Cephalopodcast

I have an avatar in Second Life called Calamari Ricardo. He wandered into the lair of Grendel’s Children the other day and came across a new undersea option for avatars (see below).

Randy Olson cheekily suggested that the next Science Blogging Conference be conducted in Second Life. If so, maybe we could hold it on the newly expanded NOAA sim and all the ocean bloggers could go dressed up as Vent Nymphs.

Vent Nymphs
MiniHUD controls the black smoker effect & sound, and includes a unique skin and sculpted tubeworm growths! Both genders included. Created by Flea Bussy.

See also:

• NOAA in Secondlife via Hack’s Haven
• The Abyss of Secondlife

Some of the kids over at Metafilter are suggesting that today is Giant Squid Day. Others suspect it maybe Cloverfield virality. Either way, get your ink on over here:

• Real Giant Squids
• Vertebrae not required

As mentioned on Cephalopodcast #6, anyone who needs a last minute costume for Halloween can try this Instructable from Tool Using Animal. You can probably assemble it in less than 30 minutes out of commonly available office supplies. Plus an option for glow-in-the-dark action!

• Super quick last minute Squid costume

Another more involved invertebrate Instructable is the Halloween LED Jellyfish Costume.

[via neatorama]

Something fun from the Wildlife Conservation Society: Build Your Wild Side. It’s a marketing gimmick, but a wild one.

And in the tradition of infecting other bloggers, I challenge the following to build their wild self too and pass on the meme:

• Laelaps
• Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice, and Sunsets
• Invasive Species weblog
• The Other 95%
• Bioephemera

Many visitors to this cephaloblog are probably already aware of the plight of the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. However, there is another, rarer species said to lurk in the farm country of the northeast. And the first photographic evidence of the elusive seven-legged Vermount tree octopus has recently been released. It is an enormous beast which obviously has binocular vision and a hardened siphon. Be aware folks. Be very aware!

- -

All kidding aside, this concludes my posts for the first annual International Cephalopod Awareness Day. Thanks again to everyone who participated. If you are interested in planning events for next year, head on over to TONMO and join the conversation. And remember, next year it will be 08-October-08!

Sheryl is a sculptor with a couple of quirky works on display. Some are fluffy fantasy while others are bare reality. But the ones that caught my attention the most are her Perma-Pet “cuddlefish”, nudibranchs and octopuppy.

• Octopuppy, Mixed Media Fantasy Sculpture
• YoutTube: Octopuppy Sculpture
• Available as a T-shirt
• Permapets: cuttlefish and nudibranchs
• Cthulhu’s Gems, One of a Kind Fantasy Tentacle Pendants
• Baby Rat, One of a Kind Polymer Clay Sculpture

Related items:

• Different kind of “octopuppy”: Six-legged puppy found in Malaysia (2005)
• How the Moon got its Craters
• oopsy the octopuppy infant and toddler shirts

Various tentacly things aggregating in my inbox:

• Lovecraft x Sendak = Where the Great Old Ones Are
• Michael Leavitt’s Octogirl, an Audrey Kawasaki 10″ art action figure
• Williams-Sonoma: Octopus Cake Pan
  [tip of the tentacle to Karen]

Be sure to also check out Mike Levitt’s DIY Action Figure video. Fascinating.

There are many things to dislike about this video. Mixing limnetic and stenohaline fishes. Confusing a Holocentrid for a Salmonid. Undergravel filters. But then you realize the kid is probably just tripping and the beatbox blowfish is really amusing. So don’t sweat the details and just give it up for Sammy the Salmon and his amazing salmon dance…

mild profanity

• Chemical Brothers
• Alternate encoded version: Chem1_FactoryWeb.mov
• The Fish and the Forest

[via Glenn]

Today’s Too Much Coffee Man comic by Shannon Wheeler is indeed cephalopodtastic. Thanks Glenn!

Anyone else know of funny cephalopod-inspired comics?

• Previously: Cephalopods in the hen house
• Previously: Life of the Giant Squid (cartoon excerpt from The Mr Hell Show)

[via digg]

Design palettes inspired by the Great Barrier Reef available over at COLOURlovers.

COLOURlovers is a resource that monitors and influences color trends [and] gives the people who use color…a place to check out a world of color, compare color palettes, submit news and comments, and read color related articles and interviews.

• Landmark Colors: The Great Barrier Reef

So the meme of the moment is focused on science tattoos. It is something the kids seem proud of today and they are not alone.

Naturally enough, cephalopods provide a lot of inkspiration when it comes to tattoos. Over at TONMO they did a reader survey to find out what motivates people to go under the “pen.”

The most popular location for a cephalopod tattoo is the lower back, with four (25%) tattoos residing there. The left arm was a close second (3), followed by a 3-way tie for right arm, left leg, and upper back (2 each).

