Kraft ‘Banana Granola Peanut’ Peanut Butter

A very dear friend of mine sent me this photo, knowing it combined two of my favourite flavours…

Peanut butter and banana!

It appears that the sorcerers over at Kraft Canada Inc. have put something together especially for me!

Needless to say, I ran right out and bought myself a jar.

This morning, I toasted up a whole wheat bagel and applied the new BGP peanut butter liberally thereon.

Oh… my… goodness! It’s just great!

I added some thinly sliced bananas on top which only made it even more deliciouser!!

You have to try this stuff!!

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10 Quintillion Bugs!?

Did you know, gentle reader, that there are approximately 10 quintillion bugs in the word?

(Cockroach adding to the surplus population)

That’s 10,000,000,000,000,000,000!

Although estimates vary, that’s about 200 million insects for every man, woman and child on earth!

(They’re everywhere!)

Not sure if that figure includes arachnids or not.

That’s a crapload of bugs, and no mistake.

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One-Third of U.S. Honeybee Colonies Died Last Winter, Threatening Food Supply

I thought this situation had gone away.

I guess it hasn’t.

Nearly one in three commercial honeybee colonies in the United States died or disappeared last winter, an unsustainable decline that threatens the nation’s food supply.

Multiple factors — pesticides, fungicides, parasites, viruses and malnutrition — are believed to cause the losses, which were officially announced today by a consortium of academic researchers, beekeepers and Department of Agriculture scientists.

“We’re getting closer and closer to the point where we don’t have enough bees in this country to meet pollination demands,” said entomologist Dennis van Engelstorp of the University of Maryland, who led the survey documenting the declines.

(Please don’t leave us!)

“Many entomologists and pest management professionals have been saying for years that there is no pest management justification for using these insecticides on virtually every crop grown in North America,” said Agricultural entomologist Christian Krupke of Purdue University. “Yet, the opposite trend is occurring.”

The honeybee catastrophe could also signal problems in other pollinator species, such as bumblebees and butterflies, that are not often studied.

“Thinking of honeybees as our canary in the coal mine, a monitor for environmental conditions, is very appropriate,” said entomologist Diana Cox-Foster at Pennsylvania State University. “With honeybee colonies, you have the ability to open them up and see what’s going on. There are many other species needed for pollination, but with most of those, we don’t have the ability to see what’s happening.”

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A year or two ago, I asked an entomologist friend of mine what he thought the reason was behind honeybee hive/colony collapse syndrome. He looked around, leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, “I think it’s the rapture… and the bees went first!” I love nerd humour! 🙂

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You Had Me At (Part 2)… Bacon!

You had me at… Bacon!

Some guys live by this motto. Others prefer to have it emblazoned on their tshirts.

It is the fine jewelry of food.

I wonder if Elisabeth Kübler-Ross felt the same way.

Some people will wrap anything in bacon! Even french fries!

The above is a photo sent to me by my dear friend Judy while on a recent visit to Los Angeles. Her first thought was “You have GOT to be kidding me!” Luckily, her second thought to take a photo  and email it to me! Judy says she actually bought one and that I need to come over to her place ASAP and get it before someone eats it!

I know more than a few guys who feel this way!

They are bacon black belts! Masters of Bacwondo!

They live according to a very strict bacon code.

To them, bacon is not merely for breakfast. It is also a perfectly acceptable, even preferable, dessert.

(Bacon Bloody Mary!)

Or beverage!

Anyone up for a pint?

(Bacon-wrapped scallops. A non-kosher double-play!)

The bible calls male homosexual acts an abomination. It also says that pork is unclean and uses the same word (abomination) regarding shellfish but hey… let’s not get too nit-picky and technical here, ok?

(NB: Bacon is part of the kit of life!)

Bacon is an essential part of survival, even in the more extreme circumstances

(If you can survive this breakfast, you can survive anything!)

Speaking of survival, you wouldn’t want to face The Upcoming Zombie Apocalypse, Space Alien Invasion and/or Robot Uprising without a big (if not healthy) breakfast featuring that prince of foods… bacon!

So until next time, boys and girls, keep your eyes and ears open and your tummy full… of bacon!

Just don’t forget…

bacon is trying to kill you.

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My most sincere thanks to my friends and readers who regularly supply me with bacon-related photos. Extra special thanks to Judith Rosenberg Charney for the photo of the Bacon-Flavored Milk Chocolate Dylan’s Candy Bar. Priceless! You’re the best, Judy!

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Now that’s a BIG bug!

