I mentioned this in an article on Honey bees a couple years ago in the Bonus Facts, but for those who missed it, Honey bees create a queen bee for a few different reasons, such as the death of the previous queen bee, if the hive gets overpopulated resulting in not enough space to lay eggs and the like.  The making of a new queen bee after the death of the old one is particularly critical to be done quickly as the existing eggs must be less than three days old in order for them to do what’s necessary to make it into a queen bee.

In any event, to answer your question, Honey bees create a new queen bee as follows:

• Step 1: Bees construct up to 20 wax queen cells.
• Step 2: The current queen lays fertilized eggs in each queen cell (or in the case of the death of the queen, some existing eggs under three days old will be converted to queen cells by the method in the following step).
• Step 3: The young nurse bees feed the young queen larvae with a special rich creamy food called Royal Jelly and extend the cell downwards until it is about 25mm in length.
• Step 4: About nine days after laying, the first queen cell is sealed with a layer of wax.
• Step 5: Assuming a new queen is being made because of an overpopulation within the hive, a large swarm, called the prime swarm, of bees leaves the hive, led by the older bees.  The old queen gets starved so she is thinner and able to fly with the swarm and they go off scouting for a new place to create a colony.  During their trip, the swarm will take frequent breaks to send out scouts to go search on their own.  The scouts report back and from this information, they choose the best spot to go next until they finally settle on an optimal location.
• Step 6: Back in the hive, about a week later, the first of the new queens will leave her cell.  The new queen will then either choose to locate and kill her sister potential queens by stinging them through the wax wall of their cells or she will take a small swarm and go start a new hive somewhere, particularly if the hive is still somewhat crowded.  If she leaves, then the next to emerge from her cell will make the same decision.  Eventually one will decide to stay.
• Step 7: The young queen flies around and orients herself to her new surroundings.
• Step 8: The queen will take several mating flights and will mate with up to 20 male bees called drones; the drones will die after mating.
• Step 9: A few days later, the mated queen will begin to lay fertilized eggs at a rate of about 2000 per day.  Fertilized eggs become female worker bees.  Unfertilized eggs get fertilized by male drones and become new drones.  At any given time in a healthy hive, there is 1 queen bee, up to 40,000 or so female worker bees, and a few hundred male drones.
• Step 10: This queen will stay with the colony for at least a year until a large enough swarm is available to go start a new colony somewhere else.  Though the worker bees only live 40 or so days and drone bees die in mating or are evicted from the hive in the autumn to conserve food as they do no actual work, the queen bee can live up to 5 years.

For many more fascinating Honey Bee facts, including that Honey Bees assign jobs based on the age of the bee, go here: Honey Bees Know the World is Round and Can Calculate Angles

Other Articles You Might Find Interesting:

• Honey can be Used for a Variety of Medicinal Purposes
• What the Bee Stands for in Spelling Bee

The following aren’t actually nuts: almonds, Brazil nuts, Cashews, Walnuts, Coconuts, Macadamia nuts, Peanuts, Tom Cruise, and Pistachios, among others. OK, so Tom Cruise is a nut, but in a totally non-botanical way.

Reference

Super Glue adheres nearly instantly when it comes in contact with the hydroxyl ions in water.  When this happens, the molecules form chains that make a very strong and durable plastic mesh that eventually hardens.  Thanks to the fact that an amazing amount of materials out there have some trace amount of water at their surface, in part due to water in the air, adding water to these objects is typically not necessary, though it will help create a stronger bond if you add some before applying the Super Glue.  This is easily done with a spray bottle filled with water and set to mist.

Reference

During absence seizures, the person will often appear to be just staring off into space.  There is no typical jerking or twitching as is associated with many other types of seizures.  Absence seizure victims may also move from one location to another without purpose or thought behind it.  If they are speaking when the seizure hits, they may or may not stop talking.  If they continue to talk, their speech usually will suddenly switch to being slurred or slowed down.

