Now why on earth world you want to do that?
I’m catching up on PVRd episodes of Grand Designs, but that’s not what I mean by the title. I mean that – according to Pop Mech – you could become a (citizen) scientist.
It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, but it does beat working in an office.*
* terms and conditions apply
“The following scenarios may be upsetting to young children. Reader discretion is advised.”
A couple of years ago, I wrote about Taiji and the dolphin hunt. In that post, I had a bit of a go at certain organisations which sought to ban the local population from carrying out their centuries old way of life, simply because of some misguided, emotional attachment to one mammal above another. Many other people have written – and continue to write – about Taiji and the dolphin hunt, but, it seems, few from my point of view. Things were thrown, people got angry and I even got some swear words sent to me in an email.
What I didn’t realise then was that something far more sinister was going on under the surface (so to speak). These human organisations are merely dolphin sympathizers, double agents preparing and softening up mankind for the inevitable Dolphin Apocalypse. I learned this from the very informative website, Anti-Dolphin.org, which opened my eyes to the horrifying and previously unconsidered threat to our very existence that lies beneath our oceans.
Dolphins control 70% of the Earth’s surface, including many major rivers. How can one say this? Well, it is a fact that the majority of Earth’s surface is covered by water, 70% to be precise. Dolphins, of course, live in the ocean and they even admit that they are the kings of the sea in the theme song to Flipper.
Also they control the rivers because there is a group of animals known as river dolphins that are related to the better known group of ocean-dwelling dolphins. These animals do, in fact, share similar policies and values and are allied publicly. A good analogy for this situation is the following: ocean-dwelling dolphins are to river dolphins like Nazi Germany is to Fascist Italy.
Yes. Suddenly, it all becomes clear, doesn’t it? The dolphins, who already have intellectual (bigger brains) and territorial – well, aquatorial – advantage over the human race are surely just waiting for the perfect moment (many of these scenarios are listed here and make harrowing reading) to strike and take full control of the planet.
Dolphins do have the ability to attack and destroy humans. One of these abilities is that they can use the sonar waves that they use in echolocation for more devious purposes. Since ultrasound can be used to breakup kidney stones it is very obvious that dolphins have the capacity to emit certain types of sound waves from their melon to destroy particles in a human body.
or:
They could use this ability to loosen large chunks of ice from the poles and create icebergs. (Titanic?) These icebergs melt as they travel through warm water. This will add more water to the oceans and cause coastal flooding. Dolphins will then gain more and more control of the Earth’s surface.
At first, I too was skeptical. But when you are open-minded enough to step back and take in the bigger picture, it’s abundantly clear that we have been repeated lied to and fed pro-dolphin propaganda throughout our developing years.
Why else would SeaWorld, Green Peace, The Wild Dolphin Project, The Dolphin Institute, Blue Dolphin Alliance, and the Miami Dolphins be created? They all are designed to be aides for the dolphin’s control. These cult-like businesses/organizations try to make you feel bad for the dolphins and they attempt to get you involved with their manipulative cause.
And you can add the devious Sea Shepherd to that list as well. Presumably, they believe that their interference in the human/dolphin situation in Taiji will buy them some sort of amnesty when the dolphins finally rise up and conquer mankind. But even a fool can surely see that the dolphins cannot be trusted and once they have enslaved or killed the rest of the human race, these sorry traitors will soon follow. (And I think all us rational human beings would fully support the dolphins in that act, at least.)
For too long, we have lived our lives oblivious to the insidious threat of the Dolphin Apocalypse. No longer.
Friends, Romans, Countrymen; lend me your ears, because you have ears!
You have opposable thumbs!
You stand upright and tall.
YOU ARE HUMAN!
Do not be a sleeping partner in the dolphins’ evil plan. Spread the word and when the day comes, let us be prepared to fight for the 30% of this planet that we still control!
Viva, Mankind! Viva! Amandla!
Just to keep you inquisitive people who keep asking if we’re still on for a few flakes of the white stuff on Table Mountain tomorrow night, in the loop – and if you’re in Cape Town today, then you’ll readily believe anything the weather has to throw at us – here’s an update.
