Free Republic

BERLIN - Some Germans are calling for a public roasting of the oracle octopus who correctly picked the winner of all six of their national soccer team's World Cup matches -- including a bitter defeat to Spain on Wednesday. Paul, a two-year-old octopus in a German aquarium, turned into a global celebrity for his uncanny ability to predict the winner of all Germany's matches -- even a group stage defeat to Serbia and an ousting by Spain in the semi-finals.... Not an ordinarily superstitious people, Germans became believers in Paul's possible psychic powers. The country was shocked and distraught when...

BERLIN -- No more World Cup, no more octopus oracle. Paul, the octopus who became a pop culture sensation by correctly predicting the outcome of as many World Cup matches as he has legs -- all seven of Germany's games plus the Spain-Netherlands final -- is going to retire. The intuitive invertebrate will "step back from the official oracle business," Tanja Munzig, a spokeswoman for the Sea Life aquarium in Oberhausen, told AP Television News."He won't give any more oracle predictions -- either in football, nor in politics, lifestyle or economy," she said. "Paul will get back to his former...

In Detroit, for that glorious game of soccer-on-ice-with-sticks, we—I still say “we”; you can never separate yourself from your birthplace—know what to do with octopuses, octopii as were: We toss them on the ice. In Germany, they use them as crystal balls. Paul is its name. He is an octopus. And he has, so it is reported, correctly predicted the result of each German game this World Cup. How? The Fate of Paul Well, inside Paul’s tank are two clear boxes, and inside each of them is placed a clam, one labeled “Germany” and the other the name of the...

Spain worried about safety of new world star Paul the Octopus Posted : Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:42:23 GMT By : Wolfgang Dahlmann Oberhausen, Germany - Paul the Octopus has turned into a global superstar revolving around the 2010 World Cup, with top political leaders in Spain even worried about the oracle mussel-eater's safety. /snip Two glass cubes are baited with mussels and marked with flags of Germany and Uruguay. The mussel Paul chooses first is viewed by his handlers as his prediction. While Spanish football supporters are in heaven about La Roja reaching their first World Cup final, politicians...

NEW YORK, - A prominent U.S. animal rights group is accusing two New York restaurants of using live octopus in their san-nakji dishes. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said restaurants Sik Gaek and East Seafood Restaurant have been serving san-nakji, which comes from Korean and Chinese waters, without properly killing the sea creatures first, the New York Daily News reported Tuesday. The group has been picketing the establishments and has sent letters to the district attorney's office in the city's Queens borough seeking animal cruelty charges against the businesses. San-nakji is prepared by chopping the tentacles into small...

Sea lions fitted with GPS trackers and a National Geographic Crittercam are taking scientists on amazing journeys to previously unknown marine ‘hot spots.’ These areas are important not only for providing the sea lions’ food, but also for maintaining fish populations. The Crittercams were deployed at Dangerous Reef in Spencer Gulf, a rocky island the size of a football field, and home to the biggest Australian sea lion colony. Dr. Page says, “One important discovery is that the sea lions always feed on the sea floor” and they don’t eat open ocean fish, known as pelagic. “This is critical information...

Ben Raisher watches as the writhing Octopus on his plate has its tentacles clipped with giant shears, then squirms in amber sesame oil like a pile of bisected earthworms. With a deft pinch of his chopsticks, the wriggling, still-alive limb is in his mouth and down his throat. Raisher, 28, smiles. It's what brought him to his local food adventure club, one of a handful of groups dedicated to dining on exotic and bizarre foods from New York to Denver to San Francisco. The iron-stomached champions of New York City are the Gastronauts, who meet monthly to feast on foods...

A washed up octopus on a north Norfolk beach could be a sign of global warming - or just a quirk of the currents. The common octopus is normally found in the warmer waters off the south coast of England, but a diver recently discovered the battered remains of one at Salthouse. Helen Nott from the nature recording site NorfolkSeaquest said: “I have occasionally found the native, smaller curled octopus washed up at Cley and Heacham, but this is a first for me.” The larger common octopus could mature to a length of just over one metre, double the size...

Thousands of dead octopuses have washed up on a beach in northern Portugal, in what is being called an environmental disaster. They cover a 5-mile stretch of Vila Nova de Gaia beach - no reason has yet been found for their appearance. The authorities have warned the public not to eat them. MEANWHILE: WELLINGTON: More than 120 whales died over 48 hours in two separate beachings in New Zealand, the Department of Conservation said on Monday. More than 20 pilot whales will be buried by Coromandel Maori on Monday after dying when they became stranded on Sunday. Sixty-three whales, mostly...

