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Have a Happy Thought: It’s that time of year again! Where we get to celebrate science that seems… ridiculous. But then it makes you go “hmm” : The Ig Nobel awards!! Let’s start with interior design. Those of you who actually have green fingers might always be able to tell the difference, but I often struggle to figure out whether a plant is real or fake. Turns out, it’s not just me - some plants are starting to mimic non-plant shapes around them! The leaf on the left is the ‘natural’ shape for this plant. The leaf on the right was grown by an actual living plant when it was grown near to an artificial plant with a simple oval shape to its leaves. Image: White & Yamashita, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15592324.2021.1977530   Let’s stick with things inside our houses for now… we all know that the direction our toilets flush isn’t impacted by whether we’re north or south of the Equator, right? Well, the persistence of that myth got some researchers to wondering what

Have a Happy Thought: In my so-close-to-13 years at Auckland Council, I have sent over 52,000 emails (yes, that is a LOT). The most important series of these started on July 6th, 2018, when I sent this out to about 10 people:         That's the origin of these friday missives, and hopefully the subject line of these emails makes a little more sense now On to this week's mind-blowing fact: Coal, that black substance that kicked off the modern industrial age and is also somehow still a threat as a dud-stocking-gift for bad boys and girls, almost didn't exist. At least, not in anywhere near the abundance we found it. See, coal is basically super-compressed peat, which is less-compressed-but-not- decomposed trees and other vegetal matter. Peat bogs today exist because of the lack of oxygen within these local watery environs, and this lack of oxygen slows down or prevents the decay of any plants that fall in. (And sometimes, even preserves animals !) But most of the coal in the

Have a Happy Thought:     People can be funny about money, especially in Canada.   For one, the common name for the $1 coin is a “ looney ”, named so because of the image of a Common Loon (bird) on that coin: Image: the reverse side of a Canadian dollar coin minted in 2013. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loonie#/media/File:Canadian_Dollar_-_reverse.png     For two, or rather for the $5 bills, “Spocking” bills used to be a thing in Canada. The image of Sir Wilfrid Laurier (the 7 th Prime Minister of Canada, for those of you, like me, who need brushing up on your Canadian political history) lends itself nicely to this use. It’s a bit less common now with polymer (plastic-based) notes, although some people still find a way. Image: three instances of Sir Wilfrid Laurier on the Canadian $5 note, edited by pen to appear like Leonard Nemoy’s Spock from the Original Star Trek. Source: https://mastodon.social/@MeanwhileinCanada@ohai.social/112797697246289965     It got s