I know you have been anxiously waiting for the second part of this fun facts about life series (I guess this is like the sequel huh). If you missed the first half called Fun Facts About Life (Part 1) well lets see if you can figure out what to do (I'm very helpful I know). Now if you are saying to yourself: "I don't really care about these facts" or "I have nothing to do and somehow I ended up here and I am going to read this post that seems pointless so I actually do something" or even "I haven't been waiting for this post at all..." well I kinda figure that's the case. Enjoy anyway.
If you're not already mad at me for telling you these amazing facts about us then I don't think I've given the book justice. Do you think your different? If you said yes, your wrong. Apparently modern humans, so us, have little genetic variability. Isn't that nice? Fifty five chimps have more diversity than the entire human population. Makes you feel really special doesn't it?
I should note that he did explain why this is. There was something about a really big rift that we haven't explored that might have the answers. I wasn't really paying that close attention.
Want to know the reason we don't know what a dodo looks like? Well that's because after the last dodo died the director of a museum thought the stuffed dodo they had was getting unpleasantly musty so he ordered it to be thrown in a bonfire. Poor dodo (what a funny name). A dodo was the largest member of the pigeon family, in case you were wondering.
One of the last big creatures to go extinct was Steller's sea cow:
The assumed look of Steller's sea cow.
http://animalsnomore.com/extinct-animal-Stellers_Sea_Cow.php
It is related to a dugong (that's a fun name too).
A dugong. Pretty cool looking, actually.
http://seapics.com/gallery/Mammalia/Sirenia/Dugongidae/dugong-search.html
The Carolina parakeet is extinct. This is because whenever they were hunted the would fly up but once the shooting was done they would return to the same place to check on their fallen comrades. The last one died in a zoo and was stuffed...but the zoo lost it.
The Carolina parakeet. So pretty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_Parakeet
So apparently for the longest time the people who really liked the world's living things were the ones that killed them. I really hope that isn't true anymore. I really like my cats. I really like cats in general and I really don't want them to go extinct because they are so cool (along with all the other animals out there, don't worry I'm not one of those people that likes one animal and doesn't care what happens to all the other ones.
Well I hope you enjoyed these facts. Maybe you actually learned something! I know I did, although I don't think I learned what my teacher intended for me to learn. Oh well at least I learned something rather than nothing.
~Scooby
Well if you aren't familiar with what this is, this is kpop. What is kpop? It is korean pop music. Why do I watch this? Well it's good music and once you get past the strangeness and the language difference the songs are pretty catchy. I will find myself singing a kpop song at school (except I don't normally know the words so I will sing the tune or if there are english parts in it those will repeat 100+ times in my head).
Anyway somehow I found myself watching this music video by this group I had never heard of before (that tends to happen a lot though because there are a ton of groups and a ton of new groups that always come out too). As I was watching this song I found myself analyzing it and therefore decided I would share.
Okay so it starts with this dude in front of some wall with something on it that I don't know. Then the dude lights a lighter and lets it sit there. Firstly, why did he light that? Was he bored and pulled it out and lit it or what? Secondly, I never actually saw him close the lid when he put it in his pocket. When I first saw that I was like "Wait! Is he lighting himself on fire?! What's going on!" Well I'm going to assume he's not lighting himself on fire and that they just changed frames right as he closed the lid, but that really through me off.
Then it goes to this other dude drinking something strange....what the
heck is he drinking anyway? Then these dudes in the back ground start to
(I don't know how to describe it) abuse (?) this girl and he spins a
coin and then beats the guys up (good for him...actual punching! Wow!)
grabs the coin that is still spinning and leaves with his entourage. Now
then he is very good at spinning that coin. I wonder how many takes it
took them for that to work. Did he even pay for his weird looking drink?
I thought that coin was to pay for it (although I don't think that
would have been enough) but then he snatched it away. Um after looking
closer I have come to think that some members of his entourage were also
some of the dudes abusing the girl (look at one of the dudes jackets
there is an 8 on it in the background and one of the first dudes to
follow. Okay so maybe that dude wasn't the one abusing the girl but he
was very close and was watching. Also it would have been easier for him
to beat up the abuser but I guess that's the leaders job? Who knows. But
where did his whole entourage come from? One moment there were like 4
in the background and then next minute there's like 50 people following
him!
There are teams. Team Black Dragon and Team Red Tiger. I'm pretty sure they are rival groups and yet they end up dancing together? Weird. I don't know about you but if I'm somebodies rival I tend to avoid them. I definitely wouldn't dance with them. Plus they are doing the same dance...that means they must have coordinated together. Does that mean they don't really hate each or other? Or did both groups conveniently plan the same dance to do at the same time? Hmm...
Now we get to the lyrics. Oh boy.
