As Valentine’s Day looms, we were sparing a moment to ponder the force of attraction that results in partnerships such as Romeo and Juliet, Bogey and Bacall, Chantelle and Preston… when suddenly our world rocked! Yes it’s true - a myth has been exposed.  That most faithful of sea creatures Serge “I mate for life” Seahorse has been exposed as nothing more than a philandering strumpet. And if we were to say he prefers both the front and the backcrawl when choosing partners… Er-hem! The saucy seahorse. Is nothing sacred?

The line-up this week:

1. Creature Feature - Seahorses.  Mate for life?  Not on your nelly.
2. Lurve Quiz 2007
3. Stump the Scientist: does paper get thicker?
4. Activity of the Week: Take heart
5. Mouses at the Ready for tickets for The Ethics of Progress
6. Noticeboard: FYI
7. Recommended websites of the week
8. The Winners’ Enclosure
9. Joke of the Week

The seahorse is otherwise known as “Hippocampus” which means literally “horse caterpillar” or “Horse monster”.  Not a good start. This is because the Victorians named many animal species with the Latin nomenclature system set up by Carlos Von Linnae. Since seahorses had hard bodies they thought that they belonged to the insect family. However the seahorse has a number of bizarre attributes.  Despite having the obvious fishy characteristics such as gills, fins etc. they have skin not scales and their prehensile tail is more commonly seen in monkeys. Hang on we’re not done yet. Plus they have a brooding pouch like kangaroos and, more incredibly, the males get pregnant not the females.

Most of the species are on the International Union of Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Animals, listed as vulnerable although some of the species such as the Knysna Seahorse (Hippocampus capensis) have been upgraded to Endangered status. Much of this can be attributed to the curio and aquarium trades although the major cause is the Chinese traditional medicine trade which is responsible for 30 million collected each year.

Scientists at fifteen Sea Life Centre aquariums around Britain studied ninety seahorses of three species from Australia, the Caribbean and the Channel. The scientists were looking for signs of courtship, including colour changes, knotting of tails and synchronised swimming. However, individual seahorses were recorded flirting with up to 25 potential partners a day. The Australian bigbellied seahorse was the most indiscriminate, mating with both females and males several times a day. In addition, the bigger the belly on the seahorse, the more partners. Not like humans then. Caribbean slender seahorses were also promiscuous. Of the three species studied, only some of the British spiny seahorse were faithful to one partner. Out of those, five pairs remained faithful, while twelve did not. Shame on you!

The information was studied at the national seahorse breeding centre in the Sea Life Park, Weymouth.

For more information on these wanton water-dwellers:

Philandering life mates

Shameless seahorse shenanigans

Faithful seahorses

British Seahorse Survey

Do you remember last week when Teresa Aschenbrenner asked:

“Why is it that paper seems to get thicker after printing? For instance I just printed 500 pages through a laser printer, and the stack is twice as high after printing. I can't imagine the toner is that thick. Does it have something to do with the paper being heated?”

Well this prompted a veritable flurry of ideas. Reams in fact.

Julie Heap, who worked as a paper technologist for 15 years says:

“The reason that paper thickens after printing is that the ink causes the paper fibres to swell, these are then fixed in the thicker dimension by the heat from the printer. Keeping the paper at a constant humidity and temperature was always important to prevent paper movement of any kind: curling being the most common.” 

Whereas Simon Cochrane says:

“In the pack the paper is packed down tight with very little space between the sheets.

Individual sheets are separated as they are printed. This allows a small amount of air between each sheet. This partly explains the difference in thickness.  If you squashed the pile down it would approach the original (packed) thickness. The thickness of the ink will increase the size of the pile too. It's a bit like cornflakes. It always says somewhere on the packet "contents may settle in transit". Or it’s a bit like a well fluffed continental quilt, or a cat on a cold day, or like a fresh packet of coffee that won't quite fit into the jar until you shake it.............”

And Simon is joined by James Stevenson who states

“Paper is usually vacuum packed in sheets of 500, when it is inserted into the photocopier air gets between the sheets, the suction of the vacuum is lost, and the paper appears to have doubled in size.”

The air-between-the-sheets-of-paper argument is also supported by Carole Cooper and  Ryan Bradley-Evans (age 11).

So thanks everyone! On this occasion the scientist was NOT stumped.

Next week we have some answers for Dani Haydock who asked:

 “Perhaps not a very scientific question but then I'm not a scientist - does wind make a noise? Or is it just the stuff that gets in its way that makes the noise???? Hmmm. My 9 year old says it does make a noise - he's learnt it at school!”

If you can help or have a burning question of your own then send us an email with STUMP THE SCIENTIST in the subject line to planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk