Anton Rubaclini wins the Tweet of the week award.
I found this pretty amazing. A beetle whose defense mechanism is the ability to shoot hot boiling liquid and gas at an attacker. The beetle produces the liquid using an exothermic reaction of hydrogen peroxide and peroxidase enzymes. The temperature of the expelled liquid is around 100C.
Photo by Patrick Coin License: CC BY-SA 2.5
Every year there will be a story on the news about a lobster man that found a “rare blue lobster” and ends up donating it to science. I heard such a story this weekend and have a couple of thoughts about it:
1. If blue lobsters are so rare, how come every year there’s a story about one being found?
2. What’s with the donating to science?
According to Wikipedia, “A genetic mutation causes a blue lobster to produce an excessive amount of a particular protein. The protein and a red carotenoid molecule known as astaxanthin combine to form a blue complex known as crustacyanin, giving the lobster its blue color.”
It seems to me the science is pretty well understood, so what’s the purpose of donating it to science? Do the scientists really use it for research?
I’m guessing a bunch of scientists were enjoying nice lobster rolls this weekend.
Lobster roll image by Lee Coursey