One of Theo Jansen’s Strandbeest mechanisms with rampaging rodent Princess power:
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And the X-RHEX hexapedal robot:
Author Archives: dr.hypercube
Aichi M6A1 Seiran Graffiti
I chanced across Secrets of the Dead: Japanese Super Sub while channel surfing last night. There wasn’t much exhumation/archaeology/poking around, but it was very interesting and jogged my memory a bit (see below).
Embedding the video seems to be borked – click the image below to go to a page where you can watch the show.
Image via.
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In the program, we briefly encounter Unit 731; one of the missions planned for the I-400 class subs was an anthrax attack on the west coast of the US. As always, when Japanese war crimes in Manchuria come up, I marvel at the differences between post-war Germany and Japan. Germany was forced to confront the horror of the Final Solution; Japan was allowed to deny and rationalize.
Quite a while ago I came across (via ?? – where’s my Memex?) pictures of engravings found during the restoration of the only surviving M6A1 Seiran (three Seirans were carried by each I-400 sub). I wonder who made them and what he was thinking about when he did.
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Historia Naturae
Wunderkammeriffic!
Via @microecos.
Catching up 2 – frogs
Off I went to a frogger’s get-together – lovely frog room, good pizza, great company.
Epipedobates tricolor Highland
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Allobates femoralis – two of my passions reference LBJs (little brown jobs). I like them in both instances – there’s always something that rewards close inspection. Here, it’s flash marks on the thighs (not seen below, but obvious here).
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Madagascar has Mantellas – small frogs similar in some ways to the neotropical poison dart frogs. I’d like to put together a large Malagasy biotope vivarium – a Mantella species, a few Phelsuma of some type, and maybe a group of Uroplatus. (Also a Platycerium madagascariense + Cymbididiella rhodochila, but they won’t move around much.)
Mantella milotympanum
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One wall of the frog room.
