"The Scunthorpe problem occurs when a spam filter or search engine blocks e-mails or search results because their text contains a string of letters that are shared with an obscene word. While computers can easily identify strings of text within a document, broad blocking rules may result in false positives, causing innocent phrases to be blocked.
The problem was named after an incident in 1996 in which AOL's dirty-word filter prevented residents of the town of Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, England from creating accounts with AOL, because the town's name contains the substring cunt." (Wikipedia)
"In experimental physics, a wetting layer is an initial layer of atoms that is epitaxially grown on a surface upon which self-assembled quantum dots or thin films are created." (Wikipedia)
"A quantum dot is a portion of matter (e.g., semiconductor) whose excitons are confined in all three spatial dimensions. Consequently, such materials have electronic properties intermediate between those of bulk semiconductors and those of discrete molecules." (Wikipedia)
It looks like I wanted to fit too much into that poor comment. But I like the idea that the internet is big enough to offer everyone extremely specialized entertainment...
Ooh, cellular vampirism! (If people run out of ideas to make bad vampire movies from, this could inspire them to make one filmed entirely in microscope...)
From Wikipedia: "A classic example of myzocytosis is the feeding method of the infamous predatory ciliate, Didinium, where it is often depicted devouring a hapless Paramecium. The suctorian ciliates feed exclusively through myzocytosis, sucking out the cytoplasm of prey via superficially drinking straw-like pseudopodia."
(And Suctoria sounds to me like a name cruel children would invent from combining suck and Victoria. Here are some pretty animated gifs of them.)
Yes, where will it all end? But we must be brave, and continue to move on, further and further, towards the limit. (The human limit, that is, I guess it should be fairly simple to make some sort of computer script to do this... hmm... It could easily become an entire book... hmm...)
Sure, go ahead and add them if you like. I think the best animals are the ones where I can imagine som sort of cyborg monster (like, the knife-footed frog is a frog with actual knives for feet) but other violent animals are also welcome.
At the risk of being spammy... I've made an advent calendar this year, with little stop motion animations for every day until Christmas. It's almost completely wordless, but if you like toys and decorations being sacreligious and/or silly you can see it here.
I grew up with multiple advent calendars myself. In Sweden there is a calendar that is related to a daily television show that most swedish children probably watch every day...
"One technical problem was that buried objects—especially during winter—can get very cold, and it was possible the mine would not have worked after some days underground, due to the electronics being too cold to operate properly. Various methods to get around this were studied, such as wrapping the bombs in insulating blankets. One particularly remarkable proposal suggested that live chickens should be included in the mechanism. The chickens would be sealed inside the casing, with a supply of food and water; they would remain alive for a week or so. The body heat given off by the chickens would, it seems, have been sufficient to keep all the relevant components at a working temperature. This proposal was sufficiently outlandish that it was taken as an April Fool's Day joke when the Blue Peacock file was declassified on April 1, 2004. Tom O'Leary, head of education and interpretation at the National Archives, replied to the media that, 'It does seem like an April Fool but it most certainly is not. The Civil Service does not do jokes.'" (Wikipedia)
It sounds like a bad translation of some strange anime, but...
"The Raspberry Bud Dagger Moth, Raspberry Bud Moth or Peach Sword Stripe Night Moth (Acronicta increta) is a moth of the family Noctuidae. It is distributed throughout the south of Canada and the United States down to Florida and Texas. The status of this species is disputed. Some authors regard Acronicta increta a synonym of Acronicta inclara." (Wikipedia)
So, today I stumbled over this cut-throat finch (Amadina fasciata) and the jack-knifefish (Equetus lanceolatus), and I get the feeling that there is a list out there, waiting for me...
edit: I made a list of weaponized-animals, but now I feel that the finch doesn't really fit in... hmm...
"Caudal luring is the use of tail movements employed by a predator to attract prey animals. It is a form of mimicry classified formally as aggressive mimicry, but perhaps better described by the term feeding mimicry. The behavior is employed by a number of snake species and allegedly by two lizards, though other interpretations (e.g., distraction) seem more plausible for the lizards. Caudal luring also occurs in a shark, the tasselled wobbegong, Eucrossorinus dasypogon." (Wikipedia)
It sounds like a monster, but seems to be a real animal...
"The Shocking Pink Dragon Millipede (Desmoxytes purpurosea) is a spiny and toxicmillipede named for its vivid pink color. First discovered in 2007 in the Hup Pa Tard limestone cavern in Thailand, within the Greater Mekong, the adult millipede is approximately 3 cm long and lives in the open on leaf litter. The millipedes have glands that produce hydrogen cyanide to protect them from predators, a fact advertised by their aposematic color. Because they produce cyanide, they smell like almonds." (Wikipedia)
"Forcipules are a unique feature found only in centipedes and in no other arthropods. The forcipules are modifications of the first pair of legs, forming a pincer-like appendage always found just behind the head. Forcipules are not true mouthparts, although they are used in the capture of prey items, injecting venom and holding onto captured prey. Venom glands run through a tube almost to the tip of each forcipule." (Wikipedia)
Is there a way to remove a tag? (This is a description of the sound of a white stork, not a shoebill, I wouldn't want to spread lies like this by accident. (I prefer my lies to be planned.))
"Matt Visser has described a way of visualising wormhole geometry:
- take a 'normal' region of space
- 'surgically remove' spherical volumes from two regions ('spacetime surgery')
- associate the two spherical bleeding edges, so that a line attempting to enter one 'missing' spherical volume encounters one bounding surface and then continues outward from the other."
I like the sound of pornologic! (Even though it's unnecessary when you have -graphic. Maybe you can use some sort of pseudoetymology to claim that pornography is just one (extreme) form of calligraphy...)
About vulgar, If they mean "adj. Of or associated with the great masses of people; common." there might problems... (that get worse as Wordnik gets more users...)
I appreciated (and read!) the terms as well. But I'm a bit confused about not being able to
"Post, upload, publish, submit or transmit any text, graphics, images, software, music, audio, video, information or other material that: ... (iv) is defamatory, obscene, pornographic, vulgar or offensive".
Surely "vulgar" and "pornographic" lists or words can't be banned? Is there a legal interpretation of these words that I'm not aware of?
Good idea! Just watching two episodes made me feel the need for this kind of list (but so far I have managed to put the words in my existing lists...).
"Sacculina larvae are dioecious. The male larvae are often smaller than those of the females. The life cycle begins with the female cyprid invading the crabs and then developing into a parasite with an internal root system (interna). Once the interna matures, it will develop a reproductive body outside the crabs through the abdominal part called the virgin externa. Male cyprids will then enter the virgin externa, which give rise to a fertilized externa with the eggs brooding inside it. Larvae will then be released via the externa once the eggs became mature." (Found here.)
"Branchial hearts are myogenic accessory pumps found in coleoid cephalopods that supplement the action of the main, systemic heart. Each consists of a single chamber and they are always paired, being located at the base of the gills. They pump blood through the gills via the afferent branchial veins." (Wikipedia)
"A love dart (also known as a gypsobelum) is a hard, long, sharp, calcareous or chitinous dart which some hermaphroditic land snails and slugs create. Love darts are made in sexually mature animals only, and are used as part of the sequence of events during courtship, before actual mating takes place. Darts are quite large compared to the size of the animal: in the case of the semi-slug genus Parmarion, the length of a dart can be up to one fifth that of the semi-slug's foot." (Wikipedia)
"In the compound eye of invertebrates such as insects and crustaceans, the pseudopupil appears as a dark spot which moves across the eye as the animal is rotated. This occurs because the ommatidia which one observes 'head-on' (along their optical axes) absorb the incident light, while those to one side reflect it. The pseudopupil therefore reveals which ommatidia are aligned with the axis along which the observer is viewing." (Wikipedia)
"The Neverland gene makes a protein of the same name, which converts cholesterol into 7-dehydrocholesterol. This chemical reaction is the first of many that leads to ecdysone – a hormone that all insects need to transform from a larva into an adult. Most species make their own ecdysone but D.pachea is ill-equipped. Because of its Neverland mutations, the manufacturing process fails at the very first step. Without intervention, the fly would be permanently stuck in larval mode. Hence the name, Neverland—fly genes are named after what happens to the insect when the gene is broken." (Not Exactly Rocket Science)
"Explosions-Polka, op. 43, is a polka written by Johann Strauss II in 1847. The title was inspired by a discovery of guncotton or nitrocellulose by German scientist Christian Friedrich Schönbein in 1840. The Viennese press eagerly reported this discovery many years later in 1846, describing many products that can then be made 'explosive'." (Wikipedia)
Coronary steal (with its symptoms termed cardiac steal syndrome) is a phenomenon where an alteration of circulation patterns lead to a reduction in the blood directed to the coronary circulation. It is caused when there is narrowing of the coronary arteries and a coronary vasodilator is used - 'stealing' blood away from those parts of the heart. (Wikipedia)
I think there's potential for some nice Valentine's Day cards somwhere around here...
"In sharks and rays, the term ovoviviparity has recently been deprecated in favor of aplacental viviparity. Authors may regard the two terms as synonymous, or equate ovoviviparity only with aplacental yolk-sac viviparity, in which the embryos are solely sustained by yolk (as opposed to secondary provisioning by their mother in the form of 'uterine milk', such as in the stingrays, or unfertilized eggs, such as in the mackerel sharks; the latter is referred to as intrauterine oophagy).
There is a wide range of forms of intrauterine provisioning however, which could complicate the classification. In at least some sharks the routine intrauterine oophagy is not limited to unfertilised or trophic eggs, in various forms and in in some the principle extends to actual intrauterine cannibalism."
"An idiosyncrasy peculiar to the herring is that, when dead, it begins to glow; this property, which resembles phosphorescence and is yet altogether different, peaks a few days after death and then ebbs away as the fish decays. For a long time no one could account for this glowing of the lifeless herring, and indeed I believe that it still remains unexplained. Around 1870, when projects for the total illumination of our cities were everywhere afoot, two English scientists with the apt names of Herrington and Lightbown investigated the unusual phenomenon in the hope that the luminous substance exuded by dead herrings would lead to a formula for an organic source of light that had the capacity to regenerate itself. The failure of this eccentric undertaking, as I read some time ago in a history of artificial light, constituted no more than a negligible setback in the relentless conquest of darkness."
Passing this yesterday, I realized that I needed to share this with... well, someone, and Wordnik might be the right place for it. I've always thought this sign was a bit disturbing, even before I knew the word tappen in English. ("Godis" means candy, and "tappen" means the gas station (in Swedish)).
"Beefy meatypeptide, also known as delicious peptide and abbreviated as BMP, is an 8-amino acid long peptide that has been identified as giving a beefy flavor to foods in which it is present." (Wikipedia)
"A Bitter electromagnet or Bitter solenoid is a type of electromagnet used in scientific research to create extremely strong magnetic fields. Bitter electromagnets have been used to produce some of the strongest continuous manmade magnetic fields on earth (up to 35 teslas as of 2008)." (Wikipedia) Named after Francis Bitter.
"A Darwinian Demon is a hypothetical organism that can maximize all aspects of fitness simultaneously and would exist if the evolution of species was entirely unconstrained. Such organisms would reproduce directly after being born, produce infinitely many offspring, and live indefinitely. Even though no such organisms exist, biologists use Darwinian Demons in thought experiments to understand different life history strategies among different organisms." (Wikipedia)
"Sloth moth is a generic term used to refer to coprophagous moths which have evolved to exclusively inhabit the fur of sloths and to use sloth dung as a substrate for the early stages of reproduction." (Wikipedia)
"The large variety of arthropods associated with sloths comprise two distinct feeding guilds – the haematophagous guild, represented by biting flies and ticks, and the coprophagous guild which comprises a unique assemblage of moths, beetles and mites which utilize the sloth principally for phoresis and whose larval stages feed and develop in the dung of the host sloth." (Wikipedia)
"The obelisk posture is a handstand-like position that some dragonflies and damselflies assume to prevent overheating on sunny days. The abdomen is raised until its tip points at the sun, minimizing the surface area exposed to solar radiation. When the sun is close to directly overhead, the vertical alignment of the insect's body suggests an obelisk." (Wikipedia)
"The slender snipe eel, Nemichthys scolopaceus, sometimes referred to as the deep sea duck, is a fish that can weigh only a few ounces, yet reach 5 feet or 1.5 m in length. Features include a bird-like beak with curving tips, covered with tiny hooked teeth, which they use to sweep through the water to catch shrimp and other crustaceans. It has a lifespan of ten years.
It has more vertebrae in its backbone than any other animal, around 750. However, its anus has moved forward during its evolution and is now located on its throat. Its larvae are shaped like leaves, which actually get smaller before transforming into adults."
"The pigbutt worm or flying buttocks (Chaetopterus pugaporcinus) is a newly discovered species of worm found by scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. The worm is round in shape, approximately the size of a hazelnut, and bears a strong resemblance to a disembodied pair of buttocks. Because of this, it was given a Latin species name that roughly translates to 'resembling a pig's rear.'" (Wikipedia)
"The tempest prognosticator, also known as the leech barometer, is a 19th-century invention by George Merryweather in which leeches are used in a barometer. The twelve leeches are kept in small bottles inside the device; when they become agitated by an approaching storm they attempt to climb out of the bottles and trigger a small hammer which strikes a bell. The likelihood of a storm is indicated by the number of times the bell is struck." (Wikipedia)
"In mathematics, a dessin d'enfant (French for a 'child's drawing', plural dessins d'enfants, 'children's drawings') is a type of graph drawing used to study Riemann surfaces and to provide combinatorial invariants for the action of the absolute Galois group of the rational numbers." (Wikipedia)
"The algorithm was first published in the 1979 paper 'Intersection numbers of sections of elliptic surfaces' by Cox and Zucker and it was later named the "Cox–Zucker machine" by Charles Schwartz in 1984." (Wikipedia)
"Cow blowing, Kuhblasen, or doom dev, is a process used in many countries according to ethnographers, in which forceful blowing of air into a cow's vagina (or sometimes anus) is applied to induce her to produce more milk." (Wikipedia)
"The tremble dance of the honeybee is similar to the waggle dance, but is used by a forager when the foraging bee perceives a long delay in unloading its nectar or a shortage of receiver bees, sometimes due to low numbers of receiver bees. It may also spread the scent released during the forager's waggle dance. Like the waggle dance, the tremble dance is likely one of two 'primary regulation mechanisms' for regulating bee colony behavior at the group level, and one of four or five observed mechanisms known to be used by honeybees to change the task allocation among worker bees. The consumption of ethanol by foraging bees has been shown to increase the occurrence of the tremble dance while decreasing the occurrence of the waggle dance." (Wikipedia)
"The Law of the gut is the theory of gastrointestinal motility developed by Dr. William Jacobus at the University of Toledo College of Medicine. The Law of the Gut states 'The peristaltic wave of gastrointestinal smooth muscle contraction begins at the oral end and moves to the anal end'." (Wikipedia)
"In the mathematical field of probability, the Wiener sausage is a neighborhood of the trace of a Brownian motion up to a time t, given by taking all points within a fixed distance of Brownian motion. It can be visualized as a sausage of fixed radius whose centerline is Brownian motion. The Wiener sausage was named after Norbert Wiener..." (Wikipedia)
And I'm pleased to find someone else who can appreciate it! My studies of mycology is mostly limited to periods of frenetic Wikipedia browsing... (And some basic knowledge of edible and poisonous ones, I actually picked some today!) Feel free to add words that you find suitable.
"Bubblenests, also spelled bubble nests or bubble-nests, created by some fish species, are floating masses of bubbles blown with an oral secretion, saliva bubbles, and occasionally aquatic plants, or an area for egg deposit attached at the bottom. Fish that build and guard bubble nests are known as aphrophils." (Wikipedia)
"The name box crab comes from their distinctly bulky carapace, and the name shame-faced is from anthropomorphising the way the crab's chelae (claws) fold up and cover its face, as if it were hiding its face in shame." (Wikipedia)
Yes, I know! Thanks for the tip. That's an intimidatingly long list, but that's a good thing, I guess...
(Recently I've started to make more specific lists out of my big, chaotic animalistic list, and I keep finding that it's been done before. But my lists haven't been done, so I keep going...)
Four years later, I don't know if this list is still alive, but I've found some plankton, and don't know where to put it: megaplankton, femtoplankton (and everything in between on this list).
"A gravity train is a theoretical means of transportation intended to go between two points on the surface of a sphere, following a straight tunnel that goes directly from one point to the other through the interior of the sphere." (Wikipedia)
(Is it OK to post a colourful animated gif here? Feels a bit sacreligious and disturbing... But it's such a happy little illustration!)
Googling the butterfly species small brown emesis reminded me of this. (I appreciate a butterfly that has a disgusting name, most of them are just too cute.)
Oh, I find names for that list all the time, so let me know if you find it! (Or I'll have to create it myself.) Just now I found dark wanderer and pale wanderer too.
