Do you like dropping bits of trivia to look smart? Are you dating someone majoring in biology, and get totally lost whenever they tell you about their classes? Do you like fun facts? I love fun facts. I also love biology. So, here are some fun bio facts that probably get me a little more excited than they should.
1) Snails, octopi, and squid have blue blood
No, they are not a family of cops on a prime-time drama. Vertebrates such as fish, lizards, and mammals all have a molecule called hemoglobin in their blood. This uses iron atoms to take oxygen from our lungs, and move it to the rest of our body efficiently. This iron is what makes our blood look red. But, snails and squid are mollusks, so these guys do their own shit. They use a molecule called hemocyanin to move oxygen around, and since hemocyanin is copper based, their blood looks blue. And, if that’s not something right out of "Star Trek," I don’t know what is. Friggin’ awesome.
2) Neanderthals cared for their elderly, and buried their dead
When you think of a Neanderthal, you probably think of some sort of ape-man, hunched over in a cave throwing rocks at things and grunting. Turns out, these early humans were a lot more cultured and sophisticated than we give them credit for. We’re not talking "Downton Abbey" cultured, but still, in La Chapelle-aux-Saints, France, archaeologists found an extremely well-preserved Neanderthal skeleton. After examining it, the archaeologists discovered that not only was this guy intentionally buried there, he was missing a lot of teeth when he died, and had some serious hip problems. Basically, the dude was really, really old. That means his Neanderthal buddies would have helped him eat and walk around, and if that doesn’t warm your heart at least a little bit, then you should get yourself checked out.
3) Your cheekbones evolved to take a hit
Here’s a more violent science fact: Your face is literally designed to take a punch. David Carrier and Michael Morgan, two researchers at the University of Utah, have published a theory that very distant human ancestors began to increase the mass of their zygomatic arch so that they didn’t crack their skulls as easily when they went toe to toe in the Octagon - or whatever the early hominids’ version of the Octagon was. So, the next time you take a sucker punch to the noodle, don’t worry. You were built to survive that. It will still hurt though, sorry.
4) Sharks do not pee.
I saved the best for last. Sharks are by far the most badass fish in the ocean. Everyone knows that. I mean, you don’t see a whole week of TV dedicated to rockfish. But, by far, the coolest thing about sharks is that they don’t have to pee. Just imagine for a second how convenient that would be. Every other fish in the ocean constantly has to pee out electrolytes and urea (the stuff that makes pee yellow) in order to try to keep the salty ocean from sucking all the water out of their bodies. But, sharks are too advanced to pee like the other peasants of the sea, so instead, they adapted their bodies to tolerate high levels of urea. Essentially, this keeps their body at the same level of saltiness as the ocean, so sharks don’t pee or dehydrate. It’s crazy. This stuff blows me away guys, wow. I need to go sit down.
