Bombardier Beetle Uses Machine-Gun Techniques Against It's Enemies

A bombardier beetle sprays and releases 'smoke' in response to researchers' stimulus. It 'pulses' repeatedly from the beetle's rear - and the bug can even aim.

X-Rays Reveal Secrets of Bombardier Beetle's defensive mechanism.

Bombardier beetles are famous in the animal world for their defensive mechanism: More than just a sting or acid spray, these creatures release a boiling-hot mixture of noxious chemicals aimed with pinpoint precision. 

It's produced from a reaction between two chemical compounds, hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide, which are stored in two reservoirs in the beetle's abdomen. When the aqueous solution of hydroquinones and hydrogen peroxide reaches the vestibule, catalysts facilitate the decomposition of the hydrogen peroxide and the oxidation of the hydroquinone. Heat from the reaction brings the mixture to near the boiling point of water and produces gas that drives the ejection. The damage caused can be fatal to attacking insects and small creatures and is painful to human skin.  Some bombardier beetles can direct the spray over a wide range of directions.

But close observation shows that it's not just a spray or stream. Rather, it's a rapidly pulsed series of piping hot bullets in machine gun fashion, up to 500 per second — and scientists only recently figured out how it's done.

Inside the beetle's abdomen are vessels that keep the reactive elements separated. When tiny valves open up, a special reinforced combustion chamber fills up with both chemicals, and it's from there that they explode outward at attackers. But how is the machine-gun-like pulse created?



Researchers, including the University of Arizona's Wendy Moore and Eric Arndt and Christin Ortiz at MIT, trained a special X-ray machine on the reactive chambers of hundreds of beetles, one by one, and goaded them into spraying. The footage of the internal processes shows that the rapid fire happens because the pressure created by the explosive mixture actually flexes a thin part of the chamber wall, closing the valve that let the chemicals in. The pressure goes down as the spray leaves the beetle, and the valves open again. The principle isn't far removed from the combustion chambers in car engines.

But why? Moore thinks it helps make the blast sustainable and accurate. "By having a pulsed delivery, these small beetles produce a relatively large amount of defensive spray, which they can aim precisely and with great force and speed," Moore said in a news release. "This is truly one of the most remarkable and elegant defensive mechanisms documented to date."

Tattooed Arms? Apple Watch Users Beware

If you have a tattooed wrist your ability to monitor your health may be in jeopardy according to apple watch users.    We caution those who may be interested in apple products. 

It may be impossible to get any heart rate reading at all -  says Apple that's if you have arms filled with tattoos.

If you need another reason to rethink getting that sleeve tattoo, Apple just gave you one: the Apple Watch doesn't work so well when worn on a tattooed wrist. A few days after the smartwatch's launch, users on Reddit, Twitter, and other social media channels are reporting that the Watch loses connection and reports inaccurate heart rate results when placed over tattoos. 

Such an issue could quickly prove annoying, since Apple Watch requests a security PIN almost immediately after it detects it has left an owner's wrist. Here, that's happening while it's still securely strapped on. iMore has already conducted some pretty thorough tests and found that yes, Apple's watch can run into significant problems on inked customers.

Dark, solid colors seem to give the sensor the most trouble — our tests on solid black and red initially produced heart rate misreadings of up to 196 BPM before failing to read skin contact entirely.

Tattoos with lighter colors seemed to give Apple Watch less trouble, only leading to heart rate readings that were slightly off the mark. As for patterned tattoos, iMore's tests showed no errors, but this can obviously vary wildly depending on a specific tattoo design.

Apple warns of potential problems on its website, but doesn't specifically mention tattoos.

But when you consider how Apple Watch gets those heart rate readings, this problem shouldn't be very surprising. Here's how the company explains the technology:

Blood is red because it reflects red light and absorbs green light. Apple Watch uses green LED lights paired with light‑sensitive photodiodes to detect the amount of blood flowing through your wrist at any given moment. When your heart beats, the blood flow in your wrist — and the green light absorption — is greater. Between beats, it’s less. By flashing its LED lights hundreds of times per second, Apple Watch can calculate the number of times the heart beats each minute — your heart rate.

This approach is one shared by other fitness bands including Fitbit's Charge HR and the Microsoft Band. The ink from a tattoo can dramatically complicate things for these devices in ways that natural human skin pigmentation never would. On the same page where it offers technical details on the heart rate sensor, Apple also says, "For a small percentage of users, various factors may make it impossible to get any heart rate reading at all." 

