Cats and the Black Death

     In honor of our cat poems in class, I decided to talk about those little devils.  Well, what do cats have to do with the Black Death?

     In the middle ages, it is important to understand that people associated cats with witches and evil.  This was also around the time that the Black Death was very popular.  The plague was spread by fleas that lived on rats.  "The black plague, also known as the black death, is a disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis.  It enters the body through the skin and travels via the lymph system.  The bacteria live in the digestive tracts of fleas.  The fleas, of course, live off blood from a host, and when the fleas swallow the blood, it becomes infected with the bacteria.  As the bacteria multiply inside the flea, and intestinal blockage forms, starving the parasite because nutrients cannot be absorbed.  The flea vomits in an effort to clear the blockage, and since the flea is starving, it feeds voraciously.  When the infected flea vomits the diseased blood into a bite site on a host animal or human, the host becomes infected with the black plague."
 Cats would control the rat population by hunting them and killing them, silently doing good for people.  When rumors started to spread about cats and the association with evil, many cats were immediately killed.  Because of the decline of cats, the rat population quickly rose, resulting in the Black Plague spreading very quickly.
     I guess that goes to show you, every creature serves a purpose, even cats!

Dude, Let's Play!

     When I go over to a friend's house, or someone comes over to mine, one of the main things we do is play video games.  Grab a controller, and play!  It's fun, but have you ever wondered how dirty that controller is that you are holding in your hand?
     When we play video games, often we are so drawn into the game, we don't quite realize what we do when we are playing.  For example, we touch our face, sneeze, cough, blow our noses, touch objects, and sweat.  Very often, gamers don't wash their hands before or after playing...and I don't quite recall a time when I
heard someone say, "dude, I need to wash my controller!"  Playing and grabbing the controllers, we don't realize just how much can be living and growing on a gaming controller.
     "The hand-held controllers contain on average 7,863 germs per 100 square centimeter - that's five times more than a toilet seat..."  Think about that.  Something gamers commonly do, is eat while they game.  A favorite food of gamers everywhere is pizza - which you eat with yours hands.  Touching the controller then eating the pizza means that you are exposing your hands to a dirty surface and eating whatever may be transferred.
     Maybe when we decide to play our video games, we will remember to clean our controllers first, not eat when we game, and try to limit the mindless movements we make while playing, such as touching our faces.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/games-consoles-controllers-five-times-2254476