Tag Archives: animals

Puppets always have to try to be alive

I got chills when the horse comes on stage. “Puppets always have to try to be alive,” says Adrian Kohler of the Handspring Puppet Company, a gloriously ambitious troupe of human and wooden actors. Beginning with the tale of a … Continue reading

Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Squishy, 1994-2011

Last night, we had to put our dear cat Squishy to sleep. Her diabetes, which she has been coping with for several years, took a turn for the worse yesterday. We had to make that awful choice, to spare her … Continue reading

Posted in posts | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Rains not kind to Santa Ana River wildlife

Alex and I on our 4.44-mile SART walk last weekend found a couple of spots where erosion had eaten away at the paved path, but the situation is reportedly much worse than just that — Press-Enterprise: “Storms trashed Santa Ana … Continue reading

Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Dog’s vocabulary superlative, transcendent, prodigious

Via Larry Harnisch (who asks, “But can it tell ‘affect’ from ‘effect?’”), a fascinating article in the NY Times: “Sit. Stay. Parse. Good Girl!” Chaser, a border collie who lives in Spartanburg, S.C., has the largest vocabulary of any known … Continue reading

Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

And the tadpoles have black fangs!

You just know an article is going to be good when it’s titled, “‘Vampire Flying Frog’ Found; Tadpoles Have Black Fangs”, as this National Geographic feature shows. The mountain jungles of Vietnam are home to a new breed of “vampire”—a … Continue reading

Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fossil treasure trove found in China

Guardian: “Fossil hunters uncover complete 252m year-old underwater world” Fossil hunters have uncovered the remains of an ancient marine ecosystem that arose in the aftermath of the most devastating mass extinction in Earth’s history. The spectacular haul of 20,000 fossils … Continue reading

Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Douglas Adams: Parrots, the Universe, and Everything

From 2001, Douglas Adams speaks on “Parrots, the Universe, and Everything”.

Douglas Adams was the best-selling British author and satirist who created The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In this talk at UCSB recorded shortly before his death, Adams shares hilarious accounts of some of the apparently absurd lifestyles of the world’s creatures, and gleans from them extraordinary perceptions about the future of humanity.

Via TED.com “Best of the Web.”

Blind river dolphins, reclusive lemurs, a parrot as fearless as it is lovelorn … Douglas Adams’ close encounters with these rare and unusual animals reveal that evolution, ever ingenious, can be fickle too — in a University of California talk that sparkles with his trademark satiric wit.

Continue reading
Tagged , , , | Leave a comment