By Kyle Brown
Entertainment Editor

Endangered crocodile makes home in nuclear power plant

The story: A 15-foot long endangered crocodile species has started living at the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant in southeastern Florida recently.
It’s not the radiation that attracts them, but rather the 168 miles of cooling canals engulfing the plant, which accidentally provide a great breeding ground for the animals.
The crocs have done so well in these canals, in fact, that they’ve been moved from “endangered”  to “threatened.”
My take: This just seems like reverse logic to me. An endangered species is struggling to survive in the Florida wilderness, so it decides that a nuclear power plant would suffice better for them?
If anything, the so-called “crocodiles” these environmentalists are finding are not crocodiles at all, but rather common ground squirrels who have been mutated so badly from the nuclear reactor’s radiation that they have grown 10 times their original size and have sprouted a skin of scales instead of fur, including a mouth full of razor-sharp pearly whites.
But in all seriousness, if I was an endangered animal, I think the last place I’d want to spawn my children is right near a known source of carcinogens and radiation. What kinds of parents are they? I thought mother crocodiles loved their children and were very defensive, but I suppose it’s true that Americans are just lazier.
Perhaps the most astonishing part of this whole thing is that the crocodile population has increased so much they have elevated their security to “threatened.” These reptiles might be smarter than humans when it comes to surviving in hostile irradiated environments, so maybe we could learn a thing or two from them.

The eyes of a super bug

The story: Australian scientists found a pair of eyes belonging to what they believe to be a giant pre-historic super bug which prowled the seas over 500 million years ago.
The eyes measure three centimeters across and contain a staggering 16,000 individual lenses each. The scientists named the shellfish-type critter “anomalocaris,” found in the rocks on Australia’s Kangaroo Island.
My take: If we start finding more insect remains like this, who knows what could happen. Could it be that all of our previous conceptions of the pre-historic food chain are all to be completely thrown out the window?
I mean seriously, the scientists estimate this creature to be 1.2 meters long. That’s bigger than most dogs for Pete’s sake!
If I saw a lobster the size of a greyhound, I suppose I would be predisposed to run away like a bloody idiot, because the thought of something like that is freaking scary.
Dinosaurs I don’t mind, especially because they’re blundering idiots who had brains the size of walnuts (I was a dino nut when I was 4. Lay off.), but imagining a crustacean big enough to eat a small child is one of the most frightening things imaginable.
This is like Aragog from Harry Potter, but real life. I wonder if there were giant sea basilisks to scare them away? Maybe the liopleuridon (as seen in “Charlie the Unicorn”) was that equivalent?
The way I see it, the discovery of the anomalocaris’s eyes could mean that the events in Harry Potter books really happened 500 million years ago. But then again, I could be wrong.
One last thing: why is it that all the strangest animals are found in the Land Down Under?