h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Pedro, could you elaborate? By what criteria are they so closely related to us? By DNA? By genus and phylum (or whatever those words were that I supposedly studied more than a quarter century ago )?

I thought it was fruit flies

Count, Starfish (and the rest of the Echinoderms) are the closest relatives of the Chordates. All other animals are more distantly related to us. I got that from 'The Ancestor's Tale' by Richard Dawkins, and I'm sure the evidence will be genetic.

Gotcha. I suspected as much.

Charles Schultz died on the very day that his last Peanuts comic was published.

*Schulz

Oops. I just finished reading the article (by Bill Waterson) and there was a correction.

*This review incorrectly states that Charles Schulz died on the same day that his last "Peanuts" comic strip was published. He died the night before, on Feb. 12, 2000.

Perhaps because he can't write them when he's dead.

No, they are written/drawn before they're published.

Typically weeks in advance. Schulz had already announced that he was retiring as his shaky hands and ill health were making it too difficult. Everyone knew when his last strip would be running ahead of time.

This useless fact is not new to people here, I would guess, but the New Testament begins by elaborating 42 generations Abraham to Jesus: 14 to David, 14 to the Babylonian exile, and then through to Joseph's dream telling him to go ahead with the marriage despite the child's being technically a bastard.

Only if born outside of wedlock. But Mary and Joseph were married at the time of birth, if not conception.

Okay. Anyway, some other guy's biological spawn (Doubtful Jesus lacked a navel, and he clearly wasn't Joseph's).

While it's very irritating for me to admit it, the alleged virgin birth Jesus Christ is at least theoretically possible:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis#Mammals



Though improbable to such a degree that I doubt there are even names for numbers that big. Even putting aside parthenogenesis, artificial insemination, cloning and embryo transfer could all be used on a virgin woman, though humans did not possess the necessary technology at the time. However, let's say some aliens were passing by Earth one day and, for whatever reason, perhaps as an experiment, much as one might experiment on a rat, decided to impregnate Mary. It would be at least as likely, if not much more so, than saying that "God" had anything to do with it.

Virgin birth is possible without any artificial aid, because sperms swim. For entirely unethical reasons, I know of a woman who had several children and remained virgo intacta. She claimed that she was "too small" for penetrative sex, and had her children by caesarian section.

True story.

Now get those images out of my brain...

Or, I dunno, could it be that the virgin birth part of the story was cobbled in generations after the fact?

Anyways, this is Useless Info, not Useless Mythology.


Did ya know that Lifesavers candies spark when you crunch down on them. Wint-O-Green flavor is the most impressive as the methyl salicylate in the wintergreen oil is fluorescent. Biting into the candy excites electrons in the sugar crystals basically causing a spark (triboluminescence). This spark excites nitrogen atoms in the air which emit ultraviolet light. This light excites the methyl salicylate which emits visible light.

We don't get exciting things like that in Europe. We'll have to take your word for it, CZ.

Certain types of Duck Tape do the same thing when ripped apart.

Stick the duck tape to itself (sticky side to sticky side) and rip apart (in the dark or you won't see it)

Actually, Trillian's Child, you do. It doesn't have to be that name brand mint. Apparently anything with sugar and wintergreen oil should do the same thing. Here's the highly informative article I read this in (I had previously known about the Wint-O-Green Lifesavers, but didn't know that others worked as well).
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/05/all-lifesavers-spark-when-chewed-not-just-wintergreen/

Starfish are poisonous to cats.

Which is one reason why cats don't tend to hunt them.