In other news: cool new organisms!
This is one I found browsing through wikipedia:
On first looking at it, it appears to be just a weird type of flower. However, what it actually is is a gall on the stem of a rose. In the middle of that, buried in the center is a gall wasp egg. Why I find this paticularily interesting is the fact that the presence of the wasp egg seems to have caused the stem to revert to meristematic tissue (primitive tissues, the plant version of stem cells). If you look closely, you can see the individual tiny thorns on the newly emerging stems. It also seems to indicate that the egg suppresses auxins (a type of hormone) to a degree, since the presence of auxins should stop new stem formation. I have no idea why they might form these structures, except possibly for camouflage/spine defense of the egg. It might also trick the plant into bringing more nutrients to the gall.
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Yeah, I don't know if I'd watch 10 episodes in 3 days, but I have. I finished watching all of Season 2 last week. I couldn't bare the fact that they had been broadcast in the US but not in Canada, so I DLed them and watched them all. Of course, now I'm 9 episodes ahead of broadcast, but oh well.
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