In 2012, a television commercial aired in the UK for Bakers dog food that was conceived and produced specifically to attract the attention of dogs. The spot used high-frequency sounds that are inaudible to human ears. In theory, the dog would be so captivated by the advertisement that owners would take note and perhaps purchase Bakers for their next meal.
When iconic fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld died at age 85 in 2019, he left a portion of his $300 million fortune to longtime companion Choupette. The female Burmese cat will, presumably, eat only the fanciest of feasts for the duration of her well-heeled life.
As a covid-19 summer surge sweeps the country, deep cleans are all the rage.
National restaurants such as Applebee’s are deputizing sanitation czars to oversee the constant scrubbing of window ledges, menus, and high chairs. The gym chain Planet Fitness is boasting in ads that “there’s no surface we won’t sanitize, no machine we won’t scrub.” New York City is shutting down its subway system every night, for the first time in its 116-year history, to blast the seats, walls, and poles with a variety of antiseptic weaponry, including electrostatic disinfectant sprays. And in Wauchula, Florida, the local government gave one resident permission to spray the town with hydrogen peroxide as he saw fit. “I think every city in the damn United States needs to be doing it,” he said.
Cicadas are succumbing to a parasitic infection that basically turns them into zombies.
You read that right. The fungus scientifically known as Massospora has been infecting male cicadas for years, according to a journal from PLOS Pathogens as reported by LiveScience. It doesn’t end there though. Much like a zombie army, the male cicada zombies begin to work toward growing their numbers by luring in other male cicadas using a flickering wing movement traditionally used by female cicadas to lure in male mates.