Category: Science

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This is Why You Pay More for Brown Eggs Than White Eggs

Eggs are the king of the kitchen in my house. No matter the time of the day or the flavor I’m feeling, eggs are at the center of my plate.

Scrambled, sunny side up, poached or hardboiled, those delectable, nutrient-dense delights come in a variety of sizes and colors…and prices.

Consumers are often all too familiar with the subtle price differences between brown and white eggs. But most people don’t have an explanation for the discrepancy.

The secret really isn’t so much of a secret. It’s all comes down to science.

Sharman Hicknman, the director of community outreach and education for Hickman’s Family Farms, explained that eggshell color (and therefore price) is based on genetics. And yet, for the consumer, there is no noticeable difference in consuming brown eggs or white.

According to Jesse LaFlamme, CEO of Pete and Gerry’s Organic Eggs, the breed of chicken and its associated genetics determine whether a hen possesses pigment genes. When these genes are are active, the chicken creates a natural chemical that coats the egg and gives it its distinctive tone.

LaFlamme offered a helpful hint to figure out what color egg a particular breed will lay: Look at the ear feathers. For example, an Ameraucana produces blue eggs, whereas an Orpington lays brown ones.

Photo Credit: Pexels

For farmers, the color of the eggs probably isn’t as important as how fast their chickens can lay them. And when it comes to efficiency, the Leghorn breed—which lays white eggs—is at the top of the class.

According to Hickman, the Leghorn is a popular choice for farmers because hens who produce colored eggshells must be fed more and are more expensive to maintain.

Malina Linkas Malkani, a media spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, said, “Choosing between brown and white eggs is a matter of personal preference. But it’s important for people to know that the color of the eggshell is related to the breed of the hen, not the egg’s nutrient content, flavor profile, quality, or shell thickness.”

When it comes to eggs, I tend to go with whatever’s cheapest.

They all taste good to me.

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People Shed Light on Where Mythical Creatures Come From

Ever since I was a youngster, I’ve been mesmerized by dinosaurs and other ancient creatures. As I got older I learned about all sorts of incredible animals from different ages of the Earth – some so fantastical it’s hard to believe we’ve actually got the fossils to prove they existed.

But in the days before a proper scientific method, or, say, cameras, how did you draw the line between fantastical real creature, and fantastical myth? Tumblr user a-book-of-creatures kicked off a wonderfully nerdy discussion with fellow zoology/cryptozoology enthusiasts on exactly that question.

Most of the facts surrounding any mythology are hard to nail down of course (because, yanno, mythology), but some of the possibilities are fascinating – and kinda funny.

It starts like a game of telephone…

Source: weasowl.tumblr

Friendship is…magic?

Source: weasowl.tumblr

There’s a lot left up to interpretation…

Source: weasowl.tumblr

Don’t forget the impact of time!

Source: weasowl.tumblr

Imagine actually running into one of these…

Source: weasowl.tumblr

What’s your favorite creature – real or imaginary?

Let us know in the comments and let’s nerd out.

Do it!

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People Talk About the Dumb Things They Believed as Kids

The thoughts of children can be beautiful, pure, open, strangely insightful …and incredibly stupid.

An AskReddit thread on dumb stuff people thought as kids turned into a goldmine of twisted reasoning and childhood confusion. Here’s some highlights.

16. In some cases, this might be true

I used to think that once you finished a grade in primary school you became smarter than the teacher of that grade.

15. From Jim to Jimmothy

That I would have to change my name when I grew up.

I don’t know why, but I thought my name was suitable for a child but definitely not for an adult, and I couldn’t imagine (being) an adult with my name.

I even talked to my mother about it, saying that at some point we’d eventually have to go to court to have it changed to something more “adult-sounding”.

14. Wait, is that not the case?

That if you drink while peeing you’ll keep peeing until you stop drinking.

13. Still less disturbing than the Cats movie

When I was really young, I was convinced I was pregnant (I’m a man btw), with a baby cat named Bridget.

I went on believing it for about 5 months (that’s how long little me thought cat pregnancy lasted), and then when the baby never came, I went to my mom and asked when Bridget would be born, she finally told me that boys can’t get pregnant and humans can’t give birth to cats.

I was traumatized.

12. The richest kid in the world

That all companies with a ‘TM’ (Trademark) were owned by my family, only because those are my initials.

11. It’s not in Kansas anymore…

I was very very young and I blame wizard of oz but I believed that a tornado was just one big phenomenon that continuously happened and spun from state to state country to country.

I also live in the south so we have frequent tornado warnings so I vaguely remember a time we had two or three warnings in one week and I was scared the “single tornado” would come to our town and never go away.