We here in The Great White North have our ‘insect issues.’ Horse flies, black flies, mosquitoes, etc.

(Black flies – they’ll rip a chunk out of you when they bite)

But in other parts of the world, bugs take on an entirely new dimension.

(This kid is so blasé about the whole thing. Most kids I know would have a stroke) 

There’s big…

(How’d you like to find this in your sleeping bag?)

And then there’s BIG.

(You can’t be serious!)

As in effen HUGE!

(Honey? We may have an infestation problem!)

Nightmare-inducing enormous!

(This may not technically be a bug… but still… it’s scary!)

I don’t know how people live in places that have these kinds of things crawling around and not go insane.

(This spider eats mice and snakes!)

I mean really!

So the next time you’re kvetching about mosquitoes… thank goodness you live where these things don’t!

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The Ex’s of Evil!

I don’t know exactly what it is but there is something about 2013 in that I am hearing more and more horror stories involving ex-spouses.

A very dear friend of mine calls ex-husbands ‘wusbands!’ I love that expression!

(Friend: “My ex is crazy. No really. I’m serious. She’s actually crazy!”)

Whether it’s husbands complaining about ex-wives or vice versa, there sure seems to me a lot more of it than usual.

Whether the people are just splitting up, in the middle of the divorce process or even if the divorce is finalized and they are still dealing with the ex for custody and access reasons, the complaints are oddly similar.  “They’re unreasonable.  They’re crazy. They’re evil!”

(Thanks to Robin Williams for that joke!)

I don’t know why I’m hearing more of the “my ex is Evil Incarnate” shtick lately but such complaints are definitely on the rise!

I hope this is just an abnormal blip and not the Way of the Future.

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23 Million Years Old Preserved Lizard!

The other day, I was browsing through Popular Science’s website, PopSci.com, and stumbled across this article.

This Preserved Lizard Is 23 Million Years Old

In Mexico, paleontologists discovered a small piece of amber with something remarkable inside: a 23-million-year-old preserved lizard.

Scientists at the curiously named National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Physics Institute are analyzing the amber. It’s small, loosely trapezoidal in shape, and only about 1.7 inches by 0.5 inches, but contains the entire body of a very tiny lizard. Thanks to the amazing preservation powers of amber, the lizard’s complete skeleton survived to this day, along with a not insignificant amount of soft tissue and even skin.

(It might well be related to a very common modern lizard – except it’s teeny-tiny)

It’s a bit early to declare with certainty what kind of lizard this is, but the scientists believe at this point that it’s a new species of anole. The anoles are a very common New World family of lizards – if you’ve been to Florida and seen greenish/brownish lizards running all around, those are most likely anoles. They’re friendly lizards, functioning as a sort of pest control (they eat cockroaches, for example) and are even sold as pets, sometimes. This particular preserved (presumed) anole has yet to be given an official Linnaean name.

The amber was found in Simojovel, a municipality in the northern part of Chiapas (Mexico’s southernmost state) that’s known, among other things, for its amber. [1]

Simojovel has a long history of amazing amber finds, and this lizard is only the latest.

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[1] Amber is a fossilized resin, not a sap; though both sap and resin come from plants, sap is a sugar and resin is a complex hydrocarbon liquid that’s held in the outer cell membranes of plants. Both sap and resin are thick, viscous liquids, but only resin can fossilize and become amber, often with organic matter (like plants or animals) stuck inside.

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This Week in Science (July 14/13)

This Week in Science

Please bear in mind that these are all simply headlines. Please READ the articles linked above before commenting on any of these stories, as a one sentence summary does not present all the facts.

Test tube baby: http://bit.ly/13V60OO
Artificial heart: http://nyti.ms/18WdNxW
Exoplanet: http://bbc.in/13DOAHB
Planarian worms: http://bit.ly/1b1onEu
Gene therapy: http://bit.ly/16xDZZt
Star birth: http://bit.ly/130nzX4

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Reproduced from the IFLS site on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/IFeakingLoveScience

Click it. Like it. Love it!

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I Love Nerd Humour

Saw this on Facebook.

I howled!

I love Nerd Humour! 🙂

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Bribery Atlas – The Baksheesh Boys!

Following my Freedom of the Press Worldwide atlas, I bring you…

The Bribery Atlas!

Percentage of a country’s population that has paid bribes.

(The Baksheesh Boys!)

Again, it pans out pretty much as I thought it might.

Glad to see the Italian bribery percentage is as low as it is.

As for the No Data category, perhaps the makers of this map should have bribed some government officials for the stats.

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