Did you know Methuselah is purported to have regularly drunk his own urine. This is credited to his longevity - he lived to 969 years of age!
a bone marrow transplant. The DNA in a blood sample from someone who has had a bone marrow transplant may actually reflect the donor rather than the recipient. The reason for this is because the actual blood stem cells are transferred after all the recipients cells have been killed off with treatment. Because of this, the recipient will produce blood that contains the donor's cellular elements and almost none of his or her own DNA.
My apologies to those who read my blog - thank you for doing so.
Due to holidays and illness my blog has taken a back seat to other areas of my life. However, over the next couple of weeks it will resume and I will be back providing snippets of information, dispelling untruths and finding out just how things do work!
Take care
Annie from The Gap
So there you have it, those smellies really are smellier in the shower!
We had a great question last week, a young listener was wondering whether Prince Leonard of Hutt was still around and if his country still existed?
The answer is yes! In fact the Principality of Hutt River is still going strong having just given out their 2008 Honours Awards.
If you haven't heard of Prince Leonard and the Principality of Hutt River keep reading because you are in for a treat. His previous name was Leonard George Casley and he was embroiled in a long running dispute with the Government of Westerna Australia over "draconian" wheat quotas in 1969. Casley and his associates resorted to a British Law (the Treason Act 1495) which allowed them to secede and declare their independence from the Commonwealth of Australia.
On the 21st April 1970 to principality of Hutt River was founded. Leonard Casley became "His Royal Highness Prince Leonard I".
They have a great website which can be found at http://www.principality-hutt-river.com/ and it is really interesting to have a look around.
Last week we had some interesting questions about the habits of our animals!
Where do birds sleep at night?
Birds tend to sleep in the same areas they inhabit during the day. They usually find a safe place and if possible they huddle together with other birds. Water birds will often sleep whilst floating on water or standing on one leg on the edge of a pond and other birds will find shelter in trees with thick foliage.
Some birds can even sleep whilst flying ... true! Birds can sleep with one eye open and this is called unihemispheric sleep and it means that half the brain is asleep and the other half is awake. This gives them the ability to watch for enemies and still catch up on sleep – and this is what allows them to fly whilst sleeping. 
For those birds who do stop and rest to sleep, they fluff up their feathers to provide insulation and turn their head and rest it on their back. This gives their neck muscles a rest.
Have you ever wondered why birds don’t fall off their perch when sleeping? It is because of a special muscle around their knee joint. When they squat down and slightly bend their leg, this muscle pulls the claw muscles tight and helps them clasp around the perch. A bird cannot move his foot until he has straightened his legs.
Ashley from Belmont State School asked how he could tell whether his baby grey cockatiels are boys or girls?
The sex of normal grey cockatiels can be easily determined once the adult
plumage is through at about 6 months. Unfortunately other than having expensive blood/dna tests done by a bird vet it is impossible to tell the sex of a cockatiel before this time.
However, once the adult feathers are through, depending on the colour variety the male usually has a brighter yellow face, whereas the female only has traces of yellow around the beak eyes and forehead. The male's tail feathers will be a solid grey color with no striping, but the female's will remain striped and they will have yellow spots on the underside of their flight feathers. See the picture here thanks to http://www.birdhealth.com.au/
Lilly asked, why do frogs croak more when it is raining?
In most frog species it is only the males who croak and they mostly croak to attract female frogs for mating and to warn other males away from their territory. 
Many tree frog species let out a “rain call” when rain is coming to advertise the fact they are there ready and waiting and that the weather conditions are perfect for mating – lots of water for egg laying and nice moist conditions outside the pond. Very romantic!
6 February 2008
Today we had a question from Melissa Wu, Australia's youngest National Diving Champion, who is fitting in her school work around her gruelling 6 hour per day training schedule. Melissa had a tricky question in relation to her school work.
She wanted to know if Dopamine makes Parkinson's disease more active or less active?
