What Do Blank Eat?

What Do Blank Eat?

     Time for another Google auto complete post!  I was going to type in "what do you get with an nra membership" and I stopped at "what do".  Apparently everyone on planet Earth (or at least the English speaking parts of it) wants to know what some kind of animal eats!  Mainly turtles and bugs.  You clearly want to know so I shall answer.

     Number one on the list is "what do turtles eat".  Well, that depends on the type of turtle.  Freshwater turtles (terrapins) eat a combination of vegetation and meat (mostly fish).  Snapping turtles (true snappers, not just any turtle that opens its mouth to bite) eat almost strictly fish.  Land turtles (tortoises) eat almost strictly vegetation with a bug or two thrown in for protein (probably by accident).  Sea turtles, like their freshwater cousins, eat a combination of vegetation and seafood.

     At number two, we have ladybugs!  You would think that they are gentle little bugs that feed on nectar, but that would be wrong.  Ladybugs are actually voracious predators!  They eat aphids and mites and other small insects.  Gardeners love them for the benefits they offer.

     Third, you wanted to know what butterflies eat.  Butterflies suck liquid through a really long, straw-like tongue (called a proboscis).  While their diet mainly consists of nectar, they feed on a lot of other things like tree sap, pollen, rotten fruit, animal sweat, and even poop!  Gross, right?  So next time a butterfly lands on your arm and you're thinking how pretty it is, just remember:  That thing sticks its tongue in poop!

Things Science Cannot Explain: The Wow! Signal

Things Science Can't Explain:  The Wow! Signal

You know that part in the movie Contact where Jodie Foster is sitting on her truck listening to her headphones and suddenly she hears an alien signal?  I bet you didn't know that that scene was based on a real life event.  Except it wasn't on the hood of a pickup truck and it wasn't Jodie Foster.  I mean, Jodie Foster MAY talk to aliens but there's no proof of that.  Yet.
The signal was detected on August 15, 1977 in Delaware, Ohio by Jerry R. Ehman, a SETI researcher.  SETI is short for Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.  The signal was recorded for 72 seconds before disappearing forever.  Mr. Ehman discovered the signal on the paper logs, circled them and wrote "Wow!" next to it.  This would become the name by which it would be known.
There's no way of knowing how long the signal actually lasted.  Because of Earth's rotation, the Big Ear Radio Telescope (You know that big array of satellite dishes at the end of Contact?  Something like that) was only able to record it for 72 seconds.  The signal could have gone on for nearly 24 hours, but we may never know.  We've never caught it again.
What makes the signal so interesting is the noise.  Did you know space makes noise?  If you want to hear it just tune your radio to a frequency on which there is no station.  You will probably hear static.  That's the sound of space!  It's kind of an echo of the Big Bang.  The Wow! signal was 30 times louder than regular space noise.
Following this finding, scientists tracked this part of the sky (which was determined to be in the Sagittarius constellation) for a solid month.  Unfortunately the event never repeated itself.  On an even sadder note, the piece of land, on which the Big Ear Radio Array was once located, is now home to a golf course.  Good news if you're a golfer.  Bad news if ET decides to reach out and touch us again.
But we really don't know if it was intelligent in nature.  Maybe it was a bit of rare space noise that we just happened to stumble upon.  Maybe it was intelligent but wasn't really directed at us.  Just some ET's television signal that just happened to cross our path.  We just don't know.  And that's really my point here.  We're always hearing about how science has an explanation for this or that but they downplay the fact that these are just theories.
Now, I'm not going to go on a crazy rant here and tell you that the New World Order is about to take over and the aliens are helping them.  I'm just saying that as Americans, we need to start being thinkers and questioners again.  We used to look at things objectively.  Now we just accept whatever CNN serves up as gospel.  I would guess that 90% of what we see on the news anymore is inaccurate at best, downright fraudulent at worst.  And I know plenty of people who would tell me that 90% is way too kind, but I don't want to get sued.
Wake up, people!  Start asking questions!

Things Science Cannot Explain: Intro

Things Science Cannot Explain:  Intro

Something I googled awhile back while in a weird state of mind was “things science cannot explain”.  I was watching the science channel and on one of the documentaries they mentioned something called the Wow! Signal.  I watched and watched, waiting for some kind of scientific explanation.  But there never was one!  Turns out, no one EVER figured out what it was.  Interesting, huh?  I promise I’ll come back to it,  For now, I don’t want to get too far off point as I’m prone to do.
This led me to wonder “What else can science not explain?”  So then I was off to the Batcave (I don’t actually have a Batcave, but I’m definitely getting one when I get rich) to do some research.  What I found blew my freaking mind!  We have a tendency to think of scientists as people who know almost everything.  It seems there is plenty they don’t know.  And the smarter they are, the more they admit to not knowing.  You’d think it would be the just the opposite.
While talking to a friend recently, he mentioned a new set of pyramids that had been found and that they predated known human history in that area.  I had a flashback to googling this type of stuff.  I told him if you want you want to see something really freaky, check out the Baigong Pipes (I know, I’m teasing, more on that later too).  By this time I had started Thank you Google! and I thought “That would make a great post!”
My original plan had been to write a Top 5 Things That Science Can’t Explain.  But then I started looking into it again and there were just too many awesome unexplained things to narrow down to just five.  So I said ten!  And began my search for the ten best.  And promptly gave up.  I said “Screw it!”
I decided then and there that Things Science Can’t Explain would have to be a recurring segment on Thank you Google!  I won’t leave you waiting long.  Here is just a taste of what’s to come:

The Wow! Signal
The Baigong Pipes
The Naga Fireballs
The Placebo Effect

Stay tuned!  The questions are coming!  No answers, mind you, but the questions are fantastic!