THE COW KILLER

The velvet ant is not actually an ant but is instead a wasp. The female of the species is wingless and looks like a corpulent ant wearing a fuzzy red (or yellow) and black Hudson Bay blanket; the male has wings, can fly, and often bears little resemblance to the female.

When pregnant, the mama velvet ant will enter the lair of other species of wasps or bees which live in dens in the ground and lay her eggs near the host bug larvae, which will then become the food of the future baby velvet ants.  She will also kill the adult host bug.

The female velvet ant is not aggressive (see previous paragraph for a possibly contrary opinion from other wasps or bees) and relies on her bright color and, if molested, a loud chirping sound to deter potential predators. However, if these methods do not work, she will hulk out and go medieval on her attacker multiple times with a huge stinger.

The female velvet ant is also known as the "cow killer," as her sting is so painful (3.0 on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index) that it was once believed to have been powerful enough to dispatch even a 1,500 pound bovine.  The boy velvet ant, who has no stinger, will nonetheless act like he does have one and will usually be able to bluff his way out of dangerous situations.

PENNIES FROM HEAVEN

One common hypothesis is that if one were to drop a penny from a great height, such as the Empire State Building, it would be as lethal as a bullet should it strike someone on the ground. Well, would it? Unlikely, unless you can do the experiment in a vacuum. Because of the shape of the coin and its low mass (about 2.5 grams), it would quickly be affected by the air and achieve a terminal velocity (i.e. the velocity where it stops accelerating due to the resistance of the atmosphere) at only about 25 mph (40 kph). Rifle bullets, on the other hand, usually have muzzle velocities exceeding 1700 mph (2700 kph) and are generally configured to minimize air resistance.

In 1964, I tested the penny hypothesis by tossing out a cent from the crown of the Statue of Liberty. Instead of plummeting straight down, the coin kept flipping over and over and leisurely descended with a gentle curve to the right--notwithstanding the fact that the coin was heavier, at 3.1 grams, than its modern 2.5 gram counterpart.

In recounting this tale from my misspent youth, I am not advocating that others experiment by throwing money from tall structures. I am older (and marginally wiser) and realize that some coins, such as this one, could inflict injury if dropped from high altitudes.

Speaking about the effect of air on coin trajectories, some cowboy movies and books feature sadistic gunslingers loading a black-powder shotgun using silver dimes instead of pellets on the theory that they will be able to inflict unusually grievous injury with the money shot. Based on the reports by those who have tried the dime experiment* (at least those who have tried it and not have had the shotgun blow up in their hands), a load of dimes can cause serious carnage against a target. Unlike our previously-mentioned penny, the dimes are traveling at speeds far in excess of terminal velocity when they leave the barrel. While the presence of air will quickly slow them down (as well as cause them to veer in unpredictable trajectories), they would be devastating at short ranges. However, unless you are hunting for werewolves, silver dimes are probably not as effective or accurate (or as cheap) as regular buckshot.

*Notwithstanding the availability of YouTube videos on employing unusual projectiles in a shotgun, I cannot endorse the concept of experimenting with homemade firearm loads, as the aforementioned grievous injury (i.e. death, blindness, or maiming) will be inflicted on the shooter from the slightest miscalculation--especially with modern high-pressure smokeless nitrocellulose-based powder.

HOW CHICKENS INFLUENCED THE JAPANESE PICKUP TRUCK MARKET

By IFCAR (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

In the early 1960s, several European countries imposed tariffs on chickens from the USA. As a result, one of the first things Lyndon Johnson did when he was sworn in as President was to sign a bill authorizing retaliatory tariffs against foreign countries on the importation of brandy, industrial starches, dextrin (used in envelope glue), and finally, a 25% tariff on foreign-made pickup trucks. The tax on trucks was intended primarily to suppress the importation of Volkswagen light trucks, as Germany was one of the prime chicken tariff offenders, but the law applied to trucks from all foreign countries.

Thoughout the 1960s, foreign pickups were much smaller (and more fuel efficient) than American-made trucks but, because of the tariff, cost nearly the same. Gas was cheap and plentiful, so there was no incentive to purchase a foreign truck, and very few persons did so.

However, after the gas crisis started in 1973, small trucks suddenly became more desirable. Subaru, in an attempt to crack the US market, imported a vehicle called a "Brat." which was a small truck with two plastic chairs in the bed. Because of the additional seating, the vehicle was legally classified as a passenger car and could be imported without paying the tariff. Most purchasers would take five minutes to unbolt the chairs, discard them, and then be the proud owner of a normal small pickup truck. A few demented souls (and I personally know one of them) would insist that a seat is a seat and that a passenger should be happy to sit out in the bed in 40 degree rain while the truck was going 70 MPH down the interstate.

The tariff is pretty much of a joke these days, as foreign manufacturers now actually make the trucks in USA factories or, in some cases, import them with the bed separated from the rest of the vehicle (thus making them only truck components, which are not subject to the tariff) and then bolting the bed on after it passes through Customs.

