Slave ants...

or, Temnothorax longispinosus have demonstrated that rebellion is a natural state of being. Put more pithily by Dr Susanne Foitzik, "Enslaved worker ants kill the offspring of their parasites and thereby improve the chances of survival for their neighboring relatives."

Rebellion, it's a DNA thing. Dontcha just love that? A little lesson for us all, methinks.

Missing the zeitgeist by quite some margin this ant from the species Selfish Bastardos has a lottery ticket.

Impressive image from...

 the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.

Some of the light has taken over 13 billion years to reach here. Hubble focused on a tiny spot below the Orion Nebula and discovered it to be full of stuff. Or rather, less empty than previously thought. The universe is huge, even bigger than big. So massive is the area between things the place is more empty than full. Extraordinarily empty by all accounts. So empty in fact that what's in it amounts to almost nothing. Lucky for us then that we've a little corner of almost nothing to call our own. Group hug, yay...

Raging storm batters...

UK shock. Foam covers Aberdeen suburb, shock. Professor says foam is plankton snot. All those tiny creatures, all those colds. Someone ought to complain.

Apparently...

this bit of old papyrus is causing quite a storm. The size of a credit card and written front and rear the text is a note from Jesus to his wife complaining that the chickens were crapping everywhere. The note concludes "Tell your useless brother John to get his head out of his arse and stop letting the chickens in the fucking house."

The argument goes that this note is proof Jesus was married.

The Vatican challenged the document's authenticity by reminding everyone the Son of God never married or used expletives. Cardinal Boniface Strokeachild told the world's press "It is well known the Son of God never married or used expletives." Asked to elaborate further His Eminence replied "In those days Jesus was a common name so this could be anybody." Asked about the chickens the Cardinal said "They can be difficult animals to keep especially if they get in the house."

The controversy is expected to continue. 

It's been a bloody awful...

summer in the UK. Days of torrential rain, whole towns bobbing merrily down temporary rivers. Mountains washed to the size of pimples by the downpour. The force of falling water stripping paint from house exteriors. The weather was so strange, one minute scorching sun (well, not that scorching nor that much sun) then afore you know it major floods.

Originally, these two went looking for sun screen, something with an emollient. Maybe they were crushed by a fickle summer and the driving rain because with backs bent they staggered home beneath 100 kilos of the finest marbled fat. Perhaps only the incessant morse of rain on noggin can explain a firm belief that Lard futures were poised for the upswing. Oh, how this summer nearly did for us all.

Here's amazing footage of the Mars Rover landing. Our first view is the craft's extremely heavy heat shield falling away towards the Martian surface. I couldn't help but think that if there are any natives they'll be really pissed off when that thing lands.