WORD OF THE DAY

Here's an interesting one -

For all you latin students out there, the latin root today is " sen-", which means old. As in, appropriately, "senior".

Or senile.

Or senator.

Well, that explains where our country has been going.

Cat Controlled

If any of our followers own a cat, they may be familiar with the almost eerie way cats seem to take control in their households. Recent studies may show that yes, Fluffy really is trying to manipulate you. Karen McComb, lead author of this study, found that cats have created a specialized purring that has evolved only since the times of domestication. This noise, dubbed "solicitation purring", combines the usual deep-throated rumble with a high-pitched cry, and is only made by cats in the presence of their owners. Usually, cats will use this special purr around mealtimes or when their owners just wake up, times when the cat is seeking attention or food. The high-pitched cry triggers centers of our brain that normally would respond to crying children, invoking a need to cuddle and comfort.
So mind the cat. Or was it the baby?

Finding Copernicus

Call it the crowning achievement of stargazers. Copernicus, the first astronomer to (openly) suggest that the Earth revolved around the Sun, not the other way around, has been rediscovered after 200 years. Although Copernicus and his theories made for some wild and heated clashes with the Church, he was a priest, and his partial skeleton was found under - you guessed it - a church. The remains of the Father of Astronomy consisted of a some bones and a skull, which showed evidence of a scar and features that Copernicus was known to have. However, the actual confirmation came from DNA samples taken from the remains. This is where it gets a bit bizarre. Scientists matched the DNA from the remains with samples taken from 9 pieces of hair found in one of Copernicus's books. This book was taken from a Polish museum. The match led scientists to conclude that the remain's were, indeed, those of Copernicus, and that he had blue eyes and blond hair.
So no more blond jokes. The Father of Astronomy was blond, too.

Sorry About That!

If our hopefully devoted followers haven't noticed, ::nerdblog has been down for a month or so. Fear not! We are up and running again. Thanks!

Sweating dogs; its Greek to me

Dogs sweat through their saliva, right? WRONG! Contrary to popular belief, dongs sweat through the pads of their feet.

Have you ever heard the Phrase "it's Greek to me" This phrase meaning that one did not comprehend was originally spoken by Casca the cynic (one of the senators in the play Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare.) Contrary to the modern use of the phrase, Casca was actually referring to a Greek speech made by the senator Cicero that he could not understand because it was in Greek.

A BIG Problem

Citizens in central Sumatra are facing an increasingly dangerous problem -- wandering elephants. Loggers and farmers encroach on an elephant's natural territory, and the usually gentle animals can cause millions of dollars in property damage or even kill when angered. Because the population is growing, farms are often the only food source a family has, and a trampled harvest could mean starvation. On the other hand, most of the wandering elephants are due to logging, which forces them out of their forest homes into villages and cities. Natives are turning to techniques such as burning "anti-elephant briquettes," which are large, sun-baked bricks made of equal parts clay, cow dung, and chili peppers. Sort of bug repellent, except much bigger. And, we presume smellier.

Another Sumatran province has created a squad composed of nine people and four trained elephants, which rush to the site of elephant invasions armed with noisemakers to scare them away. If that doesn't work, the trained elephants are prepared to fight the invaders off the logging site.

We have a better idea. Don't cut down their homes in the first place.

Stonehenge=Cemetery (Maybe)

Stonehenge is one of the most mysterious places on Earth. A circle of immense rocks dating thousands of years old in the middle of a field in England just happens to attract a lot of attention! There are endless questions surrounding it, including: Why is it here? Who built it? How did they build it? And, of course, are aliens wielding ray guns going to land in the middle of it anytime soon? We hope the answer to that last one is no.

Anyway, a recent discovery may clear away at least some of the fog. Archeologists know that there are cremated human remains at Stonehenge, and radiocarbon dating shows that the remains date back from 3000 B.C to 2500 B.C, exactly the time period during which Stonehenge was being built. There are at least 200 people buried at the giant rock site, and researchers believe they all may have come from one very elite family. This may have been similar to the equally amazing pyramids constructed in Egypt, also as tombs for the elite.

But we still don't think people are giving up on the aliens.

Who Let the Rats Out?!

