Today is the first day of summer in 2024, and also National Seashell Day. Here are 10 things you might not know about seashells:
A seashell is the exoskeleton of an invertebrate, and is typically composed of calcium carbonate or chitin. Calcium carbonate is an ingredient of Toothpaste, so in ancient times people used ground up seashells to clean their teeth.
The study of seashells is called conchology.
Sea shells have been used as Money. The most common species of shells to be used as currency have been Monetaria moneta, or the money cowry, which circulated, historically, alongside metal coins and goods, and foreign currencies.
They’ve also been used as musical instruments. The Queen Conch, Lobatus gigas, for example, has been used as a trumpet in the Caribbean.
People have collected shells for centuries. An ancient shell collection was found in the rubble at Pompeii, which not only included shells from the local area but also a few which came from further afield: the Red Sea or the Indian Ocean. Also, the earliest known keepsake to be buried with a human was a shell which had been made into a pendant and was buried with a stone age baby in South Africa.
Children are often told the myth that you can hear the sound of the ocean by holding a seashell to your ear. It’s a myth, of course, but you do hear something, thanks to a phenomena known as seashell resonance. If you hold a shell to your ear the ambient sounds of air movement are amplified within the cavity of the shell. Air movement and the sea are similar enough that they sound the same. Cupping a hand to your ear will result in the same effect.
The only book of Edgar Allan Poe’s that sold well during his lifetime was a book about seashells. It was called The Conchologist’s First Book of 1845. Although he was accused of copying the material, he is also lauded by scientists as he was one of the few scientific writers of his time to give an anatomical account of the molluscs that once lived inside.
The CIA once hatched a plot to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro with an exploding conch shell. They knew a spot where Castro liked to go diving and planned to place the booby-trapped shell on a Coral reef for him to find.
Most bivalve shells open to the right, ie they are dextral. A small number are sinistral, which means they open to the left. The latter are rare enough to be collectors items. The sinistral molluscs can’t mate with the dextral ones, so they can only reproduce if they can find another sinistral mollusc for a bit of nookie.
Shell oil company was created when Marcus Samuel Jr. founded Shell Transport & Trading Co. He probably used the name Shell because his father, Marcus Samuel Sr., owned a shop which sold seashells and was actually the inventor of the shell decorated boxes often found in seaside gift shops. Marcus Jr even named all the oil tankers after types of shell. The first was the Murex.
New!!!
The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.
Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.
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