It's often said that timing is everything, but for Australia's Murray short-necked turtles, hatching together is a matter of life or death. The turtle eggs coordinate their hatching so they find safety in numbers at their most vulnerable age.

But how do the eggs coordinate their hatchings? Turns out, unhatched eggs can communicate with one another:

Although all the eggs were laid at the same time, in the same nest, they experience radically different environments. Those at the top of the nest, buried in warmer sun-soaked soil, can be up to six degrees Celsius warmer than those at the bottom. That’s a problem because the embryos develop at different rates depending on how hot they are. Given the gradient of warmth in the nest, the topmost turtles should hatch well before their siblings at the bottom.

That’s not what happens. Ricky-John Spencer from the University of Western Sydney has found that the Murray River turtles can tell whether their clutch-mates are more or less advanced, and shift the pace of their own development accordingly. If their peers are racing ahead, they can play catch-up.

Link

Quick: what image comes to mind when I mention the name Karl Fabergé? Probably not a plate of breakfast.

It may not be the opulent Easter eggs that bear his name, but Fabergé's jeweled rendition of a Russian breakfast still fetched quite a princely sum, it just sold at auction for $1.1 million:

The stone-cut jeweled still life depicts a leftover breakfast plate with a fried egg (made from amber and white enamel), two fish (silver — one whole, one just a skeleton), a glass of vodka (rock crystal), cigarette butts (quartz and silver), and a newspaper (silver) from 18 October 1905 — the day the Tsar signed the October Manifesto in an attempt to quell unrest in Russia by granting the people various civil liberties and democratic reforms.

Link

by Alice Shirrell Kaswell, AIR staff

Which came first — the chicken or the egg?

The question has a reputation for being difficult, perhaps even impossible, to answer. Philosophers treat it as a conundrum. But in the hands of an experimental scientist, the question is simple and straightforward, and the answer is easily obtained.

I doubt that I am the first to solve the chicken-and-egg problem, but a search of the scientific literature turned up surprisingly few accounts — none, in fact — of previous work. Here, then, is an account of my work on what turns out to be a trivial question.

Figure 2. The 2003 USPS regulations for mailing chickens.

How the Problem was Solved

Which came first — the chicken of the egg? I tackled the question experimentally, using a chicken, an egg, and the United States Postal Service (USPS).

I mailed the chicken and the egg, each in its own separate packaging, and kept careful track of when each shipment was sent from a post office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and when it subsequently arrived at its intended destination in New York City.

The Chicken

In mailing the chicken, I was careful to adhere to the restrictions described in the Postal Service’s Domestic Mail Manual [DMM] 57, as updated in Postal Bulletin [PB] 2209, April 3, 2003. (See Figure 1.) This, the most recent, version of the DMM states that:

“Adult chickens must be sent by Express Mail. The Express Mail containers used must pass the standards in International Safe Transit Association (ISTA) Test Procedure 1A (detailed in Publication 2, Packaging for Mailing); be designed to remain intact during normal handling; be constructed to totally confine the chickens; contain shavings or other material to prevent damage to the bottom of the container; and be ventilated properly to ensure humane treatment in transit. The number of birds in each parcel must not exceed the container manufacturer’s limit.”

I mailed the chicken in a crate obtained from a colleague who does research with poultry at a midwestern university. Details are available on request, for anyone who wishes to replicate this experiment.

Figure 3. Eggs. Each of the eggs shown here is similar to the egg used in the experiment.

The Egg

I mailed the egg in standard packaging obtained through an industrial supplier. Details are available on request, for anyone who wishes to replicate this experiment.

Figure 1. The 1993 USPS regulations for mailing adult chickens. The more recent version is substantially the same, but does not feature the clear sub-section heading “Mailability of Adult Chickens.”

Bon Voyage

I mailed both the chicken and the egg at 9:40 a.m., on a Monday morning, from the Harvard Square post office, in Cambridge. The staff there told me that this was the first chicken anyone had mailed from Harvard Square in recent memory, and perhaps ever. Nonetheless, the postal employees handled both the chicken and the egg deftly, with dispatch, and with courtesy.

