Great science facts

A lobster will molt 35 times before it even hatches. (One site said 6, not 35.)

A female lobster will molt just before mating.

Female lobsters left in an environment without males will tear each other apart.

Male lobsters have two penises (modified swimmeretts), females have two vaginas.

Juvenile lobsters go through a period where they swim and are not bottom feeders.

You can see water in liquid, solid, and vapor form - sometimes all at the same time (think a scene of a cold river, snow on the banks, with cloud cover). I am not sure that can be done with anything else.

Since the Aleutian Islands extend beyond 180 degrees longitude, Alaska is technically the US state that’s both farthest west and farthest east.

If you travel due east from New York City, the first European capital you come to is Madrid.

IIRC*, the first experiments with television were performed in 1877 using cables and magnetic pixels.

*From a book on the history of broadcasting whose title I don’t remember.

The northern capitals of Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, and St Petersburg all lie along roughly the same parallel of latitude.*

*I’m considering geography and cartography as “sciences” here.

Benjamin Franklin built a device that used static electricity to zap any visitor who touched his door knob. He also used it to perform various party tricks.

Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome, also invented a flying car- with inflatable wings!

I’m kind of partial to the idea that when you’re looking at starlight, you’re looking back in time. The farther away the star is, the farther back in time you’re looking.

I know a mnemonic for recalling p to 30 decimal places. This order of accuracy is on a par with measuring the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy and being correct to a single wavelength of light.

1 light year = 10[sup]13[/sup] km = 10[sup]16[/sup] m.
2 million light years = 2 x 10[sup]22[/sup] m
Wavelength of light ~ 10[sup]-7[/sup] m

hence distance to Andromeda Galaxy ~ 2 x 10[sup]29[/sup] light wavelengths.

You can’t see water in vapor form. A cloud is not water vapor; it’s composed of droplets of liquid (or solid) water suspended in air.

Lobsters regardless of sex are aggressive towards each other most of the time.

Most decapods have a planktonic larval stage.

Ahem. Probably not what you want to do mate :slight_smile:

The pistol shrimp stuns its prey with a bubble whose collapse creates a noise that can exceed 150 decibels and a temperature that exceeds that of the surface of the sun.

Oxygen combines with iron to form rust. Oxygen combines with aluminum to form sapphire.

Not all bats have the capability of echolocation. Megachiroptera (like the flying fox) hunt prey using only their eyes.

Penicilin was discovered by accident.

The universal background radiation that proved the big bang theory was discovered by accident. The researchers originally thought the static they detected with their radio telescope was due to pigeons nesting in it.

LSD’s use as a psychedellic was unintended. Doctor Hoffman was actually looking for a drug to treat migraines.

Heddy Lamar invented a jam proof way to radio guide torpedoes. Another invention of hers is used in cell phones.

Charles Lindbergh invented a mechanical heart. The device was made of glass and metal (so that it could be sterilized with steam). It was not made to be transplanted into the chest, just hooked up to the veins.

That’s Hedley!

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The majority of Megachiropterans cannot echolocate, but a few can, although not in the same way or as well as Microchiropterans.

All Megachiroptera eat fruit and/or nectar, and therefore do not have “prey” in the conventional sense.

D’oh!

Heh

You can see water vapor, ice and water in Yellowstone in winter.

This is true no matter what you’re looking at, just on much smaller time scales.

Can you provide a link to a picture you believe shows water vapor? I’d really like to see that, because I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen water vapor before, just as surely as I’ve never seen gaseous oxygen or nitrogen before.