WTF • Fun • Fact    ( /dʌb(ə)lˌju/  /ti/   /ef/ • /fʌn/ • /fækt/ )

     1. noun  A random, interesting, and overall fun fact that makes you scratch your head and think what the...

WTF Fun Fact 12978 – How Does Temperature Affect the Color of Leaves?

Have you noticed that autumn looks a bit different every year? Sometimes the leaves fall early. Other times they’re on the trees much longer to give a full display of color. A lot of this has to do with the temperature outside. But how does temperature affect the color of leaves?

The temperature of fall and its effect on leaves

As the nights get cooler in the northern hemisphere in September and October, we begin to see the trees change. If you’re lucky enough to live around a mixture of trees, you’ll begin to see bright red, orange, and yellow leaves appear.

Without as much daily sunlight, trees don’t go through as much photosynthesis. This is aprocess that produces sugars, which trees use as energy to grow and flower.

A reduction in photosynthesis leads to a reduction in chlorophyll as well, which is the pigment that makes leaves green. As they lose chlorophyll, they lose their green color and prepare to shed for the winter so trees can conserve their energy inside the branches and bark.

How does temperature affect the color of leaves?

But that still doesn’t explain the role of temperature.

The weather leading up to shorter days is actually quite important when it comes to determining how fall plays out for leaves .

We know that a reduction in chlorophyll leads to leaves being less green, but what makes some seasons produce more vibrant red leaves than others? Why does a tree turn bright orange one year and only a dull copper the next year?

Well, it turns out that the pigments that begin to show up once chlorophyll is reduced are dependent on both temperature and moisture conditions right before days start getting shorter. For example, some weather conditions make a leaf turn red early. It also helps it stay on the tree longer, so it goes through its full range of colors before falling off.

The role of weather in fall leaf displays

According to scientists at Michigan State (cited below), lots of warm days and cool nights narrow the veins in leaves. This helps trap the sugars made during photosynthesis in those leaves. When this happens, the sugars produce more vivid pigments.

“The most brilliant leaf displays follow a period of warm days filled with sunshine and cool nights. During this weather cycle, leaves produce an abundance of sugars during the sunny days. The cooler nights and gradual narrowing of leaf veins in the fall, means that a majority of the sugars produced are trapped in the leaf. An abundance of sugar and light in the leaf lead to the production of vivid anthocyanin pigments, which produce red, purple and crimson colors. Yellow and gold leaf colors are produced by carotenoid pigments, which are ever-present in the leaves and are therefore less dependent on the aforementioned conditions.”

Other factors in fall leaves

“Soil moisture also plays a role in the timing and brilliance of leaf color. The best displays are produced when the soil has been adequately moist throughout the year coupled with the aforementioned late summer weather. A late spring, or severe summer drought can delay the onset of color. A warm period during the fall can also decrease the intensity of fall colors by triggering early leaf drop before the colors have had a chance to develop.”

Finally, MSU explains that other factors can play a role in individual trees:

“Trees on the edge of low-lying areas, where cooler air collects at night, often display colors sooner than trees in an upland forested setting. Trees that are diseased or in decline may also display fall colors earlier than their healthy neighbors.“

And that’s why no two autumns will ever look the same. — WTF fun facts

Source: “How weather affects fall colors” — Michigan State University Extension

WTF Fun Fact 12977 – Why Isn’t September the 7th Month?

To us, the months of the calendar can mean lots of things. It can signal big changes (new school years, new fiscal years, birthday months, the beginning of Spring, harvest season, etc.). But historically, calendars were also instruments of power. That’s part of the explanation as to why September isn’t the 7th month of the year anymore.

What does September mean?

Our month of September comes from the ancient Roman calendar. The month named Septem literally meant “seven” – as in the 7th month of the year.

For much of their ancient history, the Romans has a 10-month calendar. However, to be fair, emperors were always inserting new numbers of days or months named after themselves in there. In fact, the infamous emperor Commodus tried to rename all the months after himself (a measure that was repealed after his assassination).

What did calendars really mean?

People weren’t hanging their calendars on the walls back in the ancient world. They mostly went by the night sky and used the position of the sun and the seasons to figure out what needed to be done in the fields (nearly all society was agrarian at the time).

