Friday, February 23, 2007

Cheshire sky and bush baby pie

Continuing with my "isn't the natural world an amazing place" theme, there were a couple other items of interest in the past couple days.

Andrew G. Saffas, a Concord artist and photographer, took a picture of a circumzenithal arc. In layman's terms could be interpreted as an upside-down rainbow...or a giant multi-colored Cheshire cat grin. For everyone who thinks nothing good comes out of Concord, there's now this and the Los MontaƱas bar/restaurant and grocery store on Willow Pass...oh, and Fry's.

Chimpanzees were observed using tools to hunt for other animals - bush babies in this case. The National Geographic site has all the details as well as a video of one of chimps hunting. An interesting note: primarily, only females have been observed making the tools and doing the hunting.

In each case a chimpanzee modified a branch by breaking off one or two ends and, frequently, using its teeth to sharpen the stick. The ape then jabbed the spear into hollows in tree trunks where bush babies sleep.
That's right, guys...Sears is changing the name to "Craftswoman". Other observations on the male population found that while the females were hunting, the males were reclining in tree boughs and scratching their genitals and laughing at each other's odors...oh wait...that was me at the last house party to which I patroned.

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