Boing Boing » gross

London's getting a blood-filled swimming pool strewn with floating body parts

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:00:23 +0000

Miss Cakehead writes, "This set of Zombie Swimming Pool Rules was comissioned from graphic designer Pictographik to promote the Resident Evil Revelations blood swimming pool, and was based on an the iconic traditional British swimming pool rules. The pop up 'blood' filled swimming pool opens in London next week to mark the release of Resident Evil Revelations. In addition to its bloody appearance the swimming pool will offer floats in the form of human torsos, feature brains and intestines as lane markers, have Zombie lifeguards on duty and even offer a diving board in the form of a 'freshly killed human corpse'."

Zombie Pool Rules (Thanks, Miss Cakehead!)

Awesome amateur horror makeup

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 09 May 2013 15:15:26 +0000

Click above for full-on grodiness

Redditor ImNotJesus has a friend who does her own amateur horror makeup. She's pretty amazing -- check out the ultra-gross fool-the-eye gaping eye-socket wound above.

A good friend of mine does horror makeup regularly. What do you guys think? I'm going to surprise her with the support. [X-post from /r/horror] (i.imgur.com)

Toothy tongue

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 03:06:22 +0000

DeviantArt's Jengabean made Tonya, this wonderful, toothy tongue sculpture. Jengabean's whole portfolio is rather wonderful, and worth a look. There's word of an upcoming Etsy store, too.

Tonya (via JWZ)

Tanker-truck full of inedible pig blood

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 02:44:17 +0000

Welp, there's something you don't see every day. Unless you work at an abattoir.

“I’m Goin’ to Prom!”

Scientists tell Gawker, "It's probably okay to eat your own poop"

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 19:31:27 +0000

They aren't saying you should do it. There's really no reason to. (Even fecal transplants are done in a much less disgusting manner.) But if, for whatever reason, you were to ingest your own poop, you probably won't get sick and die from it. Somebody else's poop, on the other hand, is more risky. So, glad we got that cleared up.

How Reddit is making you afraid of cantaloupes

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 20:54:59 +0000

Trypophobia — a fear that isn't, technically, a disorder, but is, most likely, a brilliant example of how easy it is to be influenced by the power of suggestion. This piece by NPR's Michaeleen Doucleff has me trying to remember what (if anything) I thought about the word "moist" before I first heard that it was a word most people found to be disgusting.

Edible horror installation in London

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 10:45:27 +0000

Last night I finally got to see one of Evil Miss Cakehead's edible horror installations in person. The Helpers is a grotesque, edible pop-up shop in Bethnal Green Road near Brick Lane, which opened last night. It features dismembered bodies, murder weapons, cigarette butts, car batteries with wires, blood-spattered knives, bags of vomit, Chinese takeout meals, and even a television -- all made of cake, all edible, and all delicious. There really are no words for the dissonance presented by such a scene. But it's pretty special.

So last night we opened The Helpers – a experiential experience serving cocktails and cake all themed around the movie of the same name – a stunt for Koch Media. The creations were incredible and (never thought I would say this) we pushed the limits so far we are all looking forward to some pretty cake projects for Valentine’s Day and beyond. You can see all the cakes over on Miss Cakehead’s Facebook page, and them featured on This Morning here. Just bear in mind they were for a horror film so they are made to the brief set by our client Koch Media. We have not just lost our minds and started making really dark cakes. In fact the chocolate gun was so disturbing and realistic we gave it as an extra present to someone who has always been massively supportive of our work (I had to get it out of there!). Huge thanks to Original Content London for creating an awesome and very disturbing set.

The Helpers – Horror Movie Edible Installation

Have you ever wondered what castrated testicles would look like, if they were lovingly rendered in chocolate

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 23:41:35 +0000

Have you ever wondered what castrated testicles would look like, if they were lovingly rendered in chocolate? Wonder no more.

A video featuring "Vomiting Larry"

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 15:53:12 +0000

By popular demand (and the help of intrepid readers Broan and theophrastvs), I present you a video clip of the humanoid robot known as Vomiting Larry.

