Thanks to the biggest pyromaniac of them all Smokey the Bear we've been seeing an uptick in the devastation of forest fires
I just don't see how we were duped by that bear. He has'Smokey'in his name for goodness sake!
Some bears just want to watch the world burn. Oh stop it makes me want to weep.
But the varied plant & insect species that live among the trees cannot be replaced so easily.
I'm always amused by the incredibly high and totally subjective financial values environmentalists place on things like trees plants insects or animals.
when it comes to saving a particular species such as the snail darter fish or the spotted owl.
But sadly what they fail to appreciate is that throughout earth's history there have been numerous events that have resulted periodically in most of earth's plant/animal/insect species being wiped out.
But why don't we just hunt them as we do with other tasty overpopulated species like the white-tailed deer?
They're cute and fluffy like wolves! Protect them! Sign a petition! Thought the article was about humans before
So what it they are smarter than deer. That is where the skill of the hunter comes in.
Apparently all you really need to stop them is two pretty cow girls with a jeep and a couple of dogs.
if there's a caliber for killing lion elephant and cape buffalo there's one for Ms. Piggy.
And in another article we're told that their natural predators wolves have been taken off the endangered species list
Shouldn't wolf populations be allowed to control this pest? Check out Youtube to see wolves taking down boars.
Trapping them in cages and selling them too Europe works the best people have jobs doing this.
Feral hogs eat wolves. They are vicious and very tough. The folks at Red Jacket Sons of Guns build an AR platform in. 458.
That's elephant caliber. It's intended especially for wild hogs. 2 shots not one.
Mikeg hogs are not indigenous to The americas-no natural predator. I know plenty of people who hunt these with AR-15's in. 223.
Higher animals such as primates and dolphins evolved in a greenhouse earth. Earth was damaged by an evasive plant species that kicked a series of global catastrophes called icebox earth
Oh the alligator tears over taxation...Seriously. Yes I understand that life has evolved over millenia under different climates
Even so I think we should dump Drill baby drill! and start changing Bring on the thorium!
I'm all about only domesticated animals like cows...they don't want to eat me just stare at
In the future you might be able to eat the whole thing cob and all. This weird possibility is courtesy of some scientists at Virginia Tech who have transformed cellulose a mostly indigestible polymer into helpful indispensable starch.
Animals like cows and pigs can digest cellulose thanks to symbiotic bacteria in their digestive tracts
They worked with a series of synthetic enzymes to break down the hydrogen bonds in some plant material that would not otherwise be used for food like corn cobs and leaves.
It's bad enough that the corn is modified mostly genetically into another unknown poison now they want us to eat the cob too
This would be more useful for ethanol production than eating the cob
#You Can Hear When Trees Are Thirstyimagine you're just polishing off a glass of soda.
No no no I could not be related to a monkey!!!Impossible that idea offends me.
if there is nothing else to choose From there should be thousands of insects on the ground today with different kinds of undeveloped wings that don't work
There are many insects that move slowly across the earth's surface and survive just fine without wings.
Why only two eyes I have searched for land animals with 13 eyes or eyes in the back of their head. where are legged the 11 creatures
How many chances does a new bird get to build a nest in a tree starting with big twigs to wooving in smaller branches to light soft downy material.
At what point does the bird understand that the walls of the nest is high enough.
I'm just saying we need to see more animals with variety much like the platypus.
My observations as a child from playing with a variety of insects would lean me more toward an intelligent design but
just as Creationists are mocked Darwin had no way of showing that all animals were related much less plants and animals.
and DNA can even be swapped at will between any two species even plants and animals. Darwin would be concerned
If Darwin never existed then none of us would ever know the joy of being a monkeys uncle rofl...
-and presto chango-ones goes from an amoeba to an elephant. well cool beans. But Even Darwin lost sleep over this.
This can result in moths that appear to change color over generations . or Birds with varying beak lengths that vary from island to island contingent on available food source.
But the moth is still a moth-the bird is still a bird. The fossil record does not support enough transitional species to date.
Evolutionary theory would have developed in the absence of Charles darwin. Indeed Charles darwin's theory of evolution was highly similar to the theory proposed by his own uncle Erasmus Darwin decades earlier.
What about having sex with your hand the door a chicken a cow or horse?
#Why Are Monkey Butts So Colorful? If you're anything like me you may have wondered why some monkeys have bright blue skin.
Even if you don't pay careful attention to monkey butts you may still have wondered what makes some people's eyes blue.
