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randomchancedraw
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/* Application: FactBot Developer: randomchancedraw Version: 1.0 (25/04/2021) Description: Tip to reveal facts. Thanks: to the author of the CB-TestBed https://yyanx.github.io/CB-TestBed/ Written as a present for Lizzy to take her mind off her sore finger ;-) */ var duck_facts = [ "Some ducks have a comb-like structure along their edge of their beaks called a pecten, which filters food from water which strains through it. The pecten is also used to groom the duck's feathers.", "Only some species of ducks quack (and generally only the females make this sound, while males make a rasping noise). Other duck species make a wide range of calls, including whistles, squeaks, scaups, grunts, chirps, and coos. Also, quacks definitely do echo.", "Ducks which primarily feed from the surface of the water are categorised as dabbling ducks. Ducks which dive for food are categorised as diving ducks. Diving ducks tend to be heavier than dabbling ducks, and may have difficulty flying.", "Flying steamer ducks are oceanic ducks with a penchant for violence. Researchers have observed them kill other birds (by pecking and beating them to death with keratinised knobs on their wings) for fun or to prove evolutionary fitness to potential mating partners.", "The male mallard duck has a shiny, bottle-green head and a collar of white feathers, as well as iridescent blue speculum (wing) weathers. The green and blue feathers are not pigmented; their colour is structural colour, from interference of light waves after they reflect off nanoscale structures of the feathers.", "Domesticated Indian Runner duck eggs have approximately twice the cholesterol of chicken eggs, and up to four times as much vitamin B-12. Compared to chicken eggs, they are slightly larger, and taste almost identical - although once boiled, the egg whites have a slightly more rubbery consistency.", "Ducks have contour feathers whose barbicels interlock, ensuring they form a waterproof barrier. They also preen regularly to cover their feathers with a waxy oil secreted by a gland near their tail, giving them a waterproof coating.", "The Black Headed Duck is an obligate brood parasite, meaning that it makes no nests of its own, but always lays its eggs in the nests of other ducks. They have been given the nickname Cuckoo Duck for this reason.", "Males (drakes) of the Pink Eared Duck species have a vibrant spot of pink feathers behind their eyes (giving them their name), and zebra-like striping covering the contour feathers on their underside.", "You should not feed wild ducks bread. Bread can give ducks, geese, and swans a painful disease (similar to gout) called angel-wing syndrome. Instead, feed them green peas, corn, chopped zucchini, or meal-worms.", ]; var bird_facts = [ "Passerine birds (any bird of a species belonging to the order Passeriformes, which includes over half of all bird species, inclduing jays, sparrows, tits, corvids, etc) have a tendon in the rear of the leg which connects the underside of the toes to the muscle behind the tibiotarus, which automatically curls the toes around its perch when the legs are bent. This allows the bird to remain perched while sleeping.", "The Superb Lyrebird is a ground-dwelling Australian bird species which is famous for being able to impersonate sounds with impressive mimicry, including other birdcalls, other animal sounds such as dog barks, camera shutters, car alarms, mobile phone ringtones, chainsaws, and rifle shots.", "The largest species of Kingfisher bird in the world is the Laughing Kookaburra, a native Australian species. It is a carnivorous predator, eating lizards, insects, snakes, mice and sometimes (rarely) small fish. It has a tracheo-bronchial syrinx which allows it to create two separate frequencies (with multiple harmonics) in its call, which sounds like loud, ghostly laughter.", "The migration of the bar-tailed godwit is the longest non-stop flight of any bird, and the longest journey without pausing to feed of any animal, with a one-way trip length of over 12,000 km. They breed on Arctic coasts, before migrating to their feeding grounds in the north of Australia. To fuel the migration, they carry the greatest fat load (as percentage of body weight) so far studied, even reducing the size of their organs to do so.", "The bar-headed goose has been reliably recorded flying at elevations higher than 7200 metres, and anecdotally recorded flying above Mount Makalu (the world's fifth highest mountain) at elevations above 8400 metres. Their haemoglobin has a higher affinity for oxygen than that of low-altitude geese, allowing them to extract oxygen from hypoxic air, and they can maintain cardiac output at a higher level and for longer than other birds.", "The Hoatzin is a prehistoric-looking bird from South America which has an unusual digestive system. It eats leaves and fruit, and digests via fermentation, in a manner similar to ruminant mammals. The fermentation mechanism it uses gives the bird a foul odour. Interestingly, the wings of young birds of the species have claws on two of their wing digits, allowing it to climb branches effectively from a young age.", "Hummingbirds have the highest mass-specific metabolic rate of all warm-blooded animals, with wings beating up to eighty times per second. While awake they have to constantly eat nectar to meet their energy requirements. When they sleep, they enter a torpor, slowing their metabolic rate by more than 90%. They also have incredible variety of plummage, with some species (such as the purple-throated carib) being covered with beautiful, iridescent feathers.", "The Birds Of Paradise family consists of some of the most colourful species of birds on the planet, famous for their various courtship rituals including complex dancing. Male Wilson's Birds Of Paradise are the most colourful, with plummage ranging from bright red and yellow, to dark green and brown, neon blue, and purple. The female WBOD shows strong sexual selection bias for the most colourful