Category: Animals & Nature

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A Biology Student Gave Wasps Access to Colored Paper and They Made Rainbow Nests

I’m not sure I can ever be a wasp lover…

That said, they can built some pretty-looking nests if you give them some colorful tools!

University of Florence biology major Mattia Menchetti came up with the idea: he would slowly fed a captive colony of paper wasps different colors of paper over time.

The result? Nests that look more like trippy kaleidoscopes than the houses of terror that they actually are.

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They’re the #product of an #experiment conducted by #MattiaMenchetti, a #biology #student at the #UniversityofFlorence. He realised that by giving a #captive #colony of #European #paper #wasps #different #colored #paper over time, the #insects would eventually #construct their own #kaleidoscopic #houses. And as you can see, the result is #pretty remarkable, if not slightly reminiscent of a #bad #trip. While this #experiment was deliberate, unintentional #human interference with the insect world has also produced some equally surprising results. In 2012 for #example, #beekeepers in #France were amazed to discover that their #bees had created #green and #blue #honey. The reason? The unsuspecting insects were using sugar collected from the shells of M&Ms at a nearby waste-processing plant. #ARTLifeForever http://www.boredpanda.com/colorful-paper-wasp-nests-rainbow-mattia-menchetti/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=BPFacebook

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It’s not the first time scientists have realized that the insect world can get more colorful than nature intended – sometimes, with no intentional human intervention at all. In 2012, a group of French beekeepers discovered that their bees were creating green and blue honey. The culprit?

Bits of M&M shells they had found at a nearby waste processing plant.

Honestly more depressing than magical, if you ask me. Which no one did, I realize.

These pictures still 100% give me the heebies, even if they’re technically pretty.

What about you? Are you a wasp fan now?

If so, please explain yourself or submit for voluntary psychological hold.

It’s for your own good, I swear.

Check out Mattia’s Twitter or Facebook for more pics like these, or to see what amazing thing this young scientists comes up with next!

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A Man Died of Sepsis After His Dog Licked Him

I routinely let most dogs I encounter lick me as much as they want. Now, after learning about this story, I can say that maybe I need to back off a little bit…

A 63-year-old man in Germany began to feel ill and ultimately died – and the culprit might freak you out a little bit: the man’s dog licked his face. A couple of weeks later, he got a fever, started experiencing muscle pains, and then had trouble breathing. He decided to go to the hospital to find out what was going on and he received some awful news: he had advanced kidney damage and liver dysfunction.

 

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He was admitted to the hospital but things took a turn for the worse. The doctors realized he was suffering from gangrene and that he had a terrible sepsis infection.

Of course correlation is not causation, so how do we know it was the dog licking that did it?

The man’s bloodwork showed that he was infected with Capnocytophaga canimorsus, which is a bacteria usually found in the saliva of cats and dogs.

No treatments worked on the poor man, and he suffered for 16 days as multiple organs failed. Sadly, his family eventually decided to turn off his life support and the man passed away.

This may sound like something that has never happened before or that would never happen again, but there were two other cases of humans contracting Capnocytophaga canimorsus from dogs in 2018 alone. A 58-year-old woman in Wisconsin died after her dog nipped her, and a man, also from Wisconsin, contracted the bacteria after spending time with eight puppies. The man had to have both of his legs amputated and parts of his hands removed because of the infection.

Our advice: if you happen to be bitten by a dog or a cat, wash the area immediately with soap and water, and have a doctor take a look at the wound just to be on the safe side. Yikes…

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10 Cute Cat Bleps That Might Warm Your Heart

Cats on social media give us all kinds of sweet little moments, but the bleps have been winning big lately. What are bleps, you ask? It’s when a kitty has just a little bit of their tongue hanging out of their mouth and it is freaking adorable.

Here are some perfect examples.

