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Pass the Infected Caterpillar Himalayan Viagra
by Robert Lamb | August 2, 2011
Researching Tibet is like reading about some fantastic other world, where psychonaut monks chart the realms beyond death and body breakers offer up corpses as alms to the scavengers of the sky. So it should come as no surprise to learn that Tibetans also dig up a strange root that’s allegedly “half vegetable, half caterpillar” and sell it for bank as an energy booster and aphrodisiac.
This installment of Mind-Blowing Video is going to be all over the place, so BEAR WITH ME and for Carl‘s sake don’t play them all at once. First up, let’s hit the trailer for the best nature documentary you probably never saw. Why? Because when France’s 1999 film “Microcosmos” traveled to the US, distributes went with this horrible promotion art instead of the original. Hey, “A Bug’s Life” was doing big business, so why WOULDN’T you repackage the film with a cheesy shot of a mantis in shades?
It’s Friday and spring is in the air, so let’s watch a video about bugs in the air. In fact, let’s watch a video about roughly 3 billion bugs soaring along invisible highways in the sky. This one comes courtesy of NPR and Radiolab’s Robert Krulwich and is but one of several audio stories they’ve set to animation recently. And yes, you’ll hear about the lone termite that braved altitudes of 19,000 feet. That’s as high as the summit of Mount McKinley.
Last night I was reading the Internet (like usual) when a fire ant crawled across my keyboard. Fire ants never crawl across my keyboard. And then, no joke, moments later, I spotted this post on the right rail of The Atlantic Web site — about how some guys poured concrete into a fire ant colony to find out what the ant “city-state” really looks like. In the video below, you’ll see that they pour the cement, it hardens, and then, over a period of months, they shovel all the dirt out of the ground around the hardened cement to reveal the “the secret megalopolis of the ants” (which is such a lovely thing to call an ant colony).
Why Bedbugs Might Take Over the World
by Amanda Arnold | January 26, 2011
Like vampires, bedbugs feed on your blood. And it hurts.
But it’s worse than that. These little blood-sucking beasts have been evolving to resist the pesticides we’ve developed to make them go bye-bye. That’s why they’re in your hotel bed, Mr. and Ms. Traveler.
We have talked about keeping chickens for eggs in your backyard:
How to keep chickens in your backyard and have fresh eggs every day
And worms:
How to start your own worm farm -or- how to compost your kitchen waste with worms
But what about honeybees? The reason this question came to mind is that I built a little garden in the Brain backyard, and I planted cantaloupes and pumpkins (plus some other stuff, but Trixie dug almost all of it up). Yes, I know it is ridiculously late in the season to be planting things like cantaloupe, given that frost will arrive in 3 or 4 weeks. But so what? The plants are still pretty, as you can see here…
The title of the image is, “Note At A Buddhist Monastery”:
This same kind of notice could be issued to pigeons, rats, mice…
How to get rid of pigeons (including the most dramatic way I’ve ever seen)
The only problem…
Good question – should human beings be eating bugs instead of beef?
by Marshall Brain | August 12, 2010
Beef and other agricultural meats have a problem. Several problems actually. To make a pound of beef using modern methods, you need a lot of land (for forage), a lot of grain (for finishing – see this article for details) and a lot of water (both for irrigation and for the cow itself – this page has details). In the process the cows produce a lot of methane, which acts as a greenhouse gas.
Bugs would be better, and the following video makes the case…
In honor of this breakthrough discovery , let’s take a look at how a praying mantis works. This video is a good starting point…
Spiders are amazing creatures, and the ability to spin and navigate a web ranks up there near the top of insect capabilities. In the following video you can see a spider spinning the classic web and avoiding stickiness…
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