Penultimate

 This is a word that I think should get used more often, and I think it really fits to post today. 

Penultimate: The second to last. The one before the last. 

Today is the Penultimate day of 2024. 

As a tag along, Antepenultimate is the third from the end, the one before the penultimate. 

This word isn't often used, but also isn't entirely unknown. I think it's one of those words that we wonder if English has a word for that and never actually check because next-to-last works pretty well most of the time and is actually one letter shorter for the three words...but maybe next time you want to sound smarter or more formal or something, this might be a good word to pull out. 

Sources:

Merriam-Webster

Dictionary.com

Encyclopedia Britannica

Cherry Picking and Options

 This is going to be a bit of a weird post, but I kinda wanted to say it because I've been thinking about this a lot lately, so I just want to share my thoughts on this so you can understand what I'm thinking, or tell me yours in return. I would love some feedback. 

I love trivia. I love learning new things. I love random information. This means that I can tell you that there are no green mammals, aside from possibly the three toed Sloth, but that's only because of the algae that grows in their fur. This means I can tell you that there is a type of seal called the crab eating seal, but it doesn't eat crabs. Same goes for the bird eating spider. It means I can tell you that there is a 'vampire deer' that has fangs but no antlers, that the largest species of otter and the largest species of salamander are both about human sized, that humans have lost wars with birds twice, and a thousand other things. But, I don't know a lot of other things about these things. Some, but not a lot. 

Part of me writing up these posts is me telling you something interesting and looking into things I haven't thought about for a while, but part of it is also wanting to get other people interested in the chaotic interestingness that this world is. So, when I make my posts, I'm trying to get people's attention, and I post sources you can go to if you want more. I do this because there is a lot of information that I find repetitive/boring/obvious, and I don't think they help the post. Me telling you about the eating habits of the Rainbow Squirrel and how much they eat doesn't matter when the really interesting parts are their size and coloration. Same goes for their exact ranges, or things like that. I want to get you interested and hopefully you'll look for more. 

This means my posts can be pretty short sometimes, but I think it's ok because I tell you the parts I think you'll remember. 

Today, I was a bit worried that me doing it this way is misleading to you because I'm not giving you the whole picture or telling you nearly as much as the blog posts by people who are studying things more in depth. If it's what people want, I wouldn't mind doing more in-depth posts. I probably wouldn't do them as often and I'd have trouble doing as much of the little things that don't have a lot known about them, but I could do that. I just want that known in case people have preferences. 

I also want to point out that, yeah, I'm cherry-picking. I'm doing a lot of careful picking of facts instead of telling you everything, but so does everyone else. News stories tell you the most sensational bits (the interesting parts) and the parts that you will react to like they want you to. Teachers tell you what you need to know to pass their tests, and what they think will help you be interested in their subject. Cherry-picking is a fact of life, and it's one part of the biases of journalists and news stations and everything else. There is no way to avoid the bias of an author, or the bias of a speaker. It feels paranoid, but try to remember that when you're reading the newspaper or social media or anything else. The internet is especially good at finding things to reassure you that your own biases and interests is everywhere, and that your views are valid. Turning that off is impossible, and trying to go against that can be uncomfortable. Just something to keep in mind for life. 

So...that's me. If you have any questions/comments/suggestions/requests/other, please let me know. I'm writing this blog because I want people to learn something interesting, so please let me know if there's anything I can do to make that easier or more likely to actually happen. 

HTTP 418

 So, I apologize for skipping a few days. I was debating what to do a bit too much. Part of me was considering bringing up water deer, who are a rather interesting set of deer with fangs. They're also known as vampire deer. I thought it might be fun to tell you all about a living saber-toothed creature, other than walruses, but I was also considering just leaving that alone with the last being the first saber tooth ever. I'm going with that, so no more saber tooths. 

I was also considering doing the 12 days of Christmas facts, but things are hectic enough that I don't want to commit myself to that right now. Next year. I'll write up the history of Santa, Saturnalia, candles on Christmas trees, carols with fun histories, how Cardinals got on so many Christmas Cards, and whatever else comes to mind for that. 

