24th Annual Green Thumb Festival

Don't Forget the Green Thumb Fest this Weekend!

I never miss one ~ Jim Beucher

April 24 & 25, 2010 - 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Walter Fuller Park, 7891 26th Avenue N., St. Petersburg, FL, 33710
Children's Plant Fair
Walter Fuller Community Center
9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday and Sunday

Garden Club of St. Petersburg Flower Show
Walter Fuller Community Center

9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday
9 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Sunday

Join in the fun and excitement of celebrating Arbor Day and Earth Day at this annual city festival. Now in its 24th year, the Green Thumb Festival features environmental and horticultural exhibits, vendors (with every kind of plant imaginable), the Garden Club of St. Petersburg Flower Show, a grow and share program, a diagnostic clinic (bring soil and water samples), a recycling rally, free mulch, plant auction, more than 2,000 trees for sale for $3, free Butterfly plants (500 each day), tool sharpening booth, entertainment, children's programs, other environmental programs and exhibits, and a food court! Mark your calendar so you don't miss this annual event: April 24-25, 2010.

Once ubiquitous, Florida's brown lizards scarce after cold winter

The native: A male green anole inflates its throat to attract a female, which may be tough since winter took a toll on the lizards. Because the brown Cuban anole was hit harder, some say the green anole should come back in larger numbers.

Joyce Dunn moved to the Tampa Bay area in 1971, when Carolina anoles, those small, svelte green lizards, ruled the land.

"We didn't have those ugly brown ones," the Brandon resident said, referring to the brown Cuban anole. "They took over and seems like that's all you see anymore."

Used to, anyway.

Dunn, 72, said she was stunned to find thawing lizards on her sidewalks, grass and garden hose after a string of frigid days and nights this winter.

"They weren't all dried up. Just lifeless. I've never seen anything like it," she said.

Throughout the bay area, many have noticed a distinct lack of lizards this spring.

They once were ubiquitous, scurrying around, stalking insects, the males doing pushups and flaunting their orange dewlaps — those flaps of skin under their jaws designed to intimidate competitors or attract mates.

"No doubt the freeze has knocked them way back," said Peter Meylan, a natural sciences professor at Eckerd College. "The few that made it are just lucky. They probably found a warm spot in a garden hose or a potted plant that may have been covered with a blanket."

According to the National Weather Service, this has been the coldest start to any year in St. Petersburg since record-keeping began in 1914, in central Pasco (where record keeping began in 1895) and in Brooksville (1892), and the second coldest in Tampa (1890). The combined average temperature for the first three months of 2010 was 6 to 8 degrees below normal.

For the Cuban anole, a tropical invader that has largely displaced the native green anole, it's Armageddon.

The invader: The invasive brown Cuban anole sometimes eats the green anole.

The chilly weather didn't allow them to bask in the warm sun, leading to a depression in their metabolic systems, said Bill Kern, associate professor of entomology and nematology at the University of Florida's Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center.

"They did not have to physically freeze to be killed. We suspect that many that died after the cold spell were killed by opportunistic infections and weakened immune systems."

Whether green or brown, anoles do consume many different types of insects and spiders. They are dinner for snakes and birds. Cats and dogs think of them as play toys.

But Kern points out that the lack of brown anoles does not mean Florida will be overrun by insects or that birds and snakes will go hungry. Fortunately or not, Florida has no shortage of creepy, crawly creatures that keep in check all the other things that creep and crawl.

The brown anoles first made it to the Florida Keys in the 1880s from the Bahamas and Cuba, but didn't establish a strong toehold until the 1940s at seaports and urban areas, such as Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. They weren't a major presence in Pasco County until 30 years later, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's Web site.

Females usually lay one or two eggs per clutch. They are prolific, though, and can lay a new clutch every 14 days if the food supply is adequate. Eggs are normally laid April through July, so babies, hatching four to six weeks later, appear May through August or September, said Kern, who recently spotted a pregnant brown anole with a swollen belly.

Cuban anoles are fast and athletic and can outcompete the green anoles — sometimes eating the smaller ones.