Reference

Embed This Infographic<a href="http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/05/10-fascinating-facts-about-the-human-body-part-3/"><img title="10 Fascinating Facts About The Human Body" src="http://www.todayifoundout.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Human-Body-Facts-Part-3-copy.jpg" alt="10 Human Body Facts" width="610" border="0" /></a>[Source: <a href='http://www.todayifoundout.com'>Today I Found Out</a>]

Click Here for Part 1: 10 Interesting Things About The Human Body
Click Here For Part 2: 10 Fascinating Facts About The Human Body

Sources and Further Reading:

• Why Breathing Helium Changes The Sound Of Your Voice
• How a Heart Attack Works
• How Scars Form
• What The Largest Body Parts On Record Are
• Where Birthmarks Come From
• What Causes Blisters
• Why Voices Squeak During Puberty
• What Causes Strokes
• What Causes Hickeys
• What Causes Headaches

The difference is in the delivery. Poison must be inhaled, ingested, or delivered via touch, while venom is injected into a wound.  This may seem overly pedantic, but it should be noted that venom isn’t usually poisonous (meaning it generally won’t hurt you too much or at all if delivered in a different fashion than injecting, even if you swallow it).

So next time you find yourself saying “Daddy long legs are the most poisonous spider” (note: not actually true), take a step back and consider the form of delivery of the toxin: injected = venom; inhaled, ingested, or by touch = poison.

If you liked this post, you might also like:

• A Parasitic Wasp that Injects Its Venom Into a Cockroach’s Brain in Order to Control It
• Scorpions Can Live for as Much as a Year Without Eating
• The World’s Most Fearless Creature is the Honey Badger
• Poinsettias Are Not Poisonous
• The American Government Once Intentionally Poisoned Certain Alcohol Supplies, Resulting in the Death of Over 10,000 American Citizens

References:

• Venom
• Poison
• Venom vs Poison

A porcupine’s quills are just extremely enlarged specialized hairs that have unusually (compared to other mammals) thick layers of keratin, which is the main structural component of hair and finger nails, among other things.  These thick layers of keratin make porcupine quills extremely rigid and good for poking things.

A Cat’s whiskers are also just specialized hairs.  With cats, these hairs are attached to nerves allowing them to work as extremely sensitive sensory receptors.  The nerves at the base of the whiskers are actually sensitive enough to be able to pick up even small air movements which vibrate the whiskers.  They are so sensitive that cats can even pick up air movements indoors, such as air flowing around furniture, which lets the cat know there is an object there, even when it is pitch dark. This is essential for cats because they are far sighted and have trouble seeing things clearly close up.

References:

• There is No Difference Between Fur and Hair
• What Happens if a Cat’s Whiskers are Damaged or Clipped
• Porcupines
• Keratin
• Hair

Petrified Logs, Photo Courtesy of Jonathan Zander

Today I found out how things become petrified, rather than just decaying normally.

Petrifaction (also known as petrification) is a type of fossilization which leaves living organisms preserved as a type of stone. In order for this to happen, a specific set of circumstances has to be present when the organisms cease to live.

When any living thing dies and begins to decay, an oxygen rich environment is usually present. This environment is full of microorganisms, insects and fungi that begin to colonize and break down the organic matter into unrecognizable material. The stuff left over, like cellulose and lignin for trees, or bones and cartilage for animals, is further broken down and has its chemical composition changed by other microorganisms. The end result of this process is the carbon rich organic goodness that award winning gardeners everywhere use as fertilizer.

When an organism dies in an environment that lacks oxygen, for instance if it was covered by ash from a volcano, it is deprived of an environment that is conducive to normal decay. This leads to the organism remaining mostly intact for long periods of time, which in turn encourages the very slow degradation process that allows for the wonder that is petrifaction.

Ground water rich in minerals will start to impregnate all of the pores and cellular spaces inside the organic material. These minerals will crystallize and settle into the shapes of the cells and other structures that are slowly breaking down. When the last remnants of organic material finally changes their chemical composition, all that is left is the stone-like fossil of the original living organism, created by the crystallization of the minerals present. Not all of the organic material is lost, however. Although most petrified plants are rock-like in weight and density, about 1%-15% of the material is still organic.

