The Fact Box

Prokaryotic Factoids

2010-01-24T13:13:00.012-05:00

Prokaryotes! The prolific group of simple, single-celled organisms that ruled Earth for 1.5 billions years until Eukaryotes and their nucleus's came along. And even though multicellular Eukaryotes (plants, animals, fungi, protists) appear to dominate the planet, prokaryotes are still the most abundant form of life. One drop of seawater contains hundreds of thousands of prokaryotic organisms, a spoonful of soil contains billions, the average human body is home to trillions. I'm sure you've read before, that about 250,000 average-sized prokaryotes can fit within the period at the end of this sentence. Bacteria and Archaea (the two main groups of prokaryotes) are incredibly tiny, but not all of them are. Theomargarita namibiensis, the largest known bacterium, is 700 micrometers in diameter - visible to the naked eye!

Different types of prokaryotes can inhabit nearly any place on Earth, often places where nothing else can live. Some bacteria can live in near-boiling hot springs, while even tougher archaea can happily inhabit water over 230°F (in fact, it will stop growing if temperatures drop below 194°F). Others make their home in Antarctic sea ice. Some species of prokaryotes can be found perpetually crushed by high pressure 1.7 miles below the Earth's surface. Waters as acidic as vinegar or alkaline as household ammonia don't deter some species. Even the Dead Sea, where salt concentrations are seven times that of the ocean, is a home for colonies of tough bacteria and archaea. Bacteria has even been found dormant in the intestines of a mammoth buried in a peat bog for 11,000 years!

If these facts give you dismay that we shall become overrun by microscopic "inferior" beings that cannot be destroyed - don't worry. No single prokaryotic species can survive all these pressures. Most prokaryotes live harmless, specialized lives, in moderate habitats. Popular places include your very own intestines, mouth, skin, and respiratory tract. But before you embark on a prokaryotic killing spree to rid yourself of these invaders, remember that bacteria and archaea fill important and essential roles, not only in our bodies, but on the entire planet. In fact, we are dependent on prokaryotes for our existence. They help us digest our food and absorb vital nutrients. They break down and recycle wastes and dead organisms. They capture nitrogen from the air for plants, who would perish without it. Prokaryotes can even help us clean up our own messes, such as oil spills. When the Exxon Valdez polluted Alaska's Prince William Sound with 11 million gallons of crude oil, the beaches were sprayed with a fertilizer that encouraged the growth of an oil-eating bacteria.

Prokaryotes may be the simplest life-forms on Earth, but they are essential for the existence of all other life. These under-appreciated organisms should be celebrated for their diversity, their versatility, and their importance in the world!

Source:
Biology Life On Earth, with Physiology (Eighth Edition)
by Teresa Audesirk, Gerald Audesirk, Bruce E. Byers
(Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008)

Cold-Nosed Rabbits

2009-12-09T15:39:00.004-05:00

The Himalayan rabbit has white body fur and it's nose, tail, feet and ears have black fur. Yet Himalayan rabbits have a genotype for black fur all over their body! Genotype is the genetic composition of an organism, what is encoded in their genes. Phenotype is the visible or physical result of a genotype. So a rabbit with a genotype for black fur, should have a phenotype of black fur, but instead, the Himalayan rabbit has a phenotype of white fur with black accents - why?

The Himalayan rabbit is an example of the environment influencing gene expression. Its genotype says that all the fur should be black, but the enzyme that produces black pigment only functions at temperatures below 93°F. At normal climates, extremities of a Himalayan rabbit, such as the nose, ears, tail, and feet, are cool enough for the black pigment to produce black fur. The rest of the rabbit's body is warmer than 93°F and thus has pale fur instead!

Siamese cats are the same. Their fur color is influenced by the surrounding environment.

The 1st Law of Thermodynamics: How old is our energy?

2009-10-22T12:27:00.003-04:00

The first law of thermodynamics states that energy is neither created nor destroyed.

This means that the energy we use in our bodies is as old as the universe.. that's about 13.5 to 14 billion years!!

According to the first law of thermodynamics, the amount of energy in the universe remains constant, transferring from place to place, from kinetic energy (movement) to potential energy (stored energy) and back again. Kinetic energy includes light (the movement of photons), heat (movement of molecules), electricity (movement of electrically charged particles), and all object movement, such as your fingers as you type, or a rock rolling down a hill. Potential energy is stored energy. This includes the energy stored in chemical bonds between atoms or electrical energy in a battery. A rock at the top of a hill has potential energy that can be transformed into kinetic energy if it begins to roll down the hill.

So how is the energy we use so old? We get our energy from vegetables, meat, dairy, etc. All of the energy we receive from the food we eat originally came from a plant which captured energy from the sun. The sun was formed when our solar system was created out of space dust, about 4.5 - 5 billion years ago, which came from space debris that was already about 9 billion years old!

Sources:

My Biology Professor (K. Thomas)
and
Audesirk, Teresa, Gerald Audesirk, and Bruce E. Byers. Biology: Life On Earth with Physiology. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice hall, 2008.

Origen of Alexandria

2008-12-31T12:32:00.009-05:00

Origen was a Christian scholar and theologian who was the head of Alexandria's Catechetical School during the second century AD.
Today, Origen is considered one of the father's of the Christian church, though in his time he was labeled a heretic for his controversial beliefs. Origen believed in the eternal pre-existance of the human soul and the ultimate salvation of all beings - even Satan himself would be redeemed at the end of the world.

Rumor has it that at age twenty Origen had himself surgically castrated so that he could tutor women without suspicion. Of course, there is dispute as to whether or not this is true as he never wrote about it, but in his time castration was considered an acceptable (though drastic) action against sexuality and "the sins of the flesh." It is likely that Patriarch Demetrius of Alexandria maliciously started the rumor. Originally was one of Origen’s supporters, Demetrius eventually became enemies with Origen and had him banished from Alexandria.

Original Source:
Mysteries of the Middle Ages by Thomas Cahill
Further Sources:
On Origen by Henry Karlson
Origen of Alexandria from Religion Facts

Horseshoe Crabs

2008-11-23T15:53:00.007-05:00

What animal, related to scorpions, has inhabited the earth for 200 million years, crawls around on five pairs of legs, and swims upside down?

Horseshoe Crabs!

Horseshoe crabs are not actually crabs, they are more closely related to scorpions or spiders. Horseshoe crabs have been around for millions of years, and they can survive just about anything. Except, of course, Homo sapiens.

Horseshoe crabs are collected for bait, and also for their blood. Horseshoe crab blood is pale blue, and contains special cells that swarm to the site of a wound and kill certain kinds of bacteria. This substance from horseshoe crab blood is used as a fast and effective way of testing medical drugs to make sure they are free of harmful bacteria before being distributed.

Yet due to overfishing, the number of horseshoe crabs has declined by as much as 90 percent in the past decade. Ironically, we who have existed on earth merely .0005% as long as horseshoe crabs, are contributing to their demise.

Source: Aquagenesis by Richard Ellis

Shooting Venus From The Sky

2008-03-27T12:49:00.001-04:00

During World War II, a squadron of B-29 pilots mistook the planet Venus for a Japanese plane and tried to shoot it from the sky.

Source: The Planets by Dava Sobel

Symptoms of Outer Space

2008-03-22T23:58:00.011-04:00

Outer space does some crazy things to your inner ears. The confusing information reaching the inner ears causes nearly every astronaut to experience space sickness. Symptoms include but are not limited to: nausea, headaches, and trouble locating your own limbs. Pregnant rats that were sent into space gave birth to tipsy topsy baby rats whose inner ears were still developing while in outer space.

Another symptom of weightlessness: fluids move upward causing nasal congestion and a puffy face; bones lose calcium, forming kidney stones; and muscles atrophy, slowing the bowels and shrinking the heart.
Zero gravity does make you taller though. The decreased pressure on the spine causes most space travelers to grow about two inches.

If you are ever exposed to the vacuum of space without a suit on, don’t hold your breath: Sudden decompression would cause your lungs to rupture. In addition, water on the tongue, in the nose, and in the eyes would boil away. This actually happened in 1965, when a space suit failed during a NASA experiment and the tester was exposed to a near vacuum for 15 seconds.
Contrary to Hollywood, though, you wouldn’t explode. Lack of oxygen in the blood is what would kill you, but it would take about two minutes.
More explosion paranoia: Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson’s space-tourism company, reportedly considered barring women with breast implants due to fears that they might blow up.

If astronauts tried to sprinkle salt and pepper on their food it would float away, and likely cause some serious issues. Instead astronauts add salt and pepper to their meals in liquid form.

Returning astronauts report extreme difficulty moving their arms and legs right after touchdown, one reason why they call landing “the second birth.” Long-duration cosmonauts report that the hardest thing to readjust to about life on Earth is that when you let go of objects, they fall.

So after all of this? A total of eighteen people have died on space missions, but never in space—always on the way up or the way down.

Source: Discover Magazine

Healthy Heroin!

2008-03-22T18:30:00.006-04:00

In 1898 mother's could buy Bayer's Heroin off the shelves for their sick kids believing it to be a safe painkiller and cough medicine. It was approved by the American Medical Association and marketed as a non-addictive morphine substitute. Interesting claims considering that heroin is extremely addictive and metabolizes into morphine inside the body.

It's name came from the "heroic" feeling the workers felt when they were testing it out in the lab.

Bayer didn't realize it's mistake until 1913, but for a decade after you could find heroin lozenges, heroin elixirs, heroin tablets, and heroin pastilles all across the market.

Source #1: Learn More
Source #2: mental_floss magazine.

The Sneakiest Declaration of War in History

2008-02-23T00:19:00.002-05:00

On April 24, 1898 Spain declared war on the United States. The next day, on the 25th, the United States also declared war, but announced that their declaration was "made retroactive to April 21st."

source: mental floss magazine

Incest in the Womb

2008-02-22T18:14:00.002-05:00

A female Acarophenax tribolii mite typically gives birth to 15 females and one male. All of her little mite children hatch while still inside her womb and the male mates and impregnates all of his sisters. Then the brother dies and his sisters begin life by bursting their mother open and killing her.

The Living Dead... Bacteria

2007-12-02T11:04:00.000-05:00

In 1905, when Captain Scott first laid eyes on the mountainous Antarctic terrain, he called it "valleys of the dead". Now over 100 years later scientists have brought back to life the oldest known frozen bacteria from Antarctic ice samples. The bacteria range in age from 100,000 years old to 8 million years old! In as short as seven days, the bacteria came back to life inside a culture flask. The older bacteria took 10 times as long.

This new knowledge causes us to think a little differently about the effects global warming may have, especially in our oceans. As the Antarctic ice melts, the bacteria frozen inside could come back to life and mix with the microbes in the ocean. This would mean a transfer of genes from land into the ocean, and could lead to a large change within the tiny life of bacterial organisms.

Paul Falkowski, a Rutgers University biologist who directed the bacteria project says that it is important for genomes in the ocean to be recorded as they are now, because the change could happen very quickly. “We are potentially on the cusp of a global revolutionary experiment in the microbial world,” he says. “These evolutionary changes could be visible 50 to 100 years from now, showing us new genomes of marine organisms.”

Source: Discover Magazine Online

Let's talk about...Playboy!

2007-11-16T11:41:00.000-05:00

Playboy magazine's original name was "Stag Party." Instead of a rabbit, its mascot was a buck. Sexy, huh?

The first issue featured a Sherlock Holmes story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Ever wondered why James Bond is surrounded by babes? The famous spy was introduced in a short story by Ian Fleming that he wrote for the March 1960 issue of Playboy.

Pamela Anderson has been featured on Playboy's cover more than any other model. Between October 1989 and July 2001, she has appeared on the cover 10 times.