Though they are scarce right now, the browns will make their way back, but it may take some time to reach their former numbers, Kern said.

"The good news is, the cold weather was bad for invasive exotics," Kern said. "Some think that since the brown anoles took such a big hit, we may see the native green anoles showing up in better numbers."

Fast facts

The competitors

Green anoles

Description: A Florida native, the females have a light stripe down their backs. When two males battle for territory or a female, the winner turns bright green and the loser turns brown.

Habitat: All of Florida and as far north as Tennessee. Generally a tree dweller, it will escape predators by running up.

Brown anoles

Description: Gray, black, brown and sometimes speckled. Females have a diamond pattern on their backs.

Habitat: A ground dweller, they are present in most of Florida and the Keys; not cold-tolerant.

What's up with the pushups?

Both brown and green males do pushups as a threat display.

Tails on your tile?

Both brown and green anoles can cast off their tails at will when threatened. The tail piece continues to twitch, attracting the attention of a predator as the anole flees. The tail will grow back.

Source: www.audubon.org

DIY Rat Control? Check your traps often or this happens.....

DIY Rodent Control..Is it for you?

A new customer told me that he checked the rat traps all the time and kept them fresh so he would catch other rat's that entered his attic. The problem is, he still had rat's!

"Looks like its been awhile since he checked his traps, lol"

If your going to Do It Yourself, check your traps or let a professional do it!

What it's like to be a Florida python hunter

Greg Graziani thinks Burmese pythons are "fascinating animals" that shouldn't be in the wilds of South Florida.


"They're beautiful animals," Graziani said of the non-poisonous snakes that can grow to 14 feet or longer. "If I could take them all to Southeast Asia, I would, but I can't foot that bill."

Graziani is one of about 15 people who have been issued licenses to capture or kill the giant constrictors in Florida. The National Park Service - which administers the Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve, both near Miami, wants the non-native reptiles eradicated from its lands. So do the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission and the South Florida Water Management District.

From left, Greg Graziani (licensed to kill or capture pythons in South Florida), Florida Fish and Wildlife (FWC)Commissioner Ron Bergeron, Shawn Heflick (another permit holder), and FWC Chairman Rodney Barreto.Photo by Patricia C. Behnke/Courtesy of Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission

Biologists fear that the giant snakes will decimate native animals, including protected species of wading birds. [Read conservation biologist Stuart Pimm's blog post: Pythons in Florida Everglades: Is the Snake Invasion Only Beginning?]

"I hate that we have to euthanize them, but they don't belong there, and what are we going to do?" Graziani said.

The Burmese python's native habitat includes China, India, Thailand, Vietnam, and Nepal. But they've also become a favorite of American snake collectors, especially in South Florida, where the climate is similar to Southeast Asia.

Graziani made weekly trips during last summer from his home in Venus, Florida to hunt pythons. He caught "three or four" during these trips, and plans to resume hunting them this year.

The best time to hunt the pythons is between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. during a moonless night, but Graziani doesn't plunge into the thick vegetation seeking the snakes. The cold-blooded animals are attracted to the warmth of roads that have baked in the sun all day, he said.

"They're ambush predators," Graziani said. "Night time is when they're going to move. The worst time to hunt is during a full moon. There are no reptiles or frogs on roads during the full moon. I assume that's because they know all other predators are out there because they can see so well."

Shawn Helfick, a licensed python-hunter, measures a Burmese python.Photo by Patricia C. Behnke/Courtesy of Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission

Graziani doesn't carry a lot of equipment with him during a hunt, but he has equipped his truck with high-powered spotlights. And there's no special technique for capturing the pythons. When he sees one, he simply grabs it by the tail and waits for it to start striking at him.

"I let it strike five to seven times," he said. "Each strike became more labored. I wait for it to tire itself out."

When the snake tires, Graziani grabs it behind the head and puts it into a large, lockable plastic container. He was bitten once by an eight-and-a-half foot python that his son captured. He said the bite wasn't especially painful, but one of the python's small, needlelike teeth did break off in one of his knuckles.

