Just like locust swarms, grasshopper swarms are huge and they destroy nearly any vegetation in their path.

Except this time, the federal officers say they might produce even more than any other year since 1985. They even eat the fences that were covered with paint. Okay then, why don't you just kill them all, so this will never happen again? Well first, that's basically impossible to do and second they're an important food source to birds and other animals as well. However, they want to limit the number of these guys like pesticides, so it's not going to be nearly as destructive as it could have potentially be. However these hungry critters can travel in long distances and some areas can have as many as 1000 baby grasshoppers. Yikes!!!

Nick Gillispie is here to tackle on Obama's statement that this health care plan will reduce the national deficit by 143 billion dollars over the next

He point out three good errors with this plan to reduce the national deficit, I'll admit that. However, if we do nothing, we are bound to increase more of our spending to health care.

Global warming used to be a considerable issue a few years ago, but now people are getting a little bit more skeptical about this matter.

Makes sense, since the american people are now more concern about our economy and the amount of snow that dropped on the mid-eastern states which somewhat convinced the people into thinking that global warming just drifted away from this planet. Now according to this graph, the poll stated that only 30%(which is less than a third) of the Americans believe that global warming is generally exaggerated. This time in 2010, it rose 18% jumping from 30% to 48%. In addition, more people are predicting that all the global warming effects that's going to take place is not going to happen in their lifetime or perhaps never also rose as well. You can see all the other graphs yourself, but all these graphs are telling us that the Americans are saying that we just don't have time to deal with this major potential global problem when our economy is in trouble and there's other world problems as well like terrorism or the health care bill that has just passed last week.

Because the strawberries are now 1/4 the price they were back then in Florida. Most farmers decided to just dispose them, so their prices will.

I smell a deja vu here, this definitely reminds of the time of the Great Depression when the farmers did the exact same method as these strawberry farmers are doing in Florida. Anyways, a lot of the residents there are angry about this action and says that these strawberries should be donated to soup kitchen and other local residents if they're not going to use them. I mean, man, how could you throw away these good strawberries? Some look so good, juicy, and delectable that you want to eat them right now!

Bees sure do sting, but we should remember that they play a crucial role in the environment.

However, the bees' population have been sharply dwindling for the last four years. Not also are they dying more frequently, but their life span has been shortened due to illness caused by bacteria and viruses and those chemical pesticides that we use on our crops. This will definitely effect the number of fruits and vegetable we can get this year and it looks like it's not going to get any better. One beekeeper says that the loss was three times worse than last year; that's like getting your paycheck of $600 chopped off by two thirds and now you only have $200 left to keep. We need to reduce the usage of pesticides and think of some other green way to protect our crops like growing them indoors.



Poor honeybee. :(

India and Bangladesh has been arguing for almost 30 years over a tiny rock isle and now it's vanished.

The sea levels are rising as time elapse and the low-level delta of Bangladesh will be one of the first victims to this slow rising sea level epidemic. The sea is expected to swallow up 18% of the delta which is home to 20 million people in the next forty years. They have slowly evacuate the people as years go by. Some say global warming and global cooling is a natural process and while that maybe true, we're manipulating it as we accelerate this process that may well destroy our only planet.

In 2011, every major fast food restaurant you go to will have nutritional information both inside the restaurant and on the drive-thru.

This is part of the health care legislation that President Obama just signed yesterday. That means customers might want to think twice before eating a Big Mac that contains 540 calories, which is already more than a quarter of the 2000-calorie daily guideline from the Agricultural Department. That also counts for vending machines, so someone who wants to buy a king size Snickers Bar knows that this unhealthy snack contains 440 calories. While not all the customers will pay attention or care about these nutritional labels, it will help some of them to be aware of what are you eating. After all, more than 1/2 of the money Americans spend on food is outside of their home.



By the way, would you rather have a big fat greasy burger up there OR
a nice fresh healthy apple down here? :)



You decide.

