What strikes me about old school prophets was how inquisitive and iconoclastic they were. If we had a prophet today I’m sure she would not reject science but fold that reality into something greater, and no not like Scientology. People talk of science destroying wonder or somehow sterilizing what’s natural, and I think nothing could be further from the truth. Science is awesome and inspires awe. For example, outer space.

N (Off The Beaten Track) has taken some great fish photos. The one above shows a fish storm, but I thought it was a flock of birds at first. Below is a ghost net, a net that fishermen have abandoned but which continue to kill fish and ruin reefs. He goes into this further on his blog. You can see the photos on his Flickr.

Sri Lanka recently won an award for a leopard poster, but it wasn’t this image. This is a leopard killed in a hit and run in Yala national park. Sri Lanka is lucky to have substantial national parks, even where those parks block coastal roads.

An elephant has gone on rampage in Kekirawa (near Dambulla), damaging like 50 vehicles and temporarily closing the road. While he has not released a statement, humans have been steadily encroaching on elephant land for years. It could also be personal. While he has not released a statement, humans have been steadily encroaching on elephant land for years. It could also be personal. While elephants ‘rampage’ through villages with some frequency, it’s rare for them to trash vehicles. 50 vehicles, I must say, is pretty impressive, as far as rampages go.

Toxorhynchites (I call them Toxo) seem to be the mosquito equivalent of Karuna, turning on the LTTE. For alternate references see, Benedict Arnold, Ephialtes, or Donnie Brasco. Basically, a traitor mosquito. Basically, the Toxo mosquito doesn’t feed on blood, they feed on nectar and their larvae feeds on other mosquitos.

There is a new blog called Sivraga which was just added to Kottu. He has an interesting first piece on self-discipline in society.. “Yesterday when I was going home by bus, there was one lady and I saw that she was staking out something from her handbag and dropping them in to the floor. And then only I figured out that she was just cleaning her hand bag. She was taking out all the rubbish like old bus tickets from her bag and removes them by just putting on the floor. “

I have often wondered this. Now there’s a study in Brain, Behavior and Evolution that says the reaction may be adaptive – our fingers get wrinkly to help us grip in wet conditions. Like tires with tread. Very interesting. Apparently as early as 1935 they discovered that fingers didn’t get pruney if there was nerve damage. Hence, there was some software running here, it wasn’t just a hardware glitch. Still, it was always a mystery to me.

At some point in my life I have ended up cutting up lines of valium, using syringes and cleaning up piss and feces on a daily basis. This is life with an epileptic cat. Hissy Fitz had kittens. They all shivered and died except for Alex who was, if anything, the runt of the litter. When I took him in he had a fat fat belly and couldn’t use his front paws. He walked around like a crab with his front legs flopped almost backwards. We thought it was cute until he took a bit wormy shit and we had to rush him to the vet.

Sri Lanka has an estimated 5,879 wild elephants (Guardian). This is less than I thought, but apparently more than we had. This is the result of the first major elephant census, involving 4,000 officials hanging around water holes. Interesting stuff, and the first to cover the whole island. Perhaps they can do people soon.

What’s with me and elephants? Groundviews has been trying to make out that I’m comparing elephants and Tamils. To be accurate, I actually compared people from Hambantota, Colombo and Tamils to elephants. It’s about unity baby. Trying to offend everybody. But seriously, humans may be thin skinned and elephants thick, but we do share this island and elephants do deserve a bit of land to live in.