Today's interesting fact has to do with magnetic north.

Magnetic north has been moving around a lot lately.

At the moment, it is changing it's position on the earth by more than 40 miles a year.

No one knows why this is occurring and there are many new theories that are being tested and refined at the moment.

But one of the effects of the magnetic pole moving, is that several airports have had to change their signs. The large signs at the ends of the runways, display the degrees off magnetic north that the runway lays on, and pilots rely on these to ensure their on board compasses are working correctly. With recent changes, several of these have had to be changed yearly.

Today's interesting fact has to do with phosphorus.

There are about five countries that produce most of the phosphorus used today.

It seems that there are not many workable deposits available to us in the world.

Phosphorus is a key ingredient in the fertilisers we use to feed all the humans currently in the world.

Without this element, our farmers wouldn't be able to produce as much as they currently do.

Unless we find more deposits, in about 30 years, we will have passed the peak, and will not have enough to keep our farms going.

Today's interesting fact has to do with bitter tastes, spinach, and brussels sprouts.

I started off today’s fact with how a lab in the US has developed a system that uses extracts from spinach leaves to produce electricity.

While this was considered interesting by my audience, Nick Myall stated that he doesn't like the taste of spinach, brussels sprouts and other brassicas.

As he is the one I give these interesting facts to, this reminded me, that there are bitter tasting chemicals that not everyone taste.

While at university many years ago, our chemistry professor gave all of the class a litmus test strip that had been dipped onto one such chemical.

Our task was to taste the strip and report on that taste. About 10% of the class found it very bitter, but the rest of the class reported tasting just paper.

This ability to taste this specific chemical comes from having two copies of a specific recessive allele of a certain gene.

Our ability to taste many bitter tastes is also controlled by specific alleles.

So Nick and his son, who both find brussels sprouts particularly repugnant, probably have some of these genes, whereas his wife and daughter, who love the taste, probably don't.

My advice would be to have something different on their plates, if possible.

Today's interesting post has to do with spiders and snail shells.

There is a spider in Madagascar, that makes itself a home in the shell of a snail.

Doesn't matter what type of snail, these spiders, once they find an uninhabited shell, and after they determine it is their size, use the shell to protect itself from the rest of the world.

Using their silk strands, they hoist these shells up into bushes and trees, for further protection.

Today's interesting fact has to do with house dust mites.

House dust mites are found just about everywhere we live.

They eat the organic detritus, such as the dead skin cslls that constantly falls off our bodies, although they will consume any organic material, such as plant pollen, textile or paper fibers, and hair.

House Dust mites are linked to athma, their feces contain powerful digestive enzymes that are a major inducer of allergic reactions.

Today's interesting fact has to do with the Transient Ischaemic Attack (TIA), more commonly known as a Mini Stroke.

There are two types of strokes, and today, we will deal with one, a subset so to speak of the ischaemic stroke. An ischaemic stroke occurs when something blocks an artery that carries blood to the brain. This can be because of a blood clot that forms in an artery for what ever reason, an air bubble, blood clot or fat globule that is formed in a blood vessel somewhere, that is later carried to the brain and finally a blockage in the tiny blood vessels found deep within the brain.

If the blockage of blood supply to the brain is temporary the individual will have the symptoms of a stroke for a short time. This is called a transient ischaemic attack (TIA) or mini-stroke. The symptoms of a TIA can last from a few minutes to 24 hours.

A TIA is a sign that part of the brain is not getting enough blood and there is a risk of a more serious stroke in the future. As with any stroke, it is important to seek medical attention immediately.

Today's interesting fact has to do with nanotechnology

Different people seem to have different ideas in what nanotechnology refers to.

To make it things worse, some journalists seem use the same term for nanomachines and nanocrystals.

Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating mater on an atomic and molecular scale.

Titanium dioxide is a good example of this.

This mineral is found in toothpaste, paint, paper, sunscreen, skin care products and is used as a food colouring.

New uses of the material are constantly being found.

It turns paints white, helps whiten teeth, is a mild abrasive and its opacity blocks light.

Up to recently, the crystals used in these products have been large, when considered on the molectular scale.

But nano particles are now being used in many products. They are much smaller than the crystals that were used in the past.

These tiny crystals are begining to be linked to respiratory tract cancer and may cause problems in the digestive tract if swallowed.

Today's interesting fact is short and sweet and has to do with chemicals.

In response to all those individuals who have insisted they do not want food or drinks with chemicals in them, and in response to those companies that advertise their products as being chemical free, the Royal Society of Chemistry in the UK, has a million pound prize for anyone who can produce a material or substance that does not have any chemicals in it.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with Urine and stem cells.

