Category: Animals
Eating the meat of dogs is a tradition in certain parts of the world. In China, dog meat is a tradition ingredient in hot pots. With the changes that have occurred over the decades, however, this tradition is in danger.
The government has proposed jail time for people who are caught eating dog meat. The bill has been proposed in alignment with animal rights. Included in the bill’s coverage is cat meat. People who are charged and found guilty can go to jail for up to 15 days. A fine of around $700 is also part of the penalty. Businesses that are found guilty of serving dishes with dog meat or cat meat in them can also be charged under the provisions of the bill. The fine for businesses ranges from 14,000 USD to 73,000 USD.
As expected, this move has stirred up controversy. Pet lovers have taken up for the cause, while others say that the ban is quite unrealistic. On the one hand, some people see the cruelty in certain practices. One such practice is beating the animal (dogs in particular) to death. This is done to force the blood into the meat, making it tastier and richer. On the other hand, some people value the tradition of consuming the meat of cats and dogs. They think that the move to ban such meat is akin to throwing away part of the people’s history and culture.
It’s definitely a delicate situation, and I am glad I do not have to make the decision about it.
No one in his right mind would do this, right? Well, think again! This guy from Lansing, Michigan wanted his 15 minutes of fame, so he stuffed these icky creatures into his mouth.
Sean Murphy, a pet store employee, decided to make a go for a Guinness World Record and put not one, but 16, cockroaches in his mouth. Mind you, they weren’t any ordinary roaches. In fact, they were Madagascar hissing cockroaches. According to Wikipedia, the Madagascar hissing cockroach is:
“also known as the hissing roach or simply hisser, is one of the largest species of cockroach, reaching 2–3 inches (5-8cm) at maturity. They are from the island of Madagascar off the African coast, where they can be found in rotting logs.
Unlike most cockroaches, they are wingless. They are excellent climbers and can scale smooth glass.”
So Sean Murphy got 16 of some of the biggest roaches in the world! He said that each of the roaches were at the very least, 2 ½ inches long. He initially tried for 12 roaches, but he just kept adding one more until he got all 16 in. While the feat has been documented, Guinness says that they still have to verify Murphy’s stunt. Until that has been done, amazing (and disgusting) as it may be, he is not a world record holder yet. He remains undaunted, though, and says that next year, he will be going for 20 roaches in his mouth – alive, hissing, and all!
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
Hotdog eating contests are not out of the ordinary. Indeed, people take off their hats to the amazing men and women who can chow down almost a hundred hotdogs in one go. But have you ever heard of an inter-species hotdog bun eating contest?
Now I don’t know what possessed the people behind the event but they organized a hotdog bun eating contest between three elephants and three humans at Coney Island in Brooklyn. The elephants, named Bunny, Susie, and Minnie ate a total of 505 buns in a mere six minutes. On the other hand, the three humans, Eric “Badlands” Cooper, Juliet Lee, and Tim “Gravy” Brown, downed a mere 143 buns in the same span of time.
All the elephants are in the 40s. The humans are all well known in the world of eating contests. Cooper is a subway conductor from New York City and is the world champion in corned beef hash eating. Lee is the world cranberry sauce eating champion, and Brown holds the distinction of eating 8.47 pounds of blueberry pie in 8 minutes. Oh, and he did it hands free, by the way.
I doubt that the elephants knew the reputations of the people they were up against. Even if they did, they probably wouldn’t have been fazed. They probably wouldn’t even care. With a collective weight of about 9 tons, the elephants definitely had the advantage over the humans who weighed a total of about 500 pounds.
Are you one of the countless people wearing those facial masks when going out in public? If you work at an airport or a similar transportation hub, you just might be. Or maybe you live near the border with Mexico and you also feel the need to protect yourself.
Well, do it as much as you want to – it can only do you good anyway. However, if the World Health Organization is to be believed, the outbreak of swine flu, or H1N1 virus, may not be as serious as we all think it is. According to the Los Angeles Times, scientists are actually saying that this strain of the flu virus is actually mild; at least when compared to previous epidemics. This should be a good thing as a lot of people are panicking regarding the possibility of a widespread epidemic. After all, some people have died because of it already, so this is really understandable.
On another note, scientists are also saying that developing a swine flu vaccine could take some time. The Voice of America reports:
The World Health Organization says several laboratories around the world are developing a vaccination against swine influenza A-H1N1. The organization has raised its alert to level five, just below declaring the flu virus outbreak to be a pandemic. The process of vaccine development can take months.
By this time, this current strain could very well be gone and we might be facing a different strain in the future. In the meantime, we just need to be wary and try to keep healthy.
How many times have you wondered whether Santa’s reindeers are male or female? I am sure that if you have not thought about it lately, you wondered about it at least once when you were a child. We may never know the answer for sure but scientists over at Texas A&M University are trying their best to figure out the gender of the reindeer.
The Associated Press ran a story yesterday:
“Santa’s reindeers were really females, most likely,” said Alice Blue-McLendon, a veterinary medicine professor specializing in deer who cites the depictions of Santa’s helpers with antlers as the primary evidence. It turns out reindeer grow antlers regardless of gender, and most bulls typically shed their fuzzy protrusions before Christmas.
But Santa’s sleigh helpers might also be castrated males, known as steers, said Greg Finstad, who manages the Reindeer Research Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Young steers finish shedding their antlers in February and March, just as non-expecting females do. Bulls generally lose theirs before Christmas, while expectant mothers retain their antlers until calves are birthed in the spring. This allows them to protect food resources through harsh weather and to have enough for developing fetuses, he said.
Sledders most often use steers because they maintain their body condition throughout the winter, he said. Bulls are tuckered out from rutting season when they mate with as many as a dozen females in the months leading up to December. That leaves them depleted and too lean to pull a sleigh or sled through heavy snows, Finstad said.
Alright, but I really cannot see anyone naming their daughter Rudolph.
