Along with the Kodiak bear, the polar bear is the largest land predator.  As we’ve seen in documentaries and at Hollywood award shows, polar bears are not handling global warming so well.  Polar bears typically have up to 4 inches of blubber for insulation, so they start to overheat when temperatures rise above 50F (10C).  Their insulation is so intense that they are basically invisible under infrared photography.

This fact has taught me two things.

1. Global warming isn’t killing polar bears.  Polar bear obesity is killing polar bears.  If they lost some weight they wouldn’t be so hot all the time.

2. Polar bears join my growing list of animals that would make perfect criminals.

The koala is one of the few mammals, other than primates, to have fingerprints.  Their fingerprints are very similar to human fingerprints.  According to an infamously dubious, free, online encyclopedia, human and koala fingerprints are so similar that “even with an electron microscope it can be quite difficult to distinguish between the two.”

Crime Scene Investigator: Here’s the gun from the murder scene.

Forensic Scientist: Thanks.  Once I just take a look at this gun with my trusty electron microscope, I will be able to pinpoint the killer immediately.

Looks in electron microscope.

Forensic Scientist: I see the prints.  It looks like I’ve narrowed it down to two suspects.  But it’s quite difficult to distinguish between the two, even with my electron microscope.

LATER:

Behind one-way glass, a witness looks at the two suspects in a police line-up.  A 46 year-old man with a history of violence and drug addiction …and…  a 25-pound koala with a pouch full of revenge.

“The nose print of a dog is like the fingerprint of a person – no two are alike. Get a good relief and you can identify your dog by the mark it leaves behind!” 

I’m guessing your dog’s face will help you distinguish your dog too. Or maybe its general appearance or its collar…  Maybe this fact is supposed to help me track my dog…or help the police if my dog committed a crime or something.  But I would have to rely on the fact that he used his nose to shoot a gun.  Wow!  I can identify my dog by “the mark it leaves behind!”  I don’t know about you, but my dog doesn’t walk around with ink on its nose pressing it up against things.  Or shooting people.

I always wondered why people loudly hit their hands together to show their approval of something.  Why don’t we “armpit fart” or snort or just babble some gibberish when we are pleased? The act of clapping has been used as a sign of approval for basically all of recorded human history.  There were even professional clappers.  In France, for instance, a claque was a group of professional clappers (claquers).  They would go to French plays, operas, and concerts by the request of the director to make the performance seem like a bigger hit.  It was an old school laugh-track.  But claques weren’t always so jubilant.  They would also cement themselves as a form of extortion by threatening to boo a performance unless they were paid a handsome fee.  A claque seems like the most pompous, unintimidating organized crime ring ever.

10-91H is the police code for “Stray Horse.”  I will make sure I watch for this when I am listening to the police scanner.  I would hate to get in the middle of this.  I bet the LAPD would give a whole new meaning to beating a dead horse.