1. Kingdom Rush is a really fun tower defense game. It's basically a fancier-looking version of Cursed Treasure, which I believe I've posted before.
2. Deadline looks at the failure of that Conan remake. Somehow it cost $90 million, despite looking like a SyFy movie in the tv commercials.
3. New contest at Threadless: design a t-shirt for 826 National. (Seems like the last thing they need is help with their design work, though.)
4. "If someone had made a horror movie about alien wasps and hired H. R. Giger to do the designs, the resulting monsters might have looked something like this. But this "warrior wasp" is real: it lives on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, and it is 4 centimetres long."
1. It's mildly interesting from a karmic standpoint that the National Enquirer supposedly videotaped To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen cheating on his wife. It's more interesting to wonder who tipped them off so they could get the scoop.
2. Photo gallery of China's 26-mile Jiaozhou Bay bridge (the current longest ocean bridge in the world). Via.
1. Looks like the link is overwhelmed right now, but apparently "when a caterpillar goes into its chrysalis it's body literally melts down into a sac of fluid cells. These cells in turn recreate the entire body from scratch, forming a butterfly."
2. The big internet news today was Andy Baio reporting that he had been sued for profiting off another artist's intellectual property, and had settled because he couldn't afford to fight. I'm inclined to think it was not fair use. But mostly I was surprised that someone already facing a lawsuit he couldn't afford to defend would do something like create an index for The Daily.
1. Gizmodo is looking for an illustration and design intern.
2. "[M]any ladybugs that fall victim to the parasitical wasp Dinocampus coccinellae. Now, a new study reveals why the wasps use ladybugs as incubators. It turns out that the zombie ladybugs keep predators away from the wasps' vulnerable larva, increasing the likelihood that they survive to become full-fledged wasps." Via.
3. Can't believe I'm writing a teaser, but I'm really eager to see what Mike Krahulik thinks of The Old Republic (he's been playing the beta).
4. Tenacious Toys has a series of cupcake kaiju custom toys for sale.
Argyroneta aquatica is found in Northern and Central Europe and up to latitude 62°N and northern Asia. It is the only spider that spends its whole life under water. However it breathes air, which it traps in a bubble held by hairs on its abdomen and legs.
Boing Boing interviewed Amy Stewart, author of Wicked Plants and Wicked Bugs, and in the video, Stewart mentions some of her favorite bugs, including the bombardier beetle. Wikipedia explains:
A bombardier beetle produces and stores two reactant chemical compounds, hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide, in separate reservoirs in the rear tip of its abdomen. When threatened, the beetle contracts muscles that force the two reactants through valved tubes into a mixing chamber containing water and a mixture of catalytic enzymes. When combined, the reactants undergo a violent exothermic chemical reaction, raising the temperature to near the boiling point of water. The corresponding pressure buildup forces the entrance valves from the reactant storage chambers to close, thus protecting the beetle's internal organs. The boiling, foul-smelling liquid partially becomes a gas (flash evaporation) and is expelled through an outlet valve into the atmosphere with a loud popping sound. The flow of reactants into the reaction chamber and subsequent ejection to the atmosphere occurs cyclically at a rate of about 500 times per second and with the total pulsation period lasting for only a fraction of a second.
The gland openings of some African bombardier beetles can swivel through 270° and thrust between the insect's legs, so it can be discharged in all sorts of directions with considerable accuracy.
You can see the beetle in action in this video:
And you can buy Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon's Army & Other Diabolical Insects at Amazon.
