Skulls in the Stars

This past Sunday, I officially reached my goal of doing a full year’s worth of #weirdscifacts on Twitter — 365 days in a row of posting weird science!!!!!!!!!

I will probably wind down my facts sometime in the future — despite prodding from the Twitter community, I’m not sure I have the energy (or the facts) to fill another full year.  Nevertheless, I’ll keep doing them as long as I can keep finding facts and keep myself entertained.

Something else I’ve been mulling over: would it be worth it to try and make the collection of #weirdscifacts into a book and/or a daily calendar?  I’d be interested to hear what folks have to say!

Without further ado, here are the past week’s facts:

360. Mar 08: When G. Washington died in 1799, a doctor offered to resurrect him via blood transfusion! This fact comes via @history_geek‘s excellent book “Blood Work”, which I am currently reading.  Washington likely died in part due to the “treatments” of his doctors.  The suggested resurrection, done via a transfusion of animal blood, was declined by the family.

361. Mar 09: The sad case of the radium girls: death by painting watch dials. In an era of deregulation and corporate negligence, this story seems especially timely.  The radium girls case led to great advances in the rights of workers to sue their employers for occupational diseases.

362. Mar 10: Milburn Model 27L electric car, top speed 23 mph, range 90 miles.  Made in 1923. These are impressive statistics for an electric car that was made nearly 90 years ago!  I encountered the Milburn at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago; photo and description.

363. Mar 11: Japan’s quake shortened length of day by 1.26 microseconds. A figure skater (like myself) can change the speed of a spin by pulling one’s arms in and out.  The earthquake in Japan shifted the distribution of mass on the spinning Earth, changing its spin rate much like a figure skater does.

364. Mar 12: For all the destruction of the Japanese tsunami, it is relatively small compared to others in history.

365. Mar 13: number 365!!!!!! In terms of cell count, humans are 90% microbial and 10% human! (h/t @kwinkunks)

366. Mar 14: Happy #weirdscifacts Pi day! In 2005, Lu Chao successfully recited 67,890 digits of Pi from memory in 24 hours. Chao planned to recite 90,000 digits, but slipped up at the 67k mark.  I find this astonishing because I can’t remember a 16-digit credit card number.  It took Chao 24 hours to finish reciting.

367. Mar 15: The Megatherium Club (1857-1866), and the shenanigans that got them booted from the Smithsonian castle. Quoting Wikipedia, “They spent their weekdays in the rigorous and exacting work of describing and classifying species. But their nights were spent in revelry.”

In less than a week, I’ll have done a #weirdscifacts a day for a full year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here are the past week’s facts:

354. Mar 02: Physics Nobelist Shockley was troubled, and once attempted suicide with solo game of Russian roulette.

355. Mar 03: The gin-and-tonic laser! We’ve noted in previous facts that physicists like to do interesting things with booze — Glaser’s experiments with bubble chambers using beer, for instance.  Post by @oliviakoski!

356. Mar 04: Curse of the cubic! Lots of mathematicians who worked on polynomial equations met bad ends.

357. Mar 05: In 1919, radium was world’s most expensive substance at $3 million/ounce. The Curies, who discovered radium, took years and processed tons of raw ore to get a tenth of a gram of the substance.  It discuss the history briefly in this old post; with this in mind, it is not surprising that the substance ended up being so expensive! (via yesterday’s “Final Jeopardy”; I got it right!)

358. Mar 06: Have I mentioned yet that Brian May of “Queen” has a Ph.D in astrophysics? May was studying astrophysics before the band took off; in recent years, he went back to school and finished his degree!

359. Mar 07: Chemist Carl Scheele (1742-1786) likely died from his extensive exposure and taste testing of chemicals, including cyanide! Nobody is certain what exactly caused his death, but it was almost certainly due to experimentation.  He apparently was also aware of the risks, referring to his poor health as “the trouble of all apothecaries”.

360. Mar 08: When George Washington died in 1799, a doctor offered to resurrect him via blood transfusion! (via @history_geek’s newly-released book “Blood Work“!)

I’m getting tantalizingly close to having posted a full 365 days of #weirdscifacts on Twitter!  Here are the past week’s facts:

347. Feb 23: Paleontologist C.D. Walcott (1850-1927) was inspired to study Cambrian strata when his wagon hit & split open a sandstone fossil rock. Lots of scientists have had their careers dictated by odd chance: we’ve mentioned previously physics Nobel prize winner Chadwick, who intended to study math but accidentally sat in on the physics entrance exam!  Walcott’s career was literally determined by a bump in the road.  (Source for #weirdscifacts [pdf, p. 5])

348. Feb 24: Largest recorded beaver dam: 2790 ft long, in Northern Alberta, Canada. That is, for the record, over nine football fields in length!  It was obviously made by multiple families of beavers working together.

349. Feb 25: In 1929, Werner Forssmann put a catheter into his own heart, tying up a nurse who tried to stop him! With the catheter in place, he then walked himself up to the X-ray room to take an image and prove that he had accomplished his goal.  (h/t for last #weirdscifacts to @JenLucPiquant and @io9, and this article)

350. Feb 26: Getting X-rays from scotch tape! I wrote a blog post on the subject some time ago.  When tape is peeled, electric charges are separated between the peeled and unpeeled portions.  In a vacuum, the electrons can “jump” back across the gap, and release X-rays upon deceleration.  Don’t worry — under ordinary circumstances (ordinary atmospheric pressure), there are no X-rays released.

351. Feb 27: The cousin of the Schrodinger’s cat thought experiment: quantum suicide!

352. Feb 28: The Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder — invented in 1853 and still used today. With a wooden bowl and a glass sphere, you too can record the intensity of sunlight over the course of the day! (h/t @patrickneville)

353. Mar 01: “Cactus Walking On 20 Legs Found In China“. This ancient creature was a type of spindly worm, and is only known through the fossil record.  Did it actually “walk”?  We don’t know for sure.  Nevertheless, it is a very weird creature. (Post by @rkrulwich)