can return (empty, again) and having picked up the goat take it over once more. You should now have everyone on the far bank, safe and well, and you’ve had some healthy rowing.

How many of you worked that out? Good, well done.
Now the remaining challenge is to return the boat to it’s starting point. Bright ideas on how to do that — without getting wet or damaging your charges?
If you want to know more about Alcuin’s puzzles then Can You Solve Alcuin’s Puzzles? is a good starting point.