Those in power – whether it was political or religious power (or both) – used calendars to try to make the world operate according to their whim. And while you can’t change the pace of the seasons or the lunar cycles just by sticking in a random month, you can change things like the time when taxes are due, which can really mess things up for the people around you. Politicians would even try to lose or gain a month to shorten someone’s tenure in power!

So, why isn’t September the 7th month anymore?

Recalling the entire history of the calendar would take a while. Let’s just say there have been plenty of disagreements over the centuries about how many months were needed, how many days would be in each month, when new days should be inserted to keep up with the astrological “calendar,” and what the months would be called.

But the end of September’s literal meaning started in 451 BCE when January and February were added by the Roman ruler Numa Pompilius to create a 12-month year. He added them at the end of the old calendar (which began in March), then switched things around again, but the 12-month idea clearly made more sense because it lined up with the lunar cycles.

The calendar went through many more changes, including the inclusion of the 27/28-day month called Mercedonius at one point. In 46 BC Julius Caesar had enough and reformed the calendar. That didn’t mean there weren’t tweaks here and there after that, but there’s a reason we refer to our current calendar as the Julian calendar.

It’s just that no one really cared that poor September had lost its meaning along the way. — WTF fun facts

Source: “September (Roman month)” — Wikipedia; “Roman republican calendar” — Britannica

WTF Fun Fact 12976 – Rubber Bands Last Longer When Refrigerated

Rubber bands aren’t expensive, but they can be important to have around. And making sure you don’t use them recklessly could help keep rubber out of landfills. But did you know that there’s an easy way to prolong the life of your rubber bands? Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

Why do rubber bands last longer when refrigerated?

The rubber used to make rubber bands is unlike most other materials. In many cases, materials do better in warmer or room temperature environments places that don’t stress the bonds hold them together. But that’s not the case for rubber bands.

Cold temperatures make the polymers in the rubber more relaxed. This prevents them from degrading or forming the dry rot that causes them to break just when you need them most.

According to JFlex (cited below): “When a rubber band is stretched it causes its polymer chains to become very ordered and it expels thermal energy (heat), thus shortening its life. This is increased further when placed in higher temperature environments which increases the oxidisation rate. Also, the natural rubber that is used to make rubber bands crystallises over time, giving us what is commonly called ‘dry-rot’ – which is where the bands get dry, crumble and no longer have any elasticity.”

Be careful when removing rubber bands from the fridge

Now, if you do decide to refrigerate your rubber bands, make sure not to stretch them right away.

“When a rubber band is in its relaxed state it is very unordered, and will cool when going from a structured state to a relaxed state. So when a rubber band is put in the refrigerator it makes the polymers even more relaxed due to the way they behave in the cold.

Something to be careful of is immediately stretching the rubber band after being in the fridge, as this will cause it to weaken significantly because of the rapid change of temperature state.”

Who knew? — WTF fun facts

Source: “Why do rubber bands last longer when refrigerated?” — JFlex

WTF Fun Fact 12975 – Italy’s Oldest College Graduate

In 2020, 96-year-old Giuseppe Paterno became Italy’s oldest college graduate. In 2022, at age 98, he did it again by getting a Master’s degree in history and philosophy from the University of Palermo.

The background of Italy’s oldest college grad

According to Reuters (cited below), Paterno was born in 1923 and “grew up in a poor family in Sicily and despite his love of books and studying, he wasn’t able to go to university as a young man…Instead, he served in the navy during World War Two from the age of 20 and went on to be a railway worker.” He is the youngest of seven children.

He enrolled in the University of Palermo in 2017 to get an undergraduate degree in philosophy and history, which he achieved in 2020.

In an interview with The Guardian in 2020, Palermo said “I’ve finally realized my dream…Being able to study has always been my greatest aspiration, but my family wasn’t able to pay for my education. We were a large family and very poor.”

About his college goals, he told the paper: “I came out unscathed from the war and took a job working for the state railway service. I wasn’t enthused about my job, but I knew I had to do it because by that time I was married and had a family to support. At the same time, I had an overwhelming desire to dive into books and read, study and learn.”

Paterno’s lifelong learning goals

Paterno did try to go back to school and take evening classes at age 31 but wasn’t able to balance family life, work, and college at the time.

It wasn’t until his 90s that he was able to really make time to study.

