In the United states red candy whips are often called licorice. In other cultures true black licorice is appreciated and available in myriad flavors including mellow, salty, and delightfully bitter. It is ironic that old people, the people most likely to eat black old fashioned licorice may be the most at risk.
Image www.candywarehouse.com.
Is Licorice Dangerous?
November 1, 2011 | smithsonianmag.com
It’s first day of November and kids everywhere are sitting down with stashes of goodies they earned the night before by dressing up, knocking on doors and rattling off the three magic words that win them a treat. And for adults, the leftover Halloween goodies are all on sale, so the time is right to enjoy a treat or two as well. Personally, I love my Good and Plenty, the licorice treats with pink and white sugary shells that spokesperson Choo Choo Charlie uses to make his locomotive zip down the track. But it turns out that Charlie should consider cutting back on his candy habit. According to a consumer awareness update published by the FDA, overindulging in licorice can cause health problems.
AccuWeather says, “To this day ball lightning has never been scientifically reported or documented and all attempts to reproduce it have failed.” However, National Geographic reported in 2007 that a scientist created golf ball sized orbs of electricity in the lab. Wired reported in 2009 that a scientist wants to weaponize ball lightning. So I guess the jury is still out, at least at Accuweather.
45 years ago this week one of the worst tragedies in America’s space program happened. Apollo I had a terrible fire, killing the 3 astronauts, Edward White, Virgil (Gus) Grissom, and Roger Chaffee inside. Of all the space tragedies this one speaks to me the most. Grissom, unlike many of his peers had such a difficult career. In the end he was just unlucky I guess.
I found some new, strong, and eerie images while researching this, but I placed them after the jump out of respect.
Apollo I crew. Image www.universetoday.com
Apollo I astronauts Edward White, Virgil (Gus) Grissom, and Roger Chaffee horsing around during a photo shoot. Image www.de-la-terre-a-la-lune.com
Interior view of the Apollo 204 spacecraft after the fire, which killed astronauts Grissom, White and Chaffee during a plugs-out test at the Kennedy Space Center on January 27, 1967. Image Ed Hengeveld, www.apolloarchive.com.
"NASA combustion experts examine spacecraft outside late 3rd Feb 1967. Image posted by robsouth to www.collectspace.com
Photo showing internal fire damage. Image posted by robsouth to www.collectspace.com
On January 27, 1967, on launch pad 34, Edward White, Virgil (Gus) Grissom, and Roger Chaffee (shown on the left) died in a fire, during a preflight test. Their mission had been designated Apollo 204. After the accident, it was renamed Apollo 1. There were no Apollo 2 and 3 missions. The next manned mission was Apollo 7. Numerous problems developed with oxygen and communications, and the test dragged on and on. Various communications methods went awry. Then five and a half hours after they had entered the command module, Chaffee said, “Fire, I smell fire.” Two seconds later, White shouted, “Fire in the cockpit.” A few seconds later, they were dead from smoke inhalation.
Numerous things contributed to the disaster.
The test was performed in a pure oxygen atmosphere at nearly full atmospheric pressure. While this is considered hazardous, it had been done on all flights since the beginning of the Mercury program, as far as I can tell. After the accident, air was used while on the ground, and pure oxygen at reduced pressure was used once the spacecraft gained high altitude.
Selling plants for 10¢ each is small time poaching, marginally better than collecting aluminum cans, but times are tough all over. Perhaps the state should the raise the fine for collecting to more than $25?
Venus fly traps in the wilds near the NC coast. Note the plants clumping habit as well as the tall attractive blooms. Image Miss Fidget circa 2003.
Poaching a threat to rare Venus flytrap plant
by Joel Allen | http://www.carolinalive.com | 01.26.2012
Three people have been arrested in Brunswick County, NC and charged with digging up 200 Venus flytrap plants. Joyce Whaley, 71; her nephew, Kasey Whaley, 31; and his wife Elizabeth Whaley, 27, reportedly told North Carolina wildlife officers that they wanted to sell the rare plants for about 10 cents a piece.
Those who study the Venus flytrap say poaching can be a real problem for the plant’s continued survival.
Its unique ability to capture insects makes the plant popular with kids and adults, but it’s our fascination with this rare carnivorous plant that also makes it a tempting target for poachers.
“People mistakenly think if they find a patch, they can harvest the entire patch, take them home and make money. That’s not really the case. You can buy Venus flytraps now in any of the big box stores,” said Coastal Carolina University botanist Dr. James Luken.
The only place in the world where the Venus flytrap is found in the wild is within a small stretch of coastal North and South Carolina, including Horry County.
