10 things you probably didn’t know about eggs

Everyone’s familiar with the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, most people might not know that aside from sending various forms of technology and people into space, the USSR is also credited with launching the first interstellar chick. The Russians decided to send Japanese quail eggs into space in order to study the impact that zero-gravity would have on the embryos’ development, however this experiment didn't go as planned. No, the chicks didn't turn into weird alien creatures, but they did develop some severe deformities that were possibly caused by higher-than-usual radiation and temperatures. The experiment eventually became successful in 1990, when the first healthy quail chick hatched on the Mir space station.

While it’s believed to have originated in New York City during the late 1800s, many theories exist on how and where eggs Benedict got their start. One of the more popular claims goes that chef Charles Ranhofer of Delmonico’s Restaurant had created the dish special for Mrs. LeGrand Benedict after finding that there was nothing she liked on the menu. A competing story claims that Mr. Lemuel Benedict ordered the first eggs Benedict while hungover at the Waldorf Hotel. Regardless of its creator, brunchers everywhere are thankful for its creation.

Constructed in 1975 and located in Vegreville, Alberta, the Vegreville Egg is designed in the style of an Ukrainian ‘Pysanka’ in order to honour the early Ukrainian settlements that were established east of Edmonton. Given the egg’s size and weight, it’s possibly the world’s easiest Easter egg hunt.

In the traditions of Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, Easter eggs are often dyed red to represent the blood of Christ, the eggshell represents the tomb, and the act of cracking the eggs symbolizes how the tomb cracked after His resurrection.

In 1806, Mary Bateman, also known as the Yorkshire Witch, pulled off a scam known as “The Prophet Hen of Leeds,” where she claimed that a chicken she owned was laying eggs that were inscribed with the words “Christ is Coming.” She of course inscribed the words herself and would then insert them back into the hen in order to trick people into believing that they were predicting the coming of christ. It was some trick though, as people flocked to Mary for magical protection and for the price of a penny, she promised that they would be spared from the forthcoming end times.

The globe, which dates back to 1504, was found by an Austrian collector and is engraved on two conjoined halves of ostrich eggs. The globe is about the size of a grapefruit and depicts the New World, including what was considered as exotic territories such as Japan and Brazil. The globe’s only sentence, which is above the coast of Southeast Asia, reads “Hic Sunt Dracones,” which translates to “Here be dragons.” Talk about an egg-citing discovery.

Queen's University biology professor Bob Montgomerie has found that a male robin will be more diligent in caring for its young if the eggs its mate lays are a brighter shade of blue. Robin eggs get their blue colour from a pigment called biliverdin, and there is some evidence that higher biliverdin levels indicate a healthier female and brighter blue eggs. Eggs that were laid by a healthier female seemed to encourage male robins to be more active fathers.

While brown eggs are usually more expensive than white eggs, their higher price has nothing to do with their quality. Brown eggs cost more because the hens that lay them are a physically bigger breed than the white-egg-laying chickens. Since bigger hens need more food, farmers have to spend more on feed. As a result, the increase in cost of production per egg gets passed onto consumers.

Yes, chickens do have earlobes! Though it isn’t a hard and fast rule, the colour of a chicken’s earlobe is a good indicator of what colour the eggshell will be. Therefore, chickens with white earlobes will usually lay white eggs, while chickens with red or brown earlobes will lay brown eggs.

In June 2010, a hen in Essex named Harriet laid the world’s largest recorded egg that measured a whopping 9.1 inches in diameter and was 4.5 inches long. To help visualize just how big this egg was, hens’ eggs on average have a circumference of 5.5 inches and are only 2.3 inches long. I wouldn’t be surprised if an egg of this size left poor Harriet shell shocked.