Friday, April 26, 2013

The Lost Wallet, A Great Love Story!

As I walked home one freezing day, I stumbled on a wallet someone had lost in the street. I picked it up and looked inside to find some identification so I could call the owner. But the wallet contained only three dollars and a crumpled letter that looked as if it had been in there for years.

The envelope was worn and the only thing that was legible on it was the return address. I started to open the letter, hoping to find some clue. Then I saw the dateline–1924. The letter had been written almost 60 years ago.

It was written in a beautiful feminine handwriting on powder blue stationery with a little flower in the left-hand corner. It was a “Dear John” letter that told the recipient, whose name appeared to be Michael, that the writer could not see him anymore because her mother forbade it. Even so, she wrote that she would always love him.


It was signed, Hannah.

It was a beautiful letter, but there was no way except for the name Michael, that the owner could be identified. Maybe if I called information, the operator could find a phone listing for the address on the envelope.

“Operator,” I began, “this is an unusual request. I’m trying to find the owner of a wallet that I found. Is there anyway you can tell me if there is a phone number for an address that was on an envelope in the wallet?”

She suggested I speak with her supervisor, who hesitated for a moment then said, “Well, there is a phone listing at that address, but I can’t give you the number.” She said, as a courtesy, she would call that number, explain my story and would ask them if they wanted her to connect me.

I waited a few minutes and then she was back on the line. “I have a party who will speak with you.”
I asked the woman on the other end of the line if she knew anyone by the name of Hannah. She gasped, “Oh! We bought this house from a family who had a daughter named Hannah. But that was 30 years ago!”
“Would you know where that family could be located now?” I asked.

“I remember that Hannah had to place her mother in a nursing home some years ago,” the woman said. “Maybe if you got in touch with them they might be able to track down the daughter.”

She gave me the name of the nursing home and I called the number. They told me the old lady had passed away some years ago but they did have a phone number for where they thought the daughter might be living.
I thanked them and phoned. The woman who answered explained that Hannah herself was now living in a nursing home.

This whole thing was stupid, I thought to myself. Why was I making such a big deal over finding the owner of a wallet that had only three dollars and a letter that was almost 60 years old?

Nevertheless, I called the nursing home in which Hannah was supposed to be living and the man who answered the phone told me, “Yes, Hannah is staying with us.”

Even though it was already 10 p.m., I asked if I could come by to see her. “Well,” he said hesitatingly, “if you want to take a chance, she might be in the day room watching television.”

I thanked him and drove over to the nursing home. The night nurse and a guard greeted me at the door. We went up to the third floor of the large building. In the day room, the nurse introduced me to Hannah.

She was a sweet, silver-haired oldtimer with a warm smile and a twinkle in her eye. I told her about finding the wallet and showed her the letter. The second she saw the powder blue envelope with that little flower on the left, she took a deep breath and said, “Young man, this letter was the last contact I ever had with Michael.”

She looked away for a moment deep in thought and then said softly, “I loved him very much. But I was only 16 at the time and my mother felt I was too young. Oh, he was so handsome. He looked like Sean Connery, the actor.”

“Yes,” she continued. “Michael Goldstein was a wonderful person. If you should find him, tell him I think of him often. And,” she hesitated for a moment, almost biting her lip, “tell him I still love him. You know,” she said smiling as tears began to well up in her eyes, “I never did marry. I guess no one ever matched up to Michael…”

I thanked Hannah and said goodbye. I took the elevator to the first floor and as I stood by the door, the guard there asked, “Was the old lady able to help you?”

I told him she had given me a lead. “At least I have a last name. But I think I’ll let it go for a while. I spent almost the whole day trying to find the owner of this wallet.”

I had taken out the wallet, which was a simple brown leather case with red lacing on the side. When the guard saw it, he said, “Hey, wait a minute! That’s Mr. Goldstein’s wallet. I’d know it anywhere with that bright red lacing. He’s always losing that wallet. I must have found it in the halls at least three times.”
“Who’s Mr. Goldstein?” I asked as my hand began to shake.

“He’s one of the oldtimers on the 8th floor. That’s Mike Goldstein’s wallet for sure. He must have lost it on one of his walks.” I thanked the guard and quickly ran back to the nurse’s office. I told her what the guard had said. We went back to the elevator and got on. I prayed that Mr. Goldstein would be up.

On the eighth floor, the floor nurse said, “I think he’s still in the day room. He likes to read at night. He’s a darling old man.”