SYDNEY – Australian scientists have discovered an octopus in Indonesia that collects coconut shells for shelter — unusually sophisticated behavior that the researchers believe is the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal. The scientists filmed the veined octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus, selecting halved coconut shells from the sea floor, emptying them out, carrying them under their bodies up to 65 feet (20 meters), and assembling two shells together to make a spherical hiding spot. Julian Finn and Mark Norman of Museum Victoria in Melbourne observed the odd activity in four of the creatures during a series of dive...

Octopus and squid can hear. The discovery resolves a century-long debate over whether cephalopods, the group of sea creatures that includes octopus, squid, cuttlefish and nautiluses, can hear sounds underwater. Compared to fish, octopus and squid do not appear to hear particularly well. But the fact they can hear raises the possibility that these intelligent animals may use sound to catch prey, communicate with one another or listen out for predators. The question of whether cephalopods can perceive sound has been controversial since the early 20th Century. Some experiments suggested that blind octopus seemed able to locate the sounds produced...

The 'Mystery' of Octopus Fossils by Brian Thomas, M.S.* Around 150 years ago, Charles Darwin asserted that “no organism wholly soft can be preserved.”1 He concluded this based on the assumption that fossilization required long periods of time. The reality is, however, that fossilization must occur rapidly, at a faster rate than the specimen would decay. Darwin’s belief in vast geological ages, borrowed from Charles Lyell and perhaps from his grandfather Erasmus, led to his misinterpretation that fossils form slowly and gradually. Since Darwin’s time, however, many organisms that were “wholly soft” have been found preserved and fossilized, and by...

It's hard enough to find fossils of hard things like dinosaur bones. Now scientists have found evidence of 95 million-year-old octopuses, among the rarest and unlikeliest of fossils, complete with ink and suckers. The body of an octopus is composed almost entirely of muscle and skin. When an octopus dies, it quickly decays and liquefies into a slimy blob. After just a few days there will be nothing left at all. And that assumes that the fresh carcass is not consumed almost immediately by scavengers. The result is that preservation of an octopus as a fossil is about as unlikely...

Amazing Fossils: Do They Help Darwin? March 19, 2009 — Some remarkable fossils have been found recently. According to the reports, scientists are not sure what to make of them, even though evolutionary language is liberally applied to the interpretation...

Whiteox writes about an Australian researcher named Renata Pronk, who has discovered that octopuses prefer HDTV. She recruited 32 gloomy octopuses from the waters of Chowder Bay. Previously, researchers have reported little success when showing video to octopuses. Miss Pronk's insight was that the octopus eye is so refined that it might see standard PAL video, at 25 fps, as a series of stills. She tried HDTV (50 fps) and her subjects reacted to the videos of a crab, another octopus, or a swinging bottle on the end of a string. A further discovery is that octopuses show no trait...

Many octopuses evolved from a common ancestor that lived off Antarctica more than 30 million years ago, according to a "Census of Marine Life" that is seeking to map the oceans from microbes to whales. Researchers in 82 nations, whose 10-year study aims to help protect life in the seas, found a mysterious meeting place for white sharks in the eastern Pacific Ocean...Among the findings, genetic evidence showed that the tentacles of the octopus family pointed to an Antarctic ancestor for many deep sea species. A modern octopus called adelieledone in Antarctica seemed the closest relative of the original.

A octopus has caused havoc in his aquarium by performing juggling tricks using his fellow occupants, smashing rocks against the glass and turning off the power by shortcircuiting a lamp. The culprit of the smashed glass and broken lamp is two foot seven inch Otto Staff believe that the octopus called Otto had been annoyed by the bright light shining into his aquarium and had discovered he could extinguish it by climbing onto the rim of his tank and squirting a jet of water in its direction. The short-circuit had baffled electricians as well as staff at the Sea Star...

Animated humor with a river cat, fish and frog! Thanks for viewing.

Chemical allegedly found in FBI-led search can cause muscle paralysis in humans ~~~~~ A Lake in the Hills man was charged Monday with possession of a powerful neurotoxin found in species of puffer fish and octopus after agents with the FBI-led counter-terrorism task force raided his home. Edward Bachner, 35, was charged in a criminal complaint with one count of illegal possession of tetrodotoxin. He was arrested Monday and appeared briefly before U.S. Magistrate Judge P. Michael Mahoney in Rockford and was being held pending a detention hearing Wednesday morning, authorities said. Tetrodotoxin is an extremely powerful neurotoxin that in...

With Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Detroit Red Wings set for Joe Louis Arena on Saturday night, angst over one of the postseason's biggest controversies continues to linger in the Motor City: The NHL's decision to ban octopus twirling on the ice. Tossing octopi on the ice has been a Detroit hockey tradition dating back to 1952, and longtime arena operations manager Al Sobotka has been whipping around cephalopods to whip Wings fans into a frenzy since 1991. But back in the first round of the playoffs, the NHL vowed to hit...