"Floppy trunk syndrome (abbreviated FTS, also known as flaccid trunk paralysis) is a condition that causes trunk paralysis in African bush elephants. Initially observed in 1989, the syndrome primarily affected bull elephants in several select regions in Zimbabwe. Afflicted elephants exhibit paralysis in their trunk, often having to adapt to feed. The loss of their trunks' prehensile abilities results in malnutrition and possibly death." (Wikipedia)
"A frog battery is an electrochemical battery consisting of a number of dead frogs (or sometimes live ones), which form the cells of the battery connected in a series arrangement. It is a kind of biobattery. It was used in early scientific investigations of electricity and academic demonstrations.
The principle behind the battery is the injury potential created in a muscle when it is damaged, although this was not fully understood at the time; the potential being caused incidentally due to the dissection of the frog's muscles.
The frog battery is an example of a class of biobatteries which can be made from any number of animals. The general term for an example of this class is the muscular pile."
"Male priapiumfish don't have a penis like humans and other mammals. Instead they have a unique organ called a priapium, which faces backwards and looks like a muscular nozzle. It's actually a modification of the fish's pectoral and pelvic fins.
The priapium of P. cuulong has two attachments, both of which look frankly dangerous. At the bottom near the tip, there is a forward-facing serrated saw, or ctenactinium. Further forward, right under the head, there is a forward-facing rod called the toxactinium."
When I read this Wondermark comic I was pleased that I had already heard about truck nutz here first. Don't know why really, but I guess it confirmed that I learn so much here...
"Matthews believed that a gang of criminals and spies skilled in 'pneumatic chemistry' had taken up residence at London Wall in Moorfields (close to Bethlem) and were tormenting him by means of rays emitted by a machine called the 'Air Loom'. The torments induced by the rays included 'Lobster-cracking', during which the circulation of the blood was prevented by a magnetic field; 'Stomach-skinning'; and 'Apoplexy-working with the nutmeg grater' which involved the introduction of fluids into the skull. His persecutors bore such names as 'the Middleman' (who operated the Air Loom), 'the Glove Woman' and 'Sir Archy' (who acted as 'repeaters' or 'active worriers' to enhance Matthews' torment or record the machine's activities) and their leader, a man called 'Bill, or the King'." (Wikipedia)
I think I will have to try a bit of script making soon. Don't know exactly what I want it to do yet, but there is some sort of magic that can happen when you release something to work automatically...
"Hyperkalemic periodic paralysis (HYPP, HyperKPP) is a genetic disorder which occurs in both humans and horses, where it is also known as Impressive syndrome."
"Mad hatter disease describes the symptoms of mercury poisoning, specifically its effect on the nervous system. These include paraesthesias, vision and hearing impairment, slurred speech, anxiety, hallucinations, irritability, depression, lack of coordination, and tremors. The condition was observed among workers in the hat-making industry in the 19th century. Chronic mercury exposure was common in hatters who used a mercury solution during the process of curing animal pelts." (Wikipedia)
"The sterile insect technique is a method of biological control, whereby overwhelming numbers of sterile insects are released. The released insects are normally male as it is the female that causes the damage, usually by laying eggs in the crop, or, in the case of mosquitoes, taking a bloodmeal from humans. The sterile males compete with the wild males for female insects. If a female mates with a sterile male then it will have no offspring, thus reducing the next generation's population." (Wikipedia)
(But I think it sounds like some sort of dangerous martial arts technique...)
flourmilling is definitely spamming, but I must say there is some poetry in it too... (maybe my spam filters are too good, since I don't get enough of it)
All those names sound kind of scary, but in very different ways. I really don't see why anyone would want conformity or sports in their bed. Spine align could be a torture method, but nature's touch is definitely the worst...
"A common variety uses rose-colored lenses, the coloring thought to keep a chicken wearing them from recognizing blood on other chickens, which naturally causes an attack instinct."
Sounds like something for a crusade, but is "an optical phenomenon that is seen when trying to extinguish a laser beam or non-planar white light using crossed polarizers". (Wikipedia)
"When the cow grazes, it often consumes and swallows what is called tramp iron: baling and barbed wire, staples, nails, and other metallic objects. These objects are indigestible and would lodge in the reticulum and cause inflammation resulting in lower milk production (for dairy cattle) or lower weight gain (for feeder stock). This condition is called hardware disease.
The cow magnet attracts such objects and prevents them from becoming lodged in the animal's tissue. While the resultant mass of iron remains in the cow's rumen as a pseudobezoar (an intentionally introduced bezoar), it does not cause the severe problems of hardware disease. Cow magnets cannot be passed through a cow's 4th bonivial meta-colon." (Wikipedia)
Mixotricha paradoxa is a species of protozoan that lives inside the termite species Mastotermes darwiniensis and has multiple bacterial symbionts. The name, given by the Australian biologist J.L. Sutherland, who first described Mixotricha in 1933, means “the paradoxical being with mixed-up hairs”.
Since I got a bit carried away and added more than 900 Drosophila melanogaster genes, I think this list is big enough to accommodate all your Genes and Jeans and jeans and Eugenes ...
"Nuptial flight is an important phase in the reproduction of most ant, termite and some bee species. During the flight, virgin queens mate with males and then land to start a new colony, or, in the case of honey bees, continue the succession of an existing hived colony." (Wikipedia)
I think it sounds like a fantasy character, but Wikipedia says:
"The spiderhunters are birds of the genus Arachnothera, part of the sunbird family Nectariniidae. The genus contains eleven species found in the forests of south and southeastern Asia. They are large representatives of the sunbird family, with drab plumage and long strongly curved bills. They feed on both nectar and a range of small arthropods."
"In astronomy, a rubble pile is an object that is not a monolith, consisting instead of numerous pieces of rock that have coalesced under the influence of gravity. Rubble piles have low density because there are large cavities between the various 'chunks' that make them up." (Wikipedia)
"Individuals using hyperbolic discounting reveal a strong tendency to make choices that are inconsistent over time—they make choices today that their future self would prefer not to make, despite using the same reasoning. This dynamic inconsistency happens because the value of future rewards is much lower under hyperbolic discounting than under exponential discounting." (Wikipedia)
From Wikipedia: Multiocular O (ꙮ) is the most rare and exotic glyph variant of Cyrillic letter O. This glyph variant can be found in certain manuscripts in the phrase «серафими многоꙮчитїи» ("many-eyed seraphim").
"In celestial mechanics, the mean anomaly is a parameter relating position and time for a body moving in a Kepler orbit. It is based on the fact that equal areas are swept at the focus in equal intervals of time."
"The mean anomaly is one of three angular parameters ('anomalies') that define a position along an orbit; the other two being the eccentric anomaly and the true anomaly."
"Porkchop plot (also pork-chop plot) is a chart that shows contours of equal characteristic energy (C3) against combinations of launch date and arrival date for a particular interplanetary flight." (Wikipedia)
Accidentally read about sweetbread on Wikipedia. Read that it should not be confused with sweetmeat. Both these words confuse/disgust me now. In a good way.
"Knobs into holes packing is a protein packing motif that occurs mainly in alpha helix or coiled coil domains. One such example is fibrinogen fibril formation." (Wikipedia)
"In molecular biology, a RING (Really Interesting New Gene) finger domain is a protein structural domain of zinc finger type which contains a Cys3HisCys4 amino acid motif which binds two zinc cations." (Wikipedia)
"Kleptothermy is any form of thermoregulation by which an animal shares in the metabolic thermogenesis of another animal. It may or may not be reciprocal, and occurs in both endotherms and ectotherms. Its most common form is huddling." (Wikipedia)
"In mathematics, an abstract simplicial complex is a purely combinatorial description of the geometric notion of a simplicial complex, consisting of a family of finite sets closed under the operation of taking subsets. In the context of matroids and greedoids, abstract simplicial complexes are also called independence systems." (Wikipedia)
Are you suggesting crazy cat people or cat? I would say that the crazy cat people aren't really overrated, but I would like to see them in a zoo... (I imagine that every day, to entertain the audience, a zookeeper will throw in a bunch of cats.)
Anyway, cats ands dogs are definately overrated animals, and everyone is welcome to lock up their favorite ones here.
"This theory gets the name 'banana' because the tube of influence along the entire ray path from source to receiver is an arc resembling the fruit. The 'doughnut' part of the name comes from the ring shape of the cross-section. The ray path is a hollow banana, or a banana-shaped doughnut."
"Tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) is a primary distance indicator used in astronomy. It uses the luminosity of the brightest red giant branch stars in a galaxy to gauge the distance to that galaxy. It has been used in conjunction with observations from the Hubble Space Telescope to determine the relative motions of the Local Cluster of galaxies within the Local Supercluster." (Wikipedia)
"The red clump is a feature in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of stars. The red clump is considered the metal-rich counterpart to the horizontal branch. Stars in this part of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram are sometimes called clump giants." (Wikipedia)
"Bones are not all that is left of dinosaurs. Occasionally the fossilized feces of dinosaurs and other vertebrates are found. Called coprolites, these sometimes impressive relics can give an intestine’s-eye view of dinosaurian diets." From Dinosaurs: A Concise Natural History by David E. Fastovsky.
A vacuous truth is a truth that is devoid of content because it asserts something about all members of a class that is empty or because it says "If A then B" when in fact A is inherently false. (Wikipedia)
In particle physics, a B-factory, or sometimes a beauty factory, is a collider-basedscientific machine designed to produce a large number (of the order of 109) of B mesons and analyze their properties. The tauons and D mesons are also copiously produced at B-factories, which allows precise studies of their properties. (Wikipedia)
Autothysis is the process where an animal destroys itself via an internal rupturing or explosion of an organ which ruptures the skin. The term was proposed by Maschwitz and Maschwitz in 1974 to describe the defensive mechanism of the carpenter ant (Camponotus saundersi). It is caused by a contraction of muscles around a large gland that leads to the gland wall breaking. Some termites (such as the soldiers of Globitermes sulphureus) release a sticky secretion by rupturing a gland near the skin of their neck, producing a tar baby effect in defense against ants. It is a form of suicidal altruism. (Wikipedia)
"The ultraviolet catastrophe, also called the Rayleigh–Jeans catastrophe, was a prediction of late 19th century/early 20th century classical physics that an ideal black body at thermal equilibrium will emit radiation with infinite power." (Wikipedia)
"Clever Hans (in German, der Kluge Hans) was an Orlov Trotter horse that was claimed to have been able to perform arithmetic and other intellectual tasks.
After a formal investigation in 1907, psychologist Oskar Pfungst demonstrated that the horse was not actually performing these mental tasks, but was watching the reaction of his human observers. Pfungst discovered this artifact in the research methodology, wherein the horse was responding directly to involuntary cues in the body language of the human trainer, who had the faculties to solve each problem. The trainer was entirely unaware that he was providing such cues. In honour of Pfungst's study, the anomalous artifact has since been referred to as the Clever Hans effect and has continued to be important knowledge in the observer-expectancy effect and later studies in animal cognition."
"Sarcococca, Sweet box, or Christmas box is a genus of 16-20 species of flowering plants in the family Buxaceae, native to eastern and southeastern Asia and the Himalaya. They are slow-growingevergreen shrubs 1-2 m tall. The leaves are borne alternately, 3-12 cm long and 1-4 cm broad. They bear fragrant flowers, often in winter. The fruit is a red or black drupe containing 1-3 seeds. Some species are cultivated for ground cover in shady areas." (Wikipedia)
My (limited) knowledge of greek tells me it should mean something like meatballs. But that doesn't really seem right...
I find a funny molecule. I list it. I notice that it's been listed before. I find an entire list of funny molecules, and a link to even more of them! Perfect...
Because it always halts, the machine is able to decide whether a given string is a member of a formal language. The class of languages which can be decided by such machines is exactly the set of recursive languages. However, due to the Halting Problem, determining whether an arbitrary Turing machine halts on an arbitrary input is itself an undecidable decision problem.
A Rapidly-exploring random tree (RRT) is a data structure and algorithm designed for efficiently searching nonconvex, high-dimensional search spaces. The tree is constructed in such a way that any sample in the space is added by connecting it to the closest sample already in the tree. (Wikipedia)
An eccentric flint is a chipped artefact produced by the Maya civilization of ancient Mesoamerica. Although generally referred to as "flints", they were typically fashioned from chert, chalcedony and obsidian. Eccentric flints were manufactured by specialist artisans in lithic workshops for non-utilitarian purposes. They were sacred high-status objects associated with Maya elite power. (Wikipedia)
Thanks actung! (I don't know that much about american politics, and hadn't seen those words before, but that can be a good thing in a list like this, since understanding sometimes take away the magic...)
edit: just an hour after saying that I didn't recognize the words, my usual (swedish) newspaper wrote about super PACs...
Moist desquamation is a description of the clinical pattern seen as a consequence of radiation exposure where the skin thins and then begins to weep because of loss of integrity of the epithelial barrier and decreased oncotic pressure. Typically this occurs at doses of 15 - 20 gray, far higher than any diagnostic scan and more typical of levels seen in radiotherapy or deployment of nuclear armament. (Wikipedia)
The sexy son hypothesis of evolutionary biology was first proposed by Fisher in 1930. 'The sexy son hypothesis' proposes that a female animal's optimal choice among potential mates is a male whose genes will produce male offspring with the best chance of reproductive success. In particular, the sexy son hypothesis implies that a potential mate's capacity as a caregiver or any other direct benefits the male can offer the female (e.g., nuptial gifts, good territory) are irrelevant to his value as the potential father of the female's offspring. What matters are her sexy sons' future breeding successes (like that of their promiscuous father) in creating large numbers of offspring carrying copies of the female's genes.
In nuclear physics, secular equilibrium is a situation in which the quantity of a radioactive isotope remains constant because its production rate (due, e.g., to decay of a parent isotope) is equal to its decay rate. (Wikipedia)
The gastric-brooding frogs or Platypus frogs (Rheobatrachus) were a genus of ground-dwelling frogs native to Queensland in eastern Australia. The genus consisted of only two species, both of which became extinct in the mid-1980s. The genus was unique because it contained the only two known frog species that incubated the prejuvenile stages of their offspring in the stomach of the mother. (Wikipedia)
Mouthbrooding, also known as oral incubation and buccal incubation, is the care given by some groups of animals to their offspring by holding them in the mouth of the parent for extended periods of time. Although mouthbrooding is performed by a variety of different animals, most notably Darwin's frog, fishes are by far the most diverse mouthbrooders. (Wikipedia)
The simplest example is a moving-knife equivalent of the I cut, you choose scheme, sometimes known as Austin's moving-knife procedure. One player moves the knife across the cake, conventionally from left to right. The cake is cut when either player calls "stop". If each player calls stop when he or she perceives the knife to be at the 50-50 point, then the first player to call stop will produce an envy-free division if the caller gets the left piece and the other player gets the right piece. Note that this procedure is not necessarily efficient.
Wikipedia describes it as "the triangular area on the anterior view of the elbow of a human or other hominid animal." (But I fail to find anything triangular on my own arm.)
The hand of benediction results from a severed median nerve at the level of the elbow or upper arm. The ability to flex the digits 2–3 at the metacarpophalangeal joints, proximal interphalangeal joints and distal interphalangeal joints is lost. This is due to the loss of innervation of the lateral 2 lumbricals of the hand which are supplied by the median nerve. Flexion at the proximal interphalangeal joints of digits 4–5 is weakened, but flexion at the metocarpophalangeal joints and distal interphalangeal joints remains intact. The extensors are left unopposed and digits 2–3 remain extended while attempting to make a fist.
Hmm... I'll see what I can do... Here's a list of too-many-organs.
Unfortunatly, it seems that medical counting is limited to missing, one, two, many, too many). But I'm sure you are capable of constructing some made up greek-sounding terms?