Seven men have appeared on the cover of Playboy. Peter Sellers (1964), Burt Reynolds (1979), Steve Martin (1980), Donald Trump (1990), Dan Aykroyd (1993), Jerry Seinfeld (1993), and Leslie Nielsen (1996).

Hugh Hefner owns 112 pairs of silk pajamas. Of course, he probably owns more, as these factoids are from 2003.

Did you know that a woman now owns the Playboy enterprise? In 1982 Hefner's daughter, Christie, became the new president.

More fun facts here.

The Speed Limit

2007-11-12T23:17:00.000-05:00

In 1973, Congressed responded to an oil crisis by passing the National Maximum Speed Law which deprived states of highway funding if they allowed speeds higher than 55 mph. This is the speed at which wind resistance starts to increase and more fuel is burned. This restriction actually worked and saved gasoline, but the Congress was pressured to repeal the law in 1987. Now many states allow speeds of up to 70 or 75 mph and in some parts of rural Texas the speed limit is 80 mph.

Source: Mental Floss Magazine - Volume 6 Issue 6

The Nine Lives of Andrew Jackson

2007-11-12T20:48:00.000-05:00

Andrew Jackson was the founder of the democratic party, defeated the British during the War of 1812, and was the 7th President of the United States. He also should have been dead.

Throughout his entire life, Andrew Jackson managed to avoid death. At 14, Andrew and his brother were captured by the British during the Revolutionary War. They were starved, abused, unclothed, and ill with smallpox. When they were released they were forced to walk 45 miles in the rain without shoes or a jacket to reach a POW camp. Their mother finally negotiated their release, but two days after returning home Andrew's brother died, but Andrew Jackson miraculously recovered.
After he had recovered, Andrew Jackson's mother left to care for prisoners of war where she died of cholera, leaving Andrew Jackson a penniless orphan to roam the streets of Salisbury, North Carolina.

Andrew Jackson should have also died about a hundred times during duels, usually over his wife Rachel who was previously married, and whose divorce legality was questioned at the time of her marriage to Jackson. Two of his duels led to near-death experiences. One time he was shot in the arm and shoulder but he refused to let the doctor's amputate. Another time he was shot squarely in the chest, shattering two of his ribs, but he merely staunched the wound with a hankerchief and shot down his opponent. His entire left boot filled with blood. The bullet was lodged so close to Jackson's heart that it couldn't be removed. As a result he suffered from chest pain and phlegm for the rest of his life.

Andrew Jackson also managed to survive on the battlefield. He fought malaria, diarrhea, dysentery, and starvation. He once survived on nothing but acorns.

When he first became President of the United States, Andrew Jackson was so popular that he was nearly crushed by a mob on the White House Lawn. Luckily his friends were there to form a protective ring around him.

But above all of Andrew Jackson's escapes from death, the most memorable is in 1835 when he was leaving the Capitol building and a man named Richard Lawrence approached him and raised his pistol. Lawrence fired a shot but nothing happened. The assailant then pulled out another gun and fired a second shot. Again, nothing happened. Later it was discovered that both guns had been properly loaded. The odds of two misfires in a row? 1 in 125,000. Andrew Jackson was truly a very lucky man.

Source: Mental Floss Magazine - Volume 6 Issue 5

Read some super awesome facts about Andrew Jackson HERE.

Dunkin Duck Feathers

2007-10-21T11:08:00.000-04:00

Dunkin Donut Bagels contain an ingredient L-Cysteine, which they have stated is made from duck feathers.

She Got the Goldmine, I Got the Shaft

2007-10-13T17:08:00.000-04:00

The phrase "got the shaft" is often used when someone gets the bad end of a bargain. e.g. "I totally just got the shaft!"
The phrase originates from the 1962 song "She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)" written by Jerry Reed.

The song goes:
She got the goldmine (She got the goldmine)
I got the shaft (I got the shaft)
They split it right down the middle
And then they give her the better half
Well, it all sounds sorta funny
But it hurts too much to laugh
She got the goldmine, I got the shaft.

Greek Punctuation

2007-10-13T15:16:00.000-04:00

The Greek punctuation for the end of a question is the English semicolon. Do you think this is confusing;

Transgender Fish

2007-10-11T11:29:00.000-04:00

Protogynous and protandrous fish are very common, especcially in tropical reefs. They are sequential hermaphrodites because they have the capability to transform from one sex to another. Sequential hermaphrodites don't always change their gender, the key point is that they are capable of transforming.

The Genus Amphiprion includes clownfish, damselfish, and anemone fish. These fish are protandrous. They first develop into males, and then potentially to females. In fact, these fish begin life as gender neutral fish, or neuters that live in communities around sea anemones. The communites include the large, dominant female, a smaller male, and then several "neuters." If something should happen to the female, the male transforms into a female to replace her, and a neuter will transform to replace the male.

Wrasses, parrotfish, and other fish are the opposite. They are protogynous, meaning that they begin life as females with the ability to turn to males. These fish tend to live in harems consisting of one male overseeing numerous females for life. The male wrasse defends his territory, attracts females to add to his harem, mates with them, and protects them. As with the clownfish and damselfish, if the male should die, he will be replaced by the dominant female who undergoes a sex change (over about five days) from female to male.

Source: Alan Richmond, Biology Professor at UMASS
Hermaphroditism: A Tale of Two Sexes

Transexual Bugs

2007-10-10T22:37:00.000-04:00

The male African bat bug (Afrocimex constrictus) is very violent when it comes to reproductive behavior. Rather than mating with a female bat bug's sex organs, the male bat bug stabs her and ejaculates directly into her bloodstream, where the sperm then travels to the ovaries. In response, females evolved paragenitalia which is a structure on their abdomen that limits damage by guiding the male's sharp penile prong into a "spongy reservoir of immune cells."

Since bat bugs aren't picky about which gender of bug they are sexually stabbing, male bugs have also developed their own version of the female's paragenitals. The females then further evolved to match the male's paragenitalia, decreasing their chances of getting stabbed. According to Klaus Reinhardt, "traumatic insemination", as it is termed, is considered the root of the extreme levels of gender bending seen in the African bat bug.

Bat bugs are blood-sucking parasites that feed on bats, but bite humans in the absence of their primary hosts. They are cousins of the bed bug.

Sources:
LiveScience
YahooNews

Bad Banked Blood

2007-10-09T16:55:00.000-04:00

It would be hard to deny that you're doing someone, somewhere a great service when you donate blood. But what happens to your blood between the time that it leaves your body and is transferred to somebody else?

In a series of studies, doctors have been finding an increase in cases of heart disease and death in patients receiving transfusions. The startling trend seems to affect almost every group of critically ill patients, and doctors believe it is unrelated to infectious blood-borne diseases or allergic reactions.

A doctor from Duke University recently undertook a study to examine banked blood more closely and found that the level of nitric oxide, which helps red blood cells carry oxygen to tissues and opens vessels to allow for better blood flow, begins to drop within hours of leaving the body. By the time donated blood expires (after 42 days) the gas is almost nonexistent.

The hypothesis proposed by Dr. Stamler is that, without nitric oxide, red blood cells cannot drill their way into tiny blood vessels. As a result, they pile up in narrow passageways, blocking blood flow instead of increasing it and putting strain on the heart.

Stamler even suggests that it might be possible to "supercharge" the nitric oxide content in blood and use it as a treatment for heart disease, diabetes, and more. At the moment, the American Red Cross is awaiting additional research before changing any of its processing or storage practices.

Original story and image found here.

Sperm!

2007-09-30T14:53:00.001-04:00

Our most sincere apologies for the Factbox hiatus. I welcome our devoted readers back with a few fun facts about sperm.

There's a lot of misinformation out in the world about semen. For instance, many people believe that semen is made up entirely of sperm. This is incorrect. In addition to sperm, semen contains fluids secreted by several glands during ejaculation. When a man is sexually aroused and close to the point of ejaculation, semen travels from the epididymis down through a tube called the vas deferens. It is here that the semen picks up a fluid rich in fructose, which helps to fuel it along during this exciting journey!

The semen accumulates other fluids as it travels down to the urethra. These come from the prostate gland, Cowper's glands, and seminal vesicles. Some of these fluids are designed to neutralize acids (urine, for example) while others all rich in enzymes.

By the end of the journey, the finished product contains roughly 10% sperm. The remaining fluid consists of enzymes, vitamin C, calcium, protein, sodium, zinc, citric acid and fructose.

Contrary to popular belief, a man will not get sick if he does not have sex or masturbate to ejaculate. Unused sperm has no impact on fertility or sex drive. Every day, a healthy adult male can product 70 to 150 million sperm. A teaspoon of semen contains between 200 and 500 million sperm. It seems amazing that it only takes ONE wiggly little tadpole to fertilize an egg...but this is the miracle of life.

Original fact from thesite.org.

Casu Marzu (Maggot Cheese)

2007-08-14T13:19:00.000-04:00

If you're considering a visit to Sardinia, Italy, why not take some time to enjoy the local cuisine? For those true culinary adventurers, casu marzu might be just the thing to sate your salivary glands. The phrase casu marzu, which means "rotten cheese" in Sardinian, gets its unique texture and flavor from the live maggots living within its cheesy walls. The larvae, which are intentionally introduced to the cheese, break down fats in the cheese through an advanced level of digestive fermentation. Through this process, the texture of the cheese becomes very soft, sometimes even liquidy. Before consumption, some people choose to clear the cheese of larvae; others do not. Protective eye gear is advised for those who choose to consume both cheese and maggots as one. The larvae have been to know to jump up up to 6 inches in the air when disturbed.

If one does plan on removing the larvae from the cheese before consumption, one must ensure that the maggots are still alive. Dead maggots indicates that the cheese has decomposed to a toxic state. Other dangers associated with Casu Marzu include allergic reactions and risk of intestinal larval infection. It is possible for live larvae to pass through the stomach and take up residence in the intestines. If this happens, the larvae can cause serious lesions as they attempt to bore through the intestinal walls.

Because of the dangers associated with this cheese, it is considered an illegal, Black Market product in Italy.

Original Fact from In Bad Taste. Additional information from everyone's favorite - Wikipedia!

Raining Cats and Dogs

2007-08-10T19:07:00.000-04:00

In Norse mythology, the dog is associated with wind, while cats are associated with storms.
This is the likely origin of the phrase "it's raining cats and dogs" which means that it's raining very hard.

Source: Fact Monster

Brains

2007-08-10T00:36:00.000-04:00

A silkworm has eleven brains (but only uses five).

The box jellyfish, as we just learned, has four.

A rhinoceros's brain is smaller than its nose.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.

Blue whales have the biggest brains.

Octopuses have brains in their legs.

Sources: Why Pandas Do Handstands by Augustus Brown
and Interesting Facts Blog

The Largest Creature That Ever Lived

2007-08-09T17:25:00.000-04:00

How big is the blue whale, the largest animal to have ever lived on Earth?
Sure, we can say that they grow up to 100 feet long and weigh 100 tons, but what does that mean?

It means that a blue whale's tongue weighs as much as an elephant. (It's brain however, is essentially a 15 pound basketball).
It means that a blue whale's heart weigh's four thousand pounds and pumps sixty gallons with every beat. It means its valves are the size of a hub cap and it means that a child could crawl through a blue whale's blood vessels. It means that the smallest vessels are still the size of sewer pipes carrying waste water from the average house - large enough for a trout to swim leisurely through.
It also means that a baby blue whale gains 10 pounds and hour in its first weeks of life. And it can drink over 50 gallons of its mother's milk in one day. In case you wondered, blue whale's milk tastes like a mixture of fish, liver, milk of magnesia, and castor oil. Yummy..

When a blue whale makes a sound, it can travel 1,500 miles.

