Frank Zappa (1966)

The kind of song that if played in a loop would drive anyone out of their every-lovin' mind. 

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Lightning strikes outside White House

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Random facts

1. Crows can remember the faces of individual humans. They can also hold a grudge. 

2. In Texas, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department it is legal to kill Bigfoot. Bigfoot is considered a non-protected nongame animal.

3. Sunflowers can help clean radioactive soil. Japan is using this to rehabilitate Fukashima. Almost 10,000 packets of sunflower seeds have been sold to the people of the city.

4. Reindeer are one of the only mammals that can see UV light.

5. Vanilla flavoring is sometimes made with the urine of beavers.

6. Clinomania is the excessive desire to lay in bed all day.

7. 1912 was the last time Olympic gold medals were made entirely of gold.

8. A bottle of Coca-Cola has a PH scale of 2.8, and could dissolve a nail in just 4 days.

9. Humans cannot walk in a straight line without a visual point – When blindfolded, we will gradually walk in a circle.

10. If you ate nothing but rabbit meat, you would die from protein poisoning. This would be a mixture of too much protein and an absence of fat in the diet.

11. The loudness of a monkey is relative to the size of its testicles. Researchers found that the smaller the testicles, the louder the monkey.

12. A study from Harvard University finds that having no friends can be just as deadly as smoking. Both effect levels of a blood-clotting protein.

13. If you heat up a magnet, it will lose its magnetism.

14. If you keep a goldfish in a dark room, it will become pale.

15. While shedding, geckos will eat their skin in order to prevent predators from finding and eating them more easily.

16. It’s not just humans who are right or left-handed. Most female cats prefer using their right paw and males are more likely to be left-pawed.

17. Intentionally farting on a California prison guard can get you an additional 11 years in prison.

18. In 2013, a plant was genetically spliced that grew tomatoes above ground, and potatoes underground. It is called the TomTato.

19. Sweden has the most islands in the world, with 221,800 islands.

20. The most expensive domain name ever sold was cars.com for an astonishing $872.3 million.

21. A standard 12oz jar of honey take 864 bees to produce.

22. Tiranë, the capital of Albania has a lot of things in common with other European capitals – except one. It’s one of two capitals without a McDonalds. The second is Vatican City.

23. Chewing gum boosts mental proficiency and is considered a better test aid than caffeine.

24. Carrots have zero fat content.

25. At McDonald's in the Philippines, spaghetti is on the menu.

26. There is a liquid that you can breathe in called perfluorohexane. Animals can be submerged in a bath of perfluorohexane without drowning.

27. So far, two diseases have successfully been eradicated: smallpox and rinderpest. The last case of smallpox was in 1977, and the last case of rinderpest was in 2001.

28. The United States Department of Agriculture says the official definition of a sandwich is: “at least 35 percent cooked meat and no more than 50 percent bread”.

29. The furry hairs inside a cat’s ear are called “ear furnishings”. They ensure that dirt doesn’t go inside and also helps cats to hear better.

30. Dogs can be allergic to humans – specifically, their dander. While being treated for this allergy, it can take up to 12 months for a dog to recover.

31. A recently discovered deep sea snail, the Scaly-Foot Gastropod, has a shell that is impressively developed. So much so, that the U.S. military is trying to use its design to inspire defensive layers in military armor.

https://www.wired.com/2015/02/absurd-creature-of-the-week-scaly-foot-snail/

32. A man named Ronald MacDonald robbed a Wendy’s in 2005.

33. Eating grapefruit can restrict the effects of 43 different medications.

34. The unique smell of rain actually comes from plant oils, bacteria, and ozone.

35. The Bagheera kiplingi spider was discovered in the 1800’s and is the only species of spider that has been classified as vegetarian.

36. Cold showers have more health benefits than hot or warm showers. These include improving circulation, stimulating weight loss, and easing depression.

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Help me out. Send me more random facts!

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Contest!

The first person to post on GoComics the language spoken in the word balloon (above), wins this bathmat*. Also include the missing element in each image.

*actually, just the digital image of this bathmat. Not a physical one. Sorry. This is a no-budget contest. Good luck, everyone!

Gale is the winner. She was first to post the correct information.

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Songbird epidemic: take down birdfeeders for now

 

July 8, 2021: For two months, a mysterious bird disease had been rippling across parts of the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern United States. Now, it had apparently reared its head in Kentucky. Casey quickly asked for samples to ship to the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study (SCWDS) in Athens, Georgia. 

In April, scores of birds in the greater Washington, D.C., area began displaying strange symptoms. Their eyes were swollen and crusty; some became disoriented, started twitching, and died. “They were having a hard time seeing,” says Nicole Nemeth of the SCWDS. “Sometimes they don’t seem to be able to use their hind legs.” 