In 2020, he said: “I’d wake up at seven to study. I’d use an old typewriter to complete my assignments. I’d rest in the afternoon and in the evening I’d study until midnight. My neighbours used to ask, ‘why all this trouble at your age?’ But they couldn’t understand the importance of reaching a dream, regardless of my age.”

However, COVID nearly thwarted his efforts as he was forced to enroll in online classes to finish his undergraduate degree. But he made it, saying: “It’s one of the happiest days of my entire life. I only wish my wife were here to see me. She died 14 years ago.”

That’s when he made plans to get his Master’s degree, which he received in June of 2022.

Now Italy’s oldest college graduate plans to use his beloved typewriter to write a novel. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Italy’s oldest student graduates again aged 98” — Reuters

WTF Fun Fact 12974 – The Sex Lives of Constipated Scorpions

The Ig Nobel Prizes have been awarded to 10 unusual (or unusually unuseful) scientific research projects each year since 1991. While it’s all in good fun, we couldn’t help but do a double-take this year at one of the winners – a team that published a study on the sex lives of constipated scorpions.

Constipated scorpions have it rough

Solimary García-Hernández and Glauco Machado of the University of São Paulo in Brazil won the 2022 Ig Nobel in biology for trying to discern whether being constipated affects a scorpion’s sex life. (To be fair, we can’t help but think being constipated is kind of a bummer for any creature.)

According to an Associated Press story on the prizes, “Scorpions can detach a body part to escape a predator — a process called autotomy. But when they lose their tails, they also lose the last portion of the digestive tract, which leads to constipation — and, eventually, death, they wrote in the journal Integrated Zoology.”

“The long-term decrease in the locomotor performance of autotomized males may impair mate searching,” they wrote.

Ok, maybe constipated humans don’t have it so bad after all.

Why even study this?

So, this particular study came about in an interesting way. The paper’s lead author Solimary García-Hernández had long been studying the scorpion species Ananteris balzani.

This species has an interesting characteristic – they shed their tails to help them escape a predator.

According to Smithsonian Magazine (cited below): “It was a big surprise in 2015 when she, while working as part of a larger research team, found that Ananteris scorpions are capable of shedding their tails. “Autotomy”—the process of dropping a body part to escape a predator—was until then known to have evolved in only a handful of animal lineages like starfish, spiders and certain lizards.”

Ok, so we totally understand wanting to look more closely into that interesting fact, especially since it turns out that when lizards shed their tails, it can impact their ability to walk but doesn’t kill them. However, scorpions are different.

When Ananteris scorpions shed their tails, their digestive tract backs up with feces, and they get swollen and die within around 8 months.

That’s weird since animals don’t typically adapt in a way that’s fatal to them unless it somehow helps their species. In this case, the extra months likely give them more time to reproduce. And that’s where studying their sex lives comes in.

The sex lives of constipated scorpions

García-Hernández decided to monitor the post-tail life of these scorpions to see how tail loss impacted their ability to reproduce.

“The team then set up a series of matings between stump-tailed and intact scorpions. García-Hernández predicted that autotomized male scorpions would be less successful at mating than their fully endowed counterparts, since the tail plays an important role in their complicated mating ritual.”

Male scorpions use their tails both to show off to mates and during intercourse, so not having a tail should make mating difficult. However, it turns out they just used their stump and were just fine.

It was a different story for females, however.

According to Smithsonian, “when the team explored the reproductive costs paid by stump-tailed females, the story was different. They found that tailless females, while able to mate successfully, went on to have 20 percent fewer offspring than intact females.

The reason for this difference? The five-month scorpion pregnancy provides a lot of time for females to get more and more constipated, says García-Hernández. She hypothesizes that the buildup of feces caused by the loss of the anus is either toxic to the embryos or that the feces simply crowds out the developing scorplings. This latter hypothesis is supported by the fact that a severely constipated scorpion can weigh 30 percent more than it did before it lost its tail. By comparison, that’s equivalent to a 150 pound person gaining 45 pounds of poop weight.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “For Constipated Scorpions, Females Suffer Reproductively. Males, Not So Much.” — Smithsonian Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 12973 – Tokitae the Orca May Finally Be Set Free

While many of us have fond childhood memories of seeing whales or dolphins perform at theme parks, adulthood brings the knowledge of what really happens behind the scenes. That’s why so many people celebrated in 2022 when it was announced that Tokitae the Orca may finally be set free after a half-century of performing at a marine park. Her mother is still alive, but Tokitae’s return is still in jeopardy.