Eating healthy food is not all about keeping you in good shape. It can also help you reduce stress and more! :D

These food items include dark chocolate? Yep, the darker the chocolate, the more healthy substances like phenethylamine(which improves your mood) are in that chocolate. Oatmeal is another great one as it helps us to make serotonin, which calms down our craving appetite. I could go on, but by now I think we now/already know that healthy food have additional benefits for our body.



Oh and one more thing, what do you prefer the orange or the "apple"?



XD!

Not to long ago, China has been hit yet another sandstorm from the Mongolian Desert.

Most of the people in China hates this sandstorm as it gets under your clothes, in your throat, and on your car, but there's not a whole lot you can do about it. Outdoor activities in schools were canceled, the elder people were asked to go inside, and you see more people wearing a handkerchief or a surgical mask. This is all because of desertification which is caused by overgrazing, deforestation, and these strong winds picking an abundant amount of sand and carrying it all the way to China. What do you get? A huge brownish haze over the capital of China, Beijing, along with other Chinese cities.

While solar panels contribute no emissions, they are not friendly at first.

In order to make solar panels, you need some metal, mainly silicon, which has to do with mining that Mother Nature certainly does not appreaciate. Plus, it takes up a lot of land and money to build them into a power plant. Oh and don't forget the weather, if it's cloudy or rainy, the solar panels aren't going to accomplish much until these weather conditions fade away.



That said, this source of energy can virtually last forever as long the sun still exists. In addition, they can be used for homes, toys, cars, and even ovens. So don't think this clean technology is bad in the end. :)

Such an old article, but it's one of the contributing factors to obesity.

It's not just eating junk food that effects your weight, it's the number of hours of sleep that counts as well. Because less sleep tends to increase your appetite and with the food just within our reach, it's no wonder it's easy to get fat in America. The reason why as Dr. Taheri said is that when you sleep less, you produce less leptin, a hormone that helps reducing your appetite. Sure, a good rest everyday does take up more thirty percent of your day, but in return you're energized, you brain functions just fine, and you're appetite should be at normal level.



P.S. I think I heard somewhere a long while ago that if you choose to sleep less, you're bound to eat 25% more than you usually do.

Under 600 ft of water where no light virtually exists, NASA found a shrimp swimming around.

They were surprised by this discovery and raised many questions on upon this great event. In addition, they found jellyfish frolicking under this gigantic ice sheet in Antarctica. Who knows? Maybe we can get a better glimpse on how extraterrestrial oceans function outside of our realm.

Frozen conventional food can are sometimes healthier than fresh food.

The reason why is because the transportation and shipping is the main cause of the reduction of the nutritional values in the fresh food. For example, green peas lose 77% of vitamin C when stored for seven days. On the other hand, if you keep the food frozen, it retains most of its nutrition. So when you go to a grocery store, don't think frozen food are outclassed by fresh food, just because they're easier to use and costs less. Because sometimes that's not always true. :)



They maybe fresh, but the long process of getting them from the fields to the stores depleted some of their nutritional value.

Soft drinks is still the number one drink in America, but what's up with the rise of drinking more bottled water?

Do they know it's more riskier than drinking from the tap water coming out from your sink? Sure it's easily portable and has a cap and all that, but it's overpriced and it's contributing lots of CO2. When I say overpriced, I mean you're paying way too much for something that's very cheap at the moment. I mean seriously, 49 cents per year compared(tap water) to $1400 per year(bottled water). That's a HUGE difference.



In my opinion, the only time when bottled water is useful is when has to do with donations to help the poor and the unfortunates.

I'm pretty sure virtually everybody knows about this sad tragic event at Orlando Seaworld when ...

a 40-year old female trainer, named Dawn Brancheau, was killed by Tilikum in his tank in front of the audience about two weeks ago. Witnesses say the killer whale pulled her down and played with her too roughly underwater and drowned her. Then when she arrived at a nearby hospital, she was pronounced dead. So in response of this horrific incident, they closed down both Seaworlds in Orlando and in San Diego as they investigate what just happened.

