Friday, February 27, 2015

Marge Simpson... the "woman" behind the tall hair.

So we all know who Marge Simpson is from The Simpsons. And if you don't your life has kind of lacked meaning.

I recently found out a few months ago that the reason she has that tall hair was because Matt Groening (the creator of the show) had a long time running prank he was going to play on all of us and reveal on the last show that she was in fact a rabbit from another show of his Life Is Hell.  So behind all that hair is a set of tall bunny ears.

He later ended up giving up on that idea because the show will never clearly end.


Friday, February 20, 2015

Spider Web... You Are The Weakest Link....

So the Golden Orb spider doesn't produce the worlds strongest biological material anymore. Sorry spider fans.

Scientists have recently discovered an even stronger material. The tiny teeth of the Patella Vulgata Limpet in Southampton U.K. The teeth are on something resembling a tongue which the gastropod uses to scrap the rocks for algae.

The tensile strength needed to break these teeth is 3-6.5 gigapascals (GPA). If you're having a hard time relating that to the everyday (as I did), it is in the order of a strand of spaghetti holding up 3,000 pounds.

The teeth get their strength from being made by a mineral called goethite which contains iron in a fiborous structure and are encased in a protein.

Image via University of Portsmouth