1. Good morning!

Good morning blep from Blep

2. Looks like a drawing.

She has anime eyes and the cutest blep from Blep

3. A snoozin’ blep.

Meet my cats blep from Blep

4. A real beauty.

The prettiest blep I ever did see from Blep

5. I thought I heard something.

Blep did I hear the treat baggy crinkle? from Blep

6. Extreme close-up.

One handsome blep from Blep

7. It sure is magnificent…

Caught this magnificent blep the other day. It has taken a few years but we caught one in the end! from Blep

8. Bleppy boi, bleppy boi.

Please enjoy our bleppy boi from Blep

9. The muppet blep.

October looks like a a scruffy muppet with a blep. from Blep

10. Just a little one…

A tiny blep from Blep

Don’t hold out on us!

We know you have some great blep photos that we’d love to see in the comments!

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10 Tweets That Prove Cats Also Like to Play Fetch

This may surprise you, but playing fetch isn’t only for the dogs anymore.

All kinds of cats are getting in on this action!

But that’s a good thing, right? The more, the merrier, we like to say!

1. Look at her go!

2. A hair tie will work, too.

3. Keep practicing.

4. Your cat’s ears were burning.

5. Here’s the proof.

6. A pawsome game.

7. Just like a doggo.

8. Magical, indeed.

9. Three-legged fetch!

10. You gotta love it.

Do you have any videos or photos of your pet THAT ISN’T a dog playing fetch?

Share them with us in the comments! We want to see these animals in action!

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A Village in Russia Is Facing a Sudden Onslaught of Polar Bears

As the earth continues to get warmer, polar bear populations are sadly declining. Strangely enough, though, one village in Russia is actually being overrun by polar bears.

Almost 60 polar bears were spotted looking for food near the village of Ryrkaypiy in far east Russia, CNN reports. The bears, most of them looking starved, are feeding on walrus carcasses on the village’s shores. Males, females, and cubs have all been spotted.

This is a marked increase from previous years, when it was rare to spot more than three to five polar bears at a time. Experts attribute the sudden increase to climate change – as warmer temperatures melt the sea ice, more bears are forced to remain on land rather than at sea, their preferred habitat.

“If the ice was strong enough, the bears, or at least some of them, would have already gone to sea, where they could hunt for seals or sea hares,” Mikhail Stishov, coordinator of WWF-Russia projects for the conservation of Arctic biodiversity, told CNN. “Similar situations are becoming the norm. We need to adapt to this so that neither people nor bears suffer.”

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Thankfully, no incidents have been reported between bears and humans. Still, Ryrkaypiy’s 500 residents are understandably stressed. What will happen if the bears run out of walrus carcasses to eat? They might venture even closer to people’s homes.

“The psychological situation in (Ryrkaypiy) is complicated, women worry, because their children walk to school,” said Anatoly Kochnev, a scientist at Russia’s Institute of Biological Problems of the North.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Volunteers on “bear patrol” are now on lookout at the town limits. School buses have also begun picking up children so they don’t have to walk to school.

This is climate change in action, folks.

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The 2020 Social Justice Kittens Calendar Is Pretty Great

This is what you really need to get 2020 started off on the right foot! These kittens are fighting for social justice, and they’re here to remind you every month next year that they’re not going to stand for society’s BS any longer.

Let’s see what these social justice warrior kittens have to say in this calendar from
Sean Tejaratchi.

1. Those pesky “facts.”

Photo Credit: Amazon

2. Forego free speech…

Photo Credit: Amazon

3. Beware.

Photo Credit: Amazon

4. Forget about your opinion.

Photo Credit: Amazon

5. Time to listen.

Photo Credit: Amazon

6. Always does.

Photo Credit: Amazon

7. Doesn’t feel safe.

Photo Credit: Amazon

8. Are you part of the problem?

Photo Credit: Amazon

9. Love rage.

Photo Credit: Amazon

10. So-called allies.

Photo Credit: Amazon

What do you think? Feel like 2020?

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Take a Look at These Wholesome Things That Happened in the Animal Kingdom This Year

A lot of great things happened to or with people’s fur babies  this year – and, luckily, they were kind enough to put it all up on social media.