Pigeons can count to at least 9. I would have guessed that like many primitive human cultures they would have counted or used numbers very simply e.g. “one, two, many.” If the pigeons, cephalapods and dolphins unite humans are in trouble.
Pigeon counting. Image William van der Vliet
Scientists Test Counting Ability of Pigeons
www.sciencenewsblog.com | December 26, 2011
Scientists at the University of Otago tested the counting ability of pigeons and found they can count up to nine. The pigeons had to compare pairs of images picturing up to nine objects and order them by lower to higher number. The pigeons received a wheat treat when they pecked the images in the correct ascending sequence.
The pigeons were initially trained with sets containing up to three objects. Pigeons were presented with 35 sets of three images, each with one, two, or three objects of different sizes, colors and shapes. Then the researchers tested to see if the pigeons could apply their knowledge learned from ordering the three images and apply it to images with larger numbers of objects. The pigeons were presented with pairs of images with between one and nine objects and tested on their ability to respond to them in ascending order. The researchers say the pigeons were successful.
The pigeons did best when there was a greater difference between the two pairs of images. Study lead author Dr Damian Scarf says that the greater the distance between the numbers in the pairs, the faster and more accurate the pigeons were.
The researchers say the tests put pigeons on par with primates. Dr. Scarf says, “Our research not only shows that pigeons are also members of this exclusive club, but, somewhat surprisingly, their performance is on a par with that of monkeys.”
The pigeons were not tested with sets greater than nine, so it is possible they can rank even higher sets of numbers in the correct ascending order. Dr. Scarf plans to next test the counting ability of kea, a New Zealand parrot species.
The pigeon counting research was published in the journal Science.
Not only are these huge, hermaphroditic, long living tough buggers so hungry they eat plaster and stucco they can carry meningitis bearing nematodes. This is the first time I’ve used the Florida Dept of Agriculture as a source.
Achatina fulica is originally from East Africa. Each snail can live as long as nine years. In a typical year, every mated adult lays about 1,200 eggs. Photo Credit: Andrew Derksen, Florida Cooperative Pest Survey Program
Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Identifies Giant African Land Snails in Miami-Dade County
Tallahassee, FL – The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has positively identified a population of Giant African land snails (GALS) in Miami-Dade County. The Giant African land snail is one of the most damaging snails in the world because they consume at least 500 different types of plants, can cause structural damage to plaster and stucco, and can carry a parasitic nematode that can lead to meningitis in humans.
“Florida faces constant challenges from invasive pests and diseases that arrive through cargo, travelers’ luggage, air currents, and plant and animal agricultural products,” said Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam. “Enlisting the help of the public in the early detection of these pests and diseases is critical to containing and ultimately eradicating them in our state.”
The Giant African land snail, Achatina fulica, is one of the largest land snails in the world, growing up to eight inches in length and more than four inches in diameter. When full grown, the snail’s brownish shell consists of seven to nine whorls (spirals) that cover at least half the length of its long and greatly swollen body whorl.
Each snail can live as long as nine years and contains both female and male reproductive organs. After a single mating session, each snail can produce 100 to 400 eggs. In a typical year, every mated adult lays about 1,200 eggs.
If you have never seen or burnt actual frankincense you should, while you still can. Its weight is much lighter than one would it expect the golden nuggets to be. It’s slightly acrid and pungent smell is out of step with our modern fabric softener scented world. However, if you ever experience a horrifying-curl-up-and-die funk in your living space thick pungent frankincense smoke will chase down and kill all traces of the odor sort of like a classical disinfectant. It would be perfect in a stable someone just gave birth in.
Frankincense Production May Be Doomed
Fires, grazing, insects threaten future of the fragrant resin linked to Christmas, scientists warn
Dec. 22, 2011 | www.health.usnews.com
Researchers warn that the trees that produce frankincense are being lost at such a high rate that production of the fragrant resin could fall by half over the next 15 years.
The ecologists from the Netherlands and Ethiopia also said that numbers of the trees could drop by 90 percent over the next 50 years. If nothing is done about the causes of this decline — fire, grazing and insect attack — frankincense production could be doomed, they say.
Their forecasts, based on large-scale field studies, appear in the Dec. 21 issue of the Journal of Applied Ecology.
I see this image and I imagine somewhere the Lorax is crying…
Image of Massive driftwood tree Photo: Philip Lachman via Our Amazing Planet
Epic driftwood: Monster tree washes ashore Flooding, high tides and blasting winds worked together to land a massive drift log taller than a single-story house. Shea Gunther | mnn.com | Nov 19 2011
Check out the size of that thing!
