Dating a bear is only slightly different than dating Dennis Rodman!..Color nails! Every imagination needs a set of these!..
Never trust a hippo that complains he has caught something in his throat!..Early childhood training for girls:
It s just a herd of mud-bathing tortoises. Why do you ask?..Extreme farming, where the wordhorizontal is no longer in their dictionary!..
Chimp smoking a cigarette! Is there no limit to the tobacco companies sleaziness in finding new markets?..
You've Never Seen a Snowflake In this Much Detail Accuweather Winter Weather Center Who Has the Best Chance for a White Christmas?
It worked on rats anyway. But researchers say in humans coffee might enhance the sexual experience only among people who are not habitual users.
The shepherd took his animals'discovery to some monks and very long prayer sessions ensued.
and Easter combined. 6) That's a big bird The average turkey purchased for Thanksgiving weighs 16 lbs.
Now you can be the talk of your dinner table this holiday a perfect turkey tidbit to impress holiday dinner guests. 11) Bald eagle who?
It's hard to imagine the turkeyâ as the official bird of the United states but if Ben Franklin had had his way it could have been.
In a letter to his daughter Franklin referred to the turkey saying I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country!
The turkey is a much more respectable bird and withal a true original native of America.
and prostate inflammation and is known to turn<a href=http://www. livescience. com/10957-pesticide-turns-male-frogs-females. html>male frogs into females</a>EWG says.
In animals lead can lower sex hormone levels EWG says.</</p><p>These chemicals are found in no-stick cookware
Here's a look at the weirdest effects of the shutdown from a panda cam going dark to bored Congressional workers. 1. Poison-ivy eating goats sent home Last Friday in anticipation of a nearing government shutdown a herd
. 2. Panda cam went dark The National Zoo in Washington D c. was forced to turn off its Panda Cam.
and baby panda born to Mei Xian on Aug 23 the zoo tweeted Monday that The cams (incl. the panda cams) require federal resources especially staff to run.
See Photos of Mei Xiang's Adorable Panda Cub 3. Â KKK hindered by shutdown The Ku klux klan had to cancel a rally planned for Saturday Oct 5 at Gettysburg National Military Park in Adams County Penn
#17-Year Cicadas Are Buzzing In! What to Expect The U s. Northeast is about to be snowed under by cicadas.
Don't worry though it's normal. The pesky invasion is just so unusual that people tend to forget about it.
After 17 years underground the so-called Brood II cicadas are about to have their time in the sun. Millions of these root-sucking insects will come out into the open
This brief overpopulation of cicadas in April and May is supposed to overwhelm what predators are able to eat explained Jim Fredericks the National Pest Management Association's director of technical services.
6 Crazy Facts About Cicadas Bird species raccoons possums foxes and whatever can get their mouths on these things can eat their fill
These insects cause no harm to humans or to property although occasionally a car parked under a cicada-infested tree could get covered in small droppings.
They are literally everywhere crawling over every tree every building everywhere. It's an amazing number of individual animals said Chris Hartley an entomologist at the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House of the Missouri Botanical garden.
Hormones drive the cycle Cicadas (erroneously called locusts) are backed large dark insects related to aphids and leafhoppers.
They typically grow to about 2 inches (5 centimeters) in size and they are loud:
The United states hosts several cicada species. Many of them emerge every year but there are also distinct populations that only mature every 13 or 17 years.
The prime number makes it hard for predators to predict when the cicadas will emerge biologists believe.
After cicadas emerge from the ground and mate the females lay eggs at the edges of tree branches
which can damage the branches on a small tree. A single female can produce hundreds of eggs across several batches.
In annual cicadas these stages pass quickly while 13-or 17-year cicadas see a much more prolonged childhood In the case of these cicadas they are triggered to not produce the hormones essential for becoming an adult until those numbers of years have passed Hartley said.
It's all in their genes and their development and that is the adaptation that they have acquired to achieve these mass emergences.
Few underground life studies It's difficult to study the cicada cycle as much of it takes place underground.
when the cicadas are still nymphs. Most mortality takes place in the first or second nymph stage said Chris Simon a cicada researcher at the University of Connecticut.
There's competition for feeding space underground. The cicadas may die in battle fighting with each other for food
but nobody knows that for sure yet. They have digging claws that can dig through hard dirt
so they might be able to actually kill each other Simon said. We don't know because it's hard to watch them underground.
