Tree sleep, perchance tree dream

Did you know …

That trees go to sleep during the winter? It’s true!

That is, trees in places that have long, frigid winters go to sleep for the cold season. If you live in a tropical or year-round temperate region, I have no idea what your trees do during the winter and I could really not care less.

But what about those sleeping trees, eh? What’s funny is that, to the outside observer, there’s essentially no difference between a sleeping tree and a wide awake, fully alert tree. The way scientists are able to tell when trees are sleeping is that they dream! Stick some wires onto a tree, jam the wires into a computer or something, and you can immediately tell if a tree is sleeping or just faking it.

What do trees dream about? All sorts of stuff! That’s the magic of dreams! But here are a few common tree dream subjects, confirmed by dendrooneirologists:

-Rainstorms

-Jogging

-Birds and their nests

-Murder/torture fantasies

The wandering butterfly

Did you know . . .

That once every year, in the early summer, butterflies take a vacation lasting between one and two months? It’s true!

Calling it a “vacation” may be slightly misleading, however. It’s not as if all butterflies pack up their tiny suitcases and shout at their children on the beach. It’s more that they take a break from their usual butterfly duties (i.e., flapping around, looking fine, tongue-kissing flower genetalia, etc.), and flutter off to try something different. Exactly what they do depends on the species of butterfly, but in general their vacations are filled with the murder of other butterflies, and rarely-successful attempts to fly off with human jewelry and precious stones. Butterflies are strange little creatures, but as long as you aren’t another butterfly or the owner of some very light gems, you’re entirely safe from them. In fact, I find their yearly indiscretions pretty charming.

As more loyal readers will have noted, like the bloodthirsty butterfly I have taken some time off from the DSF blog this summer. It’s funny, though; you’d think that a break from writing the blog would involve not writing the blog, but as I’ve explained before, I actually have been writing the blog. I just haven’t been posting the entries. Whatever. I’m not a butterfly, so I don’t have to get everything right.

At any rate, I’ve decided to try to resume regular entries, and to fill the missing posts with my banked articles. Just read back from the present, and they should gradually fill in. Don’t expect them all at once—there’s a lot of copy/pasting involved, and I still have research and butterfly murder to do.

Whoops! I let it slip! I guess I’m a little more like the butterfly than I let on!

Goebbel's gerbils

Did you know …

That the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels invented gerbils? It’s true!

Early on in the war, Goebbels worked with German geneticists to create a rodent that he thought embodied the best qualities of the so-called Aryan race: hardiness, efficiency, xenophobia, sleek blonde hair, and (for the kids) cuteness.

Although gerbils themselves hold no strong political or moral philosophies, that didn’t stop the German people from projecting their sociopathic hangups onto the rodents, and Gerbils became wildly popular Nazi pets practically overnight.

While my understanding of irony has always been tenuous (at best!), I think it’s ironic that Goebbels was eventually murdered by his beloved gerbils. After applying lard-based lotion to his lips and anus (a favorite before-bed ritual), Goebbels went out to the gerbil barn to give the rodents their nightly meal. As he leaned over a pen full of bull gerbils, Goebbels appears to have slipped on a tiny pile of shit and tipped into the pen. The hungry gerbils smelled the lard on Goebbels, and immediately set upon him, starting, naturally, with his lips and butthole. When he was found the next morning, all that remained of him was a skeleton and a belly button, strangely untouched by the gerbils.

Gerbils’ origins probably raise some moral questions for pet owners, but if you can ride in a Mercedes or wear Hugo Boss without breaking out into a sweat, gerbils probably aren’t that big a deal. It wasn’t their fault, after all. And, if you’re really looking for some justification for your gerbil ownership, you might as well attribute to their race the murder of one of the 20th century’s biggest pieces of human garbage. So that’s something.

Crunchy lifestyle

Did you know …

That before the invention of bacteria and microorganisms, composting had to be done manually? It’s true.

Until the late 70s, when decomposing microorganisms became widely available (that is to say, affordable), composting enthusiasts would have to chew their garbage to break it down. Wealthier composters would often hire poor people to chew their trash, which environmentally was nice, I guess, but socially it was pretty F’ed up.

Even now you can go to the store and pick up a sack of bacteria for twenty or thirty bucks, lots of people have continued to compost “the old fashioned way” out of habit. So if you ever catch your parents or grandparents chewing on old banana peels or eggshells, go ahead and let them do it. It probably makes them feel useful.