Tokitae’s story

The orca was captured while swimming with a group of 80 others in a cove on Whidbey Island off Washington state decades ago. According to The Guardian (cited below): “Using boats, explosives, nets, and sticks, they separated young orca calves from their mothers. Locals were haunted by the whales’ human-like cries, according to an account of the day.”

The captors took 6 baby orcas from their mothers that day and sold them to marine parks. Nearly all died quickly, and only 1 is still alive today – Tokitae (whose stage name is Lolita).

The female orca has spent her whole life performing for audiences at the Miami Seaquarium “the smallest orca enclosure in North America.” In 2017, it was revealed that her tank didn’t even meet federal minimum guidelines for orca captivity. In 2022, she was allowed to “retire.”

Trying to return Tokitae to the wild

The Guardian notes that “there’s a chance she could finally go home. Activists are fighting to return the whale…to the Pacific north-west to live out her final days and possibly reconnect with her family. Her mother, believed to be in her 90s, still swims the waters of the Salish Sea, leading a pod of southern resident killer whales to find salmon.”

While activists, animal lovers, and philanthropists around the world have rallied behind her cause recent health assessments from the group Friends of Lolita, found that she has a chronic infection that requires antibiotics.

Their last update on the whale was on August 31, 2022:

UPDATE on the health of Tokitae, Miami Seaquarium’s sole Southern Resident orca, captive since 1970. Antibiotic therapy continues for treatment of a persistent infection, but, on a good note, she is active and continues to be engaged with staff. These are promising signs, despite her chronic health concerns.

Many who know Tokitae and have visited her at the “Whale Bowl” always remark on her astounding ability to persevere after everything she’s been through. She has a strong will to survive that is not easy to miss. She’s an inspiring, impressive orca.

Find more information at: https://www.friendsoflolita.org/ or https://www.facebook.com/OrcaRescuesFoundation/

Some have argued that Tokitae is too old to be released back into the wild, so only time will tell what her fate will be. — WTF fun facts

Source: “After half a century in captivity, Tokitae the performing orca could finally go home” — The Guardian

WTF Fun Fact 12972 – Lonnie Johnson and the Super Soaker

The tale of NASA engineer Lonnie Johnson and the Super Soaker is one of intelligence, perseverance, and creativity. And who knew the iconic sibling-drencher was invented by accident?!

Lonnie Johnson’s story

Johnson was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1949 to parents who supported his ambitions to find out how things worked. Even as a kid, he played with rockets (and nearly burned down the house trying to make rocket fuel on the stove one day).

By the time he was in high school, he was trying to build his own robots. Despite going to a segregated school, he found ways to excel in the sciences and won a 1968 science fair for a robot created out of scrap metal. However, despite the attention that would have normally earned a young inventor, the University of Alabama showed no interest in admitting a Black student. So Johnson attended Tuskegee University, graduating in 1975 with a degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s in nuclear engineering on an ROTC scholarship.

After university, Johnson joined the Air Force, and during his service he received his first patent for a “Digital Distance Measuring Instrument.” According to Biography.com (cited below): “Simply put, it was an early version of DVD-reading technology, an innovation he later called “’he big fish that got away’ because he did not pursue it further.”

Lonnie Johnson’s accidental invention of the Super Soaker

In 1979, Johnson was recruited by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In addition to his illustrious career in engineering (he was part of NASA’s Galileo mission that sent an unmanned spacecraft to Jupiter), he’ll likely be remembered for an invention that was largely an accident.

One day he was experimenting with new ideas for a refrigeration system that could use water instead of freon (which is hazardous). He happened to be in the bathroom at the time and hooked up a nozzle to the bathroom sink, accidentally shooting water across the room.

That’s when he realized it would make a great water gun toy. But it would be years before that toy would make it to shelves because Johnson rejoined the Air Force to help build B-52 stealth bombers in Nebraska.

The birth of the Super Soaker

At night, Johnson would work on his water gun, giving the first prototype to his 7-year-old daughter, Aneka. She quickly became the hit of the Air Force base with her new toy and Johnson knew it would do well in stores.