"We expect a defensive bite. It wants to hit you and get away," Graziani said. "When that happens, it's like 80 or 100 hypodermic needles puncturing your flesh and coming out."

Graziani said the bite healed without becoming infected.

Burmese python caught in Everglades National Park. More than 1,200 Burmese pythons have been found in the Florida Everglades.Photo courtesy NPS

Graziani euthanizes the snakes captured on Florida Fish and Wildlife lands by severing the brain from the spinal cord. Snakes that are taken on National Park Service lands are turned over to the Park Service, which euthanizes them.



George Horne, deputy executive director of the South Florida Water Management District in West Palm Beach, said that more than 1,200 pythons have been found in a relatively small area in the Florida Everglades. And there's been a dramatic increase in the number of pythons found in the past year, Horne said.

Some of the pythons were released into the wild by people who became disenchanted with their pets, Graziani said. But most of them escaped into the wilds when powerful Hurricane Andrew tore into Homestead--just south of Miami--in 1992, he said. At least 1,000 pythons escaped when the hurricane destroyed a dealer's containment area near Homestead, he said.

Estimates of the number of pythons in South Florida vary widely, from a few thousand to as many as 150,000. Graziani thinks the number probably is between 3,000 and 5,000.

Horne said the snake-hunting permits were first issued about three years ago as part of the South Florida Water Management District's effort to restore the Florida Everglades.

"One of the key things with the Everglades restoration, one of the measures of success, was that we had to be able to increase the bird population," Horne said. The increasing python population could make it impossible for the bird population to increase, he said.

"We could have pristine water quality, and it could be lifeless except for these large predators," Horne said.

Willie Drye is the author of "Storm of the Century: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935," published by National Geographic, and a regular contributor to National Geographic News. He has also written for the Toronto Globe and Mail, the Washington Post, the Tampa Tribune and the Orlando Sentinel.

Drye is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Visit his blog: "Drye Goods."

Big Python

Bigger Python

Python eating a hog

Colt Python

Monty Python

Star Wars technology zaps mozzies in flight

Your reporter once had to explain to a toddler why it was vital that she take malaria pills on holiday. The child nodded sagely and asked whether she was supposed to throw the pills at the mosquitoes.

There was a very boring picture to this article, so I made my own with Boba Fett preparing to shoot a large mosquito...it fits better-hope you like. ~ JimBeucher

But it turns out that perhaps the idea wasn't so daft after all - no less a person than Microsoft exec-turned Intellectual Ventures CEO Nathan Myhrvold has been supporting a rather similar plan.

"Some of our inventors were involved in the Star Wars defence planning from the 1980s," he says. "For them, the idea of using lasers to shoot mosquitos was one of those ‘it’s so crazy it just might work!’ ideas."

The Photonic Fence proptotype was appreantly constructed almost entirely from components purchased second-hand on eBay - important for third-world countries that find missile defence systems a bit out of their budget.

LEDs beam infrared light at nearby posts, hitting strips of retroreflective material and bouncing back. A camera on each fence post monitors the reflected light for shadows cast by the mozzies.

When an invading insect is detected, software identifies it by training a nonlethal laser beam on the bug and using that illumination to estimate the insect’s size and also to measure how fast its wings are beating.

The company says it's built in safeguards to make sure the system doesn’t kill the cat. It says it can not only distinguish between mosquitoes, butterflies, and bumblebees, but can even determine whether a mosquito is male or female - no, not by looking at the dangly bits, females are bigger.

The fence can zap up to 100 mosquitoes a second, says Myhrvold, which should be plenty for the most pestilent swamp.

Stunningly Preserved 165-Million-Year-Old Spider Fossil Found

Scientists have unearthed an almost perfectly preserved spider fossil in China dating back to the middle Jurassic era, 165 million years ago. The fossilized spiders, Eoplectreurys gertschi, are older than the only two other specimens known by around 120 million years.

The level of detail preserved in the fossils is amazing, said paleontologist Paul Selden of the University of Kansas and lead author of the study appearing Feb. 6 in Naturwissenschaften. “You go in with a microscope, and bingo! It’s fantastic.”

