Platypus fact of the day: the non-furry parts

The platypus, being a creature that spends much of it's time in water, has adorable webbed feet, like many animals. He uses is front feet to paddle, alternating strokes like you would with a kayak paddle. The rear feet and tail steer. (Guess how many mammals swim this way? Did you guess "only one?" If so, you're correct!) He's kind of like a duck in that sense.

The bill of the platypus, however, is very different. For one, it's not a beak. A bird opens its beak and there's its mouth in the middle. A platypus's bill is not divided equally: it's mouth is on the bottom. This is because the bill proper is a sensory organ. Yes, Mr. Platy's nostrils are located on the top front of the bill, but he doesn't hunt using scent. No, he hunts underwater, with his eyes and nose and ears all tightly sealed up, and he ueses electroreception to find his food.

You know the three general types of animals that use electroreception underwater? Sharks, rays, and of course our baffling friend the platypus.

Platypus fact of the day: venom

The platypus is one of only a handful of truly venomous mammals. Both males and females start life with little 'spurs' just above each hind leg, but the females don't produce venom and the spurs basically fall off within the first year of life. The male produces venom, and can articulate the spur to a 90-degree angle to attack.

The venom isn't powerful enough to kill most animals, though it is apparently extremely painful to humans. Because of this it's not likely used strictly as a defensive mechanism, and the fact that venom production increases around mating season indicates that it may just be used to fight other males for dominance.

And of course, we're not entirely certain how their venom works; many venoms cause tissue to die, whereas the platypus skips that.

Platypus fact of the day: genes and girly parts

part one of a new daily feature

Humans, of course, have two pairs of sex chromosomes: XX or XY. The noble platypus has five pairs (ie, a male platypus is XYXYXYXYXY, while a female platypus is XXXXXXXXXX). However, being the platypus, their chromosomal system is weird, and may or may not be more similar to the ZW system, found mostly in birds, where the female has a 'Z' and 'W' chromosome and the male has two 'Z's.

We do not know how those chromosomes functionally turn your little embryonic 'pus into a male or female. Pretty much all other mammals have a gene called SRY, which codes for a certain protein that makes boys into girls: everyone starts out female, in a sense, but if you have that Y chromosome, SRY starts being produced. Unless you're a platypus, in which case you lack the SRY gene, and we haven't a clue how it works.

But if you do turn out to be a girl platypus, congratulations! You're a girl! You have...well, an ovary and a half, really. Technically, you have two, but unlike even your few fellow egg-laying mammals, only your left one ever fully develops. Why? Because you're a platypus, that's why. You also get two uteruses, though presumably, the right one is pretty much useless.

You produce milk, like all other mammals, but unlike most of them you lack teats. Instead, you have pores on your abdomen which you secrete milk from, and it pools in little grooves in your skin, so your little one can lap it up.

And if you're a very nice platypus, someday genetic research on you, you lovable weirdo, may save some human ovaries.

Attn: Netflix robots

Appropriate "more like this" suggestions for the movie Carrie: The Evil Dead, Fallen.

Debatable appropriate "more like this" suggestions for the movie Carrie: In The Bedroom.

Deeply inappropriate "more like this" suggestion for the movie Carrie: Bolt.

An important point about weight gain/loss

Inspired by a combination of things I've read recently:

You are not fat because of your genes. You are not fat because of your self-diagnosed (or medically diagnosed) thyroid condition. You are not fat because of the alleged toxins in your food. You are not fat because your deity of choice hates you. You are not fat because of your friends.

You are fat because you regularly consume more calories than you burn.

If you change this, by altering your dietary and exercise habits (ie, stop with the McDonalds and TV, and start with the fresh vegetables and running) so that you burn more calories than you take in, you will lose weight.

Eat healthier food. Eat reasonable amounts of that food (look it up; you don't need a quarter pound of fatty, low-grade meat for lunch). Leave the TV off in the morning and go for a run before work (it's easy, you don't need a gym or an exercise plan, just some decent shoes and the slightest trace of willpower), or after work, or on your lunch break (because you're bringing a salad from home instead of running out to McDonalds). Continue doing so.

Congratulations! You're beginning to move from 'fat' to 'not fat'! Can we please move on as a society now?

Did you know...

If Jupiter were to gain a significant amount of mass (ie, pull in more stuff), it would in fact decrease in size? Because science is *weird*.

Getting to work today

So first there was some alarm clock trouble, and then some 'I am incapable of ingesting a liquid without spilling all over everything' trouble. I finally got out of the house already late.

The side street I normally take, which cuts through the fairly low-traffic plaza area, was closed. Aargh. So, I turn right instead, am unable to get into the left-turn lane, so I wait it out and do the crosswalk thing. I proceed to get caught behind one of those street-sweepers.

My normal speed while commuting is, I think, about 15 miles an hour. Apparently street-sweepers go at about 13 miles an hour, which takes up so much of the lane and is so wobbly I need to actually get into the left lane to get around him, and I can't find a big enough break that will allow me to. So I hang back to avoid the noxious fumes and dirty spray and wait and wait and wait and wait and finally the light way back behind us changes, so I can sprint past the street sweeper, and while I'm there turn left to get over the block I need to be to get to work.

Then there's a garbage truck! Which I can't get around because it's in the middle of the narrow street! And also there's two cars behind it, and also the little robo-arm that grabs the garbage bins appears to be freaking out; it just keeps raising and slamming back down as the truck sits stationary in the middle of the street.

So instead of my normal ~8 minutes it took me about 15 minutes to get to work, and I was grumpy.

Phreaking Phillies

Game 4 of the World Series. You're trailing the series 2-1.

In the bottom of the eighth you tie the game up, 4-4.

Top of the ninth. Two outs. No one is on base. Two strikes.

And then, somehow, inexplicably, amazingly, you lose by three.

My. God.

Today

Today I:
*Went to Target to buy necessary things (including marked-down candy, flannel bedsheets, and drano)
*Wrote the first 1,928 words of my NaNoWriMo novel (which will be terrible, and I still have no idea what it's about)
*Finished the above in time to watch the Phillies game
*Debated whether or not I want to watch the Phillies game based on the outcome of the last two
*Decided that I would feel responsible if the Phillies lose and I don't watch, because the single area of my life where I am completely and totally superstitious is baseball

This is more than I have done in the past several days combined. I hate being sick, and greatly prefer not being sick.