Sources: "Among Whales" by Roger Payne, President of the Whale Conservation Institute
ExtremeScience.com and Animal Planet

Box Jellyfish

2007-08-09T16:50:00.000-04:00

Also known as the Sea Wasp, Box Jellyfish have twenty-four eyes, six for each side of their cubed bell. They also have four brains, 10 foot long tentacles, and sixty anuses. True jellyfish are mercy to the ocean's currents, and just drift along. Box jellyfish however can jet through the water at up to 4 knots. Between 3 pm and dawn they sleep on the ocean floor.

The box jellyfish has incredibly powerful venom which it developed to instantly stun or kill prey, like fish and shrimp, so their struggle to escape wouldn’t damage its delicate tentacles. Their venom is among the most deadly in the world, and is so overpoweringly painful, human victims have been known to go into shock and drown, or die of heart failure before reaching shore. Anyone survivors experience considerable pain for weeks and often have significant scarring where the tentacles made contact.

Sources: Why Pandas Do Handstands by Augustus Brown and National Geographic

Mosquitoes

2007-07-31T18:32:00.000-04:00

Mosquitos do not bite, they suck. They suck your blood. If 1,200,000 mosquitoes were sucking your blood, they would completely drain your entire supply. It seems unlikely that so many mosquitoes would be attacking you, but Canadian researchers in the Arctic exposed their arms, legs, and torsos, and reported 9,000 bites per minute. At a rate like that, a person would lose half of their blood in as little as two hours. Mosquitoes stop sucking when a chemical signal shuts down blood intake. When that signal is disabled in the laboratory, the mosquitoes suck blood until they explode. Male mosquitoes however, will not suck your blood. They live off of nectar and plant juice.

Millions of years ago, mosquitoes were three times larger than they are today. (It seems to be that way with a lot of creatures).

And while millions of people die of a mosquito-transmitted diseases, AIDS is not one of them. HIV-infected humans actually have very few virus particles in their bloodstream. Furthermore, if a mosquito should suck one up, it would be killed by the mosquito's digestive system. The most common diseases transmitted by mosquitos are malaria, dengue, yellow fever, and West Nile virus.

Source

A Word About Polyps

2007-07-31T13:09:00.000-04:00

When speaking about polyps, one must always make a point of specifying which type of polyp they are referring to.

The first type of polyp is a wiggly little sea creature found in many species of cnidarians. Polyps can either be solitary or found in colonies. Sea-anemones and corals are always considered polyps. Singular polyps attach themselves to firm objects using a disc-like holdfast. In colonies of polyps, a polyp will attach itself to another polyp for support. The upper end of the polyp, where the mouth can be found, is generally surrounded by a circle of finger-like tentacles. The tentacles assist a polyps tactile senses and often play a role in capturing food. Almost all polyps reproduce by means of asexual budding.

The second type of polyp is a small tumor (often benign but sometimes malignant) that grows on the insides of a mucous membrane. Medical polyps are often found in the colon, small intestine, stomach, nose, bladder, and uterus. Colon polyps appear to be the most common type of medical polyp. Polyps are diagnosed when a patient begins experiencing a laundry list of uncomfortable symptoms, including rectal bleeding, pain, diarrhea or constipation. Although many polyps are benign, colon polyps run the risk of eventually turning into colon cancer.

And there you have it, folks. Feel free to discuss polyps at the next family gathering, but please make a point of differentiating between the two.

Thank you wikipedia for the insightful information. You have saved me from yet another embarrassing verbal mishap.

Thanks to Desiree for the factual inspiration.

Phthiria Relativitae

2007-07-31T01:12:00.000-04:00

Entomologist Neal Evenhuis decided to have some fun naming a new species of bee fly. The newly identified bug was already part of the genus Phthiria, and after adding the name "relativitae" for the species, the new name was Phthiria relativitae, the pronounciation of which sounds quite like "theory o'relativity."
Later Evenhuis had to change the name to Poecilognathus relativitae to be more accurate.

Animals are classified using taxonomy. The groups are as follows:
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species

We refer to most animals by Genus species. For example, humans have the genus Homo, and species sapiens, thus they are commonly referred to as Homo sapiens.

We are in the Kingdom Animalia (we are animals basically)
Phylum: Chordata (we have spines)
Class: Mammalia (we are mammals)
Order: Primates (we're related to monkeys and lemurs, as they are in the order Primates as well)
Family: Hominidae (we're hominids, "Great Apes", along with gorillas and orangutans)
and finally the Genus and Species (Homo sapiens).

Learn More About Phthiria relativitae Here

The Purple Frog of the Dinosaurs

2007-07-12T23:58:00.000-04:00

Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis is a rare and ancient purple frog that "feels like a big bag of jelly" in your hand. Yet despite its gelatinous figure, the frog is quite strong, and hasn't changed much over the past 150 million years. The frog was recently discovered in India, and seems to spend its life burrowed underground, coming out now and then to mate (and apparently also sit and stare.)

This frog is important and significant because it reveals much about evolution because this frog species did not evolve along with the frogs we know of today. It has remained virtually unchanged since the Age of the Dinosaurs.

Read More, See More

Galileo's Finger

2007-07-10T13:21:00.000-04:00

One hundred years after his death, the body of physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei was moved for reburial. While being transferred, an admiring fan snipped off the middle finger of his right hand as a memento. Galileo’s finger can now be seen on display at the Museum of the History of Science in Florence, pointing towards Rome. Click Here To See

The Popsicle

2007-07-02T16:41:00.000-04:00

The popsicle was invented in 1905 by an 11-year-old boy named Frank Epperson, who had left a flavored drink outside in the cold with a stir stick in it. 18 years later Mr. Epperson applied for a patent and began selling "Eppsicles." The name was later changed after Frank's children would ask for "Pop's 'sicle."
Frank Epperson was also the creator of the Twin Popsicle, the Fudgsicle, the Dreamsicle, and the Creamsicle.

So what is the difference between a Fudgsicle and a chocolate popsicle? First of all, chocolate popsicles are not sold in the U.S. Good Humor is the company that makes and sells Popsicles and their only chocolate flavored pop is the Fudgsicle.
Secondly, a chocolate popsicle (they have them in Canada) is made differently than a fudgsicle, which is richer, thicker, and creamier. "The chocolate popsicle is water-based and is light in texture and taste. There is nothing sticky, chewy, gum-enhanced, or fudge-like about it."

Bugged Out

2007-06-17T22:38:00.000-04:00

Does the thought of chomping down on crickets give you the shivers? Well, according to National Geographic your dietary preferences are in the minority.

The practice of bug-eating has been in place for thousands of years. Ancient Roman aristocrats dined on beetle larvae that had been fed a diet of wine and flour and even the Old Testament encouraged the consumption of locusts, beetles, and grasshoppers.

In many cultures, insects still appear on restaurant menus. Aquatic fly larva sauteed in sugar and soy sauce is a real treat in Japan, and dragonflies boiled in coconut milk with ginger and garlic are a delicacy in Bali. And who could forget the famous agave worm? Tequila, anyone?

So why is bug-eating such a cultural taboo in Europe and the United States? This might have something to do with the advent of agrarian society, when insects were viewed as the ultimate crop destroyers. When livestock came in, bugs went out. Interestingly enough, much of the food we willingly chow down on in the U.S. is considered filthy in other countries (shrimp and pork, for example).

For you eco-enthusiasts, the practice of eating bugs is far more ecologically sound than farming livestock. While 100 pounds of feed produces 10 pounds of beef, the same amount will produce 45 pounds of cricket. Bugs are also nutritionally superior to most meats! Hamburger meat is about 18 percent protein and 18 percent fat. Cooked grasshopper, on the other hand, is around 60 percent protein with just 6 percent fat.

So the next time you're feeling adventurous, why not try a bag o' bugs. And while you're at it, wash those creepy crawlies down with some exotic coffee.

Original article can be found here.

The Grand Horizontals

2007-06-16T08:47:00.000-04:00

In mid-nineteenth-century France, frigid and frail was fashionable. The perfect woman was timid, submissive, and lacked "sexual feeling of any kind." Just when it seemed that it was possible to keep women quiet and under control, the Grand Horizontals appeared. These famous courtesans wreaked havoc in Paris for almost twenty years. They were relentless hedonists in the true sense of the word: they loved pleasure, money, and mastered the art of seduction.

Each afternoon at 5pm they rolled through town in custom carriages while mobs of flustered onlookers watched from the sidelines. The tabloids recorded their adventures in details: "masked balls, dinners of peacock galantine, and preposterous stunts."

For example, Blanche d'antigy bathed in two hundred bottles of Montebello water, Medemoiselle Maximum lit her cigarettes with bank notes, and La Barucci dropped her dress when she was introduced to the duke of Wales.

Stop back for more about these fiery females in later facts.

From "Seductress" (Betsy Prioleau)

Note: the woman pictured above is not, in fact, a real 19th century courtesan. It's Nicole Kidman from the movie Moulin Rouge, which, while not entirely factual, portrays the glitz and glam of the life of a famous French courtesan.

Wasps and Identification

2007-06-11T22:47:00.000-04:00

Much like the military, wasps rank each other by their stripes. The distinctive yellow and black stripes on their abdomens, along with the colored blotches on their faces, convey to wasps where each individual fits into the strict hierarchy of their nest.

Wasps also must wear was "uniforms." They smear themselves with the wax from their nest so fellow wasps know they come from the same colony. If they leave and return without the wax coating they will be attacked, stung, and driven from the nest.

Octopuses, Not Octopi

2007-06-08T20:40:00.000-04:00

Another amazing demonstration of the wonderful and incredible octopus. Probably one of the best videos I've seen yet, it is packed with facts about octopuses and video of them catching dinner, attacking a shark, and slinking through tiny tunnels.

See More:
Octopuses
Cephalopod Glory

Phylum Problematica

2007-06-07T00:48:00.000-04:00

Problematica is a pseudo-phylum used for animals or plants whose classification cannot be decided.

Example: Opabinia is in the
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Problematica
Class: Dinocarida
Order: Radiodonta
Genus: Opabinia
Species: O. regalis
Picture

More Examples

Velvet Worms

2007-06-06T23:47:00.000-04:00

Onychophora (Velvet Worms) live in groups, defend territories, and subdue their prey with sticky goo. The worm-like creatures are small, carnivorous species with lobed appendages that crawl around on the floors of tropical forests amongst leaf litter.

"They are very difficult to approach with a pair of forceps because they squirt out this gluey substance that bungs up one's dissection tools. In the wild they use it to immobilize their prey," Strausfeld said of the 2-inch-long critters. "They're really quite extraordinary."

The brain architecture of velvet worms is within a range of arthropods, including spiders, scorpions, dragonflies, bees, crabs, shrimps and centipedes. They are thought to be the living relatives of the Paleozoic Hallucigenia

Hallucigenia Worm

2007-06-06T23:29:00.000-04:00

Hallucigenia is a small worm-like beast (3 cm) from the Cambrian period of the Paleozoic era. Its name means "hallucinatory", which suggests a beast dreamed up in a nightmare, which is quite fitting. The small creature seemed to have walked around on seven pairs of long spiky stilts with seven squiggly tentacles sprouting from its back. The tentacles had pincers at their tips with a hollow tube in each one connecting to the gut. The original scientist studies had it upside down; The worm's tentacles were actually it's feet and the spines were on its back.
Hallucigenia is thought to be an ancient ancestor of Velvet Worms, creatures that creep about on small rubbery legs on tropical forest floors.

The World's Deepest Hole

2007-06-05T22:30:00.000-04:00

In 1970 Russian geologists started drilling into the Kola Peninsula, near Finland, hoping to learn more about the inside of the Earth. After 22 years of digging, work had to stop when the crust turned gooey under the drill bit - at 356 degrees Fahrenheit. The underground rock was much hotter than expected at that depth. What remains is a tunnel as wide as a cantaloupe extending 7.6 miles (12,262 meters) into the earth. The SG-3 section of the Kola borehole is the deepest dug ever, but reaches a mere 0.2 percent of the way to the core.