Wood is one of the most common types of things to become petrified. In fact, there are several known petrified forests throughout the world, including petrified forests in 11 of the 50 states in the U.S. and 19 other countries worldwide. The structure of these petrified fossils depends on the minerals present in the ground water that penetrated the wood. The most common are silica based, as silicate minerals make up about 90 percent of the Earth’s crust and therefore are the most prevalent in groundwater. Some common silica minerals involved in petrifaction include: quartz, calcite, pyrite, siderite (iron carbonate), and apatite (calcium phosphate).

The process of petrifying wood ultimately takes millions of years. For instance, the petrified forest in Arizona is believed to have been created by trees that grew over 225 million years ago. Geologists say that the trees fell in a rain forest almost 100 miles away. Streams containing sediment and volcanic silica ash carried the logs downstream and quickly covered them. The process of petrifaction then began its slow magic. After millions of years, the tectonic uplift that formed the Rocky Mountains, combined with erosion, uncovered these wonders of evolutions wizardry. Currently there is about 100 feet of uncovered petrified trees populating this forest. Every year rainwater exposes additional petrified trees.

A way to quickly petrify wood has been discovered by Dr. Yongsoon Shin and his colleagues from the Department of Energy, at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.  Using their method, they can petrify wood in a matter of days. The process starts by taking wood and soaking it in a bath of acid for about a day. Next, it gets soaked in a tub filled with a silica solution. Once air-dried, they bake the wood in argon gas at temperatures of up to 1,400 centigrade for 2 hours. When cooled, the process yields perfectly petrified wood (silicon carbide). It is thought the large surface area created by the vast number of pours in plant material will yield new types of ceramics that will help in filtering processes similar to those that filter out pollutants from different types of gases.

The rare set of circumstances that allow living things to become stone are special indeed. Whether your wood takes millions of years to become hard, or you prefer just several days of manual manipulation, petrifaction is one process that surely excites geologists everywhere!

Bonus Facts:

• Petrified wood weighs between 160-200 pounds per cubic foot. It’s also a very hard material, rating between 7 and 8 on the Moh’s Hardness Scale. For reference, talc rates a 1 and diamonds are a 10.
• Petrified material is only one type of fossil. There are several different types known. No matter the process that yields a fossil, all require two things: an environment that lacks oxygen and the presence of a hard part of the organism.
• Petrified matter can be many different types of colors depending on the minerals involved. This is why no petrified material is exactly alike. Iron will yield reds and yellows. Blues and greens will come from manganese and copper. Crystals like quartz will give the fossil a glittery appearance.
• The Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona was first created as a National Monument by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. It wasn’t until 1962 that it was designated as a National Park. There are over 800 archeological and historic sites within the park, and it’s the only national park that contains a segment of the historic Route 66.
• Ancient Pueblo Native Americans, the peoples the inhabited the land where the current Petrified Forest sits, used petrified wood to build their homes. One of them, known as Agate House, still stands today. It is thought that it was built from 1100 to 1150 A.D.
• It is illegal to remove any petrified wood from the National Park. Despite this, it is known that tons of it is removed annually. Conveniently enough, you can purchase it from rock shops that are near the park. But don’t accuse the shop owners of thievery, they collect it from private land outside the park borders. Or so they would have us believe!  Wake up Sheeple!
• The second largest petrified tree specimen is in Amphoe Ban Tak, Thailand. It’s 65.6 feet long and 6.5 feet in diameter. The largest petrified tree is on display at the Geronimo Trading Post in Arizona. The tree itself is in several sections and is reported to weigh nearly 80 tons.
• The largest field of petrified wood is located in the Puyango Petrified Forest. Encompassing approximately 2658 hectacres. It’s found south of the city of Loja in Ecuador. Don’t think, however, that it’s just south. This petrified forest is actually very remote and although Loja is the nearest city, it’s still about a 4 hour drive away.

References:

• Petrified Forest 
• The Petrified Forest Of Puyango
• Petrified Wood Fores Tak Thailand
• Instant Petrified Wood
• The Mineral Gallery
• Permineralization
• Petrified Forest Facts

Image Courtesy of ©N. Saum

Today I found out that “Avocado” derives from a word meaning “testicle”.