Right now though, let's talk about something fun. 

HTTP is the foundation of the internet in many ways, and is where the well known code 404, file not found, comes from. Well, 418 is 'I'm a Teapot'. 

Before you get too confused about this, I'll explain a bit more. So, this was put forth as part of an April Fools thing, but it's also sensical because it refers to the explanation for programs not being able to do things they weren't programed for-- they're teapots, not coffee pots, so don't ask them to make coffee. (Yeah, you can make coffee in a teapot, but that's not what it's supposed to do, so the process needs a bit of alteration.)

So, if someone ever asks you to do something that isn't your job or is beyond what you agreed, remember this and tell them you're a teapot. It might not work, but it's still fun. And if you want to know more, sources are below or you can google things and learn more for yourself. 

Sources:

Web FX HTTP 418

Mozilla Error Code 418

.dev 418

Saber Toothed Still

 I'm really not sure what more familiar animal to compare Tiarajudens eccentricus to. They were around 265 million years ago and had saber teeth despite being an herbivore, like the saber toothed rhino I talked about a few days ago. This creature was the size of a large dog and had saber teeth, along with rows of teeth to possibly allow for rapid tooth replacement like is seen in sharks. There isn't much known about these guys because not much of their skeletons survived to the present day, but we're learning what we can from them. 

We know that they're a vegetarian from their teeth, despite the saber-teeth and their rows of teeth, and they looked a lot like a very large lizard despite being a mammal. We think that their teeth were for protection and possibly mating rituals, since they don't hunt, and that it was the start of what we can see now with some species of deer. 

This picture of them is from both the National Geographic and from Live Science. It's an approximation of what they might have looked like, in part. You can see the saber teeth, and why I don't know what to compare it too. 

This one is from Royal Society Publishing, and shows about how much evidence we've really got of these guys and why we don't know a lot. 

The proof of this creature has been found in South America and South Africa, and they think that it was among the first dinosaurs that managed to have teeth that fit together to grind plant matter to eat. They were also surprising because of the number of teeth they have even on the roof of their mouths. Imagine having teeth above your tongue, that sounds like it would get painful quick. 

Again, not a lot is known about these guys because they're so old that not much survived to now. They were discovered less than 20 years ago, so we're still working on learning much of anything about them. The sources below have what I found, if you want to try to find more, or google is awesome for these things. Either way, have fun and I hope you're as surprised by this creature as I, and many others, have been. 

Sources:

National Geographic--Tiarajudens

National Geographic--Odd Saber Toothed Beast

Live Science-- Odd Ancient Saber Toothed Beast

Everything Dinosaur--Tiarajudens Eccentricus

Dinosaur Facts for Kids--Tiarajudens Eccentricus

Royal Society--Picture only

Phys.Org-- Head Butting Saber Tooth Ancestor

Saber toothed others

I was debating ending the Saber-Tooth listing for now, but I decided against it. Here are some that I decided not to talk about though, because there isn't enough information to justify a full post or they're too similar to one of the others. In this case, because they're cat-types and I don't want to repeat myself too much. Sources are going to be mixed in here this time because I'm going to talk about them a bit more. Sorry if it's a bit weird. 

Firstly, Live Science has an article about different saber tooth animals, including some of those I discussed, but it also has a few species of not-extinct saber toothed animals. I bet you never thought that a walrus counts as saber toothed, but they do. They also have a few different types of cat that aren't the smilodon but did have saber teeth of some form. Included in that section are the scimitar-toothed cats, which is an interesting name. 

Another cat for the list of non-smilodon-saber-tooth-cats is the Xenosmilus Hodsonae, which is a bit new and has only been found in Florida. It got named after one of the researchers that helped discover it, and is also called a Cookie Cutter Cat. The link here will take you to a Florida Museum page that has a lot of information on them. More information can be found on this article from University of California, Bone Clones, and this blog post. 