Now what I'm surprised is that this killer whale was involved with two more previous deaths since his captivity. So why didn't they release him after 1999? Probably because of the word called money. Because releasing animals to the wild costs a lot of money, so Seaworld decided to keep Tilikum even after the tragic death of one of their own employees. Tilikum must be depressed in his own tiny tank, I'm not sure how much longer he can hold on for this series of tricks and stuff. He should be released to where he truly belongs after you trian Tilikum how to hunt, swim in a pod, and etc.



RIP Dawn Brancheau.

Thinking about buying an iPad on April 3, 2010 ...

then you might want to consider another thought before doing so. Hitler is definitely not getting one anytime soon.



Oh and this video contains a fair amount of profanity, so like most of the television programs say,"Viewer discretion is advised." :)

When you live near the coast in the open water and ...

at the same time the phytoplankton are decomposing, you have two choices you stay and die due to suffocation or you flee to somewhere with higher oxygen levels. That's the situation the animals and plants are facing on the bottom of the ocean floor when the high winds drives the water to the shores to create tides, which causes upwelling.The problem is that some slow/stationary animals like sea cucumbers, crabs, and sponges cannot escape this harmful event, so they end up dying in the end leaving a depressing zone of dead animals that couldn't do anything about this sticky situation.

While this may be natural, these low-oxygen(hypoxia) zones are increasing in size. Some scientists say this may be related to global warming as the three main oceans are absorbing the CO2 and other greenhouse emissions. This may upset the ecosystem and cause some of the species of crustaceans and fishes to decline in population. We're hoping this doesn't spread to the open ocean, where sharks, dolphins, and whales are living in along with the other marine creatures.

The summit about the health care reform was taken place last thursday and ...

well the two parties disagree to each other for the most part during this long talk about health care. The republicans pretty much want to put this to a halt while the Democrats wants to get something done at last. Obama didn't want to do either of the two plans that the Republicans recommended which is taking the health care reform step by step or simply starting over. Oh and this 7 and a half hours of conversation was on C-Span, though Obama is not sure if anyone would consider this interesting.

Taking a second glance at the health care reform ...

This video explains why our health care system is simply unfair and unaffordable for an average American citizen.



Note: This video was created about six months ago.

The food bank in San Francisco is planning to provide 36.5 million lb. of food this year.

That's more than enough to feed 78,000 meals every day, according to their site. You can make a difference by simply helping this food bank by packaging food like fruits, veggies, and rice(LOTS of them, by the way. You should see how much they had on that wooden platform. We couldn't even finish it all!) Anyways, so my sister and her friend and I went there around nine in the morning. Then we signed up through laptops; didn't expect them there, because last year we had to sign up through a form on the paper. Either way, it was quicker and more convenient for us and for the employees in food bank. Because they can count much quicker by seeing how many people signed up on the laptops. After that's done, we are reminded some safety rules like no food or drink in the working area or the warehouse, no slippers, and no running around. Which I seem to forget sometimes. :P So first came the rice where we package them through plastic bags closed by a closer(don't know what are they named as of now) and then packaged by cardboard boxes. Each box must contain 15 of them and each bag must weigh exactly one pound, which is why we have an electronic scale. Then we took a 20 minute break and then did the same thing over again. Once done, the employee said that we packaged a little over 2000 pounds, so our performance wasn't too bad. That's plenty of rice soups or cakes or any meal with rice in it to feed the poor people around San Francisco. So we thought we were heading back home, until our mom was like in downtown San Francisco spending time with her parents. Then my sister decided that we should do one more hour helping them while we wait for our mom. Eventually we agreed and we came upon giant boxes of oranges. Some were good, some were bad, and some were ugly. As you might of guessed, the oranges that were opened or feel very soft in the inside were thrown away in the bad box. The rest we keep them in the good boxes and they were put on the same wooden platforms. Once the half the shift was over, our mom was waiting for us and we head back home. In the end, I felt like we were giving the poor a lift in the spirit and body. Thanks a lot San Francisco Food Bank, looking forward to doing it again sometime soon! :D