The last couple of months have been an interesting time. Confined mostly to our homes, people have been coming up with all sorts of ways to keep themselves entertained. In our house it's no different.
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The kid and I have come up with a great way to keep ourselves busy - and, true to form, it's completely nerdy.
Through the medium of copious amounts of chalk, and a blank expanse of concrete at the bottom of our driveway, we've been sharing fun science facts with our neighbourhood. So now, while everyone is out and about getting their isolation exercise, they're also getting a hefty dose of science.
First of all it was giraffes. Did you know that, despite giraffes having necks around 17 times longer than ours, we have the same number of neck bones (or cervical vertebrae if you want to get technical about it)?
Like nearly all mammals, from mice to elephants, humans and giraffes both have seven neck bones.
The exception to this rule? Sloths and manatees apparently.
We've also delved into the ocean to regale our science loving neighbours with shark facts. Female sharks have thicker skin than male sharks. They need it to protect them from the bites the males often deliver during mating. Ouch.
While many of our facts have been animal based (like ostriches having eyes that are bigger than their brains), we've also shared a bit about the human body.
Like that it takes about a minute for your blood to complete a full lap of your body.
And on one particularly crappy isolation day, we thought it was a good idea to enlighten our neighbours to the fact that there is poo on the moon.
Human poo. Left there by astronauts, who needed to discard some extra baggage to make room for all the moon souvenirs ... I mean scientific research samples ... that they needed to take home.
For our latest offering we've dived back into the sea. This time sharing that octopuses (cue long argument with husband over whether octopuses is the correct plural for octopus - it is.) have three hearts and blue blood. This one went down so well with the locals that one kind neighbour found some chalk of their own to give us a tick and a grade of 100 per cent.
More generous feedback than I typically receive from the academic reviewers I'm used to dealing with!
Got a fun science fact that I need to hear? I'm all ears.
Dr Mary McMillan is a lecturer at the School of Science and Technology, University of New England
