There’s a long Labor Day weekend coming up in America (a “bank holiday” to you Brits), and in its honor I’ll be laboring. In the meantime, enjoy these crazy hamsters.
Friday LOLz: hamsters go nuts
August 31, 2012 • 2:17 pm
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
America is a continent, Jerry; you mean the United States. Canada has Labour Day on Monday also. There may be other countries in America that have a labor day, too. I don’t know.
America is two or possibly three continents, depending on who’s counting. North, South and sometimes Central.
Want to know one way USAians annoy Mexicans? They imply that North America stops at their mutual border. Lots of Canadians make the same mistake too. I think it’s the language change that deceives them.
By United States, do you mean the Mexican United States?
And that, my friends, is how the Internet is powered…..
That probably explains why my connection is continually failing.
This neat wheel should be on playgrounds EVERYWHERE!
Not if you can make it reach that many rpm, thanks.
Actually we do see wheels somewhat like that around here in the playgrounds. They put several sets of handles on them though, which reduces the likelihood of going ballistic.
Most of those merry-go-rounds are fixed to go slow (now adays), but I found one park when my son was 3 or 4 that went crazy fast… threw him off a good six feet ^^; He was fine, but he didn’t go anywhere near it again.
Finally, an accurate metaphor for life in the middle-class.
I used to work with a couple of grad students who had a pet mouse, Max. He lived in a cage in their shared office and grew immensely obese because his diet consisted of nothing but Twizzlers (the little nub kind) and the food pellets that we fed to the syrian hamsters down the hall.
One day one of the grad students came home from a conference with some swag: a side-laying exercise wheel just like the one in the video. Max’s cage was one of the flat ones that labs use for rodents, so he’d never had access to any sort of exercise equipment.
They gave it to him on a Thursday. Thursday and Friday, he did virtually nothing but run on the wheel. Monday morning, they came in to find him dead from what we all assume was a little mousey coronary.
Moral of the story? Exercise kills.
We have Labour Day late in October to celebrate the 40-hour week and the 8-hour day. Those were the days! (Just ask those hamsters.) We used to have a Bank Holiday too. We might still; if only banks observe it I wouldn’t know.
Amazing!
I think the axis of the wheel must be inclined (because the hamster must be ‘pushing’ against something – in this case his own weight – to ‘power’ the wheel).
So, to get up maximum rotational speed, the ‘pushing’ hamster needs to be as close to the axis of the wheel as possible, while the other one rides round on the rim. If one built a wheel with two ‘grooves’, one inside the other, this would help the inner hamster to stay ‘in the groove’ close to the center. And if the outer diameter was increased, the velocity at the rim could reach truly impressive figures. Ballistic hamsters!
The toddler and I are currently trying to convince my wife to allow a hamster in the house. I wonder if this video will help? Ballistic flying hamsters…
Actually, the Brit August bank holiday was last Monday 😛
Civilized countries like Suriname (also on the Pan-American continent) celebrate Labour Day (Dag van de Arbeid is the literal translation) on May 1. You can thank Grover Cleveland and Dwight Eisenhower for your particular abomination.
The one time Canada follows its southern neighbour it commits a mistake ….
Still I wish you all fun. I had mine four months ago.
As you know, Jerry, I’ve been on holiday. Just caught up with ths. Tears rolled down my chees. With laughter.
Cheeks, obv.
“cheese”, obliviously.