Category:
Science

Seven Ways Frogs Mate



Our knowledge of how frogs get sexy together continues to expand. It used to be that we knew of only six frog mating positions, but now a seventh has been added to the repertoire, thanks to the efforts of University of Delhi researchers who "spent a few dozen nights filming the sex lives of Bombay night frogs."

The new position, which involves no genital contact, is called the "dorsal straddle":

The male frog straddles the female from behind using a branch or leaf to brace himself while he deposits his sperm on the female's back. The female lays her eggs, which are fertilized by the sperm trickling down her backside.

Over at National Geographic they helpfully provide a chart of all seven positions.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Jun 15, 2016 - Comments (2)
Category: Nature, Science

Court rules sun uninhabitable

Godfried Bueren of Germany declared that there were areas on the sun cool enough to support human life. He offered 25,000 marks to anyone who could prove him wrong. So the Hamburg Astronomical Society sent him a list of reasons why he was wrong. When Bueren refused to pay, the society took him to court. In 1953, the court ordered him to pay up.


Palm Beach Post - Mar 22, 1953



More info in Time - Feb 23, 1953:

Legally Hot

Through years of spare-time dabbling in such occult sciences as prophecy and mental telepathy, Godfried Bueren, 70, a West German patent attorney, never lost his amateur enthusiasm for astronomy. Finally, he announced, he had learned something that professional astronomers don't know. The sun, asserted Herr Bueren is a hot, hollow sphere, a million miles in diameter; inside its fiery shell floats a cool core, 600,000 miles thick and lush with vegetation. What's more, he had 25,000 marks ($5,945) that said he was correct about the sun.

When Herr Bueren announced his startling theory, most scientists shrugged it off. But the German Astronomical Society accepted the challenge. Said Hamburg Observatory Director Otto Heckmann: the society would like to keep such "silly ideas" from attracting too much attention. Besides, the society needed the money.

Like schoolmasters marking a poor student's test paper Dr. Heckmann and a couple of scientists sharpened their pencils and set to work on Herr Bueren's theory. The sun's corona does blaze at approximately 1,000,000° C., they conceded, but who can believe that the enormous heat is caused, as Herr Bueren also insisted, by cosmic particles striking the sun's outer atmosphere? Why shouldn't the same particles bombard the earth and set it glowing? And did Herr Bueren really believe that sunspots are gaping holes in the sun's shell, opening on to a cool black core where plant life changes heat into chemical energy, thus lowering the temperature? Pure nonsense, said the scientists. As for heat-reducing plants: Dr. Heckmann & Co. pointed out that science knows of no plants that use up all the energy available to them.

A Bueren-picked jury of West German scientists studied the astronomical society's arguments and solemnly announced the the Bueren solar theory had been demolished. His bald pate flushed with anger, the sun-gazing patent attorney refused to pay. "People who want to cash in on the money," he cried, "do not even pay attention to what I have to say."

But Dr. Heckmann and colleagues, having paid attention to the prize offer, sued Bueren in the Osnabruck court. "Science cannot always say what is correct." they argued, "but we have advanced so far as to be able to say what is wrong."

Last week, despite Herr Bueren's dark mutterings that his professorial jury had been intimidated, the court found the sun's core legally hot, ordered him to hand over the 25,000 marks plus a year's interest at 4% and court costs.

Posted By: Alex - Tue Jun 14, 2016 - Comments (6)
Category: Eccentrics, Science, 1950s

Fetal Soap Addiction

June 1988: Australian researcher Peter Hepper reported in the medical journal The Lancet that fetuses often appeared to learn to recognize the theme tune of their mother's favorite soap opera. As a newborn baby, hearing this tune would then calm them down.

He tested this hypothesis by playing the theme tune of the Australian soap "Neighbours" to a group of newborns whose mothers watched the show. Upon hearing it, he reported, six of the seven babies promptly adopted a "quiet alert state."

The Lancet - June 11, 1988





Des Moines Register - June 29, 1988

Posted By: Alex - Tue Jun 07, 2016 - Comments (4)
Category: Science, Experiments, Television, 1980s

The Production of Warts by Suggestion

Back in 1981, Dr. Melvin Gravitz (a doctor at George Washington University Medical School) published an article in the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis in which he noted that it's possible not only to cure warts by hypnotic treatment (sometimes) but also to produce warts by suggestion as well.

