Iguanas in South Florida are falling out of trees due to freezing temperatures.
Weather in South Florida dropped into the 30s on Tuesday night, which immobilized the iguanas and turned their bodies dormant.
“Don’t be surprised if you see iguanas falling from the trees tonight,” the Miami National Weather Service office tweeted.
Jan 21 – This isn't something we usually forecast, but don't be surprised if you see Iguanas falling from the trees tonight as lows drop into the 30s and 40s. Brrrr! #flwx#miamipic.twitter.com/rsbzNMgO01
The good news is that the iguanas woke up when the heat turned back up on Wednesday morning, like this one. While Miami suffered its coldest temperatures in 9 years, it’s expected to be back to 80 on Friday.
via Twitter
Those iguanas you see everywhere will eventually wake up and scurry off. Here’s one outside our Broward Bureau doing just that: pic.twitter.com/UKV6BtWuhU
Grover Krantz was one of the few anthropologists who dedicated their time to studying Sasquatch, aka Bigfoot.
As a cryptozoologist, Krantz believed that Bigfoot might exist and did everything he could to research it. Five of his ten books explored the possible existence of the ape-like creature.
Perhaps even more interestingly, the peculiar scientist donated his body to science with the one condition that his dog Clyde, an Irish wolfhound, would be right by him.
“I’ve been a teacher all my life and I think I might as well be a teacher after I’m dead, so why don’t I just give you my body,” said Krantz. “But there’s one catch: You have to keep my dogs with me.”
Both Krantz and Clyde are on display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC.
PS, if you’re wondering why mentions of Bigfoot may be on the decline, blame technology.
Vestrahorn mountain in south-east Iceland is one to behold.
Nicknamed “Batman Mountain” for its awe-inspiring beauty, the1490 foot mountain looks down at the flat black sand Stokksnes beach below.
Known for its spiky peaks that resemble the horns on a bull, Vestrahorn is composed of gabbro and granophyre rocks. But in order to access the photogenic landscape of the mountain beach, you’ll need to make a small payment to the landowner.
By the looks of it, the experience is worth every penny.
Instagram 3D artist Frank J Guzzone gives us at least an imaginative glimpse into the workings of an eye.
Don’t get carried away by the reality or irreality of the visualization. Just admire the concept.
Eye doctors on Twitter have promptly responded to Twitter account ZonePhysics with rightful criticism. “There’s no windstorm in the anterior chamber,” writes Dr. Cheryl G Murphy in debunking the graphic tweeted with the headline “This is your eye under microscope.”
As someone who stares at eyes under the microscope day in and day out, that’s not even close. Not that much movement on the iris. There’s no windstorm in the anterior chamber. Peripheral cornea blurred for no reason. The actual iris magnified is much more beautiful than this.
“When you’re hit on the football field, parts of your brain may fizz like a just-opened can of soda.”
The brain released humans from the prison of biology. So why do we do anything that damages our ability to think? Because of sports like football that entertain.
However, a new technology designed to mimic a woodpecker’s shock-absorbing beak may prevent football players from brain injury.
“It likely clinched its jugular vein with its long omohyoid muscle, protecting against brain slosh by filling its brain with blood.”
Scientists first theorized that increasing blood to the brain would help safeguard the head against collisions. Existing data revealed that playing football at higher altitudes generated fewer concussions. However, scientist Joseph Fisher thought he could still protect players’ brains without suffocating their oxygen. He went back to study the physiology of the woodpecker’s distinctive “omohyoid solution” for battling head trauma.
“forget CO2, Fisher thought. All you needed was to press lightly on the neck. Fisher bought a pair of headphones at an electronics store, bent the metal band a little, and placed them around his neck with the pads against his jugular veins.”
Naturally, scientists tested the hypothesis on rats by putting a neckband on them and forcing collisions. The neck-protected rats saw an “83 percent reduction in brain damage compared to rats that didn’t.” Scientists got approval to test a neck collar on high school football players.
“The kids who had worn the collar, on the other hand, saw significantly fewer changes. Their brains hadn’t suffered the same way. The findings were also replicated in hockey players. What worked for woodpeckers seemed to work for humans. A little extra blood in the skull swaddled the brain enough to reduce damage.”
In other words, squeezing the jugular sends just enough blood to the head to prevent brain injury and in the long-run, dementia caused by CTE. Astonishing, right? It makes you think why the NFL does not have an R&D department. The worst-case scenario? Figure out how to play American football using bubbles.
Reddit user harpalss used animation software D3 to create a beautiful visualization of the changing patterns of daylight in one year. This is how the user describes it:
Equation to calculate the hours of daylight for a given day of year and latitude can be found here. The animation was built with D3.
Both the northern and southern hemispheres experience longer and shorter days, depending on the time of year. That means less daylight right now (late November) for those in the United States and Canada and longer days for those in South America.
Daytime is shorter in winter than in summer, for each hemisphere. This is because the Earth’s imaginary axis isn’t straight up and down, it is tilted 23.5 degrees. The Earth’s movement around this axis causes the change between day and night.
During summer in the Northern Hemisphere, daylight hours increase the farther north you go. The Arctic gets very little darkness at night. The seasonal changes in daylight hours are small near the Equator and more extreme close to the poles.
