February 22, 2016 at 01:32AM

Today I Learned: 1) Ok, so I actually learned this fact yesterday, but it's so good I want to cheat and share it today instead. It has to do with the aardvark (which, incidentally, has "least concern" conservation status and is doing quite well) and its very special symbiotic relationship with the aardvark cucumber. Yes, the ardvark cucumber. The aardvark cucumber is a plant that has evolved to *specifically be dug up and eaten by aardvarks*. Aardvark cucumbers (which are, in fact, a kind of cucumber) have really succulent, delicious, water-filled cucumber fruit that look kind of like puffball mushrooms. Unlike most cucumbers, the aardvark cucumber only grows its fruit underground, where it's inaccessible to most mammals with the exception of, you guessed it, the aardvark. Aardvarks LOVE aardvark cucumbers, apparently mostly because they're a really important source of water for the aardvark. This is unusual, because aardvarks don't really eat any other fruit -- aside from the aardvark cucumber, aardvarks pretty much exclusively eat ants and termites, and only certain varieties of ants and termites at that. So the aardvark cucumber must be something special. This arrangement of being dug up and eaten by aardvarks works out for the cucumber, too. Aardvark cucumber seeds germinate best when buried in freshly fertilized, loosely tilled soil. Aardvarks dig up the cucumbers, poop out the seeds nearby, and bury them, giving the cucumber exactly what it needs to germinate. The aardvark cucumber appears to have no other mechanism for spreading its seeds -- if the aardvark ever goes extinct, it will take out the aardvark cucumber with it. Aardvark aardvark aardvark aardvark aardvark. 2) When writing Firefly, Joss Whedon wanted to the cast to use Chinese as a second language, particularly during particularly outbursts of intense emotion, most of which ended up being cursing. The only problem was that that Chinese is super syllable-efficient, so Whedon had to come up with really long, involved curses for them to last long enough for an English audience to pick up on as Chinese. 3) Pay-for-performance is an idea in healthcare that you can get better performance from doctors by paying them more for better patient outcomes. It's an interesting idea, but so far empirical evidence says that it only works very slightly, if at all.