If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably sat at home wondering, aloud, “How, exactly, do swimming crabs — Portunus pelagicus — get it on?” Well, thankfully someone took it upon themselves to record a happy crab couple, and now we know for sure. Two surprises: It involves a lot of carrying and a lot of burying. Also, since these handsome critters are also known as the “blue manna crab,” one wonders if they’re the source of all mana potions everywhere. Video below the jump.

In addition to sporting a massive collection of dinosaur remains and replicas, the Jurassic Museum of Asturias on the northern coast of Spain also has a display that features two copulating Tyrannosaurus rex. How about that?

Of course, the orientation of the two dinosaurs on display is a complete guess. Even after decades of study, paleontologists are still divided on how to determine the gender of T-rex remains. We can all agree on thing, though: Those tiny arms look even sillier in this context. Now excuse me while I book a flight to Spain right after I swing by the Icelandic Phallological Museum.

We’ve posted some pretty strange moments from the natural world here on Geekosystem. While surprisingly fast hunter snails and giant mating spiders (sorry about that) are all well and good, they have nothing on mating leopard slugs. This video begins with a coy dance, turns a bit kinky when the pair suspends themselves upside down from a tree branch, and goes totally otherwordly once they get down to business. Oh, and it’s narrated by Sir David Attenborough, which is pretty much the nature film version of Berry White.

Now admittedly, this is not the freshest video on the web, but given how truly amazing it is to watch, it’s required viewing for the day.

(via io9)

In the 12th century, someone somewhere in Scandinavia carved the Lewis Chessmen, a collection of nearly 100 chess pieces of a particularly unique and expressive style. It wasn’t the first ornate chess set, but it’s certainly a strange and unique set with its shield-biting berzerkers and worried looking royalty. Since the Lewis chess set, the Western world has continued to make stranger and stranger chess sets. Perhaps this speaks to the power of the game, and it’s captivating metaphorical nature. More likely it speaks to the human desire to spend stupendous amounts of money.

Regardless, chess set making has come to the point where it’s no longer about the game but about whatever weird twist you can put on it. And trust us, they’ve come a long way from simple walrus ivory carvings. So whether your covet these gameboards, or laugh at those that do, please enjoy this humble collection of the least humble chess sets the Internet has to offer.

Scientists have long known that the hypothalamus, sometimes called the “reptilian brain,” is responsible for many basic functions like breathing in addition to being involved with emotions like anger and sexual desire. But Dr. Dayu Lin with the California Institute of Technology has taken our understanding of the hypothalamus’ role a step further by controlling some of it’s functions using light. Through a process called optogenetics, Dr. Lin made certain areas of a mouse’s hypothalamus, specifically a region called the ventrolateral ventromedial hypothalamus (VMHvl), sensitive to light. Using fiberoptic cables, Dr. Lin was able to target these areas and stimulate them with light. The results were immediate and dramatic.

From Discover magazine:

If the mice were alone, nothing happened when Lin shone a light onto their brains. But if they had company, it was a different story. A flash of light, and the mice transformed from Jekylls into Hydes. They rapidly attacked other mice, whether male, female or anaesthetised. They would even assail an inflated glove.

In a multi-year survey of 270 New York sex workers, Wired has determined that 83% of the prostitutes involved have a Facebook page and actively use it for recruiting customers. Compared to 2003, Facebook has exploded in the sex marketplace, taking a substantial bite out of other venues — such as escort agencies, strip clubs, and Craigslist.

The above graph, from Wired’s article, shows the sources of sex workers’ regular clients. What’s surprising is the rapid adoption of Facebook, which launched in 2003 but was not opened to the public until 2006. That means that in just two years, Facebook has claimed 25% of the traffic.

Sex sells, and when your target demographic is consists (mostly) of single, heterosexual males and your product exists in a fast-moving, cutthroat environment, then things might get a little out of hand with your advertising. Video game ads are sort of like the Galápagos islands of advertising, where strange and unique species that could exist nowhere else wander freely. We’d like to take you, friends, on a journey through the best oversexed video game ads we could find presented in no particular order.

Warner Brothers, the media behemoth that owns the rights to the Harry Potter movie franchise, is reportedly in the midst of fighting a legal battle against a Swiss company for copyright infringement. What did these neutral, chocolate-loving, particle-accelerating people do to earn their ire? Why, they simply created a line of condoms which prominently feature a cartoon likeness of Harry Potter.

Read on...

The Center for Biological Diversity exists to educate the public about the dangers — including human overpopulation — that are threatening endangered species the world over. The Center’s latest effort, though, is encouraging people to keep the Earth’s lamentably overcrowded state in mind the next time they, um, help make the problem worse. (By getting it on!)

If you — like me — are human, then you probably have noticed that Zoe Saldana is stunningly beautiful.  You might also be interested to know that in this month’s Essence and Glamour, the 31-year-old star of Star Trek and Avatar mentioned that she loooooooves sex and can’t wait to have more of it.  But watch out: Saldana also thinks that violence and video games are ruining sex education in America.  Come again?