Action heroes sure are cool. But when it comes to getting away and not getting found, Indiana Jones is nothing compared to a rat. The pesky little critters, or, precisely, one pesky little critter named Razza, were the subject of a study that confirms just how mind-blowingly difficult it is to capture a rat once it's found its way out. Why the study? Rats are extremely destructive creatures, invading species that have snuck onto almost every continent to spreaddisease, infest homes, eat native species, and generally wreak havoc on the ecosystem. So scientists placed a single rat on a barren island,cheated a little by putting a tracking collar on it, and set traps. A few months later, Razza the rat was going strong. He avoided every trap,and even swam half a mile across the sea to another island. By that time, the tracking collar was broken, and the scientists were going by DNA in his droppings follow him. They didn't catch him until 18 months later, with a trap baited with fresh penguin. (EWW.) After that, the sweaty, tired scientists released a report in Nature magazine, where they concluded "eliminating a single invading rat is disproportionately difficult."In other words, it sure is hard to catch a rat.  

Smart rat. But at least Indiana Jones isn't afraid of cats.

Migrating Geese

Ever wondered why geese always fly in a "v" formation? Despite what we would all like to believe, they are not doing it for our entertainment ... and unfortunatly they are not training to become entertainers in their own circus act (which would be awesome!). Migrating geese fly in a V-formation to conserve energy. A goose’s wings churn the air and leave an air current behind. In the flying wedge, each bird is in position to get a lift from the current left by the bird ahead. It is easier going for all, except the leader. During a migration, geese are apt to take turns in the lead position. ;-)

getting fired

Today we use the phrase "getting fired" with relevance to our jobs; however back in the day this phrase had a far more severe implication.When medieval clans wanted to downsize and dispose of unwanted folks without murdering them, they just burned their houses to the ground as a small hint. Thus the phrase "to get fired"

Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite

There's swine flu, global warming, pollution, and now, added to the growing list of worries in today's world, bedbugs. So maybe they're not quite that bad, but, according to the government, bedbugs are coming back. And they are biting.

Bedbugs, often confused with ticks and even fleas, are tiny, reddish insects that thrive in the warm nooks and crannies of mattresses. They have been on the way out since a peak population during World War II, when they lived in the filthy sleeping bags of the army. Now, for the first time ever, the feds are noticing a rise in their numbers, as the blood-sucking creatures invade everywhere from college dorms to homeless shelters and hospitals. The problem has gained so much attention, in fact, that bedbugs were the subject of a two-day conference held by the Environmental Protection Agency in April. Faced with complaints, the committee is pushing a bill titled, aptly, the "Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite Act, which aims to eradicate the critters using carefully prepared insecticides. Unfortunately, the bugs have already developed a resistance to many pesticides on the market, and some of the most effective chemicals include nasty, infamous chemicals like DDT. However, concern for public health and the sheer annoyance of these little bugs may soon warrant other, desperate measures.

And until then, we won't be sleeping tight.

What's in a Word?

The word of the day is: POLITICS!

Let's break this down - "Politics" is composed of two latin words: poli + tics.

That's poli, or poly, as in "many", and tics, as in the bloodsucking bug.

Tempting definition, and very true. But, unfortunately, incorrect.

The real roots of this word are the Greek word poli, which means citizen, and the Greek suffix -ics, which means knowledge.

The t is simply added as a separator to ease pronunciation. 

So there you have it: politics, the knowledge of being a citizen. At least, that's what it's supposed to be.

Birdbrained: The New Compliment?

Alex could speak at the age of 31.
He could also add, subtract, read, spell, and even understand the concept of zero. All this might have been rather unremarkable for a 31-year old man, except that Alex was not a man. He was a parrot. Alex, an African Gray parrot whose name stands for "Avian Learning EXperiment", began and spent the first year of his life in a Chicago pet shop, before he was purchased by Irene Pepperberg, the psychology professor who would become his owner and trainer. Alex the parrot would go on to gain subsequent fame on TV shows and numerous articles until his death in 2007, but recent research has shown even more birds doing math. Birds, it seems, have brains hardwired to count. The American coot, a black marsh bird, counts the eggs it lays in its nest. If other coots lay eggs in her nest, a common practice among these birds, the coot will notice. Although it cannot tell which egg is the impostor, the coot will lay more of its own eggs to compensate.

And parrots and coots aren't even the most astonishing. Even the humble pigeon can count as high as 50. Researchers have trained pigeons to watch lights flash a certain number of times, and then peck a button the same number of times to receive food. The pigeons succeed with an almost eerie accuracy! Scientists are rethinking their theories on the complexity of a birds brain, as crows and starlings join the mathematicians of the bird world.

Polly still can't do algebra, though.