My Science School

Humans don’t, but some insects sure do. While some bugs drink blood, certain species of moths, bees, and butterflies drink tears. To them, tears are tasty and nutritious, filled with minerals and salts that they need to survive. Most of these “lacryphagous” insects sip the tears of mammals – even humans! Researchers around the world have also seen bees and butterflies slurping liquid from the eyes of alligators and crocodiles, who don’t seem to mind sharing their tears.

 

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Friends (or foes) who express phony sadness to gain sympathy are said “crocodile tears.” The expression is an old one, based on the myth that alligators and crocodiles cry when they devour their victims. Crocodiles do indeed cry when they eat, but scientists are stumped by the cause. Some researchers suspect that the hissing noises crocodiles make while eating unclogs their sinuses and turns on the waterworks. Saltwater crocodiles, meanwhile, cry to purge excess salt.

So then, while the crocodile eats, any drops of water that result from it "crying" would be ones of insincerity; its tears would not be from genuine sadness. So a comparison is drawn—when someone is displaying feelings of sorrow that are thought to be insincere, or if they are fake crying about something, then their tears are like that of a crocodile. Hence, they are said to be shedding 'crocodile tears.'

 

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When someone (for instance, an older relative) seems stubborn about learning something new (say, how to turn on a computer), he or she might shrug and use this tired expression. And when that person does, clue him or her in to this fact: With the proper training, even stubborn breeds of mutts can learn to heel, sit, and roll over well into their golden years. 

Golden people to change their habits or acquire new skills is impossible. puppies are teachable, but older dogs are less apt to be able to be trained, or so popular wisdom had it. by the same token, an octogenarian who has read the morning newspaper for decades is unlikely to be willing, much less eager, to switch to the online edition.

 

 

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It’s strategy stolen from ostriches, which supposedly nudge their noggins into the ground to avoid danger. When people would rather not face a threatening situation or awful reality, they’re said to have their heads in the sand. The expression has just one problem (well, two problems if you consider it unhealthy to hide from reality): It’s based on a myth. Ostriches don’t really stick their heads in the sand. They do drop down and press their necks against the ground to hide from threats, but they keep their heads out so they can see what’s going on.

 

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It is a familiar sensation to anyone who has faced a pop quiz, given a speech in front of classmates, or asked a special someone on a date. Your mouth goes dry, your palms get wet with sweat, your heart goes pitter-patter, and your stomach starts to flutter (hence the expression). Of course, you don’t really have a butterfly bouncing around in your belly. These uneasy feelings are your body’s natural reaction to dangerous or stressful situations – a reaction known as the fight-or-flight response. Your brain triggers the release of chemicals that increase the circulation in your stomach and causes the fluttery effect. It’s your body’s way of getting ready to fight or flee a threat – a holdover from when your ancestors had to contend with saber-toothed predators. Hey, that pop quiz doesn’t seem so bad now.

 

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Because many bats hunt at night and rely on a sonar system to “see” using reflected sound waves – a system known as echolocation – people once assumed these flying mammals were blind. Hence, anyone with poor eyesight might be called “blind as a bat.” But although many species of bats have small eyes, they can all see quite clearly. In fact, researchers have learned that bats will trust their eyes more than their sonar when flying in low light. Bats evolved echolocation to hunt for bugs at night, which gave them a survival edge over mammals and birds that competed for food during the daylight hours. So think twice before you call someone blind as a bat – unless you actually want to compliment their eyesight!

 

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When we know only a little bit about a big problem, we say it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Icebergs are typically huge. Some are larger than the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One Antarctic iceberg rivals the size of Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean. Most of that icy mass lies below the surface of the water. Only about one-eighth of an iceberg – the famous “tip” from the expression – is visible from above.

 

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Researchers who study the paranormal (or phenomena beyond the boundaries of science) believe that people leave behind energy when they die – especially when they die a traumatic death – and that energy shows itself as “spectral” activity.

Creepy moans, creaky stairs, flickering lights, sudden chills, shadowy figures, and even human-shaped forms dressed in old-fashioned getups. Using high-tech gadgets, pursuers of the paranormal skulk through old houses, graveyards, and other allegedly haunted spots hoping to document ghostly goings-on. They’ve yet to uncover any conclusive evidence, but that hardly seems to matter: A third of all Americans claim they believe in ghosts.

 

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A vast region if the Atlantic bounded by Bermuda, Miami, and Puerto Rico, the Bermuda Triangle is notorious for swallowing planes, boats, and ships. According to one report, 75 planes and hundreds of yachts have gone missing in the Bermuda Triangle in the past century. The most famous disappearing act was Flight 19, a group of five U.S. Navy torpedo bombers that took off on a training mission in 1945 and vanished over the Atlantic Ocean. Search crews found no trace of the planes or the 14 men aboard them.