Another ancient not-cat-saber-toothed-cat is the Barbourfelis Freki. You can find information for on WildFact here, Dinopedia here, and ChasingSaberTooths here. 

And even more is this one-- Hoplophoneus occidentalis. Information can be found on Bone Clones, the Black Hill Institute of Geologic Research here, and Dinopedia here. 

I know this is a bit weird of a post, but I'm still trying to figure out how I want to do all of this, so I can't promise that I won't do this sort of thing again. Either way though, I hope you enjoyed the post and feel free to request a subject for a future post. 

Saber-Tooth Rhino Ish

I hope you'll forgive me for calling it a Rhino. It has no relation to the modern rhino, as far as I know. It just looks a bit like one, and there aren't any listed living relatives. There isn't actually that much known about this critter overall. Part of the reason for that is that they got, unintentionally, involved in the Bone Wars, which is a rather disappointing bit of human history that you can look up later. Short version, a few archeologists in the late 1800's were assholes who wanted to be the best, so they may have destroyed sites they were done with or even stolen each other's bones, and they definitely rushed their science about and caused some animals to get named a few times. It messed up a lot of things that had to get sorted out later. 

So, Saber Toothed Not-Rhino. Also known as Uintatherium anceps, or just Uintatherium. It's the only one in it's family that I know of, though there is a possible second that I couldn't get much information on and is in China, and an ancestor that might be part of their group. It was originally discovered in Wyoming and Utah, and got it's name from nearby mountains. It lived 50-30 million years ago, give or take, in the Eocene Era. 

They have a really thick skull, which is why it survived so well, with a tiny space for a brain, and 6 large bumps on top that might have been used to battle each other for territory or mates or something. The teeth aren't for attacking though, and possibly might have been used as something similar to a rake to gather plants from the water or bushes and keep it near their mouths. 

Doesn't it look weird? That's just the skull, so you can understand why I'm interested. This picture was taken from the Smithsonian link. The one below is from Everything Dinosaur, also in the links. 

Obviously, this is just what someone thinks it might have looked like. No one knows. It's mighty interesting though, in'nt it? If you want to know more, you can use the links below or look it up yourself. 

Sources:

Prehistoric Wildlife-- Uinatherium

A to Z animals--Same

Everything Dinosaur

Global Biodiversity Information Foundation

Smithsonian, a pair of pictures

Dinopedia-- Uintatherium

Saber Toothed Salmon

 Ok, the saber toothed thing might be predictable by now, but who was expecting a Saber Toothed Salmon? 

And, since I said something about it yesterday, I have a little bit of support for the University of Oregon Ducks because they are the notable people studying this surprising fish. 

And now I have a bit of a confession to make. The saber toothed salmon had some later skeletal discoveries that were more intact than the first and they realized that the teeth were actually in the wrong spot, and instead should be pointed straight out, making it a spike-tooth instead of saber. 

So, the fish apparently grew to about 8 and a half feet long and swam around the Pacific Northwest of the United States (where I live) around 5 million years ago, making them both larger and more recent than the anchovy from yesterday. The first skeleton found had a crushed skull, which they had to reconstruct, and that's part of why they got the saber/spike tooth wrong, but they later got some skeletons that weren't crushed and showed how the teeth were supposed to be. 

Despite not having much to compare it to among living specimens, again, they think that the spikes on the sides of their head could be used to deter predators, compete against other salmon, build a nest for their eggs, and keep those eggs safe. So, possibly very useful, unlike some other evolutionary ideas. 

These fish died out as the oceans cooled, so it's entirely possible that they'll come back with the current warming trend. It'll take a while, but it's possible. 

This picture comes from the Museum of Natural and Cultural History, which has the new version of the fish for the model, but the old version for the painting. It was kept to prove that science is always growing and changing and can be wrong--though I would suggest not relying on that if you can help it, because you might not be right about what science is wrong about and that could go very bad. 

