Wonder if this is how Dragon Snails manage?

Once upon a time when a lot of us played Runequest, a party bought and took up residence in the local haunted house. All the comforts of home; slay gargoyles in the living room, find the treasure, count it, go back to bed. Go dragon snail* hunting in the basement, clean out the shells and display them on the front lawn. Never, ever, ever have to worry about burglars... Well, anyway I was reminded of that when I found the following article (usual source):

Unusual Snail Shell Could Be a Model for Better Armor

ScienceDaily (Jan. 20, 2010) — Deep within the Kairei Indian hydrothermal vent field, two-and-one-half miles below the central Indian Ocean, scientists have discovered a gastropod mollusk, whose armor could improve load-bearing and protective materials in everything from aircraft hulls to sports equipment.

Researchers at the National Science Foundation-supported Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are studying the mollusk's physical and mechanical properties. A report, "Protection mechanisms of the iron-plated armor of a deep sea hydrothermal vent gastropod," appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The so-called "scaly-foot gastropod," has a unique tri-layered shell that may hold insights for future mechanical design principles. Specifically, it has a highly calcified inner layer, a thick organic middle layer. But, it's the extraordinary outer layer fused with granular iron sulfide that excites researchers.

(click the link for the whole article)

Back to the list I go for more interesting stuff.

*what it sounds like - full sized dragons with really BIG snail-like shells.

Wheeeeeeee....

Rather an abundance of Good Stuff in the last Science Daily headline list. I can't decide which of these 5 items to leave out so I'm just going to link to the lot, and limit my quoting to the headlines.

First off, Evolution In Action - a difference in one gene (for color) is reproductively isolating two populations of flycatcher.
Study Catches Two Bird Populations As They Split Into Separate Species

Next up, Astronomy on the Moon - looks like we could build some pretty big telescope mirrors from materials available on the moon, eliminating the need to haul the things up out of the gravity well. Given the stuff we're finding from orbital telescopes, imagine the fun we could have with something a heckuvalot bigger on the flipside of the moon...
Giant Telescope Mirrors For The Moon Could Be Made With Carbon, Epoxy And Lunar Dust

Interesting futures in gluing stuff together. Cheaply, yet. Nanotech strikes again! Note also the related story entry for a glue which can have its stickiness turned on and off by varying pH levels...
Inexpensive 'Nanoglue' Can Bond Nearly Anything Together

From nanotubules to...yarn?
Lasers Used to Make First Boron-Nitride Nanotube Yarn

OK, this one is not new - in fact it was published in 2003 but.. wow... And I thought the axolotl's habit of going multiple generations before one bothers to become an actual adult was weird.
Young Sea Animals Clone Themselves—century-Old Debate Halted

So a) ScienceDaily is cool and b) if you sign up for it be warned - it can eat up several days if you aren't careful. :)