A New Reason to Not Kill the Rainforests: The Fungus I’m Calling Polyurethane Pam

The StumbleUpon algorithm took me from liking a chord sheet for “Hey Jude” to a story about a newly discovered Amazonian fungus that can eat polyurethane.  Coincidence, or does the algorithm like punning on Abbey Road tracks?

In any case, student researchers from Yale working in Ecuador have given us yet another reason to save the rainforests.

If you thought Fern Gully was propagandist tripe, read about the plastic-eating wunder-microbes here.  Plus one for biodiversity.

 

How To Make A Hollow Book in Which to Hide Your Stuff

If you went to a high school, you knew a kid who tried to do this. Trust me on that. (No, it wasn’t me.) Now that you’re all growed-up like Wendy Darling, what kinds of things would you use something like this for? Oh, and kids, if you’re reading: don’t bring crap you’re not supposed to to school. Unless it’s something funny. Also, don’t do drugs.

found here via StumbleUpon.

My favorite part of this whole project has to be the inclusion of our old friend, the 3.5 inch floppy disk.  I also appreciated “make sure this is your book” and “make sure you use a hardcover book.”  Now, honestly, I actually cringe at the very thought of cutting or otherwise mangling a book no matter what the awesome final product.  When I find old books at garage sales, I bring them home and nurse them back to health.  Maybe you have a damaged, unusable, unsalvageable edition of something that you can re-purpose for these kinds of projects. If so, then, like Mitch Hedberg used to say, I’m for ’em.

Speaking of Mitch Hedberg, I’m pretty sure he invented Twitter.  Is a post on that forthcoming?  I think you know the answer to that, friend.

Speaking of StumbleUpon, if you use it, let me know so we can connect and share recommendations, reviews, and likes.  If you don’t know what it is, let me just say that it has precious little to do with Culture Club.  Misheard title lyrics there are “I’ll Tumble 4 Ya.”  You’d think these guys would be all over that.

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