We went to the only room that had any lights on and there was a man reading a book. The nurse went over to him and asked if he had lost his wallet. Mr. Goldstein looked up with surprise, put his hand in his back pocket and said, “Oh, it is missing!”

“This kind gentleman found a wallet and we wondered if it could be yours?”

I handed Mr. Goldstein the wallet and the second he saw it, he smiled with relief and said, “Yes, that’s it! It must have dropped out of my pocket this afternoon. I want to give you a reward.”

“No, thank you,” I said. “But I have to tell you something. I read the letter in the hope of finding out who owned the wallet.”

The smile on his face suddenly disappeared. “You read that letter?”

“Not only did I read it, I think I know where Hannah is.”

He suddenly grew pale. “Hannah? You know where she is? How is she? Is she still as pretty as she was? Please, please tell me,” he begged.

“She’s fine…just as pretty as when you knew her.” I said softly.

The old man smiled with anticipation and asked, “Could you tell me where she is? I want to call her tomorrow.” He grabbed my hand and said, “You know something, Mister? I was so in love with that girl that when that letter came, my life literally ended. I never married. I guess I’ve always loved her.”
“Mr. Goldstein,” I said, “Come with me.”

We took the elevator down to the third floor. The hallways were darkened and only one or two little night-lights lit our way to the day room where Hannah was sitting alone watching the television. The nurse walked over to her.

“Hannah,” she said softly, pointing to Michael, who was waiting with me in the doorway. “Do you know this man?”

She adjusted her glasses, looked for a moment, but didn’t say a word. Michael said softly, almost in a whisper, “Hannah, it’s Michael. Do you remember me?”

She gasped, “Michael! I don’t believe it! Michael! It’s you! My Michael!” He walked slowly towards her and they embraced. The nurse and I left with tears streaming down our faces.

“See,” I said. “See how the Good Lord works! If it’s meant to be, it will be.”

About three weeks later I got a call at my office from the nursing home. “Can you break away on Sunday to attend a wedding? Michael and Hannah are going to tie the knot!”

It was a beautiful wedding with all the people at the nursing home dressed up to join in the celebration. Hannah wore a light beige dress and looked beautiful. Michael wore a dark blue suit and stood tall. They made me their best man.

The hospital gave them their own room and if you ever wanted to see a 76-year-old bride and a 79-year-old groom acting like two teenagers, you had to see this couple.

A perfect ending for a love affair that had lasted nearly 60 years.
Author Unknown


Redneck Olympics

Skipping Rocks

The oldest and most traditional of all Redneck games. The heavy-weight division is most popular, as contestants  try to skip bricks.

Flinging

Originated by an ancient Redneck trying to clean his yard.  A great fling is not only a beautiful thing to watch, but often it is accompanied by the exciting  sound of something breaking.

Rowing

Not the most popular sport because most Rednecks agree that, "If you can't afford a motor, you can't afford a boat."

Long Jump

This sport is a Redneck favorite, since they all own numerous sets of jumper cables and all their vehicles have dead or dying batteries.

Hog Calling

The good ones can bring a sow into Times Square using only their voice. 

Tracking

We're not talking about anything as sissy as following a blood trail.  A good tracker can trail a grasshopper down the interstate.  A favorite put down in this sport is,  "You couldn't track a slug across a sheet of glass."

Field Hockey

Who can run the farthest through a cow pasture without stepping in "you know what." A real exciting game when played at night with flashlights.

Bush Hogging For Distance

Put her in drive and hold on tight! A blatant disregard for personal property is an essential for this game. 

2x4 Relay

Originated at night on construction sites by people looking to enlarge their homes at budget prices.

Source: Internet



 
 
 
 
 
 

Thursday, April 18, 2013

The Bumblebee

 
Bombus terrestris

A bumblebee is any member of the bee genus Bombus, in the family Apidae. There are over 250 known species,  existing primarily in the Northern Hemisphere although they also occur in South America. They have been introduced to New Zealand and the Australian state of Tasmania.
Bumblebees are social insects that are characterised by black and yellow body hairs, often in bands. However, some species have orange or red on their bodies, or may be entirely black.  Another obvious (but not unique) characteristic is the soft nature of the hair (long, branched setae), called pile, that covers their entire body, making them appear and feel fuzzy. They are best distinguished from similarly large, fuzzy bees by the form of the female hind leg, which is modified to form a corbicula: a shiny concave surface that is bare, but surrounded by a fringe of hairs used to transport pollen (in similar bees, the hind leg is completely hairy, and pollen grains are wedged into the hairs for transport).

