The
Eclectic
Newsletter
Happy Thursday, everyone!
Today’s topics include whales wearing hats and rotating buildings. Wow! Life can be strange.
That said, let’s dive into the rare and odd.
Winter Hats… Made of Salmon?
(Image credit: Left: Wirestock/ Getty Images; Right: Winfried Wisniewski/Getty Images)
A 37-year-old trend has resurfaced. Well, sort of. It’s underwater.
Orcas in the Pacific Northwest have begun wearing salmon hats… dead salmon hats.
Again.
Apparently, this behavior was first spotted around 1987. Researchers spotted this resurgent behavior in October and realized that it hadn’t been seen for nearly 40 years.
In the summer 🔅of 1987, a female orca exhibited this behavior for no reason that was apparent to marine scientists. As a trend, it caught on with other Orcas.
While it’s possible that the same Orcas🐋 that donned these macabre hats last month are actually some of the same Orcas exhibiting the behavior in 1987, researchers can’t be sure.
Why they do it is still a total mystery.
Some researchers hypothesize that it’s a method of “storing” food. Orcas have been seen storing food🐟 beneath their pectoral fins🦈. But, theories suggest that the salmon are too small to be safely held in that location.
And that’s still a total hypothesis. Not enough studies have been done to follow an orca🐋 wearing a salmon hat🎩 to determine if it is later eaten or simply discarded.
Waste not… want not has taken on a whole new meaning! 😉
Working in a Rotating Skyscraper… In 1930!
When Indiana Bell Telephone☎️ Company purchased the Central Union Telephone Company in 1929, it also acquired the headquarters building🏢 in Evansville.
The original plan was to demolish the eight-story building to make way for an expansion.
Architect Kurt Vonnegut Sr. suggested a different plan.
Move it!🚣
The building was moved 52 feet sideways and turned 90 degrees using eighteen manually operated jacks, a series of rollers, a steam engine🚂, and cables.
The most impressive part of this move was that the building never went out of operation.
Offices remained fully operational during the month long move, and telephone services were not lost. 600 employees entered and exited the building by a moveable bridge.
Unfortunately, the building was demolished about 30 years later to make room for another expansion.
However, this impressive feat of engineering made way for the construction of a seven-story art deco building🏪, completed in 1932 and now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Now that’s ingenuity!
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