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June 29, 2004:
Fun
Facts About Nature
Interview
with Hampton Sides author of the book, Why
Moths Hate Thomas Edison
Mike
Carruthers:
Ever wonder why moths are attracted to and fly around light
bulbs.
Hampton
Sides:
It comes down basically to the fact that moths have
really bad eye site and they think that light bulbs are the
moon.
Hampton
Sides is editor of the book Why
Moths Hate Thomas Edison.
Moths
all over the world fly around light bulbs and they are used
to navigating by the moon kind of getting a bead of things by
the light of the moon. And they fly near a light bulb they think
is the moon. And they try to, kind of redirect their course
but they fail.
Ever notice
those little lizards you see around, they look like they're
doing push-ups.
We looked
around and found a woman who had done her PhD thesis on lizard
push-ups. Basically it's a mode of communication. The push-ups
depending upon how fast they're executed and how long they're
executed can mean any one of number of things like this is my
turf get away from here, or I'm in the mood honey.
And ever
wonder what the difference is between a river, a stream and
a creek?
There
in fact is a body called US Board of Geographic Names that presides
in Washington, D.C. over the naming of every river and steam
and lake in this country. But however, they take the position
that it doesn't matter, in this case they go with local preferences
to local towns and what they prefer to call these things.
Tomorrow,
why geese fly in that "V" formation. I'm Mike Carruthers
and that's Something You Should Know.
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