10. I’m sorry, what?

I was under the impression that there were tiny rats that lived inside of my stomach and when they ran in their wheels for exercise it would make me need to pee.

9. Like a Flintstones TV

That there’s a tiny human inside the TV who executed what the remote was telling him to do.

For example, when you press the button to increase the volume, he is being hit in a specific way that let’s him know that he has to go and manually increase the volume.

8. Like a Russian nesting doll

I thought that there would be a baby inside every girl’s stomach as soon as she is born and inside that baby’s stomach too there would be a tiny baby(the cycle goes on and on)and that the baby keeps growing as we grow and after getting married the doctors will cut the stomach and take the baby out to make space for another baby.

7. I’ve gotta admit to this one too. *facepalm*

That the Underground Railroad was a literal secret underground subway style steam engine that Harriet Tubman was the conductor of.

6. Its’a me…your worst nightmare

I thought if you left a video game on then a character would come out of the tv and kill you.|

I was a bit paranoid as a small kid.

5. Parents can’t have parents

Grandparents were assigned to families.

Like, I didn’t know my Grandma was my Dad’s mom.

4. A lot of adults still think this…

Own two credit cards and use them to pay for each other for infinite money

3. One ring to bind them

My Dad lost his wedding ring in the Bay during a fishing trip.

I was absolutely inconsolable.

It took my parents quite a while to get me to calm down enough to be able to explain why I was so upset about it.

I thought it meant they were no longer married anymore. Lol.

2. So, you’re an American, then

That beyond my country was nothing.

1. This one’s longer, but worth it

We lived in the country and I was raised on Disney movies. We lived on our imaginations.

The movie ‘The Borrowers’ had just come out and we rented it on VHS. My sister and I must have watched it 20 times. We played games imagining people running around and all these fantastical things. It was great. It passed a lot of time for us.

Enter bed time. I crawl into my little bed, swirls of games in my head, and I notice a strange light in my closet that is directly across from the foot of my bed.

I gingerly crawl out and open my closet to see a small slit in the dry wall.

I press my eye up to it and see A SUN…AND TREES!

HOLY S**T, THE BORROWERS HAVE A WORLD IN MY CLOSET!

I run and get my sister. I show her. We freak out and run downstairs where my father is gently reading his newspaper after a long day of work. My mother is sitting there talking to him when we bust around the corner screaming about a hidden world in the closet.

My father glares at my mother. My mother tells us she will look into it and brings us back to bed and reads us another story to calm us down.

The next night there was no light. The trees were gone. I destroyed the world. I truly thought I had erased this little existence. I was a murderer…

No.

I had seen a slip of my mother’s marijuana closet farm.

My dad made her move it.

Good thing we’re all so much smarter now, huh?

What about you? Did you have any hilariously dumb thoughts as a kid?

Let us know in the comments.

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These Anxiety Memes Will Make Today 3% Better

You need to have a sense of humor in life about the hard stuff. Anxiety is definitely one of those tough things that many, many people have to deal with on a daily basis.

Hopefully, these 11 memes will make you laugh and give you at least a moment’s break from your anxiousness.

1. OMG… does this exist?!

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

2. Welcome to the thunderdome!

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

3. Oh brain… you’re such a brain…

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

4. Insomnia… hello again my old friend…

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

5. I love that episode!

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

6. Oh yeah… I hate myself…

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

7. Yeah, but what about NOT doing something together?

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

8. Look what’s back!

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

9. Yeah, but…

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

10. Upside? If he stays, he’s trapped!

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

11. Those fucking dots…

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

Ahhhhh… those made me hate myself just a little bit less. But just a little bit less. Maybe 3% less hate for myself now. Okay, 4%. I’ll give myself that.

What about you? How much less do you hate yourself? 5%? 6%? Possibly even 8%?

Let us know in the comments!

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Some People Believe Corona Beer Has Something to Do with the Coronavirus

Yes, that’s right, the Mexican-style beer Corona. With a lime or without, I couldn’t say, but I can promise you here and now that alcohol makes viruses and other icky junk disappear, not the other way around.

In general, I mean, not as a treatment protocol – don’t drink beer if you feel sick.

The coronavirus in the news is a new respiratory-type illness that started in Wuhan, China. It’s now infected around 40,000 people, mostly in China, and the death toll is nearly at 1000 (also mostly in China).

People are scared, because this is a new illness without a treatment protocol, but the truth is that 80,000 people died from the regular flu in the United States in 2017. So that’s just something to keep this all in perspective.

Right now, scientists aren’t sure how the coronavirus outbreak began, but they’re reasonably sure that the virus jumped from an animal species into humans, probably at one of the open-air bushmeat markets so popular in China.

We can say for sure, though, that it’s not caused by drinking Corona beer.

