Somewhere Different Now

Hey, LJ!  I've been a bit quiet lately, but I'm still alive.  I'll try to make a more substantial post later, but for now have a bit of a link and vid spam. (A few of you have seen some of these already on Facebook.)

Links

Whale-poo-sniffing dogs:  ladies and gentlemen, science in action.

Airdropping dead mice stuffed with acetaminophen over Guam to kill invasive snake:  if a cartoon evil overlord took up a second career as a conservation biologist, this sounds like the sort of plan s/he would come up with.  However, the brown tree snake situation in Guam is bad enough that all sorts of crazy stuff is worth trying.

Making bioluminescent plants:  You know the saying about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic? I think glowing trees would qualify.

Victorian Star Trek (via dameruth ):  photoshop win!

YouTube Stuff

( three youtube embeds under the cut to spare your f'list )

I come to rec some things that have made me laugh lately.

Four Consequences of the Unexpected and Unlikely Friendship Between James T. Kirk and Nyota Uhura by trisfic. Absolutely hilarious NuTrek fic that does what it says on the tin. I love the idea of Kirk and Uhura as platonic BFFs (somewhat unwillingly on Uhura's part at first, but Kirk is endearing like an ill-mannered puppy.) The scene where Uhura and Kirk have learned about pon farr is particularly priceless. Also the scene where Spock seeks advice on the arts. And Kirk's attempt to get Uhura to go shopping with him. Really, the whole fic is worthwhile. Uhura/Spock and implied Kirk/McCoy, but the focus is definitely the friendship.

Some of you may have seen the phenomenon on YouTube of Literal Music Videos, where people take music videos and replace the original song lyrics with something that literally describes what's going on in the video. The first one I was was Take On Me, and it's highly amusing. Yesterday I saw this vid for "Total Eclipse of the Heart," and it made my day. Note that you don't need to be familiar with the song or original video to end up in hysterics.