Terms for Groups of Animals

Anyone who spends a lot of time outdoors enjoying Nature no doubt spots many animals.  Here is a list of what groups of various critters are called:

A congress of baboons. (How appropriate!)

A herd of deer.

A pace of donkeys. 

A shrewdness of apes.

An army of ants.

The team of horses. 

A pack of wolves. 

A nest of rabbits.

A battery of barracudas.

A cete of badgers. 

A flock of sheep. 

A pod of whales. 

A sloth of bears. 

A quiver of cobras.

A band of jays.

A shiver of sharks.

A surfeit of skunks.

A drove of bullocks. 

A glint of goldfish. 

A colony of gulls. 

A swarm of bees.

A shoal of bass. 

A convocation of eagles.

A pride of lions.

A cloud of bats.

A sedge of bitterns. 

A brace of ducks. 

A dray of squirrels.

A pandemonium of parrots.

A pulchritude of peacocks.

A squadron of pelicans.

An obstinacy of buffalo. (Very true if you’ve ever been stopped by a bison-jam in Yellowstone National park!) 

A nest of vipers.

A coterie of prairie dogs.

A prickle of porcupines.

A gaze of raccoons.

A hill of ruffs.

A kaleidoscope of butterflies. 

A wake of buzzards. 

A clutter of cats.

A brace of mallards.

A charm of magpies.

A stud of mares.

A leap of leopards.

A singular of wild boar. 

A kindle of kittens. 

A drift of cattle.

A kine of cows.

A pitying of turtle doves.

A clash of bucks.

A chattering of chicks.

A ballet of swans.

A knot of toads.

A rafter of turkeys.

A dole of turtles.

A blessing of unicorns.

A pail of wasps.

A chime of wrens.

A descent of woodpeckers.

a gam of whales.

A wisdom of wombats.

A dazzle of zebras.

A bed of clams.

A brood of chickens. 

A mischief of mice.

A rout of coyotes.

A parade of elephants.

A bouquet of peasants (in flight.)

A cast of crabs.

A chain of bobolinks. 

A flight of pigeons. 

A mob of meercats.

A parliament of owls.

A raft of otters.

A herd of zebras. 

A school of fish. 

A congregation of crocodiles.

A cowardice of curs.

A trip of dotterel.

A wedge of geese (when flying in a "V “formation.) 

A troop of kangaroos. 

A covey of quail. 

A passel of opossums. 

A smack of jellyfish. 

A colony of beavers.

A bike of bees.

A slither of snakes.

A murmuration of starlings.

A fever of starlings.

A lamentation of swans.

A cloud of tadpoles.

Feline Factoids

-- Whiskers are twice as thick as ordinary hairs and their roots are three times deeper.

-- Kittens in the womb grow whiskers before body hair.

-- Cat ears can rotate 180 degrees to funnel sound into ear canals.

-- They can purring during inhalation, exhalation, and vocalizing.



-- They have 5 more spinal vertebrae than humans (30 vs. 25).

-- When walking or running, they step with both left legs and then both right legs (only camels and giraffes also do this.)



-- Their foot pad skin is 70 times thicker than skin elsewhere.

-- Tabby refers to a coat pattern -- with stripes on the necks, legs, and tails and spots on the bellies -- and doesn't refer to a color.

from Cat Fancy, May 2010 issue

91% of Americans use wireless phones!

CTIA - The Wireless Association (originally known as the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association) released the results of its semi-annual survey of US wireless carriers for the last half of 2009, revealing that over 285 million Americans are mobile subscribers, about 91 percent of the total population, up 15 million over the same time last year.

I find that number astounding -- 91%!

Furthermore, those 285 million callers used 1.12 trillion minutes of talk time in the last half of 2009, up 3.4 percent of the same period in 2008. That breaks down to an average of 6.1 billion minutes used per day, or about 21 minutes per person per day.

Wireless service revenues totaled $77 billion for the last half of the year, up slightly from last year. But the real growth is coming from wireless data services—mobile Web, text messages, and other non-voice services. In the latter half of last year, revenue for wireless data service totaled over $22 billion, nearly a third of overall wireless services revenue and up 26 percent year-over-year.

The survey revealed that 257 million "data-capable" devices are active on US carriers' networks. However, roughly 50 million of those are smartphones capable of more advanced wireless services and another 12 million are 3G-enabled laptops.

CTIA didn't reveal specific numbers on data use, but it did reveal that Americans traded 822 billion text messages—5 billion per day—for the second half of 2009, and over 1.5 trillion for the whole year. MMS messaging is more than double year-over-year for the last half of 2009, with 24.2 billion photos, videos, and audio clips moving from one mobile phone to another in just six months.