This added complexity is the secret to the blue monkey butt. To understand how photons move through a complex tissue like skin lets compare a red photon with a blue photon as it hits two tissue layers.
A baboon's butt tissue is arranged somewhat like the illustration above so that blue photons are reflected
This is why we see we see blue monkey butts! So now you will never look at a monkey's butt the same way:
you will know what makes it blue! You will even be able to hold your own
P. S. Stay tuned for next time's discussion about imaging cats through a layers of milk another wonder of light diffusion.
And also nothing about WHY monkey butts are colored...If we asked Jane Goodall Im sure she would skip the refraction part
and I cannot lie All you other bonobos cant deny when a female of non-direct relation walks in with a deep blue backside coloration your baculum gets sprung!
A very illuminating asspiring arictle with butteautiful illuastrations of primate buttocks! LOL thanks Wanamingo I love your song.
Now here are some pictures of monkey butts for your amusement. They are colored to attract mates.
Why Are Monkey Butts So Colorful? Answer: Because they are blue. That is essentially what you said.
A much better answer would have included discussion of the types of colorful pigments in different monkey butts
@Wanamingoclick on the gallery they explain for each monkey separatly---No facts No response..
#How It Works: Honeybee Societya beehive buzzes with thousands of genetically similar female honeybees. Some nurse their queen and her eggs while others fly out in search of pollen and nectar.
For decades scientists knew that bees took on new jobs as they aged but a team of researchers recently discovered that chemical tags attached to the bees'DNA play an important role in determining their career paths.
The tags which are frequently methyl groups control gene expression which in turn affects how an organism behaves.
if the hive requires it. Humans also carry epigenetic tags that may affect their behavior Scientists found methyl groups attached to a stress-hormone-receptor gene in child-abuse victims who committed suicide.
Base Population An average hive has 10000 to 50000 workers. At any given time foragers account for about 30 percent of the workforce
Swarming Effect When a queen gets old she flees the hive with a swarm of mostly nurse bees leaving the colony and its larvae to her successor.
In a lab experiment after half of a hive's population was taken away only 10 percent of foragers became nurses.
or toxins back to the hive they typically die out in the field. Queen When a colony's queen grows old
or infirm nurse bees secrete a royal jelly high in fatty acids and protein and feed it to a few larvae.
and produces a new queen who will spend her days laying thousands of genetically similar eggs.
Nurse Most female bees begin their lives as nurses who care for the queen and larvae.
They clean wax cells for the queen's eggs and feed the larvae honey and pollen.
and water outside the hive using the sun as their compass. However scientists have discovered this job change is flexible:
Drone Male honeybees which carry only one set of chromosomes fertilize the queen's eggs.
Queens per Hive: 1workers per Queen: 10000ã¢Â#Â0000average Lifespan of a Worker bee in Months:
3managed Honeybee Colonies in 2011 in the U s.:2. 49 Millionsee the rest of the articles from our 2013 How It Works section here
and see all of our April issue here. That bee research could have an impact on the treatment of depression (see conclusion in printed article)
and that bees are disappearing is not just alarming but critical to our survival as a species. Fascinating stuff-it would be interesting to understand more about this foragers are programmed to be frail issue as it seems to contradict the young bees that would normally become nurses immediately develop into foragers in the flowering season.
and important) species. In actual fact if you read the Garibaldi study published in Science on March 29 2013 Wild Pollinators Enhance Fruit Set of Crops Regardless of Honey Bee Abundance there is strong evidence to suggest that the media
#Building A Better Bed bug Trap An old folk remedy involving hairy bean leaves strewn around the bedroom may have a new life as a modern bed bug trap according to new research from the University of California Irvine
With insecticide resistance on the rise such a device could be a helpful tool for treating bed bug infestations.
or around the bed to keep bed bugs from biting as he traveled through Europe. In the early twentieth century the approach was also common throughout the Balkans according to a 1927 report from the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Army.
That report suggested the leaves stunned the bloodsucking bugs as they traveled from hiding places to their sleeping hosts during the night;
in the morning the bug-covered leaves were removed and burned (dense infestations could allegedly amass over two pounds of the buggy leaves in a single room).
American entomologists studying the effect in the 1940s noted the bed bugs could hardly be induced to move from the leaves
and microscopic images suggested that fine curved hairs called trichomes on the bottom of the leaves snagged the bugs'feet.