The intended destination for both packages was the James A. Farley General Post Office, which is located in Manhattan right next to the Penn Station train terminal.

I took the subway from Harvard Square to the Boston train station, and from there boarded a train to New York City, a distance of approximately 200 miles, arriving that afternoon at Penn Station. I immediately went to the post office, to await the arrivals of the chicken and the egg.

Results

The James A. Farley General Post Office is open 24 hours a day, so I was able to wait there until both items arrived.

I inquired once per hour for both the chicken and the egg.

That day, Monday, neither the chicken nor the egg arrived.

The next day, Tuesday, neither the chicken nor the egg arrived.

The chicken arrived at 10:31 a.m. Wednesday. The staff at the post office told me that this was the first chicken anyone had mailed to the James A. Farley General Post Office in recent memory, and perhaps ever.

The egg arrived that same day, at 9:37 p.m., eleven hours after the chicken.

Conclusion

It has now been empirically determined that the chicken came first, the egg second.

However, seeing the history of previous questions that were taken up first by philosophers and only later by scientists, I am loath to predict that these results — clear as they are — will settle the question to everyone’s satisfaction.

FURTHER NOT: See THIS REPORT of purely theoretical work, done in 2006, that reaches an opposite conclusion to the result reported here.

_____________________

The article above is republished with permission from the July-August 2003 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!

Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.

What did you have for breakfast, Neatoramanauts? Eggs and bacon? Were they as awesome as these Pirate Eggs and Bacon? I didn’t think so.

Found at The Whatever – via Laughing Squid Links

See more: Pirate and bacon stuff from the NeatoShop

Why decorate eggs when you can make a bigger splash with Easter balloons? If you have the right markers, they won’t smudge or fade out, and the process is quite simple. Link -via Rue the Day

If the eggs of free range chicken taste better, what about those of hipster chicken? Well, while you ponder that, take a look at this modern chicken coop called nogg by Matthew Hayward and Nadia Turan.

Stylish, fox-proof, and ovoid? Check. Check and check. What more can you ask for? Link – via homedit

Scientists have put forth various theories to explain the extinction of the giant Elephant Bird, the largest bird to ever live on Earth, including climate change and hunting by humans. The truth, it turns out, can be summed up in two words: yummy eggs.

Sir David Attenborough explains:

Recent archaeological evidence has revealed the fragments of elephant bird egg shells among the remains of human fires, suggesting that the eggs, which are 180 times bigger than a chicken egg, regularly provided food for entire families.

Sir David says: "I doubt it was hunted to extinction – anyone who has seen an ostrich in a zoo knows that it has a kick which can open a man’s stomach and an enraged elephant bird, many times the size of an ostrich, must have been a truly formidable opponent.
"I suspect it was its egg. They may not have been able to tackle an adult bird, but they could have taken its eggs which would have been a huge source of food.
"Even if the bird itself was held in awe or fear by the people here, it’s unlikely the eggs were – and that would have meant the gradual disappearance of this unique giant."

Link

The 2010 Ig Nobel Prizes will be awarded this Thursday, September 30th, at Harvard University’s Sanders Theater. Tickets are sold out, but the ceremonies will be streamed live for your entertainment beginning at 7:30 Eastern time.

Meanwhile, here is a mini-opera that was performed at the 2007 ceremonies. The theme for the awards that year was “Chicken”, but the opera was edged out in the post-publicity for the awards due to winner Dan Meyer’s demonstration of his research on sword-swallowing.