The word Avocado comes from a Nahuatl Indian (Aztec) word “ahuácatl” meaning testicle. It is thought that the reference is either due to the avocado’s shape or the fact that it was considered to possess aphrodisiac qualities by the Aztecs. In Spanish, “ahuácatl” became “aguacate” and eventually “avogato” and then “avocado”. In English, the fruit was first described as an “Avagato pear” because of its pear-like shape. Later it also became known as an “alligator pear” given the alligator-like appearance to the skin. Over time, the term Avocado became the common word used to describe the fruit in English.

The word “guacamole” also derives from a Nahautl Indian word, namely “ahuacamolli”, which is compounded from “ahuácatl” and “molli”, the latter word meaning “sauce” or “soup”… testicle sauce?  Er… yum?

Bonus Facts:

• Avocados are a very healthy type of fruit. One serving, which equals around 1/5^th of an avocado, is around 50 calories. It has 60% more potassium than a banana and also contains vitamins B and C.  3/4 of the fruit’s calories come from fat. But don’t worry, it’s monounsaturated fat. This type helps lower LDL (low-density lipoprotein), which is the kind of cholesterol you don’t want a lot of. It also is thought to increase HDL (high-density lipoprotein), which is the kind of cholesterol you do want. Avocados also contain a high percentage of fiber which helps us all remain “regular” in our bowel movements!
• Cholesterol has been getting a bad rap lately. It actually is a very essential component of the human body, in terms of keeping things running smoothly. It helps make up cell membranes, and we need it to make sure these cells have proper permeability (basically the correct amount of give to allow nutrients to cross through the membrane without being too weak to maintain the structure of the cell). It also helps in the making of steroid hormones, vitamin D, and acids contained in our bile ducts. Cholesterol itself is carried throughout our body by helper proteins. The duo are known as lipoproteins. LDL moves cholesterol from your liver to all the cells of the body that need it. HDL carries cholesterol from your cells back to the liver where it can be removed in the form of a waste product. Normally there is nothing wrong with this evolutionarily mediated process. The problem arises when we begin to have too much LDL available for our cells to use and not enough HDL to remove it. This leads to LDL building up inside of our artery walls causing atherosclerosis.
• Atherosclerosis occurs when cholesterol begins to build up inside the artery walls due to high amounts of cholesterol in your bloodstream. This causes your arteries to become hard and lose their elasticity. Combined with a narrowing of the inside of your arteries this loss of elasticity can cause high blood pressure. The plaque can build up to the point where not enough blood can be moved through the artery causing the tissue downstream to become starved of oxygen and die. Should a piece of the plaque break off it can also travel downstream and block off blood flow to that part of the body. This is a major cause of heart attacks, strokes, or pulmonary embolisms. Unfortunately for men the narrowing of arteries can also lead to erectile dysfunction, and no one is happy about that! …except maybe the folks at Pfizer, makers of Viagra. Buildup of plaque can also cause the walls of the arteries to begin to become weak and lead to a bulge in the vessel known as an aneurysm. These tend to rupture causing internal bleeding. You should just hope that if that happens, the artery isn’t one that resides inside your head or your heart.
• Erectile dysfunction (ED) affects approximately 18 million US men. 70% of the cases are caused by atherosclerosis, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. While seemingly just a nuisance to those not affected, given the fact that sexual activity has been shown to increase a person’s physical well-being, and if done frequently a person’s fitness, this affliction seems to only compound the problem for those with high cholesterol. The other 30% of cases can be caused by a wide number of problems. Some diseases that can cause it include: diabetes, prostate cancer, kidney failure, multiple sclerosis, Parkinsons and Alzheimers. Injuries that involve surgery to the pelvis, bladder, spinal cord and penis are also common causes. Alcohol, tobacco, recreational drugs can result in ED. There are currently around 200 known prescription drugs that affect ED. Certain types of hormone imbalances have also been linked to ED.
• There are 13 known vitamins that the body requires for survival. They are vitamins A, C, D, E, K, and 8 types of B vitamins. Avocados contain most of them. One serving of avocado will yield you 4% of your daily needs for vitamins C, E, Potassium, 4 types of B vitamins and 8% of vitamin K. It contains 2% of your daily needs for magnesium and 8% of your dietary fiber. And besides all that, the American Heart Association (AHA) recommends them as part of a daily diet.
• The AHA also recommends that everyone eat a diet that is low in fat content. They recommend limiting saturated fats to less than 7% of your daily calories. They also advised to keep trans fats to less than 1%, and to try and keep your cholesterol intake to less than 300 mg per day.
• A McDonald’s Big-Mac contains 540 calories. 260 of them from fat, or 45% of your daily value (DV). It also contains 75mg of cholesterol or 25% of your DV and 1040mg of sodium at 43% of your DV. If you combine that with large French fries at 500 calories of which 220 are from fat. You are already at 83% of the recommended DV for fat. But eat those fries with a smile on your face because they have no cholesterol! If you further consume a large Coca-Cola at 350 calories, you will have reached a grand total of 1390 calories in 1 meal! You could skim 240 calories off of that total by going with their cheeseburger at 300 calories.  Long story short, stay away from McDonald’s! And keep your cholesterol under control, eat more avocados (and for other reasons bananas, which are one of the few “perfect” foods for humans!)  Also, don’t be or stay fat.  This may sound harsh, but there are few things you can do for your health better than not being fat (obviously don’t go the other way and be anorexic either; it’s all about a healthy balance: exercise + eat right with correct portion sizes = healthy you and most likely a longer life.
• In the US, the avocado is used as a side in main dishes like salads, or dipping chips like in guacamole, and seemingly never as a dessert. Certain other countries don’t hold to those standards. Brazilians have been known to add them to their ice cream, and Filipinos puree their avocados, mix them with sugar and milk, and consume the drink as a dessert.
• A single Avocado tree can produce as much as 200 pounds of fruit or around 500 avocados. The average, however, is much less at around 60 pounds or about 150 avocados per tree.
• Approximately 43% of American households buy avocados. 90% of them come from California, which also produces about 80% of the world’s supply of almonds… don’t fall into the ocean California. There are around 5,000 avocado producers in California with the average grove size around 10 acres. Of the 7 varieties of fruit grown in California, the Hass avocado is the most popular at around 95 percent of the total volume produced.

