When I was little and getting up to no good, my mom would always tell me that she had eyes on the back of her head. That's creepy, if you think too hard about it. But what's creepier is that one day it might actually be possible. A bunch of scientists at Tufts University just figured out how to transplant functioning eyes to the wrong end of a bunch of tadpoles.

Usually we don't go around calling people mad scientists, but this is definitely edging into that territory. The team first took out the normal eyeballs of a bunch of tadpoles. Then they harvested primordial eyes from tadpole embryos. They transplanted those embryonic eyes into the blind tadpoles' tails, where there's a high concentration of nerves. And lo and behold, the tadpoles could see again.

But they weren't seeing exactly in the same way they would normally.

If the environment could be likened to a punching bag, beaten up by pollution, climate change deniers, and rampant deforestation, then a colossal political impasse that the U.S. is facing this week could be likened to a redwood log connected to a battering ram being swung at Mother Earth's punched-up face.

Sequestration would help polluters escape probing government eyes. It would slow down renewable energy and energy conservation projects. And it would keep Americans out of national parks.

In Europe, consumers are scandalized over the possibility that there could be a little horse meat in their IKEA meatballs. In China, consumers are scandalized that there might not be horse meat in their IKEA meatballs -- because those meatballs are made in China, which probably means they've got much worse ingredients than a little bit of Black Beauty.

Quartz reports:

“I don’t really care about horse meat. The key point is that if it’s produced in China, it probably has rat meat,” said another [Weibo user] (link in Chinese). ...

Here's an object lesson in how messed up America's food culture is. A few years back, Chad Ettmueller went to Atlanta's Which Wich sandwich shop and ordered the Double Wicked, which the Atlanta Journal-Constitution describes as "a glorious pile of double portion of beef, bacon, turkey, ham pepperoni, three cheeses and a wad of fixing on a whole wheat bun."

He opened up his mouth wide to take a bite.

And he dislocated his jaw a whole inch on both sides. It was stuck for 14 hours.

Mexico City is super awesome. It's kind of like L.A. with all the cool people and none of the annoying ones, and yeah, no beach, but whatevs. The existence of Peatónito makes it even better. Peatónito is the alter ego of one Jorge Cáñez, a 26-year-old political scientist by day who, at the blink of an eye, transforms into a traffic-stopping superhero.

Planning on barreling through an intersection without even pinche looking? Well you are going to meet the wrath of Peatónito, who will jump out and stop you in your tracks. You will be surprised. You will feel dumb. You will perhaps begin to drive in a way that acknowledges the existence of other people.

Moving is so much fun, except for the part where you actually pack all your crap into boxes and move. I’m not sure you can beat its potent combination of stress, mess, and backbreaking toil outside of a prison hard-labor crew, and even those guys can find where they packed their pants at the end of the day.

And then there’s the waste. With all the cardboard boxes, Styrofoam packing peanuts, plastic bags, and transport trips involved, you can certainly add trash-producing and gas-guzzling to moving’s list of charms.

So what’s a green-minded relocator to do? I asked myself this question last week as I stared down the barrel of my impending move across town. My boyfriend, Ted, and I were headed to a nearby apartment (1.5 miles away, to be exact), and we didn't have much time to prep -- just a few weeks, and busy weeks at that. But we wanted to try for the most earth-friendly, least wasteful move possible.

While plotting the move, we identified three major offenders on the green front: packing materials, transport, and unnecessary trash. Then we set goals to attack each one. Here’s our plan -- and how it all went down in reality.

Eat organic all you want. Avoid plastic like the plague. It may not matter after all -- you could still be ingesting a lot of nasty bisphenol A and phthalates, chemicals that leach from plastics and potentially disrupt human endocrine systems.

A study by Sheela Sathyanarayana published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology compared one group that avoided BPA and pthalates in accordance with written directions and another group that ate a catered, local, organic diet prepared without use of plastic for cooking or storage.

From Fast Co.Exist:

The researchers assumed that urinary BPA and pthalate levels would drop in the catered group compared to the group using written instructions -- people are generally bad at following advice from their doctors after all. "Instead we saw big spikes and increases in the catered diet group and no changes at all in the written education group," she says.

Nearly 100 years ago, Dust Bowl refugees from the middle of the country sought new lives and livelihoods in the Golden State. Now California is fixing to become its own damn dust bowl. The last two months in the northern Sierra Nevada, normally the wettest time of the year, have shattered an all-time weather record as the driest January and February in recorded history.

From The Sacramento Bee:

The northern Sierra is crucial to statewide water supplies because it is where snowmelt accumulates to fill Shasta and Oroville reservoirs. These are the largest reservoirs in California and the primary storage points for state and federal water supply systems.

If February concludes without additional storms -- and none are expected -- the northern Sierra will have seen 2.2 inches of precipitation in January and February, the least since record-keeping began in the region in 1921.

That is well below the historical average of 17.1 inches.

Piranhas could be poised to invade South Carolina.

Scarier than the possibility of being eaten alive while taking a dip in Palmetto State waters is the fact that government officials tried to keep the danger a secret from the state's people.

An onslaught of piranhas is one of many hazards South Carolina faces as the climate changes, according to a 102-page report drafted in 2011 by scientists working for the state Department of Natural Resources. The draft was shelved by department board members, despite earlier plans to distribute it for public review, meaning the scientists' warnings could have been kept from the public had The State newspaper not recently obtained a copy.

Last summer, New York mayor and soda-hating bazillionaire Michael Bloomberg's charity launched "The Mayors Challenge" to award $9 million to five cities "that come up with bold ideas for solving major problems and improving city life." The field has now been whittled down to 20 top concepts.

"From sustainability and public health, to education and economic development, cities are pioneering new policies and programs that are moving the country forward," said Bloomberg in announcing the contest. "Historically, cities have seen each other as competitors in a zero-sum game, with neighbors pitted against each other in a battle to attract residents and businesses. But more and more, a new generation of mayors is recognizing the value of working together and the necessity of borrowing ideas from one another."

Bloomberg seems to miss his own point, though, in setting up a battle for funds between cities, some of which have far more resources and innovation street cred than others (I'm looking at you, San Francisco). That's part of why I want to give a special shout-out to Milwaukee's entry for the city's HOME GR/OWN project.