So, that's the Saber/Spike Toothed Salmon. Isn't it cool? If you want to know more, there are sources below you can use or you are welcome to look it up elsewhere. I hope you find it as cool as I do though, and maybe throw a cheer towards the University of Oregon next time they're up, just for being the ones to not only tell us about the Saber Toothed Salmon, but also readily admitting when they were wrong, instead of trying to hide it for ego reasons. That's almost as awesome of them as bringing us the fish in the first place. 

Sources:

University of Oregon-- Saber Toothed to Spike Toothed

Smithsonian-- These Massive Salmon had Spiky Teeth

KLCC News-- Eugene Museum gets a Spike Toothed Salmon Skull

National Geographic-- Saber Toothed Salmon

Sci News-- Ancient Saber Toothed Salmon 

Live Science-- Giant Prehistoric Salmon had Spike Teeth

University of Oregon-- Fossil Finds Yield a Surprise About the Saber Toothed Salmon

Deschutes Land Trust-- Uncovering the Saber Tooth Salmon

Saber Toothed Anchovy

 Yes, I've decided to do a string of saber toothed critters. And no, you didn't read that wrong. 

About 45 million years ago, saber toothed anchovies wandered the ocean. These fish had fangs on their bottom jaw and one large 'saber tooth' on their top jaw. The fish's teeth are so weird that one guy named the species 'Monosmilus chureloides', which translates to 'single knife churel'. That 'Churel' is where the shapeshifting vampire demon part of the Live Science article got it's name. 

These fish come in two different types. The first is only about a foot long and was found in Belgium in 1946. The second is 3 feet long and was found in Pakistan. That fish has 16 teeth on it's lower jaw, getting progressively bigger closer to the front, with the largest fang being long enough to be 20% of the height of the fish's head. The upper jaw has the large tooth that is known as the saber tooth. They're not sure how these teeth were useful since none of the fish that are still living have teeth even similar. Because of the similarity of their teeth, it's assumed they're related, but more importantly, the anatomical study puts them as ancestors to modern anchovies. Please take a moment to imagine how different that can of anchovies would be if they were still 3 feet long and had so many teeth. 

This artist's rendition is in most of the articles below, and it's by Joschua Knüppe. 

One of the things that can sometimes be a bit weird though, is that the anchovies we know, and put on pizza, probably already existed when their saber toothed cousins were on the scene. The saber toothed variety died out, but the smaller ones that were plankton eaters managed to survive. Because we only have two fossils of these strange fish, we can't be sure how well they fared 50 million years ago, because they could have just not fossilized well and could have been around for a long time. Since they're in the water and there are larger predators, it's entirely possible the water scattered any bones, or a predator could have eaten them, or they just might not have had many chances to be fossilized instead of just rotting. 

Either way, these are some interesting fish, and I wish we could know more about them, but history that long ago is hard because there isn't always much evidence of things. 

One last thing I want to say before I turn you over to my sources so you can learn more yourself if you want to, or not if you don't. My dad loves football (American, NFL, not soccer/FIFA), and I really hate it. I just do. He was watching a game once with the University of Michigan playing and I told him that I'll support them because they're the ones that discovered, or at least studied, the saber toothed anchovy, and that's worth supporting them for. I've got a pretty similar reason to support the University of Oregon, but that'll be tomorrow. 

Have fun, be curious, and I hope you enjoyed learning about all this. 

Sources:

Live Science: Ancient 'shapeshifting vampire demon' anchovy had saber tooth and fangs

University Of Michigan-- Saber Toothed Anchovies

CNN Saber Toothed Anchovies

Science News Saber Toothed Anchovy

Science News Explores- Saber Toothed Anchovy

Smithsonian-- Saber Toothed Anchovies 

Smilodon

First, sorry for disappearing for a few days. I was visiting family who kept me a lot busier than I thought I'd be there, so I didn't have the time to post for the last few days. 

