Best posts made by Stockcar86

Can’t believe this is the same team that drew nil all with Italy

Incredible

Aquarium rewards dolphins with fish if they bring a piece of litter or a dead gull to help keep the pool clean.

One dolphin starts tearing up litter into smaller pieces and trading each in for a reward, then uses fish rewards as bait to lure and kill gulls for larger rewards

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/jul/03/research.science

M'arse Bar

Why they don't put Christmas lights on palm trees

This may be my self indulgence as someone who keeps a hive, but I find this awesome

One of these men is Welsh

I was wondering whether a new thread just related to science stories would be interesting to anyone (other than me).

To start off,

Bacteria can coordinate their behavior by exchanging signals that reveal how many of them there are. But unexpectedly, VIRUSES can eavesdrop on those signals, to launch infections only when there are enough hosts around

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/12/some-viruses-can-eavesdrop-their-hosts/578071/

From the story:

Quorum sensing was already a revolutionary concept. As Bassler uncovered its details over decades, she and others were shocked to realize that supposedly simple organisms such as bacteria could communicate and coordinate. But viruses are even simpler. They’re not even technically alive! They’re entirely different entities from bacteria, yet they are intercepting and interpreting the same molecular messages. It’s like a rock eavesdropping on a bird.

Mounga tonight

Finally my specialist subject...

I'm a real coffee snob, Up until 10 months ago when I was living in Auckland, I was drinking purely specialty coffee - long blacks or filters - 3 to 4 cups per day.

Favorite place was BE Specialty in Auckland. Many specialty coffee places have single origin for their filter (lighter) roasts, but BE also roasts single origin for their espresso (darker roast) based coffees. With filter single origin's you can really taste the complexities of the coffee - not quite so much with the espresso roasts but still different (often fruitier) flavors.

Coffee snob credentials - my wife and I went on a trip to Tokyo, just so I could try out the place that was supposed to make the best espresso in the world at Bear Pond Espresso. The owner pulls all the coffee's himself, and limits himself to only 30 espresso's per day (you can get other milk based coffee drinks) and generally does not make any after 1pm as the air pressure changes means that he can't get it just the way he wants. Here I am there:

and here is my espresso. A few rich thick syrup dribbles, no more than half an ounce sitting in the bottom of the cup.

Since I moved back to Napier and I've cut down to one coffee per day, filling the gap with green tea to get my caffeine fixes. While Napier was the founding place of Flight specialty coffee, they moved all that to Wellington. Georgia cafe does a decent pour over filter coffee (and has just started offering bottomless batch brewed filters), so if I am in town I try one of those. They are supposed to be opening up their own roastery in Onekawa by the end of the year, so will need to check that out.

I've got myself a cold brew drip system - you put coffee in the middle, ice/iced water above it and at a rate of about 1 drip per seconds takes 6-7 hours to make a pot of cold brew. Very tasty and the cold water filtration removes much of the acidity out of the flavor of the end product. That is my go to coffee drink in summer, as it lasts over a week in the fridge without losing any taste. Plus it makes my kitchen look like a meth lab...

Credit where it is due, well done to the Lions for getting the win of their tour out of the way in the first match

Streaker making more yards than the Boks

I was watching the pre-launch live while in the passenger seat on the way to work in Timaru in my bosses Tesla, on autopilot, after he downloaded the latest car software patch over his motel Wifi last night. We really are living in the future

How I imagine the Blues Dev team looks like now

This is the Christmas spirit

Fuck Hansen does know what he is doing with his team selection

This arrest sequence

https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1427650

I'll accept some blame for this new outbreak. For the first time since March last year, I bought yeast from the supermarket yesterday morning...

Subs did not choke this time. That last try was S Barrett short ball to Read, to Perenara to B Barrett. Great combo like they had been playing together all game

Getting to watch this game by itself justified the expense of the Spark Rugby package