Chicken versus Egg

A mini-opera in three acts
Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Words by Marc Abrahams

Original Cast

Hen: Gail Kilkelly
Egg: Maggie McNeil
Other eggs: Nobel Laureates Roy Glauber, Dudley Herschbach, William Lipscomb, Craig Mello and Robert Laughlin
Pianist: Scott Nicholas
Opera Director: Margot Button

ACT 1

NARRATOR: Tonight’s opera is called “Chicken versus Egg.” It’s about a chicken sitting on an egg, and you can probably guess where it goes from there. The chicken is played by Gail Kilkelly. We will meet her in Act 2. The egg is played by Maggie McNeil. The two singers are, like the characters they play, mother and daughter.

Here’s some background. The hen has been sitting on the egg for quite a while now. The egg is getting awfully bored. Let’s join her now as she complains to her mother.

[MUSIC: “Voi Che Sapete” from “The Marriage of Figaro” by Mozart.]

[The EGG sings this. Her manner is that of a petulant, bored teenager. As the EGG sings, she sometimes looks upward, in the direction of the sitting hen.]

EGG:
Mother! Oh, Mother! Please stop sitting on my head.
Did you he-ar,
Mother de-ar?
Did you hear what I just sa-ai-aid?

You’re overprotective. It’s total envelop-ment.
Don’t keep me tucked away—
Teach me to play
Well with others.
Your love smothers
Your child’s develop-ment.

Then there’s my posture and my growth.
Also my deportment.
A small bustline!
A twi-isted spine!
It looks like I’ll have both.

But your most nasty cut,
Mother, you brute,
Is that your keeping me beneath your butt
Might smoosh my suit!

Mother dear,
Here is what I fear:
Mother, Mother!
You will smother
My modeling career!

I have… the most perfect suit
One could possess.
It’s really cu-u-u-ute.
Y es! Yes! Yes!

Look! The color is a perfect shade of eggshell!
And the shape’s a perfect ovoid! It looks swell!
But when you sit on me, my clothes will go to hell.
All this you know… perfectly well!

Mother! Oh, Mother! Please stop sitting on my head.
Oh, what a crying shame!
Don’t play this game!
Mental slaughter
Of your daughter!
I’ll never be the same!

Mental slaughter
Of your daughter!
I’ll never be the same!

ACT 2

NARRATOR: Since our first visit with the chicken and the egg, not a whole lot has happened. The egg has continued to be an egg, and the chicken has continued to sit on it. Here in Act 2, the chicken has grown weary of her egg’s incessant whining. Let’s join the mother hen now as she tells her daughter some facts of life.

[MUSIC: “Queen of the Night” from “The Magic Flute” by Mozart.]

[The HEN holds an egg in her hand, and sings this song to it. She is fed up with the egg’s attitude.]

HEN:

You little egg, you listen to your mother!
Listen to Mother!
Sit still, and cock an ear. Now then, my dear…
I’ve heard enough!
Enough about your feeling and your passions.
Enough about your shape-revealing fashions.
My ovoid nitwit,
Put a lid on it!

Your foolish rot
Has really made me hot!
Ho-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-t!
Baking, frying, roasting in foil!
Ho-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-t!
You watch it, kid—an egg is easy to boil.

Your simpering seems human,
But you—you’re just albumin. [pronounced “al-BYOO-min”]
You act like I’m a doormat.
I will not stand for that.

But I know
That you know
I can’t stop you.
Okay! Stand up, and go!
Oh, ho, ho-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!

Your demands are quite a joke.
Settle down. Have lunch. Relax, and eat your yolk.
Ha! Ha! Ha-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!
I’m your mother.
There… I’m glad we spoke.

ACT 3

NARRATOR: It’s time for the thrilling conclusion to our opera. After nine months—er, um, nine weeks—uh, uh… or however long it takes an egg to hatch—the magic moment is about to arrive. The hen and her favorite egg are reallllllllllly excited.

You may notice some other eggs here on the stage, played by the Nobel Laureates and the other scientists. These other eggs, too, are eager to hatch—but they’re not going anywhere right now. Their stories will have to be told some other time.

Now let’s join the mother hen as her favorite egg breaks out of its shell, and becomes a chick.

