Can people walk on water? (VIDEOS!)

This is a question that came out of the science question box. I decided to keep it lively here by taking a little break from bees. My short answer? No.

What about these guys?

Well, the shoe company that made this ad later admitted that the videos were fake.

Walking on water is actually kind of a common magical trick. Here's a video of the "Masked Magician" showing you how the trick is done in a swimming pool with plastic platforms.


But then how, pray tell, do I explain the little basilisk lizard (aka "The Jesus Lizard" -get it- because it walks on water)? No special effects involved here!

Well, basilisk lizards are a lot smaller than us, and a lot lighter. Water has enough surface tension (strength at its surface) to let small, light things sit or run on the surface. Surface tension comes from the way that water molecules are attracted to each other, so they don't break apart as easily. Also, the basilisk lizard has large feet that spread out when they hit the surface of the water to spread out its weight kind of like wings.

Try this at home to see water's surface tension at work! The surface tension holds a lot more water on the penny than you would think it could!



Bugs are even better at this than basilisk lizards. Behold: The Water Strider!

What does the queen bee do?

The queen bee. She's big. She doesn't look like a normal bee (aka a worker bee). What does it mean to be the queen? What does the queen bee do? The simple answer is, the queen bee lays eggs. Lots of eggs. I think I told you hundreds of eggs per day- I was wrong- it's over a thousand eggs per day! Pretty much non-stop, every 20-30 seconds. Check out this video:

Every time the queen bee sticks her abdomen (tail-like part at the end) into the cell, she lays an egg at the bottom of the cell. These tiny eggs will hatch into tiny larvae, or baby insects. In this picture below the tiny white things that look like rice grains are the eggs, the little white worms that look like they are in a little droplet of liquid are the newborn larvae.

The queen (aka "Big Momma") is normally the only bee that lays eggs in the hive. Her extreme egg-laying at least partially explains why she is so much bigger than the other bees. Like a pregnant mother, she has a big abdomen or belly to grow and hold all of those eggs.

(egg picture from Penn State Cooperative Extension website: http://www.extension.org/pages/26741/inspecting-a-colony)