ty.rannosaur.us

A lot of people said we were glorifying violence in our last entry about violent badasses. While that isn’t true, we are making up for it by putting together a list of (slightly obscure) people who never resorted to violence. The following is a list of 10 people who were badasses and never harmed a fly, they simply didn’t need it. Read the rest of this entry »

Pop culture positions pirates as daring swashbucklers who fight injustice while seeking fame and fortune. But, characters like Captain Jack Sparrow and Long John Silver don’t really present the truth about piracy. Most pirates lived short, dirty, and unpleasant lives. They rarely–if ever!–captured a ship or uncovered treasure, and most ended life at the end of the hangman’s noose, a great publicity stunt for an unpopular governor or mayor. The following is a list of eight popular pirates who were actually huge losers. Read the rest of this entry »

A lot of animals have pretty awesome collective defenses against predators. For example, sea lions will pile up in large groups to keep killer whales at bay. But the Eastern (or Japanese) honey bee has the best collective defense against its natural predator, the Asian giant hornet, ever: body heat.

If you’ve ever seen this famous YouTube video of a few hornets rampaging through a bee hive, then you know why bees are always threatened by hornets. But the Eastern honey bee has developed a defense that involves exploiting the hornet’s upper lethal temperature through their flight muscles:

As a hornet approaches the nest in an attempt to kill honeybees, a hundred or so will guard the nest entrance in an attempt to draw it on.  When the hornet enters the nest, it is immediately mobbed by a clump of approximately 500 honeybees, which, surprisingly, do not sting the hornet to death as previously thought (Schmidt-Nielsen 2001).  Instead, the bees heat themselves up to 47 degrees C very quickly using their flight muscles.  As the hornet’s upper lethal temperature is 44-46 degrees C, it is killed quickly, effectively baked to death by the large clump of bees.

Check out a YouTube video of this happening:

And another one.

Hope you enjoyed this short update. A more serious one will follow whenever some free time opens up. Credit where credit is due: idea via.

Public executions used to be a form of entertainment and executioners were like rock stars.  A good executioner was one that had flair but could kill a victim quickly.  This is a look at 7 executioners that became famous for their abilities to dispatch their victims. Read the rest of this entry »