males.", "The feathers of a peacock's tail are pigmented brown, but appear iridescent green and blue due to nanoscale structures. These structures (on the surface of the feathers) cause interference phenomena in reflected light, causing some wavelengths to cancel out and others to amplify. A range of nanoscale photonic mechanisms have been identified, including diffraction gatings, selective mirrors, photonic crystals, and nanochannels.", "The Emperor Penguin can grow up to 1 metre tall and weigh up to 45 kg. They trek up to 120 km over ice to their breeding colony grounds, and they breed during the Antarctic winter in air temperatures as low as -40 degrees celsius with 140 km/hr winds. They can go deeper than 500 metres for food, on dives lasting more than 20 minutes. To enable those feats, it has evolved specially structured haemoglobin which functions at low oxygen levels, and the ability to shut down non-essential organ functions during dives.", ]; var bear_facts = [ "The skin of polar bears is black, and their fur is mostly transparent. The fur looks white due to diffusion of light which passes through and reflects off it.", "Male Kodiak bears (a subspecies of brown bear) can exceed 650 kg, while male Polar bears can exceed 800 kg. By comparison, Siberian Tigers rarely exceed 300 kg.", "Brown and black bears are omnivores. Most brown bears derive up to 90% of their dietary food energy from vegetable matter, including berries, grasses, flowers, roots, and acorns and other seeds. They also eat insects (including moths) and insect larvae, in addition to seafood and meat.", "The heart rate of a black bear will drop from 50 bpm to 8 bpm during hiberation. During hibernation, their metabolic rate drops to just 25% of their normal basal metabolic rate, and they internally retain all excretory waste, but they do not suffer much muscle or bone atrophy.", "Bears often displace other carnivores from their kills, including wolves, cougars, and and wolverines. However, packs of wolves are recorded to have displaced brown bears from kills in Yellowstone National Park.", "Bears do have natural predators. Bear cubs are predated by a large range of animals including coyotes, wolves, golden eagles, and alligators. Jaguars have been known to hunt black bears, and tigers have been known to hunt brown bears.", "The sun bear is the smallest of all extant bear species, with adults weighing between 30 and 60 kg. It is mostly arboreal, living high in trees, and its diet consists primarily of fruit, insects, honey, and seeds, although it will eat birds, reptiles, and small deer.", "The giant panda bear is, morphologically speaking, an omnivore. However, it eats only bamboo, never predating on animals as other bears do! It has cultivated a unique gut flora microbiome which allows it to digest normally indigestible plant material.", "The sloth bear, from India, has very fluffy ears and very large lips. It primarily eats termites and ants, as well as grubs and other insect larvae. They also eat fruit, roots, flower petals, and seeds, as well as carrion, and very rarely kill for fresh meat.", "The spectacled bear is a mid-sized bear species from South America. It is mostly herbivorous, with less than 10% of their diet being meat (including insects and larvae). Spectacled bears are not territorial and will often feed together in groups.", ]; var dino_facts = [ "Scientists currently recognise at least three species of dinosaur in the stegosaurus genus. The largest of these, Stegosaurus Ungulatus, could have grown up to 9 metres in length and 7 metric tons in weight - although their brains weighed less than 100 grams.", "Fossils of individuals from the genus Brachiosaurus, a type of sauropod dinosaur, show that the vertebrae and rib bones contained air sacs or hollows formed by resorption. Their skeletons formed part of their respiratory system, including a complex arrangement of air sacs and valves ensuring unidirectional airflow through the lungs.", "When most people think of dinosaurs, they think of extremely large reptiles. This is primarily because many of the earliest fossils found were of large bones, due to preservation bias (large, sturdy bones are more likely to survive intact until fossilisation); in reality, small and very small dinosaurs would have been much more common than large ones.", "One of the most influential early geologists and fossil hunters was a woman named Mary Anning. She discovered several very important and famous fossils, discovering multiple species of plesiosaur and ichthyosaur, during a time when women were still denied the right to vote or attend university in England.", "Quetzalcoatlus Northropi was a species of giant pterosaur with a wingspan of at least 11 metres - roughly the same size as a Cessna 172 aircraft. Nonetheless, it was probably quite lightweight, with scientists' estimates ranging between 100 kg and 300 kg.", "Therizinosaurus (whose name means Scythe Lizard) had enormous scythe-like claws, exceeding 50 cm in length. Somewhat boringly, however, it did not use these claws for combat or defense. It was largely herbivorous, and used its claws to gather large quantities of foliage while eating, and possibly to open termite mounds.", "A fossil of a small Coelurosaur from southern Italy includes soft-tissue impressions, including portions of its intestines, liver, muscles, and windpipe. In a separate discovery, paleontologist Mary Higby Schweitzer and her team managed to find soft tissue inside fossilised bones, including cellular-level microstructures.", "There are thousands of different species of feathered dinosaurs alive today, including chickens. However, definitive evidence that various species of prehistoric dinosaurs had feathers was not obtained until 1996 and the discovery of a Sinosauropteryx fossil.", "The Triceratops genus was extremely populous by the end of the Cretaceous period. It has been estimated that at that point in time, more than three quarters of all large dinosaurs were members of a species Triceratops - although this may simply be estimation error due to preservation bias due