Gravitz wasn't actually doing this himself, but he reported that back in the early 20th century (and presumably earlier as well) creating warts was a popular pasttime among girls in the Swiss canton of Vaud:

Charles Baudouin, a contemporary Swiss, noted that the canton or province of Vaud, in which Lausanne is located, was well known for its large number of lay wart healers. It was also possible for a patient to employ a prescription for the treatment of warts without consulting one of these folk healers. "In these cases, autosuggestion is seen in all its beauty. Prescriptions pass from village to village and 
hamlet to hamlet. Some of them are incredibly quaint. For example, to cause 
warts, the subject goes out one evening, moistens the tip of the finger, looks 
at a star, and simultaneously applies the
 wet finger-tip to the other hand. The operation is repeated, the finger being freshly moistened with saliva each time, while the subject counts, 'one, two, three . . .' up to the number of warts desired. Now, wherever the moistened finger-tip has been applied, a wart duly appears."

He noted that such practices were a form of amusement among the Vaudois girls who derived pleasure from passing their own warts on to someone else. "A ribbon is tied around the affected hand, and is knotted as many times as there are warts on the hand; then the ribbon is dropped on the highway. Whoever picks it up and unties the knots, will get the warts, and the original owner of the warts will be cured."

Posted By: Alex - Mon Jun 06, 2016 - Comments (9)
Category: Science, Psychology, Skin and Skin Conditions

Three-Winged Chickens

1950: Scientists at UCLA breed three-winged chickens. More buffalo wings on one bird!

Herald and News (Klamath Falls, Oregon) - Nov 9, 1950



The Eugene Guard - Nov 15, 1950

Posted By: Alex - Thu Apr 21, 2016 - Comments (9)
Category: Animals, Science, Experiments, 1950s

The Science of Craps

If this is true, I assume the effect isn't significant enough to overcome the house advantage.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Sep 7, 1937

Posted By: Alex - Sun Apr 10, 2016 - Comments (9)
Category: Science, 1930s, Gambling, Casinos, Lotteries and Other Games of Chance

True Legend

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Andres Ruzo grew up with the story of the boiling river as told to him by his grandfather. Later, as a geoscientist, he decided to try and validate the legend. The Boiling River: Adventure and Discovery in the Amazon is the story of how, as a man, he proved the legend that captivated him as a boy.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Feb 17, 2016 - Comments (5)
Category: Geography and Maps, Science, Books, Myths and Fairytales

The MRE Diet

Army researchers are conducting a study to try to improve the healthfulness of MREs (meals, ready-to-eat), and they're looking for volunteers.

To qualify to participate, you need to live near Natick, Massachusetts and be willing to eat MREs (and nothing but MREs) for 21 days.

But the researchers say the lack of variety won't really be that bad because they've managed to come up with a book of recipes using only MRE ingredients. Recipes include "everything from specialty beverages ('Canteen Irish Cream Latte') to main dishes ('Bunker Hill Burritos') to desserts ('Fort Bliss-ful Pudding Cake')."

More info: Army Times.

Posted By: Alex - Thu Dec 31, 2015 - Comments (5)
Category: Food, Military, Science

Seeing The Light

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For those who wish to recover their sight promising research is being done by the Universities of Bern, Switzerland and Gottingen, Germany. The process is called Optogenetic therapy and is expected to help those who have lost their sight due to some degenerative diseases of the eyes. Certain proteins are inserted into cells in the retina causing those cells to sense light. The effected cells then act in place of the light sensing cell that were destroyed by the disease process. This treatment has already been successful in returning sight to mice. It is not a cure for all blindness but it is certainly a great step forward in treating blindness due to degenerative diseases. There seems to be a long way to go before it will be ready for human use but the journey has at least begun.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Oct 02, 2015 - Comments (2)
Category: Science, Universities, Colleges, Private Schools and Academia, Eyes and Vision

Science Quiz

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Try this science test and see how you score.

Posted By: Alex - Sat Sep 26, 2015 - Comments (20)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Quizzes, Science

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Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

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