Recently it was discovered that while urine is for the most part sterile, it also contains a certain number of stem cells floating in the fluid.

These seem to be shed into the urine by the body.

Medical Scientists have extracted these stem cells, and by using a scaffold of collagen from a pig urethra which had all cells removed, seeded the scaffolding with these stem cells and created a new urethra that has been successfully transplanted back into the urine doner animals.

This means that in the near future, when individuals have lost a urethra through accident or disease, they may have a new one created, from their own stem cells, thereby removing any possibility of tissue rejection.

It has been suggested by some researchers, that the practice of drinking ones own urine, might help the individual, by placing these stem cells back into the body, where they might migrate to and replace tissues that are damaged.

They also say the practice of by some cultures, to urinate on wounds to promote healing, may have more to do with these stem cells, and less to the supposed sterility of said urine.

No testing on either of these suggestions has been done to date, and it is not at this time recommended.

Today's interesting fact has to do with our default level of feelings.

Everyone seems to have a default setting when it comes to being happy, sad, miserable, grumpy or what ever. An individual will leave that setting, become happier, sadder, depressed, etc but eventually they will return to their default setting. Most of our time is spent in that setting.

Researchers have for years been trying to determine when this setting becomes our default. All the recent research suggests that this setting is determined at around 3 years of age, and it usually remains the same throughout life. The only times it changes is due to physical trauma to the brain, viral or bacterial infections, or chemicals changing the function of the brain.

Today's interesting fact has to do with the islandic volcano, Eyjafjallajokull.

Recently this volcano has been delcared to be a green eruption.

The reason for this, is that the amount of greenhouse gasses it produced are less than the amount of greenhouse glasses that would have been produced by the planes that the eruption grounded.

It says something that the planes flying to, from and within Europe, produce more CO2, that a series of volcanic eruptions.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with the Angel Winged Clam.

The angel wing clam gained a bit of fame in the movie Sahara, where Dirk tells Dr Rojas about the clam, calling it Petricola Pholadiformis and stating that the river they were in is the only place on earth that they occur. He goes on to state that they glow in the dark, and that science has been unable to determine why. He continues that he thinks they glow, because they can.

Unfortunately the clam he identifies, doesn’t glow in the dark, is actually called the false angel wing and is found in many fresh water rivers. The angle wing clam is Cyrtopleura Costata, is found only in salt water and while some of these shells will glow if exposed to ultraviolet light, they do not produce their own light.

Some molluscs do have a bio luminance organ and produce a green light. This light can be seen glowing through the shell. In some species of molluscs this light shines brighter through the shell than others and the shells have been shown to amplify the light produced. The technique used by the molluscs for laying down material in the shells are have been determined and the method is being used by LED producers to increase the output of their devices.

As to why these creatures produce light, it seems that the brighter the light, the less predation the animals suffer in the wild. It is thought that the green light produced hides them from their predators, effectively hiding them in plain sight. It has been confirmed that at least some of these predators cannot see the frequencies produced.

I'm a bit late in posting the 23rd's interesting fact. I did give the fact to Nick yesterday face to face though.

Today's interesting fact has to do with faecal transplants.

Faecal transplants have been performed since the 1950's, on patients with infected colons with unstoppable diarrhoea who have failed to respond to conventional treatments. At this time, it is a sort of last resort, but it may become more common place after a new set of medical trials are finished later next year.

There are an estimated 25,000 different type of bacteria, fungi and viruses that normally live in the large colon. This vast colony of micro-organisms for the most part live in a symbiotic relationship with us, increasing the nutrients available for us to absorb from our food. These creatures also work with each other, supplying compounds and nutrients that others cannot synthesise.

When the mixture of types of micro-organisms are disturbed, such as from antibiotics, poor diet or disease, harmful bacteria and viruses can take hold and cause us problems. It has been suggested that the appendix harbours a collection of good bacteria that gets released when this happens, but if the balance is too far out of whack, the colon colony cannot recover.

C. dificile is one such bacteria, and cause death.

Faecal transplants, from individuals with healthy bowel colonies, have been shown to correct this type of problem, within 48 hours of administration. One medical clinic has done over 1500 faecal transplants, all of the patients recovered from their debilitating conditions.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with exploding toads and frogs.

It was noticed some years ago, that toads and frogs were exploding in gardens, parks and along river banks in parts of Europe. No one could explain at first why they were exploding and there were a considerable number of theories advanced, including one that required visiting outer space men.

One biologist noticed that the samples he studied had no livers. So he and several of his colleagues set up blinds and cameras in various frog and toad habitats to determine what was going on. After several weeks of investigation, they realised that the culprits in the case of the exploding frogs and toads were crows.

