A very short collection of weird, strange and curious knowledge gleaned from the world that we live in.
Whale Fall, Oasis of the Deep
When a whale dies in shallower water, it is devoured by the scavengers of the ocean. Sometimes, the remnants of the decomposing body wash ashore as a ‘glob monster.’ Often confused with other cryptics such as the giant or colossal squid or even a dinosaur called plesiosaur, these very large masses of rotting flesh are almost always confirmed to be that of some specie of whale. But what happens when a large whale dies over deeper waters? With the advent of deep sea exploration by automated robots, marine biologists have discovered an amazing event that they have named “whale fall.”
A whale that dies over deeper waters will sink to the bottom, where there are few scavengers and the water is much colder. The body will be slowly consumed by a number of deep sea creatures such as sea cumbers, crabs, clams and bone-eating worms called Osedax, among other denizens of the deep.
Wikipedia states that in shallower depths a deceased whale can be consumed within a matter of months but in a whale fall of deep water, the body will be a source of food and nutrients that can last for decades. Like an oasis on the desert, these whale falls provide stepping stones for creatures that seek to expand their habitat between more habitable zones.
Knight’s Tour, Ride of the Endless Knight
A common logic problem given to students of computer science; using a regular 8-square by 8-square chessboard, a knight moves around the empty chessboard visiting each and every square of the chess board without backtracking or landing upon the same square twice. If the knight returns to the same square on the final move from where it began, it is called a “closed tour.” If it lands upon another square as the final of the 64 potential destinations, the game is an “open tour.” Another ‘knight’s tour’ begins from that location. It is stated that the number of open tours is still unknown.
One Red Paperclip : Barter Gone Bigtime
You may have heard of this anthology; A Canadian blogger name Kyle MacDonald traded a one red paperclip for item after item, swapping it for a slightly better prize, ending up with a house!
The trading went roughly like this:
- On July 14th, 2005 he went to Vancouver and traded the paperclip for a fish-shaped pen
- He then traded the pen the same day for a hand-sculpted door knob from Seattle, Washington, which he nicknamed "Knob-T".
- On July 25th 2005 he traveled to Amherst Massachusetts, with a friend to trade the Knob-T for a Coleman camp stove (with fuel).
- On Sept. 24th 2005 he went to San Clement, California traded the camp stove for a Honda generator
- On Nov. 16th 2005 he made a second (and successful) attempt (after having the generator confiscated by the NYC fire Department to trade the generator for an "instant party" : an empty beer keg, an IOU for filling the keg with the beer of the holder’s choice and a neon Budweiser Beer sign.
- On Dec. 8th 2005 he traded the "instant party" to Quebec comedian and radio personality Michel Barrette for a Ski-doo snowmobile.
- Within a week of that, he traded the snowmobile for a two-person trip to Yahk, B.C. in February 2006.
- On or about Jan. 7th 2006 the second person on the trip to Yahk traded Kyle a cube van for the privilege.
- On or about Feb. 22nd, 2006, he traded the cube van for a recording contract with Metal Works in Toronto, Ontario.
- On or about Apr. 11th, 2006, he traded the recording contract to Jody Gnant for a year’s rent in Phoenix, Arizona.
- On or about Apr. 26th, 2006, he traded the one year’s rent in Phoenix, Arizona, for one afternoon with performer Alice Cooper.
- On or about May 26th, 2006, he traded the one afternoon with Alice Cooper for a KISS motorized snow globe.
- On or about June 2nd, 2006, he traded the KISS motorized snow globe to Corbin Bernsen for a role in the film Donna on Demand.
- On or about July 5th, 2006, he traded the movie role for a two-story farmhouse in Kipling, Saskatchewan.
Cite:
Macdonald, Kyle (28 June 2007). One Red Paperclip: How a Small Piece of Stationery Turned into a Great Big Adventure. Ebury Press. ISBN 9780091914523.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
From Wikipedia: a grammatically correct sentence that consists entirely of the same word. Since the word “Buffalo” is all three forms, that of an adjective, a noun and a verb this sentence actually conveys a grammatically correct meaning.
The sentence construction goes as follows:
- a. the city of Buffalo, New York (or any other or any other place named “Buffalo”), which is used as an adjective in the sentence and is followed by the animal;
- n. the noun buffalo, an animal, in the plural (equivalent to "buffaloes" or "buffalos"), in order to avoid articles;
- v. the verb “buffalo" meaning to bully, confuse, deceive, or intimidate.