"I don't know I don't know I don't know but I'm hot, hot." I thought you didn't know? So you're hot but you don't know? I'm confused....
"You know what you know what what you know what what I mean mean." What do you mean? I really don't know what you mean... It's like they knew somebody would get on there last line so they put this in to say to question it you know what I mean! Just like when you tease somebody about what they said and they reply "You know what I mean!" Unfortunately I don't know what you mean.
"Because everything about me is perfect." Um...a little full of yourself aren't you? As I have described in the last two paragraphs no you're really not perfect.
The best part is what they say after that though: "gugugaga gugugaga" They are speaking baby speak. Maybe they are telling babies that they are perfect, I don't know, but that is just strange.
I also remember him handcuffing some girl to himself. I don't know about you but if some dude came up to me saying he's perfect and then "gugugaga" I would run and hide. I wouldn't let him handcuff me to himself. That is a major creeper alert.
So when the two group leaders meet they begin to "fight". Okay so they aren't actually fighting they are pushing each other. Eventually one gets shoved harder and ALMOST falls (even though he looks good when he falls too...sigh) and he's like "Oh no you didn't!" So he makes a hand gesture and everybody else begins to get in the "fight" as well. Once again they aren't actually fighting they are shoving each other. Lame. Then one leader stomps his foot and everybody falls over. "Oh no! He just stomped his foot! That's even worse than shoving! Everybody hide!" Seriously? So lame. Except for the other leader he wasn't intimidated...but I think he's going to need to get some new members in his group...they both are actually.
Is he having a dance off with a girl? I'm confused. Whoa!! Why is there a girl mixed in with this fight?! That's not okay! (She's even in the shoving war!)
Oh wait!! I think I understand now! The two teams were going to have a dance off and they each had to create their own unique dance. However when they got to the location and started their dance off they that they were doing the same dance! This angered them so they started the whole "You cheated! Not fair!" Well neither one liked being called a cheater so they started shoving each other. Then this girl comes along and is like "You all are lame! This is how you dance!" But she is doing the same dance as everyone else.
Hold up...why did that dude have a lighter in the beginning? You never see it again in the video.
Oh! How come there voices randomly get really high like they just inhaled a gallon of hydrogen? It's random and weird. Sometimes they sound like a squeak toy too. No me gusta.
So at the end...who wins? All we see are the two leaders finally actually fighting (but we don't see them actually land any blows we just see them make a cool "I'm going to kick/punch you" pose). And! They are in the same group...I hope they don't feel like that in real life because that could be really bad.
Okay so despite my making fun of it I think it's a catchy song. It just don't make sense. That was also a lot of ranting and might not have made much sense but I hope you enjoyed it anyway.
~Scooby
P.S. I'm still not smart enough to figure out how to fix the video size so bear with it.
P.S.S. They subs were wrong on the heads shoulder knees part....the person that did the subs can't type.
Over the summer I had to read a book for AP Biology. It is called "A Short History of Nearly Everything." I was told to read this book by the teacher that originally was going to teach the class (the teacher told everyone to read it). Well when I got to school I had a totally different teacher and the new teacher never even mentioned this book. Sigh.
Now this book wasn't very encouraging and I found a lot of stuff that (when I really thought about) isn't very nice. So I thought I'd share my findings and thoughts with you.
The third paragraph of the first chapter says "Imagine if you can, which of course you can't..." Why would you tell me to imagine something if you already know that I can't? That just doesn't make sense. It's like saying, "Hey! Can you see that! Of course you can't because you're blind!" Rude.
Did you know we have the genes to grow a tail? Well now you do! The genes just aren't turned on if that makes sense. (I think this is the most exciting thing I learned from this book.)
Apparently
a common newt is "more genetically splendorous than we are, by a factor
of five." Doesn't that just make you feel so loved? Well don't worry
about it because later on in the book it says that it's not how many
genes you have, but what you do with the genes you have. So I guess we
are smarter than the newt. Well let's hope anyway.
The
Earth is not as stable as we thought it was apparently. Isn't that
comforting? Apparently it goes violently between periods of hot and
really cold. Good to know that we are living on a planet that can't
decided if it's hot or cold.
Now the book is saying
that ice ages might occur because of a rise in temperature. I don't know
about you but that doesn't sound good to me. With global warming and
what not I would say we are due for another ice age.
I realize this has nothing to do with this has very little to do with this
post but it's a good movie and you should see it.
http://reelauthors.com/blog/screenplay/ice-age-4/
For
two chapters now it has been talking about our ancestors and I'm pretty
sure I was daydreaming through the whole first chapter. However I'm now
in the second chapter and apparently we know more about other hominids
than we do about ourselves. The Google definition of hominid is: "A
primate of a family (Hominidae) that includes humans and their fossil
ancestors." So we know more about our ancestors (which according to this
book we don't know much about them either) than we do about ourselves.
