Wait Wait - News - 2013-02-09

[deguspice]

Here are some more tidbits from NPR's news quiz show "Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!"

Guinea pigs as bad as sharks for paramedics
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/guinea-pigs-as-bad-as-sharks-for-paramedics-20130204-2dugd.html

$110 dinner's main ingredient: Dirt
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/10/travel/tokyo-dirt-restaurant/

How Did a Tortoise Survive 30 Years in a Box?
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/02/01/how-did-a-tortoise-survive-30-years-in-box/

Comments

[deguspice]

I keep wishing that the show would post links to the news items they bring up on the show. So I decided start posting some of them myself.

[gale_storm]

I remember reading the one on the National Geographic site and wondering how the tortoise was able to survive for so long without starving or drying out, leaving only its carrying case. Well, what else would a tortoise shell without the tortoise be?

[deguspice]

Surely you know about the Hermit Tortoises? As they grow larger they move from shell to shell.

(the article hypotheses the tortoise might have lived on bugs in the shed)

[gale_storm]

Yeah, yeah, and those tortoises are on friendly terms with the neighboring hermit crabs, though neither likes the other much at all.

As for the bug diet, that may well be true, although one should hope that the tortoise also had a bit of water here and there as well, for those sheddy bugs (ha!) can be disgustingly dry and distasteful.