Parkinson's Disease occurs when there is a lack of Dopamine in a specific part of the brain. It happens when there is a destruction of brain cells in the substantia nigra region which is the area responsible for many types of muscular movement. The substantia nigra controls muscular movements by releasing a neurotransmiter called dopamine which is needed to carry nerve messages from one brain cell to another resulting in smooth controlled movements. Without Dopamine the brain has abnormal firing patterns causing the jerky uncontrolled movements of Parkinsons.
There is also evidence that a lack of Dopamine is present in people with ADD. It seems that Dopamine's main role is to slow things down and keep things calm and controlled.
31 January 2008
Kelsey asked us a great question today about cloud seeding. It produced a fairly long answer though - hope you enjoy it!
How does cloud seeding work and how do they actually know when it has worked?
First we need to know how rain starts. It starts as tiny droplets of water suspended in clouds. Then the droplets clump together into bigger drops (or freeze together into bigger crystals). Once the drops or crystals are big and heavy enough, they fall out of the sky. The frozen drops can melt on the way down, becoming rain, or they can fall to the ground as snow or hail.
Cloud seeding aims to jump-start this process by helping droplets to c
lump or freeze together when they otherwise wouldn't. To do this they usually sprinkle silver iodide from above by plane. Silver iodide (AgI) is a chemical compound that can be used in photography, as an antiseptic in medicine and for rainmaking and cloud seeding. Pictured is a Cessna Plane with cloud seeding equipment fixed to it.
To get the best from cloud seeding, weather forecasting techniques are used to detect suitable clouds in the location and target area as it is only effective in a limited number of weather conditions. A cloud must be deep enough and of a suitable temperature (between -10 and -12 degrees) and the wind must also be below a certain speed – mountainous areas seem to be the best. The silver iodide, which has a cyrstalline structure similar to that of ice, speeds up the freezing
In some places they use dry ice or propane as the gas expansion cools the air to such an extent that ice crystals can form spontaneously from the vapour phase and unlike silver iodide, the clouds don’t need ice crystals in them already.
It is difficult to measure just how much rain would have occurred had the cloud not been "seeded". The cloud did have rain in it and whether or not the seeding produced more rain is really not known. It may speed up the rain process though. However, there is credible scientific evidence for the effectiveness of winter cloud seeding over mountains (to produce snow) than there is for seeding warm-season cumuliform (convective) clouds.
The most successful seeding in Australia has been carried out in Tasmania around the Hydro Water scheme area. The perfect cloud which has been seeded should take 30 minutes to precipitate.
There have been concerns about the long term environmental effects of using silver iodide crystals and the rain containing this chemical can be absorbed by animals, plants and collect in catchment areas. The effects of this are still being debated. Not everyone is for cloud seeding as some scientists believe manipulating the natural pattern may impact on eco systems reliant on a certain amount of rain. Farmers downwind of cloud seeding events sometimes believe their rain is being stolen by seeded clouds.
In Beijing they fire silver iodide rockets into the sky where rain is desired. They plan to use cloud seeding before the Olympic Games to help clear air pollution.
30 January 2008
To see a rainbow, one has to have rain and sunshine. A rainbow does not actually exist at a particular location in the sky. It is an optical illusion whose position depends on the observer's location and the position of the sun. The position of a rainbow in the sky is always in the opposite direction of the Sun with respect to the observer, and the interior is always slightly brighter than the exterior. The bow is centred on the shadow of the observer's head.
29 January 2008
The white or white spotting gene has the ability to prevent pigment granul
es from reaching one eye during development, resulting in a cat with one blue eye and one green, orange or yellow eye. This rare eye colouring is most commonly found in white cats, although it can be found in any coloured cat in which the white spotting gene is present.
Tip #3
When using Google, did you know that behind the Google Home page are stacks of other useful search tools? On the top left hand side where your options for images etc are, choose the last option "more" and then select "even more". This opens up a world of search help tools. There are plenty of options here, but to find even more scroll to the bottom and select "Web Search Features". My favourite is Q&A.
Have a look around - there is a lot more to Google than meets the eye!
What happens to cows that aren’t milked. Do they swell up and get mastitis?
