10 Wierd and Strange Animals

Pink Fairy Armadillo

Image credits: reddit | wikipedia

Aye-aye

Image credits: animalsadda.com

The Maned Wolf

Image credits: imgur

Tufted Deer

Image credits: zoochat.com

Dumbo Octopus

Image credits: interactiveoceans.washington.edu

Patagonian Mara

Image credits: zoochat.com

Naked Mole Rat

Image credits: extremelongevity.net

Irrawaddy Dolphin

Image credits: wwf.org | imgur

The Gerenuk

Image credits: Michael Despines | imgur

Dugong

Image credits: webecoist

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The 5 Disney Characters You'd Want on Your Side in a Fight

5. The Beast

(source)

Just barely making it onto our list is the Beast. Why barely, you ask? Oh gentle reader who has not thought this through, it’s simple — there’s only a 50% chance you get the violent, super-powered Beast. There's also a 50% chance you get the brooding, wussy Prince Adam. What if the Beast decides to empathize with Hoss, and ends up crying into an Old Fashioned for the rest of the night as you get your teeth kicked in? His razor-sharp fangs aren’t much good to you then, boy.

4. Genie

(source)

The major pro of having Genie on your side in a bar fight is that he’s perhaps the most powerful being in the entire Disney universe. The major con is that he doesn’t give a single solitary f*ck. You’ll probably have to burn through a wish just to get him off his ass, and then where are you? Could’ve had world peace, but you wished for a Genie beat-down instead? Expect to get beaten up a lot more frequently in the future.

3. EVE

(source)

EVE is from the future and is armed with a plasma cannon. Plus, being a robot, she has to follow the the first law of robotics: a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. She might not kick ass for you, but she will save your ass from being kicked. And isn’t that just as valuable?

2. Mulan

(source)

Mulan almost single-handedly defeated the Huns, is a master of armed and unarmed combat, and, if you’re fighting a dude, he can’t hit back or else the whole bar will rise up against him. Plus, Mulan has a lucky cricket. That can’t hurt.

1. Adult Simba

An actual motherf*cking lion who’s cold enough to revenge-kill his own uncle, Adult Simba has just the right combination of violence, pride, and being a damn lion.

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5 Selfies Taken Moments Before Death

Cliff Selfie

A Polish couple on vacation in Portugal tried to take a selfie on the edge of a cliff on August 10, 2014 . . . they both fell to their death.

On Top of the Train

In March 2014 a 21-year-old man died in Jaén, Spain by electrocution when he climbed to the top of a movie train to take a selfie.

River Selfie

A 13-year-old girl named Karen Hernández wanted to snap a selfie on the banks of the El Tunal river in Durango, Mexico. Unfortunately she fell into the river and drowned; firefighters recovered her body in July.

Gun Selfie

21-year old Oscar Otero Aguilar lost his life when he tried to take a selfie with a gun for his Facebook page in July of 2014. The Mexican gun enthusiast accidentally shot himself in the head and didn't survive.

Jadiel

This is a selfie snapped by a famous Puerto Rican reggaetón musician Jadiel, uploaded to Instagram moments before he had a fatal motorcycle crash in New York in May, 2014.

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The Travelers and The Plane Tree

Two men were walking along one summer day. Soon it became too hot to go any further and, seeing a large plane tree nearby, they threw themselves on the ground to rest in its shade. Gazing up into the branches one man said to the other,

“What a useless tree this is. It does not have fruit or nuts that we can eat and we cannot even use its wood for anything.”

“Don’t be so ungrateful,” rustled the tree in reply. “I am being extremely useful to you at this very moment, shielding you from the hot sun. And you call me a good-for-nothing!”

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Sea Level Rise Is Accelerating Globally

Make no mistake, global sea level rise is accelerating faster than ever. Previous estimates based on satellite data may have suggested that sea level rise was actually slowing down over the last couple decades, but according to a new Nature Climate Change study, measurement errors may have concealed the ongoing acceleration. 

Beginning in 1993, a groundbreaking satellite-era time series described one of strongest and most robust signs of climate change: global mean sea level rise. It used radar observations of sea surface height from three consecutive satellite altimeter missions:TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1, and OSTM/Jason-2. According to this seminal climate record, sea level rise was lower in the past decade than during the decade before -- which would totally be good news, if only it was true. 

This recent slowdown has puzzled researchers for a while, especially when melting ice in West Antarctica and Greenland is increasingly contributing to sea level rise, according toChristopher Watson from the University of Tasmania. And that may be because the satellite-based studies didn’t take into account vertical land movement. The sites where gauges sit can shift during earthquakes, or subside from groundwater withdrawal or sediment settling, Science explains. These natural changes to Earth’s surface may end up producing what appears to be sea level changes, even though they have nothing to do with the ocean. 

So Watson and colleagues tried to identify inaccuracies in the satellite data by combining GPS measurements of vertical land movement with hourly data from a worldwide network of tide gauges. TOPEX/Poseidon may have slightly overstated sea level rise, Science reports, and the inflated numbers gave the appearance that sea level rise was decelerating. When in fact, it was masking the ongoing acceleration, New Scientist explains. Furthermore, natural climate variation contributed to the slowdown as well. Around 2011, "there was a major dip in sea level associated with major flooding events in Australia and elsewhere," says study co-author John Church of CSIRO.

Rather than a rise of 3.2 millimeters per year based on previous satellite-based estimates, the team found that the overall rate of global sea level rise was between 2.6 to 2.9 millimeters per year from 1993 to 2014. The first six years of the satellite-based record were affected the most by these new corrections: estimates for 1993 through 1999 had to be scaled down by 0.9 to 1.5 millimeter per year.

This new recalculation means that, compared with the 20th century, the rate of sea level rise has actually accelerated in recent years -- by an additional 0.04 millimeters per year. This revised acceleration fits with the melting ice sheets during this period, and "it is consistent with all the projections," Watson adds. 

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Lesson Learned

One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live.  They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, “How was the trip?”

“It was great, Dad.”

“Did you see how poor people live?” the father asked.

“Oh yeah,” said the son.

“So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?” asked the father.

The son answered: “I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.

“We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.

“We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, but they grow theirs.

“We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them.”

The boy’s father was speechless.

Then his son added, “Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are.”

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Watch A Baby Chameleon Hatch From Its Egg And Take Its First Steps

Smaller than your smallest finger and waggling its beady eyes with full 360-degree vision, is this hatching chameleon cute or creepy—or an indeterminate mixture of both?

Emerging headfirst from its egg, the baby lizard warily stumbles around Bambi-like, taking in its new surroundings of a giant human hand. Chameleons can have a gestation period of between four and 12 months, depending on whether the species is ovoviviparous or oviparous.

If oviparous, such as the flap-neck chameleon (Chamaeleo dilepis), the mother will dig a burrow in the ground between 10-30 centimeters (4-12 inches) deep and leave the eggs to hatch later.

But if ovoviviparous, such as the side-striped chameleon (Chamaeleo bitaeniatus), the mother will give birth to live young encased in individual sticky membranes, which she will then attach to a branch. The newly-hatched chameleons are left to immediately fend for themselves once the membrane later bursts.

Video credit: rmh355

Chameleons have zygodactyl feet—five toes on each foot bunched together into two prongs—to allow better grip on slender branches.

When kept in captivity, baby chameleons must be hatched in special temperature-controlled environments.

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