to the sturdy bones of these creatures.", "Two separate ichnofossils from different locations, both described in 2020, provide evidence that large tyrannosaurs used their arms to help them to stand up from where they rested in a prone position. Recent evidence shows that tyrannosaurs were also extremely agile, although not very fast in a straight line.", ]; var cat_facts = [ "The caracal is a medium sized cat with tufted ears and black markings on its face which help to reduce glare from the sun while hunting. These features also serve a purpose in visual communication, as caracals have been observed interacting with each other via movements of their tufted ears and head.", "The Canada Lynx preys almost exclusively on snowshoe hares, and as such, its population is cyclically linked to the abundance or scarcity of the hares (a Lotka-Volterra relationship). They generally kill one hare each day, on average, with a hunt success rate of close to 30%.", "The natural prey species of tigers are mostly dichromats, and thus see orange colours as green or yellow; thus their orange colour provides effective camouflage, especially when combined with their vertical stripes which mimic vertical foliage such as grasses. Interestingly, spots and rosettes are more common than stripes among other felid species.", "The male lion's mane is instantly recognisable, but in evolutionary terms is a very recent development, with scientists estimating that it only evolved between 200 thousand and 350 thousand years ago. The purpose of the mane isn't fully understood, although its growth is positively linked with high testosterone levels, and lionesses favour males with dark, dense manes during mating.", "Cheetahs are extremely fast runners, but cannot stand up to a leopard or a lion in a fight. Thus, those larger felids often displace cheetahs from their kills. As a result, cheetahs have evolved to be mostly diurnal, whereas leopards and lions are mostly active at night. This allows cheetahs to exist in sympatry with those other predator species.", "Jaguars have extremely powerful bite force, allowing their teeth to pierce turtle and tortoise carapaces, as well as the brain case of other large prey species including caiman alligators and tapirs. Slightly larger and stockier than leopards, jaguars nonetheless utilise the same hunting method: ambushing prey from above or behind.", "Cat eyes have a reflective structure called a tapetum lucidum behind their retina, which reflects light back into the eye, thereby increasing cats' sensitivity to light. Roughly speaking, a domestic cat can see with just one-sixth the light level required for human vision. That structure also makes cats' eyes appear to shine brightly in infrared camera footage.", "Domestic cats have approximately 1/20th the number of taste buds as humans, and furthermore they completely lack the ability to taste sugary molecules (the flavour we call 'sweet'). This may partially explain why cats are obligate carnivores. Interestingly, cats prefer food with a temperature of 38 degrees celsius (the temperature of a freshly killed mammal).", "Cats have terrible eyesight at close distances, relying instead on whiskers (vibrissae) for sensory information at this range. Cats also have relatively poor colour vision, with limited ability to distinguish between red and green.", "Domestic cats are estimated to kill between 1.4 and 3.7 billion birds, and 7 to 20 billion mammals, each year, in the United States alone. In Australia, feral cats kill an estimated 75 million native animals every night, have caused the extinction of several native species, and threaten more than 100 endangered species.", ]; var camel_facts = [ "The Bactrian camel is the largest living species of camel, with males growing up to 1000 kg. They have two large humps, and a shaggy winter coat, and temperatures in their native habitat ranges from -40 to 40 degrees celsius. They are natural survivors, with the ability to digest pretty much anything, including ropes, tent canvas, shoes, and animal carcasses, as well as their more usual diet of vegetation.", "Bactrian camels have the remarkable ability to live for long periods of time without access to water. They will eat snow to obtain moisture during winter months, and can drink almost 60 litres of water in a single sitting when dehydrated. Their humps provide stores of fat which allow the camel to survive for long periods of time without access to food.", "A population of wild Bactrian camels has been discovered within the Gashun Gobi region of the Gobi Desert, which is genetically distinct from domesticated Bactrian camels. Aside from being able to live in one of the most inhospitable deserts in the world, with temperatures ranging from -40 to 40 degrees celsius, it is also able to drink saltwater slush - a feat which domesticated camels are unable to replicate.", "The Dromedary camel is known as the ship of the desert, due to its important role in facilitating trade across arid deserts. It has several unusual adaptions, including football-shaped red blood cells (which can store far more water than round cells), the ability to control their body temperature (fluctuating from 31 to 41 degrees celsius throughout the day) and tolerate greater than 30% water loss, as well as a rete mirabile to cool blood flowing to the brain.", "The Kharai camel is a species of domesticated Dromedary which has retained the ability to swim, along with some traits such as webbed toes. It requires higher salt content in its food than other camels, and must eat mangrove vegetation to maintain optimal health. Scientists believe that it may be biologically closer than other species to pre-domestication dromedaries (which are believed to have originated from coastal environments).", "The Vicuña is a camelid which resides in the high alpine areas of the Andes in South America. It is was hunted close to extinction by the 1970s, but was then protected and its population has recovered to about 350,000. Wool from the Vicuña is some of the softest and finest known, with fibre diameter of 12 micrometres (for