Happy Wednesday!

Did you know the most common birthday in the US is September 9th? See how common (or rare!) your birthday is!

Here’s what we’ve got this week:

TRIVIA

Who lives the longest? 🎂

Explanation at the end!

ANIMAL FOCUS

Sunfish 🐟

  1. They’re the heaviest bony fish on Earth! One bump-head sunfish found in 2021 weighed 6,049 pounds. That’s more than a rhino! 🦏

  2. Baby sunfish are smaller than a grain of rice! They’re about 0.1 inches long and covered in spikes. And they grow fast: one at the Monterey Bay Aquarium went from 57 to 880 pounds in just 15 months! 🍚

  3. They can jump as high as a basketball hoop! Even though they’re slow swimmers, they can launch up to 10 feet out of the water. Scientists think it may help them shake off parasites (They can carry more than 40 kinds!). 🏀

  4. Sunfish can’t fully close their mouths! Their teeth are joined together into a beak, so their mouth never shuts all the way. They also have a second set of teeth in their throat to help shred their food. 🦷

  5. They can change colors! They can quickly turn from light to dark, especially when they’re attacked. Their skin is also almost 3 inches thick. Instead of scales, it’s covered in rough, slimy mucus (like snot). ⬛

Want more? Get the rest of our facts, including how a Japanese aquarium cheered up a lonely sunfish!

EVER WONDER?

Why do our feet “fall asleep”? 🦶

Ever get the “pins and needles” feeling in your foot? Here’s what’s really going on:

Is your foot actually asleep? 😴

Nope! And it’s not mainly about blood, either. The real reason is a squished nerve.

Nerves carry messages between your brain and your body. Crossing your legs presses on the fibular nerve, which runs along the outside of your knee.

So what happens? ⚡

  • The messages get stuck. The squished nerve can’t send signals properly, so your foot goes numb. 📵

  • When you move, the nerve “wakes up.” The pressure comes off, and the nerve starts firing off messy, mixed-up messages. 🔌

  • Your brain reads the mess as “pins and needles.” Doctors call it paresthesia (pair-us-THEE-zhuh). 🪡

Fun fact: Bumping your “funny bone” works the same way. It’s not a bone, it’s a squished nerve in your elbow! But don’t worry, it’s harmless and fades fast.

For more: how do you “wake” it back up? ⏰

PICKS OF THE WEEK
BRAIN TRIVIA

Code breakers: Find the correct 4-digit combination using the numbers 1-9, with no repeats:

  1. 3 9 4 7 - 1 digit is correct and in the correct position

  2. 5 1 6 8 - 3 digits are correct but all in the wrong positions

  3. 7 2 5 9 - None of the digits are correct

  4. 2 8 9 4 - 1 digit is correct and in the correct position

Get the solution

Inside an inkjet printer, by Ole Bielfeldt | Nikon Small World Competition Winner

Thanks for reading! Stay curious!

- Steve

P.S. Greenland sharks can live for almost 400 years! Scientists work out their age from a special layer in their eyes. They live in cold water and grow less than half an inch a year. They don’t start having babies until they’re about 150 years old! 🦈

P.P.S. Quick correction: Last week we wrote that squirrels took the NASDAQ down in 1987 and 2014, but it was actually 1987 and 1994!

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