true facts – The Red Pen of Doom

KILLER SURFING SNAILS is the science video we need in the hellscape of 2020

October 8, 2020August 3, 2021Posted in 5 Random ThursdayTagged climate change, covid apocalypse, funny videos, honey badgers, killer surfing snails, science documentaries, true facts, waterworld, weird news1 Comment

Documentaries can be amazing, or put the B in Boring–it all depends. Kinda like straight-to-streaming movies. YOU NEVER KNOW.

This, now, is completely educational while being insanely good and hilarious. I could not love it more. Seriously.

Take a look, then we’ll talk snail smack.

What’s so good about this?

The best thing is how the narrator doesn’t skimp on the science. At all.

It’s easy to do a Honey Badger video, where you go all SNL skit and continue to riff on the same joke. Still funny. Just not a ton of science there. We learned that honey badgers are tough, resistant to cobra venom, and willing to take on anything. A classic video, but that’s pretty much it.

This killer snail video, now, crams in tons of science. An amazing amount. The full Latin names of species, the specific names of weird snail body parts, the chemicals involved in digestion and such. It’s crazy.

You truly learn about tons of different species of snails, and in a way that would help you remember those details on that BIO 245 test. If I had to study for that thing, I’d be watching and rewatching this video at 3:30 a.m. in a dorm room instead of staring at the same pages of a textbook trying to memorize the differences between all these snails.

The real trick is how skilled the narrator is at interweaving joke after joke–unique ones, not the same solitary riff–in clever ways.

He never stops informing you, and entertaining you. Which is an incredibly hard thing to pull off.

Also, it’s shocking how violent and crazy these snails are, and how they’ve developed all these different methods of surfing and preying on things. Did you ever think of snails as being secretly badass? I never did. Thought they were slow little vegetarians. NOPE.

VERDICT

I’ve always loved the True Facts series, and this one is an unlikely treasure, a total gem.

Please keep making these. It’s a public service to get us stoked about science, which kinda matters if we want to (a) survive the covid zombie apocalypse, then (b) beat climate warming without (c) giving up and building WATERWORLD-style sailboats like Kevin Costner.

True facts about the Mantis Shrimp

May 7, 2015August 3, 2021Posted in 5 Random ThursdayTagged animals, funny videos, mantis shrimp, true facts, weird news1 Comment

This. So much this.

If you haven’t seen his other videos, they’re all worthwhile. He does a beautiful impression of Morgan Freeman narrating, and the writing for each video is spot-on.

I salute you, sir.

Super-powered mutant Avenger of the ocean: The Mighty Cuttlefish

April 3, 2014August 3, 2021Posted in 5 Random ThursdayTagged animals, Captain America, captain america's shield, cuttlefish, muffin-chokers, Thor, thor's hammer, true facts, vibranium, weird news, Wolverine5 Comments

I understand an octopus, a squid and a clam. Clams have shells. Squids and octopuses (octopi?) have tentacles and such.

But this alien beast has a shell — inside its body.

The cuttlefish’s bone is made of aragonite, the same special metal used to graft Wolverine’s claws and skeleton* and Captain America’s shield** — but not Thor’s hammer, which came from the heart of a dead star.***

Plus it’s got all kinds of other mutant super powers, like a poisoned beak, tentacles, a giant brain, secret alien-like jaws that sneak out of nowhere to eat fish — and color changing powers that make it practically invisible.

Think you’re iPhone’s fancy Retina screen is amazing? The cuttlefish has 200 iridophores and eucophores per square millimeter, which equals out to 359 dots per inch. Want one of those 4k screens but don’t have $10,000 to buy one? Make friends with a herd of cuttlefish and get them to spread out on your living room wall, then fire up THE MATRIX, but not the two sequels, which were a waste of Keanu Reeve’s precious time and $279 million in CGI effects.

Here’s a good look at the cuttlefish from my favorite animal documentary series on the planet, True Facts:

*Note to comic book gurus: Yes, I’m kidding. Wolverine’s claws and such are made of adamantium, which is created when titanium dioxide reaches the earth’s mantle and is compressed by millions of pounds per square inch at 4,500 degrees Celsius, then remerges to the surface through millions of years of plate tectonics along with the help of all kinds of Red Bulls and shots of bourbon while the comic book writers at Marvel try to make it all sound two-thirds scientific, one-third magical and 143 percent awesome.

**Also, the famous shield of Captain America is actually made of vibranium, a real metal alloy that’s also used in the manufacture of the B-2 stealth bomber because of its unique radar-absorbing properties. Vibranium is only found in one place: the southern pole of Mars, meaning all traces of it on earth came from a massive asteroid striking the pole and sending debris raining down upon Africa, the only continent where vibranium can now be mined. Buying this so far? Okay. There are these penny stocks, and if you know which ones to buy, you can turn ten cents into a dollar, $1 into $100 — and $100 into $100,000. All you have to is subscribe to my financial newsletter to learn the secrets of true wealth that Wall Street doesn’t want you to know.

***Actually, that part is true. Dead star, all the way. Not making it up.