comparison, cashmere goat fibres are 14 um, while angora rabbit wool is 8 um), and due to its rarity is one of the most expensive textile fabrics in the world.", "The Llama is a medium-sized camelid without a dorsal hump, which was domesticated from wild Guanacos. Known as the animal which carried the Inca empire on its back, the llama was used variously as a pack animal, a food source, and a clothing source (wool and skin). They are not ruminants, but have a complex stomach which allows them to digest low-quality, cellulose-rich vegetation.", "The Alpaca is a medium-small camelid which was domesticated from wild Vicuña. They are aggressive toward canids, and are often placed in herds of sheep as guardians, often kicking dogs and foxes to death (while shrieking extremely loudly). They have thick, shaggy-looking wool, which is prized for its water- and fire- resistant properties, as well as its luxurious softness.", "The Guanaco is the wild ancestor of the llama. It lives in the Andes mountains, at elevations up to 4000 m. By volume, guanaco blood has four times the amount of red blood cells as human blood does, which allows them to thrive in low-oxygen, high-altitude environments. Some guanacos live in the Atacama Desert, in some areas of which it has not rained in more than 50 years, where they eat dew-soaked lichen for moisture.", "Aside from having exceptional aerobic ability due to their extraordinarily high red blood cell count, Guanacos can run at speeds of up to 56 km/hr over rocky and steep terrain at high elevation, and are excellent swimmers. A baby guanaco is known as a chulengo, and a a chulengo is able to walk immediately after birth.", ]; var whale_facts = [ "Humpback whales are large baleen whales, and part of the rorqual family (whales which specialise in lunge feeding). Some groups of humpbacks have learned to hunt fish using a bubble-net technique. Males of the species produce a complex song which lasts between 10 and 20 minutes, and repeat it for hours at a time. All of the males in the group produce the same song, and the song differs each season. Its purpose is unknown.", "The sperm whale is the largest toothed predator in existence, and has the largest brain of any animal. It is the louder than any other animal, or jet engine, producing 230 db sounds. It mostly hunts medium sized squid, but also giant and colossal squid, octopuses, and fish. It was hunted near to extinction for the waxy oil which fills its spermaceti - the large organ atop its upper jaw and skull - until a moratorium on whale oil use was instituted in 1972.", "Most toothed whales have asymmetric skulls, which aids their sense of echolocation, as sound waves which reach the whale from different angles will be transmitted differently through the skull. The bones of various toothed whales shows the same pitting which signals decompression sickness in humans, suggesting that whales like sperm whales must surface slowly from deep dives to avoid potentially lethal decompression events.", "The bowhead whale, an arctic baleen whale, has the thickest blubber layer of any animal - up to 50 cm thick - which is such a good insulator that it has a palatal retial organ (similar in structure and vascularity to human penile tissue) which allows the whale to cool its blood by letting seawater into its mouth. It has a massive, thick skull, allowing it to smash through arctic sea ice in order to breathe.", "The blue whale is the largest animal to have ever existed (that we have evidence for), growing up to 30m long and weighing 200t. They were hunted almost to extinction until an international moratorium on whaling the blue whale species was introduced in 1966, and it is still an endangered species. Like all baleen whales, blue whales are a vital part of the carbon cycle: they eat krill from surface waters, and their stools carry carbon to the deep ocean where it can be sequestered in the sea floor.", "At 26m long, fin whales are almost as long as blue whales, but they weigh far less (75t compared to 200t). They are the fastest whale, able to swim at 36 km/hr for hours at a time, or bursts of up to 46 km/hr. For comparison, Usain Bolt runs 100m in approx 10s with an average speed of 38 km/hr. Eating mostly krill and copepods, fin whales also hunt schooling fish such as herring.", "Every species of whale produces a different type of vocalisation, from the haunting and plaintive moans of the blue whale, to the complex clicking, humming and squalling songs of the humpback whale, to the organ-shaking clicks of the sperm whale. One of the most interesting vocalisations is the repetitive infrasonic pulses made by fin whales, which can penetrate more than 2km into the sea floor, and can be used by seismologists to perform underwater surveys.", "The grey whale is a large baleen whale which specialises in eating benthic crustaceans such as amphipods and isopods which live in the mud on the sea floor. The whale turns on its side as it lunges to scoop up sediment from the sea floor, before pushing water and mud through its baleen, leaving just the tasty ocean cockroaches behind in its mouth - bon appetit!", "The narwhal is the unicorn of the ocean, almost. Its horn is actually an overgrown canine tooth, which has millions of nerve endings, allowing the animal to sense temperature, salinity, or other environmental signals from the sea water. Inuit people have an important connection to the narwhal, which they hunt, using almost every part of the narwhal: meat, blubber, organs, and skin (an important source of vitamin C) are consumed, and tools are made from the bones.", "Juveniles of almost all whale species are predated upon by orcas (which, despite being known as killer whales, are actually dolphins). Orcas are vocal during their hunts, and humpback whales actively seek out those sounds in order to intervene, regardless of the species of the target of the hunt. It isn't yet known whether this is purely a survival instinct, or whether humpback whales feel empathy for other victims of the wolves of the sea.", ]; var fish_facts = [ "Parrotfish are a type of wrass which