This construct was also exampled in the Steven Pink book “The Language Instinct” (1994.)
Miracle Fruit makes Sour taste Sweet
(wikimedia commons sourced image)
A native fruit to West Africa that when eaten causes the tastebuds to register sour foods as tasting sweet. Chewing this fruit before a meal makes one insensitive to sour flavors such as lemon, limes, hot spicy sauces, etc. for between 15 to 60 minutes. The cause for this effect is unknown exactly but it is believed that when the fleshy part of the fruit is chewed and consumed it distorts the shape of the sweetness receptors on the tongue so that you become responsive to acids instead of sugars. Such an additive would make healthy, low-calorie food taste better which for the weight-conscious would be a major boon.
An attempt to market this effect to the food industry failed when the Food and Drug Administration intervened with the classification of this being a ‘food additive’ and critics cried conspiracy as this would cause a marked reduction in demand for common sugar in foods. Its use would make ‘non-sweet’ foods taste sweet without the calories inherent with sugar addition. It was alleged that the ’sugar industry’ plyed this concern to the F.D.A.
The USDA has always denied this was the cause (but refuses to reveal their records on the matter) although today this product is labeled as being a “dietary supplement” and not considered as being a “sweetener.” A return to popularity is on the rise as people are rediscovering this ‘miracle fruit’ although noted that despite making sour foods taste sweet it does not protect the stomach from the acids in the food. Also, this protein involved in Miracle Fruit is not heat resistant; heating the product denatures it and destroys the effect. This would limit its usefulness in pre-packaged weight-loss meals which must be cooked and frozen. Its use in ‘dietary supplements’ such as pills or liquid might revive its use for dieters.
Bat Bomb is a Bombastic B-Budget BlockBuster
A project that was developed by the United States in late World War II to use many hundreds of Mexican Free-tailed bats on a massive kamikaze-style attack against Japanese cities. The bats would be carrying small incendiary devices that would have a timed-delay detonation. The idea was to release these bats from a high altitude bomber plane at nighttime over Japanese cities where they would disperse and by morning, would have found secret refuge in buildings and structures as per their nocturnal instincts. Once sequestered for the day, the detonation charges would occur somewhat simultaneously and presumably start hundreds of thousands of small random fires in the wooden and paper structures around Japan and over a great circumference from the actual release point. Because the fires would be small, they would have time to propagate into larger fires before being spotted causing maximum and widespread confusion and panic.
Approved by then-President Roosevelt, the project was found to be moving too slowly and was eventually shelved in favor of the atomic weapon, which was nearly ready for its first practical albeit destructive use. This scheme would have worked. In one test case some fully armed bats were released accidentally and they incinerated the test range at the Auxiliary Army Air Base in Carlsbad, New Mexico because the accidentally-freed bats had roosted under a fuel truck.
This project was similar in nature to the revealed “Japanese Balloon Bombs” called "Fu-go" whereby several thousand hydrogen-filled balloons with explosive and incendiary payloads were released from an island on Japan’s east coast and following the Pacific trade winds, were designed to drop their payload upon crossing over American soil some three or more days later. The intent was to start infrastructure and forest fires and thus to sap internal resources towards stateside issues and away from the war effort in the Pacific.
Several bombs successfully made the high altitude sojourn to U.S. airspace and several made landfall but a very strict media silence imposed by the U.S. Government kept the fact secret and Japan gave up the project thinking it was a complete failure. There were only 6 deaths accredited to this tactic, making the kill ratio a stunning failure for the effort employed.
Some 9000 ‘Fire Bombs’ in total had been released with an expectation of perhaps 10% of these actually making a successful landfall, a number which was re-affirmed as being highly probable figures. This would mean that nearly 900 such bombs actually found a land target. Only about 300 such bombs have ever been seen, found and accounted for meaning that there are probably still as many as 600 unexploded ‘Fu-Go’ bombs in the United States and Canada even today.
Lying at the bottom of lakes or ponds, buried and unexploded in fields or in deep forest ravines they lie dormant. It is doubtless that we will again hear of these as some intrepid hiker, camper or family on picnic accidentally discovers this dangerous wartime relic.
Found, with perhaps disastrous results.
