Skulls in the Stars

This week was an eventful one!  I was at Disney World with my wife, so one of our facts is about roller coaster history.  In honor of the memory of Whitney Houston, I posted a musical fact. For Valentine’s Day, I found an… um… sexual organ related fact…

697. Feb 08: From the annals of weird inventions: rose-colored eyeglasses for chickens!  I learned about these on the reality show Storage Wars, when Barry Weiss came across some in a storage locker he purchased.  The glasses are intended to keep the chickens from cannibalizing each other at the sight of blood.

698. Feb 09: The supersoaker was invented by a rocket scientist! (h/t @MiriamGoldste)

698a. The 1948 Donora industrial smog, which killed 20 and helped spark the clean air movement.  Before this incident, the public seems to have been unaware of the possibility of man-made fatal environmental disaster on a grand scale.

699. Feb 10: Early 1903 looping roller coaster, Flip-Flap Railway, produced 12 G’s and snapped some rider’s necks.  Modern looping coasters have a “clothoid” shape, like an inverted tear drop, with relatively wide curve at the bottom and a sharp curve at top (images via Wikipedia):

 The reason for this is elementary physics: in order for a roller coaster car to successfully clear the top of an ordinary circular loop, such as the Flip-Flap Railway (shown below), the rider must be exposed to incredibly high, even fatal, G-forces at the bottom.  By widening the entrance curve at the bottom of the loop, the forces are reduced to a safe level.

700. Feb 11: The “drawn sound” technique of music synthesis, oramics, invented by Daphne Oram.  “Oramics” involves drawing images on 35mm film as a “mask” of transmitted light; the light is received by photocells that interpret the result as sound.  A picture of such “drawn sound” is shown below (via Wikipedia):

701. Feb 12: Archaeologists strike gold in quest to find Queen of Sheba’s wealth!  (Via @BoneGirlPhD)

702. Feb 13: The 2008 destruction by the inadvertent draining of Lake Delton.  (One of many videos can be watched here.)

703. Feb 14: “Angel lust”, otherwise known as a “death erection“.  I had known for years about the possibility of a hanged man producing an erection, but I had not until now considered how odd it is from a scientific point of view.  (h/t @arthurpdent42)

ATTACK OF THE ANOTHER WEEK OF TWITTER #WEIRDSCIFACTS!!!

690. Feb 01: Atolla wyvillei, the deep-sea jelly that use bioluminescence to “scream” for help when attacked!  Bioluminescence is used in many different ways in the ocean, but the most unusual is perhaps this jelly’s strategy!  When attacked, it flashes frantically, hoping to draw a predator that will eat its attacker.

691. Feb 02: Case of hypothermic man, 2 hours in cardiac arrest, resuscitated, no neuro deficits.  We are used to the idea that a person has minutes, at most, to live when their heart stops.  When “preserved” at low temperature, however, people can survive extended periods with no circulation, and still come out with no lasting neurological damage. (h/t @msbellows)

692. Feb 03: Butterflies want to drink your blood, sweat & tears. (Post by @maggiekb1)

693. Feb 04: The saga of M.L. Humason, who went from mule skinner & janitor to observational astronomer!  (via @brx0)

694. Feb 05: Many owls have asymmetric ear size & placement, allowing better prey location. (This fact was posted in honor of #SuperbOwlFacts!)

695. Feb 06: The world’s oldest living organism lives in the Mediterranean.  (h/t @jacquelyngill)

696. Feb 07: The sex-changing frog, the chemical company, and the trash-talking scientist.  (via @motherjones)

Time for another week of Twitter #weirdscifacts!  This week I wrapped up some facts about the North Carolina Museum for Natural Sciences and started some facts gleaned from Discovery Place’s “Mummies of the World” exhibit!  We also have a bonus fact!

683. Jan 25: #weirdscifacts via @naturalsciences: Longleaf pines undergo a growth spurt to “get above” brush fires.  These pines depend on brush fires to survive, but must grow rapidly to escape the fire-susceptible sapling stage.

683a. Titanoboa, the extinct mega-snake!!! Unfortunately, titanoboa went extinct before it could eat Jon Voight (for real). (h/t @laelaps)

684. Jan 26: The Russian “water computer” of 1936!  This computer was built to solve partial differential equations; if the technique had persisted for long enough, we might be referring to “computer bugs” instead as “computer clogs”.  (h/t @jenlucpiquant)

685. Jan 27: #weirdscifacts via @naturalsciences: Female tree bats mate in fall, but don’t fertilize eggs until after hibernation, in spring!  It requires a lot of energy in order to hibernate with an actual baby on the way, so the female bat simply stores the male’s semen until spring.

686. Jan 28: Final #weirdscifacts via @naturalsciences: the hellbender salamander, which “breathes” through its skin!  The salamander has lungs, but it spends most of its time underwater and breathing through its skin.

687. Jan 29: Why swim when you can walk? The odd locomotion of the handfish.  Unlike mudskippers, which use their fins to walk on land, the handfish seem to “walk” underwater.

688. Jan 30: #weirdscifacts via @myrmecos: the spider that is disguised as its ant prey! 

689. Jan 31: #weirdscifacts via @discoveryplace “Mummies”: The Detmold child, a 6500 year old mummy.  This mummy predates King Tut by 3,000 years!