Like their relatives the honey bees, bumblebees feed on nectar and gather pollen to feed their young.

Biology

A bumblebee Bombus terrestris with pollen in its pile: the contrasting colours in the pile are a warning to predators.
The blood or hemolymph, as in other arthropods, is carried in an open circulatory system.  The body organs, "heart" (dorsal aorta), muscles, etc. are surrounded in a reservoir of blood. The dorsal aorta does pulse blood through its long tube, though, so there is a circulation of sorts.

In fertilised queens the ovaries are activated when the queen lays her egg. It passes along the oviduct to the vagina. In the vagina there is a chamber called the spermatheca. This is where the queen stores sperm from her mating. The queen, depending on need, may allow her egg to be fertilised. Non-fertilised eggs become males, and only fertilised eggs grow into females and queens.

As in all animals, hormones play a significant role in the growth and development of the bumblebee. The hormones that stimulate the development of the ovaries are suppressed in female worker bees, while the queen remains dominant. Salivary glands in the head secrete saliva, which mixes with the nectar and pollen. Saliva is also mixed into the nest materials to soften them. The body fat is a nutritional store; before hibernation, queens eat as much as they can to enlarge their fat body, and the fat in the cells is used up during hibernation.
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A bumblebee Bombus pascuorum extending its tongue towards a Heuchera inflorescence
Like all bee tongues, the bumblebee tongue (the proboscis) is a long hairy structure that extends from a sheath-like modified maxilla. The primary action of the tongue is lapping, i.e. repeated dipping of the tongue into liquid.  During lapping, nectar is drawn up the proboscis by capillary action. When at rest or flying, the proboscis is kept folded under the head. The exoskeleton of the abdomen is divided into plates called dorsal tergites and ventral sternites. Wax is secreted from glands on the sternites.

The brightly coloured pile of the bumblebee is a form of aposematic signal. Depending on the species and morph, these colours can range from entirely black, to bright yellow, red, orange, white, and pink. Thick pile can also act as insulation to keep the bee warm in cold weather. Further, when flying, a bee builds up an electrostatic charge, and as flowers are usually well grounded, pollen is attracted to the bee's pile when it lands. When a pollen-covered bee enters a flower, the charged pollen is preferentially attracted to the stigma because it is better grounded than the other parts of the flower.

Bumblebees do not have ears; however, they can feel the vibrations of sounds through nearby materials.

Habitat

Bumblebees are typically found in higher latitudes and/or high altitudes, though exceptions exist (there are a few lowland tropical species).  A few species (Bombus polaris and B. alpinus) range into very cold climates where other bees might not be found; B. polaris can be found in northern Ellesmere Island—the northernmost occurrence of any eusocial insect—along with its parasite, B. hyperboreus.  One reason for this is that bumblebees can regulate their body temperature, via solar radiation, internal mechanisms of "shivering" and radiative cooling from the abdomen (called heterothermy). Other bees have similar physiology, but the mechanisms have been best studied in bumblebees.

Nests

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Bombus terrestris inside an artificial pollination nest, the queen rocks her wings.
Bumblebees form colonies, which are usually much less extensive than those of honey bees. This is due to a number of factors including the small physical size of the nest cavity, the responsibility of a single female for the initial construction and reproduction that happens within the nest, and the restriction of the colony to a single season (in most species). Often, mature bumblebee nests will hold fewer than 50 individuals. Bumblebee nests may be found within tunnels in the ground made by other animals, or in tussock grass as opposed to Carpenter Bees that burrow into wood. Bumblebees sometimes construct a wax canopy ("involucrum") over the top of their nest for protection and insulation. Bumblebees do not often preserve their nests through the winter, though some tropical species live in their nests for several years (and their colonies can grow quite large, depending on the size of the nest cavity). In temperate species, the last generation of summer includes a number of queens who overwinter separately in protected spots. The queens can live up to one year, possibly longer in tropical species.

Colony cycle

Bumblebee nests are first constructed by over-wintered queens in the spring (in temperate areas). Upon emerging from hibernation, the queen collects pollen and nectar from flowers and searches for a suitable nest site. The characteristics of the nest site vary among bumblebee species, with some species preferring to nest in underground holes and others in tussock grass or directly on the ground. Once the queen finds a site, she prepares wax pots to store food, and wax cells to lay eggs in. These eggs then hatch into larvae, which cause the wax cells to expand isometrically into a clump of brood cells.

