Water intoxication, also known as water poisoning or dilutional hyponatremia, is a potentially fatal disturbance in brain functions that results when the normal balance of electrolytes in the body is pushed outside safe limits by over-hydration.
Tom had lived a boring life, until the day he met Rarity. She had showered him with kind words and and loving gestures, eventually convincing him to leave his home in Canterlot and go with her to Ponyville. It was brief and passionate romance, with Rarity refusing to spend even a minute away from him. Unfortunately, as was so often the case, the flame that burned the brightest was extinguished the quickest. The end, when it came, was sudden and unexpected. Despite his best efforts, the beautiful and cruel Rarity soon grew bored with him. She cast him aside like garbage, leaving him alone and friendless, with no way to return home. Heartbroken, he moped around Ponyville for several months. Eventually, the pain was replaced with boredom. As he sat, trying to decide what to do next, he remembered a bit of advice that his mother had given him when he was just a pebble. "Son, a rolling stone gathers no moss." He looked at his reflection in a nearby shop window. He had gathered quite a bit of moss. Disgusted with himself, and furious at the Unicorn that had broken his heart, he began rolling. He rolled north, with no real destination in mind. He rolled over plains and through forests, never stopping. The more distance he put between himself and Ponyville, the better he felt. When he finally reached the frozen tundra of Equestria's northern wastelands, he felt hope for the first time in months. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Crystal Heart was depressed. Though it was her duty to hold the hopes, dreams, and love of the entire Crystal Empire, she herself had never experienced real love. Perhaps she never would. Even after being restored to her old home in the courtyard of the Crystal Palace, she still felt alone. The hundreds of ponies that visited her everyday thought of her as a mere tourist attraction, a pretty image to put on a postcard. She spent her days lost in thought, not paying any attention to the endless stream of tourists. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom was enjoying his new life in the Crystal Empire. He had found a job as a still life model for an art school, and had made friends with some of the crystal formations in the city. One day, he overheard some of the Crystal Ponies expressing concern for something called "The Crystal Heart." "...don't know what's wrong with it, Ruby. It seems different. It's like there's something keeping it from working properly." "I wish I could help you, Agate. Do you think King Sombra may have done something to it?" "I suppose it's possible. The Crystal Heart is..." As the Crystal Ponies walked away, Tom thought about what they had said. He wasn't entirely sure what a "Crystal Heart" was, or, for that matter, what a "King Sombra" was. He just knew that something deep inside of him was telling him that he needed to see the Heart. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Crystal sighed. Another day had come and gone. Hundreds of tourists, thousands of photographs, and not a single pony had thought to even say "Hello" to her. They all thought of her as just an object. The gate opened, and the night janitor entered the courtyard.. His cart of supplies seemed heavier than usual, and he was having difficulty pushing it. As soon as he turned his back and began cleaning, Tom rolled out from his hiding place underneath a pile of rags. The boulder that suddenly appeared below her was the most ruggedly handsome chunk of granite that Crystal had ever seen. She spoke shyly. "Hello there... I'm Crystal Heart. It's nice to meet you, Mister..." Tom had never in his life seen anything as beautiful as the crystal that rotated in the air above him. With her graceful curves and smooth, polished features, Tom realized that he had finally found what he had been searching for. Suddenly very nervous, he found himself rambling and tripping over his words. "Tom. My... my name is Tom. It is nice to meet you too, Miss Crystal. Wow... gosh you're pretty. If you don't mind me saying this, Crystal is a beautiful name. A beautiful name, for a beautiful gem..." Crystal giggled. “You know, you're kind of cute when you're nervous. But really, Tom, there's no need to be nervous. I won't bite. To be honest, I'm just glad to have someone to talk to. These ponies act like they can't even hear me! After awhile, I just gave up trying to speak to them.” Tom laughed. “I sometimes wonder if the ponies are really as smart as the claim to be.” Tom and Crystal talked all night. They spoke of their hopes and their dreams, the pains of their pasts, and their hopes for the future. They talked about to ponies they had encountered, and the amazing events that each had witnessed. By midnight, they felt like they had known one another all their lives. By sunrise, they had fallen in love. When the crowds arrived the next morning, they were shocked to see a large boulder sitting on the ground below the Heart. After numerous complaints, a stallion was called in to remove the eyesore of a rock. The moment he took Tom out of sight of the Heart, several tourists cried out in horror. The Crystal Heart had faded, it's radiant inner light vanishing. When the stallion, still carrying Tom, rushed back into the courtyard to see what had happened, the Crystal Heart lit up again. The scene was repeated for nearly an hour before somepony finally figured out that, somehow, the Crystal Heart and the mysterious boulder had become connected. The best sculptor in the Crystal Empire was called in, and he carefully carved a heart-shaped niche into the boulder. The moment the Crystal Heart was set inside, it glowed more brightly than it ever had before, filling the hearts of everypony in the Crystal Empire with more love that they had ever thought possible. Nopony ever found out where the mysterious boulder, which came to known as the Rock of Hope, had come from, but all agreed that their lives were much happier since its appearance. Tom and the Crystal Heart, of course, lived happily ever after.