Following on from this post which compared the frankly ludicrous claims of mountain-forecast.com – it’s a weather forecast site for mountains, innit? – with those more reasonable efforts of windguru and weathersa, we need to tell you right now that the whole snow on Table Mountain thing IS STILL POSSIBLE.
What we’re looking for is temperatures below 2°C at 1000m or below, together with forecasted precipitation. That, plus that will likely equal snow. And here’s the graph that matters:
Yeah. If you thought today was cold, you’d be right, but it’s only going to get colder when tomorrow comes around.
The blue line marks the height above sea level (in metres) at which you’ll experience an air temperature of 0°C. Looking at the contours just below that, you can see that the altitude at which we’ll have 2°C temperatures dips about as low as 800m during Thursday night and Friday morning. Add in cloudy skies and a (current) forecast of about 7-8mm of precipitation and all the ingredients are there.
As things stand right now, your best plan is to wrap up VERY warmly and head for the Cableway early on Friday morning.
Book online to save time and money. Avoid awkward allegations of sexism by making a snowperson. Avoiding awkward allegations of racism will be more difficult, because snow is previously advantaged.
UPDATE: Wednesday afternoon – here’s the latest news
OMG! OMG! OMG! Yes! OMG!
Well, that’s what Facebook says anyway.
The thing is, everyone is going bonkers over a single forecast from mountain-forecast.com, which appears to be the ANN7 of weather forecasting websites:
As you can see, they’re suggesting a total of 9 cm of snow (those red numbers) on Wednesday and Thursday nights, and they say:
Our advanced weather models allow us to provide distinct weather forecasts for several elevations of Table Mountain.
Te one above is distinctly their best guess for 1087m elevation – which is about as high as Table Mountain is. So there you go.
However, other more reputable sites, such as windguru.cz and weathersa.co.za are merely predicting much coldness and rain for the Mother City.
But before you get all depressed at the prospect of having no snow on Table Mountain again, just like there wasn’t last summer as well, there may actually be a glimmer of hope at the end of the Cableway.
And that’s because even windguru is suggesting that there will be light precipitation over Cape Town on Thursday evening AND they’re saying that it’ll be 0°C at about 1000m elevation as well:
While it is a myth that it actually needs to be 0°C for snow to fall (actually, precipitation generally falls as snow below 2°C) this is certainly cold enough for snow on the summit of Table Mountain to be a possibility this week.
The last snowfall on the mountain was in August 2011.
Break out the skis and the snowshoes. And someone please warn Instagram to get some extra servers on the go.
This could be serious.
Not just any microbiology news – Naegleria fowleri microbiology news.
Not heard of Naegleria fowleri? Not under its technical name* perhaps, but you will probably recognise its alter ego:
Yes. Naegleria fowleri is the BRAIN-EATING AMOEBA! It’s an amoeba… that eats your brain.
And it’s catchy (the bug, not the name):
Fascinating. Naegleria doesn’t discriminate. Next it’ll be infecting black people and white people and everything. (You’ve been warned.)
But N.fowleri is behind the times with its gastronomical preferences. Streptococcus pyogenes was making headlines long ago. Don’t recall it? How about if I told you that it was actually called THE DEADLY FLESH EATING BUG?
And – kerching, light bulb moment – suddenly you know.
But did you know that you can save yourself from certain death by being obese? Yes, really.
Then there are our Extended Spectrum Beta-Lactamase Producers and Vancomycin Resistant Enterococci. Too technical again?
These are the “proper terms” for SUPERBUGS that are going to kill us all.
I always smirk when I read these sort of descriptions and headlines, but there is an important point here: putting things into layman’s terms raises awareness. It makes them accessible to the common person. (There is perhaps a case to be made for maybe dumbing them down and sentionalising them a little less though.)
Ain’t nobody going to read an article on Sky News entitled “Patient with Naegleria fowleri cerebral infection remains capable of conversation”.
But stick in a bit of brain-eating and suddenly everyone’s a fan.
Viva microbiology! Viva!
* or its ‘name’ as we microbiologists refer to it.