The fossils were found at a site called Daohugou in Northern China that is filled with fossilized salamanders, small primitive mammals, insects and water crustaceans. During the Jurassic era, the fossil bed was part of a lake in a volcanic region, Selden said.

Spider fossils from this period are rare, because the arachnids’ soft bodies don’t preserve well. The pristine fossil pictured in these photos was probably created when the spider was trapped in volcanic ash. The ultrafine clay particles squashed the spider without breaking up the animals’ delicate cuticle as more coarse sediment would, Selden said.

E. gertschi shows all the features of the modern members of the family, found in North America, suggesting it has evolved very little since the Jurassic period, Selden said. “The scimitar-shaped structure you notice out of the male is so distinctive,” he said. “Looking at modern ones, you think, well, it’s just a dead ringer.”

The findings also suggest this family of spiders, the Plectreuridae, was once much more widespread than it is today. Currently, the family has only been found living in California, Arizona, Mexico and Cuba. Yet 165 million years ago, they lived on a small continent called the North China Block.

“At some point something caused their range to contract to this part of southern North America,” Selden said. He speculates that changes in vegetation during an ice age or other climactic event wiped them out in other areas, “but they were still happy in these arid areas of the Southwest.”

Moths hitch a ride on jet streams to get to warmer climates

London: A new study has shown that migrating insects like moths can hitch a ride on favourable jet streams and adjust their flight direction to get to warmer climates.

According to a report in Nature News, the study used radar to track the movement of more than 100,000 noctuid moths, hawkmoths and butterflies as they migrated to northern Europe in the spring and south to the Mediterranean in autumn every year between 2000 and 2007.

Jason Chapman of Rothamsted Research, the agricultural research institute in Harpenden, UK, and his colleagues report that the insects can control the direction in which they fly, selecting the most favourable winds to maximize the distance they travel.

The team also found that insects tend to fly higher up, where the wind is fastest.

The silver Y noctuid moth, for example, flies 425 m above ground - higher than the top floor of the Empire State Building in New York.

How the moths detect these altitudes is still being studied, but sophisticated mechanisms that determine wind speed while they are flying help them to reach average speeds of 54 km an hour.

With an additional jet stream push from behind, they can achieve top speeds of up to 90 km an hour.

The moths seem to be able to detect the wind's direction and, using some sort of internal compass, correct their flight path.

These moths only take flight when winds are at least somewhat favourable - never flying across the wind or into it.

If winds don't completely align towards their destination, migrants can partially correct for that drift, keeping themselves on their preferred trajectory rather than simply being propelled downwind.

In spring, migration corresponded with the northward wind.

But in the autumn, migrants still arrived south even though the prevailing wind tended to blow eastward.
It is well known that migratory birds are able to control their flight direction, sometimes flying across the wind.
But because insects have a shorter lifespan than birds, they can't afford to waste time getting to their breeding grounds.

"Because insects fly slower than birds, they had to evolve a way to increase their speed. The way they've done this is to really exploit the wind," said Chapman.

"Insect migration was always thought to be a rather chancy process," said Chapman. "We show evidence that a wide range of insects exert quite a lot of control on their pathway and are not, in fact, at the wind's mercy," he added.

Fewer Honey Bee Colonies and Beekeepers Throughout Europe

Fewer Honey Bee Colonies and Beekeepers Throughout Europe


 (Feb. 5, 2010) — The number of bee colonies in Central Europe has decreased over recent decades. In fact, the number of beekeepers has been declining in the whole of Europe since 1985. This is the result of a study that has now been published by the International Bee Research Association, which for the first time has provided an overview of the problem of bee colony decline at the European level.