Cannibalistic Cane Toads

2007-06-04T17:32:00.000-04:00

Cane toads wiggle their toes to lure their young, then eat them up in an act of cannibalism. The young toads gravitate towards the wiggling toes, possibly mistaking them for a yummy snack, like an insect. Instead, the youngsters end up a tasty snack themselves.

When baby toads are around adults, the adults start wiggling the middle toes on their hind feet. The baby toads respond by hopping towards the adults. Researchers set up an experiment to further study this behavior. The toads were separated by clear glass and not allowed to eat each other because it would have gone against the rules of ethical animal experimentation. The researchers found that baby toads only move towards adults that wave their toes. The researchers also used freeze-dried toad to which they attached mechanically controlled fake toes. They measured how far the baby toads moved towards the artificial toe as they wiggled it at different rates and changed its color.

In Australia, where cane toads are a widespread and invasive pests, it is hoped that this cannibalistic behavior will help get rid of the monstrous toads - by having them eat themselves into extinction.

Other animal behaviors that kill cane toads? Female toads are often drowned by numerous males trying to copulate with them in the water. There is also a parasite, from native frogs, that has recently been found to kill or stunt the growth of cane toads. Finally, Australians love to swerve around on the road and pop those cane toads like bad blisters. (Trust me, I saw it on a movie in my 10th grade science class.)

Learn More Here

Robots

2007-06-01T01:22:00.000-04:00

“Robot” comes from the Czech word robota, meaning “drudgery,” and first appeared in the 1921 play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). The drama ends badly when the machines rise up and kill their creators, leaving a sole lonely survivor. The first known case of robot homicide occurred in 1981, when a robotic arm crushed a Japanese Kawasaki factory worker. Japan is the home of half of the world's 1 million robots.

Arguably the first robot in history was a fifth century B.C. mechanical bird driven by a jet of stream or compressed air. It was built by Archytas of Tarentum, a colleague of Plato. Another early robot design was Leonardo da Vinci's sketched plans for an armored humanoid machine. Engineer Mark Rosheim created a functional miniature version for NASA to help colonize Mars. The real Mars robots, Spirit and Opportunity, have spent three years on Mars and covered 10.5 miles, but they were built to only last 90 days.

Elektro was the world’s first humanoid robot, debuting in 1939. Built by Westinghouse, the seven-foot-tall walking machine “spoke” more than 700 words stored on 78-rpm records to simulate conversation. Elektro later appeared in the 1960 B movie Sex Kittens Go to College.

Source: Discover Magazine

See Also: Robots, Androids, and Cyborgs
Robot Sex
Real Life Telekinetics

Mammals

2007-05-31T22:44:00.000-04:00

All mammals have hair or fur. Even baby dolphins have moustaches to help them find their mother. The spines on hedgehogs are actually hollow hairs made very stiff with extra keratin, the protein in hair and nails. There are about 5,000 spikes per hedgehog.

Mammals are named after teats, which are called mammary glands. Every mammal has nipples except for male horses. (Stallions just don't have enough room because, er, other things are taking up too much space.)

Mammals are also the only animals that chew (masticate). Birds and reptiles gulp instead, as their jaws cannot move sideways like ours.

Source: Pick Me Up

Outer Space Explosions

2007-05-31T13:08:00.000-04:00

Silly sci-fi movies, your explosions are super cool, but according to science they should be silent. There is no sound in space. And no fire either.
This is because outer space is an airless, oxygen-free, vaccuum.

Brian Hughes, King of Liars

2007-05-31T01:20:00.000-04:00

Brian Hughes was a millionaire, paper-box manufacturer, founder of the Dollar Savings Bank, and a master prankster. Before he died at age seventy-five in 1924, Hughes spent his money on a variety of tricks, pranks, and other schemes.

Once, Hughes donated a public park to Brooklyn. It turned out to be a two-by-eight foot plot of land he had purchased for $35. He also planted imitation jewels outside of Tiffany's to watch passers-by eagerly steal them. He even caused a panicked search at Metropolitan Museum of Art for 'stolen' paintings after placing burglar tools and several empty picture frames on the frontstep.

Disguised ornately as the Prince of Amsdam, Cyprus and Aragon, he presented an old policeman’s badge to the actress, Lavina Queen, who believed she was being made a Princess of the Order of St. Catherine of Mount Sinai.

All of Hughes’ vans bore the mysterious letters, L.P.B.M.I.T.W., which stood for “Largest Paper Box Manufacturer in the World.” Hughes also delighted in hanging expensive umbrellas in public places and then watching their thieves, upon opening them, become showered with signs reading, “Stolen from Brian G. Hughes.”

He even once purchased an alley cat for ten cents and entered it in an important animal show as Nicodemus, by Broomstick out of Dustpan by Sweeper, the last of the exotic Dublin Brindle breed. According to Hughes, the cat ate only chicken and ice cream. The cat won a first prize.

Learn more about Brian G. Hughes here and here.

More Than All The Stars In The World

2007-05-31T00:57:00.000-04:00

When I was much younger I used to daydream about how many stars there were, or exactly how many grains of sand were in the world. And how would anybody even begin to figure it out?

Well this calculation helped scientists determine that there are (aproximately) 700,500,000,000,000,000,000 grains of sand on earth. (or seven quintillion five quadrillion)

And for stars? 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. (that's 70 sextillion)

Those are big numbers, stars beating out sand by quite a few billion. It's quite hard to grasp the immensity of those numbers. Picture a beach, and all the grains of sand on that beach, then all the beaches in the world. There are more stars in the universe than all of that!

Just in case those numbers aren't big enough - there are 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms in your body. Just you.
Woa.

Perhaps later I can talk about the prevalence of the numeral seven in those calculations, the number 7 being considered a holy and magical number.

The Devil Ant Tree

2007-05-28T20:11:00.000-04:00

Triplaris americana is a tree found in the Amazon of South America with the local nickname 'Devil Tree.'
If you ever come across a T. americana on your travels, I recommend that you do not touch it. Colonies of tiny red ants make their home underneath the bark, and in return for this shelter, the venomous ants attack anything that comes in contact with the tree.

Source: 1491 by Charles C. Mann

Birds of a Feather?

2007-05-26T14:42:00.001-04:00

We've all heard the old maxim "opposites attract," but is this really the case? Research has shown that couples who experience the highest rate of marital success and happiness actually tend to be "birds of a feather."

Interestingly enough, this rate of success does not extend to similarity in attitudes and values, but rather personality. Example: the first category might include things like political stance, religious views, or upbringing, while the second is a bit less tangible. Personality is not who you voted for in the last election, but emotional habits, extraversion or intraversion, positivity, and conscientiousness.

So, the conservative southern belle might just have a chance with the leather-wearing motorcyclist named Spike. That is, of course, if they are both warm-hearted, a bit socially awkward, and each possess an insatiable sexual appetite.

For more info, check out this article here.

Cephalopod Glory

2007-05-26T01:31:00.000-04:00

It is nearly impossible to comprehend how incredibly amazing octopuses are. After you've read our previous entry on these eight-legged creatures (here) you should take a look at these videos that show how cool cephalopods truly are.

As you may remember, octopuses can squeeze through holes one-tenth their body size. This octopus demonstrates it's ability to speedily escape through a 1-inch hole.

While octopuses have eight tentacles, many prefer to run around the seafloor on two. The primary reason for this is to leave six of its morphable arms for disguise and camoflauge. This octopus kindly demonstrates its bipedal abilities for us.

Octopuses are masterminds at their craft. Their ability to camoflauge themselves is incredible as they can completely change their appearance. This octopus imitates a clump of algae before spurting away in a burst of ink.

I highly recommend watching this one.

And finally, for those of you who love epic battles and fights to the death, here's a link to footage of an octopus vs. a shark. (Guess who wins!)
More Octopus Facts
Octopus Video

Hammerhead Shark Virgin Birth

2007-05-26T00:22:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week, it was confirmed that a female hammerhead shark who gave birth to a shark pup in a Nebraska aquarium years ago did, in fact, do so without the help of a male companion.

This form of asexual reproduction has been noted before in other vertebrate species, such as lizard and snakes, but has never before been seen in a shark. Researchers found absolutely no male DNA in the female baby shark, which was born back in 2001 and died shortly after birth. The mother was one of three female sharks that had been living in captivity (with no boys allowed) for three years.

At the time of the birth, scientists believed that the female had either mated with another species of shark, or had used sperm obtained from a male and stored for years before birth.

Recent analysis has shown that there was no "male contribution" in this case, and that the female shark's own genetic material combined during the process of cell division to produce an egg. To accomplish this end, a cell called the secondary oocyte, which contains half the female chromosomes, fused with another cell called the secondary polar body, which contains the identical genetic material.

Although parthenogenesis among vertebrates has only been documented in captivity, it is still quite rare. It seems to be a last-resort tactic when animals absolutely cannot find another mate. The advantage of this tactic is that ensures the survival of a species in the absence of males. The disadvantge is a loss of genetic diversity. A species with less genetic diversity is more susceptible to disease and other problems.

Find the original article here

Finger Length Predicts SAT Scores

2007-05-22T23:21:00.000-04:00

The length of kid's ring and index fingers can help determine their performance on the SAT test.

Kids with longer ring fingers compared to index fingers are likely to have higher math scores than literacy or verbal scores on the college entrance exam, while children with the reverse finger-length ratio are likely to have higher reading and writing, or verbal, scores versus math scores.

Different levels of the hormones testosterone and estrogen in the womb account for the different finger lengths, which are a reflection of areas of the brain that are more highly developed than other. Exposure to testosterone in the womb promotes development of areas of the brain often associated with spatial and mathematical skills. That hormone also makes the ring finger longer. Estrogen exposure does the same for areas of the brain associated with verbal ability and tends to lengthen the index finger relative to the ring finger.

From This Article
(Click to learn more, and how the test was done.)

Tomato Tomato

2007-05-20T08:51:00.000-04:00

The origin of the tomato is thought to be Peru in South America where it grew wild (like a weed) several thousands of years before making its way north to Central America. The first domesticated tomato was a little yellow fruit grown by the Aztecs in Central America. They called it xitomatl (zee-toe-má-tel) which means 'plump thing with a navel.' Later it was called tomati by other Central American tribes. Aztecs prepared their tomatoes with pepper and salt - the original salsa recipe.

The Spanish explorer Cortez was likely the first to bring the small yellow tomato to Europe after he captured the Aztec city of Tenochtítlan in 1521 (now Mexico City). The tomato circulated widely throughout Europe, but as an ornamental plant from the New World rather than a food. Europeans believed that the tomato was poisonous. In 1820, Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson announced that at noon on September 26, he would eat a bushel of tomatoes in front of the Boston courthouse. Spectators turned out to watch the poor man die, yet they were shocked when he lived.

The main reason people thought the tomato was poisonous is because it resembled the deadly nightshade, belladonna. According to German folklore, witches used belladonna to create werewolves. Interestingly, the German word for tomato even translates to "wolf peach" as a reminder of it similarity to nightshade. Indeed, they weren't far off as tomatos are a member of the nightshade family, and it's roots and leaves contain the poisonous neurotoxin solanine.

Another possible reason that Europeans thought the tomato was poisonous is that many Europeans ate off of pewter plates. The high acid content in tomatos leached the lead out of the dishware and had harmful effects on those who ate it. The poor or very rich however did not have this problem since they used wood, or gold and silver (respectively).

The first cookbook to even mention tomatoes wasn't published until 1692 in Naples, Italy. It wasn't until the early 1800's that the tomato because widely known as edible, and was incorporated into European cuisine.