Larry is used to study the way particles of puke become aerosolized, and how those particles spread and help infect other people. That's important, because it explains one of the ways that viruses spread by vomiting manage to end up in everyday things like, say, frozen raspberries. Aerosolized vomit isn't something you can spot. It doesn't clean up easily. And even just a drop of it can pass on plenty of viruses.

Carl Zimmer had a great piece up yesterday on norovirus, the virus that researchers are studying with the help of Vomiting Larry. His story has more info on how that virus spreads and will give you a better idea of why Vomiting Larry is so important.

Meet Vomiting Larry

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 22:45:44 +0000

Vomiting Larry is a humanoid robot designed to projectile vomit all over a lab at the Health and Safety Laboratory in Derbyshire, England. He's helping scientists learn about how diseases spread. Warning: If you read this Reuters story by Kate Kelland you will be forced to acknowledge the existence of "aerosolized vomit". (Via Microbe World)

Cat toys shaped like microbes

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:56:26 +0000

Behold, a truly fantastic gift for the cat in your life — catnip-filled soft toys shaped like amoebas, cyanobacteria, and (pictured above) giardia.

Giardia are microscopic parasites that can invade the guts of vertebrate animals, including cats and humans. Generally, you get it by ingesting giardia-infested feces. For humans, this mostly means contaminated drinking water, because giardia are harder to kill than you might think. They can survive quite happily outside of a host and are resistant to chlorine.

Blue giardia cat toy

Read more on giardia (and see pictures) at the CDC website

Guts in sofas

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 18:23:32 +0000

A pair of sofas from Cao Hui's "Visual Temperature" series hint at a kind of biological secret life of soft furnishings.

Visual Temperature — Sofa

Visual Temperature — Sofa No.2

(via Richard Kadrey)

Pizza Hut perfume

David Pescovitz — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 22:14:23 +0000

Pizza Hut Canada produced a limited-edition perfume. Apparently, Eau de Pizza Hut has "“top notes of freshly baked, hand-tossed dough." I guess it beats smelling like pepperoni or anchovies. (TODAY, via NextDraft)

How To: Preserve a bat for museum display

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 18:14:03 +0000

Here's a big difference between nature and a natural history museum: In the wild, when you find a skeleton of anything, it's seldom arranged in a neat, orderly, anatomically correct manner. Even if an animal dies in captivity, nature won't just conveniently produce a skeleton suitable for mounting.

So how do museums get the perfect skeletal specimens that you see behind glass?

The answer: Lots and lots and lots of tedious work. Plus the assistance of a few thousand flesh-eating bugs.

This video from the University of Michigan traces the creation of a bat skeleton, from a fleshy dead bat in a jar, to a neat, little set of bones in a display case. It's painstaking (and moderately disgusting) work. Sort of like building model cars, if the Ford Mustang had realistic organ tissue.

Thanks to Neil Shurley!

Pssst, hey kid. Wanna see some sea lice eat a dead pig?

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 20:45:58 +0000

Come on. It's for science.

In fact, it's meant to help people.

Researchers at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, put a dead pig in a shark-proof (and octopus-proof, as you'll see) cage and stuck it in the ocean in order to learn more about how human remains decompose underwater. That knowledge will help forensic scientists interpret crime scenes.

Most of the work is done by maggots known as sea lice, but towards the end, after the maggots have eaten the good bits, you can watch some fat, red shrimp move in to pick apart the cartilage.

Read the full story about this research at New Scientist

Via Deep Sea News

Field biologist describes horrific foot-fungus

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 19:00:19 +0000

Fuzzyatelin, a field biologist, offers graphic and compelling advice on keeping your feet dry during your fieldwork.

