Tangled Bank #65 is online over at Thoughts from Kansas.  While Josh put the carnival together in haste because the original host for this edition seems to have become unexpectedly unavailable, this is still the best amalgamation of science writing from across the web, and you’d be remiss for not visiting and taking a look at the plethora of good information.  Who knows… You might just learn something.

Take a look at this kitty bathing a guinea pig.  I’m not sure if the rodent trusts this setup, but the cat nevertheless seems quite interested in taking good care of the wee friend.

Het man-on-dog round up: It is just what it seems to be.  Pam gives us a… er… um… well… It’s a summary of rather disturbing news articles about bestiality.  Several news articles.  I suppose this is the kind of heterosexual sex that makes homosexuality so unnatural: sex with the family dog, sex with a dead dog, sex with a hog, sex with a lamb, and sex with a horse.

This is a really cool news story.  We’ve recently discovered bacteria living nearly two miles (almost three kilometers) below the surface.  Rather than utilizing sunlight for energy, they consume energy from the decay of radioactive rocks.  The microbes have likely been isolated down there for several million years.  This discovery adds tremendous weight to the premise that life on other planets would not necessarily require the same proximity to the sun as Earth, or even direct light and heat from a parent star.

Go watch the world’s largest spider capture a mouse in the jungles of South America.  The video shows a kind of tarantula that “can grow to be one foot (30 centimeters) long and sports one-inch (2.5-centimeter) fangs.”  It’s also interesting to note that, as the video points out, tarantula bites are no more severe for humans than is a bee sting, and that even if it came from this eight-legged goliath.

Yesterday’s Dilbert is hysterical and oh so very true.

Remember this worm-like thing I couldn’t identify?  I wonder if it’s the same or related to this blue planarian?  I never saw the underside of my specimen and don’t know if it was blue, but that’s the only difference I can see between the two (if it’s even different).