References:

• Avocado Nutrition Facts
• All About Avocados
• Fun Avocado Facts
• Avocado Definition
• Hardening Of Arteries
• Erectile Dysfunction
• Avocado Nutrients
• McDonalds Nutrition Facts 
• Image Source

That depends on what is meant by “seen” and “space” because the definitions of each determine whether or not the Great Wall of China can be seen from the heavens above.

First, let’s look at whether the Great Wall of China be seen by the unaided eye from space.  If we consider “space” to be a low Earth orbit–90 miles to 300 miles–it is possible for the Great Wall of China to be seen with the unaided eye… barely. Visibility of the Wall from this distance highly depends on ideal weather and lighting conditions.  The angle of the sun and the shadows produced by the Wall play a role in the visibility of the structure due to the fact that the eye most easily detects contrasting colors, especially from a distance. Visibility also depends on a person’s eyesight and whether or not he/she knows exactly where to look. Even then, only sections of the Wall may be visible. Since the Wall is made from stone, rock, and packed earth, it is similar in color to the soil surrounding it. Therefore, the structure can be extremely difficult to distinguish from its surroundings if searching for from space.

Since the Wall is very difficult to see from this distance, and because it is not the only landmark visible from within a low Earth orbit, it is easy for astronauts to mistake it for something else.  For instance, several astronauts claimed to have seen the Wall from Earth’s orbit, but it was later determined that what they actually saw was a river or the Grand Canal of China. So, yes, under perfect conditions, parts of the Great Wall of China are visible from a low Earth orbit, but it’s extremely difficult to distinguish and you need great eye-site. So practically speaking for most people and in most conditions the answers is no, but technically speaking, yes.