The 13-and 17-year cicadas are the only ones that spend such a long period as juveniles except for insects that diapause
Some beetles for example have been recorded emerging from furniture imported from Asia decades before she said. Follow Elizabeth Howell@howellspace. Follow Livescience@livescience Facebookâ & Google+.
s a look at the weirdest effects of the shutdown from a panda cam going dark
</p><p></p><p>The National Zoo in Washington D c. was forced to turn off its Panda Cam.
and baby panda born to Mei Xian on Aug 23 the zoo tweeted Monday that "
The cams (incl. the panda cams) require federal resources especially staff to run. They have not been deemed essential during a#shutdown. "<
<a href=http://www. livescience. com/39153-giant-panda-mei-xiang-gives-birth-photos. html>See Photos of Mei Xiang'
s Adorable Panda Cub</a p><p></p><p>The Ku klux klan had to cancel a rally planned for Saturday Oct 5 at Gettysburg national military park in Adams County Penn
With no phones and no emails it appears some bored government workers have taken to Craigslist to trawl for<a href=http://cdnl. complex. com/assets/CHANNEL IMAGES/TECH/2013/10/content/1380648750.screenshot20131001at1 32. 19pm. png
</p><p>In a no-nonsense signal to elephant poachers the agency was supposed to destroy six tons of illegal ivory goods it has collected over the past 25 years.
Traditional relationships between farmers and llama herders also are frayed. The United nations not entirely blind to the complications of world food markets
</p><p></p><p>The Central american salamander<em>Bolitoglossa dofleini</em>can extend its tongue more than half its body length in 7 milliseconds 50 times faster than you can blink an eye.</
</p><p></p><p>The male<a href=http://www. livescience. com/27572-platypus. html>platypus</a>has a venomous spur on its hind foot capable of dispensing a poison
that can kill a medium-sized dog.</</p><p></p><p>Look at the back of your hand
</p><p></p><p><a href=http://www. livescience. com/27503-camels. html>Camels</a can down 30 gallons (113 liters) of water
The water is stored in the camel bloodstream while the fatty hump Rather than being stored in its fatty hump serves as a source of nourishment
Roman philosopher Seneca who lived from 4 B c. to A d. 65 recorded the use of a sponge attached to a stick that did the job.
</p><p></p><p>Mantis shrimp can use their armored claws to strike at speeds of 74 feet per second (23 m/s) delivering blows with 200 pounds (91 kg
</p><p></p><p>Carnivorous bog-dwelling plants called bladderworts can snap their traps shut in less than a millisecond 100 times faster than a Venus flytrap.</
</p><p></p><p>How did the Madagascar hissing cockroach got its name? Well it hisses of course.
The giant insect forces gas through tiny breathing pores called spiracles on its thorax and abdomen.
The cockroaches hiss when surprised when challenging other cockroaches to a fight and when trying to attract mates.</
</p><p></p><p>Modern bras didn' t come into fashion until the corset fell by the wayside in the late 1800s.
</p><p></p><p>Seahorses don' t have stomachs just intestines for the absorption of nutrients from food.
Food passes through their digestive system rapidly so they eat plankton and small crustaceans almost constantly.</
to predators that any attempt to bite will end with them picking spiky bits out of the roofs of their mouths.</
You mean to tell me that you're eating the seeds that are used to grow'hair'on a Chia Pet?
A 2005 study of rats in the journal Nutrition Research found that chia seed diets dramatically decreased triglyceride levels and increased HDL (good cholesterol) levels.
#4 Immune Boosting Tips for Back-to-School Season Strep throat double ear infections and yet another nasty stomach bug.
#5 Mysterious Animal Die offs<p>Mass animal die offs often occur abruptly and as a result researchers often struggle to determine the cause of these outbreaks.
</p><p>White-nose syndrome is a fungal disease that has devastated bat colonies across North america within the past decade or so killing up to 90 percent of some populations of little brown bats.</
</p><p>Colony collapse disorder has resulted in the deaths of more than 10 million beehives in North america since 2007 but still remains fairly mysterious to scientists.
and other pollutants along with the homogenization of the bees'diet as farmers increasingly use hives to pollinate monoculture (one crop) fields —
eating just one kind of food is not good for most animals including bees.</</p><p>The combined effects of these stressors are thought to dampen the bees'immune systems making them more susceptible to disease and literally collapse.</
which infects frogs and other amphibians by way of their skin — has been implicated in the deaths of hundreds of amphibians in recent years including nearly 75 percent of the mountain yellow-legged frog population in California's Sierra nevada mountains.</
</p><p>Researchers have found that immune cells stop functioning and commit apoptosis — essentially cell suicide —
</p><p>Starfish wasting syndrome is understood a poorly disease that starts out as a small lesion on the animal's body
and ends with the animal disintegrating into a pile of goo. The disease has been detected on several occasions on both the East and West Coasts of the U s. over the past several decades;
Like it or not we evolved to be sweaty fat bipeds that are furless and big brained Harvard evolutionary biologist Jason Lieberman said during a public lecture on Nov 6 here at the American Museum of Natural history.
