12 Farm-Fresh Trivia Tidbits for Tuesday, December 24, 2024

For the most part, fish are all capable of drinking, but osmosis determines whether or not they need to. Freshwater fish are constantly absorbing water into their cells, because their innards are saltier than the water around them, so they don’t really need to drink. But saltwater fish are constantly losing H2O via osmosis, so they need to gulp water and process it through cells designed to remove the salt.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science has declared a new HIV prevention medicine as the biggest achievement of the year. The drug lenacapavir not only seemingly keeps people immune for up to six months, but represents a potentially game-changing new way to attack viruses (targeting a very specific protein that acts as a shell around its genetic material).

Making their short list of biggest scientific advancements of the year were: another successful new approach to autoimmune disease treatment, RNA-based pesticides and the discovery of a whole new type of magnetism.

Their biggest disappointments of the year were: our collective failure to learn any real lessons from COVID, psychedelic therapy failing to be legalized, global funding to fight climate change coming up way short and anti-intellectualism in politics kneecapping science across the board.

Science writer Saloni Dattani has written an explainer for five huge medical breakthroughs you may not have heard about. She included lenacapavir, as well as medicines for food allergies, schizophrenia, weight loss and lung cancer.

Scientists developed a weird little robotic lollipop that uses electrical impulses to activate flavored gels to varying degrees. Currently, users can taste the nearly limitless combinations of salt, sugar, cherry, citric acid, green tea, passion fruit, grapefruit, durian and milk.

A U.S. Navy ship shot down a U.S. Navy plane over the Red Sea. Both pilots were able to eject safely.

Someone donated an “almost perfectly spherical egg” to a British charity, and it was auctioned off for $250.

The original henge was built around 3,000 B.C., and it was rebuilt with additions about 500 years later. A new study suggests that it served as a project to integrate early Britons as a wave of immigrants moved to the area. That would explain why incredibly huge blocks were lugged from all over the place — it was a symbolic movement of unity.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava pardoned two baby pigs, Glinda and Elphaba, from their fate as part of a traditional Cuban-American Christmas Eve dinner.

Svalbard reindeer only live on a small cluster of islands in Norway, and are basically capybaras with horns. They average about five feet in length and three feet in height, and are fatter and hairier than any other reindeer species.

University of Kansas anthropologist Justin Holcomb is calling for a directory of discarded human-made objects and space craft that are currently eroding on the surface of Mars: “The solution to trash is removal, but the solution to heritage is preservation. There’s a big difference.”