Moving on though. Smilodon, also known as the Saber Toothed Cat, or sometimes the Saber Toothed Tiger or Lion. I don't like calling them that because they aren't particularly closely related to either of those living species, so I'll just call them Smilodons. Anyway, isn't that a fun name? 

So, Smilodons. They're the state fossil of California, which is a bit hilarious to me because they're pretty widespread, but we'll give them that because there were a few hundred found in the La Brea Tar Pits, in LA. Smilodons are the most well known of the genus, but not nearly the only saber toothed cat. They are just known for the biggest teeth. They are also pretty big, with some suggestions putting them up to 600 pounds full grown. For reference, full grown male lions are about 400-450 pounds, so Smilodons are half again their size. 

One of the theories about what killed them off about 11,000 years ago is that they, along with the other large predators, ran out of food when the large prey died off also, and they had a lot of competition. Apparently that's not all completely true, because the Dire Wolf hunted in the flatlands and plains, but the Smilodon was more of a forest cat, like many of the current large cats. This means that it's unlikely that Smilodons died off because of a lack of Mammoths, but it did have problems because it was more specialized and when it's prey died off, it didn't adapt well. 

If you're interested in the history of the study of Smilodons, how they got the mistaken name of 'Saber Toothed Tigers', and what people thought of them over the years since their discovery, the La Brea Tar Pit has that for you. For more about them being forest dwellers, National Geographic has that. UC Berkley and the Encyclopedia have information about the cats themselves. Otherwise, Google will give you everything you want to know. Have fun and explore to your heart's content. 

Sources:

Encyclopedia Britannica-- Smilodon

 UC Berkley-- Saber Toothed Cats

National Geographic -- Saber Toothed Surprise

La Brea Tar Pits-- Smilodons

Saber Toothed Squirrel

 Ok, so, I wasn't sure what I could write that could even possibly follow up the Monk-Troll, but I figured this would work. 

Saber Toothed Squirrels. When the movie Ice Age came out, scientists were miffed because saber toothed squirrels weren't a thing and that was ridiculous to them. 

Then they found one themselves and had to slink back to their labs in shame because apparently they did exist. Oops. 

In their defense though, the fossil that was found is alot older than the ice age, and there's no way they could hang out with a smilodon or mammoth, and is very similar to a squirrel, but not actually a squirrel. It's a Dryolestoid, which is a group of mammals that ran around with dinosaurs and lived 50-200 million years ago, ish. We don't have a lot of information about them because their fossils didn't survive well, but that's a matter for a different time. 

The fossil they found is for a, approximately, 94 million year old mammal that they believe ate insects and ran around with dinosaurs. It was 4-6 inches long and lived in what is now South America. It was found in what is now a desert, but they think was once a floodplain, teeming with life and possibly periodic flooding that buried the Cronopio dentiacutus, as it was named. 

Since we don't have pictures and the fossil is destroyed enough that it wouldn't show much unless you know it, here's a picture from the Live Science article, link below, of what an artist thinks it would look like. 

So, if you want to know more, there are sources below or you can investigate more on your own. Personally, I'm going to go watch Ice Age again because it's cute and Scrat is less scary than the squirrel here that looks like it's ready to take me on even though it's tiny...

Sources:

Live Science-- Saber Toothed Squirrel

Science Shot-- Saber Tooth Squirrel

National Geographic-- Ancient Saber Toothed Squirrel Found

New Dinosaurs-- Saber Toothed Squirrel

Answers In Genesis-- Saber Toothed Squirrel

Vikings Get The Girls Because They Bathed

 Ok, so I need to preface this that there is a more than tiny chance that the guy that wrote this down originally was just trolling us, because he had a lot of theories at other things and might have just made a guess that was entirely off. But I still want to tell you about this. Sorry if it's wrong. 

John of Wallingford, a Benedictine Monk in about 1240, wrote that the English were losing their womenfolk to the Vikings because the Vikings bathed, brushed their hair, and changed clothes sometimes. So, basically, had hygiene. 

