Giant Squid in the news....

I always find random reference to the giant squid, maybe for it's mystery yet popularity.
The Onion has a lot of references ~will find the links later.

But here is one from iPhone use:
http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/11/15/iphone-has-google-lost-its-voice-search/

Giant Squid joins the View !
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/900_pound_giant_squid_joins_cast

More fun websites (less squid related!)
Ink Scape - a free vector program similar to illustrator (GIMP style)
http://www.inkscape.org/

Fun community of on-line artists
http://www.deviantart.com/

depthCORE - some amazing graphical artwork
www.depthCORE.com

Soccer and more soccer
http://www.uefa.com/

Badass of the week, a new fun way to learn history
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/list.html

See your night sky by entering your ZIP
http://www.wunderground.com/sky/index.asp

Cephalopod Facts

Octopus or (Octopuses/octopi/octopodes)

The have a very short lifespan!
Smaller pygmy octopuses live around 6 months (these types are usually your pets) and the Giant Pacific Octopus lives between 3-5 years, possibly longer in colder water !!

The mother octopus lays eggs, stops eating, hides in her den, and withers away ~tear.

Squid or (Squid/squids) - squid can be plural, squids usually refers to multiple species

Skin:
- have chromatophores - produce color changes
- photophores - produce light (believe this if for group communication)

Blood:
- have hemocyanin (instead of hemoglobin) which provides oxidation by using copper (instead of iron) as a carrier of sulfide H2O (instead of oxygen)
- this "blue blood" is less viscous, making it very efficient at oxygenating gills.

Movement:
- Jet propulsion - water pushed through funnel in mantel, very efficent at pushing water over gills.


Cephalopods

gelatinous tissue - filled with ammonium ions - to approximate sea water buoyancy !!

GIMP

Just discovered GIMP
- a free image compostion and photo touchup program.

It is very similar to photoshop, especially since I have an older version - photoshop 5.0 LE, which won't update :,(

Here's what I've made so far (but I'm still learning layers and filters and effects... )

Giant Octopus (eating shark! ) and Squid blog

Giant Octopus is placed in a large aquarium shark tank
- see what happens:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaOWJxEr3U0&feature=related

Wow, it's bIG! new respect for the octopus!


Squid blog - fantastic resource for all things squid related!
- educational and cutsie

Squid - a San Francisco blog site
http://squid.us/
- I found squid blog by Laughing squid through twitter
--> try twitter, it's fun!

Giant sQuid song!

Jonathan Coulton - I crush everything !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RFEzpUsUBk

... mean dolphins!

Giant Squid Book

So I'm searching for a fun and entertaining book about the Giant Squid, and BAM! it exists! Thank you Richard Ellis!!

(btw, he has more books about sea monsters and the deep to read! wow)

Fun Websites

Classic Websites:
www.imdb.com
en.wikipedia.org


Useful sites to remember:
www.goodreads.com
www.bbc.co.uk/languages
www.gimp.org
www.instructables.com
xkcd.com
www.ted.com
twitter.com


Giant Squid Sites:
www.squidsquid.com
squid.us
museumvictoria.com.au/About/MV-News/2008/Giant-squid-public-dissection-at-Melbourne-Museum
'--> Live Video Dissection of Giant Squid!! (1hr 12min)
www.tonmo.com/science/public/giantsquidfacts.php

Temporary Fun sites (they amuse me for now...):
www.irregulargames.com
tigglet.labrute.fr

Welcome

The Giant Squid is the most amazing animal out there! To commemorate the Mr. G. Squid, and many other countless wonderful facts and finds, I'm starting this blog. For myself, I am collecting those eclectic facts, and I believe others may find them interesting too.

Shown is my picture of a Giant Squid, based off the first images of a Giant Squid, captured and accidentally brought aboard a boat, where it died in minutes. The first-ever oservations of a live squid (in the Deep Deep Ocean!) comes from work by Tsunemi Kubodera in Japan.

The Paper:
"First-ever observations of a live giant squid in the wild."
Tsunemi Kubodera, of the Department of Zoology at the National Science Museum in Tokyo Japan
and Kyoichi Mori, from Ogasawara Whale Watching Association, Tokyo, Japan
Proceedings of the Royal Society, No 272, pg2583-2586 (September 29, 2005) (doi:10.1098/rspb.2005.3158)