Sylvia Shults's Blog, page 41
July 13, 2020
Today I Learned …
Newborn Tasmanian Devils are the size of a raisin. (From National Geographic Kids Weird But True! 8)
July 9, 2020
Helpful Bees!
I’m always happy to see bees working my flowers, even if they aren’t honeybees. Here’s a couple of native pollinators enjoying the gifts of the sunflower right outside my back door. One is gathering pollen the traditional way, and the other is cheating a bit by getting the stuff that has fallen on the leaf below the bloom. Go bees go!
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July 6, 2020
Today I Learned …
Obsession, the cologne by Calvin Klein, doesn’t only draw the interest of humans. It also works its magic on big cats — in fact, the BBC reports that Banham Zoo in the UK is requesting that people send them old bottles of the cologne as a treat for the lions, tigers, and leopards at the zoo.
According to Mental Floss, “Like many perfumes, the key ingredient in Calvin Klein’s Obsession is animal musk. The musk used in Obsession is civetone, a pheromone secreted by small cat-like mammals called civets. When big cats like tigers and lions get a whiff of the scent, they go nuts for it and rub themselves all over the source. Experts suspect that cats interpret civetone as a kind of territorial marker and roll around in it as a way to mark the area with their own scent.”
June 29, 2020
Today I Learned …
Human tooth enamel evolved from ancient fish scales. (From National Geographic Kids Weird But True 8)
June 22, 2020
Today I Learned …
Horror film director Alfred Hitchcock was afraid of eggs. (From National Geographic Kids Weird But True 8)
June 15, 2020
Today I Learned …
All mammals heavier than 6.6 pounds take the same amount of time to pee. (From National Geographic Kids Weird But True 8)
June 8, 2020
Today I Learned …
An earthquake made Mount Everest about one inch shorter. (From National Geographic Kids Weird But True 8)
June 1, 2020
Today I Learned …
Researchers in Rocky Mountain National Park have discovered an efficiency hack. Black bear scat contains lots of seeds, including those from Oregon grape and chokecherry. Researchers have realized that it’s far easier to collect one pile of poop than to collect seeds from all the different native plants the bears eat. Also, some seeds have tough coatings, and a trip through the bear’s digestive system softens the seed coats. The scientists simply scoop the poop, tease out the seeds, start the seeds in a greenhouse, then transplant the seedlings throughout the park.
May 27, 2020
Feeling Lucky …
I think, if my counting is right, these bring me up to twenty-one for the spring so far…
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May 25, 2020
Today I Learned …
When he was badly injured in World War I, Ernest Hemingway stemmed the flow of blood with cigarette ends. (From 1001 Gruesome Facts, by Helen Otway)