By the end of May, similar reports were rolling in from across Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia. By June, sick birds had turned up in Delaware, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, Florida, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, according to the U.S. Geological Survey Wildlife Health Information Sharing Partnership. To date, thousands of sick and dying birds have been reported to SCWDS and other wildlife disease centers in nearby states. Casey’s department alone has gotten more than 1,200 calls since that first sample. 

Read article here.

Researchers note that mass bird mortalities are not uncommon, especially 

among species that form dense flocks or gather at feeders. In the mid-1990s, 

bird watchers in the eastern United States noticed that house finches, a common 

introduced songbird, were dying in relatively large numbers from an illness 

characterized by swollen and encrusted eyes. Researchers ultimately determined 

the cause was a bacterium, Mycoplasma gallisepticum, that had likely spread 

from domestic poultry. Over the past few decades, researchers have also 

tracked outbreaks of West Nile virus, avian influenza, and Salmonella that 

caused noticeable kills.

Many of those suspects have been ruled out in this case, according to the 2 July 

statement. But researchers continue to look at other possibilities. They are using 

electron microscopy to examine tissues for telltale damage, for example, and 

employing a battery of tests to detect suspect microbes, viruses, parasites, and 

chemical pollutants.

Many of the dead birds that have been tested were infected with Mycoplasma 

bacteria. That is not uncommon, Evans says, but the bacterium has evolved to 

become more infectious and deadly, and it might be playing a role in the current 

outbreak. “In terms of mycoplasma this might be something new,” he says. 

Others, however, are skeptical, noting Mycoplasma rarely affects fledglings.

Read article here.

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The most used/misused social security number

078-05-1120.

That's the most used – or misused – Social Security number in history, and it belonged to a woman from Lockport.

The federal government originally issued that number to Hilda Schrader Whitcher in the 1930s. But over the next four decades more than 40,000 people mistakenly claimed it for themselves.

How and why that happened is an intriguing story told by various media outlets over the years, most recently last week on National Public Radio's "Planet Money" podcast.

The Social Security Administration even devotes a page on its website to Whitcher's number.

It all began in 1938, when Whitcher's employer, the E.H. Ferree Co., a maker of leather goods based in Lockport, wanted to boost sales of its wallets. The company thought it would help to show customers how they could put their Social Security card in the wallet.

Douglas Patterson, an E.H. Ferree vice president and treasurer, decided to use the actual Social Security number of Whitcher, one of the company's leather cutters, on the display cards inserted into every wallet. He did it without her knowledge or permission.

"It seems like they should have thought this through better," said Ann Marie Linnabery, assistant director of the Niagara County Historical Society, which has written about Whitcher's number.

Now, Social Security, with its system of assigned numbers and cards, was relatively new at this point. The federal government had issued the first cards in 1936.

Maybe it's not surprising that a number of people buying an E.H. Ferree wallet from Woolworth's and other department stores mistakenly thought the card inserted inside was their official Social Security card, or they needed a number quickly to get a job.

That's despite the fact the E.H. Ferree cards were a different color than an official Social Security card, were smaller than an official card, had "Specimen" written across them – and came randomly in a wallet anyone could purchase.

In a 1983 interview with The Buffalo News, Whitcher recalled arriving at work one day to find co-workers singing, "I found a million dollar baby." Whitcher said she completed the refrain of the song popular at the time – "In a five and ten cent store" – but didn't understand what was going on.

It was only later that she learned her Social Security number was famous.

"I didn't know what to say. I was dumbfounded," Whitcher told The News.

In 1943, when the level of confusion was at its peak, 5,755 people were simultaneously using Whitcher's number.

The Social Security Administration publicized the problem in an attempt to get the public to stop using the erroneous cards. The agency also voided the number and issued Whitcher a new card.

As late as 1977, the government found 12 people still using Whitcher's original number.

Whitcher said in later interviews that the card mistake largely was an annoyance. Her husband, Hiram, told The News that Federal Bureau of Investigation agents even questioned her once about the widespread use of her Social Security number.

She said she couldn't believe how the problem snowballed among wallet shoppers.

"They started using the number," Whitcher told The News. "They thought it was their own. I can't understand how people can be so stupid. I can't understand that."

She said she didn't know how much money was mistakenly deposited into her Social Security account over the years before the agency straightened it out.

"I'd probably be a millionaire today if I had all the money," Whitcher said in 1983, four years before her death at the age of 88.

The E.H. Ferree company was at 57-61 Richmond Ave. in Lockport from 1914 until 1955. The building, renamed 57 Canal St., is now owned by Iskalo Development.

Linnabery, from the Niagara County Historical Society, said the misuse of Whitcher's Social Security number resonates today.

"We talk about identity theft now," she said. "That was basically what happened to her back in that time, although people weren't thinking about identity theft in those days."

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