Now the California-Kentucky team has zoomed in even closer to reveal that the leaves'sharp trichomes actually pierce the bugs'feet like meat hooks immobilizing them.
and lead researcher of the new study You see this big muscular bug vigorously struggling
Loudon's team tipped single male bed bugs from a glass vial onto the bottom surface of kidney bean leaves
which usually captured the bugs within seconds (they used males rather than a mix of both sexes to avoid making baby bed bugs).
A low-vacuum scanning electron microscope (LV-SEM) allowed the researchers to examine the bugs while they were trapped still on the leaves.
The images revealed that the trichosomes sometimes hooked the bugs'feet like Velcro but more often went right through.
Some bugs were able to rip themselves free by breaking the trichome or rending their own flesh but they were recaptured usually.
While there is no evolutionary connection between bed bugs and bean leaves similar trichomes on other plants are known to capture ants aphids bees flies
and leafhoppers among other species. Scientists hypothesize that the structures first evolved for other reasons possibly to retain water with the defensive role coming later.
Of course keeping fresh bean leaves on hand isn't an easy bed bug fix says Loudon: The inconvenience of bean leaves is that not everyone wants them scattered around their bed room.
Synthetics mimicking the surface of the bean leaf however could be placed as a ring around the bed legs a floor mat at the door a strip on the bed board it could be something one put's in one's suitcase Loudon adds
since bed bugs really only get from one place to another by walking or being carried. Ideally a synthetic version would have the same geometry
and would move the same way as a bug walks through. To do this Loudon and her team used dental impression putty to create negative molds from the surface of the real bean leaves then filled these molds with epoxies of varying strengths and stiffnesses.
And unlike the natural trichomes which are hollow the synthetic versions were meant solid which they moved differently as the bugs walked through.
Of course a bed bug trap only works if a bed bug actually walks through it which means it is unlikely that even a crafty biomimetic material will be a final solution for a bed bug infestation
but instead one part of an approach that may include heat steam vacuuming and insecticides. Brooke Borel is a contributing editor at Popular Science
and is writing a book about bed bugs for the University of Chicago Press. Follow her on Twitter@brookeborel
. What a strange sound Don't let the bed bugs bite. as my mother or grandmother said to me as a child in a tone of voice that made no difference it suggested bugs might actually bite
me but rather just the tone of voice to give me peace and warmth to sleep be...
i am a pest control tech located in brooklyn new york . i own my own pest control business so maybe
i can shed some light on this. She is correct when she says there is a growing resistance on bed bugs by the use of pesticides.
Any scientific break through are positive. Its a step in the right direction for a more green method to get rid of bed bugs.
Many people are looking for much more safe ways to get rid of bed bugs without the use of pesticides
and this could be one one day! I am gonna get ahead of the game and start to plan many many bean plants:).
I try to educate everyone on bed bug prevention methods on my free time or anything bed bug related
so if you have any bed bug questions and would like a professional opinion please visit my site at http://www. bedbugs-brooklyn. com
and click the contact us link and ask away. i try to help out any frantic people on my down time. my company does hundreds of bed bug services monthly so
i have had first experience on bed bug behaviors and methods. again brooke great story i look forward to another bed bug story from you:)
Sooooooo...Brook Borels big blue book of bed bugs...Its one of the best articles i have read about bed bugs.
Its is truely a great method to eradicate bed bug infestation through green methods without using pesticides.
But I will still say prevention is better than curewe should always take precaution to avoid bed bug problem.
For more details on precautions you can visit http://www. brooklynpestcontrolservices. co o
#You've Never Seen Chickens Look This Humanclick here to enter the gallerywho's the fairest fowl of all?
In her new book The Magnificent Chicken Brooklyn-based photographer Tamara Staples makes a strong case for the purebred Gallus gallus domesticus from the ultra-dignified Black Langshan Cockerel to the eccentric
Beaded Buff Laced Polish Frizzle Bantam Hen. If you have never been to a poultry show you've probably never even imagined chickens as diverse and stunning as the ones in Staples'portraits.
The book begins with an interview and essay by This American Life host Ira Glass.
What happens when you try to treat a chicken they way we treat humans even if it is just for the length of a photo shoot?
What happens it turns out is you learn just what the thin line is that divides human beings from birds.
I suppose since feathers and dinosaurs have been mention on a few other articles the writers thought this related. loltoronto photographer Pete Paterson has been photographing fowl for years. much better too. you can see his work at www. petepaterson. comi helped out on one of his shoots. the birds are feisty. wtf???