During a keynote presentation at the CTIA conference yesterday, AT&T Mobility CEO and current CTIA chairman Ralph de la Vega also said that the US is tops globally in a number of categories, including number of 3G subscribers, number of smartphones activated, and number of mobile applications purchased.

Adapted from an article by Chris Foresman

Random Facts #24

The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as a substitute for blood plasma.



No piece of paper can be folded in half more than seven (7) times. 



Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty (50) years of age or older.



The magnetic North Pole changes position by about 20 feet a day.

The Romans ate fried canaries.

An elephant can throw a baseball faster than a human.

In medieval England, beer was often served with breakfast.

If you keep a goldfish in a dark room, it will eventually turn white.

The number one cause of blindness in the United States is diabetes.

The longest recorded sneezing fit lasted 978 days.

Random Facts #23

Things that happen every 60 seconds on Earth

• 2,000 thunderstorms occur.
• 45 million gallons of water go over Niagara Falls.
• 2,271 working satellites orbit Earth.
• A hair grows 0.00027 inch.
• 954 camera phones are sold.
• 15,000 gallons of air are inhaled by a blue whale.
• 21,000 pizzas are baked.
• 180 Barbies are sold.
• 115 soccer balls are made -- and 61 of them are in Pakistan.

Post Number 1000!

No big deal -- just noticed this post was a big round number! 1000 in 2 years, 5 months. It's been fun sharing my adventures, even when no one reads them. (Gee, I just sounded like Julie in "Julie and Julia.")

Random Facts #22

Oregon has the most ghost towns of any state.

Only male turkeys gobble. Females make a clicking sound.

You are more likely to get attacked by a cow than a shark.

The largest cell in the human body is the female reproductive cell, the ovum. The smallest is the male sperm.

In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders.

The Statue of Liberty's fingernails weigh about 100 pounds each.

The average life span of a taste bud is 10 days

Side by side, two thousand cells from the human body could cover about one square inch

An average human loses about 200 head hairs per day

Emus cannot walk backward.

It is estimated that the Pentagon spent $50 million on Viagra for American troops and veterans in 1999.

About 3.9 percent of all American women say they never wear underwear.

In the Netherlands, a recent trend is having tiny jewels implanted directly into the eye.

Baboons cannot throw overhand.

Michael Sangster, who played in the 1960s, had tennis' fastest serve, once clocked at 154 miles per hour.

Random Facts #21

• Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2-6 years of age.
• The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
• You’re more likely to be a target for mosquitoes if you consume bananas.
• The most common non-contagious disease in the world is tooth decay.
• Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.
• Arachibutyrophobia is the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.
• In ancient Egypt, priests plucked every hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
• Sound carries so well in the arctic that, on a calm day, a conversation can be heard from 1.8 miles away.
• The Eiffel Tower shrinks 6 inches in winter.
• In ancient Egypt, killing a cat was a crime punishable by death.

Duct Tape and WD-40

Two great inventions are duct tape and WD-40. If something moves and isn't supposed to, use the duct tape. If it is supposed to move but doesn't, use WD-40. Here's a list of some of the other things WD-40 has been used for:

~Protects silver from tarnishing
~Cleans and lubricates guitar strings
~Gets oil spots off concrete driveways
~Gives floors that 'just-waxed' sheen without making it slippery (a little goes a long way)
~Keeps flies off cows
~Restores and cleans chalkboards
~Removes lipstick stains
~Loosens stubborn zippers
~Untangles jewelry chains
~Removes stains from stainless steel sinks
~Removes dirt and grime from the barbecue grill
~Keeps ceramic/terra cotta garden pots from oxidizing
~Removes tomato stains from clothing
~Keeps glass shower doors free of water spots. If yours is plastic, it works just as well as glass.
~Camouflages scratches in ceramic and marble floors
~Keeps scissors working smoothly
~Lubricates noisy door hinges on vehicles and doors in homes
~Gives a children's play gym slide a shine for a super fast slide
~Lubricates gear shift and mower-deck lever for ease of handling on riding mowers
~Rids rocking chairs and swings of squeaky noises
~Lubricates tracks in sticking home windows and makes them easier to open
~Spraying an umbrella stem makes it easier to open and close
~Restores and cleans padded leather dashboards and vinyl bumpers
~Restores and cleans roof racks on vehicles
~Lubricates and stops squeaks in electric fans
~Lubricates wheel sprockets on tricycles, wagons, and bicycles for easy handling
~Lubricates fan belts on washers and dryers and keeps them running smoothly
~Keeps rust from forming on saws and saw blades, and other tools
~Removes splattered grease on stove
~Shines stovetops
~Keeps bathroom mirror from fogging
~Lubricates prosthetic limbs
~Keeps pigeons off the balcony
~Removes all traces of duct tape
~Relieve arthritis pain in arms, hands, and knees
~Cleans and removes love bugs from grills and bumpers
~Protects the Statue of Liberty from the elements.
~WD-40 attracts fish. Spray a LITTLE on live bait or lures and you will be catching the big one in no time.
~Keeps away chiggers on the kids