Dairy cows have been selectively bred over the years so that they produc
e 20 times more milk than their calves need. Dairy cows usually have a calf each year in order to produce milk. Cows, like humans, need to have a baby to produce milk.
However, cows used to breed beef cattle produce just the right amount of milk for their calves and like wild cows, they have tiny udders, not the huge ones you see on dairy cows. Like humans, once the calf doesn’t require as much milk the milk supply starts to dwindle. They don't usually have any problems, but Dairy cows are susceptible to Mastitis due to the large volumes of milk they produce.
Why is the wedding ring worn on the 2nd last finger on the left hand?
There are many theories as to why this particular finger came to symbolize marriage.
Both the ancient Romans and Egyptians believed that a vein - called the vena amoris in Latin - ran directly from that finger to the heart. Science has since disproved that theory, but it is still romantic to think that our wedding rings are on a direct path to our hearts.
In medieval England, a bridegroom would slide the ring part way up his bride's thumb, index and middle finger, saying "In the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost" as he passed each one. He then put the ring on the next available finger - the third finger of the left hand. This practice was finally formalized in the 1500's when Henry VIII's son authored The Book of Common Prayer, which gives English modern Protestant wedding vows and decrees on which finger our wedding rings should go.
However, in some parts of continental Europe it is and always has been worn on the right.
Let's bust a couple more of those "Amazing Facts" doing the internet rounds. Whilst researching for this I found a similar blog by Frankie Roberts which is worth a look if you like this kind of stuff. http://www.popularmisconceptions.com/blog/
Coca-Cola was originally green. This one appears on most all of those "Amazing Facts" lists. It is totally ... FALSE!
Coke was invented quite by chance when John Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist, was inspired by simple curiosity. One afternoon, he stirred up a
fragrant, caramel-colored liquid and, when it was done, he carried it a few doors down to Jacobs' Pharmacy where they mixed it with carbonated water and gave samples to the customers who all agreed -- this new drink was something special. Jacobs' Pharmacy put it on sale for five cents a glass. Pemberton's bookkeeper, Frank Robinson, named the mixture Coca-Cola®, and wrote it out in his distinct script. To this day, Coca-Cola is written the same way. Coke is, was and always will be a caramelly brown colour - never ever green!! There's lots more about the history of Coca-Cola here:
http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/heritage/ourheritage.html
It is impossible to lick your elbow ... FALSE!
I think this is included on these lists just to make people try it for themselves rather than being there as a real fact. I bet you just tried it! Do a search on http://www.youtube.com/ and you will find plenty of videos of pepole doing it. How? you might wonder as you are trying to lick your own elbow and not succeeding.
The basic essential is a rather long tongue, but failing this, if you have very flexible arms or can easliy dislocate your shoulder you could also do it. The average person might not be able to do it, but if you have any of the criteria above you probably can.
In fact, The Guiness Book of Records were receiving at least 5 claims per day from people who can do this. It is NOT a category and the only way they could get into the book was if their tongue was longer than the current record holder, which is an incredible 9.5cm long! You can see a picture of his tongue here http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records/human_body/extreme_bodies/longest_tongue.aspx
Today an interesting question came up about whether or not listening to classical music actually helped you learn by helping the memory retain facts?
Apparently there have been studies done that show listening to classical or jazz music while studying can enhance memory and the amount of information you retain. It 
is known as the "Mozart Effect". There is even a site dedicated to this http://www.mozarteffect.com/ffect.com/ Studies show that music with at least 60 beats a minute will increase your heart rate which will relax your muscles and open your mind allowing the memory to expand ... hmm not sure, more research needed here.
However there are also skeptics out there who debunk this theory see www.skepdic.com/mozart.html The jury is still out and I will continue my research into this. If you have any theories or facts please let me know!
I have many favourite sites I visit regularly when researching my Radio Solutions answers. Three of my favourites are:
www.howstuffworks.com
www.wisegeek.com
www.answers.com
Again - remember - always research thoroughly and don't rely on the first answer you come across as being correct.
