The Story of My Life

This May Be the Most Disgusting Reddit Thread I've Ever Seen (And I Thought I Should Share)

The Reddit thread's subject is trypophobia -- supposedly the fear of small holes -- but mostly its lesions and growing things interspersed with pictures of little holes in pancakes, and while that may not seem gross, trust me.  Why would one look at this? How can one turn away?  Via Boing Boing.

Don't Mind Me, Just Takin' Care of Some Business ...

Well, that worked out pretty good, let's see what else we've got ...

Via Neatorama.

A Happy Elephant

Goats Yelling Like Humans. That is All. (And It's Enough.)

A Little Joy

To me this pretty much sums it up:

This is Not a Cat

This is a owlette wit a cracker on its head. Via Nothing to do with Arborath.

Tarsier Facts

From the inestimable Ze Frank, via Miss Cellania, 

As to the tarsier's innocent wide-eyed appearance, well you might watch this short clip (from the BBC's Life and narrated by the wonderful and ubiquitous and also inestimable David Attenborough). To quote, in part: "Tarsiers are the only totally carnivorous primates on Earth." (Okay, Ze Frank says this, too, and sounds like Morgan Freeman, but he probably got it from Attenborough, who sounds like Attenborough.)

"True Facts About Sloths"

Admittedly sloth-like posts by me lately as I am working on a project and have quite a lot of old links to clear out .. and who doesn't like sloths? (This may be in violation of Our New Year's resolutions, but I haven't checked the terms ....)

Advancements in Science 2012: Mouse Training

As part of our 2012 yearly wrap-up here at GF we would like to draw your attention to the breakthroughs in getting mice to perform chores before being fed. This demonstrates that mice are more capable of being trained than my children.

Woofs and Mr. Wiggles Show Up for the Holiday Party

Posting may be light tonight due to our biannual holiday party.

Stuffed and Sad

Via Boing Boing, mostly from Uproxx (and all from Google), none of these appear to be Chuck Testa quality. They are ... Bad Taxidermy. See also here, here, and here. Also here.

Snowball's Tribute to Michael Jackson

Lonely Little Guy Doesn't Want to Eat You After All, Just Be Friends

According to National Geographic:

Despite its ghoulish name and looks, the vampire squid (pictured, an individual in 2004) isn't a bloodthirsty terror of the deep after all, a new study says.

Instead, the nightmarishly named species browses on "marine snow"—dead plankton, algae, fecal matter, goo, shells shed by tiny crustaceans, and other detritus.

That's so cute! He just wants to eat fecal matter.  According to Wikipedia, "[a]s a phylogenetic relict it is the only known surviving member of its order, first described and originally classified as an octopus in 1903 byGerman teuthologist Carl Chun, but later assigned to a new order together with several extinct taxa." Also, "[t]he vampire squid is almost entirely covered in light-producing organs called photophores. The animal has great control over the organs, capable of producing disorienting flashes of light for fractions of a second to several minutes in duration." And, "the vampire squid is able to live and breathe normally in the [ocean's oxygen minimum zone] at oxygen saturations as low as 3%; a feat no other cephalopod, and few other animals, can claim. ...  If threatened, instead of ink, a sticky cloud of bioluminescent mucus containing innumerable orbs of blue light is ejected from the arm tips."

Vampire squid are the coolest animals ever. I will be your friend, little vampire squid.