Birds and aquatic mammals are capable of unihemispheric slow-wave sleep (USWS), which means they can sleep with one eye open and one hemisphere of the brain awake. USWS helps dozing aquatic mammals such as dolphins keep breathing, presumably by permitting them to surface once in a while. It also lets sleeping birds keep an eye out for predators--literally. This was demonstrated in an experiment reported in Nature earlier this year. Neils C. Rattenborg, a graduate student in the department of life sciences at Indiana State University, lined up four groups of four mallards. (Yes, he got his ducks in a row.) Then he videotaped the birds while they slept. He found that those on the ends of the rows--those more exposed to predators--had two and a half times as much USWS as the birds in the middle of the group. A bird on the end kept its outer eye (the one facing away from the group) open 86 percent of the time, whereas birds in the middle kept it open only 53 percent of the time. Brain-wave tests confirmed that half the brain slept and half was in a "quiet waking state," alert enough for the duck to escape should danger threaten.

Thanks, Cecil!

--==★
The more you know!

Impressive!

"The largest danger posed to noodlers are other forms of aquatic life found in catfish holes. Far more dangerous than catfish are alligators, snakes, beavers, muskrats and snapping turtles, who will take over abandoned catfish holes as homes of their own." - Wiki

For some odd reason with a lot of these NBC videos, I can watch them at the site, but the embeds don't work for me. Some kind of weird, sorta-kinda region blocking I guess.

Also: this is an amusing comic on the same subject.

^that's going to be a featured comment.

I've considered this question, that is the original question, and the correct answer is penguin. See, you want an aquatic animal because they're at least clean and smooth, not a hairy mammal with all shit around their area, and a penguin looks basically like a cushion - it's practically an inanimate object, so easier to mentally distance yourself from the situation.

>> ^pipp3355:
i honestly don't get this show. seriously. some comedy like this really goes over my head. the royal tennanbaums and the life aquatic too.. i just don't find them funny at all. also, seinfeld and curb your enthusism.. completely not funny to me. not even a smirk. is there something wrong with me?


YES

It's always embarrassing when moral relativists try to take a moral stand. They should stick to PC speech codes, judicial activism and whining.

The Obamadrones are trying so hard to make waterboarding, an impermanent interrogation technique which has saved lives and stopped attacks, equivalent to the neck-sawing killings by jihadist animals.

If Fraudbama can rename acts of terrorism "man-caused disasters" then waterboarding should be renamed "aquatic safety measures".

90s, 00s, africa, aquatic, architecture/design, arctic/ice/polar, boats, conspiracies, crime, education, electronica, europe, fan (mashup), fashion, health, holidays, homme (man), ict, interviews, latin(o), poetry/spoken word, pranks, registrations, robots, seniors, tragedy (drama), violence

I second/third:
-toys
-manipulation (juggling etc,.) would be a nice niche channel indeed

Doubt about the need for:
-cheese channel, that part of VS culture, not for categorization!
-illusion kind of falls under magic?
-controversial overlaps with NSFW mostly, or?

Most fresh water turtles will eat anything and I mean ANYTHING, dead or alive. They're opportunistic scavengers through and through and some can survive for half a year without eating at all. If a consistent food source is available they will gorge themselves. And hey, I say pigeon beats pond algae any day of the week. I don't know where this image of a cute & friendly aquatic vegetarian comes from but it needs to be dispelled now, FOR THE SAKE OF THE CHILDREN.

I don't think I've seen this. It gives me the same vibe as The World Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which I though were a comedy too, but at some point everything turns to shit, people die and everything gets so depressing.

Tennenbaums and Aquatic = I agree, me no get. Rushmore neither. Seinfeld's fucken funny though and Curb has its moments.


>> ^pipp3355:
i honestly don't get this show. seriously. some comedy like this really goes over my head. the royal tennanbaums and the life aquatic too.. i just don't find them funny at all. also, seinfeld and curb your enthusism.. completely not funny to me. not even a smirk. is there something wrong with me?

i honestly don't get this show. seriously. some comedy like this really goes over my head. the royal tennanbaums and the life aquatic too.. i just don't find them funny at all. also, seinfeld and curb your enthusism.. completely not funny to me. not even a smirk. is there something wrong with me?

My current list includes:
90s, 00s, africa, aquatic, architecture/design, arctic/ice/polar, boats, conspiracies, crime, dance (non-verbal communication), debates/discussions, economics, education, electronica, europe, fan (mashup), fashion, health, holidays, homme (man), ict, interviews, latin(o), law, lectures (presentations), poetry/spoken word, pranks, registrations, tragedy (drama), violence

Seems the original video source is here. There's an ongoing discussion trying to identify the worm in which the consensus seems to be it's one of the few terrestrial ribbon worms.

If you get around to watching it, lemme know what'cha think. You may get a kick out of Jullianne Moore's role.