Whereas chimps walk an average of about 2 to 3 kilometers per day (1. 2 to 1. 9 miles) spending most of their time foraging
Modern technology allows humans to extract sugar from a wide range of sources including sugar cane maple trees beehives
Chemicals in green tea called polyphenols appear to inhibit proteins that promote tumor cell growth and migration according to experimental studies in animals.</
The National Environmental Policy Act the Marine Mammal Protection Act the Environmental Pesticide Control Act the Safe Drinking water Act and the Endangered Species Act were signed all by
He once reportedly said that environmentalists wanted to live like a bunch of damned animals. 3. Theodore Roosevelt A renowned big-game hunter
As governor of New york Roosevelt even outlawed the use of feathers in clothing like hats to prevent the slaughter of exotic birds.
when the cause simply wasn't cool earning the moniker Green Hornet for his support of environmental causes.
Another perhaps more outlandish solution may be to eat meat that isn't from an animal at all.
Soy Though popular for centuries in many Asian cuisines soy is seen sometimes as dangerous after studies found elevated rates of breast cancer among rats
#7 Iconic Animals Humans Are Driving to Extinction It's hard to imagine a world in which elephants orangutans lions
and other iconic wildlife only exist in stories photos and zoos. But that may be where the future is heading for some of these animals.
Several creatures around the world are being pushed toward extinction by humans through hunting and habitat loss researchers say.
Growing populations of humans and rising demand for agricultural products and the animals themselves via poaching are elbowing these iconic animals to the brink.
If these animals are to be saved people will need to be educated about the creatures'plight poaching must be stopped
and the animals'habitats will need to be protected experts say. Below are seven animals that humans are threatening with extinction.
These are just a few examples of how humans are contributing to the sixth-largest mass extinction in the history of the planet according to most biologists.
What 11 Billion People Mean for Earth's Animals Lions There are only about 20000 lions left in Africa according to Dereck Joubert a National geographic explorer-in-residence
and filmmaker who lives among the iconic big cats in Botswana with his wife Beverly. About 50 years ago there were 450000 lions a decline of more than 95 percent he said About five wild lions are killed every day throughout Africa Joubert added.
Trophy hunters mostly Americans kill about 600 lions per year typically males with large manes. More than 90 percent of these trophies are taken back to the United states
and the activity often takes place in canned hunts where lions are placed in small enclosures or even cages and then shot Joubert added.
Joubert and his wife chronicle the plight of these sought-after male lions in a new film entitled Game of Lions airing on Nat Geo Wild at 10 p m. ET on Dec 1.
Leopards Leopards have declined also by a similar magnitude Joubert said. About 50 years ago there were 700000 leopards
and today there are closer to 50000 Leopards are hunted for their beautiful coats which help to disguise them.
About 5000 leopards are killed each year he added. Orangutans In Borneo and Sumatra large companies are destroying forests
and replacing them with big swaths of palm tree monocultures (plots where only one plant is grown
which don't provide suitable habitat for most animals) threatening the future existence of orangutans said Lee Hannah a senior fellow in climate change biology at Conservation International a global group devoted to saving endangered animals
and their habitats. There are only about 6000 wild orangutans left and about 1000 are being killed each year primarily from habitat destruction according to the Orangutan Project an environmental group
whose mission is to save the animals. Â Rhinos Rhino poaching has doubled more than since 2010 in South africa according to the country.
And this year rhinos went extinct in the adjacent country of Mozambique according to news reports. One rhino is shot in Africa every 9. 5 hours Joubert said.
Rhinos are desired for their horns which are thought wrongly to be able to cure cancer and fevers Joubert added.
Horns can sell for around $30000 per pound ($65000 per kilogram) according to the BBC. Black market Horns:
Images from a Rhino Bust Elephants Elephants are in trouble according to conservationists. Poaching of elephants has risen dramatically in the past few years due to soaring demand for ivory primarily in China and Southeast asia.
