Wish List Part 6, Clever Flies and Seamonsters

McCall told Meg about his third wish. Well, told is not the right word as Meg is able to read in the memories... The third wish it to hit Ball. Brendan Ball was one of the bullies at the boarding school. Not brainless asinine one, but the clever and big-headed one, which was worse. In the last year of school Brendan Ball humiliated McCall in front of the rest of boys and even in front of some girls. McCall had the chance to fight with him, but he got so uneasy and scared he did nothing. So he wanted revenge then.

But the whole wish turned over to very nice meeting with an old friend, because Ball identified McCall very easily and apologized for his behaviour before McCall was able to do anything. They left each other as very good friends. And Meg and McCall settled on hitting Franco (Meg´s step-father) instead of Ball. And Meg promised to tell McCall why she hates Franco so much and what he did to her.
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I´ve just read a very enlightening article. The scientists Tadeusz Kawecki and Joep Burger presents their work about flies in June´s issue of Evolution magazine. They bred a new variety of a small fly. The clever one. They needed about 35 generations of this kind of fly, but finally they were able to train them up and made them more clever than the other flies.

They did all the work just to be able to prove that the clever flies live shorter than the stupid, not trained ones. The stupid flies live about 80 - 85 days, but the clever ones only about 50 - 60 days. They´ve also proved that the stupid flies live longer because they exert their brains less and thanks to this they save a lot energy...

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Yesterday evening I found this game:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_life/games/seamonsters/

I was eaten many times, I overcame the big cuttlefish (I can´t remember its prehistorical name), and wasn´t able to count the fish in two videos!!! That was weird. I would say there were three fish.. well, professedly not...

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Well, this is not a really seamonster (it is a cutemonster) but has so beautiful name I have to mention it - Firefly squid.

It can be found in the western Pacific ocean around Japan, at depths of 200 - 400m during the day and rising to the surface to feed at night.

It grows to a length of 7cm and lives just for about one year.

The Sparkling Enope Squid (as it is also called) can also light up its whole body to attract a mate (not just food). The mating season of this animal lasts from March to June, so if you are somewhere around Japan, you have the last chance to see it by your own eyes:-)

If you are interested, you can also visit these sites:

http://www.seasky.org/deep-sea/firefly-squid.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/blueplanet/factfiles/molluscs/firefly_squid_bg.shtml (including a video of the squid)