We have driftwood where I live in Portland, Maine, but nothing like what washes ashore near Washington state’s Olympic National Park, where this photo was taken. The tree most likely fell into a river after flooding and floated out to sea. High tides and strong wind then pushed it back on shore.
It should be noted that the woman standing in front of the tree is six feet tall.
This is eerie. The article headline doesn’t convey the main point, that before they hatch turtle embryos communicate so they can all hatch at the same time.
Turtle embryos communicate with each other to maximise the chance they are ready to leave the nest together. Image David Dall/Pestat
Turtle embryos tune in to heartbeats
Anna Salleh | ABC | 30 November 2011
Turtle embryos tune into each others’ heartbeats so they are able to hatch at roughly the same time, say Australian researchers.
Zoologist Dr Ricky Spencer and colleagues of the University of Western Sydney report their findings today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Australian freshwater turtles bury their eggs on riverbanks where they incubate for 50 to 70 days before hatching.
When the young turtles hatch their mother is long gone and they must fend for themselves.
First they must dig themselves out of the hole they are buried in and get to the river without being eaten by predators.
To make life a little easier – and safer – the turtles synchronise their hatching so they emerge from the nest as a group, says Spencer
This means there can be a group effort to dig out of the nest. Being in a group also reduces the chance of any individual being eaten by a predator.
Quantum entanglement is one of the magical mysterious things predicted by quantum theory and it has been created and proven in a lab. Basically, the Corsican twin effect can be real, at least for really small things.
NRC scientist Ben Sussman, left, and his postdoctoral researcher Philip Bustard in the NRC lab on Sussex Drive, have been working on a random number generator based on quantum physics. Image National Research Council Canad.
Rules of entanglement An Ottawa group of quantum physicists has found a way to ‘entangle’ two diamonds, meaning a change in one brings a simultaneous change in the other — bringing one science-fiction puzzle closer to science fact.
By Tom Spears | The Ottawa Citizen | December 1, 2011
OTTAWA — An Ottawa physicist’s team has “entangled” two diamonds, bringing the mysterious world of quantum physics to objects big enough to see.
Entanglement is a process in quantum mechanics by which two objects act like a single object even though they’re not physically connected.
It usually involves very small objects — atoms or molecules, for example.
Now Ben Sussman of the National Research Council has entangled objects far bigger than molecules — pieces of diamond about half a millimetre thick. It’s a step toward extremely fast quantum computing.
Sussman and his group write that “our intuition about the natural world” says quantum physics rules the tiny scale of atoms, while “classical” laws of motion cover objects big enough to see, such as cars or golf balls.
Archeologist Richard Hansen explains the detail on a Mayan panel in the northern Guatemalan Peten jungle. Image Reuters
Mayan prediction of 2012 apocalypse ‘a marketing fallacy’
By Pepe Cortes | Reuters | Dec 2, 2011 – 12:13 PM ET
If you are worried the world will end next year based on the Mayan calendar, relax: the end of time is still far off.
So say Mayan experts who want to dispel any belief that the ancient Mayans predicted a world apocalypse next year.
The Mayan calendar marks the end of a 5,126 year old cycle around December 12, 2012 which should bring the return of Bolon Yokte, a Mayan god associated with war and creation.
Author Jose Arguelles called the date “the ending of time as we know it” in a 1987 book that spawned an army of Mayan theorists, whose speculations on a cataclysmic end abound online. But specialists meeting at this ancient Mayan city in southern Mexico say it merely marks the termination of one period of creation and the beginning of another.
Eeek! This huge insect has a wonderful name and Ms Tasman-Jones came up with a dilly of a headline.
The nocturnal creature, known as wetapunga or “god of ugly things”
Entomologist Mark Moffett found this carrot-eating giant weta in a tree on New Zealand’s Little Barrier Island. The cricketlike critter weighs 2.5 ounces (71 grams) and has a length of 7 inches (17.8 centimeters) Image Mark Moffett / Minden / Solent
Whopping weta wows the world
JESSICA TASMAN-JONES | www.stuff.co.nz | 02/12/2011
An American tourist has claimed he’s found the world’s biggest insect during a two-day hunt on Auckland’s Little Barrier Island – but the experts aren’t buying his tall tale.
Mark Moffett, a former park ranger from Colorado, found the Little Barrier giant weta up a tree and snapped it nibbling a carrot.
Moffett’s photos have been published on Britain’s Daily Mail and Sun news websites where he claims to have found the largest ever specimen.
“The giant weta is the largest insect in the world, and this is the biggest one ever found, she weighs the equivalent to three mice,” he told the Daily Mail.