A bumblebee Bombus terrestris enlarging her nest hole
To develop, these larvae must be fed both nectar for carbohydrates and pollen for protein. Bumblebees feed nectar to the larvae by chewing a small hole in the brood cell into which they regurgitate nectar. Larvae are fed pollen in one of two ways, depending on the bumblebee species. So-called "pocket-maker" bumblebees create pockets of pollen at the base of the brood-cell clump that the larvae feed themselves from. Conversely, "pollen-storers" store pollen in separate wax pots and feed it to the larvae in the same fashion as nectar.  Bumblebees are incapable of trophallaxis (direct transfer of food from one bee to another).

With proper care, the larvae progress through four instars, becoming successively larger with each moult. At the end of the fourth instar, the larvae spin silk cocoons under the wax covering the brood cells, changing them into pupal cells. The larvae then undergo an intense period of cellular growth and differentiation and become pupae. These pupae then develop into adult bees, and chew their way out of the silk cocoon. When adult bumblebees first emerge from their cocoons, the hairs on their body are not yet fully pigmented and are a greyish-white colour. The bees are referred to as "callow" during this time, and they will not leave the colony for at least 24 hours. The entire process from egg to adult bee can take as long as five weeks, depending on the species and the environmental conditions.

After the emergence of the first or second group of workers, workers take over the task of foraging and the queen spends most of her time laying eggs and caring for larvae. The colony grows progressively larger and at some point will begin to produce males and new queens. The point at which this occurs varies among species and is heavily dependent on resource availability and environmental factors. Unlike the workers of more advanced social insects, bumblebee workers are not physically reproductively sterile and can lay haploid eggs that develop into viable male bumblebees. Only fertilised queens can lay diploid eggs that mature into workers and new queens.

Early in the colony cycle, the queen bumblebee compensates for potential reproductive competition from workers by suppressing their egg-laying by way of physical aggression and pheromonal signals.[9] Thus, the queen will usually be the mother of all of the first males laid. Workers eventually begin to lay male eggs later in the season when the queen's ability to suppress their reproduction diminishes.  The reproductive competition between workers and the queen is one reason that bumblebees are considered "primitively eusocial".

New queens and males leave the colony after maturation. Males in particular are forcibly driven out by the workers. Away from the colony, the new queens and males live off nectar and pollen and spend the night on flowers or in holes. The queens are eventually mated (often more than once) and search for a suitable location for diapause (dormancy).

Foraging Behaviour

 
A bumblebee loaded with pollen in its pollen baskets
Bumblebees generally visit flowers exhibiting the bee pollination syndrome. They can visit patches of flowers up to 1–2 kilometres from their colony.  Bumblebees will also tend to visit the same patches of flowers every day, as long as they continue to find nectar and pollen,   a habit known as pollinator or flower constancy. While foraging, bumblebees can reach ground speeds of up to 15 metre per second (54 km/h).[13]
Experiments have shown that bumblebees use a combination of colour and spatial relationships to learn which flowers to forage from.  Bumblebees can also detect both the presence and the pattern of electric fields on flowers, which occur due to the positive static charges that are generated when bees fly through the air (see Atmospheric electricity), and take a while to leak away into the ground. They use this information to find out if a flower has been recently visited by another bee.  After arriving at a flower, they extract nectar using their long tongue ("glossa") and store it in their crop. Many species of bumblebee also exhibit what is known as "nectar robbing": instead of inserting the mouthparts into the flower normally, these bees bite directly through the base of the corolla to extract nectar, avoiding pollen transfer.  These bees obtain pollen from other species of flowers that they "legitimately" visit.

Pollen is removed from flowers deliberately or incidentally by bumblebees. Incidental removal occurs when bumblebees come in contact with the anthers of a flower while collecting nectar. The bumblebee's body hairs receive a dusting of pollen from the anthers, which is then groomed into the corbicula ("pollen basket"). Bumblebees are also capable of buzz pollination.

In at least a few species, once a bumblebee has visited a flower, it leaves a scent mark on the flower. This scent mark deters visitation of the flower by other bumblebees until the scent degrades.  It has been shown that this scent mark is a general chemical bouquet that bumblebees leave behind in different locations (e.g. nest, neutral, and food sites),  and they learn to use this bouquet to identify both rewarding and unrewarding flowers.   In addition, bumblebees rely on this chemical bouquet more when the flower has a high handling time (i.e. it takes a longer time for the bee to find the nectar).



