Candiru Catfish & Penises

So as I'm getting my Grey's Anatomy fix on Netflix, they mention something so absurd I had to Google it.

McSteamy and Burke reviewing an X-ray revealing the candiru catfish lodged into the patient's urethra.

From River Monsters: Candiru Catfish:

The Candiru is the star of an urban legend — which turns out to be true — of a man who was urinating in the Amazon River when a 6-inch Candiru swam up his urine stream into his penis. The fish remained there for days, until a surgeon was able to remove it.

 

Backyard Farming, Day 13

A quick update from our parking space turned miniature garden: Things are going well!


These are the pepper (poblano, I believe). They're coming up slowly, but surely. Hopefully there's enough time to harvest them before the cold sets in.
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This is the zinnia, one of two flowers we planted. Both the flowers are growing faster than the herbs and vegetables, so even if we have an early cold spell this year, we can still pull a bouquet out of this tardy experiment.
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This is the marigold, the second variety of flower. Like I said, growing pretty quickly.
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Is catnip also a variety of flower? If so, my whole "flowers grow faster than herbs and vegetables" theory is shot 'cause, as you can see, there's nothing here. You can't make it out from the photograph, but there are actually really tiny green tendrils just barely poking out from the soil. So it's not completely fucked, just retarded.
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The last pot/plastic mail crate stolen from USPS: On the left we have basil and on the right we have oregano. Both are working their way up to being pizza toppings.
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Well, that's all for now. 'Nother update in two weeks?

-Arv
Twitter.com/ToImpale

Backyard Farming, Day I

Maybe a little over a year ago I told Olek that I was really interested in starting a rooftop garden. He thought about it for a second and said that he pictured roots tearing through his ceiling, eventually caving the house -- and that he was totally down for it. But, as most half-baked ideas go, rooftop gardening was never actualized.

Then Angela came over a couple of days ago and noticed all of the ceramic pots in my backyard that my step-dad used to grow basil, peppers, and lettuce in. Since he's moved out, all of it has lain fallow and become overrun with weeds. Angela mentioned wanting to grow something and gardening -- though not of the rooftop variety -- was back in motion. Seeing Tim's mom's herb garden on Friday redoubled our resolve, and we set out for Home Depot earlier today in search of seeds.



Unfortunately it's mid-way through summer, so we basically missed the entire planting season. The only seeds we could find that would grow before the cold dashed our harvest were peppers, basil, and oregano. We also decided to pick up two varieties of flowers (marigold and something else I can't remember) and catnip for the family of strays who have taken over my backyard.

Because Angela and I haven't planted anything since beansprouts in elementary school, we basically made up the farming method as we went along:



First we broke up and de-weeded all the dirt. My step dad actually bought soil for all of the pots and only used them for one summer, so I'm pretty sure it's still packed with nutrients. (Also, we found a turnip when we were digging around, which is a pretty good sign, I think.)

Then we dug little troughs and sprinkled in the seeds.

I found some Miracle-Gro, so we tossed that on to ensure that our plants will be super buff. Then we watered the concoction, covered it all up with an inch of dirt, and soaked it through and through.



And now we play the waiting game.

-Arv
Twitter.com/ToImpale

FYI: The Frenulum

Imagine accidentally tearing it?

Win of the Week

Rocks. Every kid had a different fascination. Mine was rocks. I remember the thrill of purchasing rocks and adding them to my collection. I slowly lost interest in the collection and lost a majority of my rocks. My fascination was reinvigorated after walking through a collection at the New York State Museum in Albany, NY, which is where Arvind pointed out this beauty:

(Coming Tonight)

If you're interested about how rocks fluoresce, click:

Why do people kiss?

Whether it's Eugene blowing you a kiss, or someone greeting you with a kiss on the cheek - have you ever wondered where this behavior developed? Some science magazines claim that pheromones play the largest role in why we kiss. However, Scienceline analyzes the interesting debate of whether kissing is learned or instinctual. They give the cute example of the monkey mama feeding her baby via the mouth, which supports this idea of kissing as a learned behavior. They briefly bring up the interesting fact that some human tribes do not engage in the act of kissing at all, which motivated me to do some research. Scientific American reports that 10% of the human population does not engage in kissing. Now consider that there are approximately 6.6 billion people as of 2007. That's a shit load of people who don't kiss. So, is kissing an instinctual or learned behavior? More research needs to be done (but don't invest your research funding in this area, give your $ to fund cancer research!).

This is so raunchy for Bollywood.

- Yacki