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October’s Scishimi: Slaying Krakens and taking names.

Brian Switek destroys the lovely image of an artistic Kraken, and Kevin Zelnio rightfully calls him out for it. Carl gushes over the world’s biggest virus.

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


Brian Switek destroys the lovely image of an artistic Kraken, and Kevin Zelnio rightfully calls him out for it.

Carl gushes over the world’s biggest virus.

The best abstract ever. No, really. You’ll see.


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Because one can never hear enough about hagfish slime.

I simply can’t top a title like “Piercing the Paleolithic Penis”.

The death of a whale, in paper cut-outs.

Glowing review of the scientific importance of glowing creatures.

Apparently, placebos are kind of like marijuana.

Oh yeah – and there are over 7 billion people on Earth now. Just FYI.

Vertebrates used to have a sixth sense.

Bathrooms are gross. Though we could try and make them less gross.

Extinction slows evolution.

Your friends are screwing with your head.

Important information: you can chuck a bone spear through a car (oh, and something about mastodons).

Settled, not settled – or neither.

Can we use fMRI to catch pedophiles? Should we?

Sperm donors have great personalities.

Science fiction donates terms to science.

Birth control pills don’t make your relationship better.

Also, Halloween happened. Apparently vampires are addicts – though Layla Eplett has a good recipe for drinking blood.

And finally, a little love:

Christie Wilcox is a postdoctoral researcher in cellular and molecular biology at the University of Hawaii, where she studies venom. She is also a science blogger and communicator.

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