Sam Rockwell is the shit! Anyone that plays Zaphod Beeblebrox is cool in my book. Though my favorite role of his has gotta be Chuck Barris in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind -- Love that movie sooo much. Which brings to mind a genius writer (Charlie Kaufman) and an actor/director who is both over and underrated: George Clooney. I love half of his work (inevitably the underrated stuff) and the other half I could do without.

Diane Keaton, Nicholas Cage, Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks, etc. etc. Don't do it for me either. Though Cage Occasionally gets it right. (Or maybe it's the writers.) Mel, Mel, Mel -- what scares me about him is that his true personality may be Martin Riggs, but with a touch of the religious zealot. Definitely not a good combination. I would be careful not to harm his dog.

Favorite actors... Oh my, where to begin. So many decades of cinema to recall! To avoid a carbon copy of your list -- all noteworthy thesbians -- I'll fill in some of the missing pieces: The Marx Brothers (I love them all equally), Hepburn's flame, Spencer Tracy, the other Hepburn, Audrey (mostly because of those eyes), Cary Grant, Humprey Bogart (Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon are films that I can watch from any point and be satisfied completely for every second the films goes by), Lauren Bacall (Ze Big Sleep; dear lordy, more top ten material), Clark Gable, Gary Oldman (You said it, but he's too good and far too underappreciated to not mention), Helena Bonham Carter (another one I CANNOT avoid mentioning -- a dark favorite of mine: Morgan le Fay, Elizabeth Frankenstein, Ophelia, Anne Boleyn -- dear GOD, she's a even a freakin' death eater. She has to be a reader.), Elliot Gould (More noir favorites), Michael Gambon (brilliant), Alan Rickman, Edward Norton, Tim Roth, Brad Pitt, lil' Dakota Fanning, Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, and Dennis Hopper -- I think that's the cast of Blue Velvet, another potential top ten movie with top ten actors lol. Maybe we should make lists of the people we DON'T like... on second thought... (Sorry, this got long.)

Yes! Mothersbaugh, of course. Wes Anderson's pocket composer and devolution advocate. Don't forget Sigur Ros, either. That's the part of the movie where yer supposed to cry. I heart those Icelanders. A Bowie fan too. David Bowie is my best friend's father.

Make up a top 5 real quick. (No pressure.)

In reply to this comment by thepinky:
You're right. I have about 15 or so that are floating around in my favorites list. My top movies are not neccesarily the best ones I've seen. Like you said, they are the ones that I have an emotional connection to.

Wes Anderson is awesome but I haven't seen all of his films yet. My favorite so far is also The Life Aquatic. I love those covers. The Mark Mothersbaugh numbers are awesome, too. The scene where Steve introduces his boat and crew, accompanied by Mothersbaugh's "Let Me Tell You About My Boat" is one of my favorite scenes. I also really liked The Royal Tenenbaums.

Oh, underappreciated and overrated actors. It is relatively easy for me to rattle off some of my favorite actors. Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, and Ingrid Bergman are definitely in the top 5. Other actors I love off of the top of my head: Gary Oldman, Anjelica Huston, Gregory Peck, Katharine Hepburn, Bruce Willis (most people love him for the wrong reasons), Bill Murray, Charlie Chaplin, Helena Bonham Carter (I love how much her older stuff contrasts with her more recent roles. She's great.), John Goodman (I have always had a thing for this guy. He is a pleasure to watch.), James Stewart, Topol (I've only seen him in Fiddler but it is one of my favorite performances EVAR), Henry Fonda, Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Oliver Reed. This list was about 5 times as long before I cut it down. You're welcome.

I'm sure you're the same way that I am with actors. Sometimes I love them because they are truly great actors and sometimes I love them because they are good actors and you just enjoy watching them for whatever reason. I admit that one of the reasons that I love Newman, Brando, and Bergman is because they are all incredibly sexy. They also happen to be exceptional actors. Who are your favorites?

Severely overrated: Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton (used to be okay, now I can't stand her), Nicolas Cage (liked him in Matchstick Men...which reminds me that I love Sam Rockwell), Keira Knightly, and there is something about Mel Gibson's acting that seems...is it insincere? Affected? All I know is that something is off with him and I'm not a fan.

I'll rent The Big Lebowski one of these days.

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We had a good discussion about missing channels in this thread. I'll take the liberty of reposting Eklek's list:

90s
00s
africa
aquatic
architecture/design
boats
comics
conspiracies
crime
dance (non-verbal communication)
debates/discussions
economics
electronica
europe
fan (mashup)
fashion
health
homme (man)
interviews
latin(o)
law
lectures (presentations)
poetry/spoken word
pranks
registrations

In addition I would like to see *computer/technology, since it has become such an integral part of our society. A lot of it doesn't fit in geek anymore.

Since the videogames channel works, I think you should take another one. In the interest of equality I think it's important that someone creates *africa, *europe, *latin(o) and *homme as soon as possible, but feel free to choose any of these that fits your interests.