Picture Credit: Wikipedia
Sources: National Geographic and Wisconsin National Gardener

See Also: Tomato Breath

The Common Housefly

2007-05-18T18:10:00.001-04:00

Although the housefly appears innocent enough, these winged creatures can be carriers for over 100 pathogens, including typhoid, cholera, dysentery, salmonella, tuberculosis, anthrax , and worms. The housefly can only consume liquid foods. They spit up saliva onto solid food to pre-digest it before sucking the food back in. Houseflies will also vomit partially digested matter and eat it again.

Ever see a fly hanging around on the ceiling? This is accomplished with the surface tension of liquids secreted by glands near the feet.

Each female fly can lay up to 8,000 eggs. In a day's time, the eggs hatch, producing the larvae (maggots) that we recognize (and fear). Maggots live and grow in dead or decaying matter, such as garbage or feces.

MDT, also known as Maggot Debridement Therapy or larval therapy, is a type of therapy used to clean out non-healing tissue of a human or animal. This pratice involves the introduction of live, disinfected maggots into the affected area of skin and soft tissue. The purpose of this is to selectively clean out only the dead tissue within a wound, thus promoting faster wound healing. It sounds gross, but desperate times can call for desperate measures...

Click links for more on the housefly and maggot therapy.

See Also : Flies by Taryn

Ambigrams

2007-05-18T11:00:00.001-04:00

An ambigram is a right side up word that can be also read upside down. Other examples of ambigrams are words that can be read backwards, rotated, or mirrored. There are several types of ambigrams including rotational, mirror, figure-ground (spaces in one word form another word), chain (word or words makes a repeating chain, usually words are overlapped), space-filling (same as chain but for a 2D plane, like the tiled background of a website), fractal, 3-dimensional (sounds incredibly difficult), perceptual shift (a word that can be read as two different words without being adjusted, like the picture that is both an old lady and an young woman), and natural ambigrams.

This a shirt with a love/hate ambigram on it that can be seen using a mirror:

There is a lot of art behind the making of ambigrams, and a lot of cool examples as well. Ambigrams don't even need to be words. They can be pictures or songs. An example of a chain ambigram song that I thought of off the top of my head was the Lamb Chop theme song we used to sing on the school bus to annoy people. (Listen if you dare..)

Anyways, here are a bunch of cool links about ambigrams. I recommend checking some of them out. You can even get an ambigram tattoo!

Make Your Own Ambigram
Examples of Ambigram Types
Ambigrams on Flickr

Antarctic Ocean Aliens

2007-05-16T21:36:00.000-04:00

Several years ago, the Larsen A and B ice shelves collapsed into the Antarctic sea, revealing 10,000 square kilometers of seabed previously isolated from exploration for thousands of years. Recently, the German research boat Polarstern conducted the first biological survey of the area, and discovered nearly 600 organisms never described before. Some potentially new species include 15 types of amphipods (similar to shrimp) and four cnidarians (like coral, jelly fish, and sea anemones). And these deep-sea sea cucumbers are all oddly facing the same direction.
Ice shelves are formed when glaciers reach the coast and begin to float on the sea. Icebergs break from ice shelves, rather than the ice on land.

Some cool deep-sea creatures:

An Antarctic ice fish. Because of such low temperatures, this fish has no red blood cells at all so that its blood is more fluid, allowing the animal to save energy pumping blood throughout its body.

This shrimp-like creature found near Elephant Island is a suspected new species of Shackletonia, an amphipod crustacean.

And these deep-sea sea cucumbers are all oddly facing the same direction.

Learn More
And More

Picture Credits:
C. d'Udekem, Royal Belgium Institute for Natural Sciences
Julian Gutt, Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research

Shark Repelling Magnet

2007-05-15T13:40:00.000-04:00

We humans pose a much higher threat to sharks than they do to us. 20 percent of shark species are near extinction, largely due to human interference. The fishing industry has an especcially destructive effect on shark species when they are injured or killed on longline hooks or become entangled in nets. The lines and nets are almost always intended for a different catch, such as tuna or swordfish. The World Wildlife Fund holds an International Smart Gear Competition to research ways to protect sharks and other creatures from becoming bycatch. The most recent winner was Michael Herrmann of Shark Defense who discovered a magnet that repels sharks.

Sharks are able to detect magnetic fields using special organs located on their snouts, and Herrmann discovered that sharks are strongly repelled by powerful rare-earth magnets. When in close range of the magnet, the sharks will dart away to the otherside of the tank. The magnets even rouse sharks from tonic immobility, a coma-like state induced by turning them upside down.

Herrmann's plan involves placing small magnets just above the hooks on a longline, and preliminary trials using nurse sharks and lemon sharks revealed this technique to be successful in keeping the sharks away from the bait. Even better, the target fish were unaffected by the magnets.

Learn More
Source

Top Ten Greatest Works of Art

2007-05-15T01:00:00.000-04:00

In 1985, a panel of art experts for the Illustrated London News judged the painting "Las Meninas" as "by far the greatest work of art by a human being." The following is a list of the winners and how they placed:

1) Velázquez Las Meninas
2) Vermeer View of the Delft
3) Giorgione The Tempest
4) Botticelli La Primavera
5) Francesca The Resurrection
6) El Greco The Burial of the Count Orgaz
7) Giotto The Lamentation
8) Grünewald The Isenheim Altarpiece
9) Picasso Guernica
10) Rembrandt The Return of the Prodigal Son

Sadly, none of these paintings seem to include herds of deer with George Washington.

Spider Sex

2007-05-12T01:28:00.000-04:00

Humans aren't the only creatures that vocalize during sex.

The female spider Physocylus globosus emits high-frequency squeaks when mating to let male spiders know what they should be doing. The shrill cries are called stidulations, and the sound resembles squeaky leather. The noises are made in response to the rhythmic squeezing actions of the male spider's genitalia from inside the female during sex.

Somewhat similar to ducks female spiders are able to decide which lucky spider boy gets to fertilize her eggs by storing them inside her body and choosing later. Squeezing stimulates the female and raises a male's chances that his sperm will be selected. Males that squeeze females more often during copulation sire more offspring than males that squeeze less often. However, if done too forcefully, the female spider can be physically damaged. Thus, the female squeaks to let her male know whether he's squeezing for too long or too hard.

Read More
Spider Kama Sutra (Spiders can get kinky!)

Robot Sex

2007-05-08T17:55:00.000-04:00

Robotics expert Henrik Christensen predicts humans will be having sex with robots within four years. And Hans Moravec, founder of Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute, predicts that robots will emerge as their own species by 2040. “They could replace us in every essential task and, in principle, operate our society increasingly well without us,” he concludes, oddly cheery.

-(Sean Markey and Corey S. Powell, “20 Things You Didn’t Know About Robots,” Discover, April 2007)

See Also: All About Robots
Robots, Androids, and Cyborgs

Jewel Eye

2007-05-07T21:35:00.000-04:00

If you're up to date with the wild, weird world of body modification, then this little tidbit will seem like old news to you. If not, you'll likely be thinking something along the lines of, "goodness, what will they think of next?"

From the legalization of marijuana to the Red Light District, it looks like the Netherlands are at it again. For those of you looking to "bling" out your cornea, look no further. The sleek, chic Retina Total Eye Care center in Driebergen (not too far from Amsterdam) now offers a procedure that will shock even the most forward-thinking optometrist.

The procedure itself is simple: an eye exam, a drop of anesthetic in the chosen eye, and a drop of antibiotics. The eyelids and lashes are then "taped back" as not to get in the way of the surgical knife. Another liquid is then injected that separates the layers of the eyeball. Next, a small flap is cut and the "bling" is inserted. Bling? you ask. What Bling?

Clients can choose between a few different designs: small platinum stars, hearts, clovers, even the euro sign (which counts as double bling).

After the implant is inserted, the remaining liquid is sucked out of the eye and will continue to dissipate over the coming weeks. Healing is, for the most part, low-maintenence (a sore eye, a few crusties, and some redness) and the entire procedure takes roughly half an hour. So, the next time you find yourself in Amsterdam (and you've got $900 to spare), why not stop by Retina Total Eye Care for a blink and some bling?

For the full story (and more pictures), check out the original article at BME (The Body Modification Ezine). To score some eye bling of your own, head over to the place where it all began.

Photo courtesy BME and Rachel, the lovely test subject!

Duck Contraception Strategies

2007-05-06T20:49:00.000-04:00

The anatomy of a male duck is incredibly bizarre. 97 percent of all bird species have no phallus at all, but ducks can grow penises as long as their entire body - a spiraling tentacle that disappears when fall arrives and regrows in the spring. No one really knows how or why duck phalluses wax and wane, but Dr. Brennan, a behavioral ecologist, suggests that perhaps it is easier for the duck to regrow a new penis than to keep healthy.

The bigger question however, is why do ducks have such bizarrely shaped and large phalluses in the first place? Dr. Brennan has made the discovery that male ducks may have evolved to counteract the difficulty of impregnating a female. Female ducks appear to be equipped to block the sperm of unwanted males. Their lower oviduct (the equivalent of the vagina) is spiraled like the male phallus, but turns in the opposite direction. It is suspected that female ducks can force sperm into one of the pockets and then expel it. In support of this argument, studies of some species show that forced matings make up about a third of all matings, yet only 3 percents of the offspring are the result of forced matings, meaning that the females must be successful with their sperm rejection strategy.
To further test this hypothesis, Dr. Brennan plans to build a transparent model of a female duck. She wants to see exactly what a duck phallus does during mating.

The article also mentioned a Dr. McCracken, who discovered the longest known bird phallus on an Argentine duck in 2001 which you can view here (if you really want to).

NYTimes Article
Read the original paper here.

John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt

2007-05-06T13:53:00.000-04:00

The origins of the song "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" are pretty obscure and hard to find, but this is the best information I could find on how the nursery rhyme originated, explained by Laura Kessel:

"The words of the Nursery Rhyme, 'John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt ' originate in the USA and possibly reflect the enormous numbers of German immigrants at various points in American history. The surname Schmidt and the surname suffix -heimer are of Germanic origin. It is a favorite rhyme of children and often referred to as a 'Bus Song'. The pseudo-German word 'Jingleheimer' was probably used to mock the longer names often found in this language."

source
the best movie ever

Strange Deaths

2007-05-06T12:52:00.000-04:00

In 1923, a horse jockey by the name of Frank Hayes riding the horse "Sweet Kiss" became the first and only jockey to finish in 1st place as a dead man. During the race he suffered a fatal heart attack.

Greek Playwright Aeschylus, died from a living tortoise falling from the sky and killing him, an eagle had dropped it on him believing that his bald head was a rock.

Jack Daniel, of Jack Daniel's Whiskey died from blood poisoning due to an infected toe injury he had received six years before when he kicked his safe in anger due to his forgetting of the combination.

In 87' Dick Shawn, a comedian who starred in the 1968 movie, The Producers died on stage of a heart attack. While portraying a politician, he announced, "if elected, I will not lay down on the job," then lay down on stage and never stood back up.

In 1899, French President Felix Faure pulled a "Bill Clinton" like move with Marguerite Steinheil in his office, unfortunately for him he had a stroke and died midway through.

In 1671, the perfectionist chef of King Louis XIV, committed suicide due to his seafood order being late and he couldn't stand the shame of a late meal order. His body was discovered by an aide, who was sent to tell him that his order was ready.

In 2005 a South Korean man named Lee Seung Seop died due to exhaustion from playing Starcraft for almost 50 hours straight.

source

Vega's Pole Star

2007-05-05T12:54:00.000-04:00

In a previous post, I mentioned how our pole star (currently Polaris) changes every 26,000 years due to the wobble in our Earth's rotation. In the future, our new pole star will be the star Vega.

