Have you learned anything today?

- Some people are so persistent that when all evidence has pointed out that they are wrong, they find another way to support their belief, even though it can involve altering the facts.
– There can be someone lurking around here on Fluther, and they may even appreciate this site as much as us registered users.

No matter how much I try, I can never get to bed by 9:30pm.

It doesn’t matter if you rent or own a home because there will always be surprises. (and most of them are not good)

I learned about Megalodon a monster prehistoric shark. I love prehistoric animals.

More than I planned to about the Northern water snake and its fecundity.

Today, I learned that for most humans, a facial expression begins on the left side of the face and remains more fully pronounced there than on the right side. Furthermore, humans judge a face more on its right side (the right side of the observed face faces the left side of the judging face). These suggest right-hemisphere dominance for the formation and recognition of facial expressions.

@Mimishu1995 Who, me? I’m a registered user now—clearly, I appreciate this site more than silly lurkers do. ;)

I learned what fecundity means. And yes, @gailcalled, I also learned about a snake birthing 30 live snakes at once. Reminded me of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The snake surprise.

I learned that you can lose half your visual field and remain unaware of the loss. Oliver Sacks ‘Hallucinations’.

I learned about tetrapodal locomotion. Ok, I knew most of it, but I learned what exactly classifies something an an ungulate. It’s amazing to think these creatures are running on the tips of their toes.

I learned that Neurontin can really help with my elderly cat’s dental pain

I learned that dogs, apparently, can “shut off” their hearing. The nerves in their ear canals are not directly connected with their brains. Thus, unlike us, they choose to hear.

I also learned that a shark’s skeleton is devoid of bones – they are cartilaginous fish.

And lastly, I learned that I don’t have the travel documents necessary for my trip to Scandinavia next week. Great.

I learned yesterday that South Carolina is at risk for earthquakes.

I learned which of the two health plans offered to me is better.

I learned that it’s possible to keep bees safely even though I’m allergic. Yay! Now to learn how to make bee boxes…

@longgone not to refute science but humans have selective hearing as well. Though with dogs it is probably more important to them since their more acute hearing could easily be damaged if it were not the case.

I learned that my previous safe popsicles had their ingredients switched at some point and that is probably what is making me sick. And that a hairstylist could take an hour to trim/cut a boys hair.
Not a very productive day for me either.

^ To clarify…dogs can choose to hear nothing at all.

According to this article:

“Although cats are great climbers, climbing means going up, not down.

To get down from a tree, for example, a cat has to be able to climb backwards. Cats’ claws are designed to move a cat upward, but not to give it the right hold to turn around and go back down.

Only one cat – the margay or ‘tree ocelot’ – is known to have the ability to climb down a tree headfirst. It can do so because it can rotate its hind legs 180 degrees, giving it the squirrel-like ability to run down a tree and hang by branches from one foot.

If a house cat gets itself up a tree and then realizes it cannot come back down face first, that kitty is suddenly stranded. Cats can climb down out of trees backwards, but it’s a learned skill rather than a natural ability. That’s why sometimes cats need assistance to get down from a tree or a rooftop.”

@Brian1946 I had to hire a tree climber to rescue my 7 month old kitten from the near top of an 80 ft. foot Oak tree a few years ago. He was up there for 2 days and a storm was coming. The guy shimmied up the tree with a pillowcase on a pulley on his belt and stuffed my cat in and rescued him. haha

I just learned how to teach a cat to climb down a tree. Thanks to @Brian1946 for prompting the internet search.

I learnt a new technique to prevent puppies from getting into the habit if jumping up at people.

^ Share here or PM me, please! :]

I’ve learned that if I get a 9 hour night of sleep I feel freaking really good. 2 weeks of 6 hours has wiped me out.

@longgone I attended a seminar yesterday and one of the talkers said that she encourages her clients to throw treats on the floor whenever a human approaches the puppy and stroke/make a fuss of them while puppy is occupied with the treats on the floor (meaning all four feet are on the ground). The important thing here is that they come away from the dog before it’s finished the treats so it doesn’t get the opportunity to jump up and develop the habit. This teaches the puppy two things, a: feet remain on the ground around humans and b: humans are no threat to your food (which could help avoid guarding issues). Obviously this has to be introduced at a very young age and won’t work on a dog who has any kind of guarding issue.

^ Thanks! I get down on puppy level all the time, but treats would be an added bonus for them to stay down…and I love the tie-in with RG!

There are 150000 muscle bundles in an elephants trunk.

@longgone yes, I too get down to puppy level but I think this works better when other people are fussing puppy. So often I hear that the owners are trying their hardest to be consistent and only fuss pup when they are on all fours but it’s other people allowing pup to jump up that causes the problems. By using treats in this way, the owner can throw the food down before the other person has got to them! taking the excitement away from the human for the puppy but also buying the owner some time to explain to the other person. Win-win!

Scientists say that smelling farts might prevent cancer.

TIL The Internet Cat Festival is a thing…..

I want to go to the cat festival!
There should be a duck and goose festival too. Maybe both, The Fur and feathers festival! lol

@Leanne1986 I passed this advice on to a 16 week old Hovawart’s owner. She’ll need it ;)

Hittite is the oldest known Indo-European language.

Hapax Legomenon:

A word or form occurring only once in a document or collection of writings.

About the word:

As obscure as this concept may seem to be, hapax legomenon (from the Greek “something said only once”) has proven quite useful to biblical scholars and those studying ancient writings. Each hapax legomenon is especially difficult to interpret because contextual clues are, by definition, limited.

