Breaking Squid News, Stephen Hawking, Etc.

Extremely longtime readers of this blog -- of which there might not actually be any -- will know that nothing gets me more excited than breakthroughs in squid science. Judge then how excited I was when this footage surfaced:

(Actually it surfaced in 2007, but the blogosphere only just noticed this week (I got it from i09), so that means it only just happened.) The footage was captured by a robotic submersible operated by Shell Oil off the coast of Mexico, a mile and a half down. Apparently it was forwarded around for a while before somebody figured out that what they were looking at was an extremely rare long-arm squid, part of the genus Magnapinna. I totally want one of those.

If this turns out to be a viral video promoting Cloverfield 2: Crimson and Clover, then I'm sorry.

(Incidentally "researching" Magnapinna on Wikipedia led me to this awesome artifact: the Schmidt Sting Pain Index. Apparently the worst possible thing you can be stung by is a bullet ant. I probably wasn't ever going to go to Paraguay, but now I'm really not going.)

Also, Stephen Hawking has accepted a job in Ontario. Those Canadians won't stop till the rest of have nothing left. Nothing!