But there is another cool fact about Vega - our Sun is Vega's polestar!
The spinning ball of glowing gas points one of its poles at us, meaning that if you were an inhabitant of Vega your entire sky would circle around one northern point - our Sun.
What is also cool is that if Vega has planets, they probably follow orbits close to the plane of Vega's equator (like our solar systerm) and if any of them also have rotation axes perpendicular to their orbits (like Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter) then our Sun would be the pole star for those planets as well.
From Vega, our Sun would only be of modest brightness when seen with the naked-eye (assuming the aliens have naked-eyes like our naked-eyes).

This picture shows what Vega's circumpolar sky looks like. Circumpolar stars are those that rotate around the pole without dipping below the horizon. If you're familiar with our sky, you'll notice that Orion still looks pretty similar, but there are still many other differences.

-from Sky & Telescope, Vol. 113 No. 6

What Ma, No Chocolate?

2007-04-30T10:45:00.000-04:00

I frequently stumble upon a troubling story that is not yet fact, but could be proven true at some point in the not-so-distant future. How's this for a little something to chew on?

Whether you're looking for a drug store Hershey bar or exotic, gourmet dark chocolate, the chocolate-making process is similar from bar to bar: cacao pods are fermented, roasted, and ground into a paste that is then separated into two components: cacoa solids (also known as cocoa powder) and cocoa butter.

Like all food in the US, chocolate is regulated by the FDA to ensure the quality, safety, and consistency of the product. But like most things in the US, the value of the dollar is greater than individual health and product safety. The FDA is currently considering a "citizen's petition" to allow manufacturers to substitute vegetable fats and oils for cocoa butter, rendering chocolate as we know and love it, well...not quite the chocolate we know and love.

Now, these citizens who created the petition are actually representatives for the groups that would benefit most from lowering the standards: the Chocolate Manufacturers Associations, Grocery Manufacturers Association, Snack Food Association, and so on. Basically, these groups claim that because Americans have no current expectations about what goes into our chocolate, we won't know or care about the difference.

If there's one thing that I expect from my chocolate, it's that I'm actually consuming chocolate, not some lab-manufactured mix of lard and canola oil. As Cybele May of candyblog.net writes:

I can tell you right now — we will notice the difference. How do I know? Because the product they're trying to rename "chocolate" already exists. It's called "chocolate flavored" or "chocolaty" or "cocoalicious." You can find it on the shelves right now at your local stores in the 75% Easter sale bin, those waxy/greasy mock-chocolate bunnies and foil-wrapped eggs that sit even in the most sugar-obsessed child's Easter basket well into July.

Yeah, gross. It is important to note that while cocoa powder gives chocolate its taste, cocoa butter gives it the smooth, velvety "melt in your mouth not in your hands" texture. It also helps to protect the antioxidant properties of the cocoa solids, giving well-made chocolate an impressive shelf life.
I don't know if it's too late to voice your opinion on the matter, but please, spread the word, shout it out in the streets, tell your friends, tell the FDA: "back AWAY from the chocolate!"

The original article can be found here.

Real-Life Telekinetics

2007-04-30T01:01:00.000-04:00

As we learned in the fact posted earlier, cyborgs are, simply stated, humans with robotic parts to them - part mechanical and part organic. So, what if one of the mechanical parts of your body, implanted in your brain, allowed for telekinesis? You would be more than a cyborg, you would be, well, like a super hero.
And, you might be super-pleased to know, it's not impossible.

An American company called Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems has successfully created and tested an aspirin-size, implantable brain computer called The Braingate Neural Interface System. This device is going through final stages of clinical testing in hopes of improving the lives of paralyzed and otherwise immobile individuals. The chip is placed on the surface of the motor cortex - the part of the brain that controls movement - and uses dozens of tiny electrodes to detect neural signals. When it gets a spark, it bypasses the nerves and muscles and relays the information to a computer that translates the data into commands a computer can understand.

Basically, people with this implant can control remote devices just by thinking. Right now the Braingate System is used to move a cursor around on a computer screen, but the technology has hopes of allowing disabled or immobile people to "think" lights on or off, control their TV, or answer the telephone.

Watch a Demo
or
Visit the Homepage of Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems Inc

source - mental_floss magazine

Art for Art's Sake?

2007-04-29T17:24:00.000-04:00

During the early 1990s, several artists asked the question, "What would a painting look like if it were made to please the greatest number of viewers?" To answer this question, the Dia Center for the Arts conducted a number of polls. After much polling, it was decided that the most visually pleasing painting in America would include:

1) a calm landscape
2) an abundance of blue color from lakes and sky
3) people relaxing
4) one or more deer
5) George Washington

I offer many good tidings and a batch of home-baked cookies to someone who has the time or mind to paint this picture.

From Sex, Drugs, Einstein, and Elves (Pickover 2005)

Robots, Androids, and Cyborgs

2007-04-29T17:16:00.000-04:00

What's the difference between a robot, an android, and a cyborg?

All of them, to some degree, are programmed; they're basically computers that move. A robot, however, doesn't necessarily have to resemble a human. It can be in the shape of a dog, or a lunar lander, or one of those giant arms in a car factory.
An android, on the other hand, is generally a robot that does look like a human, only it doesn't contain any flesh or organic matter. They're mostly resigned to the domain of science fiction, although researchers in various parts of Asia have unveiled some pretty convincing androids in the past few years. Occasionally, the term "android" is used interchangeable with "cyborg," but cyborgs are beings that are part mechanical and part organic. In fact, some theorists consider anyone whose body relies on a form of machinery in order to survive - such as a pacemaker or an insulin pump - to be a cyborg.

-fact courtesy of mental_floss magazine

See Also: All About Robots
Real Life Telekinetics
Robot Sex

The Smell of Rain

2007-04-28T12:13:00.000-04:00

There is a distinct aroma in the air after a rainfall, particularly if the weather has been dry for a long period of time.
The odor is due to streptomyces (a type of bacteria) in the soil. Streptomyces release chemicals called geosmins, which are what give freshly tilled soil its characteristic aroma. After a long, dry spell, the geosmin spores are blown about on the ground. Then when the rain finally comes, the moisture creates an aerosol-type spray when it hits the ground, agitating the geosmins and creating that “rain smell.”

Even in the desert, a slight dampening of the soil will cause the streptomyces to emit their signature fragrance. The very sensitive nose of the camel can detect that odor in the breeze, which is how they are able to find the location of water deposits from distances of up to 50 miles.

originally by Sandy Wood & Kara Kovalchik from mental_floss
click on the picture if you want to smell like rain

An Abridged History of Contraception

2007-04-26T19:34:00.000-04:00

1850 bc - The pessary is the earliest known contraceptive device for women. A pessary is an object of concoction inserted into the vagina to block or kill sperm. Egyptians used pessaries made of honey, sodium carbonate, and crocodile dung. Sexy, no?

1640 ad - Condoms that dated back to about 1640 (made of fish and animal intestines) were discovered in Dudley Castle near Birmingham, England. During the time, condoms were not used for contraception, but rather to prevent the spread of a sexually transmitted disease.

1734 - A young man by the name of Giacomo Girolamo Casanova is among the first to use condoms to prevent pregnancy. He began to experiment with condoms made from lamb intestine (still used in natural condoms today) as well as linen condoms tied off with a ribbon. Talk about wrapping the package...

1844 - Charles Goodyear patents the vulcanization of rubber. Soon after, rubber condoms are mass produced. Unlike modern disposable condoms, the early version was washed, covered in petroleum jelly, and placed in a special wooden box for later reuse. Even today, condoms are sometimes referred to as "rubbers."

1844-1873 - The U.S. contraceptive industry flourishes. In addition to condoms, there is widespread sale and use of intrauterine devices (IUDs), douching syringes, vaginal sponges, diaphragms and cervical caps, and male caps that covered only the tip of the penis.

1873 - Congress passes the Comstock laws, making all forms of contraception illegal. Still, the contraceptive industry continues to flourish; the devies are now sold to promote "feminine hygiene."

1880s - A poor New York City immigrant, Julius Schmid, gets extra sausage casings from butcher shops and begins producing skin condoms. By 1890, business is booming. By the 1930s, his empire is making millions. His Ramses and Sheik brands are still popular today.

1930-1960 - Brace yourself for this one. During this time, the most popular female contraceptive and feminine douche is (drumroll) Lysol disinfectant. Yes, this is the same Lysol that you use to scrub counters and sanitize sinks. And no, it did not work to prevent pregnancy.

1960 - Enovid, the first birth control pill, is approved by the FDA. Although "The Pill" is 100% effective, it is found to have terrible side effects, including life-threatening blood clots. Researchers eventually realize that the dose is 10 times too high.

1965 - Comstock laws repealed!

1980s - The modern, low-dose birth control pills become available.

1992 - The FDA approves the first hormone shot to prevent pregnancy for several months at a time, Depo Provera.

1998 - The first emergency contraceptions is approved by the FDA.

And so it goes from there...for more information, and for an expanded timeline, check out The Birth Control Timeline.

Pulse Dialing

2007-04-25T00:42:00.000-04:00

Most landline phones (not cordless ones) still support pulse dialing, which means that you can dial any number just by using the receiver hook (the button that gets pushed down when you hang up the phone). Because of the fact that phones used to measure the amount of pulses in order to dial a number, all you have to do is to use the receiver hook to create these "pulses". For example of you wanted to dial the number 615, you would press the receiver hook 6 times in rapid succession, then wait and push it once, then wait again and press it 5 times in rapid succession, and so on until you have dialed the number you desire.

Source
More Info

Zenzizenzizenzic

2007-04-23T13:54:00.000-04:00

The zenzizenzizenzic of a number is its eighth power.

This term was suggested by Robert Recorde in his work The Whetstone of Witte, published in 1557. The root word is the German zenzic from the Italian censo, meaning "squared."

Zenzizenzizenzic dates from a time when there was no easy way of denoting the powers of numbers except as squares and cubes. The fourth power was represented by the square of a square, zenzizenzic. The eighth power is by extension zenzizenzizenzic. Similarly the sixth power would be zenzicube, the square of a cube. (Remember, a cube has 6 sides and a square has 4).
Zenzic and its various forms were used among mathematicians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but are obselete now, though it's still a real word. Zenzizenzizenzic also has more Z's than any other known word in the English language.

-from World Wide Words and Random Books

Flower Clocks

2007-04-17T23:05:00.000-04:00

During the Middle Ages, people used flowers to tell the hour of the day, though it was not a very accurate method. Certain flowers were believed to open and close at specific times of the day so many flower dials were planted to tell time with. The first hour belonged to the budding rose, the fourth to hyacinths, and the twelfth to pansies.

In 1751, Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus compiled all the information about when flowers open and close. He divided them into three groups: Meteorici are flowers which change their opening and closing times according to weather conditions.
Tropici are flowers which change their times for opening and closing with the length of the day.
Aequinoctales are flowers which have fixed times for opening and closing.
Using Linnaeus flower clock information, one can actually tell time quite accurately just by looking at the flowers.

Ocean Pressure

2007-04-13T23:51:00.000-04:00

Most people know that the pressure increases greatly in the deeper depths of the ocean. Pressure powerful enough to crush you. Fish with air bladders are adjusted to the depth they live at, and sudden diminishing changes in pressure can cause serious injuries and death. As pressure lessens, the gas in the air bladder expands, making them more buoyant and at risk of exploding like a bag of chips on an airplane. If they stray too high, fish can "fall" up to the surface of the ocean when their buoyancy becomes stronger than their strength to swim downwards again, and they will suffer from ruptured tissues and distension.

The weight of sea water also has an effect on itself. If the compression caused by the weight of miles of ocean water pressing down on itself could somehow be magically relaxed, the sea level would rise 93 feet all over the world. This would shift the Atlantic coastline of the United States westward a hundred miles or more and completely change the geographic outlines of the world as we know it.

