Nature

Big Noise, Little Bug: The Cicadas are Coming!

As the East Coast prepares for the cicadas invasion due sometime in the next month, we dig in our vault to find some more information about this tiny, yet noisy bug. The following article is from Uncle John’s Fully Loaded Bathroom Reader.

BIG NOISE, LITTLE BUG

Cicadas are the vuvuzelas of the insect world. (What are vuvuzelas? Those loud horns that nearly caused soccer fans’ brains to explode during the 2010 World Cup.) Vuvuzelas reach a decibel level of 60, but cicadas? These little bugs can reach a decibel level twice that loud.That’s as loud as a rock concert or a jet engine.

BROODY BUGS

CicadasCicadas are bizarre, especially the “periodical cicadas” that live only in eastern North America. What’s odd about them is that they’re on either a 13- or a 17-year cycle. They emerge in “broods” of so many bugs it’s like some shock-and-awe insect invasion, make a lot of deafening noise, mate, lay eggs, and, within just a few weeks, die. Then they disappear again for an another exact number—13 or 17—of years. Entomologists are still trying to figure out what makes periodical cicadas tick. The main problem: those long cycles. It’s difficult for scientists to study an insect that shows up only once or twice in their careers. The name cicada is Latin for “tree cricket,” which is actually incorrect: cicadas are not crickets. And though one species is commonly called the “17-year locust,” they’re not locusts, either. Locusts are “eating machines” that can devour entire crops. Cicadas don’t eat leaves; they’re sapsuckers, like their closest relatives leafhoppers and spittlebugs. Cicadas have also been called “jar flies,” “harvest flies,” and “dust flies,” but their Australian nickname, “galang-galang,” which echoes the racket they make, may be the most fitting.

Funny Hall of Fame: ‘Poodles’ are Actually Coiffed Ferrets on Steroids

Move over, old Funny Hall of Fame, there’s a new kid (ferret) in town:

Gullible bargain hunters at Argentina’s largest bazaar are forking out hundreds of dollars for what they think are gorgeous toy poodles, only to discover that their cute pooch is in fact a ferret pumped up on steroids.

One retired man from Catamarca, duped by the knock-down price for a pedigree dog, became suspicious he had bought what Argentinians call a ‘Brazilian rat’ and when he returned home took the ‘dogs’ to a vet for their vaccinations.

Imagine his surprise when his suspicious were confirmed – he had in fact purchased two ferrets that had been given steroids at birth to increase their size and then had some extra grooming to make their coats resemble a fluffy toy poodle.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes is the Bravest Man in the World

Ranulph FiennesSo you’ve probably never heard of Ranulph Fiennes. No, he’s not the father of actor Ralph Fiennes (they’re actually third cousins). All you need to know about him is that he’s one of the most fearless—and curious—people on Earth. It’s even official. In the 1980s, Guinness World Records named the British writer/adventurer/knight/politician “The World’s Greatest Living Explorer” by the Guinness Book of World Records. Now nearly 70, Fiennes continues to embark on incredibly dangerous expeditions. His many adventures could easily fill a dozen biographies, but here are a choice few.

Australian Town Too Hot to Pump Gas

Ow:

IT was so hot in the South Australian outback town of Oodnadatta yesterday that the local servo stopped selling petrol.

The Outback town has been sweltering through one of its great heatwaves with the temperature soaring above 40 degrees every day this year, reaching a peak of 48.2 degrees yesterday.

“The ground, the building, everything is so hot, you walk outside and you feel it’s going to burn you,” Pink Roadhouse owner Lynnie Plate said.

Mrs Plate said the Roadhouse couldn’t serve unleaded fuel after midday because it was vapourising and wouldn’t pump in the extreme heat.

Dog Shaved Like Lion Sparks 911 Calls

Too funny:

A dog shaved like a lion made for an eventful night for Norfolk, Va., dispatchers, when several people who saw the dog on Tuesday called 9-1-1 to report a lion on the loose, the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reports.

The newspaper obtained 9-1-1 call audio, in which one woman says, “There was a lion that ran across the street – a baby lion. It was about the size of a Labrador retriever.”

The dog’s owner, Daniel Painter, told the Virginian-Pilot that he shaved his pet to look like the mascot for Old Dominion University.

Too much. “It was about the size – and genus – of a Labrador retriever!”

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