[h=1]Worm[/h]From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For other uses, see Worm (disambiguation). [TABLE="class: metadata plainlinks ambox ambox-content ambox-Refimprove, width: 1"] [TR] [TD="class: mbox-image, align: center"] [/TD] [TD="class: mbox-text"]This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008)[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [TABLE="class: metadata mbox-small plainlinks, width: 238"] [TR] [TD="class: mbox-image, align: center"][/TD] [TD="class: mbox-text plainlist"]Look up worm in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] Lumbricus terrestris, the common earthworm. Eupolymnia crasscornis in Kona, Hawaii. An inchworm. The term worm /ˈwɜrm/ refers to an obsolete taxon (vermes) used by Carolus Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non-arthropod invertebrate animals, and stems from the Old English word wyrm. Currently it is used to describe many different distantly related animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body and no legs. Most animals called "worms" are invertebrates, but the term is also used for the amphibian caecilians and the slow worm Anguis, a legless burrowing lizard. Invertebrate animals commonly called "worms" include annelids (earthworms), nematodes (roundworms), platyhelminthes (flatworms), marine polychaete worms (bristle worms), marinenemertean worms ("bootlace worms"), marine Chaetognatha (arrow worms), priapulid worms, and insect larvae such as caterpillars, grubs, and maggots. Historical English-speaking cultures have used the (now deprecated) terms worm, Wurm, or wyrm to describe carnivorous reptiles ("serpents"), and the related mythical beasts dragons. The term worm can also be used as an insult or pejorative term used towards people to describe a cowardly or weak individual or individual seen as pitiable. Worms vary in size from microscopic to over 1 metre (3.3 ft) in length for marine polychaete worms (bristle worms),[SUP][1][/SUP] 6.7 metres (22 ft) for the African giant earthworm,Microchaetus,[SUP][2][/SUP] and 55 metres (180 ft) for the marine nemertean worm (bootlace worm), Lineus longissimus.[SUP][3][/SUP] Various types of worm occupy a small variety of parasitic niches, living inside the bodies of other animals. Free-living worm species may live on land, in marine or freshwater environments, or burrow. [h=2]Contents[/h] [hide] 1 Distribution and habitat 2 Classification 3 Characteristics 4 Image in mythology, literature, and art 5 See also 6 References [h=2]Distribution and habitat[/h]Worms live in almost all parts of the world including marine, freshwater, and terrestrial habitats. Some worms living in the ground help to condition the soil (e.g., annelids,aschelminths). Many thrive as parasites of plants (e.g., aschelminths) and animals, including humans (e.g., platyhelminths, aschelminths). Several other worms may be free-living, or nonparasitic. There are worms that live in freshwater, seawater, and even on the seashore. Ecologically, worms form an important link in the food chains in virtually all the ecosystems of the world. In the United States, the average population of worms per acre is 53,767.[SUP][4][/SUP] [h=2]Classification[/h]In everyday language, the term worm is also applied to various other living forms such as larvae, insects, centipedes, shipworms (teredo worms), or even some vertebrates (creatures with a backbone) such as blindworms and caecilians. Worms can be divided into several groups, but are still technically decomposers. The first of these, Platyhelminthes, includes the flatworms, tapeworms, and flukes. They have a flat, ribbon- or leaf-shaped body with a pair of eyes at the front. Some are parasites. The second group contains the threadworms, roundworms, and hookworms. This phylum is called Nematoda. Threadworms may be microscopic, such as the vinegar eelworm, or more than 1 metre (3 feet) long. They are found in damp earth, moss, decaying substances, fresh water, or salt water. Some roundworms are also parasites. The Guinea worm, for example, gets under the skin of the feet and legs of people living in tropical countries. The third group consists of the segmented worms, with bodies divided into segments, or rings. This phylum is called Annelida. Among these are the earthworms and thebristle worms of the sea. In earlier taxonomic classification, all the above were included in the now obsolete group Vermes. There are hundreds of thousands of species that live in a wide variety of habitats other than soil. Over time this broad definition narrowed to the modern definition, although this still includes several different animal groups. Phyla that include worms include: Annelida (segmented worms) Arthropoda (inchworms, sometimes called "canker worms") Chaetognatha (arrow worms) Gnathostomulid (jaw worms) Hemichordata (acorn/tongue worms) Nematoda (roundworms) Nematomorpha (horsehair worms) Nemertea (ribbonworms) Onychophora (velvet worms) Phoronida (horseshoe worms) Platyhelminthes (flatworms) Priapulida (phallus worms) Sipuncula (peanut worms) Earthworm To most people the most familiar worms[SUP][citation needed][/SUP] are the earthworms, members of phylum Annelida. Earthworms in general