These days, in addition to being powerful love tokens, hummingbirds are considered messengers from the heavens and “road openers” for travelers....
BITS 'N' PIECES
The underground market for hummingbirds is so secretive that U.S. government officials didn’t even know it existed until about 10 years ago when agents with the Fish and Wildlife Service intercepted a postal package inbound from Mexico containing dozens of lifeless, jewel-coloured birds. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Forensics Laboratory is the only full-service lab in the world dedicated to crimes against wildlife.
Black-chinned hummingbirds are widespread in the western U.S., from lowland deserts to mountain forests and urban areas with tall trees and flowering shrubs and vines. Hummingbirds have played important roles in Latin American cultures, religions, and mythology. The Inca used hummingbird feathers in their fine garments, ritual sacrifices, and even architecture. On the Isla del Sol in Lake Titicaca, south of Cusco, in Peru, an entrance to an important Inca shrine was covered in hummingbird feathers.
These days, in addition to being powerful love tokens, hummingbirds are considered messengers from the heavens and “road openers” for travelers.
Federal agents posing as customers usually find hummingbirds for sale at botanicas in little plastic bags containing a satin-wrapped bird and a love prayer.
The diabolical ironclad beetle can survive being run over by a car, pecked by predators and crushed underfoot.
How does it do this?
Researchers from the University of California have explained that the beetle’s wing covers are fused together to create a gnarly black armour.
This helps it survive loads about 39,000 times its body weight, which is akin to a 90kg human withstanding the weight of about 280 doubledecker buses.
The beetle’s high number of interlocking sections, protein-rich shell, and reinforced joints around vital organs are what make it so strong.
The features observed in the beetle’s exoskeleton could one day be used to develop techniques for joining materials.
Singapore has granted San Francisco start-up Eat Just Inc. regulatory approval to sell its lab-grown chicken in the city-state, becoming the world’s first government to allow the sale of cultured meat. The product, created from cultured chicken cells, was approved as an ingredient in chicken bites which will debut in a Singapore restaurant following approval, Eat Just Inc.
Eat Just Inc. plans for wider expansion into dining and retail establishments in the country, as well as sales of cultured meat in the US and Western Europe. Cell-based meats have a relatively low impact on the environment and are artificially created without slaughtering or harming animals.
