Skulls in the Stars

Been a quiet week on the blog, thanks to my participating in Science Online 2012, which was one of the most fun and interesting events ever!!! We’re back with Twitter #weirdscifacts, however, and this week includes a number of facts learned at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences during a tour of their excellent facilities!  (I’ll have more to say about Science Online 2012 over the next few days.)  We also have one bonus fact this week that was too interesting not to share!

676. Jan 18: Cows kill more people nationally every year than sharks do worldwide.  This one came from Science Online keynote speaker Mireya Mayor!  (h/t @maggiekb1)

677. Jan 19: #weirdscifacts at a bar, via @SFriedScientist : no domestic turkeys can have sex!

678. Jan 20: Sea monsters: misidentified whale penises?  I’ve heard it speculated plausibly before that many sea serpents were misidentified giant squid, but this post by @scicurious give an… alternate… interpretation to some sightings!

679. Jan 21: #weirdscifacts via @naturalsciences: the shrimp Acanthephyra purpurea “vomits” bioluminescence to blind predators! (Post by @laelaps!)

680. Jan 22: The mysterious elliptical “Carolina Bays“, of not-quite-certain origin!  (h/t @naturalsciences)

681. Jan 23: #weirdscifacts of @naturalsciences: Bladderwort, a carnivorous plant that essentially vacuums up prey through roots!

682. Jan 24: #weirdscifacts via @naturalsciences: Red-cockaded woodpecker uses tree sap to make nests too sticky 4 snakes 2 enter!

682a. Bonus #weirdscifacts via @astVintageSpace: how to keep an astronaut from swearing on the Moon?  Communication with mission control was publicly broadcast — this was a problem when one astronaut was an uncontrollable cusser!

Still going strong on Twitter #weirdscifacts! This will likely be the last significant post of the week, due to my attending ScienceOnline 2012!

(I posted my facts one day late this week, in solidarity with those in opposition to the very stupid SOPA/PIPA bill, for what it’s worth.)

669. Jan 11: Teletanks: the radio-controlled Soviet tanks used during WWII!  With all the recent excitement and controversy about surveillance and predator drones, it is somewhat surprising to realize that remote controlled vehicles were used so long ago.  (h/t @tobascodagama)

670. Jan 12: Parrondo’s mathematical paradox, “a losing game-playing strategy that wins”.

671. Jan 13: Granular convection, aka “Brazil nut effect“: why the biggest nuts end up on top of the pile!

672. Jan 14: The 1953 Flint-Worcester tornados — blamed by congressmen on nuclear testing.  This horrific tragedy was the result of such atypical weather that congressman incorrectly blamed it on recent nuclear testing.  (h/t @patrickneville)

673. Jan 15: The Collatz conjecture: another odd and unproven mathematical hypothesis.  (h/t @patrickneville, again!)

674. Jan 16: Icebergs can melt enough to flip over, creating big waves! This is somewhat obvious, when you think about it — a sudden collapse of a side of an iceberg can upset its balance, making it flip over.  (h/t @discoveryplace)

675. Jan 17: While imprisoned, physicist Arago relied on monkeys to groom him & keep him lice-free.  Arago was captured by the Spanish while on a ship that was transporting exotic animals to Napoleon.  He was incarcerated in a broken windmill with the animals, but they turned out to provide an important service!  (from my blog post!)

Time again for another week’s roundup of Twitter #weirdscifacts!  This week we reached the dubious milestone of fact #666!  To celebrate, we provide a bonus fact, and two of the facts this week are my own posts on WEIIIIIIRD OPTIIIIIIICS!!!

662. Jan 04: Jeanne Baret, an 18th century lady botanist who disguised herself as a man to travel!  (h/t @jenlucpiquant)

663. Jan 05: A camera fast enough to watch light move?  The link leads to my own post on the “picosecond camera”, which can record images — with some caveats — as such a rate as to track the motion of a pulse of light!

664. Jan 06: What happens when your brain is split in two — and you survive? With the connection between the left/right halves severed, many bizarre “split personality” behaviors have been observed. (h/t @jenlucpiquant)

665. Jan 07: So, what is a “temporal cloak“, anyway? Another of my posts, on the recent announcement of a cloak that can hide an event in time!  Again, not quite as shocking as it initially sounds, but quite remarkable research.

666. Jan 08: Sharks contain urea (normally a component of urine) in their body tissue.  Many species of fish are constantly losing water to the salt-rich seawater surrounding them, and much replenish it.  Sharks, however, use urea to help keep the ion balance in their body comparable to that of the sea.  (h/t @whysharksmatter)

667. Jan 09: The pearl fish makes its home in the anus of sea cucumbers.  (h/t @edyong209)

667a. Bonus fact!  On December 6th, 1916, a German military vessel sunk a set of dinosaurs. (h/t @Laelaps)

668. Jan 10: The scientific lecture that included full-frontal male nudity!  Even worse, the lecturer waggled his exposed erect penis as he waded into the audience… for science! (h/t @miriamgoldste)

Happy New Year! A new year, another week of new Twitter #weirdscifacts!

655. Dec 28: Beware the “ball-cutter fish“!  What’s the worst interpretation of the term “ball-cutter fish” you can imagine?  Yep, that’s what it is! (via @kzelnio & @deepseanews)

656. Dec 29: The 1903 discovery of safety glass was literally an accident. 

657. Dec 30: In the early 1900s, “glow-in-the-dark” radium condoms were actually sold!  The discovery of radioactivity, particularly radium, led people to suggest it as essentially a “miracle substance”, with pretty much every use imaginable.  I’ve noted in these facts before chemist Frederick Soddy’s suggestion to inhale radium as a cure for tuberculosis; putting radium on one’s junk adds a whole new cringe-factor, however.  (h/t @highlyanne)

658. Dec 31: Samoa just lost a day by moving date line around itself!  A nice New Year’s fact!  The choice of the location of the date line has always been a convention; due to increased trade with places like Australia that lay across the date line, Samoa found it convenient to move it to be more in sync with its trading partners. (h/t @chrislindsay9)

659. Jan 01: The Catatumbo River lightning: 40k flashes of lightning per night! I  had chronicled in a previous fact that Kifuka, Africa is apparently the world record holder in lightning intensity, with 158 strikes per square km per year!  Why is Catatumbo not listed at the top?  My guess is that the linked article is in error in referring to 40k “strikes” per night, and that all the lightning is cloud-based.  Nevertheless, the intensity is so bright that it serves as a natural lighthouse!  (h/t @jenlucpiquant)

660. Jan 02: How a cone snail catches and kills its fish!  (h/t @ericmjohnson)

661. Jan 03: c. 1805, physicist Francois Arago talked a friend out of trying (and likely succeeding) to assassinate Napoleon!  This comes  from Arago’s autobiography, which is so wild that I’m going to have to blog about it in the near future!  This incident occurred when Arago was still in school; Napoleon demanded a “loyalty oath” from the students, and many of those who refused were drummed out of school.  One of Arago’s friends who was expelled later confided to Arago that he planned to assassinate Napoleon, had trained extensively as a marksman and had picked an ambush point along the Emperor’s parade route! Arago managed to delay his friend’s plans and later convinced him to pursue other activities.