Crows would fly into the areas, settle down on the ground, and stand still. Toads and Frogs seem to have trouble seeing anything that doesn’t move. They are primed to see movement, so if something stands still, they don’t notice. When a frog or toad got close enough, with surgical precision, the crows would stab the amphibian in the stomach, and remove the liver, which crows seem to really enjoy. This didn’t kill the frogs and toads immediately, but left a wound, that would often partially heal, until the frog or toad decided to make their calls. They would fill their throats, the wound would burst and the poor creature would explode.

This behaviour was only found in certain areas of Europe, but the behaviour seems to be learnt by crows watching other crows, and the actions have been reported in the US now, a world wide phenomenon.

I’m posting yesterdays interesting fact today, as yesterday was a bit hectic. It has to do with the weather and climate.

Weather is what happens from day to day. Climate is what happens globally. For what ever reason, the world’s overall temperature is rising, even if in parts of the world, it is getting colder.

In England has experienced a lot of swings in the weather patterns over the past 50 years or so and seems to come and go. This has been shown to be because of changes in the jet stream, a river of wind that runs around the world.

Models suggest that as the overall temperature of the world increases, the jet stream will meander more. This seems to be happening, which has been causing the swings in weather, such as the droughts and subsequent forest fires in Russia, the cold winters in some parts of the world, as well as the warm winters in other parts.

This is because as the jet stream kinks, cold air from the north is dragged south, bringing cold and snow, and then warm air is dragged north, bringing the warm weather.

You can see this in a pot of water on a stove or cooker. When the water simmers, hot water rises, and cold water settles down to the bottom to warm and rise again. The more heat applied to the bottom of the pan, the faster this rising and falling occurs, until eventually you get a rolling boil. This is basically what is happening to the air.

As the tropics get warmer air rises and goes north, where it settles and then moves south. Because the earth is spinning, this causes the various trade winds. The hotter the tropics get, the further north the warm air goes, the more violent it moves and the faster cold air from the north, along with the snow and freezing rain, goes south.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with the element carbon.

There are three common isotopes of carbon that are found on earth, carbon-12, carbon-13 and carbon-14. Around 99% is carbon-12, about 1% is carbon-13 and carbon-14 is found in trace amounts.

Carbon-14 is radioactive and decays into nitrogen-14. You might think that this is why carbon-14 is so rare and that it might eventually disappear, but carbon-14 is produced when cosmic rays enter the atmospheres, produce neutrons, through a reaction convert the nitrogen-14 into a carbon-14 atom and a hydrogen atom.

Carbon-14 is constantly replenished, so that in the there is always about the same amount in the atmosphere at any time. Carbon-14 gets picked up by plants and through herbivores enters the animal food chain. Once an animal or plant dies, the ratio of carbon-14 to the other carbon isotopes doesn’t remain constant, as the carbon decays.

Because we know the half life of carbon-14, and the amount of carbon-14 is thought to remain constant (which remains true as long as the amount of cosmic rays remains constant), by determining how much carbon-14 remains in a sample, can determine how old the sample is, which is how radio-carbon dating works.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with atoms, elements and isotopes.

The simplest atom, hydrogen, has one electron and one proton. The proton is in the nucleus with the electron circling around it. But there isn’t just one form of hydrogen, there are three. Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen that has a neutron in the nucleus with the proton. Tritium has two neutrons with the proton. Hydrogen is also the only element with separate names for the various isotopes. The simplest form, without any neutrons, is also known as protium.

Today's interesting fact has to do with Echinacea and Ginseng.

These herbal remedies have been used for thousands of years. Echinacea by American Indians, Ginseng by those in the far east.

Many claims have been made about the potent powers of these two herbs and few of them have been confirmed, but one fact has been scientifically proven in blind tests. The use of these two herbs in combination have been shown to reduce the length an individual has a cold and a case of flu, by at least a third and sometimes by half.

Today's interesting fact has to do with the pygmy sloth of the Caribbean.

These diminutive creatures are much smaller than the land bound version. They were separated from the land about ten thousand years ago and have become a new species very quickly.

Unlike their relatives, these regularly swim and can be found paddling in the ocean, although they don't yet know exactly why.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with T-Cells.


T-Cells are used by the body to attack bacteria and viruses. Many of them are produced by the Thymus. T-Cells seem to rewrite some of their DNA, to produce small circles of RNA, which are used to help them do their job.

Recently they have worked out that the number of these T Cell Receptors found in T-Cells can be used to determine how old someone is. Blood samples, found by the police, can now give them the age of whoever lost the blood. This technique has already been used to rule out individuals in some cases.