Remember that grotty problem of getting dead bat stains off of furniture? Nic McPhee repays all you helpful people with a flickr photo set of a bat corpse. He knows how to win the hearts of the Pharynguloids, doesn't he?
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In case anyone here was still worried about the saga of the rotting bat corpse on some nice furniture, Nic McPhee reports that Goo Gone works like magic.
Nic McPhee is looking for a solution to an odd problem: a bat died and rotted on some fine furniture, leaving a nasty protein residue. Give him some suggestions on how to clean wing of bat off wooden furniture.
This might call for the expertise of a witch.
That gadfly of the science communication world, Randy Olson, has a new movie out, Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy, and many bloggers all over the place are putting up their reviews today. I tried something a little different. The other day, I invited a group of people from Morris, Minnesota to…
Our speaker at Tuesday's Café Scientifique, Nic McPhee, has a blog, and gives the speaker's side of the event. He's exactly right that our big problem out here is improving community involvement, and getting some interaction with the townie side is going to be one of my goals in setting up next…
Pharynguloid?! I'm a Pharyngulite.
Years ago we entered a long abandoned house. Up in the attic in one of the end windows was a long dead cat. It had died stretched out in the sunlight, probably sick or starved. The bottom side was all skeleton but the top was mummy like leather. One of the most fascinating things I have stumbled across. The wife allowed me to take it home so long as I hid it from the children (don't ask). I kept it for several years, showing it to those who were intersted to see it after hearing the description. Somewhere in the haze it disappeared into the void.
Don't these people watch "Antiques Roadshow?" That's patina and it increases the value of the piece immeasurably.
(Turpentine and 0000 steel-wool should work fine, followed by some amber shellac and a couple light coats of biled linseed oil.)
fusilier
James 2:24
David: That's a crazy story. Now I'm thinking we should have saved the many bat carcasses that we've found over the years (in a cardboard box, a bag of compost additive, one of my boots...). My lovely wife could have built a display cabinet for them, and we could have them in the living room! There must only be three drops of water in a bat's body, because they never seem to "rot" in the stinky, icky way that one tends to associate with dead mammals.
fusilier: We big fans of patina as long as it doesn't gross out the guests too much (which probably rules out the display cabinet idea). This old house is full of strange "character", which is part of why we love it.
I work in a state department of health lab doing research on rabies and I probably handle more dead bats in a week than the average person will see in a life time. Let me just say, bats definitely rot. If I never have to smell another dead bat again well... I can't say I would cry about it.
But on the plus side, I have a ton of dead bat photos.