A lot of people seemed determined to prove the movie Idiocracy (and Aldous Huxley) right by believing that they’re safe if they don’t drink Corona beer, though.

Search engines are getting tons of requests for “beer virus,” “corona beer virus,” and the like – so many people were searching, in fact, that Corona issued an official statement denying any involvement.

Really.

The internet is largely having fun at these people’s expense, and I’m not really mad about it – I just don’t know how we got to this place as a species, or how to go back.

Because this way lies madness and monsters, and for sure the end of the world.

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Food Poisoning May Not Be Because of the Last Thing You Ate

There are two different kinds of food-borne intestinal distress, the first of which sets in a few hours after a meal and may leave you nauseous (or even running for the bathroom). This one, believe it or not, is actually the milder case, and your body typically finds relief after evacuating the offending meal.

The other sort of food poisoning – what I like to refer to as “real” food poisoning – doesn’t arrive until between 12-24 hours (at the earliest) after the bad food passed your lips, and it could leave you praying for death on your bathroom floor for up to 24 hours after that.

Yeah. Did it once, do not ever wish to repeat.

The CDC lists four common culprits of food-borne illness: norovirus, Salmonella enterica, Clostridium perfringens, and Campylobacter jejuni. The time from ingestion to symptoms varies from (at least) 6 hours with Salmonella to up to 2 days with Campylobacter.

So, even if your last meal is the one coming up (and the one your mind will associate with the terribleness for years to come), it’s probably not the culprit in the worst cases of food-borne nastiness.

Sadly, there’s nothing much to do besides cry, call your mom, and camp out in the bathroom until its over. You should try to keep down liquids (ha!) and call a doctor if you haven’t been able to for over 24 hours.

There’s not a whole lot you can do to prevent nasty microbes from arriving with your dinner in a restaurant (or a hotdog at a ballpark, in my case), but at home, make sure to wash your hands and prep surfaces regularly, avoid contamination between raw and cooked foods, cook to recommended internal temperatures, and yeah, did I mention washing your hands?

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#MaxFact: After four outbreaks in less than two years where likely contaminated romaine lettuce contained deadly E. coli O157: H7, the Food and Drug Administration is turning to microbial testing for clues for the next year to try to figure out what’s happening. ⠀ .⠀ The FDA reports it is now “conducting a small, focused assignment to collect samples of the raw agricultural commodity (RAC) romaine lettuce to test for salmonella app and pathogenic Escherichia coli…” ⠀ .⠀ The year-long testing program will run through November 2020. Testing for Shiga Toxin-producing E. coli or STECS includes the microbial hazards associated with romaine lettuce consumption. The FDA will collect raw lettuce that is trimmed or washed in its natural form before processing. ⠀ .⠀ The four E. coli outbreaks infected a total of 320 people and were notable for their high hospitalization rates. Five outbreak patients died. [source: freshplaza.com]

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Take extra care with foods like shellfish, red meat, poultry, eggs, and fresh fruits and vegetables, as these are at the highest risk for carrying pathogens.

Wash your lettuce and berries, people. Trust me (and the CDC) on this one.

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It Might Be Healthier For Men To Pee Sitting Down, According to Science

Even from the youngest of age, sitting down to pee when you could do it standing up is apparently something people with penises resist.

I get that it’s probably way more fun to aim, or pee in circles, or whatever, but listen up males: it turns out there are actual health reasons to sit down on the pot.

Urologist and professor Dr. Jamin Brahmbhatt says that goes double for older men who might be beginning to experience prostate issues. In fact, sitting can help men empty their bladders more effectively if their prostates are large and they need to help relax the pelvic muscles in an effort to help push the urine out.

Being able to fully empty your bladder can reduce the risks  of cysts and other health complications associated with enlarged prostates.

Image Credit: Pixabay

Doctors and scientists aren’t totally sure what causes the prostate to enlarge in aging males, though since men without testicles rarely experience the phenomenon, it’s likely connected in some way to hormone levels.

It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re at an elevated risk for prostate cancer, but the enlarged prostate on its own can cause medical issues. But here’s the thing… most, if not all of those issues, can be relieved by sitting down to pee. Yeah, it can be THAT simple.

And if you’re young (under 50), there are other reasons to start sitting – mostly hygienic.

Physicists (yes, they actually studied this) have found that peeing standing up significantly increases the velocity of the stream and potential for splatter, which leads to truly disgusting, bacteria-filled bathrooms.

Image Credit: Pixabay

Dr. Brahmbhatt adds his two cents on the matter,

“There are men that have bad aim and can soak the toilet with splatters of urine.

Sitting and urinating on the toilet does increase your odds of making sure the urine is actually going down the drain.”

I mean, why not just go ahead and start practicing for the big transition on your 50th birthday now?

