• Nearly every star ever spotted has at least one planet. About 20% of the stars that are about the same size as our Sun have an Earth-size planet circling in the “Goldilocks” zone capable of sustaining life. • Light takes 1.3 seconds to travel from Earth to the Moon. However, communicating with people on the Moon also takes 1.3 seconds because information travels at the speed of light. • Information takes about 7 minutes to travel to and from Mars. • Nothing that has any mass can travel at the speed of light. • The Milky Way galaxy […]
December 2022
Wild Bird Eggs
• The hoopoe is a colorful bird found in Africa and parts of Asia. When it lays an egg, it covers the shell with a bacteria-laden fluid secreted from a gland under its tail. The bacteria release antibiotics which stop other more dangerous microbes from infiltrating the eggshell and infecting the chicks inside. • The eggs of a typical hummingbird are the size of a kidney bean or smaller. • Cuckoos are famous for laying their eggs in other birds’ nests, forcing the adoptive parents to raise the imposter chicks. But a bird called the blackcap is able to […]
TIDBITS® Eats Beans
by Janet Spencer About 40,000 different kinds of beans can be found worldwide, though only about 200 are commercially cultivated. Come along with Tidbits as we eat beans! BEAN FACTS • Beans were some of the very first plants cultivated by people worldwide. Evidence suggests that natives of Mexico and Peru were cultivating bean crops as far back as 7,000 BC. Ancient peas unearthed by archaeologists in Thailand were carbon dated to 9,750 BC. Beans were also found in the tombs of the kings of ancient Egypt. The oldest varieties of beans are thought to be fava beans and broad […]
Unusual Fruits
It’s not all apples and oranges! Study up the facts on these unusual fruits you might not have heard of. • The largest tree-borne fruit in the world, the jackfruit, can reach 80 lbs (36.3 kg) in weight. In raw form, its yellow flesh is sweet like an apple or banana, but when cooked, it takes on the flavor of the ingredients it’s prepared with, and is a popular meat substitute for vegan diets. Its cooked texture resembles that of tender pork, making it a frequent choice for barbecue sandwiches. • The official name of the dragon fruit […]
Spacey Facts
– OUT OF THIS WORLD – Tidbits is kind of “space-y” this week, as we bring you various facts on outer space. • The word “astronaut” literally means “star sailor” with its origins in the Greek language, from the word “astron,” meaning “star” and “nautes,” which translates “sailor.” • As of August, 2022, 621 people have been in space. About 75 of these have been women. The first woman was launched into space in June, 1963, Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova aboard Vostok 6. NASA’s definition of “space” is more than 50 miles (80 km) above the Earth. […]
TIDBITS® Cracks Open the Facts on Nuts
by Kathy Wolfe Sometimes you feel like a nut, and sometimes you just want the facts about them! Follow along for some nutty info. • What’s the oldest tree food known to man? It’s the walnut, traced back to 7000 B.C. In ancient Persia, walnuts were reserved for royalty, and the early Romans referred to them as “Jupiter’s royal acorn.” The ancient Greeks called them “karyon,” meaning head, because the shell resembles a human head, and the meat of the walnut looks a lot like the brain. They grow on trees that can reach 60 feet (18.3 m) tall, […]
Cat ESP
• A married couple went on vacation and left their cat with an aunt at her house while they were away. The aunt lived two miles away, and the cat had never been there before. When the couple returned home two weeks later, they found their cat on their front porch. They called their aunt to thank her for returning the cat, saving them the trouble of collecting him. The aunt heaved a sigh of relief, saying that the cat had slipped out the door that morning, and she’d been searching for him ever since. • One woman had to […]
TIDBITS® Astonished by animal architecture
by Janet Spencer Come along with Tidbits as we look at how creatures construct architecture! WORLD’S SMALLEST HOUSE • An amoeba is a single-celled plant which moves around on the floor of a pond, engulfing food and consuming it. Some species of amoeba build themselves tiny houses out of sand grains, carrying them around like a snail in its shell. When the amoeba divides itself in half to propagate, its DNA is cut in half; its cytoplasm (which composes the main body) is divided in half; and the house goes with one half of the amoeba while a collection of […]
Black Holes
– OUT OF THIS WORLD – • Every black hole started out as a star. Every star started out as a swirling mass of gasses. As gravity pulled the gas cloud closer, everything pressed together. Pressure built up on the inside, eventually becoming so intense that a nuclear reaction started. The star became a furnace which burned for millions or billions of years, until the furnace ran out of fuel and the nuclear reaction ceased. • The center of the star began to cool down, and the superheated plasma surrounding the center collapsed and compressed, and then rebounded, like a […]
Halitosis
This week, Tidbits breathes in some facts on halitosis, a condition that affects about 25% of the population. What is it? Bad breath! • The makers of Listerine came up with the term halitosis in the early 1900s. The owner’s son combined the Latin word “halitus,” meaning “breath,” with the Greek suffix “osis,” intending the word to sound like a medical condition. • The inventor of Listerine was Dr. Joseph Lawrence, a St. Louis doctor who admired the work of British doctor and surgeon, Dr. Joseph Lister, considered the founding father of antiseptics. Lister was the first surgeon […]