These are beekeepers and honey bees. (Credit: Peter Neumann)

Until now there had only been the reports from individual countries available. As other pollinators such as wild bees and hoverflies are also in decline, this could be a potential danger for pollinator services, on which many arable crops depend, according to what an international team of scientists have written in a special edition of the Journal of Apicultural Research.
In their investigation the researchers analysed data that was available from national beekeeper magazines and national reports, in order to calculate the total number of bee colonies and beekeepers. In this way the number of bee colonies between 1965 and 1985 could be reconstructed for 14 European countries and for 18 European countries between 1985 and 2005. The compilation provides us with a preliminary overview of the situation in Europe. It is not complete however, since for example France, Spain and some Eastern European EU countries are missing from it, as no suitable data could be procured for them. While in Europe and the USA the number of bee colonies has declined, the number on a worldwide scale is thought to have increased by approximately 45 percent over the last 50 years according to a 2009 report from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Unfortunately however this finding is of little use to the agrarian economy in Europe and the USA, for although honey can be imported as a product of the bees, this is not the case for the service provided by the bees -- namely pollination.

According to the analysis, the number of bee colonies has already been on the decline in Central and Western Europe since 1965.
Since 1985 this trend has also become apparent in countries such as the Czech Republic, Norway, the Slovak Republic and Sweden. By comparison, in the South of Europe (Greece, Italy and Portugal) the number of bee colonies increased between 1965 and 2005. In contrast however, the number of beekeepers decreased in all of the countries that were investigated.

Scientists assume the cause for this to be the social and economic changes over recent decades. Rising incomes of the rural population made other sugar-based products affordable, the replacement of jobs by machines in agriculture speeded up the rural exodus to urban regions and thus beekeeping as a hobby lost its attractiveness. "The price of treating bee diseases has increased to the extent that the cost of treatments may equal or exceed the income from a colony for an entire year, thus making it uneconomic to keep bees on a small scale," explains Dr. Simon G. Potts of the University of Reading in England. "Moreover, the effort for treating disease, in particular V. destructor, has probably also reduced the attractiveness of beekeeping as a hobby."
Through the investigation, the mystery of bee losses has by no means been solved, emphasize the scientists, who were however able to add another piece to the puzzle. Furthermore, the data would have to be interpreted very carefully because of the very different evaluation methods in individual countries. "With the limited evidence available it is neither possible to identify the actual driver of honey bee losses in Europe nor to give a complete answer on the trends for colonies and beekeepers. This obviously creates an urgent demand for a standardization of evaluation methods, especially on colony numbers. Such harmonized reliable methods will be the obvious backbone for any research to understand and mitigate honey bee colony losses," adds Dr. Josef Settele from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ).

The loss of pollinators such as bees, bumble bees and butterflies is one of the four pillars of the EU project ALARM. ALARM stands for "Assessing Large scale environmental Risks for biodiversity with tested Methods" and was the largest research project of the European Union in the field of biodiversity.

A new high-tech suction device could allow humans to walk on walls like Spider-Man or create adhesive devices that could be turned on and off with the flick of a switch.

The contraption, inspired by a beetle that can hold on to a leaf with a force 100 times its weight, uses the surface tension of water to make an adhesive bond, but it does so with a creative twist. It could be used to create sticky shoes or gloves, researchers said today.

The device consists of a flat top plate riddled with tiny holes, each just a few hundred microns (a millionth of a meter) wide. A bottom plate holds water. In between is a porous layer. A 9-volt battery powers an electric field that forces water to squeeze through the tiny holes in the top layer.

The surface tension of the exposed droplets makes the device grip another surface — much the way two pieces of wet glass stick together. Turn the electricity off, and the bond breaks.

"In our every day experience, these forces are relatively weak," explained Paul Steen, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Cornell University. "But if you make a lot of them and can control them, like the beetle does, you can get strong adhesion forces."

More work is needed to create a version of the device that would hold a human to the side of a building, however. One prototype has 1,000 holes and can hold about 30 grams, or roughly 70 paperclips. But tests showed that with more and smaller holes, a 1-inch square device could hold 15 pounds.

Another possible use would be covering the droplets with thin membranes, making the device exert outward pressure.

"You can think about making a credit card-sized device that you can put in a rock fissure or a door, and break it open with very little voltage," Steen said. "It's a fun thing to think about."

The device is detailed online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the National Science Foundation.

8 of 8 great bug-eating videos from around the world

Grasshoppers - Thailand


Thai Lady: "It's crunchy."

Director: "Like potato chips."

Thai Lady: "Yeah. Kind of."