I will be posting lots of favourite sites as the weeks go on. Come back and visit often - you might find yourself a new favourite!
The initial coat of arms was granted by King Edward VII on 7 May 1908, and the current version was granted by King George V on 19 September 1912. The current version differs from the original as it has a spray of wattle behind it and the shield shows symbols of each state of Australia.
The term ‘coat of arms’ refers to the 11th to 15th century custom of displaying the arms on a tunic or coat worn over armour.
Tell me what you wonder about? I'd really like to know!
When a player crosses the line to score in Rugby games why do they call it a TRY?
In the very first games of rugby you could only score points from 
kicking the ball from a spot over the cross bar. You earned the opportunity to 'Try' and kick for goal by carrying the ball over the 'Try-Line'.
In the late 1800’s this changed and the act of scoring the “TRY” earned points which changed the objective of the game away from just scoring goals.
A great site for Australian Rugby Union is www.aru.com.au and for loads of information about current and past Rugby League facts etc www.australianrugbyleague.com.au
Why don’t singers have strong accents when they sing?
It's all to do with how the vowels are pronounced. The bulk of the identity of a regional accent lies in the vowels, not the consonants. There are certain ways to form vowels that are common to every sung language. When singing, vowels are articulated more openly than normal and with greater length, so regional distinctions are usually disguised.
Speech and song are controlled by two different areas of the brain and this also makes stuttering disappear when singing.
Tip #2 - Search Words Part 1
Be creative with your search words. For example if you want the answer to a question, type the question in the search box - you will be very surprised how many people have asked that very same question in one of the many Question and Answer sites on the web. It's a great starting point. Just remember - many of the answers are incorrect as they are just everyday people giving their opinion. You will need to research your answer further, refer to Tip #1.
Creative Googling always gets a result!
Why are some chicken eggs white and some brown - is it because of the colour of the chicken? 
The colour of a chicken's eggs is determined by the colour of her earlobes. If the earlobes are white, the hen will lay white eggs. If the earlobes are red, she will produce brown eggs. The pictured chook will lay brown eggs because of the red earlobes - the earlobes are that bit of flesh to the left of the wobbly bits under the beak.
Was there an Olympic Champion female who turned out to be a man? 
Yes and No. Stella Walsh was a dominant sprinter of the 1930s and 1940s who emigrated to USA. She competed for Poland at the 1932 Olympics and won gold in the 100-meter dash. She continued to compete as an amateur until 1954 and was inducted into the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1975. Five years later she was killed by a stray bullet at a Cleveland shopping center.
An autopsy surprised everyone by showing that Walsh had male genitals and both male and female chromosomes -- a condition known as mosaicism.
16 January 2008
Why do they put Maru at the end of the name on Japanese ships?
In Japanese, Maru means circle or something that is loved - the word maru is often part of boys names in Japan to indicate how much a boy is loved. There are still disputes in Japan as to the actual origin in regards to ships and 2 of the more popular possibilities are:
Who was the oldest cricketer in Australia to make his test debut?
Bob Holland from NSW made his test debut at the age of 38 in the test match against the West Indies in Brisbane in 1984/85. He was a spin bowler.
Where does the saying "the world is his oyster" come from?
The proverb first appears in Shakespeare's play "The Merry Wives of Windsor" in 1600.
Falstaff: I will not lend thee a penny
Piston: Why then the world's mine oyster, which I with sword will open
In this context it was used as a threat when Falstaff refuses to lend Pistol a penny, Pistol promises to use his sword, if not on Falstaff, then on other helpless victims to pry open their purses. These days it means someone is young, good looking, fortunate and somewhat arrogant and they are claiming that the world's riches are yours to leisurely pluck from the shell.
Tip # 1 - Not everything on the Internet is FACT
The internet is a wonderful research tool, however it needs to be used correctly. Just because it's on the internet it doesn't make it true or accurate. Never take the first answer you find as fact. If it sounds plausible, research it further to prove it's authenticity.
Happy researching!
