Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Location: Pavement between RI Boarding and Block A, just outside Block A

The monsoon season's here again and snails all over the island have been venturing out of the soil onto our treacherous pavements, where we unsuspectingly land our foots and piaakkk. December is Be Kind to Snails month: perhaps accordingly, it's time for us to follow our Math teacher and keep our eyes fixated on the ground as we walk, especially just after it rains (:

About snails
Math: Their shells form a logarithmic spiral following parametric equations x(t) = ae^bt cos t; y(t) = ae^bt sin t, where a and b are positive real constants
Chemistry: Their shells are made of calcium carbonate, CaCO₃. (Sec 4 Chem: How to test for calcium carbonate?)
Biology: All land snails are hermaphrodites. When a pair of pulmonate (air-breathing) land snails mate, each snail inseminates the other to internally fertilize its ova.
(Source: Wikipedia)

Wei Zhong @ 2:21 pm