What Are They Doing to These Poor Defenseless and Super-Cute Cats? [Wtf]

I know I must not laugh about this image, but I am. There's something comical about all these cats waiting for surgery. Of course, I wouldn't be laughing if I were the one about to get my balls sliced and diced.

But fear not, dear readers, because this is nothing bad at all. It's just a lot of cats—part of a captured group of almost seven hundred—that are about get neutered so they can be adopted. There's a huge feral cat population problem everywhere, and this is the only way to take care of it. The massive surgery operation was conducted by 25 University of Florida veterinary students. [Ongo]

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Smoking Weed Is Really Bad for the Environment (Doing Other Drugs Is Less Bad) [Factoid]

Marijuana, hue notwithstanding, is not exactly new school green. In fact, it's the worst drug for the environment. Marijuana growers use $5 billion worth of electricity to power lightbulbs, fans, dehumidifiers and whatever else it takes to grow weed. That's 1% of the national electricity consumption.

Not only that, smoking a joint is worth two pounds of carbon dioxide emissions. Who knew getting high could have such environmental consequences! We'll ignore the fact that if it was legal, growers could grow out in the open and not damage the environment with energy consumption. Thanks lawmakers. As for the other drugs: Cocaine powers the deforestation of rain forests, as farmers chop down trees to grow the coca. Also, according to National Geographic:

Farmers also use a number of harmful insecticides, fungicides, and fertilizers to grow the [coca] plants. Petroleum products are also a key ingredient in the process of turning coca into cocaine. To extract the drug from the plant, farmers mash coca leaves and soak the paste in petroleum products such as gasoline or kerosene. According to the U.S. State Department, as many as 85 quarts (80 liters) of kerosene are used to manufacture every kilogram of cocaine that makes its way to the street market.

Making meth uses energy, along with toxic ingredients like drain cleaner, lye, camping stove fuel and more. According to the EPA, the production of a pound of methamphetamine creates five or six pounds of toxic waste. Extracting heroin requires toxic substances like ammonia, acetone, hydrochloric acid, etc. that often ruins the environment the process takes place in.

Basically, any illegal drug you take to gets high, takes a toll on Mother Earth too. Think about the planet the next time you smoke/snort/tweak/shoot drugs. Or just eat shrooms. [National Geographic, Image Credit: Pashabo/Shutterstock]

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What Is This Wonderful Alien Structure Doing on Earth? [Architecture]

This is neither the setting of a new Star Trek movie nor a preview of a new id Software game level. But it looks like one of the pits of a Death Star. Or the core of the Large Hadron Collider.

In reality it is St. Joseph's Church in Le Havre, France, a 1950s neo-gothic structure built as a memorial to the 5,000 civilians who died in the destruction of the city during World War II. It was designed by The church was designed by Auguste Perret, who was the mentor of famous Swiss architect Le Corbusier. [Flickr, Flickr and Wikipedia This Is Colossal]

Photo by Éole Wind.

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What Are These Russian Strategic Nuclear Bombers Doing Infiltrating NATO Airspace? [Video]

This is really strange and nobody is talking about it: the Russians are getting their Tu-95 Bear strategic nuclear bombers deep into European airspace without permission. This video shows how two Dutch F-16 intercepted one a few days ago.

This is happening two years after Russia decided to re-deploy their Bear bombers in Cuba and Venezuela and resume their 1950-style patrols all over the world.

The Bears enter European airspace without asking for permission. In the latest case, NATO forces had to scramble interceptors to shadow them all the way from Denmark until the Dutch fighters that recorded this video intercepted them over the Netherlands. Fortunately, we are not in the Cold War days anymore (are we?) as any of these incidents would have initiated a serious conflict.

The Russian authorities have not given any explanation about these bomber flights, but they keep testing the waters without seemingly caring about the consequences. NATO is limiting itself to escort them out of the airspace but, according to Ares, this is already the fourth time that NATO has intercepted Tu-95 over European skies in 2011 alone.

The Tupolev Tu-95 is a four-engine turboprop-powered nuclear strategic bomber and missile platform created in 1956. But don't let the (really cool) old school design and (awesome) turboprops with eight-bladed contra-rotating propellers fool you. These death-carrying beasts are nothing to laugh at and they will be in service until 2040. [Wikipedia and Ares via Defense Tech ].

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