Savvy Minds Entertainment

Bonus topic for the week of 05/10/26 - 05/16/26:

Besides all things marine, another of my favorite bonus topics is space. Recently I wrote about Earth’s atmosphere, but this week we’re going way out there, all the way to the planet named for the Roman god of agriculture and wealth, Saturn. Obviously the most distinguishing feature of it are those large rings surrounding it, we’ll get to those shortly. Saturn is the second largest planet in our solar system which is probably why it was mentioned in early recorded history. In 1610, Galileo noticed something different about Saturn, but wasn’t able to identify what it was. He didn’t have a proper telescope to discern the rings and his theories were that it was irregularly shaped or that there were moons close to it that gave it that appearance. In the mid-1650’s a more advanced telescope was invented by Dutch physicist, Christiaan Huygens, who was then able to see that an unattached “ring” existed around the planet. As the decades and then centuries went on it was determined that there were multiple rings and they were named in the order they were discovered, from A to G. Since the brighter rings were easier to see they were named first and as space travel became possible other rings were identified, the last one, G, not until 1980. This has led to an out of sequence naming, the order outward from the planet is D, C, B, A, F, G and E. The rings are made almost entirely of water ice with trace amounts of other minerals, space dust, and silicates. Not every ring has the same composition which gives them differing colors. Despite looking solid, the rings consist of individual chunks of ice, most of them are small grains like sand and others the size of mountains. Although their widths differ greatly, from 20 miles to 75,000 miles, the average height of each ring is surprisingly only about 30 miles. The total distance from Saturn of the rings and the spaces between them is around 272,000 miles. Now you know the rough composition and sizes of the rings but the question that has divided the science world is how the rings were created in the first place. The original theories were that the rings were part of the formation of Saturn itself, but in more recent studies they believe the rings are much younger and were likely formed either from the collision of two icy moons or a moon or moons that were ripped apart by Saturn’s gravitational forces. Sadly, the rings are quickly disappearing at a continuous rate that may be faster than originally estimated. So, if you’re around in 100 - 300 million years, space will look a little different then.

This week’s bonus question:

Launched in 1997, the space probe that studied Saturn before burning up in 2017 was named for this Italian-French astronomer who was the first to note its multiple rings in 1675?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

Bonus topic for the week of 04/26/26 - 05/02/26:

For those of you who have been reading my bonus topics for the last few years, you know I like to talk about animals, particularly marine animals as evident by my octopus post a few weeks ago. This week is no different, it’s the clownfish. While Finding Nemo brought the clownfish to a new audience, it’s been long known that they have a symbiotic relationship with sea anemones. It was a mystery for scientists of how it was possible, but in recent years they discovered that the sting of the anemones te****les is related to the sugars that are found on the surface of different organisms. That sugar is called sialic acid. When clownfish are born, they have a higher level of this sugar, but after interaction with the anemones their sugar levels lower and they are able to coexist with the anemone without getting stung. Low levels of the sugar exist on the anemone as well, occurring as a mucus on the surface of both organisms. The symbiosis isn’t just chemical, they also protect each other from predators. Clownfish hide within the te****les of the anemone while defending the anemone from potential threats. Probably the most amazing thing about clownfish though is their genetics. They are usually found in small groups of about three to five, and since clownfish are always born male, there obviously has to be a female to continue the progeny. The largest male will mate with the current female until she dies or is no longer a part of the group. At this point, he will become the female which takes a couple of weeks to months for the change to occur. This happens as a result of protandrous sequential hermaphroditism. Clownfish are born with recessive female traits that are dormant until it is necessary for them to change. I gotta think that Finding Nemo would have been a way different movie if they had focused on that.

This week’s bonus question:

Not surprisingly, the clownfish is also known by this name?

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Bonus topic for the week of 04/12/26 - 04/18/26:

