Move over, Sea Cucumber; your title as “most obscene specimen of marine life” has just been usurped. Enter The Pigbutt Worm! In addition to its official name, this newly-discovered species is also sometimes called The Flying Buttocks. Its Latin name, Chaetopterus pugaporcinus, translates to “resembling a pig’s rump.” These marble-sized creatures float below oxygen minimum zone and appear to catch food inside a small cloud of mucus that surrounds their mouth. Yum!

So Coilhouse is supposed to be on this crazy deadline moratorium but when I saw this picture, for some reason it made me think of all of you, and I just had to share. Enjoy!

Many thanks to (what other pervert could have submitted this?) Paul Komoda.

• Wikipedia Article
• Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute Article

Believe it! The mad scientists of Michigan University give us HERCULES.

Pumping 300 terawatts of power, this laser is one bad mother. Beaming with promise of scientific and medical benefits, HERCULES has taken over several rooms at UM. Indeed, this tiny shaft of power is “a 1.3-micron speck about 100th the diameter of a human hair” and is the most intense laser in the known universe. Just check out these stats: “The record-setting beam measures 20 billion trillion watts per square centimeter. It contains 300 terawatts of power. That’s 300 times the capacity of the entire U.S. electricity grid”. Unf.

Enzo & Donato (detail), 6″ x 6x 6″ each (12″ x 18″ x 10″-Mounted), 2004
Brass, bone, fur, cast/painted plastic, glass eyes

You may have already heard tell of Jessica Joslin’s enchanted bestiary via the esteemed Wurzeltod, Brass Goggles or Boing Boing. If not, it’s a joy and an honor to introduce you to her work. In Jessica’s loving hands, delicate one-of-a-kind creatures are born of brass and bone, buttons and leather, glass eyes, mother of pearl, filigree, taxidermy, antique mechanical flotsam, scientific process, nostalgia and GENIUS!

From the Lisa Sette Gallery Newsletter:

Jessica Joslins’s odd menagerie begins with her penchant for collecting: “I find things anywhere that I find myself…in obscure junk shops, flea markets, attics, taxidermy supply houses, specialty hardware distributors… or walking through the woods.” Joslin seeks out and puts to use those bright odds and ends that might catch one’s eye in a box full of orphaned fixtures, or glinting up from the sidewalk. While each piece she employs in her eerie animal reliquary is delicately beautiful, it is also the detritus of human engineering and design: old brass buttons and gold braid, glass beads, clockwork cogs and velvet ribbon. Such items are reminiscent of the whimsical technology of a century past, one’s grandparents’ house, the dark interiors of old fashioned movie theatres - and as such they have an intriguing, wistful quality. In other words, Joslin collects the things that all of us secretly want to, the shiny pieces that we might comb through, handle and admire, but ultimately force ourselves to put down; what would we do with such things?

Flora, 4″ x 2″ x 3″, 2006
Brass, bone, sterling, painted wood, grommets, cast pewter, glass eyes

Jessica, who lives in Chicago with her commensurately brilliant husband, painter Jared Joslin, recently took time out of her busy schedule to answer several questions for the upcoming Coilhouse print magazine. You can read excerpts from this interview and meet a few more of her creatures under the cut. Also, anyone who happens to be in LA through the 23rd can take a closer look some of her work at the Los Angeles Art Show in Santa Monica.

Researchers in a US laboratory created the darkest ever substance, said to absorb light ‘perfectly’ from every angle and reflect nothing. In fact, scientists claim that it’s so fucking black that it’s 30 times blacker than the current benchmark of blackness. That’s right, there’s a benchmark for blackness. You heard it here first.

According to the Houston Chronicle, it “reflects 0.045 percent light, making it 100 times darker than a black-painted Corvette.”

Here is an exclusive preview of the darkest matter in the universe:

Amazing.

Scientist expect that this discovery will be applied in the fields of electricity, solar energy and next season’s Lip Service collection.

In the times of psychic creeps like Chris Angel and John Edward, it’s nice to reflect on the olden days of paranormal research. Back when invention ruled and tools of the trade had names like Telekinetoscope and Shadow Apparatus, and mad genius Harry Price was causing waves of awe and skepticism with his unorthodox methods in the field.

Harry Price’s Telekinetoscope

One his greatest discoveries was Stella Cranshaw, later called The Electric Girl. She earned this title by occasionally producing strange flashes of light and underwent 5 years of study by Price, demonstrating extraordinary abilities in which she, oddly, showed little interest. His seances, which he called “sittings” exhausted her and after 13 of them she refused further study, got married and soon disappeared entirely.

