That’s GK as in ‘general knowledge’, y’all.

Is it warm outside? Instead of getting off the couch to check, just turn off the television and listen to the crickets.

You see, MOM explains that if you do some maths, you can nail down the temperature outside.

And no, we don’t mean the kinds of chirps that led to David Warner and Quinton de Kock’s showdown in Durban.

Contrary to popular belief, chirping is not the result of crickets rubbing their legs together – and not all crickets are able to chirp. Rather, chirping is only done by male crickets to attract the attention of female crickets.

Surprise.

For those crickets that do chirp, the explanation goes something like this:

The left wing of a male cricket is ribbed, with 50 to 300 ridges. This surface is called the file. The top part of the right wing is called the scraper. When the left wing is raised to a 45-degree angle and the scraper part of the right wing is rubbed against it, it results in a chirping sound.

The technical name for this action is stridulation, and one Jim Wilson slowed down a recording of the nightly sound to create this beauty:

Here’s some more info on the insects belonging to the Gryllidae family:

Crickets are nocturnal, so they chirp at night. This is the reason we never hear this noise during the daytime. We’re also more likely to hear chirping in the spring and summer since in warmer weather, the crickets are more active.

There are four types of chirping:

• A loud calling song is used to attract females.
• A soft courting song is used when a female cricket is near.
• An aggressive chirping is set off when another male is coming near.
• And another chirp is used for a brief time after successful copulation.

And, according to Dolbear’s law, yes, it is possible to know the temperature outside.

When working with Fahrenheit, all you have to do count the number cricket’s chirps in 14 seconds and add 40 to that number.

30 chirps in 14 seconds? Well, that’s a cool 70 degrees Fahrenheit, or 21 degrees Celsius.

Maybe you can use this to impress someone the next time you’re camping. Maybe not.

Either way, there’s your useless nugget of info for the day.

[source:mom]