Science Tidbit Thursday

Metamorphosis. A caterpillar encases itself in a cocoon. Its entire structure liquifies, breaks down to molecules which then reform into either a moth or a butterfly which retains the memories of its existence as a caterpillar.

I want to do this. I want to be a caterpillar. It seems rather Old Man’s War-like. Okay, I want to already be at the cool moth/butterfly stage.

•  Sometimes orcas will just start wearing dead salmon as hats, for fun. Then after a while they stop. Then a few years later they’re like “Should we do the dead salmon hat thing again?” And they do. Orcas are fun and whimsical. Also intimidating as fuck.

•  The Appalachian mountains are older than Saturn's rings, and way back when the continents were connected, they extended into what is now Scotland.

•  Pfizer and Valneva are developing a preventative, seasonal shot for Lyme disease. It creates antibodies inside a person that, when ingested by the tick, block the bacteria from leaving the tick.

So, the disease is offed inside the tick’s body, before it even enters yours. How fucking cool is that?! The vaccine is currently in Phase 3 trials. If test results continue successfully, I'm betting on Bobby Brain Worms to block its release.

•  There are sharks, I’m specifically talking about the Greenland sharks, that live as long as 272 and 512 years. Think about it. Some poor shark’s been around since 1514. I believe that makes them older than Willie Nelson and Keith Richards combined! Also too, you know what this means? ‘course ya do. There’s some erudite sharky out there RIGHT NOW who saw the original performance of Willy the Shake’s The Taming of the Shrew.

•  Sharks are older than trees. Sharks have been around for 400 million years. Ever consider that maybe, just maybe, Adam and Eve were sharks? 

•  The Easter Island heads have bodies. Are they in any way related to the standing stones found in the British Isles?

•  In between Earth and our moon there’s enough space to fit all the planets with about 2,000 kilometers left over.  

Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space".
~ Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

•  From Physics Fun:

When supermassive black holes spiral together in binary systems, they create ripples in the fabric of spacetime itself—gravitational waves that propagate across the universe at light speed, literally shaking every galaxy, star, planet, and atom they pass through. These aren't metaphorical ripples but actual compressions and expansions of space itself, stretching and squeezing everything infinitesimally as they pass. When LIGO detected gravitational waves from merging black holes 1.3 billion light-years away in 2015, those waves briefly changed the distance between Earth and the Sun by less than the width of an atom.

Black holes colliding over a billion years ago created waves that traveled through expanding space, crossed the cosmos, and physically stretched the space between Earth and Sun when they arrived.

So, we were all momentarily taller and shorter because of merging black holes. Neat!

•  Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (AKA broken-heart syndrome) is a temporary heart condition – a weakening of the left ventricle, the heart's main pumping chamber.

The condition is usually the result of severe emotional or physical stress, such as a sudden illness, the loss of a loved one, a serious accident, or a natural disaster such as an earthquake. That's why the condition is also called stress-induced cardiomyopathy or broken-heart syndrome. (source) 

•  No person who was born blind has ever been diagnosed with schizophrenia. People who were born deaf, however, can be diagnosed with schizophrenia. Huh.

What is schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia is a chronic brain disorder that affects less than one percent of the U.S. population. When schizophrenia is active, symptoms can include delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, trouble with thinking and lack of motivation. (source)  

•  The "immortal jellyfish," Turritopsis dohrnii, is a tiny, translucent jellyfish that, when hurt or experiencing physical stress, like starvation, can revert to its juvenile polyp stage. Instead of dying it shrinks in on itself, restarting its life cycle. – like a caterpillar metamorphosing into a moth or butterfly.