Yesterday I finished two novels. One was Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and I have babbled about it here. The other was my own invention. The working title is A Girl and her Squid, and that is what it is about. I am intending to make it a great deal better--perhaps four or five hundred drafts will be enough--and then publish it.

Now, on to the squid news that I missed during the last month of frenzied noveling!

Ammonite shells have bite marks in them that suggest they may have eaten by squid:

The presence of toxic lead in used consumer products is extremely widespread and at levels far beyond safe limits, researchers conclude in a new study.  Research recently found that lead and cadmium were present in cartoon character drinking glasses and now the new study has found that many other items available for purchase throughout the United States – such as toys, home décor items, salvage, kitchen utensils and jewelry – contain surface lead concentrations more than 700 times higher than the federal limit.

The results were published in The Journal of Environmental Health.

Lactococcus lactis, the workhorse bacterium that helps turn milk into cheese, may also lead to understanding of how microbes turn the organic compound cellulose into biofuels, according to new research from Concordia University published in Microbial Cell Factories. 

Concordia biology professor Vincent Martin and PhD student Andrew Wieczorek demonstrated how structural or scaffolding proteins on the surface of the bacteria can be engineered in Lactococcus lactis towards the breakdown of plant material.   They showed how these scaffold proteins were successful in providing a stable surface outside the cell for chemical activity, e.g. the transformation of plant material into biofuels.