Lizard Tails, Mike the Headless Chicken, and other diversions

[passedpawn]

I just went on my back patio and there was an injured lizard - its tail was cut off, probably by my dog or even me, not sure.

I grabbed the lizard and tossed it in my side yard, but the tail went on thrashing for almost a minute.

How can a tail do that? I always assumed the muscles are controlled by the brain.

So I did a quick search. It didn't provide any real clues, but I did come across the interesting story of Mike the Headless Chicken. I suppose I might have eventually come up with answers for my lizard question, but I was enthralled with Mike. Maybe you'll enjoy his story too.

http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/

 

[passedpawn]

I don't care what sound a fox makes, but my kids thought I might. They made me watch this. Odd. I was hoping that somewhere in its useless 4 minutes it might shed some light on headless chickens, or at least lizard-tail-wisdom, but no.

I did learn a elephant goes toot. I can do that.

 

[worthogg]

What exactly does a chicken's ear look like, anyway?

 

[Hammy71]

Odd to say, one of the fondest memories I have of my grandfather was helping him kill chickens when I was maybe 4 years old. My job was to hold the chicken (both legs and a wing) while he did the 'chopping'. Once the deed was done I would let the bird go. It would run like crazy!! Then I got to chase it around the yard til it finally dropped dead. Bring it back up to the shed to my waiting grandmother so she could prepare the bird for freezing (plucking, gutting etc). Most people think it's weird, but made quite the impression on a 4 year old boy....I can tell you that. Ahhhh, good times....good times.

 

[passedpawn]

The last of its kind. We always hear of animals going extinct, and there's only 3000 left, etc. But in this case, there's only 1 (known). Oh well, if they find out that pterodactyls still exist, they will have nowhere to perch.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtziMzq-nnk[/ame]

 

[Quadrupled]

The last of its kind.

Cell culture techniques should allow one to grow clones of this. Regarding dioecy, news stories suggest there are transitional procedures to help resolve.

 

[bob1852]

Giant Pandas are no longer considered Endangered by the IUCN. That's some good animal news.

 

[BentBrewer]

I don't care what sound a fox makes, but my kids thought I might. They made me watch this.

Imma help you out.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=TzWi33Z8Nvc


On the lizard tail front, It's ATP or some chemical that keeps it moving in response to stimuli.

As far as the chicken, they have a gizzard. As I recall, they kept stuffing food down the hole. The gizzard probably took care of nutrition.

 

[grrickar]

The last of its kind. We always hear of animals going extinct, and there's only 3000 left, etc. But in this case, there's only 1 (known). Oh well, if they find out that pterodactyls still exist, they will have nowhere to perch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtziMzq-nnk

https://youtu.be/VtziMzq-nnk

"They took all the trees
And put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half to seem 'em"

Sing it with me!

"Don't it always seem to go,
That you don't know what you've got
Til its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot..."

Actually, what can you get for a 1.50 these days? Maybe I would pay that to see this tree. Where dat tree at yo?

 

[passedpawn]

Yea, I kinda want one. Not sure why. If you check out the flyte store (https://flyte.se/) you'll see the floating plants too.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGb9smintY0[/ame]

 

[passedpawn]

Not for the casual gardener: The Poison Garden. The gardener in this video has a wry sense of humor, as evidenced finally at 2:00.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tboW11dMeKs[/ame]

 

[PlexVector]

Odd to say, one of the fondest memories I have of my grandfather was helping him kill chickens when I was maybe 4 years old. My job was to hold the chicken (both legs and a wing) while he did the 'chopping'. Once the deed was done I would let the bird go. It would run like crazy!! Then I got to chase it around the yard til it finally dropped dead. Bring it back up to the shed to my waiting grandmother so she could prepare the bird for freezing (plucking, gutting etc). Most people think it's weird, but made quite the impression on a 4 year old boy....I can tell you that. Ahhhh, good times....good times.

I have a similar experience as a farm child. Just like the yearly hog killing we also had the yearly chicken killing, but these days I guess it would be more politically correct to say harvesting instead of killing, but i digress. Before chopping the head off they would wring there necks and let them go. They just run around wildly with there head dangling and as kids we thought they were chasing us and we would run around wildly with them screaming. (ummm, may explain some things). Eventually they get there heads chopped and the body dunked in scalding water to make defeathering easier.

 

[Cyclman]

Science is so awesome. Headless cock ale?

 

[passedpawn]

Sea Monkeys: 1960's marketting boon. And now, the REST of the story, revealing a dark twist behind the little creatures.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0xXKCOSZuQ[/ame]

 

[Dimax]

The Tail will pull off easily when the lizard is attacked, this will allow the lizard to make its escape as the twitching tail keeps the attackers attention,
The tail will grow back to maybe save him again at a later date!

 

[Dimax]

I just went on my back patio and there was an injured lizard - its tail was cut off, probably by my dog or even me, not sure.

I grabbed the lizard and tossed it in my side yard, but the tail went on thrashing for almost a minute.

How can a tail do that? I always assumed the muscles are controlled by the brain.

So I did a quick search. It didn't provide any real clues, but I did come across the interesting story of Mike the Headless Chicken. I suppose I might have eventually come up with answers for my lizard question, but I was enthralled with Mike. Maybe you'll enjoy his story too.

http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/

I and my wife enjoyed a few glasses of Mikes

 

[passedpawn]

I knew the street names in Monopoly came from Atlantic City, but I did wonder what they really looked like. BTW, my favorite were the green ones (Pennsylvania, can't remember the rest). Man I miss that game. If you didn't know it, they've replaced some/all of the pieces with other stuff; i.e., the iron is gone, maybe there's a little metal cell phone now, dunno.

What The Monopoly Properties Look Like In Real Life

 

[passedpawn]

Last meals of some of americas most notorious death row inmates.

http://henryhargreaves.com/#no-seconds

 

[chessking]

Fried chicken seemed popular

 

[passedpawn]

Not sure... I first though cool, then not so much, dunno.

http://thedadbag.com/

 

[passedpawn]

How I commute to work (btw, not a fake video!)

 

[passedpawn]

Military US anthem goodness at football games. I was at a UF football game last year and a pair of F22's streaked across the sky, then went perfectly vertical in a mean scream. Man, it was a sight. Goosebumps.