Director: "$15 bucks and you got a whole meal here."
 
Enough said!
 

 

7 of 8 great bug-eating videos from around the world

Giant Waterbug - Thailand


This poor guy had no idea what he was in for. Is he crying? There's no crying in bug-eating!


Joanh Eats a Waterbug in Thailand - For more funny videos, click here

6 of 8 great bug-eating videos from around the world

Deep Fried Tarantula - Cambodia


"Eat your heart out." Looks kinda chewy if you ask me.


Eating a Spider - The funniest home videos are here

5 of 8 great bug-eating videos from around the world

Giant Mangrove Worms - Philippines


Giant worms pulled from trees... and I mean GIANT. Could you eat the whole thing?


Madventures Philippines - Mad Cook Meets Magrove Worms - Click here for more amazing videos

4 of 8 great bug-eating videos from around the world

Scorpions - China


"Kinda like eating an eyebrow," he says. This guy eats four of them!


Scorpions for Dinner in Beijing - Click here for funny video clips

3 of 8 great bug-eating videos from around the world

Large Crunchy Cockroaches - Thailand


These guys went looking for the "Bug Carts" in Bangkok. I'm not sure that'd be my first stop.


Eating Bugs In Bangkok - Funny bloopers are a click away

2 of 8 great bug-eating videos from around the world

Fresh Weevil Grubs - Amazon Jungle


Bear Grylls stars in this "Man vs Fresh Weevil Grub" clip. Oops, sorry for the squishy bits. Hope you didn't get squirted.


Man Vs Wild Bear Grylls - Bugs - Click here for more free videos

Cell Phone Radiation Cuts Alzheimer's... in Mice

Surprising Finding May Not Apply to Humans, Researchers Warn


Inveterate cell-phone addicts may feel that the devices help them to work smarter, and -- surprisingly -- they may be right.

Scandinavian study gives reassurance to cell phone users. If they're mice, that is.
In mice prone to an animal form of Alzheimer's disease, long-term exposure to electromagnetic radiation typical of cell phones slowed and reversed the course of the illness, according to Gary Arendash of the University of South Florida in Tampa and colleagues.
A similar exposure in normal mice -- for two hours a day over seven to nine months -- improved their cognitive abilities compared with controls, Arendash and colleagues said in the January issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, which is the research journal of the Alzheimer's Association.

The findings provide "striking evidence for both protective and disease-reversing effects" of long-term exposure to radiation at cell phone levels, Arendash and colleagues said.

"You just have to remember where you are in the mainstream -- right up at the head of it," said Bill Thies, chief medical and science officer of the Alzheimer's Association.

Thies told MedPage Today that the research needs to be repeated and confirmed, and various aspects of it need more study, before it's ready for prime time.

"This is no call for anyone to self-medicate," Thies said.
Other reactions to the study ranged from "interesting" to "nonsense."
Neurologist Dr. Alan Lerner of Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, said in an email the researchers took an "an innovative approach to modulating Alzheimer's disease models in mice."
But he said it's too early to say whether the finding have any relevance to humans.
Dr. Roger Brumback of Creighton University in Omaha, Neb. cautioned that even science published in reputable journals can turn out to be wrong, adding "extreme caution is necessary until this outcome has been confirmed independently in other laboratories."

Club soda: Fine for cocktails and stain removal, not for killing ants

State entomologists have been trying to stomp the club-soda-kills-fire-ants myth for years, and they say they're having about as much success as, well, using club soda on fire ants.

“This information has been floating around on the Internet since 2007, but seemed to regain momentum starting in December of last year,” said Wizzie Brown, a Texas AgriLife Extension Service integrated pest management program specialist in Travis County.

The pitch in the widely circulated e-mail is that club soda, a popular kitchen-cabinet stain remover, is an “environmentally friendly” way to kill a fire ant mound. All it takes is two cups and the ants are gone, the theory being that carbon dioxide from the club soda displaces oxygen and suffocates the bugs.

“What it doesn't say is that the treatment is ineffective, unless you happen to drown a few fire ants in the process,” said Brown, who has tested club soda among other fire ant home remedies.