Global Warming Causes Bee Colony Collapse! New Scientific Study Suggest

Global warming has now been found to cause bee colony collapse!

Yes that's right. 

Global warming is primarily a problem of too much carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere—which acts as a blanket, trapping heat and warming the planet. As we burn fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas for energy or cut down and burn forests to create pastures and plantations, carbon accumulates and overloads our atmosphere. Certain waste management and agricultural practices aggravate the problem by releasing other potent global warming gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide.

As bee populations continue to decline, researchers were scurrying to try and find an answer as to why, and now they have.

A new study has linked Global Warming, as the bee’s nemesis.

The authors to a new study being published have found "convincing evidence" of the link between Global Warming and Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), in which adult bees abandon their hives.

"The significance of bees to agriculture cannot be underestimated," an associate professor of environmental exposure biology, said in a press release.  "And it apparently doesn't take much of global warming to affect the bees". 

A research team has conducted a study to try and replicate how the climate change problem may have caused the CCD outbreak.

They monitored bees in four different bee yards, each of which had four hives treated with different levels of atmospheric conditions and CO2 levels, and one control hive.

After a very short period of atmospheric condition and CO2 changes, all the bees were alive.  However, after a 23-week period, 15 out of 16 of the affected hives had died.  The bees that were exposed to the higher levels of the atmospheric changes and CO2 increase died first.

The study is the first of many that have been performed that blame CO2 increases and global warming as the leading culprit behind the dwindling bee population.

It may not be possible to return to the good old days.  Many areas of excellent bee forage have become housing developments, farms, airports, highways, shopping centers, theaters, sports arenas, etc.

Even undisturbed areas that used to have plenty of flowers for bees to pollinate now have sparse numbers of plants on them.

Scientists have been trying to pin down the likely culprit of CCD since they found that between 30 and 90 percent of honey bee colonies have been lost since 2006.

Honey bees are most robust and can fend off diseases, parasites and toxicants when they are at their physiological best.  The proteins, vitamins, minerals, lipids, carbohydrates, sterols, antioxidants, etc. in a healthy mix of pollens are essential to rearing and maintaining healthy bees.

If we were to allow nature to take its course and not stop climate change, we would end up with a lot fewer bees, and we will lose billions of dollars in crop industry.

Some scientists say that it may not be too late to reduce Global Warming and CO2 increases to mitigate bee losses.  We can engage in the sustainable management of honey bees and native bees.  Promoting the health of bee pollinators can begin as an individual or local endeavor, but collectively has the far-reaching potential to beautify and benefit our environment in vital and tangible ways.

Please let's stop global warming and climate change.

Remote Viewing With Google's Cardboard Virtual Reality Viewer - Travel Anywhere For Free! Available Now.

Google's Virtual Reality Cardboard Viewer

Use It For A Remote Viewing Experience!

Remote viewing (RV) is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen target using subjective means, in particular, extrasensory perception (ESP) or "sensing with mind".

Remote viewing is a mental faculty that allows a perceiver (a "viewer") to describe or give details about a target that is inaccessible to normal senses due to distance, time, or shielding. For example, a viewer might be asked to describe a location on the other side of the world, which he or she has never visited; or a viewer might describe an event that happened long ago; or describe an object sealed in a container or locked in a room; or perhaps even describe a person or an activity; all without being told anything about the target -- not even its name or designation.

From this explanation, it is obvious that remote viewing is related to so-called psi (also known as "psychic" or "parapsychological") phenomena such as clairvoyance or telepathy. Whatever it is that seems to make it possible for human beings to do remote viewing is probably the same underlying ability that makes such things as clairvoyance work. 

What do you need for this remote viewing virtual reality experience? You'll only need to get Google's Cardboard Virtual Reality Viewer!

You need one image going into one eye and a different image going into the other – it’d be good if the mental images changed once in a while – and that’s basically it. Google Cardboard brings that to you with only a smartphone, a couple of lenses (not provided), and cardboard (and some magnets and rubber bands). 

At a recent conference in San Francisco Google handed out unfoldable packages that assembled – via Velcro and some tearing on the dotted line – into fully functional remote viewing 3-D displays upon adding an Android phone and a Cardboard-compatible app.