I was watching an old episode of Jeopardy the other night and there was an entire category about journalist Nellie Bly. A whole category? Now I know why. I’ve heard her name but never knew the remarkable career and life that she led. Born Elizabeth Jane Cochran in 1864, she suffered a tragedy at an early age when her father passed away leaving her family with financial hardships. Years later, she enrolled in college, but further financial constraints forced her to drop out after the first year. Her brief career in journalism began when she was 20 years old. She wrote a criticizing response to a Pittsburgh newspaper article that vilified women in the workplace which went on to say that they were best at “having children and keeping house”. She rebutted by defending women and stating that there should be more opportunities for them drawing off her own experiences with poverty. This got the attention of the newspaper’s editor who hired her to write similar articles. This is where she pioneered undercover work that came to be called, “stunt journalism”. In order to conceal her identity, she took the pseudonym, Nellie Bly, the title of a popular song. She wrote several articles for the Pittsburgh Dispatch about the adversities faced by women, particularly in the workplace. This was exposed in greater detail after a series of articles Bly wrote while posing as a worker at several different factories. These described the poor conditions and treatment that women received there. Factory owners soon found out and put pressure on the newspaper to stop her. Bly was then relegated to writing about minor subjects like fashion, society and gardening. She became disenamored with her new position and after a six-month stint in Mexico she decided to leave. Bly moved to New York City in hopes of continuing her journalism career, but as a woman, she found it difficult to find work. She eventually convinced the New York World to hire her which led to the biggest story of her career. She decided to take on the risky task of investigating reports of neglect and harsh conditions at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island. In order to do so, she practiced acting like she was insane and after checking into a boarding house, she pretended to lose her mind and was subsequently arrested. She was so convincing that the psychology experts agreed that she needed to be institutionalized. She was sent to Blackwell’s Island where she was able to witness the atrocities that occurred and reported that the conditions there were enough to make anybody go insane and that she thought several of the patients may have been as normal as she was. Ten days later she was released from the asylum in an arrangement by her editor. As a result of her expose, a grand jury investigation led to increased funding, dismissal of negligent staff, legislative reforms and the release of many patients. The success of this series of articles was later made into a book and made Nellie one the most well-known journalists in the world. Just two years later, she embarked on an adventure after reading Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days. She wanted to re-enact the route from the novel and though not traveling by balloon, she did make the trip by train and boat and circumnavigated the globe in 72 days. This endeavor helped cement her legacy in journalism even more. Surprisingly, she left it all behind after marrying millionaire businessman, Robert Seaman. She became president of Iron Clad Manufacturing and during her time there she patented several inventions still in use today. After her husband’s death in 1904, she took over operations and introduced new benefits to the employees which took a toll on the company’s revenue. The business failed and she returned to journalism. She found her way to Europe where she reported on World War I, continued to fight against injustices against women and passed away from pneumonia in 1922 at the age of 57.

This week’s bonus question:

Nellie Bly uncovered atrocities at the Blackwell Asylum while working for New York World which was led by this famous newspaper publisher?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

Bonus topic for the week of 03/29/26 - 04/04/26:

One of my final questions last week was about the multi-sport athlete, Jim Thorpe. In today’s sports, with all the superstars, their big personalities and equally big salaries, it’s easy for people to forget about the athletes that came before them. As I said in the question he is “often considered the greatest athlete in history” and for good reason. Let’s look at his life and accomplishments. He was a member of the Sac and Fox tribe born in Indian Territory, which eventually became Oklahoma. His birthdate has been debated, but it’s believed that he was born in late May, of 1887 or 1888. He began to show his athletic prowess at an early age, learning to hunt and trap and allegedly to swim and ride horses at the age of three. Thorpe had a troubling childhood, losing his twin brother at the age of nine and his mother two years later. This may have led to his history of truancy and after years of different boarding schools, he ended up in Pennsylvania's Carlisle School where he found sports. As the story goes, he first observed some classmates attempting the high jump and decided that he’d like to try it. Dressed in his work clothes of overalls and a buttoned shirt, he cleared the bar at 5’ 9”, outperforming the other jumpers and setting a school record. This caught the attention of the school’s coach who got him to try out for the track and football team. On the football team, he played several positions including kicker, punter, running back and defensive back. Not only was he great at football, he also did well in lacrosse, basketball, boxing, hockey, swimming and won a ballroom dancing competition. After five years at Carlisle, he left to play minor league baseball for two seasons, but returned in 1911 and resumed his athletic dominance. He led his football team to what would later become known as an NCAA Championship, including a win over future president Dwight Eisenhower, who mentioned Thorpe in a 1961 speech saying, “He never practiced in his life, and he could do anything better than any football player I ever saw”. Although football may have been his forte, he also excelled at track and field, so much so that he represented the U.S. at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics despite not having participated in any event for several years. He won both the pentathlon and the decathlon easily while wearing mismatched shoes since his had been stolen. When he was awarded his medals, King Gustav of Sweden said to him, “You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world”. In early 1913, however, it was reported that Thorpe had played minor league baseball and his medals were stripped from him because at the time only amateur athletes could be in the Olympics. That same year, he signed with the MLB team, the New York Giants. He played sporadically over the years for a few different teams both major and minor leagues until 1922. He also played professional football from 1913 until 1928, most notably for the Canton Bulldogs, who became part of the newly formed NFL in 1920. He retired from professional sports in 1928 and went on to do a variety of jobs including a doorman, ditchdigger and even appeared as an extra in over 70 movies. He passed away in 1953 in his mid-60’s. Fortunately in 1983, 30 years after his death, the IOC restored his Olympic standing and his medals.

This week’s bonus question:

This coach at Carlisle School, instrumental in Jim Thorpe’s athletic career, is very well known in youth sports?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point