So I was at a BBQ lunch today and one of my co-workers was talking about the time he had eaten ostrich meat. I thought I’d add an interesting dimension to the conversation when I mentioned that the ostrich egg is the largest single cell in existence. I’d learned this a long time ago; that bird eggs are single cells.
Everyone at the table stopped eating and looked at me. They all were very suspicious of my claim. A table of very smart people telling you that you’re wrong is pretty convincing. Did I imagine this little fact? Were they right in saying that an egg is made up of lots of little, microscopic, cells? No no no, I just knew that I was right.
Well a quick google search proved me right:

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/mole00/mole00128.htm

One resource mentioned that:
The entire “yellow” of a chicken “egg” is actually a single cell, the oocyte. The clear part of the egg is protien the cells use as energy when dividing.

For some reason, this story makes me feel very very good.

http://newsobserver.com/news/story/2310803p-8689263c.html

The Pirate Captain’s webpage is:

http://pirate.phora.net/index.html

I was eating dinner and thought of a question:

What’s the weight difference of a body on the equator vs the poles on Earth?

I decided to use two different UNC library resources to help me answer this question. I used both the Instant Messanger buddies “undergradref” and “davisrefdesk”. These buddies are librarians waiting to help you answer your questions. I wanted to see how similar these buddies were.

The davisrefdesk was not as helpful as the undergradref. davisrefdesk walked me through accessing confusing online databases through the library’s website. I had to ask what to search for and they said “gravity”. That got me nowhere. I got the impression that they were annoyed with my question. They ended the chat with a suggestion to come to the library and check out a physics book. Unacceptible. If davisrefdesk wants folks to come to them rather than google, they should be prepared to deliver a quick answer to my question. Once they do that, they can follow up with more elaborate sources of information on the subject, like physics textbooks.

undergradref was EXCELLENT. I asked my question and within 5 minutes they sent me a link to a Cornell webpage answering it in detail. I think they would have answered more quickly but they were interupted at the desk during the chat.

I’ve been using undergradref for months now to answer different questions I come up with. They have always been helpful and quick. I thought I’d try davisrefdesk to see how well the folks at Davis Library were emulating the Undergraduate Library service. I’ll have to test it out some more to see if I get consistent results back from davisrefdesk.

So, what IS your weight difference between the equator and the poles on Earth?

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=310