lives in and around coral reefs. They eat algae from the surface of corals and rocks, scraping up small amounts of the rock as they feed with their beak-like mouths, and eventually excreting the particles as sand. They are sequential hermaphrodites, starting life as female and changing to male toward the end of its lifespan.", "Eels are ray-finned fish with a unique lifecycle: they all spawn in dedicated oceanic spawning grounds (in the Sargasso Sea for European and American eels, the Coral Sea for Australian and New Zealand eels, and the Indian Ocean for South African eels), and some species only spawn once at the end of their lives. The baby eels live for some time in the ocean before migrating back up rivers and streams for their juvenile growth stage.", "Hagfish are jawless fish which look superficially similar to eels (although being entirely unrelated), and which have evolved little in more than 300 million years. They have evolved a unique defence strategy: when stressed, the hagfish exudes thick, sticky mucous from glands on their sides. The mucous absorbs water and swells, getting caught in the gills of predators who then suffocate. Hagfish slime thread keratin is incredibly strong, and is being investigated for possible use in bullet proof vests.", "The Great White Shark has a network of electroreceptors which enables it to detect variations in the electric field caused by muscle movements of prey, as well as variations in the magnetic field, and water temperature gradients. They have a rete mirabile, allowing heat exchange between blood flowing back from muscles and blood feeding internal organs, making it somewhat warm-blooded, improvings its aerobic performance in cold water. Orcas are known to hunt Great White Sharks in order to eat their livers, which store fats and minerals.", "The basking shark is a large, filter-feeding shark, which has been overfished. Its skin has a unique microstructure which deters or prevents microbial growth, making it an important research subject for future developments of materials for use in ship hull and hospital surface treatments. Decomposing basking sharks are often misidentified as sea monsters or plesiosaurs by amateurs.", "The lanternfish are a large family of species of small, mesopelagic fish which exhibit bioluminescence. They are some of the most populous and widely-distributed vertebrates, with some experts estimating that they make up to 65% of all deep-sea fish biomass. Masses of these fish can cause false-sea-floor detection by sonar, and they undertake Diel vertical migrations every 24 hours in order to keep ambient light levels of their environment roughly constant.", "Bristlemouth fish are tiny deep sea fish which reside in the mesopelagic zone. Unlike lanternfish, they do not follow a Diel vertical migration pattern, and tend to live deeper in the water column. They have adapted to deep-sea existence, and don't have air-pocket swim bladders. They cannot survive at surface-pressures, and so cannot be studied in a laboratory setting. They are the most populous vertebrate on the planet, with some experts estimating a global population of up to a quadrillion (10^15) individuals of the Cyclothone genus alone.", "The ocean sunfish looks like a mix between an enormous stone-age axe and a dinner plate. It grows up to 4.5 metres in length and 2300 kg. This fish doesn't have scales, but instead has thick, rubbery skin coated with mucous, which often harbours parasites such as worms. They primarily eat jellyfish and salps. Females lay up to 300 million eggs at a time, a record amongst vertebrates, and newly hatched larvae weigh only a fraction of a gram.", "Manta rays are enormous fish which are both filter feeders and macropredators. They have no baleen, instead relying on the shape of their gill slits to generate turbulence patterns which keep krill in their mouths while allowing water to escape. The wings of the largest manta rays can reach 7 metres across, and they grow up to 1300 kg. Despite their enormous size, they are known to breach (jump out of the water) although the purpose of this behaviour is unknown.", ]; var optic_facts = [ "Structural colouration results from microscopic surface features causing interference patterns in reflected light (rather than simply absorbing some wavelengths, as from pigment colouration). Many creatures exhibit structural colouration, including butterflies, beetles, and birds. Thomas Young first explained that phenomenon of iridescence was the result of reflections from two or more thin-film surfaces combined with the effect of refraction on light as it enters and leaves the films. At different viewing angles, different wavelengths of light reflected will interfere either constructively or destructively.", "The most brilliant blue natural colouration yet discovered is that of the fruit of the marbleberry plant, in which spiral structures of cellulose causes scattering of reflected light known as Laue-Bragg interference. In addition to reflecting only blue wavelengths, the microstructure also causes light of other wavelengths to be modified to converge to the reflection wavelength. The result is an incredibly vivid reflection of blue light, even more so than from the wings of the morpho butterfly.", "A Fresnel lens is a lens which makes use of the fact that lensing is due to the bending of light incident on an interface between two different optical media (e.g. air and glass), rather than the quantity of media (e.g. glass) that the light passes through. The lens can be built from small sections of the interface arc all stacked on top of each other, rather than a single continuous arc (which would require much more backing material for structural reasons).", "Augustin-Jean Fresnel was the first to realise that light waves are transverse waves, and this understanding allowed him to define the Fresnel equations which describe the reflection and transmission of light when incident on an interface between two different optical media. The equations quantitatively describe how waves of differing polarisation behave when incident upon a