Obviously, if the idea of seeing the Great Wall of China from space is not limited to the unaided human eye, and a person uses the assistance of some sort of telescopic lens (binoculars/camera/satellite/etc.), then the likelihood of seeing the Wall from within a low Earth’s orbit, increases dramatically.

Now, if we consider space to mean a distance greater than the Earth’s orbit, like from the Moon, the answer for whether or not the Great Wall of China can be seen from space with the naked eye changes to a definitive “no”, despite what was often reported in the early 20th century. Since the Wall is barely visible from a low Earth orbit of 90 to 300 miles and the moon is located more than 225,000 miles from the Earth, it is impossible to see the Great Wall of China with the unaided eye from this distance. Some say viewing the Wall from the moon is like trying to see a single hair from two miles away. Astronaut Alan Bean is quoted as saying: “The only thing you can see from the moon is a beautiful sphere, mostly white, some blue, patches of yellow, and every once in a while some green vegetation. No man-made object is visible on this scale. In fact, when first leaving Earth’s orbit and only a few thousand miles away, no man-made object is visible at that point either.”

For many years before humans actually went to space, people believed the Great Wall of China was visible from space and that it was the only man-made structure visible from within a low Earth orbit. The origins of the myth are a little sketchy to determine, but one of the most notable sources supporting this theory was Richard Halliburton’s book, Second Book of Marvels – The Orient. The book was published in 1938 and stated: “Astronomers say that the Great Wall is the only man-made thing on our planet visible to the human eye from the moon.” Another source that supported the theory was Henry Norman’s, The People and the Politics of the Far East, from 1904: “Besides its age [the Great Wall of China] enjoys the reputation of being the only work of human hands on the globe visible from the moon.”

Considering the monumental event of sending the first person into space didn’t occur until 1961, no one could actually attest to whether or not the Wall could be seen from space before this, and people probably shouldn’t have accepted the theory so easily. However, given the size of the Great Wall of China (5,500 miles long, though with gaps, and 15-30 feet wide), it was probably easy for people to imagine such a large and significant structure being visible from hundreds and thousands of miles above Earth’s surface.  But once people started actually going to space and started searching for it, the myth was proved more or less false unless blessed by ideal conditions and eyesight.

Bonus Facts:

• In Chinese, the Great Wall of China is called “Wan-Li Qang-Qeng” meaning 10,000-Li Long Wall.
• The Great Wall of China is not actually one great wall like one might think, given its name. It is actually sections of individual walls joined together over time. The first sections of the wall were constructed during the Qin Dynasty between 221-206 BC. Through time, more sections of wall were built until they connected to form the Great Wall of China.
• The Great Wall of China was originally built to defend the Celestial Empire from enemies.
• The Great Wall of China is approximately 5,500 miles long, spanning from Shanhaiguan in east China to Lop Lake in west China. It consists of 3,890 miles of actual wall sections, 224 miles of trenches, and 1,387 miles of nature’s defenses including hills and rivers.
• During the next 20 years, more than 37 miles of the Wall is expected to erode away due to sandstorms in the Gansu province. Sections of the wall built from mud are more likely to erode than sections built from brick and stone.
• Rumor has it that nearly one million people lost their lives building the Wall.
• China has long prided itself on the supposed truth of the myth that the Wall can be seen from space. When Yang Liwei, the first Chinese person in space, stated he did not see the Wall in his 21.5 hour trip to space in 2003 when he orbited the Earth, China’s Ministry of Education decided to revise elementary school textbooks to remove the inaccurate information.

Sources:

• Great Walls of Liar
• Great Wall of China
• China’s Wall Less Great in View from Space
• Can You See the Great Wall of China from Space?
• The Great Wall of China
• Is China’s Great Wall Visible from Space?
• China Ends Great Wall Space Myth
• All About the Great Wall of China
• The Great Wall of China
• John F. Kennedy Space Center
• The Great Wall of China Hoax
• Second Book of Marvels, the Orient by Richard Halliburton
• The People and Politics of the Far East by Henry Norman