Million Words in the English Language?

(from CNN) English contains more words than any other language on the planet and will add its millionth word early Wednesday, according to the Global Language Monitor, a Web site that uses a math formula to estimate how often words are created.

The Global Language Monitor says the millionth word will be added to English on Wednesday. The site estimates the millionth word will be added Wednesday at 5:22 a.m. Its live ticker counted 999,985 English words as of early Tuesday evening.

The "Million Word March," however, has made the man who runs this word-counting project somewhat of a pariah in the linguistic community. Some linguists say it's impossible to count the number of words in a language because languages are always changing, and because defining what counts as a word is a fruitless endeavor.

Paul J.J. Payack, president and chief word analyst for the Global Language Monitor, says he doesn't include all new words in his count. Words must make sense in at least 60 percent of the world to be official, he said. And they must make sense to different communities of people. A new technology term that's only understood in Silicon Valley wouldn't count as a mainstream word, he said.

His computer models check a total of 5,000 Web sites, dictionaries, scholarly publications and news articles to see how frequently words are used, he said. A word must make 25,000 appearances to be deemed legitimate.

Payack said news events have also fueled the rapid expansion of English, which he said has more words than any other language. Mandarin Chinese comes in second with about 450,000 words, he said.

English terms like "Obamamania," "defriend," "wardrobe malfunction," "zombie banks," "shovel ready" and "recessionista" all have grown out of recent news cycles about the presidential election, economic crash, online networking or a sports event, he said. Other languages might not have developed new terms to deal with such phenomena, he said.

Language experts who spoke with CNN said they disapprove of Payack's count, but they agree that English generally has more words than most, if not all, languages.

"This is stuff that you just can't count," said Jesse Sheidlower, editor at large of the Oxford English Dictionary. "No one can count it, and to pretend that you can is totally disingenuous. It simply can't be done." The Oxford English Dictionary has about 600,000 entries, Sheidlower said. But that by no means includes all words, he said.

Linguists and lexicographers run into further complications when trying to count words that are spelled one way but can have several meanings, said Allan Metcalf, an English professor at MacMurray College in Illinois, and an officer at the American Dialect Society. "The word bear, b-e-a-r -- is that two words or one, for example? You have a noun that's a wild creature and then you have b-e-a-r, which means to bear left or to bear right, and there's many other things," he said. "So you really can't be exact about a millionth word."

Payack said he doesn't consider his to be the definitive count, just an interesting estimation based on set criteria he has helped develop. "It's always an estimation," he said. "It's like the height of Mount Everest is an estimation. The height of Mount Everest has changed five times in my lifetime because as we get better tools, the estimates get better."

Trivia #3

1. Which city hosted the coldest Super Bowl football game on record?

New Orleans, in 1972. The temperature at kickoff time in Tulane Stadium was 39 degrees. The game, Super Bowl VI, saw the Dallas Cowboys trounce the Miami Dolphins, 24-3. The Louisiana Superdome opened three years later.

2. A group of lions is called a pride; a group of locusts, a plague—but what is a group of rattlesnakes called?

A rhumba.

3. Which is the only state in the United States bordered by two navigable rivers? Clue: The rivers are the Missouri and the Mississippi.

Iowa. The Mississippi is on its eastern border; the Missouri, on its western border.

4. What famous author makes an uncredited cameo appearance—dressed in a white three-piece suit—in the 1977 Woody Allen film Annie Hall?

Truman Capote. When Capote appears, Allen (as character Alvy Singer) is making fun of people in Central Park and remarks, “Here comes the winner of the Truman Capote look-alike contest.”

5. What country has a young princess who was named after the fictional Princess Leia of Star Wars fame?



Norway. In 2005, Norway’s Princess Martha Louise, noting that she was a big Star Wars fan, named her second child Leah. She didn’t explain why she opted for a different spelling of the name Leia.