Good to know...I guess.
That brings me to another problem with this book. While reading this I
have realized that the term "We don't know much" appears on practically
every page. So we are a smart species but we don't know much. That's
nice.
~Scooby
P.S. You might have noticed the "part 1" in the title. Yes I do have more complaints about this book. But I thought I would spread it out so you don't get a mean science overload.
P.S.S. Should I be mean and wait a month to post the second part to this? You know kind of like suspense to make you come back and get impatient because you want to learn more about mean science that this book told me about? Well I guess we will see right?
On my way to church this morning we had a Christian radio station playing in our car. At first I wasn't paying much attention to the music. Then I realized I liked the song and got happy. I got so excited that I even said "Oh!" out loud. Before I could say anything else I realized why I got so happy. It was a Christmas song that was playing.
A Christmas song...in September. What?!
Okay I really love Christmas music but I also think that it should only be played at a certain time. That time is after Thanksgiving. Why? Because we should focus on every holiday equally not just the one's that make us the happiest. Don't skip over Thanksgiving just because you don't have anything to sell to people. Think about the commercials for Thanksgiving. "Be thankful for what you have! But your rug looks worn down and you should get a new one." They can't really advertise Thanksgiving so they skip over it. Not okay, but I digress.
Why does this bug me so much? Well I'm glad you asked.
As I have already pointed out its only September. We haven't even come close to thinking about Halloween for crying out loud!
The Christmas songs they were playing on this Christian radio station weren't Christian. Now I don't think all Christmas music should be about Jesus. Some of my favorite Christmas songs aren't about Jesus. I just think that a Christian radio station should be able to a Christian Christmas song. I heard three Christmas songs on this station and none of them were about Jesus.
The radio station did explain that they are randomly playing Christmas songs only this weekend. They explained that they are doing this because its been a hot summer and they are playing Christmas music to help us mentally cool down. Like our brains were going to explode because it's not Christmas yet. Well whatever it was an interesting surprise and I don't listen to that station very much so I guess I'll survive.
Do you need to mentally cool down? Well here you go:
~Scooby
P.S. Until I get smarter at videos you are going to have to deal with awkwardly sized videos.
Oh dear...have I been neglecting this blog?! Well that's not good is it? Well sorry about neglecting this blog school has started once again which means homework is now present in my life. Also since I'm taking smart people classes I have more homework than I had anticipated. Oh well.
I seriously doubt that if you're reading this right now that you're a huge fan of me/my blog. Especially since I made it a month ago. However if you are a fan and after every post wait impatiently for another...sorry. I will blog when I can and prepare posts so I can just hit the publish button (therefore I am blogging without too much thought...if that makes sense).
Any ways...I saw a really cool bird this morning! I think it's my new favorite bird. Only problem is that I don't know what type of bird it is. I tried googling it which normally works but I couldn't figure it out (darn). That's not that important though. What is important is why it is so cool.
This morning we were sitting outside eating breakfast (ever since we went to Hawaii eating outside has become our new thing). We have a bird feeder outside by the table we were eating at. While we were eating birds would come and go, not staying very long but long enough to get a seed. Well one bird caught my eye because I thought it was particularly pretty. Once I finished eating I started to watch it more (I had to keep all of my attention on my food because it could have gotten away if I didn't watch it close enough...just kidding! I really like food, especially since we were having my favorite breakfast I was enjoying eating (does that makes sense? (wow! parentheses in parentheses! again! (okay I'm done now (okay now I'm really done...(promise...hehe))))) my food and didn't want it to get cold).
The first thing I noticed was that it would fly right at the trunk and grab on so it was clinging on to the trunk...not on a branch like you normally see. Okay maybe that's not that exciting but I'm not done yet. At one point it was on a branch and was hanging upside down on the branch. Another time it hopped (birds don't really walk) around he branch...so it was right side up and then sideways and then upside down and then sideways and then right side up again. I didn't understand why it was doing this strange behavior but then I noticed it was pecking at the bark on the tree?
That's when it hit me (imagine a light bulb over my head). The bird was taking one seed at a time and hiding it in the bark of the tree. It was storing food!!! Whoa!! Okay you might not be as excited that as me but I think that's pretty dang cool. Also at one point it was climbing up on the bark it it threw the seed in the air and then caught it again...like when we toss a ball back and forth between our hands, only it did that with its beak. Pretty cool right?
The awesome bird.
Unfortunately I don't know what it's called otherwise I would give you a better picture of it (I took this picture so no I didn't find it on the internet). I tried using that picture to google it on google but it didn't work...sigh. Oh well it's a cool bird anyway.
~Scooby