Today's magic is tomorrow's technology. Please remove the word Science from your name e
and wrap an estimated nine billion birds annually. Unsurprisingly work in poultry plants is dirty and dangerous.
and dexterity to debone a bird in four seconds flat on par with a human butcher. 1) Queue Gutted whole chickens sit on metal cones as they travel along a conveyor belt
Inside two pairs of stereo cameras scan the bird one pair per side. A computer instantly renders the images into a 3-D map of the bird.
It also identifies useful markers such as the humerus and the coracoid bones. 3) Calculate (Not shown in illustration) In a production model that the Georgia Tech researchers plan to build two robotic arms work on opposite sides of the conveyor belt one arm for each side of the bird.
Equipped with a 3-D map of the incoming chicken the robots calculate a cutting trajectory accurate to within three millimeters.
and continue down the bird's backside along the shoulder blade all in two seconds. 5) Repeat Nine billion times a year.
The big challenge is teaching the robot to adjust its behavior in real time to account for all the variation in different birds says Ai-Ping Hu senior research engineer at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.
Calculations per Second to Render a Map of the Bird: 1000seconds it Takes to Calculate a Cut:
0. 5seconds to Debone an Individual Bird: 2ã¢Â#ÂESTIMATED Cost of Each Robot Butcher:
just as eager as individual farmers to open their gates to the 18-wheelers from Newark.
That way they could just bring the 18-wheelers in and not have to turn them around after they dumped the drums.
Hansen is a living example of the idea that a chimpanzee randomly typing will occasionally generate something coherent.
Dr. Yablokov found ONE MILLION deaths due to Chernobyl. 5. Dr. Wing found that lung cancers rose dramatically in people exposed to the Three Mile Island radiation plume. 6. Dr. Gould
Animals are showing signs of radiation exposure. Fish have been caught with radiation. An entire species of nails is extinct due to Fukushima.
Radiation is being in found in seaweed zooplankton and sea life in the oceans. Animal and plant mutations are being found everywhere.
There is no doubt about it. Man-made nuclear radiation is wreaking havoc on human genetics human health and our environment.
Cats Are Particular About What They Pee Oncats and many other mammals like to pee on things.
It's called urine marking and acts as a form of communication through scent (and to a lesser extent a visual signal.
A new very important study in the Journal of Zoology found that the way cats--specifically the European wildcat--mark is intentional and particular.
Felis silvestris the European wildcat looks like a slightly larger and stockier version of a housecat. Its taxonomical separation from the housecat is complicated by the fact that wildcats
and housecats interbreed often.)Wildcats are highly territorial and mark their territory by urinating and leaving strategic poops all around their areas.
When urine spraying a wildcat raises up its tail and ejects backwards a spray of urine against a prominent object of its surrounding environment says the new study.
But as it turns out wildcats look for specific kinds of trees and plants to mark based on how well those plants natural characteristics will spread the scent of the mark.
It was assumed that cats merely mark large objects--marking the biggest tree or biggest rock for example--but that's not the case.
European wildcats favor the juniper tree not choosing it for its size but selecting it over larger nearby non-juniper trees.
The juniper is a highly aromatic and oily tree (it's a major component in the flavoring of gin for example)
and the cat chooses the juniper because the study suggests its natural oils will mesh with the cat's scent to make the mark more powerful than the mark is alone.
The study says that therefore wildcats select those plants which could enhance the olfactory effectiveness of the mark.
It's not totally clear how chemically scent marks interact with the volatile organic compounds in the juniper
but it is clear that the cats choose those more than other plants. Cats: they don't just pee anywhere.
Read the whole study here (subscription required. Pee-snickery wild kitty purrr purrr pur! Just goes to show that cats
and other animals have great intelligence and instincts! --Sir William the Cat of www. indefenseofcats. comi'm almost certain one of mine is peeing on towels
and may peed on my guitar. It bothers me so much. It may be why I don't play with the guitar anymore e
#Something Is Killing Up to Half Of America's Bees There's some kind of environmental issue/plague/apocalypse killing America's honeybees
but years after it first started happening scientists are still putting together what it might be.
Before about 2005 beekeepers might lose 5 to 10 percent of their hives when winter rolled around.
With brain-wasting disease in our deer and elk and steroidal enhanced deficiencies accumulating in our cows this bodes really well for U s as a nation huh?
which are very adaptable is also killing other bugs and animals then the statement âÂ#Âoe...
This is of course in addition to the many many other species dying across the globe these days-manatees on the coasts birds all over fish and crabs all over.
When you see a bear die off it would probably be a good time to consider spending more time with your family.