[Sung by HEN and EGG. At the beginning, the HEN is giving encouragement and instruction to the EGG, who is tentative and a bit frightened. In the middle, after EGG has hatched, both HEN and EGG grow progressively more excited and happy. The HEN is evermore proud and relieved and happy—but the EGG grows progressively more dismayed once she realizes she has become just like her mother. By the very end of the song, the hen is radiantly joyful, but the egg is in near-panicked despair.]

[The scientists all play the part of OTHER EGGS. They hold whatever we are using as simple egg costumes—perhaps a few pieces of paper taped together, and they say “peck, peck, peck, peck, peck” when the singers are singing the “peck, peck...” part, and at such other times as the mother HEN may direct them to.]

[Music: “Pa-pa-gena! ... Pa-pa-geno!” from “The Magic Flute” by Mozart.]
EGG: Peck! Peck, peck!
HEN: Peck! Peck, peck!

EGG: Peck, peck! Peck, peck!
HEN: Peck, peck! Peck, peck!

EGG: Peck, peck, peck, peck! Peck, peck, peck, peck!
HEN: Peck, peck, peck, peck! Peck, peck, peck, peck!

HEN: Peck, peck, peck! Peck, peck!
EGG: Peck, peck, peck! Peck, peck!

HEN: Peck! Peck! Peck! Peck! Peck!
EGG: Peck! Peck! Peck! Peck! Peck! Yayyyyyy!!!

[The EGG’s shell breaks, and she becomes a chicken.]

HEN: That was a tightly-fitting dress!
EGG: Oh, such a tightly-fitting dress!
HEN: I can imagine your distress!
EGG: You can imagine my distress!
BOTH: Oh, what distress! Oh, what distress!

HEN: You felt peckish? You felt squeezed?
EGG: I felt peckish. I felt squeezed!
HEN: Bottle-neckish, almost tweezed?
EGG: Bottle-neckish, almost tweezed!

BOTH:
Well, at first I [you] tried to make do.
Then at last I [you] had a breakthrough.
I [you] got rid of that thing quick.
I’m [You’re] a chick!
I’m [You’re] a chick!!
I’m [You’re] a chick!!!
Yes, I am [you are] quite a stylish chick!
Yes, I am [you are] quite a stylish chick!!

HEN: Now! Now at last! You are a chicken!
EGG: Now! Now at last! I am a chicken!
HEN: Now! Now at last! You are a chicken!
EGG: Now! Now at last! I am a chicken!
HEN: You’re a chicken!
EGG: I’m a chicken!
HEN: You’re a chicken!
EGG: I’m a chicken!

BOTH:
I’m [You’re] a chicken!
I’m [You’re] a chicken!

EGG: Do you know what I want to do?
HEN: Yes, I know what you want to do!
EGG: To lay an egggggggggggg!
HEN: You’ll lay an egg and be a mother!

BOTH:
Lay an egg and be a mother!
Lay an egg and be a mother!
lay an egg and be a mother, mother, mother, mother, mother!

To lay an egg!
To lay an egg!
HEN: Yes, that IS just what I would do!
EGG: Oh, no! That’s just what YOU would do!
HEN: I’d lay an egggggggggggg!
EGG: I’ve become just like my mother!
I’ve become just like my mother!
I’ve become just like my mother, mother, mother, mother, mother!

BOTH:
I’m [You’re] just like her [me]!
I’m [You’re] just like her [me]!
Like my [your] mother!
Like my [your] mother!
Like my [your] mother, mother, mother, mother, mother!
Well, well, well! Well, well, well, well!
Like my [your] mother!
Like my [your] mother!
Like my [your] mother, mother, mother, mother, mother!
Put me back into my [You have come out of your] shell!
Put me back into my [You have come out of your] shell!!
Put me back into my [You have come out of your] shell!!!
EGG: I’ve become just like my mother!!!!
HEN: You’ve become just like your mother!!!!

BOTH:
Mother, mother, mother, mother!
Mother, mother, mother, mother!
Mother, mother, mother, mother!

