The 100th edition of Grand Rounds (version 2:48) is hosted by Dr. Charles.  Go enjoy “the weekly linkfest celebrating the highlights of the medical blogosphere” and you’re bound to come away happy for the experience.

Are you, like me, a Pythonist?  That is, a follower of the good and holy Monty Python?  If so, you must see this.  An outrage, I tell you.

Yet another tale of evolution happening right before our eyes.  Wolbachia is a species of bacteria that spreads through eggs, so it generally kills all male offspring of the invertebrates it infects as a measure of self-defense (since males don’t produce eggs).  A species of butterfly has rapidly adapted with a genetic variation that negates the bacterial slaughter of all male offspring, so that species of butterfly now gives birth to the normal mix of genders despite being infected by Wolbachia.  The adaptation occurred rapidly and shows this struggle may well have taken place many times before, and each time the infected organism evolves to overcome the female-only birth limitation.

An Irish company claims to have overcome the law of conservation of energy by creating a machine that produces free energy (power created from nothing).  Since we have long assumed according to physical laws that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, this is interesting and almost laughable.  The only question is who will be the last one laughing: the scientific community or the company?

If you had two fully functioning penes (that’s the plural of penis, BTW), would you want one removed?  This man does.  I see his concern and think I would be like minded.  Then again…  [via Eric]

I’m sorry, but this picture is just too cute.  Kitty.  Sink.  You do the math.

Very cool!  “The mandibles of the trap-jaw ant close at speeds up to 145 mph, the fastest predatory strike in the animal kingdom.”  Not only can “the ant’s jaws accelerate at 100,000 times the force of gravity”, but they “can snap shut 2,300 times faster than a blink of the eye” and exert “forces 300 to 500 times the ant’s body weight.”  Again, very cool!

I believe I’ve said before how vicious and temperamental raccoons can be, and that a single masked bandit can easily kill a dog.  Here’s just such a story.  “A fierce group of raccoons has killed 10 cats, attacked a small dog and bitten at least one pet owner who had to get rabies shots, residents of Olympia [WA] say.”  Once they lose their fear of humans, watch out.

This is how the government can take your money away from you simply by accusing the money of being somehow illegal.  They need not prove it, they need not charge you with a crime, and they need not convict anyone or anything of wrongdoing.  They just take from you what they will and levy whatever accusations are necessary to transfer ownership to the state.  There’s no burden of proof involved, so they need only act.  You, obviously, have no defense and, even with multiple witnesses and proof, can not override the opinion of the authorities.  If they say that money is illegal in some way, then so be it, and you lose a huge wad of cash — even if those funds were being used to start a small business.  Remember, folks, this is how the War on Drugs™ works: they accuse and take, and you get screwed.  No trial, no jury, no chance.