Once they have collected nectar and pollen, bumblebees return to the nest and deposit the harvested nectar and pollen into brood cells, or into wax cells for storage. Unlike honey bees, bumblebees only store a few days' worth of food and so are much more vulnerable to food shortages.

Cuckoo bumblebees


The cuckoo bumblebee Bombus vestalis, a parasite of Bombus terrestris
Bumblebees of the subgenus Psithyrus (known as cuckoo bumblebees, and formerly considered a separate genus) are a lineage that live parasitically in the colonies of other bumblebees and have lost the ability to collect pollen. Before finding and invading a host colony, a Psithyrus female (there is no caste system in these species) will feed directly from flowers. Once she has infiltrated a host colony, the Psithyrus female will kill or subdue the queen of that colony and forcibly (using pheromones and/or physical attacks) "enslave" the workers of that colony to feed her and her young.  The female Psithyrus also has a number of morphological adaptations, such as larger mandibles and a larger venom sac that increase her chances of taking over a nest. Upon hatching, the male and female Psithyrus disperse and mate. Like non-parasitic bumblebee queens, female Psithyrus find suitable locations to spend the winter and enter diapause upon being mated.

Reproduction

In temperate zone species, in the autumn, young queens ("gynes") mate with males (drones) and diapause during the winter in a sheltered area, whether in the ground or in a man-made structure. In the early spring, the queen comes out of diapause and finds a suitable place to create her colony. Then she builds wax cells in which to lay her fertilised eggs from the previous winter. The eggs that hatch develop into female workers, and in time the queen populates the colony, with workers feeding the young and performing other duties similar to honey bee workers. New reproductives are produced in autumn, and the queen and workers die, as do the males.

Sting

Queen and worker bumblebees can sting. Unlike a honey bee's stinger, a bumblebee's stinger lacks barbs, so it can sting more than once.  Bumblebee species are not normally aggressive, but will sting in defence of their nest, or if harmed. Female cuckoo bumblebees will aggressively attack host colony members, and sting the host queen, but will ignore other animals (e.g. humans) unless disturbed.

Bumblebees and people

Bumblebees are important pollinators of both crops and wildflowers.

Comments by Charles Darwin

In his first (1859) edition of On the Origin of Species,  Charles Darwin wrote of "humble-bees" (a now-disused term for bumblebees; see the etymology section below in this article for more information) and their interactions with other species:

Bumblebee Bombus pascuorum on red clover
plants and animals, most remote in the scale of nature, are bound together by a web of complex relations. [...] I have [...] reason to believe that humble-bees are indispensable to the fertilisation of the heartsease (Viola tricolor), for other bees do not visit this flower. From experiments which I have tried, I have found that the visits of bees, if not indispensable, are at least highly beneficial to the fertilisation of our clovers; but humble-bees alone visit the common red clover (Trifolium pratense), as other bees cannot reach the nectar. Hence I have very little doubt, that if the whole genus of humble-bees became extinct or very rare in England, the heartsease and red clover would become very rare, or wholly disappear. The number of humble-bees in any district depends in a great degree on the number of field-mice, which destroy their combs and nests; and Mr. H. Newman, who has long attended to the habits of humble-bees, believes that 'more than two thirds of them are thus destroyed all over England.' Now the number of mice is largely dependent, as every one knows, on the number of cats; and Mr. Newman says, 'Near villages and small towns I have found the nests of humble-bees more numerous than elsewhere, which I attribute to the number of cats that destroy the mice.' Hence it is quite credible that the presence of a feline animal in large numbers in a district might determine, through the intervention first of mice and then of bees, the frequency of certain flowers in that district!

Agricultural use


The agricultural use of bumblebees is limited to pollination. Because bumblebees do not overwinter the entire colony, they are not obliged to stockpile honey, and are therefore not useful as honey producers.

Endangered status

Bumblebees are in danger in many developed countries due to habitat destruction and collateral pesticide damage. In Britain, until relatively recently, 19 species of native true bumblebee were recognised along with six species of cuckoo bumblebees. Of these, three have been extirpated,  eight are in serious decline, and only six remain widespread.  Similar declines in bumblebees have been reported in Ireland, with 4 species being designated endangered, and another two species considered vulnerable to extinction.  A decline in bumblebee numbers could cause large-scale changes to the countryside, resulting from inadequate pollination of certain plants. The world's first bumblebee sanctuary was established at Vane Farm in the Loch Leven National Nature Reserve in Scotland in 2008.