Your wife, and your bathroom floors, would be delighted.

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Here’s How to Tell the Difference Between Allergies and a Cold

From a runny nose to overall fatigue, the symptoms of allergies can be frustratingly similar to those of a cold – so how do know how you should try and recuperate?

If you find yourself sidelined and under the weather, here are a few fool-proof ways to figure out if you’re allergies are flaring up or if you’ve caught a common cold.

Skin Rash: Allergies

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Can’t seem to scratch that itch away? This is a tell-tale sign of an allergic reaction.

According to Arizona-based allergist Amy Shah, “Itchy eyes, nose, ear, or throat are associated with allergies because of the compound histamine, which is what the body releases when allergy cells are activated and cause an itch.”

If you have a cold, this wouldn’t be a typical symptom. You may need to utilize topical creams or medication to help alleviate that persistent itch.

Sore Throat: Cold

Waking up with a sore throat is just a bad start to the day. Even mouth-breathers know the difference between a bad night’s sleep and the early warning signs of sickness.

A sore throat signals an oncoming cold (or one that has already arrived to the party) and can be pesky to deal with. According to Dr. Ian Tong, the chief medical officer at Doctor On Demand, “Colds are viruses that affect the upper airway. The virus can spread to the entire respiratory system including the throat, causing soreness.”

You can treat a sore throat with different home remedies, including tea and honey. Just don’t expect to join in on Friday night karaoke this week.

Fever: Cold

While some symptoms of an allergic reaction can mirror those of a cold, having a fever is not one of them. If you start to feel overheated, it means you’ve caught a cold or some other illness.

According to Dr. Matthew Mintz, “When you contract a viral infection, one of the primary ways the body helps to fight the infection is by increasing the body’s temperature to kill the virus.”

Watery Eyes: Allergies

If you’re constantly dealing with itchy and watery eyes, your allergies are the likely culprit. Dr. Shah recommends that you rinse your eyes with water and use allergy drops to keep your eyes clear.

Green Snot: Cold

Blow your nose and check what just came out (gross, I know). If you find Hulk-like green snot, you may have a cold. According to Dr. Mintz, “In general, the nasal discharge in allergies is clear and watery. While a cold can also cause clear nasal discharge, it can often become yellow or even green.”

No matter what you’ve got going on, best stock up on tissues, my friends.

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Patagonia’s CEO Donated Company’s $10 Million Tax Cut to Fight Climate Change

As much as some people (and organizations) out there would like to bury their heads in the sand and pretend climate change doesn’t exist, it is very real, and its effects are growing more drastic.

Because of the 2018 rewrite of America’s tax laws – a tax code revision that greatly benefited corporations by lowering the corporate tax rate by almost a third for most companies – Patagonia paid $10 million less in taxes that year than it had anticipated. So the company’s CEO, Rose Marcario, decided to donate the $10 million to non-profit groups that are working to fight climate change and help the environment.

Marcario believed the corporate tax cut was not a good thing, and she wrote, “Based on last year’s irresponsible tax cut, Patagonia will owe less in taxes this year—$10 million less, in fact. Instead of putting the money back into our business, we’re responding by putting $10 million back into the planet. Our home planet needs it more than we do.”

Speaking about climate change deniers, including many in government, Marcario wrote, “Far too many have suffered the consequences of global warming in recent months, and the political response has so far been woefully inadequate—and the denial is just evil.”

Patagonia has been a friend of the environment for many years now and their website says the company has donated more than $89 million to environmental groups to fight climate change.

Let’s hope that more corporations and individuals make their voices heard about the extreme consequences of climate change that are occurring around us every day. This isn’t something that might happen in the future, this is taking place right now.

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These Memes are for People With Anxiety Who Need a Laugh Today

What’s the point of life if you don’t have a sense of humor? It helps us deal with the truly awful stuff.

Anxiety is definitely one of those tough things that basically everybody has to deal with, but isn’t that unifying?! Yeah it is!

These 12 memes will make you laugh and give you at least a moment’s break from your anxiousness.

1. Oh yeah. I forgot about those…

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

2. Works every time!!

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

3. If only…

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

4. I’m pretty sure they don’t hate me THAT much, right?

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

5. Ahhh… just like always!

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

6. Somebody actually got this!

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

7. They grow up so fast!

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

8. You know what anxiety? You need to SHUT UP!

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

9. Yep, checks out!

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

10. Every. Single. Day.

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

11. Do I have to use it all at once, or…

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

12. You’re gonna make me care, aren’t you???

Photo Credit: Pizza Bottle

Feeling less anxious? No? Me neither, but… I’m laughing. And maybe I’ll be able to live with myself tomorrow.

Probably not. We’ll see.

Which of these are your faves? Let us know in the comments!

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