Flap surgery is a technique in plastic and reconstructive surgery where any type of tissue is lifted from a donor site and moved to a recipient site with an intact blood supply. This is similar to but different from a graft, which does not have an intact blood supply and therefore relies on growth of new blood vessels. (Wikipedia)
An abstract machine, also called an abstract computer, is a theoretical model of a computer hardware or software system used in automata theory. Abstraction of computing processes is used in both the computer science and computer engineering disciplines and usually assumes discrete time paradigm. (Wikipedia)
In mathematics, monstrous moonshine, or moonshine theory, is a term devised by John Horton Conway and Simon P. Norton in 1979, used to describe the (then totally unexpected) connection between the monster group M and modular functions (particularly, the j function). (Wikipedia)
The term scotobiology describes the study of biology as directly and specifically affected by darkness, as opposed to photobiology, which describes the biological effects of light. (Wikipedia)
Sisyphus cooling is a mechanism through which atoms can be cooled using laser beams below the temperatures expected to be achieved by Doppler cooling. It comes about as a result of a polarization gradient created by two counter-propagating laser beams with orthogonal polarization. Atoms moving through the potential landscape created by the standing wave (created by the interference of the two counter-propagating beams) lose kinetic energy as they move to a potential maximum, at which point optical pumping moves them to a lower-energy state, thus losing the potential energy they had. (Wikipedia)
Self-incompatibility (SI) is a general name for several genetic mechanisms in angiosperms, which prevent self-fertilization and thus encourage outcrossing. (Wikipedia)
Thecomas or theca cell tumors are benign ovarian neoplasms composed only of theca cells. Histogenetically they are classified as sex cord-stromal tumours. (Wikipedia)
A hydrostatic skeleton or hydroskeleton is a structure found in many cold-blooded organisms and soft-bodied animals consisting of a fluid-filled cavity, the coelom, surrounded by muscles. The pressure of the fluid and action of the surrounding circular and longitudinal muscles are used to change an organism's shape and produce movement, such as burrowing or swimming. (Wikipedia)
The End of Greatness is an observational scale discovered at roughly 100 Mpc (roughly 300 million lightyears) where the lumpiness seen in the large-scale structure of the universe is homogenized and isotropized as per the Cosmological Principle. The superclusters and filaments seen in smaller surveys are randomized to the extent that the smooth distribution of the universe is visually apparent. It was not until the redshift surveys of the 1990s were completed that this scale could accurately be observed. (Wikipedia)
The Local Void is a vast, empty region of space, devoid of matter, located within the Virgo Supercluster and lying adjacent to our own Milky Way galaxy. (Wikipedia)
Funny to stumble upon this word two times in one day... (I think I prefer it capitalized.)
"In computation theory, the Blum–Shub–Smale machine, or BSS machine, is a model of computation introduced by Lenore Blum, Michael Shub and Stephen Smale, intended to describe computations over the real numbers." (Wikipedia)
Crystal habit is an overall description of the visible external shape of a mineral. This description can apply to an individual crystal or an assembly of crystals or aggregates. (Wikipedia)
A chilled margin is a shallow intrusive or volcanic rock texture characterised by a glassy or fine grained zone along the margin where the magma or lava has contacted air, water, or particularly much cooler rock. This is caused by rapid crystallization of the melt near the contact with the surrounding low temperature environment. In an intrusive case, the crystallized chilled margin may decrease in size or disappear by later remelting during magma flow, depending on magma heat flux. (Wikipedia)
The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (Latin: Agnus scythicus or Planta Tartarica Barometz) is a legendary zoophyte of central Asia, believed to grow sheep as its fruit. The sheep were connected to the plant by an umbilical cord and grazed the land around the plant. When all the plants were gone, both the plant and sheep died. (Wikipedia)
A supernormal stimulus or superstimulus is an exaggerated version of a stimulus to which there is an existing response tendency, or any stimulus that elicits a response more strongly than the stimulus for which it evolved.
For example, a moth will spiral into a flame because it is adapted to navigate by the sun (a much more distant lightsource).
The unmoved mover (οὐ κινούμενον κινεῖ) is a philosophical concept described by Aristotle as a primary cause or "mover" of all the motion in the universe. As is implicit in the name, the "unmoved mover" is not moved by any prior action. In Book 12 (Greek "Λ") of his Metaphysics, Aristotle describes the unmoved mover as being perfectly beautiful, indivisible, and contemplating only the perfect contemplation: itself contemplating. He equates this concept also with the active intellect. (Wikipedia)
In particle physics, a superpartner (also sparticle) is hypothetical elementary particle. Supersymmetry is one of the synergistic theories in current high-energy physics which predicts the existence of these "shadow" particles.
The word superpartner is a portmanteau of the words supersymmetry and partner (sparticle is a portmanteau of supersymmetry and particle).
The Wikipedia article about it starts with "In mathematics, a loop group is a group of loops in a topological group..." and it sounds like it could be a nursery rhyme...
In a quantum field theory, charge screening can restrict the value of the observable "renormalized" charge of a classical theory. If the only allowed value of the renormalized charge is zero, the theory is said to be "trivial" or noninteracting. Thus, surprisingly, a classical theory that appears to describe interacting particles can, when realized as a quantum field theory, become a "trivial" theory of noninteracting free particles. This phenomenon is referred to as quantum triviality. (Wikipedia)
In physics, mirror matter, also called shadow matter or Alice matter, is a hypothetical counterpart to ordinary matter. Modern physics deals with three basic types of spatial symmetry: reflection, rotation and translation. The known elementary particles respect rotation and translation symmetry but do not respect mirror reflection symmetry (also called P-symmetry or parity). Of the four fundamental interactions—electromagnetism, the strong interaction, the weak interaction, and gravity—only the weak interaction breaks parity. (Wikipedia)
It is possible that such quantum primordial black holes were created in the high-density environment of the early Universe (or big bang), or possibly through subsequent phase transitions. They might be observed by astrophysicists in the near future, through the particles they are expected to emit by Hawking radiation.
In ecology, a supertramp species is any type of animal which follows the "supertramp" strategy of high dispersion among many different habitats, towards none of which it is particularly specialized. Supertramp species are typically the first to arrive in newly available habitats, such as volcanic islands and freshly deforested land; they can have profoundly negative effects on more highly specialized flora and fauna, both directly through predation and indirectly through competition for resources.
The name was coined by Jared Diamond in 1974, as an allusion to both the itinerant lifestyle of the tramp, and the then-popular band Supertramp.
In condensed matter physics, the term geometrical frustration (or in short: frustration) means a phenomenon in which the geometrical properties of the crystal lattice or the presence of conflicting atomic forces forbid simultaneous minimization of the interaction energies acting at a given site. This may lead to highly degenerate ground states with a nonzero entropy at zero temperature. Or in simple terms, the substance can never be completely frozen, because the structure it forms does not have a single minimal-energy state, so motion on a molecular scale continues even at absolute zero and even without input of energy. (Wikipedia)
Soft matter is a subfield of condensed matter comprising a variety of physical states that are easily deformed by thermal stresses or thermal fluctuations. They include liquids, colloids, polymers, foams, gels, granular materials, and a number of biological materials. (Wikipedia)
The black swallower, Chiasmodon niger, is a species of deep sea fish in the family Chiasmodontidae, notable for its ability to swallow fish larger than itself (for which it is sometimes named the "great swallower"). (Wikipedia)
Fail-deadly is a concept in nuclear military strategy which encourages deterrence by guaranteeing an immediate, automatic and overwhelming response to an attack. The term fail-deadly was coined as a contrast to fail-safe. (Wikipedia)
"Nuclear semiotics was created in 1981 when a team of engineers, anthropologists, nuclear physicists, behavior scientists and others was convened on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy and Bechtel Corp. The goal of this workgroup (the "Human Interference Task Force") was to find the means to reduce the likelihood of future humans unintentionally intruding on radioactive waste isolation systems."
The firing squad synchronization problem is a problem in computer science and cellular automata in which the goal is to design a cellular automaton that, starting with a single active cell, eventually reaches a state in which all cells are simultaneously active. (Wikipedia)
Nuclei which have neutron number and proton (atomic) numbers each equal to one of the magic numbers are called "double magic", and are especially stable against decay. (Wikipedia)
The term fish kill, known also as fish die-off and (in Britain) as fish mortality, is a localized die-off of fish populations which may also be associated with more generalised mortality of aquatic life. (Wikipedia)
A sacrificial part is a part of a machine or product that is intentionally engineered to fail under excess mechanical stress, electrical stress, or other unexpected and dangerous situations. The sacrificial part is engineered to fail first, and thus protect other parts of the system. (Wikipedia)
(Sometimes I worry about clogging the entire "latest comments" stream. But then I try to think that random bits of Wikipedia must be better than spam. Or silence.)
Common described forms of nonclassical light are the following:
Squeezed light exhibits reduced noise in one quadrature component. The most familiar kinds of squeezed light have either reduced amplitude noise or reduced phase noise, with increased noise of the other kind.
Fock states (also called photon number states) have a well defined number of photons (stored e.g. in a cavity), while the phase is totally undefined.
Radio Relics are diffuse synchrotron radio emission found in the peripheral regions of galaxy clusters. Similar to the case of radio halos, they do not have any obvious galaxy counterpart, but their shapes are much more elongated and irregular compared to those of radio halos. (Wikipedia)
A sonic black hole (sometimes called a dumb hole) is a phenomenon in which phonons (sound perturbations) are unable to escape from a fluid that is flowing more quickly than the local speed of sound. They are called sonic, or acoustic, black holes because these trapped phonons are analogous to light in astrophysical (gravitational) black holes. (Wikipedia)
Relativistic jets are extremely powerful jets of plasma which emerge from presumed massive objects at the centers of some active galaxies, notably radio galaxies and quasars. (Wikipedia)
Yes, I saw your quintaphone, and thought that I'd let you decide if my quintephone was of interest. (I must confess that I didn't understand the definition of quintaphone at all.)
No, I'm not really worrying... It's just that I feel that I must be missing lots of good stuff just because I don't know where to look. But, it's probably just a matter of time!
Affective science is the scientific study of emotion or affect. This includes the study of emotion elicitation, emotional experience and the recognition of emotions in others. In particular the nature of feeling, mood, emotionally driven behaviour, decision making, attention and self-regulation, as well as the underlying physiology and neuroscience of the emotions. (Wikipedia)
Another type of anomia is color anomia, where the patient can distinguish between colors but cannot identify them by name or name the color of an object. They can separate colors into categories, but they cannot name them. (Wikipedia)
In a fission-fusion society, the main parent group can fracture (fission) into smaller stable subgroups or individuals to adapt to environmental or social circumstances. For example, a number of males may break off from the main group in order to hunt or forage for food during the day, but at night they may return to join (fusion) the primary group to share food and partake in other activities. (Wikipedia)
Synnecrosis is a particular case in which the interaction is so mutually detrimental that it results in death, as in the case of some parasitic relationships. It is a rare and necessarily short-lived condition as evolution selects against it. The term is seldom used. (Wikipedia)
Lapsarianism is the set of Calvinist doctrines describing the theoretical order of God's decree (in his mind, before Creation), in particular concerning the order of his decree for the fall of man and reprobation. The name of the doctrine comes from the Latin lapsus meaning fall.
Supralapsarianism (also antelapsarianism) is the view that God's decrees of election and reprobation logically preceded the decree of the fall while infralapsarianism (also called postlapsarianism and sublapsarianism) asserts that God's decrees of election and reprobation logically succeeded the decree of the fall. The words can also be used in connection with other topics, e.g. supra- and infralapsarian christology.
A repugnant market is a term used to describe an area of commerce that is considered by society to be outside of the range of market transactions and that bringing this area into the realm of a market would be inherently immoral or uncaring. (Wikipedia)
Quasi-empirical methods are applied in science and in mathematics. The term "empirical methods" refers to experiment, disclosure of apparatus for reproduction of experiments, and other ways in which science is validated by scientists. Empirical methods are studied extensively in the philosophy of science but cannot be used directly in fields whose hypotheses are not invalidated by real experiment (mathematics, theology, ideology). In these fields, the prefix 'quasi' came to denote methods that are "almost" or "socially approximate" an ideal of truly empirical methods. (Wikipedia)
"An ousiograph or oustograph is a fictitious device purported to detect messages that are sent directly to one's brain. Arising from the State v. Green case in the Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, the messages are sent to a person's brain to 'direct them' and possibly control their behavior for an undetermined purpose."
(From Wikipedia, where it is also questioned if it is right to have an article about "a 'device' mentioned once in FBI notes in an investigation of a paranoid schizophrenic who killed a police officer.")
A perverse incentive is an incentive that has an unintended and undesirable result which is contrary to the interests of the incentive makers. Perverse incentives are a type of unintended consequences. (Wikipedia)
Compassion fatigue (also known as a secondary traumatic stress disorder) is a condition characterised by a gradual lessening of compassion over time. It is common among trauma victims and individuals that work directly with trauma victims. (Wikipedia)
I have a feeling that if you go to the trouble to make rock into tunnels that conform with the shape of your body, you make them to stay there... (but it's hard to know whats in the mind of an endolith)
The links look interesting, in a way that might keep me busy all night. Which, at least at the moment, seems like a good thing.
And about what interests me... Hard to say. I love getting lost on Wikipedia (and here too, but it's not as easy), jumping from word to word just because they look interesting, ending up somewhere unexpected.
Cracks can be formed in many different elastomers by ozone attack, and the characteristic form of attack of vulnerable rubbers is known as ozone cracking. (Wikipedia)
Cracks can be formed in many different elastomers by ozone attack, and the characteristic form of attack of vulnerable rubbers is known as ozone cracking. (Wikipedia)
A perceptual trap is an ecological scenario in which environmental change, typically anthropogenic, leads an organism to avoid an otherwise high-quality habitat. The concept is related to that of an ecological trap, in which environmental change causes preference towards a low-quality habitat. (Wikipedia)
Ecological traps are scenarios in which rapid environmental change leads organisms to prefer to settle in poor-quality habitats. The concept stems from the idea that organisms that are actively selecting habitat must rely on environmental cues to help them identify high quality habitat. If either the habitat quality or the cue changes so that one does not reliably indicate the other, organisms may be lured into poor quality habitat. (Wikipedia)
In mathematical logic, an atomic formula (also known simply as an atom) is a formula with no deeper propositional structure, that is, a formula that contains no logical connectives or equivalently a formula that has no strict subformulas. Atoms are thus the simplest well-formed formulas of the logic. Compound formulas are formed by combining the atomic formulas using the logical connectives. (Wikipedia)
Looks interesting, thanks! (Is there some reasonable way to search for lists? I stumble upon great lists all the time, but I imagine there are so many more that I miss...)
The umbilic torus is a single-edged 3-dimensional figure created by Helaman Ferguson as a mathematical artwork. Ferguson created a 27-inch (69 centimeters) bronze sculpture, Umbilic Torus, and it is his most widely known piece of art. The lone edge goes three times around the ring before returning to the starting point. (from Wikipedia, where you can also see the equations that define the shape)
A strange loop arises when, by moving up or down through a hierarchical system, one finds oneself back where one started.
Strange loops may involve self-reference and paradox. The concept of a strange loop was proposed and extensively discussed by Douglas Hofstadter in "Gödel, Escher, Bach", and is further elaborated in Hofstadter's book "I Am a Strange Loop", published in 2007.
A tangled hierarchy is a hierarchical system in which a strange loop appears.
Comments by deinonychus
Show previous 200 comments...
deinonychus commented on the word sinapize
That... sounds painful. And what kind of monster will be born after that pregnancy?
January 10, 2013
deinonychus commented on the word paternoster while
Ah, yes, all the different forms could be performed at the annual paternoster festival. Fun for the whole family!
January 6, 2013
deinonychus commented on the word paternoster while
Record for fastest or slowest? Both could be a challenge...
January 6, 2013
deinonychus commented on the word Scunthorpe problem
"The Scunthorpe problem occurs when a spam filter or search engine blocks e-mails or search results because their text contains a string of letters that are shared with an obscene word. While computers can easily identify strings of text within a document, broad blocking rules may result in false positives, causing innocent phrases to be blocked.
The problem was named after an incident in 1996 in which AOL's dirty-word filter prevented residents of the town of Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, England from creating accounts with AOL, because the town's name contains the substring cunt." (Wikipedia)
January 5, 2013
deinonychus commented on the word wetting layer
"In experimental physics, a wetting layer is an initial layer of atoms that is epitaxially grown on a surface upon which self-assembled quantum dots or thin films are created." (Wikipedia)
December 30, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word quantum dot
"A quantum dot is a portion of matter (e.g., semiconductor) whose excitons are confined in all three spatial dimensions. Consequently, such materials have electronic properties intermediate between those of bulk semiconductors and those of discrete molecules." (Wikipedia)
And, apparantly, you can make earthworms procuce them.
December 30, 2012
deinonychus commented on the user soba4u
Spam in (bad) swedish! That's exotic...
December 30, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word cherpumple pie
But... Shouldn't it be made into a pie instead? That would make it a perfect meta-pie...
December 26, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word myzotrophy
It looks like I wanted to fit too much into that poor comment. But I like the idea that the internet is big enough to offer everyone extremely specialized entertainment...
December 17, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word myzotrophy
Ooh, cellular vampirism! (If people run out of ideas to make bad vampire movies from, this could inspire them to make one filmed entirely in microscope...)
From Wikipedia: "A classic example of myzocytosis is the feeding method of the infamous predatory ciliate, Didinium, where it is often depicted devouring a hapless Paramecium. The suctorian ciliates feed exclusively through myzocytosis, sucking out the cytoplasm of prey via superficially drinking straw-like pseudopodia."
(And Suctoria sounds to me like a name cruel children would invent from combining suck and Victoria. Here are some pretty animated gifs of them.)
December 17, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word brogrammer
Are bromanteaus like this one really pejorative? I would never use them (non-ironically) myself, but some people sure seem to think it's a good thing.
