Unlike Santa, elves or even clean coal, reindeer are real. They may not fly, but there’s a good deal of truth around the many myths of Christmas’s favorite animal. Yes, they do live in extremely cold conditions. Yes, they are known to pull sleds. And, yes, their noses really do turn a shade of red given the right conditions. First […]
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Sporting the third deepest natural harbor in the southern hemisphere and a rich habitat, the waters around Eden, Australia attract a variety of wildlife, including baleen whales and, at least in the fall and winter, orcas. At some point in the history of the indigenous Yuin people, they and the killer whales seemingly entered into a tacit sort of unspoken […]
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Cook Strait, located between the north and south islands of New Zealand, is within the zone of the Roaring Forties which consists of strong winds that sweep across the southern hemisphere from the west. The winds themselves are funneled through a gap in the two islands. On top of this, cool currents from Canterbury travel north up the coast of […]
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Mark A. asks: Is it true that the reason sharks don’t eat people is because we taste bad to them? The idea of sharks not liking the taste of humans has been around for at least a half a century, with the first account of this notion (that we could find) appearing in a Sep. 2, 1968 edition of The […]
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Rondon B. asks: How long would it take piranhas to turn an adult human into nothing but bones? Asking for a friend… Alongside sharks, crocodiles and that fish people incorrectly believe can swim up a stream of urine if you pee in the Amazon, piranhas are amongst the most feared aquatic creatures on Earth. This is mostly due to the […]
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Karen C. asks: What exactly were sea monkey creatures and how did they survive in their packaging for so long? The product of a collaboration between a marketer and inventor and a marine biologist, Sea-Monkeys are a hybrid of several species of brine shrimp (Artemia), bred to have a particularly long dormant period, as well as to foster a large […]
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Marcus G. asks: If I had nothing else to eat, could I eat my dog’s food without getting sick from it? Nearly 80 million American households have a pet, with a majority being a cat or dog. Additionally, 42% of homes have more than one pet. A lot of food is needed to feed all of these animals, so it […]
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A while ago we shared the story of F.D.C. Willard, an ordinary housecat who through a confluence of mistakes and errors, ended up being listed as the co-author of a widely cited science paper on low temperature physics. Today we’re telling a similar story about an equally impressive Tabby called Larry who is, believe it or not, an official employee […]
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Over two decades before Buzz and Neil put their feet on the Moon, humans were already preparing for that day by sending other living organisms to space. In 1947, the United States blasted fruit flies into space in a captured Nazi V-2 rocket. Alongside packets of rye and cotton seeds, the original intention of the flies’ mission was to determine […]
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Medical science has advanced an astounding amount in the last 50 years or so and we can do things today that a half a century ago even in that era’s science fiction would have been considered science fiction. By the same token though, there were things done in the 1950s and 1960s that people today are still skeptical actually happened, […]
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Kiaan D. asks: Why do you say “sic him” to dogs when you want them to attack someone? People have been telling dogs to “sic ’em,” with the intent to have the dog attack individual(s), since at least the nineteenth century. While this may seem odd given common modern definitions for “sick” or the variant “sic,” at the time this […]
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Gideon S. asks: Why is a final performance called a swansong? When someone performs for the last time, we often refer to it as a “swan song” which seems odd given that swans aren’t particularly known for their stage presence… So where exactly did this phrase come from? This expression is generally thought to have its genesis in the over […]
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Laura asks: Is it true that lobsters can’t die of old age? You’ll often hear it claimed that lobsters are biologically immortal. So is it true? Not really, though this is partially an argument in semantics as you’ll soon see. (And while we’re on the topic of lobster myths, no: Lobsters do not mate for life. In fact, the male […]
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Of the 300-plus species in the frog family Dendrobatidae, only three members of the Phyllobates genus have been documented as having their poison used for hunting darts: Phyllobates aurotaenia (a.k.a. Kokoe), Phyllobates bicolor (a.k.a. Black-Legged) and Phyllobates terribilis (a.k.a. Golden). While in the wild these frogs harbor poison sufficient to kill a grown man, after they have been held captive […]
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Kyle D. asks: Why do oysters make pearls? Oysters make pearls as a defensive response to foreign objects. The process begins when some foreign body, such as sand, a parasite or some other organic material, manages to make its way inside the oyster’s shell and comes in contact with the mantle, a layer that protects the oyster’s internal organs, sometimes even […]
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There are 289 different species in the Octopoda order, each of them just as strange as the last. With eight (or so) wriggly appendages, a bulbous mantle, homicidal tendencies and high intelligence, even a mid-sized octopus can be intimidating. And the more you get to know about them, the more you realize just how extraordinary these cephalopods are. Their best […]
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In the world of physics the name F.D.C. Willard is simultaneously treated with both reverence and derision. On one hand, he co-authored an often cited paper on low temperature physics at age 7 and was the sole author of another entire paper on the subject in French just a few years later at age 12. On the other hand, he […]
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In 1936, the crew of the British gunboat HMS Gnat lacked a mascot, and the captain and crew decided to remedy that situation before starting patrols on the Yangtze River. Their sister gunboats, the Bee, Cicada, and Cricket already had mascots of their own. So Lieutenant Commander J. Waldergrave and Chief Petty Officer Charles Jefferey purchased an English Pointer puppy […]
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