Some bumblebees native to North America are also vanishing, such as Bombus terricola, Bombus affinis and Bombus occidentalis, with one, Bombus franklini, that may even be extinct.



In 2011, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature set up the Bumblebee Specialist Group to review the threat status of all bumblebee species worldwide using the IUCN Red List criteria.

Misconceptions

Flight

A bumblebee landing on a purple flower
A widely believed falsehood holds that scientists proved that bumblebees are incapable of flight
According to 20th century folklore, the laws of aerodynamics prove that the bumblebee should be incapable of flight, as it does not have the capacity (in terms of wing size or beats per second) to achieve flight with the degree of wing loading necessary. The origin of this claim has been difficult to pin down with any certainty. John McMasters recounted an anecdote about an unnamed Swiss aerodynamicist at a dinner party who performed some rough calculations and concluded, presumably in jest, that according to the equations, bumblebees cannot fly.


In later years McMasters has backed away from this origin, suggesting that there could be multiple sources, and that the earliest he has found was a reference in the 1934 book Le vol des insectes by French entomologist Antoine Magnan (1881–1938); they had applied the equations of air resistance to insects and found that their flight was impossible, but that "One shouldn't be surprised that the results of the calculations don't square with reality".



The following passage appears in the introduction to Le Vol des Insectes:
Tout d'abord poussé par ce qui se fait en aviation, j'ai appliqué aux insectes les lois de la résistance de l'air, et je suis arrivé avec M. Sainte-Laguë à cette conclusion que leur vol est impossible.
This translates to:
First prompted by what is done in aviation, I applied the laws of air resistance to insects, and I arrived, with Mr. Sainte-Laguë, at this conclusion that their flight is impossible.
Magnan refers to his assistant André Sainte-Laguë.


Some credit physicist Ludwig Prandtl (1875–1953) of the University of Göttingen in Germany with popularizing the idea. Others say it was Swiss gas dynamicist Jacob Ackeret (1898–1981) who did the calculations.

The calculations that purported to show that bumblebees cannot fly are based upon a simplified linear treatment of oscillating aerofoils. The method assumes small amplitude oscillations without flow separation. This ignores the effect of dynamic stall, an airflow separation inducing a large vortex above the wing, which briefly produces several times the lift of the aerofoil in regular flight. More sophisticated aerodynamic analysis shows that the bumblebee can fly because its wings encounter dynamic stall in every oscillation cycle.


Additionally, John Maynard Smith, a noted biologist with a strong background in aeronautics, has pointed out that bumblebees would not be expected to sustain flight, as they would need to generate too much power given their tiny wing area. However, in aerodynamics experiments with other insects he found that viscosity at the scale of small insects meant that even their small wings can move a very large volume of air relative to the size, and this reduces the power required to sustain flight by an order of magnitude.

Another description of a bee's wing function is that the wings work similarly to helicopter blades, "reverse-pitch semirotary helicopter blades".

Bees beat their wings approximately 200 times a second. Their thorax muscles do not expand and contract on each nerve firing but rather vibrate like a plucked rubber band.

Buzz

One common, yet incorrect, assumption is that the buzzing sound (About this sound listen) of bees is caused by the beating of their wings. The sound is actually the result of the bee vibrating its flight muscles, and this can be achieved while the muscles are decoupled from the wings. This is especially pronounced in bumblebees, as they must warm up their bodies considerably to get airborne at low ambient temperatures.  Bumblebees have been known to reach an internal thoracic temperature of 30 °C (86 °F) using this method.

Source: Internet






Monday, April 15, 2013

Where Is This Product From?

Reading A Barcode

If you are trying not to buy from China, you need to know this Chinese businessmen know that U.S. consumers do not prefer products "MADE IN CHINA", so they don't show from which country it is made.

However, you may now refer to the barcode - remember if the first 3 digits are:


690-692 ... MADE IN CHINA


00 - 09 ... USA & CANADA


30 - 37 FRANCE


40 - 44 GERMANY


471 ... Taiwan


49 ... JAPAN


50 ... UK


BUY USA & CANADIAN MADE by watching for "0" at the beginning of the number.


Source: Internet

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Walmart VS The Morons

WAL-MART VS. THE MORONS (NOT A JOKE)

I know lots of folks don't like Wal-Mart, but this is fascinating.

This is spot-on.

PLEASE, READ THIS TO THE END. IT IS VERY INTERESTING!!!