December 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list sweet-tooth-fairy
Oh, great! Then I don't have to make it myself...
December 8, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list sweet-tooth-fairy
Yes, where will it all end? But we must be brave, and continue to move on, further and further, towards the limit. (The human limit, that is, I guess it should be fairly simple to make some sort of computer script to do this... hmm... It could easily become an entire book... hmm...)
December 8, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word worm burden
Ooh, perfect for my parasitic list... (and I can't stop thinking that it's related to the diet of worms...)
December 6, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list sweet-tooth-fairy
Yes, do it! I think it's that kind of idea, that once you say it out loud, you have actually already started it...
December 5, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list weaponized-animals
Sure, go ahead and add them if you like. I think the best animals are the ones where I can imagine som sort of cyborg monster (like, the knife-footed frog is a frog with actual knives for feet) but other violent animals are also welcome.
December 5, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word advent calendar
At the risk of being spammy... I've made an advent calendar this year, with little stop motion animations for every day until Christmas. It's almost completely wordless, but if you like toys and decorations being sacreligious and/or silly you can see it here.
I grew up with multiple advent calendars myself. In Sweden there is a calendar that is related to a daily television show that most swedish children probably watch every day...
December 3, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word dream box
Wow! Reminds me of relaxing chamber, the box where you let your dead insects soften up a bit before you pin them up... (found
November 30, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word chicken-powered nuclear bomb
"One technical problem was that buried objects—especially during winter—can get very cold, and it was possible the mine would not have worked after some days underground, due to the electronics being too cold to operate properly. Various methods to get around this were studied, such as wrapping the bombs in insulating blankets. One particularly remarkable proposal suggested that live chickens should be included in the mechanism. The chickens would be sealed inside the casing, with a supply of food and water; they would remain alive for a week or so. The body heat given off by the chickens would, it seems, have been sufficient to keep all the relevant components at a working temperature. This proposal was sufficiently outlandish that it was taken as an April Fool's Day joke when the Blue Peacock file was declassified on April 1, 2004. Tom O'Leary, head of education and interpretation at the National Archives, replied to the media that, 'It does seem like an April Fool but it most certainly is not. The Civil Service does not do jokes.'" (Wikipedia)
November 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list weaponized-animals
I couldn't help making another list now, with zoomorphic-weapons...
November 17, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word peach sword stripe night moth
Is the sword made of peaches, or especially made for cutting peaches? (Or something completely different?)
November 17, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list weaponized-animals
Honorable mention: flail snail (found when exploring the addictive prefix search of Wikipedia.)
November 17, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word peach sword stripe night moth
It sounds like a bad translation of some strange anime, but...
"The Raspberry Bud Dagger Moth, Raspberry Bud Moth or Peach Sword Stripe Night Moth (Acronicta increta) is a moth of the family Noctuidae. It is distributed throughout the south of Canada and the United States down to Florida and Texas. The status of this species is disputed. Some authors regard Acronicta increta a synonym of Acronicta inclara." (Wikipedia)
November 17, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list weaponized-animals
Ooh, thanks for the kukri snake, I would never have found that myself since I didn't know what a kukri was.
November 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list weaponized-animals
Glad you all like it! And, of course, feel free to add your combatants.
(The club-foot whiting might be more dangerous than you think...)
November 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word knifetooth sawfish
Wow, knifetooth sawfish (Anoxypristis cuspidata) is so full of sharp things...
November 12, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word cut-throat finch
So, today I stumbled over this cut-throat finch (Amadina fasciata) and the jack-knifefish (Equetus lanceolatus), and I get the feeling that there is a list out there, waiting for me...
edit: I made a list of weaponized-animals, but now I feel that the finch doesn't really fit in... hmm...
November 12, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word chorea
So... en en en en, then?
November 7, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word caudal luring
"Caudal luring is the use of tail movements employed by a predator to attract prey animals. It is a form of mimicry classified formally as aggressive mimicry, but perhaps better described by the term feeding mimicry. The behavior is employed by a number of snake species and allegedly by two lizards, though other interpretations (e.g., distraction) seem more plausible for the lizards. Caudal luring also occurs in a shark, the tasselled wobbegong, Eucrossorinus dasypogon." (Wikipedia)
Seductive and lethal...
November 7, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word shocking pink dragon millipede
It sounds like a monster, but seems to be a real animal...
"The Shocking Pink Dragon Millipede (Desmoxytes purpurosea) is a spiny and toxic millipede named for its vivid pink color. First discovered in 2007 in the Hup Pa Tard limestone cavern in Thailand, within the Greater Mekong, the adult millipede is approximately 3 cm long and lives in the open on leaf litter. The millipedes have glands that produce hydrogen cyanide to protect them from predators, a fact advertised by their aposematic color. Because they produce cyanide, they smell like almonds." (Wikipedia)
November 5, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word common slug eater
"Duberria lutrix, or the common slug eater, is a small, ovoviviparous, molluscivorous, nonvenomous snake, which is endemic to Africa." (Wikipedia)
November 1, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list qi-words
today: no-eyed big-eyed wolf spider.
October 30, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word forcipule
"Forcipules are a unique feature found only in centipedes and in no other arthropods. The forcipules are modifications of the first pair of legs, forming a pincer-like appendage always found just behind the head. Forcipules are not true mouthparts, although they are used in the capture of prey items, injecting venom and holding onto captured prey. Venom glands run through a tube almost to the tip of each forcipule." (Wikipedia)
October 28, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word golly
"Hack up a golly" sounds disturbing as it is, but after those examples...
October 25, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word diplomatic pouch
I prefer to imagine this as some sort of special anatomical feature of diplomats...
October 21, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list the-sound-of-birds
There, tagged! (I was lazy and copy-pasted the bird names from Wikipedia, so now they're capitalized, even though I prefer them uncapitalized...)
October 19, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word cat-like mew
Is there a way to remove a tag? (This is a description of the sound of a white stork, not a shoebill, I wouldn't want to spread lies like this by accident. (I prefer my lies to be planned.))
October 19, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list the-sound-of-birds
That's a good idea, I'll try to do that. (And a forceful cooing is perfect!)
October 19, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word plaintive woo-OO-oo-oo-oo call
"Did you mean plaintive woo-oo-oo-oo-oo call or plaintive woo oo oo oo oo call?"
Of course not!
October 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word greatest known penis length relative to body size
"Deep water squid have the greatest known penis length relative to body size of all mobile animals, second in the entire animal kingdom only to certain sessile barnacles." (Wikipedia)
October 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word temporal slices of spacetime worms
Ooh, I like this even better than spacetime surgery!
October 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word spacetime surgery
"Matt Visser has described a way of visualising wormhole geometry:
- take a 'normal' region of space
- 'surgically remove' spherical volumes from two regions ('spacetime surgery')
- associate the two spherical bleeding edges, so that a line attempting to enter one 'missing' spherical volume encounters one bounding surface and then continues outward from the other."
(Wikipedia)
October 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word terms of service
I like the sound of pornologic! (Even though it's unnecessary when you have -graphic. Maybe you can use some sort of pseudoetymology to claim that pornography is just one (extreme) form of calligraphy...)
About vulgar, If they mean "adj. Of or associated with the great masses of people; common." there might problems... (that get worse as Wordnik gets more users...)
October 11, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word terms of service
I appreciated (and read!) the terms as well. But I'm a bit confused about not being able to
"Post, upload, publish, submit or transmit any text, graphics, images, software, music, audio, video, information or other material that: ... (iv) is defamatory, obscene, pornographic, vulgar or offensive".
Surely "vulgar" and "pornographic" lists or words can't be banned? Is there a legal interpretation of these words that I'm not aware of?
October 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list qi-words
Good idea! Just watching two episodes made me feel the need for this kind of list (but so far I have managed to put the words in my existing lists...).
October 8, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word virgin externa
"Sacculina larvae are dioecious. The male larvae are often smaller than those of the females. The life cycle begins with the female cyprid invading the crabs and then developing into a parasite with an internal root system (interna). Once the interna matures, it will develop a reproductive body outside the crabs through the abdominal part called the virgin externa. Male cyprids will then enter the virgin externa, which give rise to a fertilized externa with the eggs brooding inside it. Larvae will then be released via the externa once the eggs became mature." (Found here.)
October 8, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word awk
Being left-handed, I find these "synonyms" a bit insulting. (But I guess singular and distinguished are nice...)
October 4, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list thigmo-words
Do you have a list of the favorite prefixes of the years after that? (Or the years before?)
October 3, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word rapid plant movement
Like a triffid, then? (I love that there is a Wikipedia list of fictional plants...)
October 2, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word early
I'm trying to be more of an affirmative action fabulist, since I believe that some groups deserve special lying attention.
October 1, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word branchial heart
"Branchial hearts are myogenic accessory pumps found in coleoid cephalopods that supplement the action of the main, systemic heart. Each consists of a single chamber and they are always paired, being located at the base of the gills. They pump blood through the gills via the afferent branchial veins." (Wikipedia)
October 1, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list carl-friedrich-gauss
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_topics_named_after_Carl_Friedrich_Gauss (or is that cheating?)
September 30, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word love dart
"A love dart (also known as a gypsobelum) is a hard, long, sharp, calcareous or chitinous dart which some hermaphroditic land snails and slugs create. Love darts are made in sexually mature animals only, and are used as part of the sequence of events during courtship, before actual mating takes place. Darts are quite large compared to the size of the animal: in the case of the semi-slug genus Parmarion, the length of a dart can be up to one fifth that of the semi-slug's foot." (Wikipedia)
September 30, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word pseudopupil
"In the compound eye of invertebrates such as insects and crustaceans, the pseudopupil appears as a dark spot which moves across the eye as the animal is rotated. This occurs because the ommatidia which one observes 'head-on' (along their optical axes) absorb the incident light, while those to one side reflect it. The pseudopupil therefore reveals which ommatidia are aligned with the axis along which the observer is viewing." (Wikipedia)
September 30, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word prefenestrated
"Sir, at this moment, you should consider yourself prefenestrated!"(SMBC comics)
September 29, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list gleaned-words
Ah, yes, it's quite a mess... Not sure where to start scrubbing.
September 29, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Neverland
"The Neverland gene makes a protein of the same name, which converts cholesterol into 7-dehydrocholesterol. This chemical reaction is the first of many that leads to ecdysone – a hormone that all insects need to transform from a larva into an adult. Most species make their own ecdysone but D.pachea is ill-equipped. Because of its Neverland mutations, the manufacturing process fails at the very first step. Without intervention, the fly would be permanently stuck in larval mode. Hence the name, Neverland—fly genes are named after what happens to the insect when the gene is broken." (Not Exactly Rocket Science)
September 29, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list herring
Or maybe a LED herring (glowing stonger than the dead herring)?
September 27, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Explosions-Polka
"Explosions-Polka, op. 43, is a polka written by Johann Strauss II in 1847. The title was inspired by a discovery of guncotton or nitrocellulose by German scientist Christian Friedrich Schönbein in 1840. The Viennese press eagerly reported this discovery many years later in 1846, describing many products that can then be made 'explosive'." (Wikipedia)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It4VAl4JFH0
September 27, 2012
deinonychus commented on the user deinonychus
Lying! To children! About dinosaurs! And taxonomy! Well, I guess that's one of the privileges of being a parent...
September 27, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word coronary steal
Coronary steal (with its symptoms termed cardiac steal syndrome) is a phenomenon where an alteration of circulation patterns lead to a reduction in the blood directed to the coronary circulation. It is caused when there is narrowing of the coronary arteries and a coronary vasodilator is used - 'stealing' blood away from those parts of the heart. (Wikipedia)
I think there's potential for some nice Valentine's Day cards somwhere around here...
September 27, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word uterine milk
"In sharks and rays, the term ovoviviparity has recently been deprecated in favor of aplacental viviparity. Authors may regard the two terms as synonymous, or equate ovoviviparity only with aplacental yolk-sac viviparity, in which the embryos are solely sustained by yolk (as opposed to secondary provisioning by their mother in the form of 'uterine milk', such as in the stingrays, or unfertilized eggs, such as in the mackerel sharks; the latter is referred to as intrauterine oophagy).
There is a wide range of forms of intrauterine provisioning however, which could complicate the classification. In at least some sharks the routine intrauterine oophagy is not limited to unfertilised or trophic eggs, in various forms and in in some the principle extends to actual intrauterine cannibalism."
(Wikipedia)
September 26, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list herring
In this blog post about bioluminescence, they quote The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald:
"An idiosyncrasy peculiar to the herring is that, when dead, it begins to glow; this property, which resembles phosphorescence and is yet altogether different, peaks a few days after death and then ebbs away as the fish decays. For a long time no one could account for this glowing of the lifeless herring, and indeed I believe that it still remains unexplained. Around 1870, when projects for the total illumination of our cities were everywhere afoot, two English scientists with the apt names of Herrington and Lightbown investigated the unusual phenomenon in the hope that the luminous substance exuded by dead herrings would lead to a formula for an organic source of light that had the capacity to regenerate itself. The failure of this eccentric undertaking, as I read some time ago in a history of artificial light, constituted no more than a negligible setback in the relentless conquest of darkness."
I have a feeling that the dead herring is somehow related to the (more famous) red herring.
September 26, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word snus
"Did you mean anus?" No, I did not...
September 26, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word tappen
Good! I feel at home here. (Home is where my words are?)
Netto is net (as opposed to gross) and snus is... snus. So they're saying that they sell cheap snus. I'd rather have some fufluns.
September 26, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word tit juice conjunctivitis
Thanks for that link! Reminded me of the SpeechJammer that really needs to be listed somewhere. Perhaps it's a good weapon for a superhero...
September 26, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word penis speed painting
The artist "Pricasso" paints portraits "in 20 minutes using only his penis as a brush." His web page is obviously NSFW...
September 26, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word herpes gladiatorum
"Herpes Gladiatorum is one of the most infectious of herpes-caused diseases, and is transmissible by skin-to-skin contact."
"While the disease is commonly passed through normal human contact, it is strongly associated with contact sports — outbreaks in sporting clubs being relatively common. Other names for the disease are herpes rugbiorum or 'scrumpox' (after rugby football), 'wrestler's herpes' or 'mat pox' (after wrestling)."
(Wikipedia)
September 25, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word tappen
Passing this yesterday, I realized that I needed to share this with... well, someone, and Wordnik might be the right place for it. I've always thought this sign was a bit disturbing, even before I knew the word tappen in English. ("Godis" means candy, and "tappen" means the gas station (in Swedish)).
September 25, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word bathtub Madonna
"A bathtub Madonna (also known as a lawn shrine, Mary on the half shell, bathtub Mary, and bathtub shrine) is an artificial grotto typically framing a Roman Catholic religious figure." (Wikipedia)
September 24, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word beefy meaty peptide
"Beefy meaty peptide, also known as delicious peptide and abbreviated as BMP, is an 8-amino acid long peptide that has been identified as giving a beefy flavor to foods in which it is present." (Wikipedia)
September 24, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word tit juice conjunctivitis
Found in this chart.
September 24, 2012
deinonychus commented on the user deinonychus
I guess I'm more of a dinosaur (if that was the question). I wasn't even aware of the Dutch doom metal band (now on my list of disappointing-wikipedia-links)!
September 23, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Bitter electromagnet
"A Bitter electromagnet or Bitter solenoid is a type of electromagnet used in scientific research to create extremely strong magnetic fields. Bitter electromagnets have been used to produce some of the strongest continuous manmade magnetic fields on earth (up to 35 teslas as of 2008)." (Wikipedia) Named after Francis Bitter.
September 22, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Darwinian demon
"A Darwinian Demon is a hypothetical organism that can maximize all aspects of fitness simultaneously and would exist if the evolution of species was entirely unconstrained. Such organisms would reproduce directly after being born, produce infinitely many offspring, and live indefinitely. Even though no such organisms exist, biologists use Darwinian Demons in thought experiments to understand different life history strategies among different organisms." (Wikipedia)
September 22, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list plant-diseases
Oh... I didn't find this list until I had listed 20 diseases in my own list. Probably going to steal some (or most) of these!
September 22, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Erdős-Bacon-Sabbath number
Cool. It would be nice to have at least one of those numbers...
September 21, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word sloth moth
"Sloth moth is a generic term used to refer to coprophagous moths which have evolved to exclusively inhabit the fur of sloths and to use sloth dung as a substrate for the early stages of reproduction." (Wikipedia)
"The large variety of arthropods associated with sloths comprise two distinct feeding guilds – the haematophagous guild, represented by biting flies and ticks, and the coprophagous guild which comprises a unique assemblage of moths, beetles and mites which utilize the sloth principally for phoresis and whose larval stages feed and develop in the dung of the host sloth." (Wikipedia)
September 20, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word obelisk posture
"The obelisk posture is a handstand-like position that some dragonflies and damselflies assume to prevent overheating on sunny days. The abdomen is raised until its tip points at the sun, minimizing the surface area exposed to solar radiation. When the sun is close to directly overhead, the vertical alignment of the insect's body suggests an obelisk." (Wikipedia)
September 17, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word hog oiler
I started at Wikipedia, and from there I got to a five page article about a collector of hog oilers ("His vanity plate on his Dodge pickup, though, reveals why he'd rather attend the latter instead of the former: HOGOILR"), and he's not the only one.