He was originally quoted $200K for the manufacturing of the first 1000 toys, which was more than he could afford. That meant he had to find a partner.

Biography.com explains that it was a company called Larami that helped Johnson launch the Super Soaker: “Larami put the first line of the gun, then known as the Power Drencher, on shelves in 1990. It was an instant hit, and after it was redesigned and rebranded Super Soaker the next year, sales went through the roof, with more than two million units sold in the summer of 1991.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “How Lonnie Johnson Invented the Super Soaker: The engineer tuned toy inventor gamed up the idea for the water gun while preparing for a NASA mission” — Biography.com

WTF Fun Fact 12971 – Tsundoku

Do you love books? Do you buy them to display in your home? Plenty of us do! But do you actually read them all? Probably not. In this case, you may be interested to know there’s a word for that – at least a Japanese one. Tsundoku is a person who engages in collecting a lot of unread books.

But it’s not an insult. Book lovers just really like to be around books!

Does this sound like you?

The BBC (cited below) interviewed Prof Andrew Gerstle from the University of London about the phenomenon and the roots of the word in 2018.

“He explained to the BBC the term might be older than you think – it can be found in print as early as 1879, meaning it was likely in use before that. The word ‘doku’ can be used as a verb to mean ‘reading.; According to Prof Gerstle, the ‘tsun’ in ‘tsundoku’ originates in ‘tsumu’ – a word meaning ‘to pile up.'” (Like a tsunami of books?!)

The literal meaning of “tsundoku” is buying reading material and piling it up.

The first use of the phrase has been traced to a piece of satirical writing by writer Mori Senzo from 1870, who described a teacher who had lots of books he didn’t read.

“Curing” Tsundoku

Just because there’s a word for it doesn’t mean it’s problematic behavior. Books can be great conversation starters even when they’re sitting on shelves. They even serve as great decor.

Of course, spending money on something that goes unused can spell trouble for some people.

If you’re interested in “curing” yourself of this habit, you can always limit yourself to books that you’re immediately interested in reading, limit the amount of time a book sits in a pile before you read it or give it away, or give yourself a specific number of books you’re allowed to buy in a given period of time. And if you simply don’t have the space, you can always donate your books to someone else with tsundoku. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Tsundoku: The art of buying books and never reading them” — BBC

WTF Fun Fact 12970 – Leland Melvin and the “Astro Dog” Photo

Astronaut Leland Melvin was told he could bring his family to his NASA photoshoot. So he did – they just happened to be his two rescue dogs (which he had to sneak into the facility). The result is an epic astronaut photo.

Who is Leland Melvin?

Leland Melvin was a NASA astronaut and current dog lover. He was a member of the 24th shuttle mission to the International Space Station which helped deliver and install the European Space Agency’s Columbus Laboratory.

But Leland Melvin’s got quite a history aside from that. He’s also the only person drafted into the National Football League to have flown in space!

Melvin has a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry and a Master’s degree in materials science engineering and played for the Detroit Lions. After his football career, he worked at NASA’s Langley Research Center “in the area of nondestructive testing creating optical fiber sensors for measuring damage in aerospace vehicles, resulting in publications in numerous scientific journals.”

He has also served as head of NASA Education and co-chair of the White House’s Federal Coordination in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S.T.E.M.) Education Task Force, the United States representative and chair of the International Space Education Board (ISEB), and won the NFL Players Association “Award of Excellence.”

Oh, and he’s even been a celebrity judge on Top Chef and appeared on an episode of Cesar Milian’s The Dog Whisperer with his dog Jake.

Sneaking dogs into NASA

According to the American Kennel Club: “The world got to know [Leland Melvin] as the ‘coolest astronaut in the galaxy’ through an iconic 2009 photo that, thanks to the web, became nearly as famous as Betty Grable’s World War II pinup poster. No one could forget Melvin’s official NASA portrait, known as the ‘Astro Dog’ shot.”

Blaring his stereo to drown out their barking and prepared with 100 milkbones to distract the pups so no one notices they were on site, Melvin drove onto the Johnson Space Center in Houston site for his official photo with his two dogs, Jake and Scout.

Dogs weren’t allowed on site, so he had to hide them all day, only letting them out when the photographer came in to start snapping photos. — WTF fun facts

Source: “About Leland Melvin” — Leland Melvin Official Website