As you'll already know, New Scientist's Last Word is where you go if you want to ask a question on anything related to everyday science, answer someone else’s query, or just nose around to see what others are wondering. In fact it’s the perfect place to while away a coffee break.

Queries range from why poo smells to whether insects can get fat. Occasionally we also get great photographs of strange things like eggs inside eggs - and sometimes even videos of crabs that should, by rights, be dead.

And this one we just had to tell you about. Peter William Eaves contacted Last Word to tell us that, while the surface of a long-established sand/gravel drive (laid in the 1920s or 30s) was being improved, a very strange phenomenon was discovered.



Beneath the drive, at a depth of 25 centimetres, were least 13 live crabs (all being around 7 cm in width). See a video of the crustaceans, courtesy of Mark Leitch. One had a barnacle its back, so it seems that it must have at one time lived near the sea. The nearest sea water is an estuary around 4km, and the sea itself considerably further.

Peter has owned the land next to the drive for around 40 years and reports there have been no repairs or excavations there during that period. We're hoping that there's some one out there than can tell us what on earth is going on here.

How and why are these crabs still alive after being sealed in a hole under the ground far away from water - for possibly decades and decades? Give us your explanations below in the comments or email us at: lastword@newscientist.com. And if anyone has got any other videos of strange goings on that you want explained, please also send them our way!

But your own heart will best suggest to you, whether you have never intended, by your conduct, to persuade the mother, as well as the daughter, into an opinion, that you designed honourably: and if so, though there may have been no direct promise of marriage in the case, I will leave to your own good understanding, how far you are bound to proceed." "Nay, I must not only confess what you have hinted," said Nightingale; "but I am afraid even that very promise you mention I have given." "And can you, after owning that," said Jones, "hesitate a moment?" "Consider, my friend," answered the other; "I know you are a man of honour, and would advise no one to act contrary to its rules; if there were no other objection, can I, after this publication of her disgrace, think of such an alliance with honour?" "Undoubtedly," replied Jones, "and the very best and truest honour, which is goodness, requires it of you. As you mention a scruple of this kind, you will give me leave to examine it. Can you with honour be guilty of having under false pretences deceived a young woman and her family, and of having by these means treacherously robbed her of her innocence? Can you, with honour, be the knowing, the wilful occasion, nay, the artful contriver of the ruin of a human being? Can you, with honour, destroy the fame, the peace, nay, probably, both the life and soul too, of this creature? Can honour bear the thought, that this creature is a tender, helpless, defenceless, young woman? A young woman, who loves, who doats on you, who dies for you; who hath placed the utmost confidence in your promises; and to that confidence hath sacrificed everything which is dear to her? Can honour support such contemplations as these a moment?" "Common sense, indeed," said Nightingale, "warrants all you say; but yet you well know the opinion of the world is so contrary to it, that, was I to marry a whore, though my own, I should be ashamed of ever showing my face again." "Fie upon it, Mr. Nightingale!" said Jones, "do not call her by so ungenerous a name: when you promised to marry her, she became your wife; and she hath sinned more against prudence than virtue. And what is this world, which you would be ashamed to face, but the vile, the foolish, and the profligate? Forgive me if I say such a shame must proceed from false modesty, which always attends false honour as its shadow.