The Vikings bathed at least once a week, which is more than some peasants that would only bathe once a year, and they left behind a lot of combs that they used to keep themselves more tidy, plus their braids and changing their clothes more often. All this added up to them being better smelling and more attractive than the native men. 

I will point out also, they're also good warriors and whatnot, so it's entirely possible that they just demanded the women and the men had to hand them over or die, and saying that the women wanted the Vikings for such a silly reason might have been easier for them to take. 

Either way, I find this hilarious. If you're curious, there are sources below or you can google John of Wallingford and read more there. Or you can just giggle about it like I do.

 

Sources:

Imgur-- The Librarian-- John of Wallingford is a Medieval Troll

History of York-- Viking Male Hygiene

Norse Viking Soap-- Viking Hygiene

Skjalden--Seductive Vikings

Son Of Vikings--Filthy Barbarians or Dapper Danes?

Woodstock Mystery Hole

 Also known as the Deluxe Mystery Hole, this is a hole just outside of Portland, Oregon, that...is very special. I hope. 

The hole is 'owned' by the Universal Church O' Fun, and championed by Pastor Barron, leader of the tunnel people. Along with the hole, there are a few things that are above ground, such as the Mystery Tower, the Mystery Hedge Walk, and the Mystery Pole. Before being allowed down the hole, people need to sign a waiver saying that they understand that they're climbing down into a deep, damp, hole despite being safe above ground. 

No one knows how the hole formed, or how deep it is exactly. Experts say it isn't naturally formed, but beyond that they aren't sure. As far as I know, the hole hasn't been completely explored (except possibly with the psychic archeology that was apparently used there). 

Among known things in the hole are the Black Obsidian Mirror Of Higher Truth, Enchanting Vapors of Encouragement, ancient glyphs and runes that lead to the Giant Double Arch that is aligned with the North star, and the Door That's Never Been Opened. Again, I'm not sure how much of this has been seen by anyone but the Psychic Archaeologists that explored this area. Apparently the Mirror has been destroyed though, by a giant windstorm, so it's been replaced by a Silver Two-Way Window of Opportunity. 

The Hole is closed now, but that doesn't make it less fun. If you want to know more, there isn't a lot more, but look at the sources below. 

Sources:

Atlas Obscura- Woodstock Mystery Hole

Barron Mind- Woodstock Mystery Hole

Peakd-- Woodstock Mystery Hole

Bridgeliner-- Woodstock Mystery Hole

The Carrot Museum

 This museum is in Berlotte, Belgium, and it is taken very seriously by the carrot grower society that put it together, but there are theories that it started as a joke and just...got serious afterwards. It's full of carrot-themed memorabilia and information about carrot growing, but the museum is small enough that you can only see the displays through the windows, since it's built in an electric tower in the village. One window is fixed and shows some information, the other lets you change between the displays to learn more about the much-loved vegetable. 

It's tiny and not something that you would spend a lot of time at, but I love that it exists. For more information, here are some sources you can look at. 

Sources:

Atlas Obscura- Museum of Carrots

Fresh Plaza- Carrot Museum

Boing-Boing-- World's Smallest Vegetable Museum

Flycting-- The Raeren Carrot Museum

Mohrenmuseum-- Carrot Museum

Travelage West-- Quirky and Unusual Museums in Belgium

Pareidolia

 Today, we're going to talk a bit about Pareidolia, which is the strange phenomenon where people see faces or other patterns in things. The best example is people seeing Jesus in the burn pattern on a grilled cheese sandwich, or those optical illusions where you see faces on either side of a vase, or things like that. 

The word Pareidolia comes from Greek, meaning faulty images, and is a form of apophenia, which is a more general term used for finding unrelated patterns in life. One of the theories about why this could happen is that we evolved to spot humans around us, or specific humans in a crowd, and this is just our brain doing 'false positives'. A lot of the things people spot are religious figures, but there are a lot of other things that get spotted, such as a wide variety of non-human things, like teddy bears, elephants, or words. 