September 17, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list remarkable-wikipedia-categories
The list of dreams.
September 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word slender snipe eel
I'm also impressed by your memory! I find it hard just to remember my own, but I'm gradually adding a few other lists to my mental meta-list...
September 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word slender snipe eel
"The slender snipe eel, Nemichthys scolopaceus, sometimes referred to as the deep sea duck, is a fish that can weigh only a few ounces, yet reach 5 feet or 1.5 m in length. Features include a bird-like beak with curving tips, covered with tiny hooked teeth, which they use to sweep through the water to catch shrimp and other crustaceans. It has a lifespan of ten years.
It has more vertebrae in its backbone than any other animal, around 750. However, its anus has moved forward during its evolution and is now located on its throat. Its larvae are shaped like leaves, which actually get smaller before transforming into adults."
(Wikipedia)
September 13, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word pigbutt worm
"The pigbutt worm or flying buttocks (Chaetopterus pugaporcinus) is a newly discovered species of worm found by scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. The worm is round in shape, approximately the size of a hazelnut, and bears a strong resemblance to a disembodied pair of buttocks. Because of this, it was given a Latin species name that roughly translates to 'resembling a pig's rear.'" (Wikipedia)
It's almost too perfect for my insulting-animals list...
September 12, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list remarkable-wikipedia-categories
I really, really love this list!
Here's another one: List of Guano Island claims.
September 6, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word tempest prognosticator
"The tempest prognosticator, also known as the leech barometer, is a 19th-century invention by George Merryweather in which leeches are used in a barometer. The twelve leeches are kept in small bottles inside the device; when they become agitated by an approaching storm they attempt to climb out of the bottles and trigger a small hammer which strikes a bell. The likelihood of a storm is indicated by the number of times the bell is struck." (Wikipedia)
September 3, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word dessin d'enfant
"In mathematics, a dessin d'enfant (French for a 'child's drawing', plural dessins d'enfants, 'children's drawings') is a type of graph drawing used to study Riemann surfaces and to provide combinatorial invariants for the action of the absolute Galois group of the rational numbers." (Wikipedia)
September 3, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Cox-Zucker machine
"The algorithm was first published in the 1979 paper 'Intersection numbers of sections of elliptic surfaces' by Cox and Zucker and it was later named the "Cox–Zucker machine" by Charles Schwartz in 1984." (Wikipedia)
More of that sort here: http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume14/v14i3/v14i3.html#BoysBoys
September 2, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word tamponade
When life gives you tampons...
September 2, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word death-inducing signaling complex
"The death-inducing signaling complex or DISC is a multi-protein complex formed by members of the 'death receptor' family of apoptosis-inducing cellular receptors." (From Wikipedia where it's illustrated by a rather cute diagram.)
September 1, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word cow blowing
"Cow blowing, Kuhblasen, or doom dev, is a process used in many countries according to ethnographers, in which forceful blowing of air into a cow's vagina (or sometimes anus) is applied to induce her to produce more milk." (Wikipedia)
August 31, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word tremble dance
"The tremble dance of the honeybee is similar to the waggle dance, but is used by a forager when the foraging bee perceives a long delay in unloading its nectar or a shortage of receiver bees, sometimes due to low numbers of receiver bees. It may also spread the scent released during the forager's waggle dance. Like the waggle dance, the tremble dance is likely one of two 'primary regulation mechanisms' for regulating bee colony behavior at the group level, and one of four or five observed mechanisms known to be used by honeybees to change the task allocation among worker bees. The consumption of ethanol by foraging bees has been shown to increase the occurrence of the tremble dance while decreasing the occurrence of the waggle dance." (Wikipedia)
August 29, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word frustrated Lewis pair
That poor, frustrated pair!
August 28, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word law of the gut
"The Law of the gut is the theory of gastrointestinal motility developed by Dr. William Jacobus at the University of Toledo College of Medicine. The Law of the Gut states 'The peristaltic wave of gastrointestinal smooth muscle contraction begins at the oral end and moves to the anal end'." (Wikipedia)
August 28, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list remarkable-wikipedia-categories
...and the list of patron saints of ailments, illness and dangers.
August 27, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word doubt deficit
"...hypothesizing that focal damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) would cause a 'doubt deficit' that would result in higher credulity and purchase intention for consumer products featured in misleading advertisements." (full article here.)
August 27, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Wiener sausage
"In the mathematical field of probability, the Wiener sausage is a neighborhood of the trace of a Brownian motion up to a time t, given by taking all points within a fixed distance of Brownian motion. It can be visualized as a sausage of fixed radius whose centerline is Brownian motion. The Wiener sausage was named after Norbert Wiener..." (Wikipedia)
August 22, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list fungous
And I'm pleased to find someone else who can appreciate it! My studies of mycology is mostly limited to periods of frenetic Wikipedia browsing... (And some basic knowledge of edible and poisonous ones, I actually picked some today!) Feel free to add words that you find suitable.
August 21, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list my-favorite-illegal-words
I like the deanthropomorphizer, I think it may be a suitable weapon for my superhero list...
August 20, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list mollusks
Killing things with something called "Genesis"? That's... interesting.
August 20, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list the-bible-in-anglish
I don't know what to say. But I do love it.
August 17, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list remarkable-wikipedia-categories
List of chess openings named after animals.
(I think my favourites are Hippopotamus Defence, Monkey's Bum, Pterodactyl Variation and Fried Fox Variation.)
August 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list things-weve-seen-moved-by-ants
Wow! I wish I had something to put on this list... (Will keep my eyes open from now on.)
August 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word gunnel
It's also a rather common name (among women in their sixties) in Sweden...
July 30, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word mistpouffer
Ooh, how did I miss that word when I was reading the list of unexplained sounds?
July 23, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list bubbles--1
"Bubblenests, also spelled bubble nests or bubble-nests, created by some fish species, are floating masses of bubbles blown with an oral secretion, saliva bubbles, and occasionally aquatic plants, or an area for egg deposit attached at the bottom. Fish that build and guard bubble nests are known as aphrophils." (Wikipedia)
July 21, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word lovely hatchetfish
A fish, Argyropelecus aculeatus. After seeing some pictures, I think it is rather lovely, but perhaps not in the most conventional way...
July 21, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word robovirus
I was hoping for something with robots, but... "A robovirus is a zoonotic virus that is transmitted by a rodent." (Wikipedia)
July 21, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word exploding chocolate
My eye was caught by the tasty-soundning word combination "chocolate bomb" in a headline...
July 21, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word trueair
Exactly! Or it might be the next logical step after bottled water.
July 20, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word trueair
Sounds like a possible product from a dystopian corporation. TrueAir™.
July 20, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list winged-jewels
And how about marvellous spatuletail and fiery-throated metaltail?
July 19, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list barbed-wire
Great list! I had to google the book title, and was surprised (even though I should have known better) by all the museums and collectors out there, such as The Antique Barbed Wire Society that teaches me that "happiness is being a barbed wire collector"...
July 19, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word lumpsucker
I don't take orders from a buff-bellied fat-tailed mouse opossum, you pseudo-babbler of an eel-mother! But I will make a list of insulting-animals.
July 19, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word lumpsucker
Is there such a list? Or was that a suggestion to make one?
July 19, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word iecur ficatus
Sounds like a disease...
July 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list words-i-wish-i-didnt-know
A dare! Thank you, looks like I have an interesting night ahead of me.
July 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list words-i-wish-i-didnt-know
I really like this idea! I haven't read the words yet, knowing that I won't be able to unread them. But I don't think I have much choice...
July 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word adhesive pelvic disc
"Toad and Pacific spiny lumpsuckers demonstrating adhesive pelvic discs."
July 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word spongin
I prefer to think of this as a verb: spongin'.
July 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word shame-faced crab
"The name box crab comes from their distinctly bulky carapace, and the name shame-faced is from anthropomorphising the way the crab's chelae (claws) fold up and cover its face, as if it were hiding its face in shame." (Wikipedia)
July 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list planktonicon
Yes, sometimes (most times?) just seeing/reading something isn't enough!
(And putting plankton on a list seems so much more convenient than filling up my (all to limited) physical space.)
July 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list name-name
...and now I find Volva volva just one day later!
July 17, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list mollusca
Yes, I know! Thanks for the tip. That's an intimidatingly long list, but that's a good thing, I guess...
(Recently I've started to make more specific lists out of my big, chaotic animalistic list, and I keep finding that it's been done before. But my lists haven't been done, so I keep going...)
July 17, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list planktonicon
Four years later, I don't know if this list is still alive, but I've found some plankton, and don't know where to put it: megaplankton, femtoplankton (and everything in between on this list).
July 17, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list sick-animals
Good idea! (And compulsively I start looking for more diseases...)
At first I thougt that all theese bands would be aggressive, perhaps punk (bag of worms) or some sort of metal (dancing doberman disease). But peste des petits ruminants sounds very sweet.
Both chronic wasting disease and heartwater have some emo feeling to them. But what kind of music will floppy trunk syndrome play?
July 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list name-name
I have been impressed by this list for some time now, and today i finally found something to add: the fly Anthrax anthrax.
July 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list geologic
I'm not the only one... http://xkcd.com/1082/
July 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list waves-and-waveforms
I just found som nice wavelets: Hermitian hat wavelet, Mexican hat wavelet and complex Mexican hat wavelet. (I will add them, but thought that they deserved some attention, at least I have problem noticing new words on my lists...)
July 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word gravity train
"A gravity train is a theoretical means of transportation intended to go between two points on the surface of a sphere, following a straight tunnel that goes directly from one point to the other through the interior of the sphere." (Wikipedia)
(Is it OK to post a colourful animated gif here? Feels a bit sacreligious and disturbing... But it's such a happy little illustration!)
July 12, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word pale daggerwing
Not quite ready yet, but I guess it is inevitable...
July 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list crawling-out-the-woodwork
Nice list! (I found it from the amazing pleasing fungus beetle.)
July 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word copremesis
Googling the butterfly species small brown emesis reminded me of this. (I appreciate a butterfly that has a disgusting name, most of them are just too cute.)
July 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list remarkable-wikipedia-categories
A list of animals named after (other) animals.
July 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word pale daggerwing
Oh, I find names for that list all the time, so let me know if you find it! (Or I'll have to create it myself.) Just now I found dark wanderer and pale wanderer too.
July 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word pale daggerwing
I can't decide wich one of harmonia daggerwing or pale daggerwing (both names for Marpesia harmonia) sounds more like a fantasy character...
July 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word friendly fly
The friendly fly (Sarcophaga aldrichi) or large flesh fly is also called "government fly" because there is a belief that the government is releasing them.
Better to have around than the ironic fly, perhaps?
July 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the user ruzuzu
Thanks for the red admiral! By the way, I borrowed some of your spiders for my own little collection.
July 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word floppy trunk syndrome
"Floppy trunk syndrome (abbreviated FTS, also known as flaccid trunk paralysis) is a condition that causes trunk paralysis in African bush elephants. Initially observed in 1989, the syndrome primarily affected bull elephants in several select regions in Zimbabwe. Afflicted elephants exhibit paralysis in their trunk, often having to adapt to feed. The loss of their trunks' prehensile abilities results in malnutrition and possibly death." (Wikipedia)
July 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word frog battery
"A frog battery is an electrochemical battery consisting of a number of dead frogs (or sometimes live ones), which form the cells of the battery connected in a series arrangement. It is a kind of biobattery. It was used in early scientific investigations of electricity and academic demonstrations.
The principle behind the battery is the injury potential created in a muscle when it is damaged, although this was not fully understood at the time; the potential being caused incidentally due to the dissection of the frog's muscles.
The frog battery is an example of a class of biobatteries which can be made from any number of animals. The general term for an example of this class is the muscular pile."
From this Wikipedia article where there's also some amazing illustrations of frog batteries and an ox-head battery.
July 9, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list winged-jewels
Wow! There are so many of them. And they are all so glittery and glamourous.
July 9, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word priapium
"Male priapiumfish don't have a penis like humans and other mammals. Instead they have a unique organ called a priapium, which faces backwards and looks like a muscular nozzle. It's actually a modification of the fish's pectoral and pelvic fins.
The priapium of P. cuulong has two attachments, both of which look frankly dangerous. At the bottom near the tip, there is a forward-facing serrated saw, or ctenactinium. Further forward, right under the head, there is a forward-facing rod called the toxactinium."
("The fish with its genitals on its head")
July 8, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word anal fork
"...golden tortoise beetles, as larvae, protect themselves by sticking old skin and faecal matter to their anal forks – otherwise known as faecal parasols – to form a shield" (Found here.)
July 8, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word truck nutz
When I read this Wondermark comic I was pleased that I had already heard about truck nutz here first. Don't know why really, but I guess it confirmed that I learn so much here...
July 8, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word air loom
"Matthews believed that a gang of criminals and spies skilled in 'pneumatic chemistry' had taken up residence at London Wall in Moorfields (close to Bethlem) and were tormenting him by means of rays emitted by a machine called the 'Air Loom'. The torments induced by the rays included 'Lobster-cracking', during which the circulation of the blood was prevented by a magnetic field; 'Stomach-skinning'; and 'Apoplexy-working with the nutmeg grater' which involved the introduction of fluids into the skull. His persecutors bore such names as 'the Middleman' (who operated the Air Loom), 'the Glove Woman' and 'Sir Archy' (who acted as 'repeaters' or 'active worriers' to enhance Matthews' torment or record the machine's activities) and their leader, a man called 'Bill, or the King'." (Wikipedia)
(And after reading that, I would really like to read the book titled Illustrations of Madness: Exhibiting a Singular Case of Insanity, And a No Less Remarkable Difference in Medical Opinions: Developing the Nature of An Assailment, And the Manner of Working Events; with a Description of Tortures Experienced by Bomb-Bursting, Lobster-Cracking and Lengthening the Brain. Embellished with a Curious Plate by John Haslam.)
July 3, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Lövheim cube of emotion
Definitely theremin-heavy! To bad that the movie won't spontaneously become real just by me seeing it very clearly in my head...
July 3, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Lövheim cube of emotion
The Lövheim cube of emotion is "a proposed theoretical model aiming at explaining the relationship between the monoamine neurotransmitters and the emotions." (Wikipedia)
I really think this sounds like something from some (rather sleazy) sci-fi (from the 70s). With Löv pronounced as love, of course.
July 2, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word gapeworm
Sounds like it, but I think porn sites usually aren't very creative. When I first heard about nudibranchs I thought the same thing...
June 26, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word gapeworm
"The worms are also known as red worms or forked worms due to their red color and the permanent procreative conjunction of males and females." (Wikipedia)
June 25, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word unicorn grenadier
A fish, Coelorinchus productus.
June 24, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list outcasts
Interesting. Hope you get it to work!
I think I will have to try a bit of script making soon. Don't know exactly what I want it to do yet, but there is some sort of magic that can happen when you release something to work automatically...
June 19, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list honeyed
Very cannibalistic. (Does eating hair qualify as cannibalism?) I like it.
June 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list outcasts
I really like the idea. Are ther any other automatically generated lists around here somewhere?
June 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word gorgeous barb
A fish, Clypeobarbus bellcrossi.
June 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Impressive syndrome
"Hyperkalemic periodic paralysis (HYPP, HyperKPP) is a genetic disorder which occurs in both humans and horses, where it is also known as Impressive syndrome."
"Equine hyperkalaemic periodic paralysis occurs in 1 in 50 quarter horses and can be traced to a single ancestor, a stallion named Impressive."
(Wikipedia)
June 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word tube-lipped nectar bat
Here is a slow motion video of the tube-lipped nectar bat, showing its disturingly long tongue (that is longer than its entire body length).
June 17, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word ironic fly
"Ironomyiidae or ironic flies, are a small family of insects of the order Diptera." (Wikipedia doesn't say why they are ironic...)
June 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word mad hatter disease
Not related to the Alice in Wonderland syndrome...
"Mad hatter disease describes the symptoms of mercury poisoning, specifically its effect on the nervous system. These include paraesthesias, vision and hearing impairment, slurred speech, anxiety, hallucinations, irritability, depression, lack of coordination, and tremors. The condition was observed among workers in the hat-making industry in the 19th century. Chronic mercury exposure was common in hatters who used a mercury solution during the process of curing animal pelts." (Wikipedia)
June 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list the-porn-birds
...and the creamy-rumped miner.