Wal-Mart vs. The Morons

1. Americans spend $36,000,000 at Wal-Mart Every hour of every day.

2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!

3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.

4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target +Sears + Costco and K-Mart combined.

5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people, is the world's largest private employer, and most speak English.

6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the world.

7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger and Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this in only fifteen years.

8. During this same period, 31 big supermarket chains sought bankruptcy.

9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.

10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are Super Centers; this is 1,000 more than it had five years ago.

11. This year 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at Wal-Mart stores. (Earth's population is approximately 6.5 Billion.)

12. 90% of all Americans live within fifteen miles of a Wal-Mart. You may think that I am complaining, but I am really laying the ground work for suggesting that MAYBE we should hire the guys who run Wal-Mart to fix the economy.

This should be read and understood by all Americans… Democrats, Republicans, EVERYONE!!

To President Obama and all 535 voting members of the Legislature, it is now official that the majority of you are corrupt morons:

a. The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.

b. Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.

c. Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.

d. War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor" and they only want more.

e. Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.

f. Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.

g. The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.

You have Failed in every "government service" you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars.

AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM??

Folks, keep this circulating. It is very well stated. Maybe it will end up in the e-mails of some of our "duly elected' (they never read anything) and their staff will clue them in on how Americans feel.

And

I know what's wrong. We have lost our minds to "Political Correctness" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Someone please tell me what is wrong with all the people that run this country!!!!!!

We're "broke" and can't help our own Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, Homeless etc. and the last months we have provided aid to Haiti, Chile, and Turkey and now Pakistan ( the previous home of bin Laden). literally, BILLIONS of DOLLARS!!!

Our retired seniors living on a 'fixed income' receive no aid nor do they get any breaks.

America: A country where we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed hungry, elderly going without needed medicines, and mentally ill without treatment, etc.

Imagine if the GOVERNMENT gave U. S. the same support they give to other countries. Sad isn't it?

*99% of the people receiving this message won't have the guts to forward this.

*I'm one of the 1% -- I Just Did


BEING UNITED SAVES AMERICA!


Source: Email

Good Things To Know

 Mayo Clinic

How many folks do you know who say they don't want to drink anything before going to bed because they'll have to get up during the night!!

Heart Attack and Water - I never knew all of this ! Interesting.......

Something else I didn't know ... I asked my Doctor why people need to urinate so much at night time. 


Answer from my Cardiac Doctor -

Gravity holds water in the lower part of your body when you are upright (legs swell). When you lie down and the lower body (legs and etc) seeks level with the kidneys, it is then that the kidneys remove the water because it is easier. This then ties in with the last statement!


I knew you need your minimum water to help flush the toxins out of your body, but this was news to me.


Correct time to drink water... Very Important. From A Cardiac Specialist!

Drinking water at a certain time maximizes its effectiveness on the body: 2 glasses of water after waking up - helps activate internal organs.


1 glass of water 30 minutes before a meal - helps digestion
1 glass of water before taking a bath - helps lower blood pressure
1 glass of water before going to bed - avoids stroke or heart attack

I can also add to this... My Physician told me that water at bed time will also help prevent night time leg cramps. Your leg muscles are seeking hydration when they cramp and wake you up with a Charlie Horse.


Subject: Mayo Clinic on Aspirin - PASS IT ON

Mayo Clinic Aspirin Dr. Virend Somers, is a Cardiologist from the Mayo Clinic, who is lead author of the report in the July 29, 2008 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Most heart attacks occur in the day, generally between 6 A.M. and noon. Having one during the night, when the heart should be most at rest, means that something unusual happened. Somers and his colleagues have been working for a decade to show that sleep apnea is to blame.

1. If you take an aspirin or a baby aspirin once a day, take it at night.
The reason: Aspirin has a 24-hour "half-life"; therefore, if most heart attacks happen in the wee hours of the morning, the Aspirin would be strongest in your system.

2. FYI, Aspirin lasts a really long time in your medicine chest for years, (when it gets old, it smells like vinegar).

Please read on.
Something that we can do to help ourselves - nice to know.
Bayer is making crystal aspirin to dissolve instantly on the tongue.
They work much faster than the tablets.

Why keep Aspirin by your bedside? It's about Heart Attacks -

There are other symptoms of a heart attack, besides the pain on the left arm. One must also be aware of an intense pain on the chin, as well as nausea and lots of sweating; however, these symptoms may also occur less frequently.

Note: There may be NO pain in the chest during a heart attack.