Dorothy Stella Cranshaw

Stella’s telekinetic powers were significant nonetheless, at least to Harry, who took great pride in his work with her. During his meticulously orchestrated sittings room temperature lowered, furniture levitated, and much more. Every outrageous detail was documented and later published as “Stella C - A Record of Thirteen Sittings for Thermo-Psychic and Other Experiments”. These studies are online in full - I’ve been reading them in pieces all day here. His methods, tools and prose are fascinating and endearing, if not always awe-inspiring and make for excellent entertainment. An excerpt and links, below.

Hold me, Daddy. I’m afeared.

Hey, remember when Disney didn’t suck and blow simultaneously?

Deep down, most of us suspect that ol’ Uncle Walt was a sexist, racist, feeb-informing Machiavellian rat king. (Still, who doesn’t love Pinocchio?) And while there’s no doubt Disney’s recent corporate merge with Pixar and subsequent shakedown (leaving prodigies Lasseter, Catmull and Jobs steering the ship) will bring back much of the first company’s long lost artistry, the question bears repeating: have the past 20 years of Disney output have blown epileptic pygmy goats, or what? Wtf happened?*

Never mind. Let’s focus on the semi-positive and take a look Disney’s chaotic neutral, pre-sucky years. I know I’m not the only one with fond recollections of the many offbeat live action flicks Disney produced in the late 70s and early 80s. Uncle Walt was in cryogenic deep freeze and the company’s heyday was fading, but gems like TRON, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and most poignantly their ridonkulous sci-fi space epic, The Black Hole all have a special place in this gal’s personal What Made Me Weird lexicon.

Yvette Mimieux gets some much-needed laser surgery.

Produced on the heels of Star Wars’ popularity, The Black Hole is one of Disney’s last gasps of cornball genius. Sure, it’s got problems. No originality, for starters. As one reviewer put it “[this is] nothing but a ‘creepy old house’ movie set in space.” Also, the screenwriters seem to have been unsure what demographic they were writing for, resulting in a plot that insults adult viewers’ intellects while still managing to scare the ever-loving crap out of children (and making The Black Hole the first PG-rated film in Disney history). Hokey dialog and unfortunate wardrobe choices abound. But if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times; you can’t go wrong with Ernest Borgnine. If that’s not enough to entice you, there’s John Barry’s amazing score, the incredible scale models and sets, scene after scene featuring beautiful, richly colored matte paintings of deep space, and Anthony Perkins getting the Cuisinart treatment.

Best for last, the Maximilian <3 Reinhardt 4-Ebber (In Hell) ending:

a befuddling coroner’s photo of retired doctor John Bentley, 1966

Dear diary, today my heart leapt when Agent Scully suggested spontaneous human combustion…
-Agent Fox Mulder

Ho hum, the good old days. Pluto was still a planet, Nessie, Big Foot and leprechauns frolicked unfettered among us and the theoretical possibility of true Spontaneous Human Combustion seemed feasible. Well, to me, at any rate. I’m not really sure what’s to blame for that. (Repo Man? Krook from Bleak House? My unhealthy childhood obsession with Brad Dourif?) In any case, Ablaze! was required bathroom reading in my apartment for many years. Until quite recently, I clung to my hope that there was a chance, albeit remote, of my asshole ex being inexplicably reduced to a pile of ashes with feet.

Alas, thanks to a series of informative scientific articles and National Geographic specials, believers must face facts: SHC is a most likely myth.

Korean scientists reached a new milestone by cloning several Turkish Angora cats that glow under UV light. Intended for genetic research, these felines had fluorescent genes added to their donor’s cells during the cloning process. Provided this doesn’t somehow result in a black market for glowcat fur stoles, it’s pretty great for both research and glow-stuff enthusiasts worldwide.

You may also remember the green glow-pigs of recent science history.

What will you wear in space? It may sound unrealistic now, but consider this for a moment anyhow. Will you be trapped in the classic mattress of a suit with a fishbowl for a helmet, or something a little more flattering? Instead of stiff bulky padding would you prefer a space suit which allows to explore weightlessness to its full potential?

At one endlessly fascinating end of the space-wear spectrum is the function-oriented second skin BioSuit envisioned by Professor Dava J. Newman at MIT. Intended for actual extravehicular cosmic exposure, it’s sleek, beautifully functional, and structurally sophisticated, providing pressure and elasticity. And there’s a backpack!

Dava is involved with a remarkable amount of research on topics ranging from human performance in outer space to “Powered Assistive Walking Devices” for use by the handicapped on Earth. Admiration. Awe.