“Long story short, it didn't work,” she said. “Observations and statistics from the trial showed no evidence of any type of control as a result. Pouring club soda onto a fire ant mound did not lead to the ants dying a horrendous death; it did, however, produce lots of impressive bubbling action.”

"Knowing the pest control industry like I do..If club soda really worked, a new pest product would be created and marketed as something like "Ant-Away CS" (Club Soda). It would be in all of the major hardware type stores and have an expensive price tag. By the way, grits do not work either!  ~  Jim

FDA finds roaches too numerous to count at airline caterer's kitchen

Maybe it's a good thing that most airline flights no longer include meals? The FDA found live and dead roaches as well as listeria bacteria during a recent inspection of the LSG Sky Chefs airline food preparation facility by the Denver airport. The company was warned by the federal agency that they could be barred from providing food to airlines in Denver if they didn't quickly correct the situation.

LSG is owned by German airline Lufthansa and has 43 airline catering kitchen around the United States, including one at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. The company provides in-flight meals to 300 airlines worldwide including Delta, American, US Airways, Icelandair and United at MSP. Continental is only major U.S. to still provide meals to all passengers on select meal-time flights. LSG is not contracted to provide meals to Continental's passengers. LSG, in addition to providing first and business class meals, prepares meals that are sold in-flight by cabin attendants.

The general manager and executive chef in Denver were fired and LSG has taken the findings very seriously. The FDA letter to LSG noted that inspectors found live and dead roaches "too numerous to count" in several kitchen locations. They also reported that at least 40 live insects were found in the silverware station. To make matters even worse, the FDA inspectors found kitchen staff handling food with their bare hands and dirty gloves.

LSG's spokesperson said they haven't received any reports of ill airline passengers but are taking very aggressive action to ensure that they pass the follow-up FDA inspection this coming week.

In recent months there have been other reports of dirty kitchen facilities at airline terminals as well. The best suggestions? Eat at home before you head to the airport, bring food with you that you know comes from a clean environment or eat after you arrive at your destination. Considering that airport food is over-priced and not very good, avoidance may just be the best course to follow.

Be prepared for the next low budget cinematic block buster, "Roaches On The Plane" ~ Jim

New Primitive Dinosaur Used Claws to Hunt Termites

Sometime in 2004, the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in China provided experts with the fossilized remains of a dinosaur that could not be cataloged. At that time, experts who had seen it had proposed that the creature was part of a new species, and their predictions eventually turned out to be true. The animal was named Haplocheirus sollers (“simple, skillful hand”), and its major traits were subject to rigorous analysis. As this was done, experts learned a great deal about this small lizard.

For one, its body was covered in feathers, but its teeth were long and serrated. According to the investigators, it may be that the animals also used their claws to basically hunt termites out of their nests, which would make it one of the first animals ever to do so. The fossil, which endured for more than 160 million years, is believed to have belonged to an individual that was at least 7 feet long (2 meters) and weighed roughly 33 pounds (15 kg). The team investigating these bones also concluded that the creature was a member of the peculiar-looking, feathered dinosaur group Alvarezsauridae.

George Washington University investigator Jonah Choiniere, who was a researcher on the new study, says that the earliest proof that Alvarezsauridae existed came from fossils that were “only” 85 million years old. One of the defining traits for these animals was their short, stubby arms, and also the fact that they only had a single large claw on their hands, flanked by several that were considerably smaller “Haplocheirus is a transitional fossil, because it shows an early evolutionary step in how the bizarre hands of later alvarezsaurs evolved from earlier predatory dinosaurs,” Choiniere explains, quoted by LiveScience.

It is additionally believed that these animals were proficient termite eaters. One of the things that lead scientists to believe that is the shape and size of the animals' teeth, which seem very similar to those of modern anteaters. “When the alvarezsauroids were initially discovered only about 15 years ago the prevailing hypothesis was that they were birds – a lineage within birds that had lost flight ability. And so what Haplocheirus shows is really that alvarezsauroids are not birds, but it pushes them further down the evolutionary tree,” the expert concludes.