Do We Eat Spiders In Our Sleep?

While looking at the "hitlist" of search terms used last week I was struck by #9 and #14, which were about whether we leave our mouths open and end up eating spiders during sleep, but the searches had a chilling tone to them, as "do we eat spiders in our sleep" sounded like a line from one of my favorite beat poets, William S. Burroughs (see one of my radio shows dedicated to him here).

The answers seem pretty clear - no.
http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/spidermyth/myths/whileyousleep.html

This very widespread urban legend has no basis in fact. It exists in various forms; another common version is that you swallow an average of 20 in your lifetime. (At 4 per year, that would make a very short lifetime of 5 years...) A correspondent in Pennsylvania had heard a version that involved swallowing a pound of spiders (while sleeping) in one's lifetime. (That would be over 20,000 average spiders, for a lifetime of 5,000 years at the 4 per year rate).
For a sleeping person to swallow even one live spider would involve so many highly unlikely circumstances that for practical purposes we can rule out the possibility. No such case is on formal record anywhere in scientific or medical literature. Since this page first appeared, I have heard from one person who found a small harmless spider hiding in her ear (which is possible), another who claimed to have had one in her nose (but had no evidence that it wasn't already in her hanky), and one who claimed that when she was a young child a spider leg was found by her lips. But not one person has claimed that a spider entered his or her mouth.

The real question is, why would so many thousands of people suddenly start asking this question? What malaise or phantoms must haunt our civilization for this concern to all of a sudden become so popular that it is TWO of the top twenty searches during one week here on planet Earth?

I hope it is just a random event. Otherwise we have the beginnings of a fairly disturbing science fiction story.

Debate + Guns = Absurdity

You probably know that I have been floating some slogans for the last few years (not all of them invented by me) like "replacing weapons with words" and "Debate - 21st Century's alternative to violence."

Well, this news story is so absurd I have to share it with you. Apparently the National Rifle Association has a Youth Summit in Washington where students combine debating with some real action (with guns) on the shooting range as well as telling young women how to use guns to defend themselves. PLUS a trip to the firearms museum.

Too strange.

From
http://www.pennlive.com/sports/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/sports/1186800924265420.xml&coll=1

Positive experience of YES for midstate student

Sunday, August 12, 2007

BY ANTHONY ANTONIK

For The Patriot-News

The Youth Education Summit, sponsored by the National Rifle Association, combines exposure to government operation, Constitutional debate, a taste of military life, shooting activities and a tour of our nation's capital over seven days.

Upon arrival at the Hyatt Fair Lakes Hotel in Fairfax, Va., we were greeted by our chaperones and encouraged to get acquainted with the 40 other attendees over card games, music, pizza and icebreakers such as YES bingo, your biggest fear and the human knot.

Before we were dismissed to our rooms, we gathered in our debate groups to work on strategy and topic distribution.

The next morning we took a bus to NRA headquarters for a series of speakers on programs such as the Refuse To Be a Victim program for women and the Eddie Eagle Gun Safety program for children, followed by time on the NRA state-of-the-art, fully automatic, indoor shooting range, where we were given the opportunity to fire semi-automatic .22 caliber pistols, single-action .22 caliber revolvers and bolt-action .22 caliber rifles.

We returned to NRA headquarters the next day for a guided tour of the National Firearms Museum, which traces weaponry from before the settlement of America, through the Colonial period, the world wars and Vietnam and into present day. From flintlock long rifles, to tiny Derringer pistols, to mammoth .50 caliber machine-gun emplacements, the NRA's collection was quite extensive.

It was then time to collaborate with our debate groups for the last time before the formal debates on topics such as the constitutionality of the Patriot Act, the differences and similarities between Islam and democracy, and if previous convictions should be included as evidence in a court case. I was on the con team debating whether or not the government had the right to detain people identified as having a dangerous mental illness.

The debates and discussions helped me understand the reality and importance of differing opinions. On any issue, both sides of the argument were generally educated, and both drew their own distinctions from the same data. To win an argument it's essential to incorporate pieces of the opposing viewpoint with your own thesis.

Capitol Hill was the focus the following day, including a stop at the Supreme Court Building, where I was one of four students to give our speeches on the steps. My topic was why the U.S. should be putting more money and effort into preserving endangered species.

We also saw the Capitol, Jefferson Monument and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and World War II memorials.

Quantico Marine Base was the focus the next morning, when we were given night-vision goggles and sent into a pitch-black obstacle course in teams of four. We also saw a martial arts demonstration and visited the state-of-the-art virtual shooting range. The bus then took us to the National Museum of the Marine Corps; the Iwo Jima Memorial, where a Meals-Ready-to-Eat dinner was waiting for us; and a concert by the U.S. Army Band.