I thought I'd do something different today ... you all know those random lists of hard to believe facts that are always being sent by email ... well, do you often wonder whether they are true or not? Lets have a look at some!
Pope John Paul II is an honorary member of The Harlem Globetrotters
TRUE: The pontiff was made an honourary member of the comedic basketball troupe at Vatican City November 2000. The Pope met with the Globetrotters owner and chairman Mannie Jackson, plus five players wearing their trademark red, white and blue warmup suits.
He was presented with an autographed basketball and his own named and numbered jersey, No. 75, and posed for photographs.
The average person eats 12 spiders in their sleep during their entire life
FALSE: Spiders don't actually like our warm breath and will stay away from our faces when we are sleeping. As well - who stayed awake and sat with a person while they slept their entire life to count how many spiders they ate? Who has ever woken up with spider remains in their mouth? Finally, why would a spider crawl into a wet damp mouth that was moving and making noises?
Female ferrets can die if they go into heat and cannot find a mate
TRUE: Ferrets, like cats, are induced ovulators. An induced ovulator is any animal that stays in heat until they mate. Once they mate they will ovulate. They do not necessarily need to become pregnant to go out of heat, but they must mate. Female ferrets are prone to severe anemia if allowed to remain in heat for long periods of time. This has been reported to be fatal for the unaltered female. In addition, the immune system of female ferrets in heat is usually lower, making them prone to infection and disease.
Another interesting Ferret fact is that ferrets are the only animals that can catch colds and flu from humans. TRUE!!
The bubbles in Guiness Beer sink to the bottom rather than float to the top like all other beers. No one knows why.
FALSE: This phenomonen does not only happen with Guiness - it happens with other beers. And people do know why ... it has been scientifically proven. See the video here: http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2004/march17/beer-video-317.html As explained in the video, the bubbles go up more easily in the center of the beer glass than on the sides because of drag from the walls. As they go up, they raise the beer, and the beer has to spill back, and it does. It runs down the sides of the glass carrying the bubbles -- particularly little bubbles -- with it, downward. After a while it stops, but it's really quite dramatic and it's easy to demonstrate."
Why do they tell you to put the window shades up when a plane is landing?
Window shades have to be up on landing so that if the plane crashes the emergency services can see inside the plane and check for survivors and work out what needs to be done first. If they can't see inside they don't know how injured people are.
Where do flies go at night and where do mozzies go during the day?
Flies go up elderly men's nostrils at night ... you can see their legs hanging out the bottom!
Seriously ... flies hang on the underside of leaves, or in dark crevices etc and become dormant as their body temp cools down. When the sun reappears they move to a warm surface and bask until their body temp reaches a level at which the flying muscles will function.
Mosquitoes rest in grass and weeds when they aren’t buzzing around looking for a blood meal. Most species of mosquitoes are at their most active in evenings (sunset) and stay up most of the night until sunrise and certain mosquito species are active during daylight hours if disturbed.
What is the difference between a Tsunami and a Tidal Wave?
Tsunamis are caused by an earthquake, a landslide, an exploding volcano, or even a meteorite impact which causes a large displacement of water resulting in a surge when it hits the coastline.
A Tidal Wave is a "shallow" water wave caused by the gravitational interactions between the Sun, Moon, and Earth.
In short - if it is as a result of the tides alone it is tidal, but if another force is involved it is a Tsunami ... simple really!
Why does the hair on our head keep growing and growing but hair on other parts of our body only grows to a certain length?
Hairs keep growing as long as the follicle is active. The "lifespan" of follicles, or hair growth cycles, differ depending on the location on your body.
For example, scalp hair has a growth cycle of about 7 years, but this varies widely from person to person. The idea is then that your hair can grow and grow for seven years! Then, it stops growing, and it can stay in the follicle for a while before it finally falls out. The hair on your face and nether regions has about a 1 month lifecycle, and your leg and arm hairs, are only a certain length because the follicles are only active for a few weeks. These time frames can vary from person to person and are dependant on health/lifestyle etc.