material interface.", "The eyes of mantis shrimp have 16 colour receptors, and can detect the polarisation of light. They use their eyes as a sweeping hyperspectral imaging sensor, allowing them to build up a comprehensive model of the surrounding sources of reflected light. For this purpose, sensing the polarisation characteristics of light is important, and the mantis shrimp has evolved to be able to see up to six types of polarisation: horizontal, vertical, two different diagonal alignments, and both clockwise and counter-clockwise circular polarisation.", "Rayleigh scattering is the elastic scattering of light by particles whose size is much smaller than the wavelength of the light being scattered. It results from the electric polarisability of the particles, as the oscillating electric field of the incident light wave will act on the charges within the particle, causing them to move at the same frequency. The particle thus becomes an oscillating dipole, radiating 'scattered' light. The sky appears blue due to this phenomenon (blue wavelengths being smaller, and being more likely to induce scattering in atmospheric particles).", "Optical fibres are thin glass hairs, usually surrounded by a cladding material with much lower refractive index which provides mechanical support. Light emitted into one end of the fibre will travel the entire length of the fibre with minimal loss, due to total internal reflection, meaning that the fibre acts as a waveguide. Attenuation in optical fibres is much lower than attenuation of electrical signals in copper wire, and optical fibres are also less susceptible to ambient noise sources, as the cladding provides effective isolation from external light sources.", "A photonic crystal is a material with a periodic optical nanostructure which affects the motion of photons similarly to how ionic lattices affect electrons. Periodic multi-layer dielectric stacks (photonic surfaces known as Bragg Mirrors) exhibit photonic band-gap filtering effect in one dimension, and more complex periodic structures can be designed which exhibit filtering effects in multiple dimensions (photonic crystals). These photonic crystals can thus be used as building blocks to construct optical computers.", "Aspherical lenses have a complex surface profile whose sections are not portions of arcs from a sphere or cylinder. They can reduce spherical aberration, astigmatism, and longitudinal chromatic aberration. Small glass aspheric lenses can be produced via molding, and are used for laser diode collimation, useful for coupling light into and out of optical fibres. The Visby lenses from Viking graves on Gotland are some of the earliest known examples of aspherical lenses.", "While most glass we use is soda-lime-glass, optical glass (used to make lenses) is usually borosilicate glass, containing 10% boric oxide, zinc oxide, or rare-earth-metal oxides such as barium oxide or lanthanum oxide. Since glass is an amorphous solid rather than a true crystalline structure, optical glass can be considered a solution of chemicals rather than a true compound material." ]; var sub_facts = [ "Modern military submarines are covered in anechoic tiles, which absorb rather than reflect (echo) sound waves. These tiles are made of a heterogeneous rubber mixture constructed from dozens of individual layers, with voids in between each layer. The void/rubber interfaces create filters which are tuned to absorb specific ranges of frequencies at different depths. Like other rubber products, they are black due to the inclusion of carbon black before vulcanisation, which improves the mechanical properties of the rubber, such as durability and malleability.", "The designs of propellers of modern military submarines are tightly guarded secrets. Every propeller works by pushing water from one side of the propeller to the other, causing positive pressure on the face of the blade and negative pressure on the back of the blade. If the pressure differential is great enough, gas which is dissolved in the water can form bubbles in the negative pressure region, which then collapse - a process called cavitation, causing spall damage to the propeller, and making noise. Minimising cavitation noise is a primary requirement for submarine propeller designs.", "A submarine hull actually consists of two separate hulls: the light hull (providing a hydrodynamically efficient shape), and the pressure hull (which maintains structural integrity even at extremely high pressures at depth). The construction of a pressure hull requires high-precision manufacturing. Small deviations from cross-sectional roundness result in greatly reduced hydrostatic load performance. The hull of the submarine shrinks as it is squeezed by pressure at depth, so its volume decreases as the ship dives.", "A cavitation bubble can be generated around an object underwater in order to reduce the skin friction drag acting upon it. This technique is called 'supercavitation' and was first weaponised by the Russian Navy who developed the VA-111 Shkval torpedo. This torpedo is up to 5 times as fast as a conventional torpedo. Modern supercavitating torpedo designs can reach up to 400 km/hr.", "The Deepsea Challenger is a deep-diving submersible which was designed to withstand the enormous pressures encountered at the deepest point in the ocean: the Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench. The famous director James Cameron piloted this craft down to the deepest point, more than 10km below the surface, in just over two and a half hours.", "A syntactic foam is a composite material, constructed by filling a metal, polymer, or ceramic structural matrix with small spheres (which may be hollow, or lower density than the structural matrix). The combination of materials and structural shapes allows for syntactic foams to provide higher specific strength (due to their lower aggregate density) and lower thermal expansion coefficients, than other materials. Syntactic foams are used in the construction of deep-sea submersibles, but they have a wide array of uses and material properties.", "The deepest-diving