1) For frak’s sake, DRY OUT YOUR SOCKS. Put them over the fan over night so that you have 5 precious, precious moments of dryness before stepping out that door into the rain again…
2) Air everything out. For real. I mean everything. If you have electricity, lay in front of a fan in the buff for at least two hours every evening. You think I’m joking… but:
3) When your feet start to bleed - and boy, will they ever - don’t panic. The hole that appears to be eating its way into the space between your 4th and 5th toes on your right foot won’t go any deeper than a full centimeter (you know this because you stuck your finger inside of it and then measured the extent of the bloody seepage on your pinkie finger… the hole is that wide and deep).
4) Ditch the hat. Ditch the hat. Ditch the - oh. Now it’s on your scalp.

It gets worse.

Things I Learned as a Field Biologist #639 (via JWZ)

(Image: Fungi, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from dmclear's photostream)

1 gallon jug of 1992 McDonald's McJordan barbecue sauce sells for $9,995 on eBay

Mark Frauenfelder — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 19:15:52 +0000

"That 1992 vintage of McDonald's McJordan BBQ sauce, which was on eBay yesterday, has actually been sold to an anonymous buyer in Chicago, Illinois for the "Buy it Now" price of $9,995."

Wax anatomy-model cake

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 02:58:04 +0000

Conjurer’s Kitchen created this anatomical wax-model cake for the mad bakers at Eat Your Heart Out. Delicious and educational!

Anatomical Wax Model Cake

Viruses to the rescue

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 17:53:52 +0000

Technology Review's list of 35 Innovators Under 35 includes Timothy Lu, an MIT researcher who is engineering viruses designed to seek out and destroy biofilms — bacterial colonies that stick together on a surface, like bits of pear suspended in the world's most disgusting jell-o salad. Biofilms have been implicated in human disease, especially chronic infections like those that can happen in the urinary tract and inner ear. But the first place Lu's biofilm-eating viruses will likely be put to work is cleaning out ducts in industrial HVAC systems. (Via Carl Zimmer)

Human flesh pop-up butcher shop in Smithfield to promote new Resident Evil installment

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 20:19:59 +0000

Capcom is running a "pop up human butchery and morgue" at Smithfields meat market in London to promote the new Resident Evil installment. It'll be open for two days: Sept 28 and 29.

WARNING: Gross imagery within. Click through at your peril.

Once open, Resident Evil fans and unsuspecting members of the public will be treated to a glimpse into the gory world of Wesker & Son, the fictional butcher with a penchant for human flesh.
Once at the butchery, members of the public will be invited to sample and purchase a dizzying array of edible human limbs including hands, feet and a human head, which will be available to buy directly from the shop. As well as these specially created products, gamers will be able to buy 'Peppered Human & Lemon Sausages' and 'J’avo Caught Human Thigh Steaks' along with some specially made pots of Red Herb and Green Herb. All proceeds from the sale of the meat will be donated to the Limbless Association, which provides information and support to the limb-loss community.
In addition to the pop-up human butchery and morgue, Resident Evil fans will be invited to attend two days of lectures at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Pathology Museum, which have been designed to explore some of the themes in the game and their links to real life. Dr. Morgaine Gaye, a Food Futurologist who will discuss future trends in human food consumption as well as explore cannibalism through history, will conduct the first of these lectures on Friday, 28th September, while Prof. John Oxford, one of the world’s leading virologists will discuss viruses and examine whether the game’s infamous C-Virus could ever become a reality. Gamers and members of the public wishing to attend either of these lectures need to register: cannibalism/viruses.

Meet your face mites!

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 13:40:55 +0000

"Everything you never wanted to know about the mites that eat, crawl, and have sex on your face". How can you say, "No", to that headline?

Ed Yong has a great post up today at Not Exactly Rocket Science about Demodex folliculorum and Demodex brevis, two species of mites which spend their entire lives on human skin. Humans aren't born with these mites. But by the time you are 40 years old, it's almost guaranteed that you are playing host to a few of them.

The bad news: They are having sex on your face.

Their favourite hook-up spots are the rims of your hair follicles. After sex, the female buries into the follicle (if it’s D.folliculorum), or into a nearby sebaceous gland (if it’s D.brevis). Half a day later, she lays her eggs. Two and a half days later, they hatch. The young mites take six days to reach adulthood, and they live for around five more. Their entire lives play out over the course of two weeks.

