Aye-Ayes gone awry

So in honor of my sister Kathryn, who did not think awry was a word, I am doing a special blog on a certain animal. The aye-aye.
This animal is well, a little strange looking. It's real name is Daubentonia madagascariensis. As you might guess from it's species, its a native of Madagascar. It is the largest nocturnal primate. Being a primate it has posable thumbs, but another interesting trademark of the aye-aye is it's exceptionally long middle finger. It's middle finger can be up to three times longer than the rest of its fingers! Wow! Talk about flipping someone off!
The aye-aye is considered to be an omnivore. It chews holes in wood and uses it's elongated fingers to dig out any grubs. Eww!
Native villagers believe seeing an aye-aye is a symbol of death mostly because of how scary it looks. To counteract this bad omen one must kill the aye aye. This, along with habitat destruction, has led to the animal being added to the endagered species list.

Homemade Compass

Someone at work today told about how to make your own compass. I found this to be very interesting since I have recently been learning about Earth's magnetic field. So I thought I would give it a try.

Supplies:
needle
water
magnet

Simply magnetize the needle by rubbing it against the magnet. Carefully place the needle on top of the water. (You can use a cup of water, or as Mac told me at work, find a calm spot in a brook.) The needle will automatically point north.
It took me a few tries to get the needle to stay on top of the water with out sinking. I eventually used a pair of tweezers. I know you can't tell just from the picture that the needle is in fact pointing north, but I know from looking outside that it is pointing north. I could not readily find my compass, so for future attempts I will make sure and have a compass to verify the needle.