So why do people choose to get a cephalopod tattoo over something different? Here is some of the insight provided by our responders. It’s interesting to note the prevailing observation that cephalopods are so “alien”-like.

• When I was a kid my uncle took me scuba diving, and I held a small octopus on that arm [where I got my tattoo]. It was such an amazing experience…
• I’m a scuba instructor, and they’re my favorite…
• my favorite animal since i was a kid
• Cephalopods are my favorite creatures on the planet. They are not only highly intelligent and full of personality, but they are both entirely alien looking (compared to all other animals) and adorable at the same time.
• I like cephs a lot, and have devoted a lot of time to them. More importantly, I found an image of a ceph that resonated with me, and seemed to reflect other aspects of my life besides cephs.
• …you can’t really sail to French Polynesia and not get a tattoo, so i got one of an octopus…
• I love cephalopods - the last (known) living sea monsters, intelliegent, and alien to us - but given that most of the earth’s surface is covered by oceans, they’re probably more abundant than even all 6 billion of us. Their colors and elegance of motion make them living art (to me, anyway).
• ‘cuz they’re just so gosh darn squidly!

They have galleries containing tattoo images broken down into three categories: octopus, cuttlefish, and squid. An interested cephaloblog reader was also kind enough to share his sinewy octopus tattoo with me and I am glad to see it turned out pretty well.

But I’ve never been inked myself. I’m afraid if I did, it would end up looking something like Dicrostonyx torquatus.

See also

• Love Lab: Sea life tattoos (over 12 pages!)
• TONMO: Cephalopod Tattoos
• Paryngula: Tats for Science and discussion
• The other 95% tattoos
• eMedicine: Histology of Tattoos
• “The most intense tattoo you will ever see [via digg]

UPDATE: The meme continues.

• Metafilter: Awesome science tattoos
• Street Anatomy: the anatomy tattoo gallery

Sweet octopus constructed out of LEGO.

Members of the Bay Area LEGO Users Group install a new aquarium-themed display at the Stoneridge Mall LEGO store in Pleasanton, CA on Feb 20, 2006.

• LEGO Octopus by william.ward
• Aquarium at LEGO Store
• Buy your own LEGO squid
• Enteroctopus dofleini and LEGO

[via Glenn]

Johnathan Coulton has released another song about love, life, relationships and cephalopods. Octopus is his first public song since his celebrated Thing a Week ended last year. Nice to hear from him again. If you like the music, support the independent artist by buying his song. He has several other sciencey songs available too, like Womb with a View, Bacteria, Seahorse and That Spells DNA.

Johnathan is also the contributing troubadour for the Popular Science Podcast.

• Listen to Octopus
• Another cephallic song from JoCo: I Crush Everything
• Len’s Creative Response music video that was inspired by the song

The Advanced Molecular Biology Laboratory, a science centric teaching facility based out of the Michael Smith Laboratories at the University of British Columbia, needs your haikus:

The [Science Creative Quarterly] is about to embark on a creative bioinformatics project that aims to collect a myriad of Haiku’s that reflect on an organism. These, we will collect and present as an exercise in phylogeny at a later date. Called the Haiku Phylogeny project. For more details, please go here.

Here is my contribution:
 

   PATTERNS IN THE SAND

   Heave ho, there she goes
   a sea turtle on the beach.
   Don’t disturb her nest.

• The SCQ’s Most Exceptional, Illustrious, Spendiferous Haiku Phylogeny Project
• Compulsory squid haiku
• A guide to defining the haiku form

The newest issue of Sea Stories is available. Sea Stories is a quarterly online journal of international ocean writing and art, published by Blue Ocean Institute.

Sea Stories…features contributions by ocean-lovers from all backgrounds and walks of life - writers, artists, educators, students, scientists, fishers, conservationists, explorers, and just regular people. Educators are invited to use Sea Stories in the classroom or as a publishing opportunity for yourself or your students. Join us in celebrating all things oceanic!

• Sea Stories

[via TONMO]

Returning from the depths, it’s Octopia. No word on whether they will allow Teuthida or Nautilida to sneak in.

Welcome to Octopia, the site that aims to provide you with amusing information, art, anecdotes, and general flotsam and jetsam related to cephalopods of the order Octopoda.

And from their about page, this fun bit of trivia:

After a little bit of searching (but don’t worry, I didn’t stay up all night working on this), I’ve found some glosses for ‘octopus’. Hope you find these helpful:
French = either pieuvre or poulpe
Spanish = pulpo
German = Tintenfisch
Czech = chobotnice (pronounced KHO-boat-neats-eh)
Slovene = hobotnica
Classical Greek = polypous (paw-LOOP-oos)
Japanese = tako; yudedako (boiled octopus…yum!)
Finnish = meritursas, tursas; mustekala (also means “cuttlefish”, “squid!”)
Hungarian = polip
Swahili = pweza mkubwa

• Octopia