I feel bad for the joker

Did you know …

That Mr. T, the former Heavyweight Champion of the World, could punch so hard that he was able to transform carbon-based molecules into diamonds? It’s true!

This was discovered only after scientists swabbed T’s boxing gloves for traces of Rocky III’s DNA. While Rocky’s DNA was too degraded for a viable clone (indeed, it may have come off Rocky that way in the first place), the scientists were surprised to find a thin coating of microscopic diamonds over the surface of the glove. Initially they assumed that this had something to do with T’s eccentric taste in jewelry, until an impatient T punched one of those poindexters in the face. Among the fragments of broken nerd glasses and geek skull, the remaining scientists found similar traces of diamond!

Interns wanted!

Did you know …

That you can’t get an intern in this town to save your goddamn life? It’s true.

Interns are an essential component of any scientific operation, be it as dangerous materials handlers, medicine testers, or science blog image researchers. And yet apparently they’re all too entitled to accept an unpaid position at the nation’s leading science blog.

You know, I’d never go so far as to wait outside a college science building to kidnap someone, no matter how badly I needed an intern, but I’m certainly not above waiting outside a college science building to scare some humility into a nerd or two who think they’ve got something better lined up. Let’s see how bad Boston Scientific wants to hire you when your corduroys are soaked in piss, Gerald.

St. Wrong's Wart

Did you know …

That until the 1970s, physicians were certain that common warts were caused by a tiny fairy or gnome living under the skin? It’s true!

Doctors and anatomists regularly depicted warts in cross section with cozy little rooms inside them, complete with bookshelves, fireplaces, and overstuffed chairs. This was despite the fact that no biopsy or dissection of a wart ever revealed anything more than a bloody, knobby mess, but the doctors always insisted that the gnomes must have heard them coming and evacuated, or at least performed some kind of “Fill my home with blood and knobby shit” spell. It was sort of an extension of Schrodinger's cat poisoning experiment, really.

Today, of course, we understand that there’s no way to prove that warts are caused by fairies or gnomes. They are just as likely the product of a witch’s curse, subcutaneous newt eggs, or impure thoughts coagulating into a cyst. Sometimes the best answer science can give us is that there’s not (yet!) a definitive answer.

We all knew it was coming

Did you know . . .

That the refrain from Tom Petty’s song “The Waiting” (i.e., “The waaaiiiiting is the hardest part”) is, in fact, not at all true? It’s true!

Of course it depends on what parts you have handy, but it’s difficult to imagine a scenario in which “the waiting” is the hardest of them. Waiting has a Mohs scale hardness of about 2, approximately equal to that of gypsum. A healthy fingernail should be about a 2.5, so right there you’ve out-hardened waiting. If you were holding a diamond tipped drill there would be no contest, and don’t even get me started on erections.

Chaos tacos

Did you know …

That if you rearrange the letters in “tacos,” you can spell “chaos”? It’s true.

“Hey!” you’re saying. “Hey, shithead, where’d that ‘h’ come from?!”

Ha ha! It might seem strange at first, but once I point it out the answer will be surprisingly obvious, even to someone who ends sentences with prepositions! You see, the “t” in “tacos” turned into the “h”! That’s how we could spell “chaos”!

T’s turn into h’s sometimes thanks to what scientists and mathetists call “quantum theory.” I’d explain quantum theory to you, but it’s one of those things that you change simply by observing it. Trying to describe it would probably make it completely freak out. If I were to say, for instance, that the t becomes the h through the spontaneous migration of dark pixels across your screen, that’d be true. But it would only be true because I said so, and in saying so I would limit what else the t might have been or done. It’s not entirely unlike Schrodinger’s old cat; if you insist on opening the box, you’re either going to have to deal with a dead cat, or you’ll have to deal with an angry cat who has been trapped all day in a box. You would have been better off leaving the box alone, and the same goes for chaos tacos!

Salty bird chunks

Did you know …

That to celebrate the successful voyage of the Beagle, noted scienceman Charles Darwin commissioned a feast made entirely from the newly discovered waved albatross? It’s true!

Unfortunately for Darwin and his shipmates, many of the birds were undercooked, if they were cooked at all, and the entire crew became violently ill. Why did they eat so much raw bird? The ship’s cook had recently died of syphilis, and his poorly trained replacement assumed that heating food was recommended, but not required. He had about three hundred albatrosses to prepare, so he cooked a few of them, set a few out in the sun to warm them up, and the rest he simply chopped up and soaked in seawater.

Also, pretty much everyone had alcohol poisoning in addition to salmonellosis, but this was their own damn fault.

