Starship Asterisk*

geckzilla wrote:And I thought I was weird for posting the cicada recipe list earlier this year...

Ann wrote:
In 2006, scientists found a specimen of Arctica islandica bivalve mollusc, which they promptly opened in order to examine it. In doing so, they killed it, and thus ended the life of the longest-lived non-colonial animal so far reported whose age at death can be accurately determined.

• 507 years without a colon Open me up, Please

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_dohrnii wrote: <<Turritopsis dohrnii, the immortal jellyfish, is a hydrozoan whose medusa, or jellyfish, form can revert to the polyp stage after becoming sexually mature. It is the only known case of an animal capable of reverting completely to a sexually immature, colonial stage after having reached sexual maturity as a solitary stage. It does this through the cell development process of transdifferentiation.

Cell transdifferentiation is when the jellyfish "alters the differentiated state of the cell and transforms it into a new cell". In this process the medusa of the immortal jellyfish is transformed into the polyps of a new polyp colony. First, the umbrella reverts itself and then the tentacles and mesoglea get resorbed. The reverted medusa then attaches itself to the substrate by the end that had been at the opposite end of the umbrella and starts giving rise to new polyps to form the new colony. Theoretically, this process can go on indefinitely, effectively rendering the jellyfish biologically immortal, although, in nature, most Turritopsis, like other medusae, are likely to succumb to predation or disease in the plankton stage, without reverting to the polyp form. No single specimen has been observed for any extended period, so it is not currently possible to estimate the age of an individual, and so even if this species has the potential for immortality, there is no laboratory evidence of many generations surviving from any individual.>>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long-living_organisms#Aquatic_animals wrote:

[b][color=#0000FF][size=150]10,000 years old Sponge[/size][/color][/b]

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• Long-lived Aquatic animals:

Some species of sponges in the ocean near Antarctica are thought to be 10,000 years old.

Specimens of the black coral genus Leiopathes are among the oldest continuously living organisms on the planet: around 4,265 years old.

The giant barrel sponge Xestospongia muta is one of the longest-lived animals, with the largest specimens in the Caribbean estimated to be in excess of 2,300 years.

The black coral Antipatharia in the Gulf of Mexico may live more than 2000 years.

The Antarctic sponge Cinachyra antarctica has an extremely slow growth rate in the low temperatures of the Southern Ocean. One specimen has been estimated to be 1,550 years old.

A specimen of the Icelandic Cyprine Arctica islandica (also known as an ocean quahog), a mollusk, was found to have lived 507 years .

Some confirmed sources estimated Bowhead Whales to have lived at least to 211 years of age, making them the oldest mammals.

geckzilla wrote:...deigning...

deign

/deɪn/

verb

present participle: deigning

1.
do something that one considers to be beneath one's dignity.
"she did not deign to answer the maid's question"

Beyond wrote:

geckzilla wrote:...deigning...

I Googled "deigning. All i got was "designing".
So you really were saying... that some girls get called ugly by their own mothers just for (designing) to be photographed without makeup on. ... Shouldn't that be-->Desiring

• I typed "how to pronounce deign" into Google

geckzilla wrote:
I think Photoshop is getting a bit too much credit here because they show the step from no makeup, no hair styling, and bad lighting and then make the abrupt step to fully Photoshop airbrushed chick. Anyway, I've boycotted the whole daily prettification ritual my whole life. It's really not that hard when your parent(s) don't indoctrinate you into the whole process from girlhood onward. That disturbs me far worse than an adult woman being glamorized. I've seen some girls get called ugly by their own mothers just for deigning to be photographed without makeup on.

Beyond wrote:
Now that i know how to pronounce it = dane

• has given you one face, and you make yourselves
  another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and
  nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness
  your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath
  made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages:
  those that are married already, all but one, shall
  live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a
  nunnery, go.

Nitpicker wrote:
The beauty and fashion industries are ultimately creators and purveyors of art. One way to appreciate art is to criticise it -- that is, to analyse and judge its merits and faults. All artworks have both merits and faults. Art certainly has the power to affect the beholder profoundly, but is not always good.

Nitpicker wrote:
Everyone's a critic! (I swear my previous comment was not directed at you, neufer.)

geckzilla wrote:Kevin Trudeau has been found guilty and is going to jail, hopefully for a long, long time...

owlice wrote:

geckzilla wrote:
Kevin Trudeau has been found guilty and is going to jail, hopefully for a long, long time...

Good!

neufer wrote:Why is everyone taking this so personally?