This is something you probably have experience with if you think about it, but don't worry. It's not a bad thing, and it can actually be pretty fun if you're more on the creative side. If you want to find examples though, look to the sources below or take the quiz that is linked at the end. I'd say not to find faces in your food because it might be harder to eat then, but Sour Patch Kids, among others, has proven otherwise. And that's not something I don't think I want to think on too deeply, so have fun and try to see what you can see in the world around you that you didn't see before. 

Sources:

Live Science- What is Pareidolia

Merriam-Webster Dictionary Definition of Pareidolia

The Sneaky Artist-- Pareidolia

NIH-The Pareidolia Test: A Simple Neuropsychological Test Measuring Visual Hallucination-Like Illusions

Buzzfeed- Pareidolia Quiz

Peacock Spider

These are spiders in Australia, among other places, so I assume they want to kill me somehow. I'm not sure how right now, but it's Australia, so I feel secure with that. 

Peacock Spiders are known for the bright coloration of the males' backs, their mating dances, and their ability to jump a lot more than you'd think something that small could do. By which I mean, they're tiny, about the size of a chia seed, and can jump about 40x their body size. That's how they get their food--they catch it instead of using webs. 

Among others, there is a peacock spider species known as 'Sparklemuffin', 'Elephant', and 'Circuit-board' because of their patterning.  

These two pictures are from A-Z Animals, link below. 

Meet M. Avibus from the World Wildlife Fund link below. 

Below is M. Purcellae from the same spot. 

There are a lot more pictures in the links below, and a lot of really cool spiders to look at. They're adorable. And you can find video of their dances online also, if you're interested. 

If you're curious and want to know more, please use one of the links below or just google them. These guys are adorable and colorful. 

Sources:

A-Z Animals- Peacock Spider

Animal Diversity Web-- Maratus Spiders

World Wildlife Fund-- Peacock Spiders going Viral

Smithsonian-- See Seven Dazzling Peacock Spiders

iNaturalist- Peacock Spiders

PeacockSpider.org

Infinite Monkey Cage

 This is another podcast source that I wanted to tell you about because I kinda love it. I think my favorite type are half-science and half-comedy, or the ones that pair a scientist and a comedian or similar. This one has Brian Cox and Robin Ince hosting, and other people as guests. 

They don't go too deeply into the science, but they do tend to have someone with a science background as a guest to explain some things about their main subject. It's more like a discussion of science than a lesson about it, and they keep things light and funny. 

*Spoilers for one of my favorite running gags on the show*

One of the running jokes is about Schrodinger's Strawberry. It started when they were discussing the Ig Nobel Prize and a guy who got it for, among other things, levitating a frog with magnets. It was pointed out that it was a living frog, so the guy talking about what other things got levitated in this experiment said that they also did it to a dead strawberry, which started a discussion about whether a strawberry is alive or dead. 

One of the guests on that episode was a theologian and got pulled in to discuss it to, leading to a wonderful line about her not being prepared to discuss the state of strawberries and their souls. 

To end the argument, Robin Ince suggested we just put the strawberry in a box and it can be both alive and dead--a reference to Schrodinger, which is why it's now Schrodinger's strawberry. 

That didn't end it though, because it came up again several times with points to or against the strawberry being alive, including one person suggesting that, since it's covered in seeds, it's technically alive in the way an anthill is alive. Or a city. Another guest pointed out that the strawberry counts, for them, as never having been alive like you wouldn't consider hair alive. 

Recently, I was listening to an episode on dreaming and one of them said that their recent dream was being chased by a monster strawberry and not knowing if it's alive or dead. 

*End Spoilers*

The entire series (or at least the first  90 episodes) is pretty good and I highly suggest it. The sources below will direct you to the show if you are interested. 

Sources:

BBC Radio 4-- The Infinite Monkey Cage

BBC Podcasts-- Infinite Monkey Cage

No Such Thing As A Fish Explanation

 As promised, here's the explanation behind the name of the podcast 'No Such Thing As A Fish'. 

