You’re a sciencey person and also weird, so I was wondering if you had an answer for this: if I managed to smuggle bears into Antarctica, would they have to change the name?

glumshoe:

Yes, but smuggling bears into Antarctica would be very difficult. Antarctica isn’t just so-named because there aren’t any bears there – it actively repels them, kinda like a magnet. If you attempt to approach Antarctica with bears in tow, you will be pushed away by the anti-bear force. You’ll have to work with a large and well-coordinated team to approach Antarctica from all sides and with enough raw bear power to overcome the repulsion, otherwise the continent might slide away. 

Plus, how would you even transport that many bears without the sheer bear force tearing you apart? 

It’d probably be easier to go to the Arctic and catapult all the bears away from it. There’s bear force there, too, but not as strong because it isn’t anchored to an actual continent. 

How rich are the rich? If only you knew.

thecuckoohaslanded:

kropotkhristian:

“If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets.”

This article is a bunch of numbers and data and it doesn’t really paint a very vivid picture of the problem.

So here’s an example that I assure you is 100% real.

My dad works on boats.  Not in any capacity that makes a lot of money (he basically inspects their fire systems), but he gets to set foot on the luxury yachts of the most mindblowingly wealthy people on earth.  People who have so much money they have to invent new and absurd ways to even spend it.  People who barely work for a living because they have so much goddamn money they spend most of their lives in perpetual vacation having other people manage anything of importance while their “bootstraps” are nowhere to be found.

And I don’t mean 30-60 foot fishing boats, I mean the REAL luxury yachts, for which 150 feet counts as a smaller size.  It’s fairly common for them to be around 180ish feet, more rarely as much as 200.  Boats personally owned by individual people that have helicopter landing pads (plural) and more.  These are floating super mansions that these people own for fun.

Most of them are huge, incompetent assholes who wouldn’t last a day in the rest of the world without people sucking up to them because of their money.

But this is about what one guy, one STUPIDLY RICH jackass, has come up with as a way to spend a tiny fraction of his money.

Persian rugs are like, the stereotype of a priceless artifact that is impossible to replace.  Anywhere you see one on display there is enormous care taken not to damage them or to allow people to touch them.  Some of them are well over a thousand years old, and while it’s possible for modern textiles to produce similar designs, the real ones are fragile, in limited supply, impossible to replace, and very expensive.

Every couple of years this guy buys one, has it cut into the correct shape, and gets it installed as carpeting – to be walked on – in one room on his yacht.  After it wears out it gets stripped off the floor and thrown away, and he buys a new one.

Priceless, irreplaceable artifacts that cost millions of dollars each are disposable, temporary carpeting for these people.  And this is not the richest person my dad has ever worked for.  Nor is his the biggest or most expensive boat.

One of them has a yacht with a huge, multimillion-dollar setup on the back for his personal luxury submarine.

The ultra-wealthy are too goddamn rich.  WAY beyond even what people who think they know what rich looks like would ever imagine.

How rich are the rich? If only you knew.

equagga:

kaijutegu:

bogleech:

bogleech:

A rare giant hellbender salamander found dead because some hiker’s rock-stacking collapsed on her.

I didn’t even know rock stacking was a thing until this year but there are many ways it disrupts the environment.

*Ever since it caught on as a form of white hipster “meditation” there are actually so many hikers who stack rocks now as a hobby that it collectively pollutes streams with sediment that the rocks would otherwise be filtering and reduces the populations of countless organisms that grow and nest among said rocks.

http://www.wideopenspaces.com/rock-stacking-natural-graffitti-ecological-impact/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/stacking-rocks-wilderness-no-good-180955880/

http://www.takepart.com/article/2016/08/25/new-graffiti-national-parks-fight-stone-stackers/

“There is merit to everyone doing some part to heal wounds to fragile riparian ecosystems that are already enduring a slow death by a thousand cuts.”

Flipping over rocks at all changes their very nature. It doesn’t even matter if you put them back afterwards – when you lift up a stone that has laid among other stones and been shaped just-so by the current, if it had properties that made it appealing to stream creatures as nesting and resting places, you’ve changed them.