-from The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson

Number 101

2007-04-12T13:07:00.000-04:00

My intention was to make a "100" fact for our hundredth post, but it seems I missed the mark. I was close though. Enjoy Fact Box post #101.

*One hundred one (when written without the and) is the smallest number in the English language that requires thirteen letters.

*101 is the 26th prime number. It is also a palindromic number (meaning it reads the same backwards as it does forwards). It is a super special palindromic prime.

*101 is the atomic numbe of mendelevium (Md), a synthetic element in the periodic table. Mendelevium is a metallic radioactive transuranic element of the actinides. I have no idea what this means, but it sounds like something from a bad science fiction novel. From what I have read, it sounds like this isn't a very important element and hasn't been used for much.

*Another name for the beautiful pinwheel galaxy is Messier 101 (or NGC 5457). Messier 101 is a face-on spiral galaxy 27 million light-years away.

*"Neo's Number" in The Matrix.

*101 is often used in reference to something that is for beginners, or a basic introduction to a subject area.

*101 Dalmations!

More on the number 101

The Sea Within Us

2007-04-07T13:25:00.000-04:00

"When they went ashore the animals that took up a land life carried with them a part of the sea in their bodies, a heritage which they passed on to their children and which even today links each land animal with its origin in the ancient sea. Fish, amphibian, and reptile, warm-blooded bird and mammal - each of us carries in our veins a salty stream in which the elements sodium, potassium, and calcium are combined in almost the same proportions as in sea water. This is our inheritance from the day, untold millions of years ago, when a remote ancestor, having progressed from the one-celled to the many-celled stage, first developed a circulatory system in which the fluid was merely the water of the sea... And as life itself began in the sea, so each of us begins his individual life in a miniature ocean within his mother's womb, and in the stages of his embryonic development repeats the steps by which his race evolved, from gill-breathing inhabitants of a water world to creatures able to live on land."

-from The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson

Pets of the White House

2007-04-06T00:07:00.000-04:00

In 1825, the Marquis de Lafayette toured America and was given an alligator by a grateful citizen. While Lafayette was the guest of President John Quincy Adams, the alligator took up residence in the East Room of the White House for several months.
Mrs. John Quincy Adams had pet silkworms, and other residents kept a horned toad, a green snake, and a kangaroo rat. Abraham Lincoln had a white rabbit, a pig, a turkey, and two goats named Nanny and Nanko. James Buchanan owned a herd of elephants from the King of Siam and a pair of bald eagles.
President Calvin Coolidge kept a raccoon as a pet instead of eating it for Thanksgiving dinner, as it was intended by the donors from the State of Mississippi. He named it Rebecca and it lived in a large pen by his office. He also had a pet donkey, bobcat, wallaby, lion cubs, pigmy hippo, and a bear.
Andrew Johnson had pet mice and William Taft had a cow. Woodrow Wilson had a tobacco chewing ram named Old Ike and sheep that grazed on the White House lawn. William Henry Harrison owned a billy goat and a Durham cow. Martin Van Buren kept two tiger cubs. Theodore Roosevelt's pets include a badger, lion, hyena, wildcat, coyote, zebra, barn owl, raccoon, snakes, lizards, five bears, and a one-legged rooster.

-from The Handy Science Answer Book and the Presidential Pet Museum

Pound Cake

2007-03-31T12:49:00.000-04:00

In pondering the origin of words, we often come across a word or phrase that now has no connection to its original meaning. "Pound cake" was given its name because the recipe once called for one pound of flour, one pound of sugar, and one pound of butter. The same goes for cupcakes. The original recipe called for one cup of each ingredient.

From Why Does Popcorn Pop? (Voorhees 1995)

God Writes No Blank Checks

2007-03-26T15:00:00.000-04:00

Earlier this month in Hobart, Indiana, 21-year-old man attempted to cash a $50,000 dollar check from God. The check, which was signed "King Savior, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Servant," was written on an invalid check with no imprint. Police were called to the bank and discovered a number of similar checks in the man's possession, all with the same signature but made out in different dollar amounts.

The young man was charged with one count for attempted check fraud, one for intimidation, and another for resisting law enforcement. I suppose that I would struggle too if God had written me a $50,000 check...

A Case of The Willies

2007-03-25T12:24:00.000-04:00

The Willey Family lived at the bottom of a mountain in the heart of Crawford Notch, New Hampshire. Their house operated as an inn to accomodate travellers as they made their way through the desolate White Mountains.
One day, in 1826 after a massive rainstorm, an avalanche of rocks, soil, and debris hurtled down the mountain toward the Willey's home. In panic, the Willey's fled their house seeking shelter but they were all killed by the landslide. Mr. and Mrs. Willey, their five children, and two hired men were all crushed under the debris of earth, rocks, and trees. Had they remained within the house they would have been safe, for a ledge above the house parted the avalanche so that it was diverted into two paths and swept past the house on either side.

Years later Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a story about the Willeys, and the phrase "a case of the willies" evolved from the tragic story of a family, to the meaning that it has today.

Read the story by Nathaniel Hawthorne

-learned while climbing in Crawford Notch

Steel vs. Spider Silk

2007-03-18T22:26:00.000-04:00

Spider silk is stronger than steel. Well known for its strength and elasticity, the strongest spider silk has tensile strength five times greater than steel. Tensile strength can best be described as pulling on two ends of a rope or wire to the point that it breaks.
I guess this means that in a battle of strength Spiderman would beat Superman - the man of steel. Hah.

-from The Handy Science Answer Book

The Largest Flower on Earth

2007-03-17T21:19:00.000-04:00

Rafflesia arnoldii reeks of rotting flesh and doesn't have any leaves, stems, or roots, but it still makes me think of quirky space plants and video game vegetation. It's the world's largest flower, and it can only be found in Indonesia. Unfortunately, like most things on planet earth, it's in danger of extinction. If you think this flower looks too bizarre to exist, it's probably because sooner or later it might not.

The Day the World Almost Ended

2007-03-09T00:45:00.000-05:00

Just past midnight on September 26, 1983 a Soviet satellite reported five missiles launched from a Montana base heading towards the U.S.S.R.

Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov was at his post in Moscow when his computer began displaying him this information. Stanislav Petrov's job was to notify his superiors and immediately launch a nuclear counter-attack against the United States as the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction required.
Instead, Petrov suspected that there was a computer error and that his country was not under attack. Going against his training and commands, Petrov did not alert his superiors under the reasoning that if the United States was really attacking they would be using more than five missiles and not all from the same base.
As a result, the end of the world via nuclear destruction was averted. The computer system had triggered warnings based on sunlight reflecting off of clouds.
Stanislav Petrov was no hero however. He had disobeyed his military orders and was demoted. He eventually retired. In 2006 he was finally recognized for having saved the Earth from World War III and received a World Citizen Award trophy.

from: mental_floss magazine and wikipedia

Kopi Luwak Coffee

2007-03-09T00:22:00.000-05:00

I'm a coffee fanatic. Black coffee courses through my veins. With all the time I devote to drinking coffee, I consider myself a rather discerning consumer. I know when I'm drinking good coffee, and I know when a cup of coffee tastes like crap...or do I?

Kopi Luwak Coffee is from the Indonesian island of Sumatra, an area that is already known for yummy coffee. Also native this island is a small mammal called a Paradoxurus, known to the natives as "luwaks."

These small animals live in the trees and feast primarily on the red, ripe coffee cherry. The animals eat the cherries whole (coffee bean included). While the bean is in the luwak's stomach, it undergoes a number of chemical changes and begins to ferment. Eventually, the bean passes through the digestive system and comes out the other end.

The beans, which remain in-tact during this process, are collected from the forest floor, cleaned, roasted, and ground. The resulting coffee is said to be unlike any other coffee in the world - rich, with an earthy flavor and hints of caramel and chocolate. The body is syrupy and smooth. One reason for the unparalleled flavor is the selection method itself; normally, when coffee is harvested, not all the fruit will be ripe. However, if an animal is naturally selecting the ripest fruit, you're bound to have one near-perfect cup of coffee.

Because of this method of collection (and the strange method of digestive processing), Kopi Luwak is hard to come by. The average annual production is only about 500 pounds of beans, and a pound of ground ain't cheap - around $300 plus.

Feeling adventurous? Try some for yourself.

Fact courtesy about.com

Things About Bees That You Didn't Know

2007-03-06T22:35:00.000-05:00

Drones are male honeybees. Their only purpose in life is mating with the queen, so when there is a shortage of food they get kicked out of the hive. Drones also die right after mating due to a ruptured abdomen. Sex with the queen bee detaches their endophallus which gets stuck inside of her. Yet she keeps mating till she collects more than 70 million sperm from multiple males. Apparantly to drones, mating is worth a ruptured abdomen. Another murderous habit of queen bees, a newly hatched queen will immediately seek out and kill all other hatched and unhatched queens in the hive.

Actually, it used to be thought that the queen was the king until the late 1660's when someone dissected the big bee and found ovaries.

Bees are smart. They can distinguish human faces, and are trained to recognize explosives. They can also estimate time intervals which helps them collect nectar by knowing when the availability waxes and wanes. Bees have also adapted to zero gravity and built a nearly perfect comb on the April 1984 Challenger flight. They didn't go to the bathroom though. Since bees only excrete outside their hives, all 3,300 bees held it in for 7 days. Clearly, bees are clean. They even have worker bees with the job of undertaker, removing dead siblings from the hive.

Bees make honey. Honey never spoils. Ever. During World War I honey was used as a healing agent to treat the wounds of soldiers because it attracts and absorbs moisture.
The term "honeymoon" derived from a old northern European custom during which newlyweds would drink a cup of mead (fermented honey) every day for a month.

Finally, Gregor Mendel (the guy you learned about in Bio I who studied genetics and grew pea plants) bred a strain of hybrid bees which were so vicious that he had to kill them all.

Death by Cone Snail

2007-03-02T17:47:00.000-05:00

Seemingly harmless, cone shell snails are one of the world's most deadly venomous creatures. Cone shell snails possess an arm-like proboscis loaded with a harpoon tip capable of injecting venom into its prey and then reeling it in. The "conotoxins" in the venom cause paralysis and even death in its victims by stopping nerve cells from communicating with each other and causing heart failure. Death can occurr within minutes. People are even killed picking up cone shells, completely unaware of the danger.

But death by a cone shell is utterly painless.

The conotoxins in the venom act as painkillers, and medical researchers have been studying cone shell poison as a non-addictive painkilling drug. In 2005, Elan Pharmaceuticals was the first company to market a drug created with cone shell venom with Prialt. Prialt is used to treat chronic pain and is 1,000 times more powerful than morphine.
Another research team lead by Professor Bruce Livett of the University of Melbourne is developing a conotoxin-based drug called ACV1 which is 10,000 times stronger than morphine.

A cone snail swallowing a fish.

-from various sources including National Geographic, Poisonous Animals by Edmund D. Brodie Jr. and mental_floss magazine.

Belladonna

2007-02-27T10:51:00.000-05:00

Deadly Nightshade, also known as Atropa Belladonna, is not a plant you want to mess with. Its deadly character is due to the presence of an alkaloid called Atropine, 1/10 grain of which can kill a man if swallowed. Every part of the plant is extremely poisonous, making it dangerous to touch if one has any cuts or abrasions on the hands.

Although a small bit of belladonna can poison a human, many animals do not seem affected by the plant. It has been said that a horse swalloed 8 pounds of the herb without injury, and birds often eat the seeds without harm. Dogs and cats, on the other hand, are very susceptible to the poison.

It is believed that belladonna was the plant used to poison the troops of Marcus Antonius during the Parthian wars.

