Does an animal exist which actually eats its own brain every year?

This is our last visit together before Christmas (and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa), so I would like to take this moment to wish you a very, very happy celebration!

I hope the event you celebrate is full of fun, love, life and happiness.  It should be … you sure do deserve it.  You put up with me every week.

And be here next week, for our final journey together for 2024.  (I make it sound like this is all coming to an end, but you know better than that!  I plan to be here for a long, long time to come.)

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Happy Kwanzaa!  And enjoy the trivia, too!

Did you know …

… 1945 was a very bad year for the city of Hiroshima, Japan?  One month after the first atomic bomb used in war was exploded over the city, in August of 1945 – a blast which killed 135,000 people – the city was hit by a massive typhoon.  Another 2,000 people were killed.  

… there just might be something to those old good-luck charms?  When President William McKinley (1843-1901) was visiting the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901, he was wearing his trademark red carnation, which he usually wore for good luck.  While greeting the crowd, McKinley smilingly gave the carnation to a 12-year-old girl, saying, “I must give this flower to another little flower.”  Minutes later, McKinley was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz (1873-1901).  The president died of his wounds eight days later.  (Must remember to replenish my stock of red carnations!)

… one of the most endearing characters in the movie Cast Away was created by accident?  Screen writer William Broyles, Jr. (born 1944) based his story on the classic Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), updated for the modern world.  To do research, Broyles stranded himself on an isolated California beach for one week.  During that week, a volleyball washed up on shore, and the idea for the character of “Wilson” was born.  The volleyball became the boon companion of the character played by Tom Hanks (born 1956), and Hanks himself said that Wilson is probably how his character kept his sanity during his isolation.  From a storytelling point of view, Wilson also allowed Hanks’ character to have dialogue during the scenes on the island.  (Hey, we all talk to ourselves, don’t we?)

… blonde hair is seen as a strength in fairy tales?  In such stories as Rapunzel, Rumplestiltskin, Cinderella, and of course Goldilocks (my spell checker just went crazy), the female protagonist is universally shown as having blonde hair, denoting strength, untarnished beauty, youth, and indestructibility.  By comparison, brunette or dark red hair on women in those stories is associated with vice and evil.  (There’s a message here, but I’m not too sure what it is.)

… a book by one of the worst humans in history made money for 70 years after his death?  Mein Kampf, written by Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), was a best-seller in Germany in the period before and during World War II, when possession was all but mandatory.  After Hitler’s death, the royalties from the book – yes, people still bought it and they still buy it today – went to the government of the German state of Bavaria.  Mein Kampf entered public domain in 2015, seventy years after Hitler’s death, and the state of Bavaria no longer receives any profits from the book.  (Would you want the money?  Money is money, I know, but I wouldn’t.)

… a tiny animal exists that eats its own brain each year?  Bear with me a moment.  The common shrew, a cute little insectivore that grows up to four inches long, has a real problem every time winter comes along – it doesn’t hibernate, but it’s so small it would have a hard time finding enough food to stay alive.  So the shrew does something incredible – as winter approaches, the shrew will eat up to eight times its own weight, then it will live off the fat during the cold months.  Once the fat is gone, however, the shrew still has to survive, so it actually digests part of its brain.  In a process called Dehnel’s effect, the shrew “consumes” about a quarter of its brain mass to stay alive.  The wildest part?  Once the winter fast is over, the brain regenerates itself, and the animal’s skills and memory are unaffected.  (And then it goes into politics.)

… a well-known musician has had his entire genome analyzed by scientists?  Singer Ozzy Osbourne (born 1948) has been examined thusly for one primary reason – to determine how he survived decades of extreme drug abuse.  (Just lucky, I guess.)

… the idea that we are not alone in the universe is not new?  Ancient writings from Greece indicate that they considered the idea that there are other intelligent life forms in the universe.  (I’m not all that convinced that we have intelligent life on this planet.)

… spring showers take place away from Earth?  So far as we know, they also take place on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.  To be sure, they’re not like spring showers here – on Titan, it’s bitterly cold, and what falls in the showers isn’t water, but liquid methane.  But they do take place during “spring” on that far distant world.  (Yes, but do “they bring the flowers that bloom in May”?)

… the longest possible walking distance in the world is about 14,000 miles?  One can, if one is inclined to do so, walk from the town of Magadan, Russia, to Cape Town, South Africa, without having to resort to flying or sailing.  (It’ll take a while, but think of the exercise you’ll get!)

… Lego™ toys and tattoos have something in common?  The ink in tattoos and the plastic that makes up the popular toy Lego blocks are both made from the same material – acrylonitrile butadiene styrene.  (No, I don’t know how to pronounce that.)

Now … you know!