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 […]
TIDBITS® Looks back on the year 1972
by Kathy Wolfe Fifty years? Really? If you’re like other Tidbits readers, maybe you just can’t believe that 1972 was 50 years ago. This week, we take a look at some milestones that occurred during that eventful year. • In the world of sports, Super Bowl VI was held on January 16 at New Orleans’ Tulane Stadium. At kickoff, the temperature was 39 degrees F (4 degrees C), the coldest Super Bowl ever played. The contest between the Dallas Cowboys and the Miami Dolphins resulted in a Cowboys win, 24-3, the team’s first Super Bowl win. The halftime show was […]
Happiness
July 31 – August 6 has been designated “Happiness Happens” Week, so Tidbits is delving into what makes us happy! • According to the U.S. Declaration of Independence, we are all endowed with the right of the pursuit of happiness. Surveys reveal that the majority of people consider happiness more important than wealth and material goods. • Science suggests that each person has a genetic fixed point of happiness, which they return to after both good and bad events. After a person achieves a valued goal, he or she experiences a euphoric sense of accomplishment, but it usually diminishes […]
Butter Facts
• Butter is made from the milk of cows, sheep, goats, donkeys, horses, water buffaloes, and yaks. Camel’s milk has very small fat globules and is difficult to churn into butter. • The word butter comes from the Latin “butyrum” which may be a compound of “bous” meaning ox or cow plus “turos” meaning cheese. • The foods with the highest calorie content are (in order): animal fat (lard), vegetable oil, margarine, butter, and alcohol. Margarine and butter essentially have the same number of calories pound for pound. • In 1957 margarine consumption overtook butter consumption for the first time […]
Exoplanets
– OUT OF THIS WORLD – • The first major discovery of an “exoplanet” – a planet outside our solar system – happened in 1992. Two astronomers found not just one but two planets orbiting not a sun but a pulsar 2,300 light years away. Pulsars, named for the regular “pulses” they give off in radio frequencies, are remnants of supernova explosions, when a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel and becomes unstable. A pulsar packs the mass of the entire sun into a ball only 12 miles (20 km) across, so dense that it can easily […]
TIDBITS® Avoids Venom
by Janet Spencer If you swallow it, inhale it, or absorb it and it kills you, it’s poisonous. But if it is delivered to you via fangs, spines, stingers, stinging cells (jellyfish), squirting (cobras, cane toads) or spurs (platypus), then it’s venomous. Come along with Tidbits as we avoid venom! THE DANGER • The potency of venoms is measured using a method called “Median Lethal Dosage” in which researchers calculate how much of a substance it takes to kill half of a group of test subjects, where the substance is measured in milligrams of toxin per kilogram of body weight, […]
Garage Beginnings
Lots of big businesses started with a storefront, but how about these that were established in the garage? • Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard met on a camping trip in 1934, and became classmates at Stanford University, studying electrical engineering shortly afterward. The pair pooled their funds of $538 and began building devices in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California. In 1938, they invented an oscillator to test sound equipment, and their efforts were rewarded with the purchase of eight of the devices by the Walt Disney Company, launching HP’s success. They moved out of the garage in […]