[WIRED] Absurd Creature of the Week: This Parasite Eats a Fish’s Tongue — And Takes Its Place

• BY MATT SIMON [Wired magazine]
 
• 11.22.13
• 6:30 AM

A Cymothoa exigua tongue-eating isopod that has consumed and replaced the tongue of a snapper, who is not wide-eyed because of terror. That’s just how fish normally look. Photo copyright Matthew R. Gilligan

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A fish walks into a bar and takes a seat. The bartender asks what he wants to drink, but the fish doesn’t say anything. So the bartender asks, “What, cat got your tongue?” The fish grabs a cocktail napkin and writes out, No, actually, it was an isopod. An isopod got my tongue and by “got” I mean she ate it.

That joke may not be funny to you, but it’s hilarious to the tongue-eating isopod. You see, in the Gulf of California there actually exists a critter, Cymothoa exigua, that targets a fish by infiltrating its gills and latching onto its tongue. It proceeds to not only consume the organ, but will then replace it with its own body, providing the fish with a new fully functioning tongue it uses (probably a bit begrudgingly) to grind food against tiny teeth on the roof of its mouth.

If you can believe it, this is a love story at heart. And the rose snapper’s face is the stage on which it unfolds.This remarkable attack is the only known instancein the animal kingdom of a parasite functionally replacing an organ of its host. And while C. exigua targets several other fish, attaching to their tongues and draining their blood, only with the rose snapper does it devour and completely replace the organ as an operating structure, according to marine biologist Rick Brusca of the University of Arizona. And he stresses that while there are hundreds of such species of tongue-targeting isopods, contrary to many media reports, only C. exigua can actually truly assume the duties of the organ.

These isopods are protandrous hermaphrodites: They first mature into males, but then switch sexes to become females. The magic starts when more than one C. exigua lands in a given fish’s gills. When the first one infiltrates it begins to mature into a male, but when the second one appears, said Brusca, it “stimulates the first one to change sex and become a female and crawl from the gills up through the throat and attach to the tongue, and then this new second one is the male that will impregnate her.”

Saddam 'double' escapes Alexandria porn kidnap gang, again.

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you rock, macy!

"Boycotters are just assholes"

[article] Kevin Kelly and Steven Johnson on Where Ideas Come From

By Wired  - September 27, 2010 - Wired Print October 2010

Say the word “inventor” and most people think of a solitary genius toiling in a basement. But two ambitious new books on the history of innovation—by Steven Johnson and Kevin Kelly, both longtime wired contributors—argue that great discoveries typically spring not from individual minds but from the hive mind. In Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, Johnson draws on seven centuries of scientific and technological progress, from Gutenberg to GPS, to show what sorts of environments nurture ingenuity. He finds that great creative milieus, whether MIT or Los Alamos, New York City or the World Wide Web, are like coral reefs—teeming, diverse colonies of creators who interact with and influence one another.

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and now FUCK ENGLAND!!!!

Israel fury at UK attempt to arrest Tzipi Livni


Tzipi Livni: "It's about time to put terrorists on trial and not those who try to stop terror"

Israel has reacted angrily to the issuing by a British court of an arrest warrant for the former Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni.
The warrant, granted by a London court on Saturday, was revoked on Monday when it was found Ms Livni was not visiting the UK.
Ms Livni was foreign minister during Israel's Gaza assault last winter.

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60-foot penis painted on roof

An 18-year-old has secretly painted a 60ft drawing of a phallus on the roof of his parents' £1million mansion in Berkshire. It was there for a year before his parents found out. They say he'll have to scrub it off when he gets back from travelling.

Skinniest house in Britain' for sale at £550,000

At just 66 inches wide this house has been dubbed the 'skinniest home in Britain', but its price is anything but small at more than half a million pounds.


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Facebook 'dipping' craze irks pool owners // Telegraph.co.uk

Teenagers are using internet satellite images to spot outdoor swimming pools before meeting for late-night dips.


The new craze, known as “dipping”, involves people using pictures from Google Earth to identify homes that have large outdoor pools.

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respect the bops..

Web Anonymity 101 - Digital Breadcrumbs

We are living more of our lives online. In real life if someone followed you, listened in on your conversations and went through your photo album without your permission you would call the police (or maybe they are the police). Things are different online. That information is easy to find; easier than people think.

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Michael Schumacher drives taxi in airport dash

Michael Schumacher drives taxi in airport dash
By Tom Chivers and Sarah Marcus
Last Updated: 2:42am GMT 12/12/2007

It seems that you can take Michael Schumacher out of racing, but you can't take racing out of Michael Schumacher.

The seven-time Formula One world champion took over from his taxi driver in order to make it to the airport in time for a flight, it has emerged.

Cabbie Tuncer Yilmaz watched in awe as the racing legend, 38, showed him how his job ought to be done.

"I found myself in the passenger seat, which was strange enough, but to have 'Schumi' behind the wheel of my cab was incredible," Mr Yilmaz told German newspaper the Muenchner Abendzeitung.

Schumacher, who lives in Switzerland, had flown in to an aerodrome near Coburg, Bavaria, on Saturday and taken a taxi to Gehuelz to pick up a new puppy.

On the 30km (19 mile) return journey, however, Schumacher felt they were short on time, and made a polite request to Mr Yilmaz that he be allowed to take over.


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Is that so? Fascinating....

"Taking advantage of a debilitating political crisis in Beirut, overstretched security forces and a lifeless economy, the Bekaa farmers this year have cultivated the largest hashish harvest since the war-torn 1980s when this fertile valley was awash with drug crops."