June 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Münchausen by Internet
A type of factitious disorder or Münchausen syndrome by proxy. (Wikipedia)
June 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word sterile insect technique
"The sterile insect technique is a method of biological control, whereby overwhelming numbers of sterile insects are released. The released insects are normally male as it is the female that causes the damage, usually by laying eggs in the crop, or, in the case of mosquitoes, taking a bloodmeal from humans. The sterile males compete with the wild males for female insects. If a female mates with a sterile male then it will have no offspring, thus reducing the next generation's population." (Wikipedia)
(But I think it sounds like some sort of dangerous martial arts technique...)
June 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word succussion splash
Etymology: L, succutere, to shake up; ME, plasche, puddle
the sound elicited by shaking the body of a person who has free fluid and air or gas in a hollow organ or body cavity. This sound may be present over a normal stomach but also may be heard with hydropneumothorax, large hiatal hernia, or intestinal or pyloric obstruction.
From TheFreeDictionary.
June 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word didymo
Cool! Perfect for my new single-celled list...
June 9, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word copremesis
flourmilling is definitely spamming, but I must say there is some poetry in it too... (maybe my spam filters are too good, since I don't get enough of it)
June 8, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word cow magnet
Hm. I'm sorry flourmilling, but there seems be some sort of problem with your punchline...
June 8, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word mattress
All those names sound kind of scary, but in very different ways. I really don't see why anyone would want conformity or sports in their bed. Spine align could be a torture method, but nature's touch is definitely the worst...
June 8, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word cow magnet
Wow... Makes me wonder if there are more interesting things I should know about that contains both cows and magnetism.
June 6, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Negativicutes
The Negativicutes is a class of firmicute bacteria...
June 6, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word depression cake
Perfect for a birthday you don't want to celebrate. Wikipedia has a recipe.
June 6, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list •open-list-the-holy-pantheon-of-wtf
Just found chicken eyeglasses on Wikipedia, and thought of this list.
"A common variety uses rose-colored lenses, the coloring thought to keep a chicken wearing them from recognizing blood on other chickens, which naturally causes an attack instinct."
June 6, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word extinction cross
Sounds like something for a crusade, but is "an optical phenomenon that is seen when trying to extinguish a laser beam or non-planar white light using crossed polarizers". (Wikipedia)
June 6, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word cow magnet
"When the cow grazes, it often consumes and swallows what is called tramp iron: baling and barbed wire, staples, nails, and other metallic objects. These objects are indigestible and would lodge in the reticulum and cause inflammation resulting in lower milk production (for dairy cattle) or lower weight gain (for feeder stock). This condition is called hardware disease.
The cow magnet attracts such objects and prevents them from becoming lodged in the animal's tissue. While the resultant mass of iron remains in the cow's rumen as a pseudobezoar (an intentionally introduced bezoar), it does not cause the severe problems of hardware disease. Cow magnets cannot be passed through a cow's 4th bonivial meta-colon." (Wikipedia)
June 6, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list remarkable-wikipedia-categories
How about the list of bacterial genera named after mythological creatures?
June 5, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Cryptocaryon irritans
"Cryptocaryon irritans (also known as marine white spot disease or marine ich) is a species of ciliate protozoa that parasitizes marine fish, and is one of the most common causes of disease in marine aquaria." (Wikipedia)
June 5, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Mixotricha paradoxa
From Wikipedia:
Mixotricha paradoxa is a species of protozoan that lives inside the termite species Mastotermes darwiniensis and has multiple bacterial symbionts. The name, given by the Australian biologist J.L. Sutherland, who first described Mixotricha in 1933, means “the paradoxical being with mixed-up hairs”.
June 5, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word fornicate
Also a protist, member of the clade Fornicata, that is part of Excavata.
June 5, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word shorthead redhorse
A fish, Moxostoma macrolepidotum.
June 2, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word question mark
Also a butterfly, Polygonia interrogationis.
June 2, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word invasivore
Eating invasive species. Found here: http://grist.org/list/queen-of-england-to-eat-invasive-species-pie/
June 2, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word clown toado
A fish, Canthigaster callisterna.
(I think toado sounds like a good clown name.)
June 2, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word honey blue-eye
A fish, Pseudomugil mellis.
June 2, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list genes--1
Since I got a bit carried away and added more than 900 Drosophila melanogaster genes, I think this list is big enough to accommodate all your Genes and Jeans and jeans and Eugenes ...
June 2, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list genes--1
Great, feel free to add it! When I was looking for son killer at FlyBase, I found daugter killer instead...
Are you a biologist of some sort, hernesheir? (I'm not, just fascinated...)
June 1, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word phantom shiner
A fish, Notropis orca.
June 1, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word tinman
Soo... I couldn't wait any longer so now I have a list of genes.
I hope to find some good ones here, and FlyBase seems very, very comprehensive...
May 31, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word nuptial flight
"Nuptial flight is an important phase in the reproduction of most ant, termite and some bee species. During the flight, virgin queens mate with males and then land to start a new colony, or, in the case of honey bees, continue the succession of an existing hived colony." (Wikipedia)
May 31, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word tinman
Oh, I love genes with funny names. Is there perhaps a list somewhere?
May 31, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word spiderhunter
I think it sounds like a fantasy character, but Wikipedia says:
"The spiderhunters are birds of the genus Arachnothera, part of the sunbird family Nectariniidae. The genus contains eleven species found in the forests of south and southeastern Asia. They are large representatives of the sunbird family, with drab plumage and long strongly curved bills. They feed on both nectar and a range of small arthropods."
May 31, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list •open-list-the-holy-pantheon-of-wtf
I love how every word on this list leads me to a story, and a new wtf experience.
May 28, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word rubble pile
"In astronomy, a rubble pile is an object that is not a monolith, consisting instead of numerous pieces of rock that have coalesced under the influence of gravity. Rubble piles have low density because there are large cavities between the various 'chunks' that make them up." (Wikipedia)
May 28, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list remarkable-wikipedia-categories
List of blood sports.
(And thanks for pointing me in the direction of tappens, ruzuzu...)
May 22, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word star-algebra
*-algebra is possible to list, but not possible to get to.
May 22, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word pharyngeal jaw
Read it here...
May 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word hyperbolic discounting
"Individuals using hyperbolic discounting reveal a strong tendency to make choices that are inconsistent over time—they make choices today that their future self would prefer not to make, despite using the same reasoning. This dynamic inconsistency happens because the value of future rewards is much lower under hyperbolic discounting than under exponential discounting." (Wikipedia)
I found it here: http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/10/27/procrastination
May 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list the-porn-birds
So... When I got one bird added, I couldn't help collecting some of the other ones I've stumbled upon:
pink-rumped rosefinch, pink-breasted lark, pink cockatoo, fire-capped tit, tit-babbler, fluffy-backed tit-babbler, rosy-faced lovebird, peach-faced lovebird, red-headed lovebird...
May 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word dog-toothed cat snake
Not a real chimera, but a snake, Boiga cynodon.
May 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word pink pussytoes
A plant, Antennaria microphylla. It is also known by other names, that all sound like characters from a fairy tale: littleleaf pussytoes, rosy pussytoes, pink pussytoes, small pussytoes, dwarf everlasting.
May 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word kissing number
"In geometry, a kissing number is defined as the number of non-overlapping unit spheres that touch another given unit sphere." (Wikipedia)
May 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word hedgehog space
Some Wikipedian poetry:
"In mathematics, a hedgehog space is a topological space, consisting of a set of spines joined at a point."
"A K-hedgehog space is sometimes called a hedgehog space of spininess K."
"Hedgehog spaces are examples of real trees."
May 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word blood agar
One type of blood agar is chocolate agar. Hm. Is there a list for words that sound like candy but are not?
May 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Ped-O-Jet
Had to list this after seeing this:
The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed):
Jet injector
Medicine in Star Trek
(I'm really in a spamming mode at the moment, hope you don't mind that I'm clogging the stream om "latest comments" completely...)
May 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word mean anomaly
I know! I really prefer the eccentric anomaly.
May 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word escort service in delhi,call girls in delhi,nightcallgirls in delhi,independent escorts in delhi,five star hotel escorts in delhi,delhi escorts,delhi call girls
Love the tags! (The non-spam ones, that is.) A very subtle way of fighting back.
May 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list bubbles--1
Added some more bubbles... (Wikipedia's prefix search is addictive!)
May 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word multiocular O
From Wikipedia: Multiocular O (ꙮ) is the most rare and exotic glyph variant of Cyrillic letter O. This glyph variant can be found in certain manuscripts in the phrase «серафими многоꙮчитїи» ("many-eyed seraphim").
May 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list remarkable-wikipedia-categories
And now i find a list of long proofs and the list of extremely hazardous substances...
May 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list remarkable-wikipedia-categories
List of unexplained sounds (or the more specific List of unexplained booms).
May 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list math-eponyms
Nice list! Mr Reo Fortune will now be introduced to my friends in my list of eponymous persons I find funny.
May 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word cat’s whisker detector
Same as a crystal detector.
May 13, 2012
deinonychus commented on the user SAMRAT9990477102
"414. That’s an error.
The requested URL /mail/... is too large to process. That’s all we know."
A way to get away with spam?
May 13, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list the-porn-birds
Great list! I keep finding porn birds everywhere, most recently the rough-faced shag...
May 13, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word mean anomaly
"In celestial mechanics, the mean anomaly is a parameter relating position and time for a body moving in a Kepler orbit. It is based on the fact that equal areas are swept at the focus in equal intervals of time."
"The mean anomaly is one of three angular parameters ('anomalies') that define a position along an orbit; the other two being the eccentric anomaly and the true anomaly."
(Wikipedia)
May 12, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word porkchop plot
"Porkchop plot (also pork-chop plot) is a chart that shows contours of equal characteristic energy (C3) against combinations of launch date and arrival date for a particular interplanetary flight." (Wikipedia)
May 12, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word sweetmeat
Accidentally read about sweetbread on Wikipedia. Read that it should not be confused with sweetmeat. Both these words confuse/disgust me now. In a good way.
May 12, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word knobs into holes packing
"Knobs into holes packing is a protein packing motif that occurs mainly in alpha helix or coiled coil domains. One such example is fibrinogen fibril formation." (Wikipedia)
May 12, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word coiled coil
"A coiled coil is a structural motif in proteins, in which 2-7 alpha-helices are coiled together like the strands of a rope (dimers and trimers are the most common types)." (Wikipedia)
May 12, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word RING finger
"In molecular biology, a RING (Really Interesting New Gene) finger domain is a protein structural domain of zinc finger type which contains a Cys3HisCys4 amino acid motif which binds two zinc cations." (Wikipedia)
May 12, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word kleptothermy
"Kleptothermy is any form of thermoregulation by which an animal shares in the metabolic thermogenesis of another animal. It may or may not be reciprocal, and occurs in both endotherms and ectotherms. Its most common form is huddling." (Wikipedia)
May 11, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word greedoid
This really sounds like an ugly kind of comic book monster...
May 11, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word abstract simplicial complex
"In mathematics, an abstract simplicial complex is a purely combinatorial description of the geometric notion of a simplicial complex, consisting of a family of finite sets closed under the operation of taking subsets. In the context of matroids and greedoids, abstract simplicial complexes are also called independence systems." (Wikipedia)
May 11, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list zoo-of-overrated-animals
Are you suggesting crazy cat people or cat? I would say that the crazy cat people aren't really overrated, but I would like to see them in a zoo... (I imagine that every day, to entertain the audience, a zookeeper will throw in a bunch of cats.)
Anyway, cats ands dogs are definately overrated animals, and everyone is welcome to lock up their favorite ones here.
May 11, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word banana doughnut theory
"This theory gets the name 'banana' because the tube of influence along the entire ray path from source to receiver is an arc resembling the fruit. The 'doughnut' part of the name comes from the ring shape of the cross-section. The ray path is a hollow banana, or a banana-shaped doughnut."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Doughnut_theory
May 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word meddle
yay! dictionary haiku!
May 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word tip of the red giant branch
"Tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) is a primary distance indicator used in astronomy. It uses the luminosity of the brightest red giant branch stars in a galaxy to gauge the distance to that galaxy. It has been used in conjunction with observations from the Hubble Space Telescope to determine the relative motions of the Local Cluster of galaxies within the Local Supercluster." (Wikipedia)
May 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word red clump
"The red clump is a feature in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of stars. The red clump is considered the metal-rich counterpart to the horizontal branch. Stars in this part of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram are sometimes called clump giants." (Wikipedia)
May 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list found-poetry
I like this! It should be possible to find a poem that is not in free verse... An accidental sonnet perhaps? Or haiku?
May 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list sick
I'm sure my lists like you too, ruzuzu!
May 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word intestine’s-eye view
"Bones are not all that is left of dinosaurs. Occasionally the fossilized feces of dinosaurs and other vertebrates are found. Called coprolites, these sometimes impressive relics can give an intestine’s-eye view of dinosaurian diets." From Dinosaurs: A Concise Natural History by David E. Fastovsky.
May 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list remarkable-wikipedia-categories
Prolagus, that makes me so happy to hear! (and you were really fast, too)
May 6, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list remarkable-wikipedia-categories
List of alternative names for the human species
May 6, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word vacuous truth
A vacuous truth is a truth that is devoid of content because it asserts something about all members of a class that is empty or because it says "If A then B" when in fact A is inherently false. (Wikipedia)
May 3, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word beauty factory
In particle physics, a B-factory, or sometimes a beauty factory, is a collider-based scientific machine designed to produce a large number (of the order of 109) of B mesons and analyze their properties. The tauons and D mesons are also copiously produced at B-factories, which allows precise studies of their properties. (Wikipedia)
May 2, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word autothysis
Autothysis is the process where an animal destroys itself via an internal rupturing or explosion of an organ which ruptures the skin. The term was proposed by Maschwitz and Maschwitz in 1974 to describe the defensive mechanism of the carpenter ant (Camponotus saundersi). It is caused by a contraction of muscles around a large gland that leads to the gland wall breaking. Some termites (such as the soldiers of Globitermes sulphureus) release a sticky secretion by rupturing a gland near the skin of their neck, producing a tar baby effect in defense against ants. It is a form of suicidal altruism. (Wikipedia)
April 27, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word trivaginate
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/04/17/kangaroos-have-three-vaginas/
April 20, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word ultraviolet catastrophe
"The ultraviolet catastrophe, also called the Rayleigh–Jeans catastrophe, was a prediction of late 19th century/early 20th century classical physics that an ideal black body at thermal equilibrium will emit radiation with infinite power." (Wikipedia)
April 19, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Clever Hans effect
"Clever Hans (in German, der Kluge Hans) was an Orlov Trotter horse that was claimed to have been able to perform arithmetic and other intellectual tasks.
After a formal investigation in 1907, psychologist Oskar Pfungst demonstrated that the horse was not actually performing these mental tasks, but was watching the reaction of his human observers. Pfungst discovered this artifact in the research methodology, wherein the horse was responding directly to involuntary cues in the body language of the human trainer, who had the faculties to solve each problem. The trainer was entirely unaware that he was providing such cues. In honour of Pfungst's study, the anomalous artifact has since been referred to as the Clever Hans effect and has continued to be important knowledge in the observer-expectancy effect and later studies in animal cognition."
(Wikipedia)
February 23, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word auroral chorus
"An auroral chorus is a series of chirps, whistles, and quasi-musical sounds in predominantly rising tones created by geomagnetic storms also responsible for the auroras. The sounds last approximately 0.1-1.0 seconds. Other auroral sounds includes hissing, swishing, rustling and cracking." (Wikipedia)
February 19, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list putting-my-two-cents-in--coined-words
I've read them all now. Can I have some more, please?
February 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word detoastification
I had always thought of toasting as an irreversible process...
February 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word colorless shiner
A fish, Notropis perpallidus.
February 17, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list remarkable-wikipedia-categories
The list of Enochian angels contains many names that seem to be just random letters...
February 17, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Oonopidae
A spider family (goblin spiders). Including genera with names such as Unicorn, Megabulbus, Calculus, Hypnoonops, Oonops, Oonopoides, Oonopinus...
February 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Sarcococca
Thanks ruzuzu! It fits right in...
February 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Sarcococca
"Sarcococca, Sweet box, or Christmas box is a genus of 16-20 species of flowering plants in the family Buxaceae, native to eastern and southeastern Asia and the Himalaya. They are slow-growing evergreen shrubs 1-2 m tall. The leaves are borne alternately, 3-12 cm long and 1-4 cm broad. They bear fragrant flowers, often in winter. The fruit is a red or black drupe containing 1-3 seeds. Some species are cultivated for ground cover in shady areas." (Wikipedia)
My (limited) knowledge of greek tells me it should mean something like meatballs. But that doesn't really seem right...
http://www.myetymology.com says "kokkos, κόκκος (a kernel of seed)". Well, almost...
February 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Kentucky meat shower
I especially appreciated the "cosmic meat" theory!
February 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list fun-with-chemistry
I find a funny molecule. I list it. I notice that it's been listed before. I find an entire list of funny molecules, and a link to even more of them! Perfect...
