Thursday, April 14, 2005

Slimed

Slime mold sounds like the worst of the worst.

And this could be!

Slime mold has been called many names by science: plant, animal, fungus..but slime mold is none of these, exactly. They have their own kingdom.

Witness the Slimes.

They crawl around to find food and once sated they crawl to the perfect spot for sex, in which only the priveleged may participated, then they crawl to the perfect spot to die...shriveling up to a black dry mass whereupon they break up releasing sporelike minions to invade the world riding upon the wind dropping in near invisibilty upon likey soil to begin the evil life cycle all over again.

One kind of slime mold consists of one celled slugs that crawl around seeking food, crawling through dung, devouring rotted vegetation, helpless bacteria, and protozoa that get caught, surronded and assimilated into the slime slug's body, ever growing in the night...daylight too! Can Nothing stop this ravenous madness?

Growing and growing... until the signal comes.

But...From where does it come, this signal? What beast sends it? Of what nature is this evil signal? We can only guess, and though scientists believe it to be chemical in nature, Preachers pound the podium and claim this horrible blight has been sent as a plague upon us and in reality... comes from the...

Devil!.... BwaHaaHAAAAaaaaaaa!

And could it be that there is no scientific process involved but that a signal to these evil minions goes out to call them and then they all crawl back to one spot and...and...oh this is difficult to tell you dear reader, but...they join together and have sex! Yes they do, but not in ways we believe are proper but in ways so perverted that I can not bear to put my two tortured fingers to keyboard in such a way as to describe for you, this vile act, soon to take place upon the very ground that our children run barefooted across in the morning sun, unaware of the perversion the soles of their feet will tread upon!

But not all of these vile slugs get to experience this carnal slug knowlege. Only the priveleged few that form the top ranking orgy members, mitochondrially speaking...How fair is that?...Worse...they never die, exactly. After the orgy, the chosen worthy, and it pains me to use that word, worthy, and those worthy are destined to become spores, sent out to perform this evil and disgusting dance all over again from the beginning, I tell you folks, this is an evil thing and must be destroyed in all its forms!

OK, they're pretty much harmless but Slime Molds are weird beyond belief. Scientists have given up and decided that they are not plants, Animals, or Fungi, and have awarded them their own kingdom!

Kingdom Protista!

And like all living things, the lovable slime molds have their predators. So what feeds upon such a thing a slime mold?

Conservatives, you might say?

Well it could just be that indeed they do! Here you go:

"Two former Cornell University entomologists who recently had the job of naming 65 new species of slime-mold beetles named three species that are new to science in the genus Agathidium for members of the U.S. administration. They are A. bushi Miller and Wheeler, A. cheneyi Miller and Wheeler and A. rumsfeldi Miller and Wheeler."

Quite the honor, indeed. Apparently the entomologists named some of the other beetles after an ex-wife and "Star Wars" villain Darth Vader.

More, and pictures too!





See! It MOVED!

Slime

Peace,

Steve

1 comment:

  1. You're creeping me out, and I like this stuff! Actually, what you worte is pretty interesting. However, for a few moments, I felt like I was in a Calvin & Hobbs fantasy sequence.

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