6. When it comes to animals, what are the nyala, the bongo, the tsessebe, and the sitatunga?

Antelopes—all native to Africa.



7. What is now located on the site of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968?

The National Civil Rights Museum, which was established to tell the story of the American civil rights movement.

8. What do the different colored twist ties and tags on packaged loaves of bread indicate?

The day the bread is delivered to local stores. Fresh bread is usually delivered five days a week. Although colors may vary according to region or manufacturer, most bakeries start with blue on Monday, and continue through the week alphabetically with green on Tuesday, red on Thursday, white on Friday, and yellow on Saturday.

9. What is the highest price ever paid by the United States for a territorial acquisition?

$25 million—for the Virgin Islands, which were purchased from Denmark in 1917 at the outset of World War I, when U.S. control of the Panama Canal and the Caribbean Basin was considered crucial.

10. How did the tiny town of Why, Arizona, get its name?

From the Y-shaped intersection of two interstate highways that passed through it.


(from Page-A-Day Calendars)

Panhandles

Having just spent several days mountain biking on Florida's Panhandle, I got to wondering how many such "panhandles" there are in the United States. What's your guess? I mentally counted six.

First, I guess we should review what a "panhandle" is. This folksy term derives from its similarity to the handle on a cooking pan and the term is generally confined to the United States. Paraphrasing the entry in Wikipedia: A panhandle is similar to a peninsula in shape, but unlike a peninsula it is not surrounded by water on three sides, but rather is a land region surrounded on three sides by land regions not of the same jurisdiction.

So how many are there in the USA? The answer is 10 -- Alaska, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Maryland, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Eastern West Virginia, and Northern West Virginia. Here's a map to demonstrate:



So, how many did you get?

Building the International Space Station

The Space Station has been NASA's major project for over a decade. Here's the current configuration (click to enlarge)...



...but for perspective, view the step-by-step addition of modules over the years (courtesy of USA Today) as found in the animation here.

Random Facts #20

1. If you were to spell out numbers, you would have to go until the number one thousand before you would find the letter "A."

2. An elephant can throw a baseball faster than a human.

3. If you keep a goldfish in a dark room, it will eventually turn white.

4. You’re more likely to be a target for mosquitoes if you consume bananas.

5. The most common non-contagious disease in the world is tooth decay.

6. The walking catfish can live on land.

7. The roar we hear when we place a seashell by our ear is just the sound of our own blood surging through ear veins.

8. Oklahoma is the state with the highest populations of Native Americans, but it has no Indian Reservations.

9 If you head directly south from Detroit, the first foreign country you will enter is Canada.

10. The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum. 


Random Facts #19

• Isn't it interesting how the word "politics" is made up of 'poli' - "many" in Greek, and 'tics', as in bloodsucking creatures?
• It is important to watch what you eat. Otherwise, how are you going to get it in your mouth?
• Do not underestimate your abilities -- that is your boss's job.
• Truth endures; a lie is a momentary illusion that ends up a
  trap filled with burdens.
• An optimist is a person who starts a crossword puzzle with a pen.
• To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.
• As you approach one of life’s roadblocks, look both ways.
• The deepest feelings always show themselves in silence.
• An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth just makes for a bunch of blind toothless people.
• Gossip columnists are the spies of life.

Rubik's Cube..

...is widely considered to be the world's best-selling toy. Invented in 1974 by Erno Rubik, a Hungarian architecture professor and sculptor, the cube has six faces -- each face comprising 9 red, white blue, orange, green, or yellow colored squares. Each face turns independently utilizing a pivot, thus mixing up the colors. For the puzzle to be solved, each face must be a solid color.



Between 1980-82, over 100 million cubes were sold, and it is said that 1 in 3 households in the Western Hemisphere possess one. By 2009, over 350 million cubes had been sold worldwide, making it the world's best-selling toy ever. Its sales also were credited with helping the Hungarian economy out of Communism in the 1980s.

There are exactly 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different positions (over forty-three quintillion) yet speed-cubers can solve it in as little as 11 seconds. Here's a video of one way to solve the puzzle, and here are written directions for solving it, including a PDF you can download.


Back in the '80s, I purchased a small pamphlet which provided a format for solving the puzzle. I memorized the steps, practiced a bunch, and was able to solve it in under 3 minutes and I thought that was really good! But "Speed cubers" try to set world records as fastest solver of the cube. The record I have seen posted is a mere 11 seconds! Of course, some speed-cubers have to put their own personal touch on the record, so they solve it while blindfolded, spending about 1 minute memorizing the unsolved cube that was handed to them, and in another minute, while blindfolded, they solve the cube. Still others solve it while underwater on one breath, solve it one-handed, solve it using chopsticks, solve it while drunk, solve it while free-falling from a plane, or solve it with their feet.