Here are 15 really nice and wholesome things that happened in 2019 that involved our furry animal friends.

Enjoy!

1. He saved you.

2. Cuteness overload.

3. Best friends forever.

4. All together now.

5. Sharing is caring.

6. Fetch over the fence.

7. Hello!

8. That is touching.

9. Jumping for joy.

10. New friends!

11. I remember you.

12. We know that cat!

13. This man is a saint.

14. One at a time.

15. Go, Clyde!

Those sure made the end of my year a lot better!

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Is Your Dog Spoiled Rotten? Then These Tweets Are for You!

We all do it, right? When I’ve had dogs in the past, I treated them like royalty…BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT THEY ARE.

You know what I’m saying, right?

Dogs are our best friends – they love us unconditionally, and therefore they deserve to be spoiled rotten.

The people who wrote these tweets definitely agree with me…

1. Just call it a dog bed.

2. Not you…

3. You’re absolutely right.

4. Why do you say that?

5. Maybe?

6. That’s a lie.

7. Living her best life.

8. Don’t upset the dog.

9. That’s totally normal.

10. Sorry, gotta go.

11. Hell no!

12. We all do this, right?

13. Party night!

14. The floor is fine for you.

15. Honey, we need to talk…

Do you have an extremely pampered pup?

Let’s see some photos in the comments!

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Hybrid Pig-Monkeys Could Be in Our (Near) Future Thanks to Chinese Genetic Experiments

There’s a classic episode of Seinfeld where Kramer is convinced that he’s seen a “pig man” at the hospital – a result of a genetic experiment gone horribly wrong…or right, I suppose.

And while there’s no pig man in the episode, if scientists have their way, the show is probably going to be seen as prophetic one day.

In yet another show of disregard for ethics in experimental genetics, Chinese researchers have brought pig-monkey chimeras to term.

In science (as opposed to mythology), a chimera is an organism derived from two or more zygotes. At the Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology in China, piglets were injected with monkey stem cells when they were fetuses and, for the first time in any lab ever, were brought successfully to term.

They look like regular pigs, for the record, and scientists claim they exist to further the research into growing human organs inside of animals.

The embryonic monkey stem cells came from cynomolgus monkeys, a type of macaque commonly bred for biomedical research. The cells were modified to produce a protein called GFP that would allow researchers to track the cells after injection.

Pigs, for their part, are often used as hosts because of their biological similarities to humans.

The team implanted the cells into more than 4,000 pig embryos, but only 2 of the 10 altered babies were born with monkey stem cells showing up in their heart, liver, spleen, lung, and skin.

Every one of the litter of 10 died within a week of birth from an unknown cause, but as both chimera and typical pigs perished, researchers believe it had to do with the IVF process and not the altered stem cells.

“We believe this work will facilitate future developments in xenogeneic organogenesis, bringing us one step closer to producing tissue-specific functional cells and organs in a large animal model through interspecies blastocyst complementation,” write the authors.

Xenogenesis is the process by which scientists believe we’ll one day be able to generate human organs inside other mammals to be used for transplantation, and it has been moderately successful in mice thus far. Studies on pigs and other more advanced mammals have been halted in Western medicine due to ethical concerns.

Scientists in China aren’t deterred, though, and say they will continue to attempt to create healthy animals with a higher proportion of monkey cells, then continue to creating pigs with organs comprised of almost all primate cells, if they’re successful.

It’s a brave new world. At least the pigs are going first.

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10 Great Facts to Get Your Day Started on the Right Foot

We all need to get our days started in a positive way. Some people exercise, some do yoga, some meditate, some drink two pots of coffee.

Whatever you do, you can add these facts to your morning routine to make your day even better!

Enjoy!

1. Some things never change…

Photo Credit: did you know?

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2. I did not know that!

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3. Cool!

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4. Time to reset

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5. That’s tragic.

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6. I always feel like…

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7. That’s not good.

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8. A symbol of friendship.

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9. Makes perfect sense.

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10. Justice warriors.

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We hope you enjoyed those facts!

Have a great day!

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