Toothpaste toothpaste

Did you know …

That toothpaste used to be made of the shells of microscopic sea creatures? It’s true!

Ha ha! We used to make stuff out of crazy stuff back in the day. Sea monster toothpaste, wood footballs, horseshit hats, dog cats. Lol. Seems pretty funny now, right? Wrong, jerkoff!

Guess what we make toothpaste out of today (since the 80s, actually). No, don’t guess; I’ll tell you what it’s made of. Toothpaste today is about 6% goat gelatin, 9% insect parts (mostly crickets, but, honestly, quality control isn’t so great that other bugs can’t get in there too), and 10% iron. What’s the remaining 75%? Get this: it’s recycled, pre-80s toothpaste. That means that most of your toothpaste is still composed of microscopic shells. Microscopic shells and little chunks of other people’s teeth.

How do you like that?

Human/Dinosaur Hybrids

Did you know …

That the brain of a human infant is so malleable that a child can easily be convinced that a) it was raised by dinosaurs, and b) it is itself a dinosaur? It’s true!

Several studies at the University of Iowa, conducted between 1940 and 1965, found that babies can be raised as dinosaurs simply by eliminating all human contact from the moment of birth, and by covering the walls of its cage with posters of dinosaurs. Amazingly, these children grew up with no concept of human language, a complete lack of social skills, and a truly saurian approach to raw meat when it was delivered through the food hatch.

Similar experiments in which the dinosaur posters would be replaced with the posters for Adam West’s 1966 film, Batman: The Movie, were planned, but, despite the obvious amazing possibilities of a generation of Batman children, interest in the project waned, and funding was cut entirely by 1967.

Still, there are plenty of Batman posters out there, and there’s certainly no shortage of babies, so you never know …

Supposedly his nipples looked "unusual"

Did you know …

That Sir Isaac Newton absolutely refused to wear a shirt while he was working? It’s true!

It’s a little funny, because Newton insisted that he was working all the time, and most of his “work” involved stretching his back muscles on the street in front of the nearest convent.

Still, you can do whatever the hell you feel like. That’s what Newton said, anyway.

Back to the Future Part 0

Did you know …

That Albrecht Eisenstein’s modern biographers believe that he may have been a time traveler? It’s true!

Current theories go that Einsteich actually came from the past, traveling into the mid 20th century so that he could invent a time machine. This older Einstrime then traveled back in time to give himself the time machine so the younger scientist could travel into the future.

Of course, since you can’t drive two time machines at once, the older Einstein had to stay in his original time period, which we believe to be a span of several decades in the 12th century. There he lived out the rest of his days, entertaining villagers with magnets and stories of two-piece swimsuits.

Chewing

Did you know …

That chewing your food before swallowing measurably reduces your risk of choking? It’s true!

Now, this is still no guarantee against choking, but scientists have found that if you, say, chew your foot long chili dog at least a few times instead of shunting it down your throat whole (like normal), you might not choke. It’s a refreshing thought that you might be able to someday eat a chili dog without having to call the EMTs, isn’t it?

There’s a caveat to these findings, however: make sure that whatever you decide to chew is softer than your teeth, otherwise chewing will have no effect beyond potentially shattering some molars. So, for example, chewing chili dogs, marshmallows, white bread or liquid water is fine. Chewing quartz, diamond, glass, or basaltic gravel, on the other hand, may land you in some trouble.

Getting lifted

Did you know …

That the Saturn V rockets used to launch Apollo spacecraft into orbit were powerful enough to lift a small town? It’s true!

The closest the Saturn V ever came to employing this functionality was at the launch of the Apollo 14 mission. At the last minute, the booster rocket was tethered to a small town—the town lift was to be a secondary objective the the mission.

Things looked promising during the initial stages of the launch but, unfortunately, the mailbox to which the lower end of the tether was affixed ripped out of ground and flew away with the rocket. A lot of good Americans lost their mail that day, and the experiment was never again attempted.

Down to the wires

Did you know …

That “wire” is actually just long, thin metal? It’s true!

But hold on, Professor Wire, wire expert, aren’t there lots of long, thin metal things? Are those things wires as well?

Yes, and sometimes. Here’s a quick list of some of the more common long, thin metal products, and a guide to whether they are wire or not.

-Antennae: Yep, these are wires. They often stand up straight, which can make it tricky to tell if they’re wires or not, but they are.