_____________________

The article above is from the November-December 2007 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!

Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.

Scientists studying a species of Australian lizard called the yellow-bellied three-toed skink discovered that they’re seeing evolution in action: the lizard lays eggs on coasts but birth babies in mountains.

Evolutionary records shows that nearly a hundred reptile lineages have independently made the transition from egg-laying to live birth in the past, and today about 20 percent of all living snakes and lizards give birth to live young only.

But modern reptiles that have live young provide only a single snapshot on a long evolutionary time line, said study co-author James Stewart, a biologist at East Tennessee State University. The dual behavior of the yellow-bellied three-toed skink therefore offers scientists a rare opportunity.

"By studying differences among populations that are in different stages of this process, you can begin to put together what looks like the transition from one [birth style] to the other."

Link – Thanks Ethan!

You don’t need to be the Tsar of Russia to eat your eggs like one! Designer Andrea Kezdi created these gorgeous egg holders inspired by the Fabergé eggs. The Tsar Egg Cups over at the NeatoShop make for a wonderful gift at a surprisingly affordable price: Link | More Fun and Unusual Kitchen Stuff

Zebra longwing butterfly egg (Heliconius charithonia)
The orange hue of this zebra longwing butterfly egg may warn predators: "Eat me if you dare." The threat would not be idle. The egg contains cyanide and other toxins ingested by adults from the plants
they eat.

We don’t have to look far to find alien-looking lifeforms, as the September 2010 issue of National Geographic shows. All you need is a microscope and a few insect eggs.

Links: Article by Rob Dunn | Photo Gallery by Martin Oeggerli in cooperation with Prüftechnik Uri and School of Applied Sciences, FHNW

For the first time, eggs and other products such as oranges and bread rolls will be sold by weight instead of by the number contained in a packet.
Until now, Britain has been exempt from EU regulations that forbid the selling of goods by number. But last week MEPs voted to end Britain’s deal despite objections from UK members.
The new rules will mean that instead of packaging telling shoppers a box contains six eggs, it will show the weight in grams of the eggs inside, for example 372g.

Or that a bag of white rolls has 322g inside instead of half a dozen. The rules will not allow both the weight and the quantity to be displayed. [...]

Adam Leyland, editor of The Grocer trade magazine, said: ‘You couldn’t make it up, could you? It would be funny if it were an April Fool’s joke. But it’s not and it will potentially cost the industry millions, while confusing customers no end.

Christopher leake of The Daily Mail has got the story: Link

The four different patterns and markings are repeated and believed to convey ownership or purpose and to differentiate the eggs from each other.

The researchers led by Pierre-Jean Texier, of the University of Bordeaux, said that before this discovery, the first signs of art, writing or ‘culture’ was thought to have been first shown in the late Stone Age between 35,000 and 10,000 years ago.

It included cave paintings dating back to 30,000 years BC, thought to be some of the earliest examples of decorative art or written communication.

But this latest discovery, which is much older, showed “collective identities and individual expressions” that were the beginning of modern civilised behaviour, they said.

In other words, writing. Or at least a form or communication that led to writing. The researchers examined 270 fragments of ostrich eggs found in South Africa. Link -via Scribal Terror

When University of Michigan professor Jeffrey Wilson stumbled upon fossilized dinosaur eggs, he discovered something quite remarkable – a death scene best described as "Anaconda" meets "Jurassic Park":

"It was amazing," Wilson recalls, "because we realized that not only do we have an egg, not only do we have a chain of vertebrae, but they are arranged in a coil, and on top of the coil was a skull."

The snake was coiled around the broken eggshell. "Next to that coil, eggshell, skull, was a solid egg, and another solid egg, and then some larger bones," says Wilson.

Those bones belonged to a baby sauropod. Full-grown sauropods were the vegetarian 100-ton giants of the dinosaur world. But the baby was only about a foot-and-a-half long. It had apparently just hatched from that broken egg. The snake, about 11 feet long, had been waiting for the baby to hatch in order to eat it.