Despite its many ill-effects, belladonna has a long history of medical usage. It has been used for gastrointestinal disorders to relax the muscles of the gastrointestinal tract and reduce stomach acid secretion, to relax the bronchioles during an asthma attack, to quell excessive sweating, to alleviate headaches and migraines, and to ease the pain of menstrual cramps.

One of the first recorded uses of belladonna was purely cosmetic. 16th century Italian women would place droplets of the juice in their eyes to achieve a dreamy and more desirable appearance. This is where the name "belladonna," which is Italian for "beautiful lady," was derived from.

For more information:
Answers.com
Botanical.com

Cod Word

2007-02-26T16:33:00.000-05:00

The word cod is of unknown orgin. For something that began as food for good Catholics on the days they were to abstain from sex, it is not clear why, in several languanges, the words for salt cod have come to have sexual connotations. In the English-speaking West Indies, saltfish is the common name for salt cod. In slang, saltfish means "a woman's genitals."In Middle English, cod means "a bag or sack," or by inference,"a scrotum," which is why the outrageous purse that sixteenth-century men wore at their crotch to give the appearance of enormous and decorative genitals was called a codpiece. Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary defines cod as "any case or husk in which seeds are lodged." Perhaps this relates to the fish because the female lays so many millions of eggs.

-excerpt from Cod by Mark Kurlansky

Venomous Shrews

2007-02-24T17:27:00.000-05:00

Shrews have venomous saliva that they use to immobilize mice and other animals that are larger than themselves. They store their prey to eat later, sometimes still alive but paralyzed. Shrew venom has two differen components. One affects cold-blooded prey like insects or frogs, while other affects warm-blooded animals such as mice. They can hunt both on land and underwater. Shrew bites aren't dangerous to humans, but can cause a burning pain lasting for hours. There are no shrews in Australia or southern South America. Baby shrews will hold onto the tail of their mother or sibling and they travel in a line. This behavior is called caravanning.

Draining Water

2007-02-21T22:06:00.000-05:00

If water runs out from a perfectly symmetrical bathtub, basin, or toilet bowl, it will swirl counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and run out clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. This is because of the Coriolis effect, which states that the Earth's rotation influences any moving body of water or air. If exactly on the equator, the water would run straight down.

(note: some scientists say the Coriolis effect does not work on small bodies of water, such as the water drained from a bathtub or sink)

-from The Handy Science Answer Book

The Black Death

2007-02-21T00:06:00.000-05:00

In 1969, President Richard Nixon signed the Biological Weapons Convention, banning "one of the oldest and least respected forms of warfare - the use of poison and disease."

Until scientists invented technology to get a closer look at germs (ie microscopes), diseases could not be spread in the sophisticated ways that poison was. One technique was to dump a corpse in the enemy's well or water supply, although the attacker then ran the risk of the disease striking his own troops.

One of the earliest recorded attempts at biological warfare took place in 1346 when the Mongols laid seige to Kaffa, a walled city on the Crimean coast. Mongol soldiers had been dying of the plague for 3 years and were quickly running out of manpower and ideas. In a last ditch effort, the Mongol soldiers began hurling dead, infected corpses over the wall by way of catapults.

The plague spread quickly throughout Kaffa. Many died, and the survivors who fled the city ended up carrying the disease with them to Constantinople, Venice, Genoa, and beyond. Within 3 years, the Black Death had swept Europe, killing a quarter of the population.

From The Killing Winds: The Menace of Biological Warfare (McDermott)

Dalmation Fire Dogs

2007-02-20T15:56:00.001-05:00

Dalmations are well known for their strong bonds with horses, and back in the day the dogs slept in the stable to keep the horses company and protect them from theft. Old fire stations owned the fastest and strongest horses for pulling the water pump wagons, so dalmations became an integral part of firehouse life, keeping away horse thiefs and going along on trips to put out fires.
Even though horses have been replaced with fire engines, dalmations are still kept at the station, and serve both as a mascot and nostalgic tie to the past.

-from The Handy Science Answer Book

Ritualistic Penis Stretching

2007-02-15T15:49:00.000-05:00

Beginning at puberty, men of the Karamojong tribe of northeastern Uganda begin the long, arduous process of ritualistic penis stretching.

A boy will hang a circular stone disk from the tip of his penis, adding more disks as he becomes accustomed to the weight (and the pain!). By the time the boy has reached his teenage years, he may carry up to 20 pounds on his penis, which by this time can measure 18 inches or more in length.

To avoid sitting on the elongated appendage, the men will often tie their penises into knots and tuck them away.

From: Thunder's Place: Penis Enlargement Wiki

SEGA

2007-02-15T15:45:00.000-05:00

The first electronic games were played at military bases by recruits so that they could escape the rigors of training. In 1951, the manager of the game rooms at military bases in Hawaii, Marty Bromley, launched SEGA (abbreviation for SErvice GAmes) which began the development of the coin-operated video arcade industry.

Grunion Love

2007-02-15T00:18:00.000-05:00

Grunions are small silver fish that live in the Pacific of the west coast of North America. What is interesting about grunions is their mating behavior.

On a specific night following the highest tide of the month, and during a period of only a few hours, thousands of grunions will gather to make love. The fish ride the waves onto the beach and lay there stranded, unable to breathe, while the female lays her eggs and the male fertilizes them. Then they catch the next wave back out to sea. Usually one female and several male grunions will ride a wave in together.

The mating of grunions is so adapted to the tide cycles that it can be predicted exactly when the grunions will come to spawn. Even European Oysters, North African sea urchins, and tropical worms have spawning patterns so sychronized with the tides that if you were shipwrecked on an island you would be able to calculate the day of the year and the time by tracking their sex lives.

-from one of my favorite books, The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch

Necrophilia

2007-02-12T00:57:00.000-05:00

Necrophilia was not a crime in any US state until 1965. When necrophilia's best-known modern-day practitioner, Sacramento mortuary worker Karen Greenlee, was caught absconding with a dead young man in 1979, she was fined for illegally driving a hearse but not for the act itself, as California had no statutes regarding sex with the dead. To date, only sixteen states have enacted necrophilia laws. The language used by each state reflects its particular character. While taciturn Minnesota refers to those who "carnally know a dead body," freewheeling Nevada spells it all out: "it is a felony to engage in cunnilingus, fellatio, or any intrusion of any part of a person's body, or any object manipulated or inserted by a person into the genital or anal openings of the body of another where the offender performs these acts on the dead body of a human being."

From "Stiff" by Mary Roach

Fact courtesy Luke

Thon Fact

2007-02-09T11:59:00.000-05:00

In 1884, a Pennsylvanian lawyer and composer, Charles Converse, created a word to address the lack of a gender neutral pronoun in the English language. Converse suggested using the word "thon", meaning "that one", to represent both "he and she" and "him and her." The word even appeared in the Funk & Wagnalls dictionary between 1898 and 1964.
Some other words attempted to bridge the gender pronoun gap. These included "hir," "ve," and "ey," but of course none were quite as limitedly successful as "thon" was.

source: Ken Jennings!

Execution Evolution

2007-02-08T00:39:00.000-05:00

The Guillotine (or, as Will calls it, "The Chopper") was invented as a solution to make executions less painful. Sure, it seems like an oxymoron, but in truth, getting your head chopped off by a sharp blade propelled by gravity is probably a much more pleasant experience than some of the other historical methods of execution.

Elephant Crushing - India, 4,000 years ago. (probably even older but recorded history doesn't go back that far)
Getting your head crushed by an elephant foot was a punishment that lasted up to the early years of British colonization. Elephants would also be used to dismember and torture criminals. Usually the stomping was a public affair, administered by an abnormally large elephant, as if being trampled by a regular elephant isn't scary enough.

Cave of Roses - Sweden, during the middle ages (13th century)
The Cave of Roses involves locking a criminal in a dark cave filled with venomous snakes and other creatures. With no way to escape and no way to see, it was only a matter of time before the victim moved and provoked some creature to give a fatal bite.

The Brazen Bull - Sicily, during the reign of Phalaris (570-554 B.C.E.)
Another imaginative way of killing someone, this device was a life-size hollow brass bull with a fire below it. Phalaris condemned whoever he pleased to bake in the bull oven. According to legend, the bull was also a reed-based acoustic instrument which made the victim's screams sound like a bull's bellow. Smoke even blew out of its nostrils. Eventually however, Phalaris was overthrown by Telemachus and ended up in the bull's belly himself.

Keelhauling - became a part of Dutch naval laws in 1560
Keelhauling is when you tie a man up with rope, toss him overboard, an drag him "across the keel" from the bow to stern. During long hauls, the victim would drown. Shorter hauls left sailors alive, but being dragged along the barnacle-covered hull of the ship left them heavily scarred.

Spanish Donkey - 17th century Spain
This one is gruesome. The Spanish Donkey (or Wooden Horse) was used both for torturing as well as executions. The contraption was more or less a vertical wooden board with a sharp wedge on top. Naked victims were forced to straddle this, with weights tied to their ankles or feet, which pulled them downwards until they split it two.

Ling Chi - China, 10th century C.E.
Outlawed in 1905, Ling Chi was known as "death by a thousand cuts", Ling Chi involved binding a victim to a pole and slicing into their arms, legs, and chest. Sometimes it was used as an execution method, and other times it was done after the person was dead. Literally, Ling Chi translates to "degrading and slow" but it's also the name of a fungus known as "the mushroom of immortality."

If you want to learn even more about torture and torments, I insist you check out this website. Seriously.

source of all facts: mental_floss magazine : volume 6 issue 1

Stone Babies

2007-02-07T23:44:00.000-05:00

Though uncommon in our country today, more than 290 "Lithopedion" cases have been medically recorded over the centuries. A "lithopedion" or "stone baby" from a tubal, ovarian, or abdominal pregnancy can become calcified in a woman's uterus if it is too large to be expelled or reabsorbed by the body. Though the condition may cause initial pain, the fetus can go undiagnosed for years or even decades.

In 1674, a 48-year-old German woman went into labor with pains that lasted seven weeks. Even after the pains ceased, her stomach remained swollen. The woman recovered and went on to bear two healthy children, although she was convinced that her unborn child had remained inside. When she passed on at age 94, a surgeon discovered "a hard mass of the form and size of a large Ninepin-Bowl" in her belly.

Fact from Cincinnati's Strange News

Night of the Living Dead

2007-02-04T11:37:00.000-05:00

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm obsessed with zombie movies. Night of the Living Dead, made in 1968, was the film that truly invented the zombie genre. It was the first in a series of 4 movies written and directed by zombie diety George A. Romero. Although it's easy to poke fun at "old-fashioned" horror movies today, this film remains a true gem.

I decided to look up a bit of movie trivia to pay hommage to one of my favorite zombie films of all time.

*There is one particularly gory scene in the movie where the zombies rip apart charred bodies from a crashed truck. It's quite nausea-inducing. The body parts were actually roast ham covered in chocolate sauce. This is almost more disgusting than real blood and guts.

*The word zombie is never used in the movie. Throughout the film, the undead are usually referred to as "those things."

*Before a title for the film had been chosen, the working title was simply "Monster Flick."

*The music from the film is not an original score. It was purchased from a copyrighted stock music library for $1500. The music was originally used in "Teenagers from Outer Space" (1959) and The Killer Shrews (1959).

*The film was produced on a low-budget of $114,000. It has sinced grossed $12 million in the US and $30 million internationally.

*The film entered into public domain after the original theatrical distributor, the Walter Reade Organization, neglected to place a copyright notice on the prints. Because of this, the film is sold on home video by several distributors. The Internet Movie Database lists 23 copies of the film retailing on DVD and 19 on VHS. The original film is also available for download on many internet sites free of charge.

Trivia courtesy: Answers.com and The Internet Movie Database