An octopus figured out how to short circuit a light in its aquarium.

Otto the octopus is an octopus at the Sea Star Aquarium in Coburg, Germany. In 2008, Otto had been annoyed by a bright light in his aquarium and had managed to extinguish it by climbing onto the rim of his tank and squirting a jet of water at it. 

At first, it baffled electricians and staff because they couldn’t figure it out. They had to take shifts sleeping on the floor to find out what the cause was. The major problem was that it shorted electricity to the entire aquarium, threatening the lives of other animals. 

On night three of the rotating sleeping shifts, Otto was discovered to be the culprit. Otto had been shorting the lights at that particular time because he was bored due to the aquarium being closed for the winter. 

To Otto’s dismay, the light was moved higher up so he couldn’t reach it. Still, Otto is constantly craving attention and always pulling stunts like this one, so something else is always bound to happen. He’s been reported juggling hermit crabs in his tank, throwing stones against the glass, and even rearranging the items in his tank every now and then. 

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There is an underwater MP3 Player that projects the sound waves directly into your ear bones instead of using headphones.

If you’ve ever been doing laps at the local pool, all the while wishing you had some tunes to listen to, the answer to your problems is here. It’s called the SwiMP3 Waterproof MP3 player. Instead of using headphones, it uses what is called Bone Conduction. 

Bone Conduction is what provides the highest quality sound without earbuds. Instead of projecting the sound into your ear like conventional headphones or ear phones, this is placed between the ear and the cheek bone, and projects the sound directly to the ear bones. 

This allows clear sound to be heard without interfering with the ears or having to deal with ear buds. It’s also iTunes convertible, so if you’ve got 160 dollars to spend, perhaps it would be a good buy. 

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An Apple engineer recreated a 2000 year old computer using Legos!

In his own garage, Apple software engineer Andrew Carol constructed a recreation of the 2000 year old Antikythera Mechanism made out of Legos. The Antikythera Mechanism was built by the Ancient Greeks around 150 BC. It was recovered from a shipwrecked Roman vessel in 1901. The Antikythera Mechanism was so corroded from the seawater that no one fully understood its significance. 

It took another century and advanced imaging tools for researchers to truly understand what it was. The Antikythera Mechanism was the world’s first computing device. The mechanism was used to track celestial movements and predict lunar and solar eclipses. 

The original Antikythera Mechanism is in the National Archeological Museum in Athens, Greece. Scientific American’s parent company commissioned the videographer John Pavlus to record Carol as he worked on the recreation. Carol completed the project in 30 days using 1,500 Lego Technic parts. Carol’s work is pretty exciting in the science realm. 

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There is a carnivorous plant that eats rats, and anything else it can catch.

They're called giant pitcher plants and they're located in Southeast Asia. They measure up to 30cm in diameter and it has a tendril that can inflate itself into a cup-shaped trap. The plant has nectar around the mouth of the cup which attracts small insects and even animals. The rim also has downward pointing ridges that make prey fall into the pitcher.

Inside this pitcher there are a series of acids and enzymes which help break down the pray, much like a stomach. The reason for this evolutionary development, botanists think, is that the areas where these plants grow have really poor soil. Eating animals helps the plant get nutrients that it otherwise can't get from the soil.

Read more on this fascinating plant here

An airplane pilot and copilot are required to eat different meals!

Airplane food is just about the worst food you could expect to be served, so imagine being a pilot and eating the same food over and over again. Airplane food actually used to be made on board, and was much better, but for cost effectiveness they started serving prepackaged meals.

Airports are extremely strict on regulations and safety, and although the premade meals are much safer than if they were made on board, there is still a risk for food related illness. For this reason, most airlines have their pilots eat different meals. This minimizes the threat because if one meal is contaminated, it is highly unlikely that the other is, ensuring the safety of at least one pilot!

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