Weird Science

 

Hayter for Feb 5, 2023

“You’ve gotta take your hat off to Sea Spiders”

        I’ve made no secret of the fact that I should’ve been a scientist. I generally skim news stories for movies that may have just come out, goings on in the NFL, and scientific discoveries.

        Yep, the country missed out on a pretty good scientist. The major obstacle in my way was my lousy grades in all of my high school and university science classes. Chemistry? I had to learn stupid formulas for stuff I’d never even stepped in.

        Biology? I had to dissect a worm. That doesn’t do any good to mankind? When my big brother Dennis took biology he got to dissect a cat. I never reached the level of cutting open any type of Felis Catus. 

        All of my intellectual limitations aside, I really liked science. Still do. That’s why I was so taken aback by the headline, “Sea spiders can regrow their anus.” Forget the anus part, I never knew there was any such thing as a sea spider.

Now that I know spiders are living in the depths of the ocean, I am in no way surprised that they can regrow their rear ends. The fact that they can live in the ocean, indicates to me that they can pretty much do whatever they want…except live on land.

The one thing that raised my curiosity was how scientists discovered the regrowing of body parts of oceanic arachnids. Did scientists take turns diving to the ocean floor in search of rear-less sea spiders?  “Well did you find any this time, Harold?”  --  “No, all spiders had anuses intact. And during my examination of them, some of ‘em started laughing at me. I’m not going down there again. I suggest we capture a few of ‘em and amputate the butts off of ‘em. See how they like that!

The thing is, neither one of us would’ve known any of this, had it not been for the title of the article. You see, when I’m looking for something to read, I always look at the title first. I know some of you go straight to the second sentence, but that’s not the way I work

So, I’m skimming article titles online, and nothing was doing it for me. But, this one stopped me in my seat… had I been jogging it might have stopped me in my tracks. – “Sea spiders can regrow their anus.”

That immediately caught my attention, because I thought the word “anus” when referring to the body part of several spiders would need to be pluralized. I assumed that referencing the rear ends of all Sea Spiders would require the plural of “rear end”.

I’m pretty sure many of you don’t like to see or speak the word “anus”. I’m not all that excited about it either. One of my biology professors used the word a lot. And, let’s face it, I was almost a scientist myself.

It turns out that I thought the article boring. It involved a bunch of scientific terms that turned me off.  But, I was interested enough to find out what other animals can regrow body parts. I already knew that lizards could. But, didn’t know for sure if all lizards could. – Some can, some can’t.

Earthworms? Don’t get me started. If push came to shove, an earthworm could turn its anus into a head. For whatever reason, God gave the earthworm some serious leverage.

An alligator can regrow part of its tail. The skin and cartilage, but not a whole tail. And especially not a hotel. The problem is, alligators can’t regrow tail bones. Few of us, can. Without bones in its tail, an alligator would be laughed out of the swamp.

But, if you want to know the most adaptive creature on the planet -- it’s the salamander. Those things can regrow a leg, tail, skin… even their tongue, assuming they have one. They can even change skin color to the color and shade of whatever object they’re sprawled out on. Now, that’s a magical creature.

Kind of like cats. I imagine a cat can do the same thing. I’ve never studied felines much because I didn’t want to. So, I’m not sure of their limitations. But, I will fight and die for your right to not only read about cats, but own one. However, even if cats can regrow their tails, I’ll bet they can’t do it while living at the bottom of the ocean like sea spiders.

Before you leave, let me give you the topic of my next science-related article. -- “Scientists say the universe is hotter than it should be.” That title obviously brings up more questions than Sea Spider bottoms.

As of right now, the farthest galaxies we’ve been able to detect with the Hubble telescope are 13 billion light years away. With our new “James Webb Telescope we’ll likely be able to see more than twice that distance. How much further does the universe go? Forever?

Yet, scientists have the audacity to tell us that the “Universe” is too warm. I guarantee you that more parts of the universe are getting colder than hotter. I’ll explain it to you the next time I’m really digging for something to write about.

Hey, I’ve read a lot about space and have seen a bunch of movies about it. In fact, I should’ve been an astronomer. And, I would’ve been, but the math was way over my head.

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