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Question: Do Birds fart?

Answer: Yes, under certain circumstances

Forest Ang photographed a Common Myna (Acridotheres tristis) at a park in Penang, Malaysia one day in June 2009. On examining his images in the comfort of his home, he was intrigued by one of the images. The feathers around the posterior opening of the myna, the vent, showed signs that air was being passed out. For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the term vent, this is the common opening through which faeces from the digestive system, uric acid from the excretory system and sperm or egg from the reproductive system pass.

So Forest asked a pertinent question: “Can birds fart?” He was unable to confirm that the bird made any farting sound when he was photographing it. After all, the place was noisy with many people around.

The web is full of answers to the question, with conflicting views.

Backyard Birding has this to say: “…any animal which eats generates gas and this gas must go somewhere. So while birds possess a relatively short intestinal tract, thus producing a smaller amount of gas, they do produce some. And it is expelled through the normal means.”

Laura’s Birding Blog says no. There is no “noticeable eruptions of significant volumes of intestinal gas. Avian intestines are short and evacuate wastes frequently. Any gases produced in digestion leak out as fast as they’re produced, so there isn’t the opportunity for build-up that leads to those explosive releases we cheerfully or disgustedly call farts.”

However, Mike Murray, a veterinarian at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, has this to say: “It’s not that they can’t. They just don’t need to. Birds have the anatomical and physical ability to pass gas, but if I saw gas in a bird’s gastrointestinal tract on an x-ray, I’d suspect that something abnormal was going on in there.”

We believe that birds do fart, maybe under certain circumstances. After all, photographic evidence proves that the Common Myna in the picture actually passed wind.

sweet

Question: Who invented the candy bar

Answer: In 1847, Joseph Fry discovered a way to mix some melted cacao butter back into defatted, or "Dutched," cocoa powder (along with sugar) to create a paste that could be pressed into a mold. The resulting bar was such a hit that people soon began to think of eating chocolate as much as drinking it. Many people credit this as the very first chocolate bar for eating.

pick me a winner

Question: Why do people pick their nose and eat it?

Answer: The act of eating your mucus is known as "mucophagy" and is done by kids basically because they do not think about stuff likes adults do, they just do it and they do not think if it is gross or not, healthy or not, socially accepted or not. However is at that age that "mucophagy" starts. Some people will stop when they realize what they are doing, some people do not, and will keep doing it (in hiding) until they die. You can call it a "habit" and according to what I read, very hard to break.

For your information (gross or not) the average person eats about a quart of mucus (snot, phlegm or slime, as you like) per day. As you know the nose is connected to the same canal the mouth is connected and then to the esofagus, well the nose secretes mucus all day and a good amount of it goes down your throat. When mucus gets hard stays in the nose and well, those are the ones "mucuphagus" pick and eat.

Mucus is basically water and salt, with some chemicals produced by the body. They are supposed to serve as a trap to incoming germs, pollen and dust.Believe it or not, there are people who actually believes that "mucophagy" is healthy because expose your body to germs and make you produce antibodies that will fight for you in your inmune system.

winter equals weight gain

Question: Do people gain winter weight?

Answer: Temperatures start to fall, the days get shorter and people put on weight. The reason is that when the weather gets colder, the blood vessels in the skin contract, and as the extremities cool, blood moves to the center of the body. There it stimulates internal organs like the digestive tract, and their activity increases. When the digestive tract grows more active, appetite increases, and if the appetite increases, so does weight. That change is entirely natural. It's a time-honored belief that fall is a time for horses to get fat, and for people as well.

Seen from the perspective of Eastern medicine, fall is the season to store energy. It is the time of the most nutritious food, when we harvest all the grains and fruits that have stored up a year's worth of energy. In spring and summer, people are afflicted with a lack of energy thanks to the unstable balance between yin and yang energy, but fall is a time for our bodies to stabilize. As the cool wind blows, the sweat cools and the yin-yang balance in our bodies is restored, and we begin to store up fat for winter. But that also means that people who want to lose weight have to be particularly careful in the fall.

That is true even if people now wear long sleeves in summer and short sleeves in winter because they spend most of their time in temperature-controlled environments that erode the distinctive nature of the seasons. Our lives may be less in thrall to seasonal changes as they once were, but some constants remain.

h2o

Question: How much water does the average person use at home per day?

Answer: Estimates vary, but each person uses about 80-100 gallons of water per day. Are you surprised that the largest use of household water is to flush the toilet, and after that, to take showers and baths?

Activity Water used Shower 15-30 gallons (57-114 liters) Brushing teeth (water running) 1-2 gallons (3.75-7.51 liters) Shaving (water running) 10-15 gallons (38-57 liters) Washing dishes by hand 20 gallons (75 liters) Washing dishes in dishwasher 9-12 gallons (34-45 liters) Flushing toilet 5-7 gallons (19-26 liters)

foxy

Yesterday, Anne and I were geocaching at the Seven Tubs Nature Area, just outside of Wilkes-Barre, PA. We were on a snow covered trail, headed to find a cache named "The Devil's Den," which was located near an abandoned coal mine entrance. As we approached the location, I looked up and saw four sets of eyes staring at me from inside the "cave." Taking no chances, we backed away slowly and headed out.

I am not familiar with this area, but snow was on the ground and it has been freezing for several weeks. Those eyes could have belonged to any type of animal. After further research, I determined that they were most likely foxes.

Question: Do foxes live in caves?

Answer: Yes

dinner is served

Question: Can humans eat dog food?

Answer: By dog food I take it what is meant is canned dog food. This is composed of meat and offal together with, in some products, a cereal or other non-meat filler. The product is cooked and sterilised/pasteurised during the canning process. It should therefore be microbiologically safe to eat for humans. Kibble, dried dog food, could also be taken into account, although it has significantly less moisture, and generally has a lower protein content.

There are some issues that arise from consumption of dog food, however:

1. Pet foods may be made from animals in which the presence of prions, which cause encephalopathies such as BSE in cattle and variant CJD in humans, may be likely. According to the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), animal by-products in pet food may include parts obtained from any animals who have died from sickness or disease provided they are rendered in accordance to law. As well, cow brains and spinal cords, not allowed for human consumption due to the possibility of transmission of BSE, are allowed to be included in pet food intended for non-ruminant animals. As prions are not exactly living microorganisms, even cooking cannot prevent the transmission of Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

2. Nutrition in pet food is often substituted for a cheaper alternative. You may have noticed that pet foods are measured for "crude protein" or "crude fibre". Both have nothing to do with protein content and fibre content we have become so accustomed to in human foods. Crude protein is calculated by taking Total nitrogen multiplied by the nitrogen conversion factor = 6.25. Crude protein can therefore be artifically raised by adding non-protein nitrogen. Non-protein nitrogen (or NPN) refers collectively to components such as urea, biuret, and ammonia, which are not proteins but can be converted into proteins by microbia in the ruminant stomach. Due to their lower cost compared to plant and animal proteins their inclusion in a diet can result in economic gain, but at too high levels cause a depression in growth and possible ammonia toxicity (microbes convert NPN to ammonia first before using that to make protein.) Crude fibre is the term given to the indigestible part of foods, defined as the residue left after successive extraction under closely specified conditions, and has nothing to do with dietary fibre. Therefore long-term consumption of dog food may not be enough to meet a human's dietary needs and could possibly cause problems due to inability to use NPN to efficiently create proteins.