odditudes-and-weirdities

Happy Krakatoa Day! Of course, if you were around the volcano on Krakatoa Island on this date in 1883, you probably wouldn't be having a happy day. On this day, one of the most destructive and deadly volcanic eruptions in recorded history destroyed 70% of the island. Hot ash and tsunamis accounted for most of the 36,000+ deaths, and one of the eruptions even ruptured ear drums of sailors nearby. Though smaller amounts of volcanic activity had been going on for months, August 27 was when the 4 major eruptions did the vast bulk of the damage. Though they're clearly dangerous, it's easy to be fascinated by volcanoes, and the eruption of Krakatoa was one of the biggest we know about. Houghton Library, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Happy Great Moon Hoax Day! On this date in 1835 The Sun , a New York newspaper, began publishing a series of articles claiming that life has been found on the Moon now called the Great Moon Hoax . Though the "discovery" was attributed to the well-known astronomer John Herschel , this was done purely to add credibility to the story; Herschel never had anything to do with the story other than expressing a mixture of amusement/annoyance when hearing about it. Bison, goats, unicorns, heron-like birds, bipedal beavers, bat-winged people, and butterfly-winged women were some of the wonders "discovered" on the Moon. They were supposed to have built temples, walls, roads, fortifications, and cities. The hoax went on for several weeks, and was never retracted, so theoretically the newspaper stood by their reporting even though it was never anything more than a fabrication. Apparently Edgar Allen Poe had preceded this story with his own Moon hoax story , though his was writ...

Happy Tetranacci Numbers Day! You may have heard of the  Fibonacci numbers , which starts with 0 and 1, and where every following number is the sum of the previous 2 numbers. Thus Fibonacci numbers are 0, 1, 0+1 = 1, 1+1=2, 1+2=3, 2+3=5, 3+5=8, ... Mathematicians quickly noticed that they could define a variety of similar sets of numbers by changing the rules slightly. One variation are the  Tetranacci numbers  (named by merging the tetra- suffix with much of the original Fibonacci name). The Tetranacci numbers start with the "seed numbers" of 0, 1, 1, and 1, and each of the following numbers are the sum of the previous 3 numbers. Thus we get numbers of 0 , 0 , 0 , 1 , 0+0+0+1= 1 , 0+0+1+1= 2 , 0+1+1+2= 4 , 1+1+2+4= 8 , 1+2+4+8= 16 , ... While the Fibonacci numbers are known to show up in nature, the Tetranacci numbers are mostly of interest to mathematicians alone. We celebrate Tetranacci numbers on 8/15 because those are the largest sequential Tetranacci numbers that re...

It's Fibonacci Numbers Day. Fibonacci numbers are the numbers that start with 0 and 1, and each subsequent number is the sum of the 2 preceding numbers: 0 , 1 , 0+1= 1 , 1+1= 2 , 1+2= 3 , 2+3= 5 , 3+5= 8 , 5+8= 13 , 8+13= 21 , ... Though the sequence was known to Indian mathematicians as far back as 200 BC, it wasn't known in Europe until introduced by the Italian mathematician Fibonacci in the 13th century. This simple sequence has a surprising amount of utility in math, nature, and related fields. It's also got ties to the golden ratio , which used to be considered to define the perfect rectangle. We celebrate Fibonacci numbers on 8/13 because those are the largest sequential Fibonacci numbers that represent a (Gregorian calendar) date. Jahobr, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

There used to be a webpage documenting Wisent Day, but when trying to access it today the link wouldn't work. These big lugs have been fighting off extinction for quite a while now, and I'd hate to have them lose their big day. Wisents are the European cousins of our American Bison , and though they're clearly related they do have differences. On average Wisents are a little taller and thinner than American Bison, a little less shaggy and with longer tails and horns. And they prefer woods over prairies as places to live/forage. As you might expect, American Bison and Wisents can interbreed, though this doesn't happen in the wild since they live on separate continents. The Wisent were extinct in the wild in Europe, though fortunately there were still a few in captivity. Those few were used to reestablish a wild population in parts of Europe. ThomasLendt, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

On this date in 1923 Peter Kaisen discovered the first Velociraptor remains in the Outer Mongolian Gobi Desert. Since then, these dinosaurs have emerged as pop culture icons due to their appearance in books (like Jurassic Park ) and movies (like Jurassic Park ). It should be noted that the actual Velociraptor was about the height of a wild turkey, though its length gave it a bit more weight than that. In contrast, the popular culture velociraptors are generally portrayed as a bit bigger than a human being. (This size isn't implausible; the popular culture Velociraptor is pretty close in size to a relative of theirs discovered more recently, the Utahraptor .) What are your survival chances (unarmed) against a velociraptor? Probably not very good. Most of our homes aren't designed to be velociraptor-proof, for one thing. You probably wouldn't be safe at home. From https://xkcd.com/87/ And of course, out in the open your chances are even bleaker. From https://xkcd.com/135/

It's Dinosaurs Day! On this date in 1841 Richard Owen described 3 fossils as big freaking lizards:  Megalosaurus ,  Iguanodon ,  Hylaeosaurus . Though he didn't use the term "dinosaur" at that meeting, a couple months later while finalizing his report he decided they were a new type of reptile he called "dinosaura" (basically "terrible reptile"). These days most people probably consider dinosaurs to be fascinating more than terrible, though the name isn't going to change. (Of course, if you lived next door to an Allosaurus or a  Utahraptor  pack, you might consider them terrible neighbors.) Although they definitely descended from reptiles, today they're more closely linked to another large group of animals, the birds! Birds are now recognized as the last surviving descendants from a dinosaur lineage. Today is a day to think about these extinct animals, large and small, herbivorous or carnivorous. Photo by Frank Kroeger on Unsplash