military submarine was the Soviet K-278 Komsomolets, which had a pressure hull constructed out of titanium. It was able to dive to a depth of 1000 metres, and the titanium hull also has the advantage of not being ferromagnetic (and thus not producing magnetic field distortions which might be able to be tracked). However, titanium has poor cyclic fatigue characteristics, so complex alloys are required, and titanium is an expensive and difficult material to work with.", "The Swedish Navy pioneered the use of diesel-electric submarines, in which the diesel engine is used to charge batteries, and the batteries power an electric motor which drives the propeller. When submerged, the diesel engine cannot run, and so submersible range is limited by battery capacity, however such ships are exceptionally quiet (without the steam noises which can accompany nuclear submarines).", "Nuclear submarines have effectively unlimited range, and can produce oxygen from seawater via electrolysis and remove CO2 from air using monoethanolamine scrubbers. Thus, a modern nuclear submarine is limited only by the stomachs of its crew. Nuclear submarines are ideal for long-distance operations, and are also quite stealthy - although modern diesel-electric submarines are even more stealthy when submerged.", "While almost all submarines use propellers for propulsion, some use pump-jets. The pump-jet has an intake to draw in water, and an axial flow pump to increase its pressure, with an outlet nozzle which can be tilted or yawed to provide thrust vectoring. While far less efficient than a propeller, the pump-jet design greatly reduces cavitation noise which is almost unavoidable with propeller designs, which is a very important tactical advantage.", ]; var other_facts = [ "While most spiders eat insects, the Bagheera Kiplingi jumping spider is mostly herbivorous, with more than 90% of its diet consistent of plant material. The mechanism by which they digest their food requires more research. These spiders have a symbiotic relationship with certain species of ants, which protect the Mimosacaeae trees in which they live.", "Gibbons are arboreal lesser apes whose wrist anatomy means that it functions similarly to a ball-and-socket joint, allowing biaxial movement. This adaptation reduces the amount of energy needed from the upper arm and torso, and reduces stress on the shoulder joint, while enabling extreme agility and dexterity while swinging through the treetops. Nonetheless, branches often break or handholds slip during their acrobatic locomotion, and the majority of gibbons suffer serious injuries due to falls.", "Dilatancy is a property of granular materials such as sand. It is the volume change observed in the material when it is subjected to shear deformations. Granular materials tend to expand as they are sheared, because the grains in a compacted state are interlocking, and thus unable to freely move past each other; stresses cause levering between adjacent grains, resulting in bulk expansion. This has important implications for construction (e.g. sunk pylons).", "Tourmaline is a crystalline boron-silicate mineral which exhibits two interesting properties: dichroism and pyroelectricity. Being dichroic, it presents different colours when viewed from different directions, due to its crystal structure which absorbs the component of the incident light waves which are polarised in one direction. Being pyroelectric, it generates a voltage when heated or cooled, due to its electric polarisation.", "The tuatara is a reptile that closely resembles - but is not - a lizard. They retain many morphological characteristics from a basal ancestor from about 240 million years ago, including a brain closely resembling amphibian brains, lungs without bronchi, upper and lower temporal fenestra, and no external ears. It is famous for having a third eye (the parietal eye) which is on the top of its head (with extremely poor image resolution but capable of sensing light).", "Single-crystal casting is an expensive casting technique used to produce equipment utilised in high-stress, high-temperature environments, such as gas turbines. By allowing the metal to cool progressively and directionally, crystal nucleation sites can be controlled. By utilising a 'pigs-tail' structure, competing crystals will terminate, leaving a single crystal which then expands through the entire main structure. Such single-crystal cast turbine airfoils can be up to nine times stronger and more durable than traditionally cast airfoils.", "A salp is an ocean creature which looks similar to a jellyfish, but can form large aggregate structures by chaining together with other salps. These aggregate structures looks like huge jelly tubes, and the superorganism then sucks seawater into one end of the tube before ejecting it from the other via peristaltic movement. As such, it is a biological pump-jet, which also filters plankton from the water as it pumps. Salp chains can be dozens of metres long.", "There are sixteen known species of Irukandji Jellyfish (also known as box jellyfish). These are tiny jellyfish with some of the most toxic venom known, causing fatal brain hemorrhages in severe cases, and causing the hospitalisation of up to 100 people annually. While the bell of the jellyfish is extremely small (as small as 5 millimetres), the tentacles can be extremely long - up to 1 metre in some cases. Very little is known about the lifecycle of Irukandji Jellyfish.", "The platypus is a semi-aquatic, egg-laying, nipple-less mammal with a bill closely resembling that of a duck. Along with echidnas, they form the group of mammals known as monotremes. Male platypuses produce venom which can be injected via a spur on their hindlegs, and while this venom is not fatal to humans, it causes excruciating agony. All monotremes have a sense of electroreception, allowing them to locate prey by detecting variations in electric fields caused by muscle contractions. Platypuses use this sense to find their favourite prey (small worms and shrimps) in murky freshwater streams.", "The short-beaked echidna is an