I have been to Guam. Spent a whole summer there. It is very nice - warm but nice breezes and daily, afternoon showers that keep everything fresh.
I don't remember any snakes. I do remember big spiders that lived in the banana tree out front and geckos that lived in the house (you do not walk barefoot in the dark there!). We ate normal food including pizza hut and mcdonald's. They have a huge tourism industry there, most of the visitors are Japanese and other asians. Of course it is probably similar to Hawaii, which is much closer to us, so no need to travel all the way to Guam. erin -----Original Message----- From: Braver, Ben [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, April 02, 2002 9:49 PM To: CF-Community Subject: Guam - NOT So I already had several really good reasons to *never* want to visit Guam - snakes were imported and flourished <do NOT like snakes> - the snakes wiped out the indigenous bird population (brown tree-climbing snakes - blended in with tree limbs. were able to eat birds plus their eggs.) now something like one snake per 5 square meters I've heard. - wiping out the birds allowed the spiders to flourish. <eeeeek> and n-o-w <drum roll>, - a medical journal report (heard about on radio) was studying why there seems to be an order-of-magnitude higher incidence of degenerative brain disease in the human population on Guam. also that the disease is really vicious and seems like a combination of Alzheimer's, Lou Gehrig's, and something else nasty (forget). they found out the native human population formerly ate the meat of a particular bat <yukkk>. the bat has now been hunted virtually into extinction. somehow they were able to determine that the bats' diet included a particular plant which has an especially-potent neurotoxin. apparently this toxin, when ingested by humans, caused the brain disease. The scientists are now trying to find and isolate the neurotoxin, thinking this may give them some insight into preventing or treating the diseases someday. Ah, Guam, lovely tropical paradise... BTW they mentioned various medical problems in Africa and other "third world" regions which may turn out to be due to people eating what's euphemistically called "bush meat" - e.g. monkeys. <shudder> -Ben ______________________________________________________________________ This list and all House of Fusion resources hosted by CFHosting.com. The place for dependable ColdFusion Hosting. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
