Rat-eating plant

A carnivorous pitcher plant that eats rats and insects has been discovered in the Philippines. The plant is among the largest of all pitchers and is believed to be the largest meat-eating shrub, dissolving rats with acid-like enzymes.

The team of botanists, led by British experts Stewart McPherson and Alastair Robinson, found the plant on Mount Victoria in the Philippines.

They were inspired to search for the plant after word that it is existed came from two Christian missionaries who described seeing a large carnivorous pitcher in 2000 after they climbed the mountain.

Mr McPherson, of Poole Dorset, said: "The plant produces spectacular traps which catch not only insects, but also rodents. It is remarkable that it remained undiscovered until the 21st century."

The team, which found the plant in 2007 following a two-month expedition, published details of their discovery in the Botanical Journal of Linnean Society earlier this year following a three-year study of all 120 species of pitcher plant.

They decided to name the plant Nepenthes attenboroughii, after the wildlife broadcaster Sir David.

"My team and I named it in honor of Sir David whose work has inspired generations toward a better understanding of the beauty and diversity of the natural world," added Mr McPherson.

Sir David, 83, said: "I was contacted by the team shortly after the discovery and they asked if they could name it after me. I was delighted and told them, 'Thank you very much'.

"I'm absolutely flattered. This is a remarkable species the largest of its kind. I'm told it can catch rats then eat them with its digestive enzymes. It's certainly capable of that."

Hopefully this plant has no larger Man-eating relatives... Now THAT would be something to worry about.

I have the worst luck with wrist watches

It all started before I was even in Elementary school. Someone had given me a big expensive digital watch for a present. Of course I was just a little boy so the watch naturally was a little loose.

One day, I was in the bathroom, and the watch actually slips off my hand and splashes into the toilet. I have no idea what I was thinking as I flushed it down the toilet. Why didn't I grab it? It was RIGHT THERE (and water proof, no doubt). I wonder where it is now...

Several years without a wrist-watch go by....

Then while in elementary school (maybe 2nd or 3rd grade) I had gotten an "Indiglo" Digital watch for my birthday. I was quite proud of it. And I was also proud of the fact that it was lasting longer than my previous watch (and i liked how it glowed).

Then one day, I believe I accidentally got water on it, and then after that it got broken from getting hit hard on the ground or something like that. Goodbye watch number two.

Several more years go by....

7th grade, I asked for another watch for my birthday, thinking that surely I'm mature enough now to make sure it doesn't get broken somehow. Well I wasn't wrong about being mature enough, it only lasted about 2 weeks though. This time, the velcro strap that tightened and loosened it broke, and then the other side did too, leaving me with just the circular time piece, on which the hands had broken and swung free.

I gave up.

To this day, I use my cell phone to tell the time.

Random Thoughts of the Day

Hot pockets aren't really pockets until you bite them.

The United states is pretty much the only nation that doesn't use the Metric system.

Stare at someone walking and hum a dorky tune in your head. It's funny

US Public School have considered cutting out learning to write in cursive. Where is our culture going!?

Why does coffee have such weird names?

Rain acidity is on the rise and very high recently. POLLUTION HURTS!!

Who DID let the cat out of the bag?

Spilling the beans... who even thought of that?

Why do we yawn?

If those cleaners kill 99.9% of BACTERIA, then why do they recommend them for preventing VIRUSES?

Why is it called dinner?


There is more to come later on in the week! So until then... KEEP IT RANDOM

Random Thoughts of the Day

Sorry about the inactivity recently. I'll try to pick the pace back up. So here are some of my Random Thoughts for today.

Some cats not only purr when they're happy to see you, but also when they are in a lot of pain.

Tomatoes are fruits not vegetables.

There was recently the longest ever recorded solar eclipse. It was sadly only visible on the other side of the world, and not visible from the united states.

I need a haircut.

What's up with nicknames? Are people really that unsatisfied with other people's names?

Floppy disks should actually be floppy.

I would not be surprised to find out that someone actually tried to eat a computer "chip".

Lost socks and other laundry... Where DO they go?

The "Mustang" is a horse, a car, and an airplane.

That's all for now. But until later. KEEP IT RANDOM

My GIMP Creations.

I have recently downloaded GIMP(GNU image manipulation program), and have been dabbling in photo manipulation. These are some of my "GIMP Creations"

I changed the color of the bubble on this photograph. Credit for the picture goes to the artist that took it.

In this photo, I made it so it looked as if the Death star was in orbit above San Fransisco.

This was actually the first image I had ever edited. I am quite proud of it. I changed the color of the eye, added shadow around it, and outlined the eyelashes in purple.

In this Photo, I edited all the lightsabers in the picture so that they look like REAL lightsabers!

In this particular picture, I decided to try and make it look like these two men had tattoos.

And that is about it, I have more edited pictures, but these are the ones I like the best. Credit for the pictures goes to their respective photographers.

At this time i would like to give a special thanks to Youtube, and specifically(mostly anyway) the user Gimpknowhow. Without those video tutorials, almost none of these edited pictures would have been possible.

That's all for now. So until later... KEEP IT RANDOM!

Some People have too much Talent AND too much Time on their hands

I was wandering Youtube aimlessly yesterday, when I found this AMAZING Speed Painting of your Favorite Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman! It shows the amazing artist "Painting" the image in in fast forward (Using Photoshop I believe) on the video, but I'm sure that it ACTUALLY took the Artist several HOURS. Now THAT'S Patience, and determination.

Once I was captivated by this "painting" I couldn't help but watch all of his others. Whoever this guy is has WAY to much talent, and WAY too much time on his hands. Pretty much all of his "Paintings" could be Mistaken for the real thing! And that's saying something!

And for those of you interested in photoshop and Picture editing: There is a FREE Program you can download. It is called GIMP and is, in many people's opinions, COMPARABLE to Photoshop! You can download this amazing software here: http://www.gimp.org/.

That's all for now. So until later..... KEEP IT RANDOM

Smart Little Squirrel!

This has to be the MOST AWESOME squirrel I have ever seen! I do have to say though, that ice cream and the cone probably isn't too good for its digestive system!

This was either a VERY brave squirrel, or it knew it could get food from humans because it had done it before. Who knows? Either way that's going to be one fat squirrel! I'm just surprised the squirrel didn't run away with all the squealing and cooing the girl taking the video did! Where I live, if you even break a twig or breathe too loud near a squirrel, it's going to run away!

Well until next time, KEEP IT RANDOM!


PS: I apologize for the video sticking out on the right side, I tried to fix it, but it didn't work. Maybe it only looks like that on my computer. I hope so, but if not. I apologize.