Our last full day at YES was spent visiting Arlington National Cemetery, where four of us participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and touring the White House.

The YES program was an outstanding opportunity for me to learn more about our government and the important issues pressing our nation. It was the most rewarding conference I have attended.

ANTHONY ANTONIK, son of Greg and Karen Antonik of Etters, was selected from among applicants across the country to take part in the National Rifle Association's 11th annual National Youth Education Summit, a seven-day, all-expenses-paid, educational experience in Washington, D.C., for outstanding high school sophomores and juniors. He is an incoming junior at Red Land High School.

Planet Earth To Be Eaten By the Sun

But not right away.

From http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/03-08-2007/95625-earth_sun-0

Earth to go splat on the Sun like bugs on windshield

03.08.2007 Source:

Researchers at the European Southern Observatory suggested that planets could go splat against their stars like bugs on a windshield. The researchers put forth their theory after examining the spectrum of the stellar systems located next to the Sun.

The planets’ orbits are upset by gravitational disturbances caused by the impact of parent stars. The disturbances may as well be due to other reasons that remain to be seen. As a result, the planets fall into the fiery pits of hell. The majority of planets in the vicinity of their parent stars are doomed for destruction. Earth may be destroyed in a similar fashion, reports RBC Daily.

The first hypotheses about possible destruction of exoplanets by parent stars emerged after the discovery of those exoplanets or worlds orbiting distant stars. Thus far more than 200 exoplanets have been discovered. Nearly all of them are gaseous giants akin to Jupiter-like planets. They have a very short orbit period (several days) as they spin around their stars.

Researchers who have been trying to investigate the stars’ makeup by analyzing their radiation spectra found out that the young stars were exceedingly rich in metals. The findings contradicted the previous estimates.

“Cannibalism of the parent stars could probably explain the phenomenon,” said European Southern Observatory astronomer Luca Pasquini. “Stars that host planets eat them up. As a result, a planet’s vaporized matter goes splattering on the surface of a star. In a way, it’s like bugs going splat on a windshield,” Pasquini added.

“Planets collide with their parent stars, which bear the marks of collision on their surface. So the stars’ spectra reveal the presence of metals. It is a little bit like a cappuccino. There is cocoa powder only on the top,” Pasquini said.

To gather more evidence, European Southern Observatory researchers also looked into red giants, which were nearing the end of their life cycle. Sun-like stars (in terms of a star’s mass) end up like red giants. Red giants puff up significantly as their luminosity increases. Then the stars become cooler and turn into white dwarves. After inspecting 14 planet-hosting red giants, Pasquini and his colleagues found those stars were not as rich in metals as planet-hosting sun-like stars.

According to Pasquini, planetary debris was scattered all over the stars following the collision; that is why it remains unseen for spectrometers. This does not occur in young stars whose convective currents are fairly small and residual matter circulates through the surface for millions of years.

“Star cannibalism is well-known phenomenon,” said Dmitry Bisikalo, deputy director of the Institute of Astronomy under the Russian Academy of Scientists. “As regards double stellar systems, one star may engulf swallow up another one. However, we still have to learn more about the processes occurring in planets. The theory offered by our European colleagues has plenty of gaps to be filled with information. That is why many scientists are skeptical about it,” Bisikalo added.

The theory is viewed with suspicion because stellar systems have existed for billions of years. Planets’ orbits stabilized and no force seems to be capable of making planets decay from their orbits. Stars, without doubt, actively assimilated planetary matter as planets were forming in earlier times.

“Some double stellar systems shoot off their planets now and then,” said Alexander Tutukov, head of the department of physics and evolution of stars at the Institute of Astronomy under the Russian Academy of Sciences. “Planets in the double stellar systems sometimes change their orbits because of some factors related to gravitational waves of the systems. Such planets accelerate in a gravitational field and break loose,” Tutukov said.

“There are a large number of such planets traveling across the Galaxy. They are always on the move, flying in space at 30 kilometers per second. They can normally resist the attraction caused by other stellar systems. But sometimes they may collide with stars, leaving marks on the surface.” Tutukov added.

Stars also actively engulf planets before fading to black. “At the time of their dying, stars devour their children,” said Tutukov. “For instance, stars eat up one star in the galaxy each year. The sun will puff up in several billion years too. The sun will become much larger; reaching the orbits of Mercury, Venus, and, finally, its mass will reach the orbit of Earth. Doom and destruction will face these planets; high temperatures will cause them to vaporize even before they collide with the sun. Mars will be destroyed too. However, the sun will ‘choke’ on Jupiter, which is too massive for the sun to swallow it. The heavy Jupiter will cut the sun open, and our star will turn into a white dwarf in the end,” Tutukov concluded.

Ufolog.ru

Translated by Guerman Grachev
Pravda.ru