Smells a dead mouse from a mile away. Eats anthrax for breakfast. Prevents epidemics just by existing.
The turkey vulture — the most important bird nobody respects.
THE NOSE:
→ Best sense of smell of any bird on Earth
→ Can detect ethyl mercaptan (decomposition gas) from 1+ mile
→ Gas companies add the same chemical to natural gas lines
→ Turkey vultures have circled gas leaks — engineers follow them
THE STOMACH:
→ Stomach acid: pH ~1 (nearly pure hydrochloric acid)
→ Destroys anthrax, botulism, cholera, hog cholera
→ Eats diseased carcasses that would otherwise spread epidemics
→ Essentially a flying biohazard disposal unit
THE BALD HEAD:
→ No feathers = bacteria can't get trapped when eating carrion
→ UV sunlight sterilizes the bare skin
→ Same reason vultures sunbathe with wings spread (UV sterilization)
THE FLIGHT:
→ Soars for hours without flapping (uses thermals)
→ Distinctive "wobbly" flight with wings in shallow V
→ Can cover 200 miles per day searching for carrion
WITHOUT VULTURES:
→ In India, vulture populations crashed 99% due to a cattle drug
→ Result: rotting carcasses, feral dog explosion, rabies epidemic
→ Tens of thousands of human deaths attributed to vulture decline
Respect the cleanup crew.
You need them more than they need you.
On this night in 1781, one man on a horse saved the American Revolution from losing Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and half of Virginia's government in a single morning.
You were never taught his name.
June 3, 1781. The British had chased Virginia's entire government out of Richmond. Jefferson, in his final days as governor, and the legislature had fled to Charlottesville, thinking they were safe in the foothills.
They were wrong.
That evening, 26 year old militia captain Jack Jouett was at a tavern in Louisa County when roughly 250 of the most feared cavalry in the British army came pounding down the road. Their commander: Banastre Tarleton, nicknamed "The Butcher," the man whose dragoons had cut down surrendering Americans at Waxhaws.
There was only one place they could be going. Charlottesville. 40 miles away. And the capture of Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, would be the prize of the war.
Jouett couldn't outrun them on the main road. So he didn't use it.
He swung onto overgrown backwoods trails and the abandoned Old Mountain Road, riding 40 miles through the dark with only the full moon for light. Legend says low hanging branches whipped and scarred his face for life.
Tarleton stopped his men for a 3 hour rest. Jouett never stopped.
Before sunrise on June 4, he came up the mountain to Monticello and woke Jefferson. Then he rode down into Charlottesville and warned the legislature.
Jefferson got out with minutes to spare. British dragoons were coming up his mountain as he left. The legislature escaped over the Blue Ridge to Staunton. Tarleton caught only seven stragglers, one of them a frontiersman serving in the legislature named Daniel Boone.
Paul Revere rode about 12 miles in 1775 and got captured before reaching Concord. Longfellow wrote him a poem and made him immortal.
Jack Jouett rode 40 miles, lost nothing, saved everything, and got a thank you gift of two pistols and a sword from the Virginia Assembly.
No poem. No fame. Almost no memory.
The crow watching you from the tree branch knows your face. Not just as a human, but you. And they will remember the things you did.
Researchers at the University of Washington spent nearly two decades studying this. They trapped a few crows once, harmlessly, while wearing a particular mask, banded them, and let them go. Then they walked around campus in that same mask for years afterward. The crows scolded and dive-bombed it every time.
Here's the part that should give you some pause if you're considering being mean to crows. Crows that were never trapped did it too.
Birds that had only watched the others react learned to treat the mask as dangerous. And crows born years later, who had never seen the original event at all, inherited the grudge from their parents and scolded a face they had never met.
A control mask, worn the same way, was ignored completely. It was never about masks or people in general. It was about one specific face, flagged as a threat and passed down through a population like a piece of news.
So the crow on the wire isn't just watching. It's profiling you, and it will tell its kids about you.
Samsung is moving its U.S. headquarters to its existing campus in Plano, Texas.
Samsung Electronics America is abandoning its brand-new, 270,000 SF North Jersey headquarters after just eight months to consolidate operations in Plano, Texas.
The abrupt exit of 1,000 corporate jobs reignites the bitter debate over New Jersey’s hostile business climate.
81% on welfare. The other 19% own the companies billing Medicaid.
Foreigners are stealing Americans’ birthright.
This has to end. Our first hearing on Ohio’s Medicaid fraud scandal is tomorrow.
Serious Question: The alcohol industry has lost $830 billion in the last 4 years, because Gen Z is not drinking. Why do you think they aren’t drinking?
🇺🇸❤️⚪️💙🇺🇸 Celebrating America’s 250 early with my finished flag quilt.🇺🇸❤️⚪️💙🇺🇸
I’m excited to see what you will make! 😍 Please share it with me ❤️❤️❤️ handmade, decor, whatever. All of it counts 🥰🥰🇺🇸!
Tell me, what is something you did later in life?
🎓 My college graduation ceremony for my bachelor’s degree is today. I’m 43.
The ceremony is 1000 miles away from
Orlando so I’m happy with a cute cake and a trip into Epcot with my favorites later today to celebrate 🎓
THIS IS SPENCER PRATTS SOLUTION TO THE HOMELESS DISASTER. IT SHOULD BE EVERYWHERE. FROM ABSURDISTAN TWO YEARS AGO.
"For instance, San Antonio, Texas solved its homeless problem. In 2006 the then mayor, Phil Hardberger, after calling on the business community for help, was approached by one of the richest men in the city, Bill Greehey, and together they marshalled the 184 partner organizations in the city that worked with the dispossessed, formerly operating in silos, and by 2009, built an encampment called Haven for Hope which holds 2000 homeless. There, the homeless, addicted, the mentally ill are given all the tools they need to climb down from addiction, rebuild their psyches and their lives. 90% graduate from their three year program and do not return to the streets."
Every time I have to set up some account online, or retrieve an old username, and jump through a million hoops, I wonder how actual eldery people are able to function in this world.