Their pesticides are the biggest pest the world has seen ever. Start to look when the bees population started it's decline
In the future the same techniques could apply to vaccines to the polio virus which belongs to a large group of viruses related to hoof
There's still plenty of testing to do before the newly created virus shell can be used as a vaccine however.
and sheep giving the animals fevers and blisters and reducing the amount of milk they give.
me and to the environmental watchdogs groups I work with is how often testing is done
Luckily it is now possible to buy a hybrid lawn mower known as the Raven MPV-710. In many ways a hybrid mower makes sense.
Almost a cross between ATV and mower the Raven MPV-710 appears to be one of the highest-tech options on the market.
Because of the electric direct drive Raven says it transfers more power to the wheels than most mowers on the market
Used as a generator the Raven's engine is more frugal than other mowers so you'll get up to 12 hours of running on a 5-gallon fill.
#The Chemistry of Kibble Visit Popularscience. com Thursday March 28 at noon EST for a live chat with Mary Roach.
Spanky Thomas Skipper Porkchop Mohammid Elvis Sandi Bela Yankee Fergie Murphy Limburger and some 300 other dogs and cats that reside at the company's Palatability Assessment Resource
and needs of pets with those of their owners. The two are often at odds. Dry cereal-based pet foods caught on during WORLD WAR II
Cats and dogs are not grain eaters by choice Moeller is saying. So our task is to find ways to entice them to eat enough for it to be nutritionally sufficient.
and we assume pets like what we like. We're wrong. This is where palatants enter the scene.
and we assume our pets like what we like. We're wrong. For cats especially Moeller says change is often more difficult than monotony.
Sigh this article is harolding better kibble based off more meat products. Auroria's article is based off cheaper cardboard-ish kibble.
If your dog is happy and healthy who cares? Must be doing something wrong I've fed all of my dogs kibble and not the expensive organic scientific stuff either.
They have lived long healthy lives. Healthy enough that when I have to change vets they always comment on my pets'condition
and say You must be feeding them the expensive organic scientific stuff! No no and nope.
and wheat grainsã¢Â# and that cats and dogs are not grain eaters. âÂ# I think it is worth noting that there are plenty of pet foods available that are grain-free that do not require tricks to âÂ#Âoeentice pets to eat enough for it to be nutritionally sufficient.
âÂ# One wonders where Spanky Thomas Skipper Porkchop Mohammid Elvis Sandi Bela Yankee Fergie Murphy Limburger
and some 300 other dogs and cats came from before they'resided'in a lab cage at this facility
There are plenty of good kibble manufacturers who make high quality food without using lab animals to taste-test.
Given the ultimate consumers are pets at home it makes more sense to taste test to pooches with the diet and lifestyle of a pet rather than lab animal.
If you feed a 90lb. dog 3 cups of cheap kibble twice a day along with canned food you could do the same job with just 2 cups of premium kibble twice a day with no canned food at all.
The only downside is that your dog will be more energetic. I can change my cats'food any time
I want as long as the new stuff costs more than the old stuff. The problem is I can never reverse the process.
raw meat with the bone (never feed a dog cooked bones. Premium kibble is still kibble.
Hence we all feed our dogs Cheerios with beef broth sprayed On it's for our convenience not for the dog's benefit.
I feed both our dogs on nothing but chicken thighs pork neck bones and occasional beef. They have sweet breath white teeth silky coats no hot spots no fleas bright eyes and calm energy.
Best of all no recalls! It was scary to go raw at first because I'd bought into the notion that only pet food companies
and their paid nutritional experts could tell me what was appropriate for a dog to eat.
But in a natural state dogs do need not these nutritional experts. They know what to eat.
They're scavengers predators and carnivores (not omnivores like bears. I say feed'em what they want.
Why would you deprive a dog of that? hi sam! very interesting and informative article. however I will comment for a different reason here. please convey this msg of mine to AFB International President
or religion. please convey to the relevant person at AFB Int'l that they should not use names for dogs
and cats that relate to or even resemble religious figures like Prophets (in the Bible or in the Quran).
or religion. please convey to the relevant person at AFB Int'l that they should not use names for dogs
and cats that relate to or even resemble religious figures like Prophets (in the Bible or in the Quran).
and making it so the dogs WANT TO eat it doesn't seem fair. It's called capitalism they are making a product to sell people people want it to be cheap
but they want their dogs to eat it. You should be upset with your peers in society for being so naive.
I wish that Mary pass this msg on to AFL to stop using such names for animals.
or beyond) in the Quran and that the shape of the earth is like an ostrich's egg (elliptical
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