Fast Facts for Monday!

Being an educator in Biology, I've accrued some of the most interesting biology facts over the years. Here's a fast five!

1. Earthworms 69. Why? Because they are hermaphroditic, meaning they make both eggs AND sperm. Since the boy end is on one part of the worm and the girl end is on a different part, 69-ing is well.... the only way you can get the parts together. ...sorta. I've always wondered about earthworm orgies, but one has learned not to wonder too too much on that sort of thing. BTW, earthworms are FAR more flexible than we humans will every be....they don't have bones!

1. Before the biotechnological convenience of pregnancy tests, Egyptian doctors would use female Xenopus frogs. When these frogs were incubated overnight in a woman's urine, they would lay eggs if she was pregnant...and not lay eggs if she wasn't.
2. Most male mammals have a baculum, or a penis bone. Walruses have the largest baculum on the planet. In case you are wondering, humans do not.
   
3. Ever wonder why when you find aphids, you also find ants? Ants "farm" the aphids and eat the "dew" that they produce. What's the dew, you ask? Aphid pee.
4. According to the National Geographic, Genghis Khan has over 16 million descendants all over the world! How do we know this? Unlike your other chromosomes, the Y chromosome is passed on identically from father to son along the paternal line. You can actually track Genghis Khan's migration across Mongolia by the number of Y chromosomes he happened to "leave" along the way. -VERY interesting article, by the way!

Happy Monday everyone!