Today, I played a prank on nature.

Snails are simply fascinating. From being able to rotate their bodies throughout the course of evolution so that their anus wouldn't hang off the top of their heads, to having orgies after the rain, they never cease to amaze.

It disturbs me a little, what I did last night. Although I started out more fascinated than anything.

I need to read up a bit on why snails seem to come out of hiding after the rain. But anyway, that's beside the point. The point is, as I was walking Sox at about 9pm last night, I saw snails and snails and snails all over the grass and even on the footpath. Lil buggers seemed to be everywhere. And I thought to myself hey, wouldn't it be interesting to see what they'd do if they were all put together? (Humour me, could ya?)

So I went about picking up snails, and putting them together in the same spot near a lamp so I could see and well, it took me a while, considering there are only so many snails you can carry in two hands (which is, well, two.), that is if you don't want them to get slimy. The hands I mean. And soon I had 9 snails crawling all over each other, bodies twisting and straining over each other in the most... well, icky sort of way.

What started out as a prank on nature quickly turned to a mass orgy of sorts. (and, well, can't expect any sentence with the words "snail" and "orgy" in it to be very pleasant at all.)

I couldn't help but feel like well, I'd been played. And I shouldn't be surprised at how disgustingly slimy and sexually gooey everything turned out because I started it all. And I think I'm gonna have nightmares tonight.

Slimy snail 6-9's. Shudder.

Of mice and Drosophila melanogaster

The 3 hours I took to feed all the spideys wasn't very pleasant. First of all the laptop died and I had no music. Second of all I had to feed 176 spideys with very melavolent fruit flies. Third, the crickets and lab mice were so frisky this afternoon they gave my nerves a rather hard grazing. Fourth, I had to keep track of the other experiment running. And all this on a lonely Saturday afternoon.

But I did manage to amuse myself, as usual.

Flies can break dance too

Well, a casual observation.

The thing about these very beastly creatures is that you have to knock the lil buggers out first with CO2 and interestingly enough, they knock out for a good 5 seconds or so before doing a violent spin on their backs for another 5 before they finally concuss.

Hilarious to watch but a real bitch when you're just about to tip 'em into the spidey cages and they do that violent spin on their backs, propelling them to fleedom. Ugh.

I'm giving myself the day off tomorrow. My spideys can do without me for a day.