Well, Whadya Know

Just how does a Venus flytrap eat dinner?

A native of the Carolinas, the Venus flytrap grows in soil that lacks the nitrogen it needs. Enter the nitrogen-rich fly. And enter he does at the top of the foot-high plant where there are leaves that resemble two hinged lobes, usually open in a mouth-like array. On their surface are sensitive hairs. The fly lands on a hair, triggering the leaves to close, holding him prisoner. The plant digests the fly with fluids it secretes through the leaves.

[source: The World Book Encyclopedia]

Why does the shower curtain get sucked in toward you when you shower?

Until recently, we didn't understand the process, but now we do. David Schmidt, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Massachusetts, took a $28,000 computer software model of spraying liquids and applied it to his mother-in-law's bathtub. Two weeks and 1.5 million calculations later, he discovered that: The water from the shower spray slowed down as it fell, the result of hitting the air. This process caused the air to become turbulent, actually forming a miniature storm system with low pressure at its center. The air pressure outside the shower, now higher than inside it, pushed the curtain in.

[source: The New York Times ]

Why do angels have halos?

Becoming an angel would be quite a feather in anyone's cap, wouldn't it? Well, that's something like what the artists who originally depicted angels had in mind. Many of the customs and much of the iconography of our great religions were adapted from paganism. In the case of angelic halos, the source was sun worship. People who worshipped the sun emulated its rays by wearing rings of feathers on their heads. That would be too tacky for angels, so they were painted with actual rays of light.

[source: Ever Wonder Why? By Douglas B. Smith]