Here's what a cube looks like in pieces...



Other versions of the traditional 3X3 cube include 4X4, 5X5, and even a 20X20 cube. Here's how a cube is assembled.

But be warned if you try to emulate these Rubik's aficionados, because "Cubist thumb" and "Rubik's wrist" are documented medical conditions that can be incurred by addicts. And if your addiction gets too extreme, there of course is C.A. -- Cuber' Anonymous to assist you!

More info for those so inclined can be found in Wikipedia.

Random facts #18

1. During eight years of Seinfeld, Cosmo Kramer went through Jerry Seinfeld's apartment door 284 times.
2. Clouds fly higher during the day than at night.
3. The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven is $16,400.
4. The youngest pope was eleven years old.
5. Most lipsticks contain fish scales.
6. Tom Cruise had attended fifteen schools by the time he was fourteen.
7. The average number of people airborne over the U.S. in any given hour is 61,000.
8. In medieval England, beer was often served with breakfast.
9. In all three 'Godfather' films, when you see oranges, there is a death (or very close call) coming up soon.
10. Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.



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Wind chill factor

With the premature cold snap across Chicago and much of the rest of the country, the media weathermen are again talking about wind chill factor and its impact on cars and other non-human things.

I had always believed that wind chill only referred to evaporation of moisture from exposed skin, and had no effect on machinery and metal and such, so I did some research years back. The World Book Encyclopedia (1996 edition) says wind chill factor is "the estimate of the relationship between wind speed and temperature, with respect to the physical effects of the wind on living things."

The New Encyclopedia Brittanica says wind chill can be "expressed by a formula K=(10.45+10 (square root of v-v)) (33-t) where K is the heat in kilogram calories lost by one square meter of SKIN in one hour..."

Furthermore, the physics teachers at the high school where I taught all agreed, stating further that "the average temperature of the air is as cold as an object can become."

The Wikipedia entry agrees, stating "Wind chill is the apparent temperature felt on exposed skin, which is a function of the air temperature and wind speed." It adds later, "A wind-chill factor of 25° F (−4 °C) will not freeze water if the air temperature is 35° F (2 °C). Water changes state according to the temperature of the body of the water. In this case, the water and air temperature are about the same—too high to freeze water."

NOAA's National Weather Service in 2001 implemented an updated Windchill Temperature (WCT) index based on a human face model, incorporating modern heat transfer theory (heat loss from the body to its surroundings, during cold and breezy/windy days), lowered the calm wind threshold to 3 mph, and used a consistent standard for skin tissue resistance. (Click to enlarge.)




So use of wind chill by TV/weather reporters is useful to let people know they should put on more clothes and take other precautions in extremely cold weather, but should not be used by the reporters (or received and interpreted by listeners) as hype regarding the effect of the cold on car engines, etc.

Random facts #17

1. The world’ highest railroad is the Central Railway in Peru which climbs to 15,694 feet in Galera Tunnel on the way to Machu Picchu.
2. Snakes are immune to their own poison.
3. Davis Achison was President of the USA for just one day in 1849, and he spent most of the day sleeping.
4. Prince Charles and Price William never travel on the same airplane just in case there is a crash.
5. The Neanderthal Man’s brain was bigger than modern man’s.
6. 40 people are sent to hospital for dog bites every minute.
7. The poison-arrow frog has enough poison to kill about 2200 people.
8. In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
9. In 4000 BC Egypt, men and women wore glitter eye shadow made from the crushed shells of beetles.
10. Butterflies taste with their feet.

$700 billion bailout plan...

For over 30 years, Illinois" Everett Dirksen served as US Representative and then Senator, and 40-plus years ago he was quoted as cautioning that federal spending had a way of getting out of control, saying “A billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."

Time magazine on October 6, 2008 put the bailout/rescue plan amount in perspective, saying that with $700 billion you could:

• Give every person in the US $2300, or very household $6200
• Pay the income taxes of every American who makes under $500,000 a year
• Fully fund the Defense, Treasury, State, Veterans Affairs, and Interior Departments next year -- as well as NASA
• Buy gasoline for every car in the US for 16 months
• Buy every NFL, NBA, and Major League Baseball team, build them all a new stadium, and pay all the players $191 million each for a year
• Create the 17th largest economy in the world, roughly equal to the Netherlands
• Or pay off only 7% of our national debt of $9.8 trillion