Five African elephants are killed every hour Joubert said. There are a total of about 300000 African elephants left and as many as 40000 are killed each year.
With these levels elephants won't be around for much longer Joubert said. Lemurs Since humans arrived in Madagascar about 2000 years ago about 15 to 20 species of lemurs primates with foxlike faces have gone extinct likely due to habitat loss
and hunting including species whose males grew nearly as large as gorillas said University of Illinois primatologist Paul Garber
But this was over the course of hundreds and thousands of years. Humans are cutting down the lemurs'habitat at much faster pace now.
As Malagasy human populations rise they threaten the remaining species of lemurs and thousands of other endemic species with extinction at an accelerating rate Garber said.
 Currently 93 lemur species are endangered critically endangered or threatened mostly due to the clearing of the island's forests according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) a global environmental organization that's 91 percent of all lemur species for
which data is available. Sharks About 100 million sharks are killed each year to be made into shark fin soup a Chinese delicacy.
This trade takes the form of shark finning in which the animals'fins are hacked off
and they are thrown back into the ocean to slowly die. However China's taste for the dish may be fading:
According to the American environmental group Wildaid consumption of the soup is down 50 to 70 percent in the last two years.
Nevertheless one-third of sharks and rays are threatened with extinction according to a 2009 study by the IUCN.
For this reason the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) voted in March of this year to prohibit the trade in shark fins of five threatened species. Â Emailâ Douglas Mainâ
or follow him onâ Twitterâ orâ Google+.+Follow us@livescience Facebookor Google+.+Article originally on Livescience o
#7 Insects You'll Be Eating in the future As the human population continues to inch closer to 8 billion people feeding all those hungry mouths will become increasingly difficult.
A growing number of experts claim that people will soon have no choice but to consume insects.
As if to underscore that claim a group of students from Mcgill University in Montreal has won the 2013 Hult Prize for producing a protein-rich flour made from insects.
The prize gives the students $1 million in seed money to begin creating what they call Power Flour.
We will be starting with grasshoppers team captain Mohammed Ashour told ABC News on Monday (Sept. 30.
Earlier this year the Food and agriculture organization of the united nations (FAO) released a report titled Edible Insects: Future Prospects for Food and Feed Security.
The document details the health and environmental benefits derived from a diet supplemented by insects a diet also known as entomophagy.
Gleaned from the FAO document and other sources here's a list of seven edible insects you may soon find on your dinner plate.
Eat This! 7 Perfect Survival Foods Mopane caterpillars Mopane caterpillars the larval stage of the emperor moth (Imbrasia belina) are common throughout the southern part of Africa.
Harvesting of mopane caterpillars is a multi-million dollar industry in the region where women
and children generally do the work of gathering the plump little insects. The caterpillars are boiled traditionally in salted water then sun-dried;
the dried form can last for several months without refrigeration making them an important source of nutrition in lean times.
And few bugs are more nutritious: Whereas the iron content of beef is 6 mg per 100 grams of dry weight mopane caterpillars pack a whopping 31 mg of iron per 100 grams.
They're also a good source of potassium sodium calcium phosphorous magnesium zinc manganese and copper according to the FAO.
Chapulines Chapulines are grasshoppers of the genus Sphenarium and are eaten widely throughout southern Mexico. They're often served roasted (giving them a satisfying crunch)
and flavored with garlic lime juice and salt or with guacamole or dried chili powder. The grasshoppers are known as rich sources of protein;
some claim that the insects are more than 70 percent protein. Researchers have noted that the gathering of Sphenarium grasshoppers is an attractive alternative to spraying pesticides in fields of alfalfa and other crops.
Not only does this eliminate the environmental hazards associated with pesticide sprays it also gives the local people an extra source of nutrition and income from the sale of grasshoppers.
Gallery: Dazzling Photos of Dew-Covered Insects Witchetty grub Among the aboriginal people of Australia the witchetty grub is a dietary staple.
When eaten raw the grubs taste like almonds; when cooked lightly in hot coals the skin develops the crisp flavorful texture of roast chicken.
And the witchetty grub is chock full of oleic acid a healthful omega-9 monounsaturated fat. Though people often refer to the larvae of several different moths as witchetty grubs some sources specify the larval stage of the cossid moth (Endoxyla leucomochla) as the true witchetty grub.
The grubs are harvested from underground where they feed upon the roots of Australian trees such as eucalyptus and black wattle trees.