The good news: They don't poop—in fact, they don't even have an anus.

The bad news again: All that waste just builds up in their bodies. Demodex are, by nature, chronically constipated. Only after they die, and their bodies disintegrate, do they finally get to let it all go. All over your face.

Read the rest of Ed Yong's piece

Scenes from a heart surgery

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 12:43:36 +0000

This is absolutely wonderful, and absolutely not for the squeamish.

Defective Heart Girl Problems is a blog where physicist Summer Ash has blogged her experience with finding out that she has a defective heart valve and getting treatment to deal with that defect. The image above shows her scar from her recent surgery.

Ash went through surgery to repair her heart on July 18th. Here's how she explains the problem:

I recently discovered that I was born with a congenital heart defect known as bicuspid aortic valve disease (BAVD). It’s not a disease, per se, so much as a defect. Most people (roughly 99% of them) are born with a tricuspid aortic valve. I am the lucky 1% born with a bicuspid valve. (I am the 1%!)

As a bonus, being born with this genetic mutation also means the lower part of my aorta, the part that connects to the aortic valve and helps channel the flow of oxygenated blood into the arteries, has less fibrillin-1 – a protein that helps to maintain the structural integrity of the aortic wall. This means that my aorta is prone to “stretching out” and even the normal stress of blood flow coming out of the heart and being channelled to the rest of the body is enough to cause it to start ballooning outward.

The nominal course of BAVD usually entails the aortic valve calcifying and stiffening later in life (60s – 70s), ending in valve replacement surgery. Some people will also need the root of their aortas replaced at this time, some may not. My problem is that my aorta is jumping the gun; it’s already stretched out to the point where it’s considered an aortic aneurysm. I like to imagine it as a hipster, dilating before it’s cool to do so.

On July 29, she posted the full story of her surgery, including photos of her visible heart and really clear, well-written explanations that describe what her surgeon's did while they were rooting around in her chest cavity. It's graphic. And it's not for everybody. But it's also extremely powerful storytelling about both medical science, and the experience of having something go wrong with your body that you can't control. Highly recommended.

Read Summer Ash's description of her surgery

(Via Jennifer Ouellette)

The perilous world of banana slug sex

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 21:08:38 +0000

Banana slugs are hermaphrodites. Every slug has both a penis (which pops out of a pore on its head, like you do) and a vagina. Or, rather, every slug should have a penis. The truth is that quite a few of them don't and the story behind that discrepancy is rather strange and horrifying. Since there's little I love more than strange and horrifying stories from nature, you get to hear all about it.

At The Last Word On Nothing, Cassandra Willyard tells the story of a nearly 100-year-old effort by scientists to understand why some banana slugs appear to be missing their penises, or have penises that are stunted. We have known since 1916 how those penises came to be missing. Willyard describes the situation, which you can also watch in action in the video above:

Banana slugs begin their mating with a few vicious love nips. Then the animals curl around each other, forming a bright yellow yin-yang symbol. Next, they insert their penises. (Remember, they both have one.) In some cases, one slug provides sperm and the other slug receives it. More often, the slugs swap sperm. Copulation can last many hours. Then, in most cases, the slugs withdraw and part ways.

Heath caught a couple of slugs in the act. He noted the biting and the insertion. And then Heath observed something puzzling. As the slugs were withdrawing their penises, “one of the animals turned its head and commenced to gnaw upon the walls of the organ,” Heath wrote. The biting was “unusually vigorous,” he added, “and within a very few minutes the penis was entirely severed.”

The confusing part is why the hell they do this to each other.

Willyard says the best idea so far is that the penis eating represents a sort of sperm competition—a way of ensuring that the slug you just mated with isn't going to get a shot at mating with anybody else. But that's really just an educated guess.

What I like best about this story (besides the shock and awe) is that it handily illustrates one of the difficulties inherent in scientific research. In many cases, it's quite easy to answer the question, "What happens?" A century ago, scientists could easily observe and document the penis-eating behavior. All it took was somebody with sufficient interest in the question that they were willing to spend time watching many, many examples of slug sex.

