photo by Mike Joa

For almost every creature on the planet earth, death is one of the few certainties of life, except one. Turritopsis nutricula, a hydrozoan jellyfish, has the amazing ability to revert to its first developmental stage in response to adverse conditions effectively turning back the clock and completely avoiding death. T. nutricula is capable of performing this amazing feat repeatedly, granting it virtual immortality.

Called the immortal jelly, T. nutricula is able to cheat death through a process called transdifferentiation, where one type of cell can become another. This is the same process that allow salamanders to regrow limbs. Instead of regrowing part of its body, T. nutricula uses a few specific cells to regrow itself into its polyp form, effectively restarting its life cycle. This amazing ability is believed to have contributed to the species spread from its home waters in the Caribbean to temperate to tropical regions the world over.

Turritopsis nutricula @ Wikipedia [via Unexplained Mysteries]

photo by r-z

While there is nothing abnormal about the IRS dispatching agents to collect delinquent taxes. (In fact, I would go as far to call it prudent considering the staggering national debt.) Last week in Sacramento, California the practice took a sharp turn into the absurd when two agents pulled into Harv’s Metro Car Wash to deliver a demand letter. The amount of back taxes owed to Uncle Sam by the business…. FOUR CENTS. Adding to the absurdity of the whole event, the demand letter also stated the business owes an additional $202.31 in additional fines and interest stemming from the original 4 cent debt.

As I said before, I can completely understand (and support) the collection of back taxes. However, you have to wonder what the fine folks at the IRS are smoking. Even considering the additional fines and interest (which seem a tad high for owing less than a nickel), $202.35 could have barely covered the cost of paying two agents to gas up a government vehicle and drive out to the business. Even the postage required to mail the notice could have paid the original debt many times over. I guess the moral of the story is to make sure your tax returns are absolutely perfect or else the IRS will spare no expense in getting what they are owed, no matter the amount.

IRS visits Sacramento carwash in pursuit of 4 cents [via Boing Boing]

Filmed some time in the last three months (according to YouTube, the only date given for the footage is 2010), this video shows a group of UFOs that appear to be flying in some sort of formation before they break off and fly in and out of a cloud bank. While you can’t see the objects in any detail, the fact that they change direction quite rapidly seems to indicate that they are flying under there own power versus being some sort of balloon like object floating passively. Additionally, because the objects zip in and out of the cloud bank at different directions and angles, I am inclined to think that these are not aircraft performing or practicing some sort of aerobatic display (the limited visibility in the cloud bank would make this sort of flying far too dangerous). Taking these factors into account this could be footage of an actual daytime UFO sighting. Do you think this video shows a group of UFOs or something else? Feel free to share your theories in the comments.

Amazing daytime flying UFO – Orbs over Japan 2010 EDIT