February 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word widemouth blindcat
A fish (Satan eurystomus). It is the only representative of the genus Satan.
February 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list bubbles--1
Well, I do like things in great quantity... But it feels a bit like cheating to add both! (So I chose the one I think look best.)
February 13, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word lumpsucker
There are several species, and many of them sound like excellent insults: pimpled lumpsucker, toad lumpsucker, bumpy lumpsucker, smooth lumpsucker...
February 13, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Jack Dempsey
"Jack Dempseys lay their eggs on the substrate (the bottom of the aquarium or pool)."
Wikipedia about Jack Dempsey (fish)
February 13, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list bubbles--1
There's a bubble eye goldfish. (Or maybe it's Bubble Eye, names of species in English are driving me crazy with their arbitrary capitalization.)
February 13, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Vinciguerria poweriae
Also known as Power's deep-water bristle-mouth fish.
February 13, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word machine that always halts
In computability theory, a machine that always halts—also called a decider (Sipser, 1996) or a total Turing machine (Kozen, 1997)—is a Turing machine that halts for every input.
Because it always halts, the machine is able to decide whether a given string is a member of a formal language. The class of languages which can be decided by such machines is exactly the set of recursive languages. However, due to the Halting Problem, determining whether an arbitrary Turing machine halts on an arbitrary input is itself an undecidable decision problem.
(Wikipedia)
February 12, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word rapidly-exploring random tree
A Rapidly-exploring random tree (RRT) is a data structure and algorithm designed for efficiently searching nonconvex, high-dimensional search spaces. The tree is constructed in such a way that any sample in the space is added by connecting it to the closest sample already in the tree. (Wikipedia)
Here's an animated example.
February 12, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word bumpy
Also a species of jellyfish, Stellamedusa ventana.
February 12, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word mellified man
Mellified man, or human mummy confection, was a legendary medicinal substance created by steeping a human cadaver in honey. (Wikipedia)
February 11, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word trimethylaminuria
Also called fish odor syndrome.
February 11, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word eccentric flint
An eccentric flint is a chipped artefact produced by the Maya civilization of ancient Mesoamerica. Although generally referred to as "flints", they were typically fashioned from chert, chalcedony and obsidian. Eccentric flints were manufactured by specialist artisans in lithic workshops for non-utilitarian purposes. They were sacred high-status objects associated with Maya elite power. (Wikipedia)
February 11, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list sounding-like-a-superhero
Thanks actung! (I don't know that much about american politics, and hadn't seen those words before, but that can be a good thing in a list like this, since understanding sometimes take away the magic...)
edit: just an hour after saying that I didn't recognize the words, my usual (swedish) newspaper wrote about super PACs...
February 11, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Auto-icon
What was made of Jeremy Bentham's remains.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/who/autoicon
February 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word moist desquamation
Moist desquamation is a description of the clinical pattern seen as a consequence of radiation exposure where the skin thins and then begins to weep because of loss of integrity of the epithelial barrier and decreased oncotic pressure. Typically this occurs at doses of 15 - 20 gray, far higher than any diagnostic scan and more typical of levels seen in radiotherapy or deployment of nuclear armament. (Wikipedia)
February 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word existential graph
An existential graph is a type of diagrammatic or visual notation for logical expressions, proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce, who wrote on graphical logic as early as 1882,1 and continued to develop the method until his death in 1914. (Wikipedia)
February 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word ootype
Yay, another word starting with oo! (The search function here is not really functional, but that way it becomes more of a treasure hunt...)
February 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Giffen good
In economics and consumer theory, a Giffen good is one which people paradoxically consume more of as the price rises, violating the law of demand. (Wikipedia)
February 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word heart urchin
To make it even worse, one of the families of heart urchins are called Loveniidae.
February 10, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word traumatic insemination
Sometimes I feel weird for being the only one listing (or even looking up!) some things.
February 9, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word sexy son hypothesis
The sexy son hypothesis of evolutionary biology was first proposed by Fisher in 1930. 'The sexy son hypothesis' proposes that a female animal's optimal choice among potential mates is a male whose genes will produce male offspring with the best chance of reproductive success. In particular, the sexy son hypothesis implies that a potential mate's capacity as a caregiver or any other direct benefits the male can offer the female (e.g., nuptial gifts, good territory) are irrelevant to his value as the potential father of the female's offspring. What matters are her sexy sons' future breeding successes (like that of their promiscuous father) in creating large numbers of offspring carrying copies of the female's genes.
(Wikipedia)
February 9, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list remarkable-wikipedia-categories
Notable people who have discussed chicken hypnotism
February 9, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word secular equilibrium
In nuclear physics, secular equilibrium is a situation in which the quantity of a radioactive isotope remains constant because its production rate (due, e.g., to decay of a parent isotope) is equal to its decay rate. (Wikipedia)
February 8, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word eternal light mushroom
Mycena luxaeterna, a bioluminescent fungus.
February 8, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Tyrannobdella rex
A scary looking leech with unusually large teeth...
February 8, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word figure of eighty
Tethea ocularis, a moth of the family Drepanidae.
February 8, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word poplar kitten
Furcula bifida, a moth of the family Notodontidae.
February 8, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word cream wave
Scopula floslactata, a moth.
February 8, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word gastric-brooding frog
The gastric-brooding frogs or Platypus frogs (Rheobatrachus) were a genus of ground-dwelling frogs native to Queensland in eastern Australia. The genus consisted of only two species, both of which became extinct in the mid-1980s. The genus was unique because it contained the only two known frog species that incubated the prejuvenile stages of their offspring in the stomach of the mother. (Wikipedia)
February 7, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word mouthbrooding
Mouthbrooding, also known as oral incubation and buccal incubation, is the care given by some groups of animals to their offspring by holding them in the mouth of the parent for extended periods of time. Although mouthbrooding is performed by a variety of different animals, most notably Darwin's frog, fishes are by far the most diverse mouthbrooders. (Wikipedia)
February 7, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word cuckoo catfish
Synodontis multipunctata, also known as the cuckoo catfish, cuckoo squeaker, or multipunk, is a small catfish from Lake Tanganyika, one of the lakes in the Great Rift Valley system in Africa. It is a brood parasite upon mouthbrooding cichlids. (Wikipedia)
February 7, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word diamond planet
See carbon planet.
February 6, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word moving-knife procedure
From Wikipedia:
In the mathematics of social science, and especially game theory, a moving-knife procedure is a type of solution to the fair division problem. The canonical example is the division of a cake using a knife.
The simplest example is a moving-knife equivalent of the I cut, you choose scheme, sometimes known as Austin's moving-knife procedure. One player moves the knife across the cake, conventionally from left to right. The cake is cut when either player calls "stop". If each player calls stop when he or she perceives the knife to be at the 50-50 point, then the first player to call stop will produce an envy-free division if the caller gets the left piece and the other player gets the right piece. Note that this procedure is not necessarily efficient.
Generalizing this scheme to more than two players cannot be done by a discrete procedure without sacrificing envy-freeness.
February 6, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list t-shirt-animals
Nice list! I found it searching for animals to my Zoo of overrated animals, and there's quite an overlap...
February 6, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word mentalis
"The pouting muscle", the internet tells me...
February 6, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list flanges-c
I just stumbled upon grease nipple... Lovely to find an entire list with more of that sort.
February 5, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word perfect flower
Same as bisexual flower.
February 4, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word cubital fossa
Wikipedia describes it as "the triangular area on the anterior view of the elbow of a human or other hominid animal." (But I fail to find anything triangular on my own arm.)
February 4, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word hand of benediction
From Wikipedia:
The hand of benediction results from a severed median nerve at the level of the elbow or upper arm. The ability to flex the digits 2–3 at the metacarpophalangeal joints, proximal interphalangeal joints and distal interphalangeal joints is lost. This is due to the loss of innervation of the lateral 2 lumbricals of the hand which are supplied by the median nerve. Flexion at the proximal interphalangeal joints of digits 4–5 is weakened, but flexion at the metocarpophalangeal joints and distal interphalangeal joints remains intact. The extensors are left unopposed and digits 2–3 remain extended while attempting to make a fist.
The name arises from the invocation of a blessing used in Christian circles (see benediction).
February 4, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word wet-folding
An origami technique, using water.
February 3, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Etymology-Man
http://www.xkcd.com/1010/
(Not to be confused with Entomology-Man.)
February 3, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word polysplenia
Hmm... I'll see what I can do... Here's a list of too-many-organs.
Unfortunatly, it seems that medical counting is limited to missing, one, two, many, too many). But I'm sure you are capable of constructing some made up greek-sounding terms?
February 3, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word koinophilia
Attraction to averageness.
February 3, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Vulcanism
Also called Plutonism (or plutonism?).
February 3, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word polysplenia
Having multiple spleens.
February 3, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word flap surgery
Flap surgery is a technique in plastic and reconstructive surgery where any type of tissue is lifted from a donor site and moved to a recipient site with an intact blood supply. This is similar to but different from a graft, which does not have an intact blood supply and therefore relies on growth of new blood vessels. (Wikipedia)
February 3, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word situs solitus
The normal position of thoracic and abdominal organs. As opposed to situs inversus and situs ambiguus.
February 2, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word catastrophe theory
You mean there isn't one already? Well, then I see no other option than to create the list of catastrophes!
February 2, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word catastrophe theory
There are several catastrophes with pretty names:
fold catastrophe
cusp catastrophe
swallowtail catastrophe
butterfly catastrophe
hyperbolic umbilic catastrophe
elliptic umbilic catastrophe
parabolic umbilic catastrophe
January 31, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word probability flux
See probability current.
January 31, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word probability current
In quantum mechanics, the probability current (sometimes called probability flux) is a mathematical quantity describing the flow of probability density. Intuitively; if one pictures the probability density as an inhomogeneous fluid, then the probability current is the rate of flow of this fluid (change in probability per unit time). This is analogous to hydrodynamic mass currents and electromagnetic charge currents. (Wikipedia)
January 31, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word abstract machine
An abstract machine, also called an abstract computer, is a theoretical model of a computer hardware or software system used in automata theory. Abstraction of computing processes is used in both the computer science and computer engineering disciplines and usually assumes discrete time paradigm. (Wikipedia)
January 31, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word monstrous moonshine
In mathematics, monstrous moonshine, or moonshine theory, is a term devised by John Horton Conway and Simon P. Norton in 1979, used to describe the (then totally unexpected) connection between the monster group M and modular functions (particularly, the j function). (Wikipedia)
January 31, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word scotobiology
The term scotobiology describes the study of biology as directly and specifically affected by darkness, as opposed to photobiology, which describes the biological effects of light. (Wikipedia)
January 31, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Sisyphus cooling
Sisyphus cooling is a mechanism through which atoms can be cooled using laser beams below the temperatures expected to be achieved by Doppler cooling. It comes about as a result of a polarization gradient created by two counter-propagating laser beams with orthogonal polarization. Atoms moving through the potential landscape created by the standing wave (created by the interference of the two counter-propagating beams) lose kinetic energy as they move to a potential maximum, at which point optical pumping moves them to a lower-energy state, thus losing the potential energy they had. (Wikipedia)
January 31, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word horse-latitudes
This is the first time I found a word here that has etymologies, but no definition. (See horse latitudes.)
January 30, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list favourite-phrases
I like this list. And I like that I found it while reading about benign summer light eruption.
January 30, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word self-incompatibility
Self-incompatibility (SI) is a general name for several genetic mechanisms in angiosperms, which prevent self-fertilization and thus encourage outcrossing. (Wikipedia)
January 30, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word thecoma
Thecomas or theca cell tumors are benign ovarian neoplasms composed only of theca cells. Histogenetically they are classified as sex cord-stromal tumours. (Wikipedia)
January 30, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Roboastra
A genus of nudibranchs.
January 29, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word hydrostatic skeleton
Also called hydroskeleton.
January 24, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word hydroskeleton
A hydrostatic skeleton or hydroskeleton is a structure found in many cold-blooded organisms and soft-bodied animals consisting of a fluid-filled cavity, the coelom, surrounded by muscles. The pressure of the fluid and action of the surrounding circular and longitudinal muscles are used to change an organism's shape and produce movement, such as burrowing or swimming. (Wikipedia)
January 24, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word End of Greatness
The End of Greatness is an observational scale discovered at roughly 100 Mpc (roughly 300 million lightyears) where the lumpiness seen in the large-scale structure of the universe is homogenized and isotropized as per the Cosmological Principle. The superclusters and filaments seen in smaller surveys are randomized to the extent that the smooth distribution of the universe is visually apparent. It was not until the redshift surveys of the 1990s were completed that this scale could accurately be observed. (Wikipedia)
January 22, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Local Void
The Local Void is a vast, empty region of space, devoid of matter, located within the Virgo Supercluster and lying adjacent to our own Milky Way galaxy. (Wikipedia)
January 22, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list remarkable-wikipedia-categories
I just found a list of voids!
January 22, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word blum–shub–smale machine
I was not aware. Now I am!
January 22, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word blum–shub–smale machine
Funny to stumble upon this word two times in one day... (I think I prefer it capitalized.)
"In computation theory, the Blum–Shub–Smale machine, or BSS machine, is a model of computation introduced by Lenore Blum, Michael Shub and Stephen Smale, intended to describe computations over the real numbers." (Wikipedia)
January 22, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word oracle machine
In complexity theory and computability theory, an oracle machine is an abstract machine used to study decision problems. It can be visualized as a Turing machine with a black box, called an oracle, which is able to decide certain decision problems in a single operation. The problem can be of any complexity class. Even undecidable problems, like the halting problem, can be used. (Wikipedia)
January 22, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word lyman-alpha blob
There's also a Lyman-alpha forest. (Listed once as lyman-alpha forest... I'm still not comfortable with this case sensitivity thing...)
January 22, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word simian foamy virus
There's also a human foamy virus. The spumavirus or foamyvirus is a genus of the retroviridae family.
January 22, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list gas-music-from-jupiter
So many good words...
January 22, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word blue rubber bleb syndrome
Blue rubber bleb nevus syndrome (or "BRBNS", or "blue rubber bleb syndrome, or "blue rubber-bleb nevus", or "Bean syndrome") is a rare disorder that consists mainly of abnormal blood vessels affecting the gastrointestinal tract.
(From Wikipedia, where i keep finding things that sounds like I just made them up)
January 22, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word crystal habit
Crystal habit is an overall description of the visible external shape of a mineral. This description can apply to an individual crystal or an assembly of crystals or aggregates. (Wikipedia)
January 22, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word orange roughy
"The orange roughy, red roughy, or deep sea perch, Hoplostethus atlanticus, is a relatively large deep-sea fish belonging to the slimehead family (Trachichthyidae)."
"The orange roughy is not a vertically slender fish. They turn orange after death, but are red while living."
(Wikipedia)
January 22, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Zagros fold and thrust belt
The Zagros fold and thrust belt (Zagros FTB) is a ~1800 km long zone of deformed crustal rocks, formed in the foreland of the collision between the Arabian Plate and the Eurasian Plate. (Wikipedia)
January 22, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word chilled margin
A chilled margin is a shallow intrusive or volcanic rock texture characterised by a glassy or fine grained zone along the margin where the magma or lava has contacted air, water, or particularly much cooler rock. This is caused by rapid crystallization of the melt near the contact with the surrounding low temperature environment. In an intrusive case, the crystallized chilled margin may decrease in size or disappear by later remelting during magma flow, depending on magma heat flux. (Wikipedia)
January 21, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list remarkable-wikipedia-categories
List of animals by number of neurons. "This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it." (Reminded me of this comic by SMBC.)
January 21, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Vegetable Lamb of Tartary
Ah, these misleading capital letters. I did find it strange that Barometz didn't have all the comments it deserved, but there they are at barometz.
January 21, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Odradek
A creature appearing in the short story "The Cares of a Family Man" ("Die Sorge des Hausvaters") by Franz Kafka.
January 21, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Vegetable Lamb of Tartary
The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (Latin: Agnus scythicus or Planta Tartarica Barometz) is a legendary zoophyte of central Asia, believed to grow sheep as its fruit. The sheep were connected to the plant by an umbilical cord and grazed the land around the plant. When all the plants were gone, both the plant and sheep died. (Wikipedia)
January 21, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word supernormal stimulus
A supernormal stimulus or superstimulus is an exaggerated version of a stimulus to which there is an existing response tendency, or any stimulus that elicits a response more strongly than the stimulus for which it evolved.
For example, a moth will spiral into a flame because it is adapted to navigate by the sun (a much more distant lightsource).
(WIkipedia)
January 21, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word vegetable sheep
Not to be confused with the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary.
January 21, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word ooblast
"a primordial cell from which the ovum is developed."