But the "Why" is sometimes trickier.

Read the full story at The Last Word On Nothing

Video courtesy University of California Santa Cruz graduate student Brooke Miller. See more of her work on banana slug sex.

Also included: Some fun with Latin vocabulary. Did you know that dolichophallus means "long penis"? You're welcome.

Via Ed Yong

The business end of a sea urchin

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 19:19:17 +0000

How's this for an amusing case of photographic mis-identification? Call it "Dueling Disgustingness". Last week, New Scientist posted this lovely image of a blue-spotted sea urchin, taken by nature photographer David Fleetham.

New Scientist identified the photo as depicting said sea urchin in the process of expelling its own guts out of its mouth. Which, gross, but okay. That's reasonable. A surprising number of underwater animals eat in this manner, using the acids in their guts to dissolve prey before they actually slurp it up as a slurry.

But, at the Echinoblog, Smithsonian invertebrate zoology researcher Christopher Mah makes a compelling case against New Scientist's interpretation. That's not actually the sea urchin's mouth, says Mah. In fact, it's the opposite. That's a (rare) photo of a sea urchin taking a dump.

Mah has a lot of good photos that make his case quite well. You should check them out. Then, join me in contemplating this thought: If Mah is right, doesn't sea urchin poop look a lot like Dippin' Dots?

The New Scientist blog post—featuring lots of cool info about sea urchins

Christopher Mah's analysis of the photo, explaining why he thinks it shows a pooping sea urchin, rather than one that is eating something.

David Fleetham's website—for more (less disgusting) photos of nature

Via Scicurious

Cannibal news: MMA fighter, high on ’shrooms, ate friend’s still-beating heart

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 19:12:55 +0000

A California judge has determined that a 27-year-old mixed martial arts fighter accused of killing his friend and sparring partner "by ripping his still-beating heart from his chest after gruesomely beating and torturing" him is mentally fit to stand trial. Prior to the attack, the two had consumed mushroom tea. There have been an awful lot of news stories like this one, this week. (thanks, @mattbors)

Accused Maryland cannibal-murderer who ate pal's heart and brain had podcast, was into QR codes, self-publishing

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 16:30:45 +0000

Profile pic Alex Kinyua, aka COREeye67, used for his "WARRIOR SYNDICATE RADIO (WSR-366)" podcast.

Maryland resident Alexander Kinyua reportedly confessed to police that he killed his a man who lived with his family for months by cutting him up with a knife, then eating his heart and parts of his brain.

The Baltimore Sun reports about the online life of Kinyua, an electrical engineering major at Morgan State University and long-time member of its ROTC program. He was "always in his own little world, preaching everywhere he went and talking about how he was writing a book," said one acquaintance.

Kinyua's online life included a self-published podcast, motivational videos on YouTube, lots of Facebook posts, a manic stream of internet comments directed at media figures and celebrities, and plans to self-publish an e-book.

[He] was obsessed with the military, according to the online postings, and left behind scrawls referencing cosmic teachings, feelings of oppression and end times. In recent months, he appeared to post across various platforms using the screen name "COREeye67," according to various web sites reviewed by The Baltimore Sun.
(...)In the two most recent posts, Kinyua uploaded "QR Codes," bar code images that, when scanned with a smartphone, lead to a Web page. They both led to a message about something called "Project Crack the Code," promising "more information on survival of the human family."

More in this Baltimore Sun story about his "disturbing online trail," which also notes that his Facebook profile picture "is an image of Richard Ansdell's 1861 painting, 'The Hunted Slaves,' showing two runaway slaves facing dogs that have been set on them." Screengrab below. The painting now sits in the International Slavery Museum, in the UK.

This is Kinyua's Twitter account. His YouTube account is now unavailable, and a Scribd link his accounts pointed to as the location of a forthcoming e-book is also now offline.

Kinyua was of Kenyan descent; his victim Ghanaian. Ghanaians in Maryland are holding a vigil for the victim this weekend.