Navigators going back to the days of Christopher Columbus reported confusing compass readings in the Bermuda Triangle. Pilots have complained of an eerie electrical fog that interferes with their instruments. Believers in the paranormal suspect the Triangle is a gateway to another dimension or home to mysterious ship-wrecking technology from the lost city of Atlantis. Even without any supernatural shenanigans, the eerie area is certainly an easy place to get lost. Swift currents and sudden storms send ships swirling in circles. Shipwrecking reefs lie just under the surface in some places; the seafloor dips into trenches five miles (8 km) deep in others. The Triangle has been a superhighway for sea traffic since the early days of exploration, so it makes sense that the region would see more accidents than less-traveled areas. Wreckage not set adrift by the strong currents could sink into the region’s trenches, never to be seen again.

 

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The first reports of something fishy in Loch Ness, Scotland’s second largest lake, go back 2,000 years, when a fearsome tattooed tribe known as the Picts chiseled the image of a finned creature onto a large stones nearby. Five centuries later, according to one written account, an Irish monk shouted a prayer to repel a monster poised to gobble a Loch Ness bather. A series of high-profile sightings in the 1930s transformed “Nessie” from a creature of folklore into a cryptozoology superstar. More than 4,000 eyewitness accounts of a massive lake monster – some verified by lie-detector testing – have been reported since. As with those of Bigfoot, many of these sightings and photographs were proven as hoaxes, but that hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm of true Nessie believers. Their number one Nessie suspect: the plesiosaur, a long-necked marine dinosaur that was supposed to have died out with T. rex and his kin 65 million years ago.

Nessie skeptics believe the sightings are simply cases of mistaken identity. Others, dog-paddling deer, and large sturgeon can look mysterious when their backs break the surface of the lake. High-tech sonar searchers have turned up nothing conclusive from the lake’s murky depths. And yet the search for Nessie continues. At least one website maintains a live camera view of the lake, encouraging viewers to keep a round-the-clock watch for suspicious activity. The ancient Picts may have recorded Nessie in stone; modern creature hunters can now tag the beast online.

 

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Bigfoot believers print to the eyewitness accounts – more than 3,000 in all – of towering apelike creatures said to wander the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere. Roughly 10,000 supposed Bigfoot tracks have been reported since the early 1800s – although these prints vary wildly. (Older tracks show four toes; newer ones to have five.) Today the beast is a central figure in cryptozoology the study of legendary creatures, and cryptozoologists (people who study said legendary creatures) think Bigfoot represents a “missing link” between humans and our hairy ancestors. Yet despite decades of Bigfoot hunting, no one has recovered a body of the beast – a fact often cited by nonbelievers as proof that Bigfoot is bogus.

 

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Shigeru Miyamoto is famous for designing your favorite games in 1980s through today in Japan. You may not know his name, but you certainly know his games. Donkey of Zelda, Mario Kart – all of these landmark titles (along with their characters and many sequels) are the creations of Shigeru Miyamoto, a game designer at Nintendo since the late 1970s. Miyamoto has been called the Steven Spielberg of video games for a reason: His creations combine crowd-pleasing thrills and charming characters with deep, secret-filled game play.

 

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Armies of jerks lurk on the Internet. And even the most mundane topics set off these cyber-bullying “trolls,” who pick fights over everything from politics to sci-fi plots to sports stats to the merits of a particular pop star. Psychologists think they know why the Internet brings out the worst in people. Human are social animals and evolved with brains wired for face-to-face interaction. The Internet, for all it has done to spread knowledge and shrink the world, has in some ways pushed people farther apart. Web browsers remove people’s faces from conversations while adding anonymity, letting complete strangers behave badly without consequences. Research has shown that people are more likely to criticize others if they’re not in the same room. So while you can’t do anything to curb cattiness online, you can choose to treat others with respect. And escaping the lair of the Internet troll is as easy as hitting the Back button.

 

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Spend enough time exploring the Internet and you’re bound to see:

Grumpy Cat: People write suitably unhappy captions on photos of this perpetually depressed-looking house cat.

Planking: Planking pranksters pose facedown in public spots for photos they upload to the Internet.  

Diet Coke and Candy: Backyard chemists harness the chemical reaction between Diet Coke and a certain candy to create frothy soda geysers.

Lolcats: Photos of cute cats are captioned with silly, grammatically incorrect messages from the kitty’s point of view, the most famous phrase being “I can has cheezburger?”

 

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A meme is an idea or a behavior that spreads from person to person while subtly changing over time. Internet memes spread through emails, social media, and on message boards. Unlike viral videos, memes invite people to participate in the behavior or customize the message. Web surfers hope their cheesy tweaks will gain them Internet fame.

Memes that are shared on social media can be widely spread from Facebook, WhatsApp. Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Viber and many more.  The majority of internet memes are passed on by teenagers and adults. There are several ways in which a meme can be shared, one is by uploading it on your social media page e.g. Facebook or Instagram, then it is shared or retweeted to your followers. You can say, internet memes are just the adjusted form of sharing a short message or idea.

 

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