Of course, with President Trump's current ping-pong ball approach to tariffs, any factoid regarding them is probably outdated as soon as it is released. Perhaps Congress should reconsider its prior decisions to delegate so much of its power to levy tariffs to the Presidency.

THE PECULIAR NAGANT REVOLVER

Most revolvers, Hollywood and novelists notwithstanding, cannot be effectively equipped with a silencer at the muzzle, as part of the sound and fury of the explosion is expelled to each side of the handgun where there is a gap between the cylinder and the barrel, as illustrated by the following photo:

The exception is the Belgian-designed Russian-made seven-shot M1895 Nagant revolver, which has a unique mechanism which shoves the cartridge forward from the cylinder into the barrel itself. This configuration prevents any gases or flames from escaping except at the muzzle where they belong and where they can be suppressed by a silencer. It also increases the velocity of the bullet, as none of the energy from the blast is being dissipated out of the sides of the weapon. 

The Nagant was made from 1895 through 1945 and saw intensive use in World Wars I and II. It is renowned for being extremely rugged, extremely reliable, and extremely slow and awkward to reload. It also features one of the hardest triggers to pull of any sidearm made. Due to both its suitability for a silencer and the practices of the Stalin regime in general, probably more Soviet subjects were killed by the revolver than were enemy soldiers. Nagants, along with an American-made Colt M1911 and a German-made "broomhandle" Mauser, were the handguns used on the Russian royal family in 1918.

The Nagant revolver depicted below is one of many fascinating items which had been displayed a few years ago within a special series of exhibits on World War II at the Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum and Boyhood Home in Abilene, Kansas. The museum also has as part of its standard exhibits quite a few unusual and interesting small arms from that conflict.

MOONBOWS

 

Arne-kaiser, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Moonbows are the same as rainbows except that the moon, instead of the sun, is the source of light.  They are very rare due the fact that all conditions have to be exactly right in order for them to be visible.  The only two places on earth where there is any reasonable chance of finding one on a regular basis are at Cumberland Falls near Corbin, Kentucky or at Victoria Falls in Zambia.

Due to the low level of illumination, the human eye usually perceives the moonbow as pure white.  However, if a time-lapse photo or a photo with high-speed film is taken, the full colors of a normal rainbow will be visible in the picture.

THE SAGA OF THE APOLLO 13 CAPSULE

View image | gettyimages.com

Oldsters among us as well as connoisseurs of Tom Hanks movies will recall the saga of the Apollo 13 lunar mission of 1970, which was crippled by an oxygen tank explosion 200,000 miles from earth (which is a bad place in general to have explosions on your vessel). Through incredible ingenuity, resourcefulness, and courage on both the part of Mission Control and the Apollo 13 astronauts, the crew finally was able to return safely to earth four days later after orbiting around, but not landing on, the moon. The only injury suffered was that of astronaut Fred Haise, Jr., who developed a dehydration-provoked urinary tract infection resulting from the necessity to ration drinking water severely after the explosion.

You would think that this mission would have been a source of pride for NASA, considering the heroic rescue of the astronauts against overwhelming odds. However, NASA was embarrassed by the fact there was an explosion in the first place and a failure to complete the mission's objective to land on the moon. NASA therefore refused to allow the display of the Apollo 13 capsule within the United States. As a result, the main part of the capsule itself (named "Odyssey") resided for many years in the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace in Paris, while some 80,000 sub-components were sent all over the world for research or for display. Finally, however, NASA relented. The Cosmosphere (Hutchinson, Kansas's leading aerospace museum--and one definitely worth visiting) acquired the Odyssey through the Smithsonian Institute and, after a 12-year long quest for the 80,000 sub-components and a subsequent restoration, now has it on display.

Astronaut John Swigert was a last-minute addition to the crew after one of the other astronauts had to be scrubbed for medical reasons. Swigert, in his rush to get ready, failed to file his tax returns prior to embarking on the mission. When the capsule splashed down on April 17, the crew was transported to nearby American Samoa, where Swigert was handed a 1040 form with orders to complete same.

For the official NASA description of the events which occurred on the Apollo 13 mission, please click here.

THE PRODUCTION OF SPAGHETTI

COPYRIGHT BBC

You may recall the infamous April Fool's prank promulgated by the Daily Telegraph in London in 2008 which introduced the world to the Olympic sport of Poodle Grooming. However, this was not the first time that British media has tested the gullibility of its customers on April 1.

For another prime example, one only has to watch the BBC's broadcast of the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest of 1957. In this report, the BBC filmed pastoral clips of Swiss spaghetti farmers harvesting their crop from their orchards and preparing the freshly-picked noodles for the annual spaghetti festival. The viewers also learned that the dreaded spaghetti weevil posed a major threat and that Swiss production was of course eclipsed in volume by that of the major spaghetti farms of the Po Valley in Italy.

Approximately 8 million Brits watched the program on April 1, 1957. The relative novelty at that time of television in Britain, the lack of familiarity with pasta by most Brits in the 1950s, and the narration of the program by respected broadcaster Richard Dimbleby all contributed to many viewers believing the story to be true and calling the station for information on how to grow their own spaghetti trees. The BBC told them to "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."