Termites Want to get rid of the termites gnawing at your floorboards? Just do like they do in South america and Africa:
Take advantage of the rich nutritional quality of these insects by frying sun-drying smoking or steaming termites in banana leaves.
Termites generally consist of up to 38 percent protein and one particular Venezuelan species Syntermes aculeosus is 64 percent protein.
Termites are also rich in iron calcium essential fatty acids and amino acids such as tryptophan. African palm weevil A delicacy among many African tribes the palm weevil (Rhychophorus phoenicis) is collected off the trunks of palm trees.
About 4 inches (10 centimeters) long and two inches (5 cm) wide the weevils are fried easily pan
because their bodies are full of fats though they're also eaten raw. A 2011 report from the Journal of Insect Science found that the African palm weevil is an excellent source of several nutrients such as potassium zinc iron and phosphorous as well as several amino acids and healthy
monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Stink bugs Their name certainly doesn't lend itself to culinary appeal
but stink bugs (Hemiptera order) are consumed throughout Asia South america and Africa. The insects are a rich source of important nutrients including protein iron potassium
and phosphorus. Because stink bugs release a noxious scent they are eaten not usually raw unless the head is removed first
which discards their scent-producing secretions. Otherwise they are roasted or soaked in water and sun-dried.
As an added benefit the soaking water which absorbs the noxious secretions can then be used as a pesticide to keep termites away from houses.
Mealworms The larvae of the mealworm beetle (Tenebrio molitor) is one of the only insects consumed in the Western world:
The nutritional value of mealworms is hard to beat: They're rich in copper sodium potassium iron zinc and selenium.
Mealworms are also comparable to beef in terms of protein content but have a greater number of healthy polyunsaturated fats.
#7 Most Misleading Animal Names What's in a name? When it comes to animals a variety of characteristics can be wrapped up in a common name including where an animal lives (mountain goat) what an animal eats (anteater) the color of an animal (brown bear) or more broadly
what an animal looks like (dragonfly). This last category however is where the naming scheme can become misleading.
Is a dragonfly a true fly? No it belongs to the Order odonata along with damselflies whereas true flies (house flies fruit flies etc.)
belong to the Order diptera. And is a dragonfly a dragon? That's probably a more obvious no.
Here is a list of seven other imaginative but potentially misleading animal names: A seahorse might slightly resemble a horse without the fur
and with a different kind of tail but it is really a fish that belongs to the Syngnathidae family along with pipefishes and leafy sea dragons.
To be fair to whoever came up with the common name seahorse it's a bit more accurate than the direct translation of the animal's Latin genus name Hippocampus
which literally translates as horse (hippos-)sea monster(-kampos). Calling anything that only grows to be about 1 inch (2. 5 centimeters) long a monster is potentially more misleading than calling a fish a horse.
Starfish don't have scales don't have tails and can't swim so they are therefore not fish.
Instead the rough-skinned multi-legged seafloor dweller is an echinoderm related to sea urchins and sea cucumbers.
Though it does at least look like a star. Like true panda bears red pandas spend much of their time munching on bamboo up in tree limbs.
And like true pandas they have thumb-like appendages. But this eastern Himalayan and southwestern China-dwelling animal does not belong to the same family as the true panda
and is not a bear. They actually look and act more like raccoons. They also occupy a family all to their own Ailuridae
and all of their closest relatives have gone extinct. Ringworm also known as dermatophytosis is not a worm at all:
It is a fungal infection consisting of several different species of fungus that feeds on keratin the substance found in hair nails and the outer layer of skin within humans and domesticated animals.
The infection forms a ringlike pattern on skin that sort of looks like a worm burrow. These common household pets (in the United states)
and increasingly popular delicacies (in South america) have more fur and faster metabolisms than any true pig.
Guinea pigs are rodents and the only thing they share in common with true pigs is that they are mammals
and they make squeaky sounds. Like guinea pigs prairie dogs are rodents and have nothing more in common with domesticated dogs than guinea pigs do with true pigs.
The call of the prairie dog is thought to sound like the bark of a dog but given its small size the tone of its bark only matches that of the smallest true dogs.
With wingspans reaching up to about 4. 5 feet (1. 4 meters) wide these animals can grow to be as large as a fox.
But they are not foxes at all they are the largest and least studied bats in the world.
More than 60 species are known to live throughout isolated islands within the Pacific and Indian oceans and parts of continental Australia and Asia.
Their brownish-red fur resembles that of a fox but aside from that these tree-dwelling fruit-eating mammals have little in common with their namesakes. m
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