Sponges With No Brains
The sponge is a creature which lives in many parts of the world, and is regularly harvested in the Gulf of Mexico. This little fellow has no heart, brain, liver, bones, and hardly anything else. Some sponges grow to several feet in diameter; yet you can take one, cut it up in pieces, and squeeze it through silk cloth, thus separating every cell from every other cell, and then throw part or all of the mash back into seawater. The cells will all unite back into a sponge!
Yet a sponge is not a haphazard arrangement of cells; it is a complicated structure of openings, channels, and more besides.
Yes, we said they have no brains; but now consider what these amazing little creatures do: Without any brains to guide him, the male sponge knows – to the very minute – when the tide is about to begin to come in. Immediately he releases seeds into the water and the tide carries them in.
The female sponge may be half a mile away, but she is smart enough (without having any more brains than he has) to know that there are seeds from the male above her in the water. Immediately recognizing this, she releases thousands of eggs which float upward like a cloud and meet the male sperm. The eggs are fertilized and new baby sponges are eventually produced.
Really, now, Uncle Charlie, you never explained the origin of the species. Can you explain anything else about them?
Desert Rats Make Water
Desert rats in Western U.S. can manufacture their own water! Oh, how we wish we could do it as inexpensively! Our worldwide water shortage is going to keep worsening.
The rat does it by eating dry seeds, and then combining the hydrogen in them with oxygen from the air – and presto! nice, wet water!
It is time for our scientists to journey out to the desert and interview the little creature. Apparently, that little rat is the only one who can solve our problem. If he will just tell us his secret, we can all start making our own water from grain and air.
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