There are three different points I want to bring up here. The first is the explanation I first heard, then two separate trains of thought that support it. 

So, I first heard this when QI was discussing it, before the podcast was created. Essentially, an ichthyologist spent their life studying fish, then decided that there is no such thing. His concern was that a salmon is more related to a deer than a starfish, that sharks and wolves are just as close as sharks and eels, and so on. That there is no such thing as a fish because fish aren't related to each other and there's no way to define them that covers all of what is considered a fish without also including a lot of things that aren't fish, so no fish. 

Secondly, there's the Claudist view that since everything descended from ancient fish, then everything is a fish. So, if that classification exists, it covers everything, so therefore it isn't good. 

Third, Taxonomy. When they're trying to build genetic family trees of things, then what is referred to as fish is spread out in too many different trees and that messes things up too. They can't classify a 'fish family tree', so it doesn't work. 

Basically, scientific pedants say that fish can't exist as a classification because either that should cover everything, or it's not a group name because it's spread all over the genetic trees. I couldn't find many sources of this, unfortunately, because a few articles I found were locked behind pay-screens that I wasn't willing to do, some didn't provide much solid information beyond that it's a thing, and a ton were referencing the podcast more than anything. 

If you want to try another explanation to see if it works better, these are what I've found that might work. 

Sources:

The Cladist responses:

Discover Wildlife-- No Such Thing As A Fish

Science Alert- No Such Thing As A Fish

Taxonomy argument:

Eco Code Breakers--Why Fish Don't Exist

No Such Thing As A Fish

So, I figured I'd share some of my favorite sources as I find them because not all of them are going to end up here. Mainly, the podcasts or TV, since I can't link them for you easily, but also books if I find something there. I don't plan to tell you anything I can't back up with at least 2 other sources, so I figure it's ok if I don't remember which of the various science podcasts I'm listening to I got the original idea from. I'll try to add those when I can, but I make no promises there. Most of the time, I just make note of the fact in a list of ideas so I can remember to look into things. In an attempt to avoid zoning out on the podcasts when I can, I made a giant list of over 2 dozen different science podcasts that I downloaded and I'm listening to their episodes from the beginning of the podcasts to current episodes, basically as background noise to my life. Right now, I'm still back in the episodes from 2015, so I've got a while to go. Because of the mix though, I don't always think about which fact comes from which podcast, so I think it's better to not add it to the sources unless I'm sure. 

No Such Thing As A Fish is a podcast spinoff of the show QI, which is a British trivia show where points don't really matter, but you get them for being interesting instead of correct. They bring up a lot of interesting and random information, though some of it is later disproved. Both the show and the podcast are based around interesting and random information, but it could also be said that they are both a bit obsessed with genitalia in various forms--though, never for an entire episode or even 90% of the time. It just tends to come up because humans overall tend to be a bit distracted by such things. 

No Such Thing As A Fish is put on by 4 of the QI researchers, who bring their favorite fact from the week and they discuss the fact, related facts, and things like that. When I take a fact from them, I have to research for other sources to talk about it with you, and they don't really focus on any subject for long, so I don't get much information other than the initial interesting fact from them. 

Even if you aren't interested in listening to them, you might be amused by the titles of their episodes, which start with 'No Such Thing As A...' and something related to what was discussed in the episode, such as ‘Radioactive Jenga’, ‘Kimchi Pirates’, ‘Ice Skating on Stilts’, ‘Darts Vader’, and ‘An Angry Banana’. They've done over 500 episodes now, so there are plenty of hilarious episode names to look at. They also have several books out that are written by them as a group or singularly about various things they discovered in their research. 

They're fun. I like listening to them. I'd suggest at least trying them, and the show, but only if you're ok with them talking about genitalia and mating habits of various animals sometimes. 

If you're curious or I convinced you to at least give them a chance, their websites are below. 

If you're just curious where the name comes from, I'll tell you tomorrow. 

Sources:

https://www.nosuchthingasafish.com/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0gwnyjd