And yet it moves…
A recently-discovered belt of rock in China proves that plate tectonics, the movement of giant plates of rock that forms mountains and causes earthquakes, has been going on for 500 million years longer than previously thought. The rock is actually a 100-km-long ridge that formed 2.5 billion years ago. Scientists believe the minerals in the rock deformed at high temperatures and then crystallized in the heat, implying that the rocks were moving away from ocean ridges as they formed.
Source: BBC news
Most male lions don’t have bushy manes
Zoologists at the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History have determined that the length of a lion's mane has less to do with health and virility than it does with their environment. The researchers found that lions living at higher elevations and colder climates tend to have larger manes than ones living in very hot plains. They propose that the traditional picture of a bushy and luxurious mane is probably mostly due to the fact that most lions studied in the past have come from regions of high elevation, and when they are moved to zoos in colder climates, they grow more fur in response.
Source: New York Times
Male wasps easily confused
Researchers in at the Geobotanical Institute in Zurich have found that the male Australian wasp cannot tell the difference between a female wasp and a particular species of orchid. The orchid mimics the coloration of the female wasp, causing the male to try and mate with it. The male then tries to mate with other orchids, thereby pollinating the flowers. This confusion actually puts the propagation of wasps at risk, since the female wasp is wingless and depends on the male for food and mobility.
Source: Science Magazine
The road less travelled
There are many instances where the minority is the best place to be. The best roads in rush hour are the ones where the fewest people are; the best time to sell your stocks is when everyone else is buying them. Mathematicians at Hebrew University in Jerusalem attempted to find the best strategy to try and stay in the minority. They assembled a group of people together to try and find the winning strategy. Generally, the people who hedged their bets, learned from past experiences and tried to find patterns did better than those who took wild risks. Neither group, however, did as well as the best choice: random guessing.
Source: Nature
And finally…
The word "housewife" was pronouced "hussif" up until the sixteenth century. According to The Origins and Development of the English Language, compound words that are used a lot tend to be run together, like breakfast and cupboard. On the other hand, as words fall out of general usage, their "authentic" pronounciations tend to come back- as in forehead (used to be fored), grindstone (grindsten) and wristband (rizbend).
