Bits: Shark Jesus Edition

Pic courtesy of the-amazing.com

-According to NewScientist, Turkish creationist Adnan Oktar is offering $7.5 trillion dollars to anyone who can produce an intermediate-form fossil proving evolution. Um, haven't we already found those? I mean, the creationists have an argument ready against them, but we've already found, you know, fishes with legs. No sources have said where he would get that much money. Oktar recently sold 10,000 copies of a book denying evolution, and successfully campaigned to have Richard Dawkins' website banned in Turkey.

-San Francisco TV station KTVU reports that they're going to put a net under the Golden Gate bridge to prevent suicides. I'm trying to picture the thought process here... "You mean I can't jump off the Golden Gate? I'll have to use a less famous bridge, or maybe take a lot of pills? I dunno, maybe I'll just go on living then..."

-Shark Jesus! Scientists at an aquarium in Richmond, Virginia have reported that a female blacktip shark conceived without any male input... a virgin birth. The fetus was discovered during a necropsy on the mother shark after it had died of "complications." It contains no genetic material from a male. This is apparently not the first time this has happened, as there is much discussion in the linked article about "parthenogenesis," which apparently does not mean what Willow Rosenberg led me to believe it meant.

-In other news, the world economy continues its drain spiral. The Finance ministers from the G7 nations are meeting in Washington DC. Will they come up with a solution? Is the devil on the doorstep wearing galoshes?

-Alternative artist Banksy has opened an art installation in New York City that is a sort of insane magic pet store. I cannot make this stuff up. Make sure to watch the video with the dancing chicken nuggets, and the college-age girl wondering "Are they real?"

-Surprise! Not only does Life on Mars not suck, it got decent ratings last night. But not quite as decent as CBS' anti-science procedural (and yet another foreign remake) Eleventh Hour. "It's like that scary Fringe show, but safe and boring for old people!" I think that's actually their advertising campaign.

-Free TV on the Internet: Wednesday's episode of Bones, in my opinion the best procedural on TV, was about a murder in a tight-knit religious community on Chesapeake Bay. This brings out inherent conflicts among the characters, with Brennan getting lines like "You are all united by your shared superstition" and "Do these people believe in DNA?" Oh, yeah, it's called "The He in the She." Watch it here.