I don't really think about my birthstone at all, but I for some reason have known it's a sapphire since I was a kid.

Holy shit, whales listen THROUGH THEIR THROAT.

Holy shit, whales listen THROUGH THEIR THROAT.

What pop song told you that?

I know mine, but I don't especially like it, and I don't own any. My sister, same month, loves it, so there you go. Opal.

Although, if the Gemstone Meanings Blog is to be believed, perhaps I should reconsider:

Its psychological benefits also include increased confidence on a deep level, confidence that is independent of external factors and completely based on understanding your core being. It helps you to realize all the externally anchored beliefs and behaviours you have adopted, and to cast them off in favor of your core self.

ETA: I didn't cheat. I just wanted to see pictures. And, actually, the deeper blue opal is very pretty.

My birthstone is my favourite colour. I don't know if that's coincidence or me forcing it on myself. I used to know all the birthstones. I know my mother's (both her real birthstone and her fake birthday) and my sister's, and in fact got upset when I was thirteen or so and my father bought me a necklace that was my sister's birthstone. I thought it was inappropriate.

Good god, I found an aside in the business requirements document I wasn't here to review which could throw another monkey wrench in the works of the project, and no one is assigned to track it down. Well, no one was. ::sigh:: I'm stunned by the info we don't have sometimes.

Is one of NPH's kids a girl and the other a boy?

My birthstone is my favourite colour. I don't know if that's coincidence or me forcing it on myself. I used to know all the birthstones. I know my mother's (both her real birthstone and her fake birthday) and my sister's

Me too, to all of that.

Opals are gorgeous, wonderful, have all sorts of promising qualities for people born in October. They are "supposed" to bring dire luck if worn by people with birthdays in other months. H has an October birthday, and I don't quite dare fate by wearing "his" opals.

Mine's amethyst, which is quite nice. I prefer colored and opaque stones to glittah.

I know mine. I had tiny sapphire studs as a kid, so I don't remember not knowing.

Me too, to all of that.

Your mother has a fake birthday?

::eyes -t suspiciously::

her fake birthday

Hmmm?

I think most fish just splooge all over the eggs once they are laid, but sharks have something they stick inside the female. Er, not that I know anything about fish sex really. Oh billytea! Where are you?

That's actually pretty close to what I was going to say. Male fish have testes, which produce sperm. Most species have sperm ducts via which it is splooged on demand; a few have abdominal pores. Male sharks use claspers for intgernal fertilisation. Not all sharks are viviparous (strictly, ovoviviparous - eggs hatch internally and the embryos then develop before birth). The oviparous ones usually have an egg case keeping the eggs together. (Incidentally, Port Jackson shark embryos experience an 89% mortality rate even before birth. Also, more or less, the case for some of the ovoviviparous sharks, where early hatchers will eat the other eggs, or even other hatched embryos, while still within the oviduct.)

Concerning the splooging species, I would like to direct your attention especially to the European bitterling, which is into inter-species threesomes. the male and female find a mussel to involve in their tawdry sex games; the male squirts sperm down its inhalation siphon, while the female squirts eggs down its exhalation siphon. Fertilisation occurs within a protected environment. When the baby bitterlings leave, the mussel (who wasn't offering its services for free, being apparently a fallen mussel, or perhaps a mussel of the night) attaches its own young in cysts on the babies' sides.

There are a lot of undersea stories I think are just ripe for conversion into a Disney cartoon.

So whales have hair and three middle ear bones?

They do! With two caveats. Some whales have a leetle body hair, on their upper lip say; others grow hair while developing, but then lose it. Whales do, as far as I know, have the same middle ear bones as other mammals, but in addition, instead of an eardrum, they have an earplate - a tympanic bone. (Hearing underwater is a different prospect from hearing through air, so the mechanisms by which whales hear are quite different. Given their use of sonar, however, those mechanisms can be very efficient.)