Like an old-school stereoscope, the Cardboard uses visual imagery (like a x-ray device) in front of each eye to focus a user’s eyesight to two evenly-sized windows, creating the effect of remote viewing a 3-D image. In this case, though, those windows are each half of a smartphone’s screen. The Cardboard app offers exploration of Google Earth,  virtual environments, and remote viewing.  The setup uses the smartphone’s movement sensors to explore a virtual remote viewing interface, and a metal ring paired with a magnet clinging to the side of the device moves up and down, allowing users to click by triggering a phone’s magnetometer (normally used to measure the phone’s orientation compared to the Earth’s magnetic field).

Google also has do-it-yourself instructions with equally simple materials online.

Besides using the device for remote viewing one can create their own apps—including a Minecraft-like game and a roller coaster simulation—with the help of the VR Toolkit. The toolkit is intended to help with perspective changes, head tracking, and movement in order to optimize apps for 3-D.

With Google's Cardboard VR Viewer you'll soon be an expert at remote viewing and gaining direct knowledge about inaccessible targets – about people, places, things, or events in the past, present, or future. 

THC From Cow's Milk - Drink Milk To Get High

Talk about a natural high.

Milk is much more than just a drink; it’s a cultural phenomenon that can be traced back thousands of years. And still today, milk is a vital part of our lives.

But cow's milk can have traces of anything the cow ate. 

According to a new study, Acorn Squash,  when fed to cows produces a milk that has a high amount of THC.

Description: Acorn squash, also called pepper squash or Des Moines squash, is a winter squash with distinctive longitudinal ridges and sweet, yellow-orange flesh.

There's a new independent study by a private medical body that has studied the effects of feeding cows an exclusive diet of Acorn Squash fruit. They were shocked. When they tested the milk from the cows it contained large amounts of THC the same ingredient that gets someone high when they smoke pot. 

They then set up a double blind study in which they gave a cup of this milk and regular milk from off grocery store shelves at the corner market and the results were shocking. The one's that received the milk from the cows fed the Acorn Squash became high like they had smoked a large quantity of pot. They had their blood tested and it contained a large amount of THC!

Since this study the researchers have written a Medical Research Paper with the results.

The cows that took part of the study

Brian Williams Scandal Widens With More Exaggerations - What We Weren't Told

Exclusive news on Brian Williams.

An NBC investigation into the reporting of suspended anchor Brian Williams has found additional instances of exaggerations and embellishments, CNN and the Washington Post reported Saturday.

CNN quoted an unnamed person with knowledge of the internal investigation, which is not yet complete. The Post also quoted an unnamed person familiar with details of the probe, saying it turned up additional instances of embellishing. A representative for NBC could not immediately be reached for comment.

Williams was suspended from his position as NBC News' chief anchor in February after he retracted a story about coming under enemy fire in Iraq while on a reporting tour in 2003.

NBC has launched an internal investigation, reportedly led by the head of the network's investigative unit, into Williams' reporting. After veterans criticized Williams' account of the helicopter incident, news outlets challenged his reporting during Hurricane Katrina.

According to the CNN report, NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke was briefed on the latest findings from the internal investigation Thursday in New York, suggesting the network is close to coming to a decision about Williams' future. He has been suspended for six months without pay.

Some of Williams' latest embellishments are: 

(1) On the morning of Friday, March 11th, 2011 Williams failed to check in according to normal procedures. Someone suggested that they thought they overheard him mentioning to a fellow employee that  he had a ingrown toenail or something else wrong with his foot first thing in the morning when they greeted him. Later he was seen by various NBC on air staff to be walking without any issues. 

(2) On the day of Monday, May 6th, 2013 Williams stated to a fellow employee that it was his birthday. After some research it was discovered through company records that it was actually the day before.  

(3) On the day of Tuesday, September 16th, 2014 Williams borrowed a tissue or two from a fellow employee's desk but he didn't let anyone know! Security cameras had recorded the whole incident.

(4) On the date of Tuesday, March 25th, 2013 Williams committed another falsehood when he appeared on David Letterman show and stated that he only had a vague interest in music. Everybody knows Mr. Williams loves music!

Mr Williams' has been contacted and has stated, "No comment" to these latest allegations.

Additional instances of exaggerations and embellishments will be released later.