Link

Local vet Barrie Fleming, who advised the farm’s owners, Roger Olver and Tanya Dalton, on the hatching, said they had “every reason to be excited by the birth” as it was a very rare occurrence.

The BBC has the video. Link -via Arbroath

These visually striking eggs are produced by hard-boiling an egg, cracking the shell, and then steeping the egg in a flavored tea or broth.  The batik-like marbling effect is more prominent when teas with high levels of tannin are used; the duration of the second boiling will influence both the color of the marbling and the degree to which the tea or broth flavor penetrates the egg.

Link (and photo credit), via Sharp as Teeth and Stars.

This video by YouTube user Elman511 shows a chicken egg that contains another chicken egg — shell and all — inside. I suspected this was a hoax until I read about the phenomenon of ovum in ovo:

Douglas Russell, speaking about the phenomenon in the New Scientist, said: “As the curator of the British Natural History Museum egg collection, I’ve come across quite a few examples of egg oddities.

“Double eggs (as opposed to multiple-yolked eggs) are less common than some other zoological anomalies and consequently the ovum in ovo has attracted specific scholarly attention for hundreds of years.

“Several theories have been proposed for the origin of double eggs.

“The most likely suggests that the normal rhythmic muscular action, or peristalsis, that moves a developing egg down the oviduct malfunctions in some way.”

Link via Bits & Pieces

GatgetHER has pictures of and links to seventeen bizarre and/or clever kitchen gadgets, such as this nose-shaped egg separator. The others gadgets include a device that turns a hard-boiled egg into a cube, one that shears the kernels off of a corn cob, and an espresso machine that looks like a medieval torture implement.

Link via The Presurfer

You Auto Lay an Egg (AKA It’s a Bird) is a 1930 short film by cartoonist Charley Bowers and directed by Harold L. Muller in which a freaky, talking, stop-motion bird lays an egg that hatches into a (real) full-size car.

It looks like they accomplished the trick by sawing the car into tiny bits frame by frame and then running the film backwards, but the results are truly astonishing however they were achieved (Remember, this is before the age of CGI). Set some time aside, because you’re probably going to watch this clip three time in a row.

– via monstersandrockets

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by gregs.

When a volunteer was cataloging a collection at University of Cambridge’s Zoology Museum, she ran across a curious egg with writings on it:

… Lowe and Curator of Ornithology Dr Mike Brooke, traced the specimen’s origin in the notebook of Professor Alfred Newton, a friend of Darwin’s and Professor of Zoology in the latter 19th Century.

Prof Newton had written: "One egg, received through Frank Darwin, having been sent to me by his father who said he got it at Maldonado (Uruguay) and that it belonged to the Common Tinamou of those parts.

"The great man put it into too small a box and hence its unhappy state."

Link

Previously on Neatorama: 10 Fun Facts About Charles Darwin

There’s a line in one of the Robocop movies, "Don’t forget what you already know," or something like that. I may be remembering that wrong BUT check out these very useful kitchen tips from the pages of history, as compiled by Tipnut. For example:

To keep cheese from getting hard, cut off enough for immediate use and spread the remaining portion with a thin film of butter or margarine. Put it in a cool place. This keeps out the air and prevents the cheese from drying out.

Sprinkle pantry shelves, window sills, and door sills with a mixture of red pepper and sage to rid them of ants.

A smooth shiny egg shell is a sign of old age. Fresh eggs have a chalky rough shell

To make peeling hard-cooked eggs easier, butter your thumbs.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by JKirchartz.

Keepers have segregated the couple after they caught them trying to trick straight birds into parting with their offspring by placing round stones at their feet and then running off with an egg.

Experts at the Polarland Park in Harbin, north east China, say that despite being gay the three year old male birds are still driven by an urge to be dads.

Link

Previously on Neatorama: Gay Penguins Say No Thanks to Females