I’ve learned ( again ) that workers are almost always really freaking late. Waiting in carpet layers here at 9:24 that were supposed to arrive at 9 a.m. sharp! Pffft!

Again I learned not to argue with a drunk a person. It ended well enough no hard feelings and a laugh… however we spent an hour arguing about nothing and Surprise! got no where.

@Unbroken Reminds my of my lesson of not arguing with an idiot…

I guess the two go hand in hand quite regularly. Oh my owl friends are great horned owls and they like to sit back lit by the sun or camo in trees… Suppose that is a stealthy strategy but hard to take pics of

TIL people breed pigeons that can’t fly, known as Parlor Rollers. When attempting to fly they essentially have a seizure and do an odd sort of backflip. People then use these birds in competition to see who can breed a bird that will do the most backflips/ in the straightest line.

According to this, cell phone usage is slowing down service in restaurants. Wait times have doubled because customers are too busy with their screens.

I learn something new every day thanks to the pages I follow on Facebook

Have you ever heard of a fire rainbow? I haven’t until just now.

The sound power of sonar is about 240 DB!

By comparison, the threshold of pain is 130 DB, and the sound power of a Saturn V rocket is 200 DB.

It’s no wonder animal rights groups are trying to get the US Navy to stop its sonar testing in areas frequented by marine mammals.

TIL there are flying gliding snakes

That I was able to use algebra today to pace off the edges of my 50’ wide driveway that runs through two other people’s property. My sneakers measure 11” so I paced 54.54 sneaker lengths (well, I only did 27.27 paces because I was interested in only one side). It turns out the big dead tree that has to come down is on my neighbor’s land and not mine. Yay, math. ( 50×12) divided by 11 = a repeating decimal, it turns out, which is also fun.

@gailcalled But algebra is useless :P

^^ Guess what bringing in a surveyor would have cost me.?

@gailcalled The property appraiser website for your county might very well have the GPS overhead shot of your house with the property lines drawn in if you want to verify it.

^^ Nope. Not necessary. My system was good enough (and enjoyable) for the purpose. Plus I would have to drive 40 minutes to the county court house and back and pay $8.00.

@gailcalled If you are on fluther you are on the web. Are you sure your county doesn’t have the GPS system on their website? Many do. Your way was just fine, but if you want to double check the boundary it was just a suggestion.

@gailcalled Never mind, I looked it up and your country doesn’t have a very sophisticated property appraiser website.

@gailcalled There, you learned something else today.

It takes about 200 grapes to make one glass of wine, according to the narration on Aerial America.

Life moved from sea to land over 400 million years ago, during the Silurian period.

A red king crab that is blue. Experts say the mutation is seen once in a blue moon.

@jonsblond That happens with a lot of decapods. Here’s a cool image showing a few morphs, my favorite, the rarest of them all, is the orange/black split.

While blue lobsters are rare, they’re not THAT rare and are encountered about 1 in every 2 million.

”“Blue, in particular, is a genetic defect in that the lobsters are producing more of a certain protein than normal,” Bradley said.

“Combined with their normal pigmentation, it forms a blue color. ....The more orange-y ones [when they’re alive] are an expression of the lack of that protein…..”

The only lobsters that don’t turn red in the pot are albinos, sometimes referred to as “crystal” lobsters.

Just as lobsters aren’t all the same color, neither are they necessarily only one color. “Calico” lobsters, as they’ve been called, display mottled shells, usually comprising black and orange. The odds of a calico lobster is 1 in 30 million.

Farther down the statistical rabbit hole, at 1 in 50 million, are split-colored lobsters, or those showing two colors that are distinctly separated—sometimes split down the middle, sometimes showing a more checkerboard pattern. All split-colored specimens observed by the Lobster Institute so far have also proven hermaphroditic.”

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/10/weird-wild-odd-colored-lobsters-decoded/

I am now fully degreed in Lobster biology.

I wonder if the calico ones taste horrible because they don’t have as much protein makeup? Can you even eat such a rarity?

There are split colored animals all over, not just lobsters. I believe all are hermaphrodites.

That is fascinating @El_Cadejo.

I love this thread

@GloPro The protein in question is only something regarding the phenotypical traits in the lobsters carapace. The meat should taste exactly the same.

Speaking of other split colored animals, have you ever seen pictures of this cat? Now that is pretty awesome.

And while we’re talking about strange colors in general, did you hear about the Polar bear that had a skin condition so the vets at the zoo it was at decided to treat him. Turns out the bear was allergic to the medication and well…turned purple…..

According to Leigh Henry of the World Wildlife Fund:

There are around 5,000 captive tigers in the United States right now. Nearly 95% of these tigers are owned by individuals, not zoos, which is significantly more than the number of wild tigers in Asia.

@Brian1946 Tragic, I strongly disagree with keeping wildlife as pets.
A Squirrel maybe, a Tiger, never.

I just came across a pretty cool youtube channel, so I’ve learned a ton today.

Wombats have square poop

Thresher sharks possess a long tail that they wipe fish with to stun them

Sponge Flies make amazing cocoons

Butterflies drink alligator tears

Spix’s disc winged bats use leaves to amplify the sound of their calls

Eating a veggie burrito, drinking 3 beers and having a bowl of raspberries results in a serious stomach issue. lol

The primary source of liver flukes in the US is contaminated, raw watercress.

@Brian1946 Ewww…..parasites in our salads.

@Coloma

I heard that Keith Richards ate some watercress straight from a stagnant pond in Florida, but the alcohol in his liver killed all the flukes.

One of the lesser known and probably last labors of Hercules, was to put a Trojan on horse. ;-)