The majority of people (about 60%) who had a heart attack during their sleep did not wake up.
However, if it occurs, the chest pain may wake you up from your deep sleep.

If that happens, immediately dissolve two aspirins in your mouth and swallow them with a bit of water.

Afterwards: - Call 911. - Phone a neighbor or a family member who lives very close by.
- Say "heart attack!" - Say that you have taken 2 Aspirins. - Take a seat on a chair or sofa near the front door, and wait for their arrival and ....DO NOT LIE DOWN!

A Cardiologist has stated that if each person after receiving this e-mail, sends it to 10 people, probably one life could be saved!

I have already shared this information. What about you?

Do forward this message. It may save lives!

"Life is a one time gift"


Source: Internet

Monday, April 8, 2013

Are You Smarter Than A 60 Year Old?

THIS WAS HARDER THAN I THOUGHT... THE ANSWERS WERE ON THE TIP OF MY TONGUE... I REMEMBERED, BUT...


DON'T LOOK BELOW FOR THE ANSWERS UNTIL YOU HAVE TRIED OUT THIS TEST FOR 'OLDER' KIDS.


I was picky who I sent this to. It had to be those who might actually remember. So have some fun my sharp-witted friends. This is a test for us 'older kids'! The answers are printed below, (after the questions) but don't cheat! Answer them first.....

01. After the Lone Ranger saved the day and rode off into the sunset, the grateful citizens would ask, Who was that masked man? Invariably, someone would answer, I don't know, but he left this behind What did he leave behind?________________.


02. When the Beatles first came to the U.S. .In early 1964, we all watched them on The _______________ Show.

03. 'Get your kicks, __________________.'

04. 'The story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to ___________________.'

05. 'In the jungle, the mighty jungle, ________________.'

06. After the Twist, The Mashed Potato, and the Watusi, we 'danced' under a stick that was lowered as low as we could go in a dance called the '_____________.'

07. Nestle's makes the very best . .. . . _________ ______.'

08. Satchmo was America's 'Ambassador of Goodwill.' Our parents shared this great jazz trumpet player with us. His name was _________________.

09. What takes a licking and keeps on ticking? _______________.

10. Red Skeleton's hobo character was named__________________ and Red always ended his television show by saying, 'Good Night, and '________ ________... '

11. Some Americans who protested the Vietnam War did so by burning their______________.

12. The cute little car with the engine in the back and the trunk in the front was called the VW. What other names did it go by? ____________ &_______________.

13. In 1971, singer Don MacLean sang a song about, 'the day the music died.' This was a tribute to ___________________.

14. We can remember the first satellite placed into orbit. The Russians did it. It was called ___________________.

15. One of the big fads of the late 50's and 60's was a large plastic ring that we twirled around our waist. It was called the __ ______________.

16. Remember LS/MFT _____ _____/_____ _____ _____?

17. Hey Kids! What time is it? It's _____ ______ _____!

18. Who knows what secrets lie in the hearts of men? The _____ Knows!

19. There was a song that came out in the 60's that was "a grave yard smash" it's name was the ______ ______!

20. Alka Seltzer used a "boy with a tablet on his head" as
it's Logo/Representative. What was the boys Name? ________



Answers:  

 01. The Lone Ranger left behind a silver bullet.

02. The Ed Sullivan Show

03. On Route 66

04. To protect the innocent.

05. The Lion Sleeps Tonight

06. The limbo

07. Chocolate

08. Louis Armstrong

09. The Timex watch

10. Freddy, The Freeloader and 'Good Night and God Bless.'

11. Draft cards (Bras were also burned. Not flags, as some have guessed)

12. Beetle or Bug

13. Buddy Holly

14. Sputnik

15. Hoola-hoop

16. Lucky Strike/Means Fine Tobacco

17. Howdy Doody Time

18. Shadow

19. Monster Mash

20. Speedy

Send this to your 'older' friends, (Better known as Seniors.) It will drive them crazy! And keep them busy and let them forget their aches and pains for a few minutes.

Cedar Hall ~ Ellendale, TN

CEDAR HALL

Located in Ellendale, Tennessee, Cedar Hall was built by Dr. Sam Bond. He named the home, "The Avenue", for the row of cedars leading to its entrance. Today the home is known as Cedar Hall. In 1870, the Shelby County property passed to an Englishman, Edmund Orgill. Orgill founded a firm handling hardware, tools, and agricultural implements. The Orgill family lived in this home for thirty-five years. Orgill Brothers is still in business today.

Source: Internet