-Knives: No, these are not wires. Depending on the variety of knife, they can be very long and thin, but they are not wires. If you aren’t sure if what you have is a wire or a knife, try cutting your sandwich with it; it will be much more difficult to cut your sandwich with a wire than with a knife.

-String: Nope, not wire. String is very long and thin, but if you look closely you’ll see that it is not made of metal!

-Needles: Hmm. Yes, these are basically wires.

Tysontysontysontysontyson etc

Did you know …

That the famous planetarium director Neil Degrassi Tyson is, in fact, some sort of android-like synthetic human? It’s true!

So who built this Tysonbot? Ah, well that’s where things get very interesting. You see, as near as we can tell, Neil Degrassi Tyson built Neil Degrassi Tyson … and that builder Degrassi was himself also an android! All evidence suggests that Tysonbots have been rebuilding themselves for at least the last three hundred years. Who built the original Tyson is still something of a mystery, although many believe that it was produced through abiogenesis when lightning struck a Dutch clock factory in the late 17th century.

You may be asking, “OK, so if Tysonbots keep building Tysonbots, why aren’t there hundreds of Tysonbots running around?” Good question. This is because as soon as a new Tysonbot is complete, its builder gives it a deep, open-mouth kiss, transferring its own spark of life into the new body. The new Tysonbot awakes, and then consumes the husk of the old. The ritual is supposed to be very beautiful, like a butterfly eating its own mother.

Long live the thing

Did you know …

That each monarch butterfly is technically the king or queen of its own flower? It’s true!

In practical terms, what does this mean? Almost nothing. After all, what’s a butterfly going to do if you eat or smash its kingdom? Again, almost nothing. Don’t feel too bad if this happens, though. Monarchs regularly issue infamously oppressive edicts, and line their own pockets with their subjects’ taxes. Maybe they deserve a little regicide now and then.

Your grandpa's ants

Did you know …

That until the 1960s, ants were made of celluloid plastic? It’s true!

Early ant-manufacturers appreciated celluloid’s durability and pleasing touch, but consumers found celluloid ants to be a choking hazard and painful to step on. Plus, the ants themselves couldn’t really do a damn thing; they were completely immobile and had no working organs.

In the early ‘60s, manufactures began experimenting with shell-and-gut-based ants. While the product was significantly more complex to make, the addition of working reproductive systems (within the queen ants, anyway) allowed the ants to be essentially self-replicating. And so ant makers went out of business, and the world ended up with soft (softish) ants that move around easily, and can only block human airways when massed in significant quantities.

Hmm. I think these innovations might have had something to do with space program spin-offs. But I’m not certain about that.

Sodium, sheep, and disproportionate punishment

Did you know …

That I’ve been on a little bit of a summer vacation? It’s true!

Where’s the science in that? Well, it means that I haven’t been posting science facts. I have been writing them, I just don’t post them on account of my nerves. You see . . . well . . .

Did you know that when elemental sodium comes in contact with water, it produces a violent exothermic reaction? This is also true, but until you experience it firsthand, it probably won’t mean much to you, much less damage you emotionally.

Two things have been happening at my house recently. The first is that a sump pump was being installed in my basement. To do this, the workermen have to cut through the cement slab. The second thing is that workermen in my basement, while cutting through my slab, discovered a rich vein of pure sodium. Being German, the workermen were thrilled at the prospect of discovering a precious metal—their tools had scraped the oxidization from the sodium, revealing its bright metallic interior. I assume they thought it was silver, or something similar, but I can’t be certain. instead of evacuating the basement, they poured water over the exposed metal, and exploded themselves.

You might find this funny, but it absolutely isn’t. Yeah, I get how a bunch of German criminals exploding in a basement could be funny, but there are several reasons why it isn’t in this case. One, my basement is a mess. A total mess. Two, my front yard is a mess. It’s covered in flowers, photographs and little candles. You can mow over that stuff all you want, but it’ll just be back in a day or two. And, finally, there’s still a lot of sodium and a lot of water in my basement (the sump was never successfully installed after all). Try relaxing with random explosions happening every few minutes. Try taking a nap to the sound of fragments of German sheep rapists pelting the joists. (Do you think it’s more or less funny, now that you know they were rapists of farm animals? They didn’t deserve to get exploded in a basement, but . . .  it’s hard not to chuckle, at least. It’s probably the last time I go with a discount foreign-based community service labor contractor, though.)

So I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep. But I’m hoping that the sodium will all have reacted soon, or at least that the explosions move out toward the street (the city will have to help out at that point, I think. So far they’ve been pretending I don’t exist.) Until then, keeping looking at the stars!