• Phosphorus is common in sedimentary rocks where living things died, fell to the bottom of the ocean, and were pressed into rock and then lifted into mountains. When water erodes the rock, the phosphorus dissolves and becomes available for use by plants and animals. When those plants and animals die, bacteria cause decomposition which allows the phosphorus to be taken up by a different plant or animal. It’s been estimated that a single atom of phosphorus can be caught up in this ongoing cycle for 100,000 years or more. Eventually the plant or animal falls into a deep part […]
August 2022
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2
– OUT OF THIS WORLD – • In the 1960s, astronomers noted that in just a few years, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune would all come into alignment so that a spacecraft could use “gravity assist” to whirl from one planet to the next with minimal fuel. This alignment occurs only once every 175 years. Normally it would take a spacecraft 30 years to fly past all four planets, but the gravity assist reduced travel time to 12 years. NASA began to prepare. • The result was two identical spacecraft dubbed Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. Voyager 2 was […]
TIDBITS® Considers Animal Talk
by Janet Spencer Tape recorders were invented in the 1940s, allowing researchers to record the calls of animals and take them back to the lab for study. This helped them understand the meaning of the calls, and allowed them to play the calls back to the animals in the wild to see the response. The invention of sonar technologies during World War II allowed scientists to discover that bats, dolphins, and whales communicate using methods beyond our capacity to hear. Our understanding of how things communicate has exploded. Come along with Tidbits as we learn about how creatures communicate! JUNGLE […]
Navajo Code Talkers
In commemoration of Navajo Code Talkers Day on August 14, Tidbits digs into the history of these World War II heroes. • In the midst of war, it’s of utmost importance to an army to transmit crucial information and plans to its forces as quickly and confidentially as possible. During World War II, the U.S. Marine Corps sought to create a code that was unbreakable to the enemy. The Navajo Code Talkers were the result. • Phillip Johnston was the son of a missionary to the Navajos and was fluent in the complex Navajo language. At age 9, […]
Aquarius
– OUT OF THIS WORLD – Tidbits takes a closer look at the constellation Aquarius, the 11th sign of the zodiac. • The Latin word “aquarius” translates “water carrier,” and the constellation is a cluster of stars shaped like a water jug. The constellation consists of 22 main stars, with the brightest, Beta Aquarii, 2,300 times brighter than our Sun. It’s the 10th largest constellation in the heavens. However, it’s faint and hard to see because it contains very few really bright stars. City-dwellers won’t be able to see Aquarius because it requires a dark sky to spot it. • […]
TIDBITS® Remembers August Events
by Kathy Wolfe Tidbits opens the history books this week to discover some of the events that occurred over the years during the month of August. • On August 8, 1974, 37th President Richard Nixon resigned from office, the first president in U.S. history to do so. Nixon was facing possible impeachment due to his involvement in the Watergate scandal, the illegal wiretapping of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C.’s Watergate Hotel. Transcripts of the tapes had been released just three days earlier, tapes that revealed Nixon instructing his Chief of Staff to order the FBI to halt […]
TIDBITS® Considers Eggs
by Janet Spencer Eggs come in many different shapes, sizes, and forms. Come along as we learn about eggs! BUG EGGS • One type of mosquito evolved in conjunction with the pitcher plant. The mother mosquito lays her eggs in the water of the pitcher plant. The larvae, which are impervious to the digestive enzymes exuded by the pitcher plant, hatch and grow, stealing nutrients from drowned bugs from the pitcher plant host. • Stink bugs lay their eggs in the soil, and each egg is accompanied by a waterproof package of microbes which the newly hatched stink bug larva […]
Batteries
• A battery is an electrical energy storage device which converts chemical energy into electrical energy through a chemical reaction. • The word “battery” comes from the Latin “battuere” meaning “to strike” (as in “assault and battery”). The word came to mean a number of pieces of artillery used in conjunction, or a “battalion” of soldiers. Then it evolved to define any series of similar objects grouped together to perform a function. In 1749 Benjamin Franklin was experimenting with electricity (including his famous kite-key-lightning experiment). He lined up a series of Leyden Jars, which were primitive but effective capacitors. The […]
Space Facts
– OUT OF THIS WORLD – • If you shrank the solar system down to the size of a quarter, and shrank the entire Milky Way galaxy down at the same ratio, the Milky Way would be the size of the entire United States. It’s 100,000 lightyears wide. • Ink pens won’t work in space because there’s no gravity to pull the ink down to the nib. You can’t use pencils because even tiny pieces of loose graphite can screw up equipment. Astronauts have to use specially made pens. • If two pieces of the same type of metal touch […]
1972 in space
– OUT OF THIS WORLD – Acquaint yourself with some space program milestones that occurred 50 years ago in the year 1972. • In January, 1972, President Richard Nixon announced the beginnings of a Space Shuttle program, designed to make space missions easier and less expensive. Reusing the spacecraft would cost one-tenth of the cost of previous crafts. The Space Shuttle could deploy and maintain communication satellites, along with making space journeys safer and less demanding for astronauts. Although the plan was to have a manned shuttle flight by 1978, that wasn’t accomplished until 1981, when the Columbia was […]