Australian monotreme species famous for its spiky exterior and insectivorial habits. Its tongue, which it uses to catch ants and termites in their nests, can protrude more than 7 inches from its snout. It has a muscle called the panniculus carnosus which covers its entire body, and allows it to change its shape - most famously, into a defensive ball of spikes. The stomach of the echidna is different to any other mammal, lacking secretory glands and thus having low acidity. Baby echidnas are called puggles.", ]; var facts = duck_facts.concat(bird_facts).concat(bear_facts).concat(dino_facts) .concat(cat_facts).concat(camel_facts).concat(whale_facts).concat(fish_facts) .concat(optic_facts).concat(sub_facts).concat(other_facts); var seen = []; // Seed and PRNG to ensure that we don't constantly repeat the same fact order var seed = (new Date()).getUTCMilliseconds(); function mulberry32(a) { return function() { var t = a += 0x6D2B79F5; t = Math.imul(t ^ t >>> 15, t | 1); t ^= t + Math.imul(t ^ t >>> 7, t | 61); return ((t ^ t >>> 14) >>> 0) / 4294967296; } } function getRandomIndex(min, max) { seed += 1; var random = Math.floor(mulberry32(seed)() * (1+max-min)) + min; return random % (1+max); } function chooseFact(broadcaster, user, message) { var isDuckFact = message.indexOf('duck') != -1; var isBirdFact = message.indexOf('bird') != -1; var isBearFact = message.indexOf('bear') != -1; var isDinoFact = message.indexOf('dino') != -1; var isCatFact = message.indexOf('cat') != -1; var isCamelFact = message.indexOf('camel') != -1; var isWhaleFact = message.indexOf('whale') != -1; var isFishFact = message.indexOf('fish') != -1; var isOpticFact = message.indexOf('optic') != -1; var isSubFact = message.indexOf('sub') != -1; var isOtherFact = message.indexOf('other') != -1; var minFactIndex = isDuckFact ? 0 : isBirdFact ? (duck_facts.length) : isBearFact ? (duck_facts.length + bird_facts.length) : isDinoFact ? (duck_facts.length + bird_facts.length + bear_facts.length) : isCatFact ? (duck_facts.length + bird_facts.length + bear_facts.length + dino_facts.length) : isCamelFact ? (duck_facts.length + bird_facts.length + bear_facts.length + dino_facts.length + cat_facts.length) : isWhaleFact ? (duck_facts.length + bird_facts.length + bear_facts.length + dino_facts.length + cat_facts.length + camel_facts.length) : isFishFact ? (duck_facts.length + bird_facts.length + bear_facts.length + dino_facts.length + cat_facts.length + camel_facts.length + whale_facts.length) : isOpticFact ? (duck_facts.length + bird_facts.length + bear_facts.length + dino_facts.length + cat_facts.length + camel_facts.length + whale_facts.length + fish_facts.length) : isSubFact ? (duck_facts.length + bird_facts.length + bear_facts.length + dino_facts.length + cat_facts.length + camel_facts.length + whale_facts.length + fish_facts.length + optic_facts.length) : isOtherFact ? (duck_facts.length + bird_facts.length + bear_facts.length + dino_facts.length + cat_facts.length + camel_facts.length + whale_facts.length + fish_facts.length + optic_facts.length + sub_facts.length) : 0; var maxFactIndex = isDuckFact ? (minFactIndex + duck_facts.length - 1) : isBirdFact ? (minFactIndex + bird_facts.length - 1) : isBearFact ? (minFactIndex + bear_facts.length - 1) : isDinoFact ? (minFactIndex + dino_facts.length - 1) : isCatFact ? (minFactIndex + cat_facts.length - 1) : isCamelFact ? (minFactIndex + camel_facts.length - 1) : isWhaleFact ? (minFactIndex + whale_facts.length - 1) : isFishFact ? (minFactIndex + fish_facts.length - 1) : isOpticFact ? (minFactIndex + optic_facts.length - 1) : isSubFact ? (minFactIndex + sub_facts.length - 1) : isOtherFact ? (minFactIndex + other_facts.length - 1) : (facts.length - 1); var random = getRandomIndex(minFactIndex, maxFactIndex); var fact = "" + user + " tells " + broadcaster + " fact #"; if (seen.includes(random)) { // choose any un-used fact var foundUnseen = false; for (var i = minFactIndex; i <= maxFactIndex; ++i) { if (!seen.includes(i)) { foundUnseen = true; seen.push(i); fact += (i+1) + ": " + facts[i]; break; } } if (!foundUnseen) { // all facts (of this type) have been told. just show the original one. fact += (random+1) + ": " + facts[random]; } } else { // unseen fact. fact += (random+1) + ": " + facts[random]; seen.push(random); } seen.sort(function(a, b){return a-b}); return fact; } cb.settings_choices = [ {name: 'price', type: 'int', minValue: 1, maxValue: 1001, label: 'Price per fact', defaultValue: 42} ]; cb.changeRoomSubject('Facts! /r to see the rules'); cb.onTip(function (tip) { var tipAmount = parseInt(tip['amount']); if (tipAmount < cb.settings.price) return; var fact = chooseFact(cb.room_slug, tip['from_user'], tip['message']); cb.sendNotice(fact, '', '#CCFFCC', '#000000', 'bold'); // cb.drawPanel(); // not available to bots, only apps. }); cb.onEnter(function (user) { var notices = ""; notices += "Welcome, " + user['user'] + "! We are telling our gorgeous hostess interesting Facts!"; notices += "\nTip " + cb.settings.price + " tokens to tell her a fact!"; notices += "\nSay duck / bird / bear / dino / cat / camel / whale / fish / optic / sub / other in a tip-note to specify the type of fact!"; notices += "\nType /r to see these rules again"; cb.sendNotice(notices, user['user'], '', '#FF6600', 'bold'); }); cb.onMessage(function(msg) { if(msg['m'].match(/\/r/i)) { msg['X-Spam'] = true; var notices = ""; notices += "Hi, " + msg['user'] + "! We are telling our gorgeous hostess interesting Facts!"; notices += "\nTip " + cb.settings.price + " tokens to tell her a fact!"; notices += "\nSay duck / bird / bear / dino / cat / camel / whale / fish / optic / sub / other in a tip-note to specify the type of fact!"; notices += "\nType /r to see these rules again"; cb.sendNotice(notices, msg['user'], '', '#FF6600', 'bold'); } return msg; }); cb.onDrawPanel(function (user) { return { 'template': '3_rows_11_21_31', 'row1_value': 'Tip to make ' + cb.room_slug + ' smile', 'row2_value': 'Facts told: ' + seen.length + ' of ' + facts.length, 'row3_value': 'Type /r to see the rules', }; });
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