Loren Coleman

Loren Coleman

Super Milk Baby Japanese Monster Mash-Up

WHEN: Friday, February 1st, 2008 from 6:00-9:00 pm Eastern. WHERE: Sanctuary Tattoo Gallery, 31 Forest Avenue, Portland, Maine (right next to Portland Stage Co.) WHAT: Artwork inspired by Japanese monsters, made by 8 artists in 8 different ways! SUPER MILK BABY JAPANESE MONSTER MASH-UP! The title really says it all! This terrific group show at Sanctuary Tattoo pits eight of the Portland area’s scariest artists against each other in a battle of wits and skill over Tokyo! School girls will scream, bones will crack, the sushi will bite back, and buildings will crumble like old matzah balls… or something like [...]

Underwater Mushroom Discovered

Photo by Robert Coffan – The Psathyrella aquatica mushroom, pictured above, was recently discovered by scientists in the Rogue Valley, Oregon. The Southern Oregon University environmental studies and biology faculty will share their discovery of a new species of mushroom that grows underwater – the first of its kind – in a presentation tomorrow in Ashland, Oregon. The new species is called Psathyrella aquatica. The multimedia presentation will be given by Robert Coffan, adjunct professor of environmental studies; Jonathan Frank, biology research technician; and Darlene Southworth, professor emerita, biology. The event begins at 2:30 p.m. with refreshments, and the presentation [...]

Exotic Cat Woman Dies

With the widespread news that actor Heath Ledger, 28, has been found dead in New York City, all other deaths have a tendency to be overlooked. Therefore, it is important to mention the quiet announcement this week of the passing of a legendary person known within the exotic cat business, Jeannette Giacinto of Tarzana, California. A longtime breeder and salesperson of exotic cats, Mrs. Jeannette Giacinto, known to her family and friends as Jan, died on January 6, 2008, succumbing to injuries sustained in a traffic collision on Halloween, October 31, 2007. Mrs. Giacinto remained hospitalized from the time of [...]

10,000 B.C.: Cryptofiction?

You have got to love the mammoths! And sabertoothed tigers! What elements of narrative cryptofiction, in which these animals, as well as the hominids, are shown as surviving late into protohistorical times in 10,000 B.C. overlap with our interests? Frankly, I always find it intriguing and instructive to see how artists, filmmakers, and scientists recreate Pleistocene animals, so as to give us a clue of what might be behind some cryptids. I look forward to this movie, therefore, for just such images. I guess there are other things to watch in this film too, with regard to our ancestors. However, [...]

Rat-Eating Plant Discovered

Nepenthes tenax Here is another one for your cryptobotany file! It is not a cow-eating tree from India – (as per here, here, and here) – , but a rat-eating pitcher plant from Australia. A rare new species of plant that eats small rats has been discovered at the tip of Cape York. Pitcher plants, otherwise known as flesh-eating plants, grow throughout Cape York but now a new, larger species that grows like a vine has been discovered. The new species has been called “Tenax”. James Cook University ecologist Charles Clarke and a colleague found the new species at a [...]

Yucatan Raccoons: Not Nazis

Unlike the “Nazi raccoons” of Germany, the raccoons in the Yucatan are suppose to be there. They are not alien invaders. Chad Arment writes: “A quick fyi on this, the raccoon subspecies in the Yucatan is native, not introduced: Procyon lotor shufeldti. See p. 87 of Raccoons: A Natural History by Samuel I. Zeveloff.”