81 replies to this topic

[M.E.]

The mosquito's are out in full force right now.  This is the wettest June (rainfall) we have had in 10 years.

I can recall one summer in 1987, the mosquito's were so bad that you did not dare go outside at/after dusk.  I noticed, very quickly, that mosquito's were somehow getting in my apartment.  I had one of those wooden framed adjustable window screens that you could fit into any window and it would slide to fit any size window frame.  There was a tiny opening not much larger than the head of a straight pin.  They were entering through there at an alarming rate.  Maybe 2 second intervals?   So, I put a piece of tape over it.  

You could hear the humming sound they make.  It was so loud, I could hardly believe it.  When I held a flashlight up to the window, it was completely coated with live mosquito's.

My question is, how do small wild animals like birds, or even farm animals, survive that kind of onslaught for weeks, sometimes even months?

[M.E.]

I was reminded of this by reading in the shoutbox about Orpheus' experiment when he was 10 years old.  I was trying to remember if I had ever experimented with anything at that age and this came to mind....

I was10 and my brother was 9.  It was summer time.  My mom didn't pay the electric bill so we were playing the card game, crazy 8's, by candlelight.  

We only had the one candle so it was pretty close to us but off to the side, when a fly (a common everyday house fly) came buzzing around between us.  We both kind of sat back in our chairs and waited for it to get out of the way and then it happened.  The fly passed/flew over the candle flame.  We heard a loud, POP and the fly was gone!  It left no carcass, no guts or legs.  It literally disappeared right before our eyes!

We looked at each other with the expression of "Did you see that?"  Then our faces lit up and we simultaneously said, "COOL!"  We got up and started hunting for flies but, it was too dark to find a live one.  We did find a dead carcass on the windowsill and used tweezers to hold it over the flame but nothing happened.  We decided to wait until morning and capture a live one.

The next day we captured about a dozen flies and put them in a jar.  We went into the bathroom because it was a really small room so it would be easier to control the flies.  We tried everything we could think of to recreate the previous night but, to no avail. Nothing worked.  We could not get it to happen again.

What do you think caused that one fly to explode like it did?

[Orpheus]

My best guess is that it didn't explode. many larger flying species are covered in fine hairs (as sensors, etc) and or powdery scales. These have a high surface area and minute volume, so they can ignite instantly as they pass through the flame. You may have seen the outer fuzz burn instantly off many objects, while the main mass remained untouched, even if they had a constant composition throughout -- e.g. a hair or lint ball. Wings/guide hairs might have been fanning the air, creating an even better local oxygen supply than the fuzz on a static lintball

I think you saw/heard a flash of flame as the insect flew *through* the flame and out the other side (as it would have done by inertia alone) It would have been almost impossible to notice the dark singed body continuing through the flash. Our brains are wired to notice sudden light/sound.

There's no way the candle flame transmitted any appreciable heat beyond say, 100 microns deep in the brief time it was in the flame. You know this yourself, because you have surely surely passed your hand/finger through a flame.

[M.E.]

[M.E.]

[M.E.]

[offworlder]

ah, I think I'll put something into this one, Mongoose,











They live in savannah, and they are unusual animals eh?

(luv the way they stand up so thin N tall) - and they're quick!

[Orpheus]

I was asked a question about Fu Manchu, a famous orangutan at the Omaha Zoo in the 60s/70s, whose lock-jimmying skills literally earned him entry to the American Association of Locksmiths. I went off to ask Google -- and was richly rewarded.

I think I read "Can Animals Think? in Time magazine in the 90s (I've certainly read many similarly titled articles), but I vaguely recall that only a few anecdotal points really impressed me, even though I was in a waiting room, and I always make a point of exploring the unfamiliar magazines there with an anthropologist's sense of wonder, or hope for a serendipitous insight (I'm a big believer in the need for random inputs to seed innovation)

So I suggest putting on your sense of wonder glasses before reading that article -- or perhaps listening to some of the many audio essay (radio shows, etc.) that my Google search for Fu Manchu orangutan ranked highly. Our deep caveman instinct for tales around the campfire -- echoed in the brain center where we construct the verbalized "real-time" narrative of our own experience (which I have elsewhere described) can often awake a sense of wonder that a dry reading of an article fails to, unless we allow ourselves to be immersed, as in a novel.

[M.E.]

eww... eww...    eww...

[M.E.]

[M.E.]

[M.E.]

What is this?

[M.E.]

This a white blood cell chasing bacteria.

[M.E.]

[M.E.]

[M.E.]

This wild Orca is doing it's best to communicate with us by imitating the sound of a boat motor.

[M.E.]

[M.E.]

AHHHHHHHH!!   This makes my skin crawl.

[Orpheus]

Don't worry. The're just spotted green spiders that are clustering together because they are cold. Normally, they live inside computers and monitors, where it is nice and warm as you surf, and only disperse into the house if you stop.

Just think of them as a cute little spider bomb that will go off if your surfing speed drops below 50. As in the movie "Speed". Who didn't like the movie "Speed"?














--- Orpheus "The above is, of course, almost entirely false"

[M.E.]

Nice try, Orpheus.

Excuse me.  I have to go surf the net.