Below, the QR codes Kinyua recently posted to Facebook before the murder(s?), and screenshots of some of his online presences.

Cakepops that look like gross boiled chicken feet

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 24 May 2012 02:38:20 +0000

Miss Cakehead sends us these "Incredible and gross chicken feet cake pops created for the Evil Cake Shop by Miss Insomnia Tulip."

The feet are made from vanilla & raspberry cake, triple dipped in white chocolate with the pop hand painted to resemble a boiled chicken foot; the chicken dipping sauce pop (top) covered with coloured piping gel; the battered chicken foot pop is covered with the dipping sauce and crushed citrus sprinkles to resemble batter. Ruddy amazing Yorkshire based baking talent and a really innovative cake pop design to boot.

Boiled Chicken Feet – Extreme Cake Pops (Thanks, Miss Cakehead)

Epic dumps, recalled

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 23 May 2012 02:56:16 +0000

A Reddit thread called "Did you ever think you were going to die from a shit?" sparked a lyrical/scatological series of reminisces of epic dumps, including a two part series by ErikPDX recalling a storied moment of colonic glory following a period of post-surgical bedrest during which he consumed enormous amounts of painkillers and protein shakes without bestirring himself to relieve himself, until such time as his body could stand no more. Mr PDX included a picture of the result. I beg you not to click the link in his post which leads to it.

My entire body tingled. I felt lighter. I was covered in sweat, and breathing heavily. I felt high, delirious, in shock and awe. Great waves of increasing euphoria washed over me. Feelings of amazing pleasure I simply cannot describe. I felt as if I was bathing in a golden light of goodness. This was a transcending event. I felt like I had just touched the universe itself.

Did you ever think you were going to die from a shit? (self.AskReddit)

Zookeeper reportedly licks baby monkey's anus for over an hour

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 15 May 2012 20:00:05 +0000

A rather implausible report in Chinasmack (translated from the Chinese journal 163) says that a zookeeper saved a rare, born-in-captivity baby Francois Leaf Monkey from surgery by licking its anus until it passed the whole peanut it ate after a thoughtless patron tossed it to him. Reportedly, the anus-licking proceeded for over an hour.

50-year-old Zhang Bangsheng used warm water to clean a small Francois’ Leaf Monkey’s buttocks, then began using his mouth to lick it, not stopping for over an hour, until the little monkey defecated a single peanut. Only after the peanut was defecated did Zhang Bangsheng laugh with satisfaction.
As it is understood, this small Francois’ langur is only 3 months old, and is the first Francois’ Leaf Monkey to be born in nearly 10 years at this animal park. The Francois’ langur is a rare primate from Guangxi and Guizhou and is amongst the nation’s most protected animals. Because it is so precious, the zoo gave it to model worker and high-level expert Zhang Bangsheng to care for and raise.

The accompanying photo is rather ambiguous.

Zoo Caretaker Licks Monkey’s Butt To Help It Defecate (via JWZ)

How to: Make a unicorn

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Mon, 14 May 2012 22:13:12 +0000

At Popperfont, the great David Ng discusses the biological and/or evolutionary steps necessary to produce a theoretical real-life unicorn. I find it delightfully ironic that his first possible route involves something that, if I were to show you pictures of it*, you would probably request a unicorn chaser.

Basically, some kinds of tumors can produce little horn-like protrusions from the surface of the skin. (Sometimes these tumors are malignant, sometimes not.) If the tumor formed right in the middle of a horse's forehead ... et voila! You've got a unicorn.

This is not as unlikely as it sounds, by the way. The Mutter Museum has a wax model of the head of a French woman, Madame Dimanche, who had one of these tumor horns removed from the middle of her forehead when she was 82 years old. This happened sometime around the beginning of the 19th century. At the time of removal, the horn was 9.8 inches long.

And, yes, this would be roughly the same way that you get a jackalope.

Read David Ng's full discussion of several possible ways to produce a real-life unicorn

*Needless to say, all links shall be followed at the viewer's own risk. I am not responsible for lost appetites.
Image: Unicorn, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from robboudon's photostream