Weird Animals...

This months installment of weird animals should be called "Creepy Crawlies to Scare the Pants Off a Kiwi".

The spider in this photo is a Huntsman Spider. Isn't he cute - not. This particular one was living under our kitchen sink.

Huntsman Spiders have 8 eyes, and can have a leg span of up to 30cm. Pretty big and scary!

They do bite, but only cause a small amount of pain and are not harmfully to humans. Huntsman don't use a web to catch their prey, but hunt them down - hence the name Huntsman.

They are actually good to have around the house (I am told!) because they eat insects you don't want inside.

But if the spider in this picture appeared in my house, I would be grabbing a cricket bat or can of spray - I'd rather have bugs than this any day!

Polution

The footage from the Beijing Olympics has amazed me, with shots of smoggy skylines. The amount of pollution China produces is wrong.

No matter what the rest of the world does to combat global warming, it doesn't matter as long as China does nothing.

I know they have cleaned up their act for the Olympics, but I bet it all goes back to normal right after the closing ceremony.

It does make you think, if they have cut pollution down for the Olympics, how bad must it be in a regular day?

Wastage

I was recently watching a show about recycling, and was shocked at how much timber goes into making a ream of A4 copy paper. Apparently the average pine tree makes only 5 reams of copy paper, or one box.

Now think about how large a tree is, and how small a box of copy paper is. Add to that the fact that it can take 20 years for a pine tree to grow.

Now think about how much paper you use in your workplace, school or uni.

Add in another interesting fact, that each individual piece of paper takes 10 litres of water to manufacture, and copious amounts of chemicals.

I haven't even mentioned the pollution that is produced.

So next time you go to click the print button, think again before you do it. If you do really need to print, then try a print preview so you can see how many pages you are actually getting.