Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Coffee and Provocation


Hungry, Hungry Hippo
America almost got a plague of hippos to fight a plague of water hyacinth.  If things had gone right (or wrong) we could have hippos killing tourists left and right (they are the most dangerous animal in Africa) while dining on hippo steaks.  In short, a win-win

Get Rich Quick Scheme Goes South in Africa
A single South African rhino farmer owns 1,160 rhinos -- more than anyone else in the world.  Now he's suing because he can't sell rhino horn to Asia anymore.

Damn GMOs
New Stem Cell treatment "switches off" Type 1 diabetes for 6 months. Oh the horrors!

It's Drunks That Buy Most of the Booze
The majority of UK booze-industry revenues (60%) come from problem drinkers, and that's true in the U.S. as well. The old "know when to say when" line was always bullshit.

Best American-built Car Ever?
The Mars Rover was expected to last 90 days, but it's been rolling around up there for 12 years. No cup holders, but it does make its own fuel.

N'Sync is Not Just a Boy Band
Animal movement is often synchronized as well. Cool Ted talk.

Locating the Genetic Origins of Autism
Scientists have genetically modified monkeys to create the first ever nonhuman primates to show autism-like symptoms in the lab.

African Origins?
The word "African" comes from the name of the Roman province Africa Proconsularis, and specifically the inhabitants of Carthage (who were called the ‘Afri’) and the native tribes of Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya. The "Afri" moniker may have a Berber origin.

Dog Names from the 17th Century
Four hundred years ago, they named their dogs Drunkard, Merryboy, and Younker. A full list at the link. For the record (there is one, right?) Lincoln's dog was named "Fido".

Your Facebook Friends
Almost none of them give a damn about you.

Compared to What?
Shoveling snow has killed more Americans in the last three days than ISIS has in the last three years.

2 comments:

Peter Apps said...

One teensy weensy problem with the hyacinth-eating hippo plan is that hippos don't eat water hyacinth. Hardly anything does, that's why its such a problem.

terriergal said...

Interesting on the Rhino story. Not touched on in the story is the value of private conservation vs government conservation. Poaching is obviously unethical - but so many anti hunters think that hunting is just about the killing and they don't' realize that we actually want there to be animals for us to hunt in the future. This guy's farm is a pretty good example of that. Make it legal for more people to farm them and we will have no shortage of rhinos. That's what they should have done with the western black rhino subspecies that seems to now be considered extinct.

Pretty sure ISIS has killed more than 1200 people (note that they are saying annually, heart attacks during shoveling, not just in the last three days).
But yes, just use a snowblower. And yes, we do go out and shovel before it's over if we expect to need to get out of the driveway!