have been around for 120 million years. They enrich and aerate the soil; Charles Darwin found that worms turn over the top six inches (15 cm) of topsoil every 20 years in a field near where he lived. In less favourable conditions, such as waterlogged soils or hard soil deficient in suitable organic matter, or in seasonally dry soils, they cannot achieve anything like that. They lack a brain in the sense of the vertebrate brain, but have nerve centers (called ganglia); they also lack eyes but can sense light with photoreceptors. Worms are hermaphrodites (both sexes in one animal) but can cross fertilize. Other invertebrate groups may be called worms, especially colloquially. In particular, many unrelated insect larvae are called "worms", such as the railroad worm, woodworm, glowworm, bloodworm,inchworm, mealworm, silkworm, Wooly bear worm. Worms may also be called helminths, particularly in medical terminology when referring to parasitic worms, especially the Nematoda (roundworms) and Cestoda (tapeworms). Hence "helminthology" is the study of parasitic worms. When an animal, such as a dog, is said to "have worms", it means that it is infested with parasitic worms, typically roundworms or tapeworms. "Ringworm" is not a worm at all, but a skin fungus. [h=2]Characteristics[/h] Paragordius tricuspidatus(Nematomorpha) Some species of earthworms have a tongue-like lobe above the mouth called prostomium. The prostomium is actually a sensory device. Earthworms do not have a nose, eyes, ears, or hands to gather sensory information about their environment. Instead, they depend on their prostomium and sensory receptors in their skin to "feel" their way through the soil. Worms usually have a cylindrical, flattened, or leaf-like body shape and are often without any true limbs or appendages. Instead, they may have bristles or fins that help them move. A few have light-sensing organs. Worms vary in size from less than 1 mm (0.04 inch) in certain aschelminths to more than 30 m (100 feet) in certain ribbon worms. Some worms reproduce sexually. Hermaphroditism, the condition in which a single individual possesses both male and female reproductive parts, is common in many groups of worms. Asexual reproduction, whereby new individuals develop from the body cells of another, also occurs in some worms. Worm species differ in their abilities to move about on their own. Many species have bodies with no major muscles, and cannot move on their own—they must be moved by forces or other animals in their environment. Many other species have bodies with major muscles and can move on their own; they are a type of muscular hydrostat. Many species of worms are decomposers; they break down dead plants and animals to return nutrients to the soil. They have also been known to infiltrate households feeding on food in the early stages of its decomposition namely breads and cheeses. Earthworms split into three different categories. The first are the surface dwellers, the Epigeic worms. Then there are the upper soil worms, the Endogeic worms. Finally, there are the deep burrowing species, the Anecic. [h=2]Image in mythology, literature, and art[/h]See also: List of fictional worms and Fictional depictions of worms Worms are sometimes used as a metaphor of putrefaction or corruption; a corpse may be said to be "fed to the worms". Examples: Hamlet, Shakespeare Twelfth Night, Shakespeare The Battleship Potemkin "The Conqueror Worm", a poem in Edgar Allan Poe's short story "Ligeia" "The Festival", a short story by H. P. Lovecraft The Wall, Pink Floyd. Worms are used to represent the main character's slipping grasp on reality, and are "eating into his brain" In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth pseudo-mythology, "worm" (and "drake") is a term for dragon [h=2]See also[/h] Sea worm, lists various types of marine worms Vermicompost Worm cast Worm charming [h=2]References[/h] Jump up^ Superstar Worm. "Cornwall - Nature - Superstar Worm". BBC. Retrieved 2010-03-04. Jump up^ Worm Digest - The Mighty Worm Jump up^ Carwardine, M. 1995. The Guinness Book of Animal Records. Guinness Publishing. p. 232. Jump up^ "Average US Worm Population" Popular Mechanics, October 1950, p. 158, small article bottom of page. 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i especially like this little beauty from them "There was a sound of impact, a raspy, dry scream, and the vampire went down hard. It lay on the ground like a butterfly pinned to a card, arms and legs thrashing uselessly. Its chest and collarbone had been crushed. By an entire frozen turkey. A twenty-pounder. The plucked bird must have fallen from an airplane overhead, doubtlessly manipulated by the curse. By the time it got to the ground, the turkey had already reached its terminal velocity, and was still hard as a brick. The drumsticks poked up above the vampire's crushed chest, their ends wrapped in red tinfoil. The vampire gasped and writhed a little more. The timer popped out of the turkey. Everyone stopped to blink at that for a second. I mean, come on. Impaled by a guided frozen turkey missile. Even by the standards of the quasi-immortal creatures of the night, that ain't something you see twice." (Blood Rites)