Even scientists are moving away from flipping stones to seek out animals. Genetic sampling is the method preferred in this day and age, as filtering DNA out of the water column hurts nothing.

Leave the stones be. As much as every naturalist itches to peek beneath them, and as much as every dipshit wants to stack them on top of one another, it’s not the right thing to do.

@lewdbees 

Alzu is here for his date. He’s brought a giant, half-cooked steak in the general shape of a heart, a pot of honey, a bit of extra lube to go with the lube his cock makes on its own, and a nice big glass plug. And he appears to be hoping the steak can be a snack for after. Unless Taur boi needs the energy.

Positioning might be a bit odd, but he is something near 7 feet tall, and he’s very flexible. And strong. He’s gonna keep that cutie busy allll night.

Instagram post by Central Texas Pig Rescue • Jan 20, 2018 at 1:52am UTC

golvio:

centraltexaspigrescue: FACT
FRIDAY!!! It’s time to talk again about Breeder Specific Terms (those
sneaky half-truths that breeders use to get you to buy their pigs)!

SIZE: “Same size as a medium dog/cocker spaniel/bulldog.” “No taller
than 14/16 inches.” Pigs are very dense animals and breeders won’t
highlight this. Franklin weighs 110lbs, double the weight of a typical
bulldog but his dimensions are roughly the same. A healthy adult mini
pig will typically weigh 80-250lbs. Comparing dogs to pigs is like
comparing apples to oranges.

DIET: “When kept to/fed my
correct diet.” “When given my special diet.” These “diets” are
starvation, not a special formula that only the breeder knows. There is
NO such thing as a “micro/teacup” pig, they are starving pigs. They
might stay smaller but they will have lasting impacts on their health
and typically die quite young. No healthy adult pig is 35lbs, if you
have a size limit a pig is not the right pet for you.

“ADOPTION”: This
pops up on a lot of breeder websites to make buyers feel good about
buying their product. Any pig bred to be sold is a product and is in no
way, shape or form an “adoption.” It’s just a trick to make you feel
like you are saving a pig; a pig that was bred and born to make money
for the breeder and provide them with an income. It’s sugar coating the
situation to entice buyers.

“MINI PIG”: while “micro/teacup/nano” pigs
are just not real, “mini pig” is a real classification of pigs. However,
a mini pig is simply a pig that weighs less than 400lbs. These are not
12, 25 or 60lbs or a special breed of pigs. The “mini” simply means a
pig that is smaller than a 600-1,200 farm pig. It is also prudent to be
wary of anyone who doesn’t let you come to their property, says that
pigs don’t need to see a vet or should only see their recommend vet, or
who sell pigs under 10lbs and less 8 weeks old.

Instagram post by Central Texas Pig Rescue • Jan 20, 2018 at 1:52am UTC

wizardshark:

fizzy-dog:

tilthat:

TIL that carrots aren’t actually good for your eyes… it’s just a myth that the British government fabricated during WWII. They wanted to keep their newly developed radar system secret from the Germans and had to find some way to explain how they were suddenly shooting down a lot more planes.

via reddit.com

germany: how are you guys destroying our planes so easily?

british guy who’s about to invent the myth about carrots being good for your eyes: oh you haven’t heard?

the best part though is that the germans BELIEVED IT

legionoftuna:

lesbuchanan:

Summer Olympics: Who can run the fastest? 🙂 Who can swim the fastest? 🙂 Who can do the best somersault? 🙂 

Winter Olympics: WHO CAN MAKE IT TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS ICE SLIDE OF DEATH AND SURVIVE?? WHO CAN GET AROUND THE RINK WITHOUT GETTING THEIR HANDS SLICED OFF BY EVERYONE ELSE’S FEET BLADES?? CAN THIS GUY DO A 1080 DEGREE FLIP WITHOUT DYING?? 

Summer Triathlon: Don’t run too fast, you have to save your energy for a swim and a bike ride! 🙂

Winter Biathlon: I see you’ve been skiing for five miles now here’s your gun