January 21, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word unmoved mover
The unmoved mover (οὐ κινούμενον κινεῖ) is a philosophical concept described by Aristotle as a primary cause or "mover" of all the motion in the universe. As is implicit in the name, the "unmoved mover" is not moved by any prior action. In Book 12 (Greek "Λ") of his Metaphysics, Aristotle describes the unmoved mover as being perfectly beautiful, indivisible, and contemplating only the perfect contemplation: itself contemplating. He equates this concept also with the active intellect. (Wikipedia)
January 20, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list monsters
Wow... pope lick monster... The name gives me so many disturbing images... I love it!
January 20, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list pernicious-parasites
I'll take some of these to my parasitic list (that isn't really parasitic since I'm not hurting this one...)
January 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Aichelburg–Sexl ultraboost
Ooh, animated gifs! Hypnotizing...
January 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word superpartner
In particle physics, a superpartner (also sparticle) is hypothetical elementary particle. Supersymmetry is one of the synergistic theories in current high-energy physics which predicts the existence of these "shadow" particles.
The word superpartner is a portmanteau of the words supersymmetry and partner (sparticle is a portmanteau of supersymmetry and particle).
(Wikipedia)
January 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word loop group
The Wikipedia article about it starts with "In mathematics, a loop group is a group of loops in a topological group..." and it sounds like it could be a nursery rhyme...
January 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word quantum triviality
In a quantum field theory, charge screening can restrict the value of the observable "renormalized" charge of a classical theory. If the only allowed value of the renormalized charge is zero, the theory is said to be "trivial" or noninteracting. Thus, surprisingly, a classical theory that appears to describe interacting particles can, when realized as a quantum field theory, become a "trivial" theory of noninteracting free particles. This phenomenon is referred to as quantum triviality. (Wikipedia)
January 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word mirror matter
In physics, mirror matter, also called shadow matter or Alice matter, is a hypothetical counterpart to ordinary matter. Modern physics deals with three basic types of spatial symmetry: reflection, rotation and translation. The known elementary particles respect rotation and translation symmetry but do not respect mirror reflection symmetry (also called P-symmetry or parity). Of the four fundamental interactions—electromagnetism, the strong interaction, the weak interaction, and gravity—only the weak interaction breaks parity. (Wikipedia)
January 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word micro black hole
Micro black holes are tiny black holes, also called quantum mechanical black holes or mini black holes, for which quantum mechanical effects play an important role.
It is possible that such quantum primordial black holes were created in the high-density environment of the early Universe (or big bang), or possibly through subsequent phase transitions. They might be observed by astrophysicists in the near future, through the particles they are expected to emit by Hawking radiation.
(Wikipedia)
January 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Aichelburg–Sexl ultraboost
It makes me very happy to see that the Poor-man's Gaussian pulses have found a loving home.
(Do you know what it means?)
January 18, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word supertramp
In ecology, a supertramp species is any type of animal which follows the "supertramp" strategy of high dispersion among many different habitats, towards none of which it is particularly specialized. Supertramp species are typically the first to arrive in newly available habitats, such as volcanic islands and freshly deforested land; they can have profoundly negative effects on more highly specialized flora and fauna, both directly through predation and indirectly through competition for resources.
The name was coined by Jared Diamond in 1974, as an allusion to both the itinerant lifestyle of the tramp, and the then-popular band Supertramp.
(Wikipedia)
January 17, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word bioprecipitation
Rain-making bacteria.
January 17, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word serous membrane
I cannot stop reading this as serious membrane.
January 17, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word accessory breast
Accessory breasts, also known as polymastia, supernumerary breasts, or mammae erraticae, is the condition of having an additional breast. (Wikipedia)
January 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word posthumous execution
Posthumous execution is the ritual or ceremonial mutilation of an already dead body as a punishment.
See also: Cadaver Synod, in 897, when Pope Stephen VI had the corpse of Pope Formosus disinterred and put on trial.
(Wikipedia)
January 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word geometrical frustration
In condensed matter physics, the term geometrical frustration (or in short: frustration) means a phenomenon in which the geometrical properties of the crystal lattice or the presence of conflicting atomic forces forbid simultaneous minimization of the interaction energies acting at a given site. This may lead to highly degenerate ground states with a nonzero entropy at zero temperature. Or in simple terms, the substance can never be completely frozen, because the structure it forms does not have a single minimal-energy state, so motion on a molecular scale continues even at absolute zero and even without input of energy. (Wikipedia)
January 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word antisense therapy
Not as strange as it may look. See antisense.
January 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word soft matter
Soft matter is a subfield of condensed matter comprising a variety of physical states that are easily deformed by thermal stresses or thermal fluctuations. They include liquids, colloids, polymers, foams, gels, granular materials, and a number of biological materials. (Wikipedia)
January 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word aurophilicity
In chemistry, aurophilicity refers to the tendency of gold complexes to aggregate via formation of weak gold-gold bonds. (Wikipedia)
January 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word black swallower
The black swallower, Chiasmodon niger, is a species of deep sea fish in the family Chiasmodontidae, notable for its ability to swallow fish larger than itself (for which it is sometimes named the "great swallower"). (Wikipedia)
January 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list remarkable-wikipedia-categories
Unfortunately, the list Famous webbed feet is not as long as one could have hoped...
January 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word island of inversion
"An island of inversion is a region of the chart of nuclides that contains isotopes with a non-standard ordering of single particle levels in the nuclear shell model."
"Because there are 5 known islands of inversion, physicists have suggested renaming the phenomenon as an 'archipelago of islands of shell breaking'."
(Wikipedia)
January 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word fail-deadly
Fail-deadly is a concept in nuclear military strategy which encourages deterrence by guaranteeing an immediate, automatic and overwhelming response to an attack. The term fail-deadly was coined as a contrast to fail-safe. (Wikipedia)
January 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Human Interference Task Force
See nuclear semiotics.
January 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word nuclear semiotics
"Nuclear semiotics was created in 1981 when a team of engineers, anthropologists, nuclear physicists, behavior scientists and others was convened on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy and Bechtel Corp. The goal of this workgroup (the "Human Interference Task Force") was to find the means to reduce the likelihood of future humans unintentionally intruding on radioactive waste isolation systems."
The suggestions include radiation cats, atomic priesthood, and atomic flowers!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_semiotics
January 16, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word firing squad synchronization problem
The firing squad synchronization problem is a problem in computer science and cellular automata in which the goal is to design a cellular automaton that, starting with a single active cell, eventually reaches a state in which all cells are simultaneously active. (Wikipedia)
January 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word double magic
Nuclei which have neutron number and proton (atomic) numbers each equal to one of the magic numbers are called "double magic", and are especially stable against decay. (Wikipedia)
January 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word fish kill
The term fish kill, known also as fish die-off and (in Britain) as fish mortality, is a localized die-off of fish populations which may also be associated with more generalised mortality of aquatic life. (Wikipedia)
January 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word bird kill
Bird kill is a localized event resulting in the death of large numbers of birds at the same time. (Wikipedia)
January 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word sacrificial part
A sacrificial part is a part of a machine or product that is intentionally engineered to fail under excess mechanical stress, electrical stress, or other unexpected and dangerous situations. The sacrificial part is engineered to fail first, and thus protect other parts of the system. (Wikipedia)
January 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the user deinonychus
(Sometimes I worry about clogging the entire "latest comments" stream. But then I try to think that random bits of Wikipedia must be better than spam. Or silence.)
January 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word nonclassical light
Nonclassical light is light that cannot be described using classical electromagnetism; its characteristics are described by the quantised electromagnetic field and quantum mechanics. Nonclassical light has nonclassical noise properties called quantum noise, which can be understood on the basis of quantum optics.
Common described forms of nonclassical light are the following:
Squeezed light exhibits reduced noise in one quadrature component. The most familiar kinds of squeezed light have either reduced amplitude noise or reduced phase noise, with increased noise of the other kind.
Fock states (also called photon number states) have a well defined number of photons (stored e.g. in a cavity), while the phase is totally undefined.
(Wikipedia)
January 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word squeezed light
http://www.squeezed-light.de/
January 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word radio relic
Radio Relics are diffuse synchrotron radio emission found in the peripheral regions of galaxy clusters. Similar to the case of radio halos, they do not have any obvious galaxy counterpart, but their shapes are much more elongated and irregular compared to those of radio halos. (Wikipedia)
January 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word sonic black hole
A sonic black hole (sometimes called a dumb hole) is a phenomenon in which phonons (sound perturbations) are unable to escape from a fluid that is flowing more quickly than the local speed of sound. They are called sonic, or acoustic, black holes because these trapped phonons are analogous to light in astrophysical (gravitational) black holes. (Wikipedia)
January 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word dumb hole
A sonic black hole.
January 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word relativistic jet
Relativistic jets are extremely powerful jets of plasma which emerge from presumed massive objects at the centers of some active galaxies, notably radio galaxies and quasars. (Wikipedia)
January 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Aichelburg–Sexl ultraboost
This Wikipedia article is pure poetry!
"...smooth Lorentzian manifold..."
"...Poor-man's Gaussian pulses..."
"...impulsive curvatures..."
"...The moving particle will 'think'..."
January 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word zeusaphone
I didn't know that this existed, but now I want a singing Tesla coil.
January 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list nineteen-random-words
Yes, I saw your quintaphone, and thought that I'd let you decide if my quintephone was of interest. (I must confess that I didn't understand the definition of quintaphone at all.)
January 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list sounding-like-a-superhero
No, I'm not really worrying... It's just that I feel that I must be missing lots of good stuff just because I don't know where to look. But, it's probably just a matter of time!
January 15, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word affective science
Affective science is the scientific study of emotion or affect. This includes the study of emotion elicitation, emotional experience and the recognition of emotions in others. In particular the nature of feeling, mood, emotionally driven behaviour, decision making, attention and self-regulation, as well as the underlying physiology and neuroscience of the emotions. (Wikipedia)
January 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word color anomia
Another type of anomia is color anomia, where the patient can distinguish between colors but cannot identify them by name or name the color of an object. They can separate colors into categories, but they cannot name them. (Wikipedia)
January 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word fission-fusion society
In a fission-fusion society, the main parent group can fracture (fission) into smaller stable subgroups or individuals to adapt to environmental or social circumstances. For example, a number of males may break off from the main group in order to hunt or forage for food during the day, but at night they may return to join (fusion) the primary group to share food and partake in other activities. (Wikipedia)
January 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word synnecrosis
Synnecrosis is a particular case in which the interaction is so mutually detrimental that it results in death, as in the case of some parasitic relationships. It is a rare and necessarily short-lived condition as evolution selects against it. The term is seldom used. (Wikipedia)
January 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word lapsarianism
Lapsarianism is the set of Calvinist doctrines describing the theoretical order of God's decree (in his mind, before Creation), in particular concerning the order of his decree for the fall of man and reprobation. The name of the doctrine comes from the Latin lapsus meaning fall.
Supralapsarianism (also antelapsarianism) is the view that God's decrees of election and reprobation logically preceded the decree of the fall while infralapsarianism (also called postlapsarianism and sublapsarianism) asserts that God's decrees of election and reprobation logically succeeded the decree of the fall. The words can also be used in connection with other topics, e.g. supra- and infralapsarian christology.
(Wikipedia)
January 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word daxophone
I can really recommend a visit here: http://daxo.de (if you're in the mood for some chaos)
January 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list nineteen-random-words
Here's some more phones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintephone
January 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word repugnant market
A repugnant market is a term used to describe an area of commerce that is considered by society to be outside of the range of market transactions and that bringing this area into the realm of a market would be inherently immoral or uncaring. (Wikipedia)
January 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word quasi-empiricism
Quasi-empirical methods are applied in science and in mathematics. The term "empirical methods" refers to experiment, disclosure of apparatus for reproduction of experiments, and other ways in which science is validated by scientists. Empirical methods are studied extensively in the philosophy of science but cannot be used directly in fields whose hypotheses are not invalidated by real experiment (mathematics, theology, ideology). In these fields, the prefix 'quasi' came to denote methods that are "almost" or "socially approximate" an ideal of truly empirical methods. (Wikipedia)
January 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word ousiograph
"An ousiograph or oustograph is a fictitious device purported to detect messages that are sent directly to one's brain. Arising from the State v. Green case in the Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, the messages are sent to a person's brain to 'direct them' and possibly control their behavior for an undetermined purpose."
(From Wikipedia, where it is also questioned if it is right to have an article about "a 'device' mentioned once in FBI notes in an investigation of a paranoid schizophrenic who killed a police officer.")
January 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word analysis paralysis
"...often phrased as paralysis by analysis, in contrast to extinct by instinct (making a fatal decision based on hasty judgment or a gut-reaction)." (Wikipedia)
January 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word perverse incentive
A perverse incentive is an incentive that has an unintended and undesirable result which is contrary to the interests of the incentive makers. Perverse incentives are a type of unintended consequences. (Wikipedia)
January 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word compassion fatigue
Compassion fatigue (also known as a secondary traumatic stress disorder) is a condition characterised by a gradual lessening of compassion over time. It is common among trauma victims and individuals that work directly with trauma victims. (Wikipedia)
January 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word euendolith
I have a feeling that if you go to the trouble to make rock into tunnels that conform with the shape of your body, you make them to stay there... (but it's hard to know whats in the mind of an endolith)
January 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word Shepard tone
Wikipedia (that also has an example to listen to) tells me that It has been described as a "sonic barber's pole".
January 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word euendolith
An endolith that penetrates actively into the interior of rocks forming tunnels that conform with the shape of its body.
January 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word cryptoendolith
An endolith that colonizes structural cavities within porous rocks, including spaces produced and vacated by euendoliths.
January 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word chasmoendolith
An endolith that colonizes fissures and cracks in the rock.
January 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word endolith
An endolith is an organism (archaeum, bacterium, fungus, lichen, alga or amoeba) that lives inside rock, coral, animal shells, or in the pores between mineral grains of a rock. Many are extremophiles, living in places previously thought inhospitable to life. (Wikipedia)
January 14, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word fatigue life
"the number of stress cycles of a specified character that a specimen sustains before failure of a specified nature occurs." (Wikipedia)
January 13, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list sounding-like-a-superhero
Of course every potential list is an existing list... But I try not to let that get to me, somehow I must be doing something original (sometimes).
The links look interesting, in a way that might keep me busy all night. Which, at least at the moment, seems like a good thing.
And about what interests me... Hard to say. I love getting lost on Wikipedia (and here too, but it's not as easy), jumping from word to word just because they look interesting, ending up somewhere unexpected.
January 13, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word ozone cracking
Cracks can be formed in many different elastomers by ozone attack, and the characteristic form of attack of vulnerable rubbers is known as ozone cracking. (Wikipedia)
January 13, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word ozone attack
Cracks can be formed in many different elastomers by ozone attack, and the characteristic form of attack of vulnerable rubbers is known as ozone cracking. (Wikipedia)
January 13, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word perceptual trap
A perceptual trap is an ecological scenario in which environmental change, typically anthropogenic, leads an organism to avoid an otherwise high-quality habitat. The concept is related to that of an ecological trap, in which environmental change causes preference towards a low-quality habitat. (Wikipedia)
January 13, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word ecological trap
Ecological traps are scenarios in which rapid environmental change leads organisms to prefer to settle in poor-quality habitats. The concept stems from the idea that organisms that are actively selecting habitat must rely on environmental cues to help them identify high quality habitat. If either the habitat quality or the cue changes so that one does not reliably indicate the other, organisms may be lured into poor quality habitat. (Wikipedia)
January 13, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word atomic formula
In mathematical logic, an atomic formula (also known simply as an atom) is a formula with no deeper propositional structure, that is, a formula that contains no logical connectives or equivalently a formula that has no strict subformulas. Atoms are thus the simplest well-formed formulas of the logic. Compound formulas are formed by combining the atomic formulas using the logical connectives. (Wikipedia)
January 13, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word supervaluationism
In logic, supervaluationism is a semantics for dealing with irreferential singular terms and vagueness. (Wikipedia)
January 13, 2012
deinonychus commented on the list sounding-like-a-superhero
Looks interesting, thanks! (Is there some reasonable way to search for lists? I stumble upon great lists all the time, but I imagine there are so many more that I miss...)
January 13, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word umbilic torus
The umbilic torus is a single-edged 3-dimensional figure created by Helaman Ferguson as a mathematical artwork. Ferguson created a 27-inch (69 centimeters) bronze sculpture, Umbilic Torus, and it is his most widely known piece of art. The lone edge goes three times around the ring before returning to the starting point. (from Wikipedia, where you can also see the equations that define the shape)
January 13, 2012
deinonychus commented on the word strange loop
A strange loop arises when, by moving up or down through a hierarchical system, one finds oneself back where one started.
Strange loops may involve self-reference and paradox. The concept of a strange loop was proposed and extensively discussed by Douglas Hofstadter in "Gödel, Escher, Bach", and is further elaborated in Hofstadter's book "I Am a Strange Loop", published in 2007.
A tangled hierarchy is a hierarchical system in which a strange loop appears.
(Wikipedia)
January 13, 2012
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