Did it every occur to you as odd, that the coldest time of the year is not December 21st, the shortest day? The reason is called ALBEDO. That’s the shininess, or reflectivity, of the Earth’s surface. In winter, much of our hemisphere is covered in snow, which reflects sunlight and prevents the Earth from heating up, thus prolonging winter
Monthly Archives: March 2009
Tired Dolphins
Dolphins do not breathe automatically like we do. They need to think about it, so they don’t sleep. If they become unconscious for any reason, they drown.
Shrimp have more than 100 pairs of chromosomes. Humans have 23.
Whales’ eyes are fixed so they have to turn their whole body to change their filed of view.
Hard Working Eyes
Your eyes move more than any other muscle. If your legs worked as hard as your eyes, you would be walking 50 miles (80 km) per day.
All animals are born with blue eyes. Most change to brown shortly after birth.
Brown eyed people are better at sports requiring split second timing. Blue eyed people are better at sports requiring accuracy.
Kiss a Frog and Find Your Prince
In Australia in the 1930’s, the sugar cane industry was failing due to an infestation of greyback beetle grubs, who’s favourite food is sugar cane roots. To solve the problem, they imported 102 cane toads in from Hawaii. However, the toads decided that the fried bugs from lamps were tastier. Today, the greyback beetle infestation is solved but the toad infestation is at an all time high. In hopes of solving the problem, a rumour started about the toads that if you licked them it caused hallucinations, It causes more than that: heart attack, stroke and seizures to name a few
But ever wonder where the idea of kissing a frog to find your prince came from?
Phobias and Phillias
A phobia is a fear of something. The opposite is called a phillia (love of something).
– Hydrophobia – fear of water/ hydrophilla – love of water
– Pogonophobia – fear of beards
– Oneirophobia – fear of dreams
– Sitophobia – fear of food
– Astraphobia – fear of lightning
– Sciophobia – fear of shadows
– Drednophobia – fear of trees
– Basiphobia – fear of walking
– Ergophobia – fear of work
– Graphophobia – fear of writing
– Bibliophobia – fear of books