Dinosaurs and Cocaine...What More Do You Want?
- Humpday
- Feb 18, 2019
- 5 min read
Happy HumpDay!!
What's New With HumpDay?
Another week, another Wednesday! Holiday season is over and everyone is back to work and hopefully this newsletter helps you get through your first full week of work. Today is a first for Humpday! This week, we are featuring our first (but not only) reader requested topic! We love to hear from our readers and we encourage everyone to send in a topic that they want us to cover in a future issue. Think you can stump us? Give us a shot!
Paleontology
Ever wonder what the world would be like if the Dinosaurs never went extinct? We could all ride a brontosaurus to work like Fred flintstone or ride motor cycles with velociraptors like Chris Pratt in Jurassic World? Worst case, we would all live in constant fear of being eaten by a 16,000lb T Rex.
In reality, the idea of Dinosaurs being subservient to humans or even mindless predators may be way off. Paleontologists believe that prior to their extinction 66 million years ago, the evolutionary trend of Dinosaur brains showed that they were on track to have nearly human levels of intelligence. Citing a method of determining an animals intelligence called the Encephalization Quotient which, compares the size of an animal’s brain compared to their body mass, paleontologists have concluded that if it weren’t for their sudden extinction, some dinosaurs would have evolved cognitive abilities comparable to that of humans.
Imagine sharing the Earth with a species that is not only larger and deadlier but also, just as smart and cunning as humans. Doorways would need to be 7 stories tall to allow brontosaurus’ to get into office buildings to work their desk jobs and velociraptors would hold public office in the congress of the Unitedsarus of America.
Although, it might be worth it to see a highly intelligent T-Rex try to hold and read a book with it’s 3 foot long arms and its 5 foot long head.
Retail
Are you tired of spending too much money at the checkout counter of your grocery store? Do you clip coupons to save $3 on something that you didn’t want and don’t need? Well, this section will show you the error of your ways and make you a savvy grocery shopper. (Disclaimer: this section will not improve your performance on any grocery themed game show including supermarket sweep or Guy’s grocery games)
Tylenol, Tide, Pantene, Duracell and Folgers. These are some of the most recognizable brand names in every grocery store in America. Our familiarity with these brand names, which are always located right in our line of sight, makes us feel comfortable and causes us to believe that they are superior products. In reality, they are no different then the poorly advertised store brand products located on the bottom shelf.
These store brand products like Stop & Shop brand coffee, CVS brand batteries, and Kirkland Brand everything are manufactured the same companies that make the popular name brands. For example, Kirkland (Costco) brand dog food is manufactured by Blue Diamond, a leading dog food brand. Also, Trader Joe’s Macaroni and cheese is the exact same product as Annie’s Boxed Macaroni and Cheese.
In some cases, the big companies manufacturing the store brand products will add less sugar or tweak a recipe in order to prevent a 1 for 1 comparison but, if you are willing to take the chance on a slightly different but all together similar product you can save more than 25% on your grocery bill.
For those who are just learning the truth about store brands, next time you are pushing your cart down aisle 2 consider what you are really paying for, the product, or the name?
Zoology
The HumpDay team was challenged to present 3 interesting facts about Bees by one of our loyal readers. The challenge was vague but we were so happy that our readers wanted to contribute that we did the research and pulled together 3 interesting and bizarre facts about bees.
Do you have a suggestion for a future topic? Do you want to write a section for the newsletter? Reply to this email and let us know!
Bees can reverse age like Benjamin Button.
Like human’s bees begin to retire old age and stop doing work around the hive. As bees work less and less, their brain chemistry changes and they begin rapidly aging leading up to their death. But, researchers managed to trick some elderly bee’s into doing the work that the younger bees do and the results were surprising. The researchers found that the bee’s aging process had reversed and that they had become more nimble, capable of learning new things and lived longer than normal. It turns out that for bees, if you never slow down, you never get old.
Bee venom is helping cure HIV.
Most people don’t want to be stung by a bee but, some recent research may change people’s minds and have them hanging around the bee’s nest in their shed. The toxin from a bee sting, melittin, has shown promise as a treatment to help destroy cells infected with HIV or other viruses. Scientists have loaded melittin onto nanoparticles which, due to their incredibly small size, destroy virus cells without causing damage to any healthy tissue.
Cocaine makes bees dance their asses off
As we all know, bees fly from flower to flower collecting flower nectar to bring back to their hive. What you may not know is that bees communicate with each other to share where the best flowers for nectar. Since they can’t speak (except in that one Jerry Seinfeld movie), bees communicate where the nectar is by dancing to their fellow bees.
Well, some scientists, probably PHDs, decided to see what would happen if they replaced the nectar that a bee was collecting with cocaine. They found that the strung-out bee returned to the hive and began to dance so hard and passionately that the entire hive thought that she had stumbled upon the Eldorado of nectar. The entire hive of bees followed the bee back to the flower with cocaine and were very confused to find that there was only one flower and not even any left-over cocaine (damn PHD students).
This Week in History
This week in 1812, American general and friend of HumpDay, Andrew Jackson, won the battle of New Orleans which, concluded the War of 1812. At the time of the battle, the War of 1812 had actually been over for 2 weeks but due to a lack of high speed communication both the American and British troops had not received word of the ceasefire.
Andrew Jackson rallied the back country men of towns surrounding New Orleans and enlisted the aid of a band of pirates operating at the mouth of the Mississippi River to help defend the city against the British attack. The rag tag group led by Jackson won the day against an army that had previously defeated Napoleon. After that battle, Andrew Jackson's name became reveared across the US, eventually leading to his presidency.
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