Strange Science Facts

GuanYin

This thread is for any fact or tid bit from the world of science you feel like sharing, but don't want to start a full thread on.

Please post an accompanying link if you can.

GuanYin

Sykeirl's Happy Science Fact of the Week #1:
Even correct condom use is ineffective against 40% of STIs you may encounter - If you are sexually active have regular STI screenings.

read more here

GuanYin

Sykeirl's Happy Science Fact of the Week #2:
99% of all creatures that have ever existed on earth are now extinct.

read/discuss more here

Capt'n Midnight

99% of all TYPES OFcreatures that have ever existed on earth are now extinct.

Actually it is much worse that that - between 94-95% of all species went extinct at the end of the Permian.

In comparison most species, apart of course from large reptiles, surviced the KT extinction that killed Dinosaurs, (and even then large like Crocs and Turtles surviced)

So few species survived the permian extinction that the fossil record from parts of South Africia, Antartica, Siberia and India consist almost entirely of the species Lystrosaurus a mammal-like reptile.
Imagine a fossilised farm - you'd expect to find mostly cows - but you'd still expect that all the dogs, foxes, rats, frogs, birds, badgers, voles, cats, rabbits and other animals would account for more than 5% of the fossils..

Furry Version - http://www.mathematical.com/dinolystrosaur.html
Reptilian version - http://www.fossilsasart.com/lystrosa.htm
GondWanaLand - http://www.museums.org.za/sam/resource/palaeo/cluver/gondwana.htm

PS. Scientists calculate that a global increase of 10°C might have been sufficient to release frozen methane hydrate during the Permian period

GuanYin

Sykeirl's Happy Science Fact of the Week #3:
Skin Cancer accounts for nearly half of cancers diagnosed in Ireland every year. Even though we know that sun exposure causes it.
Use sunscreen people!
Read/Discuss more here

Capt'n Midnight

There are bacteria that use tiny little magnets to tell them in which direction to move.

http://john183.freeyellow.com/magntite.txt - Text
http://www.biophysics.uwa.edu.au/STAWA/magbac_5.html - Movies
http://www.wholeearthmag.com/ArticleBin/274.html - 2billion years
http://redplanetlife.com/mars7.htm - Life on mars ?
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/RofD2.html - claims humans can learn how to use their internal compass (but not if holding a bar magnet to your head)

Also the bacteria have been used like iron filings to view magnitism in samples - though at one micron they'd be smaller - also there was talk a while back of using thier magnets for tape / hdd because they were better than anything man made in terms of size..

GuanYin

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
There are bacteria that use tiny little magnets to tell them in which direction to move.

Really? Cool!

name/link/details?

Capt'n Midnight

The first nuclear reactor made by Enrico Fermi & co. went critical* on December 2 - 1942 - http://www.fnal.gov/pub/about/whatis/enricofermi.html http://www.era.anl.gov/

WRONG !

It couldn't have happened more than a few years earlier because it took so long develop the technology and theroy to separate and then concentrate the fissile isotopes of Uranium needed.

WRONG AGAIN !

The first known Nuclear reactor was developed by heat loving BACTERIA nearly two billion years ago in Oklo to generate heat.
The bacteria associated with the site may have selectively accumulated certain isotopes of uranium which caused fission to heat them and their surroundings. These bacteria were probably thermotropic and liked the heat which would have killed off competitiors.

http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0010.shtml
http://www.cerncourier.com/main/article/43/2/13
http://www.alamut.com/proj/98/nuclearGarden/bookTexts/Lovelock_Oklo.html

*ie. producing enough neutrons to keep the chain reaction running.

GuanYin

Sykeirl's Happy Science Fact of the Week #4:
1 in 6 Irish people suffer from food posioning every year.
Wash your hands!
Read/Discuss more here

Capt'n Midnight

You can't live on Guiness alone

Guinness does contain many vitamins and minerals in small quantities, but is lacking vitamin C, as well as calcium and fat.
So, to fulfil all of your daily nutritional requirements you would need to drink
- a glass of orange juice,
- two glasses of milk,
- and 47 pints of Guinness.

http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/alcohol/alcohol.jsp?id=lw327

Sarky

Sounds like a wager to me...

GuanYin

Syke's Happy Science Fact of the Week #5:
The average indoor radon level in Irish houses is 90 Bq/m3. Untreated exposure at the level 200 Bq/m3 carries a risk of about 1 in 50 of contracting fatal lung cancer.
Read/Discuss more here

Sarky

Contrary to popular belief, a duck's quack has indeed been proven to echo.

Woden

when trying to push two atoms of a molecule together the electrostatic forces apparently cancel each other out. what stops you pushing two atoms together is actually electron spin.

Capt'n Midnight

Cancer prevented by Aging !

While most people would think cancer is the main thing that stops us living longer the reverse is true !
The reason we can't live forever may be because of the bodies mechanism to prevent cancer - cells are preprogrammed to die.

So if a cell starts to turn cancerous and grows uncontrollably it will only be able to double, say, thirty or forty times. When it reaches its allotted limit this would-be tumour is stopped dead in its tracks.

Note: because of our size and age we will have 10,000 as many cell divisions as mice - any of which could cause cancer... So we are a lot more resistant to cancer than mice..

telomeres - count down to cell death
Link on Meiosis and reproduction

GuanYin

Syke's Happy Science Fact of the Week #6:
The parasite Toxoplasma gondii is now thought to impair human motor response times and shorten attention spans.
Over 60% of the world's population is infected.
Read/Discuss more here

GuanYin

No idea why this was closed or by whom.

Capt'n Midnight

What to you say to musician falling into a black hole ?
B Flat

"In space no one can hear you scream" but there is a black hole that has been screaming for the last 2,500 million years
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3096776.stm

Researchers calculate that a tremendous amount of energy is needed to generate the cavities, as much as the combined energy from 100 million exploding stars.

Much of this energy could be carried by the sound waves that should keep the gas warm. If so, the B-flat pitch of the sound wave, 57 octaves below middle-C, would have remained roughly constant for about 2.5 billion years

ChocolateSauce

If 1Kg of anti-matter came into contact with 1Kg of matter, it would release energy approximately equal 21.5 million tonnes of TNT exploding.

Therefore, if your anti-matter self asks to shake your hand, it is your duty not to do it, as doing so will probably destroy the country you are in.

Capt'n Midnight

Without a visual reference it's very hard to define left and right. If we could communicate with aliens we would have to rely on no-symmetric reactions like normal cobalt 60 radioactivity in a very strong magnetic field means slightly more electrons ejected from the south end. Form this you and you alien friends can work out left and right. If you meet and holds out out his left hand then run like cazy ! ( In reality the solar wind / intrasteller gas/dust would give a light show long before youze ever meet )

SOL

Any figures for that 1 Kg + 1 Kg thing? are you sure it isn't one gram of each?

Just that in a nuclear bomb there may be 10-100kg of matter which undergoes fission to reduce its mass by a very slight ammount about 1 or 2 grams, and these typically have megatonne yields...

So if we try E=mc^2 what do you get?

Pgibson

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

You can't live on Guiness alone

Thats true.

I need to supplement it with Whiskey on a Sunday.

.

Pgibson

theozster wrote: »

If 1Kg of anti-matter came into contact with 1Kg of matter, it would release energy approximately equal 21.5 million tonnes of TNT exploding. .

The Perils of Modern Living
Well up above the tropostrata
There is a region stark and stellar
Where, on a streak of anti-matter
Lived Dr. Edward Anti-Teller.

Remote from Fusion's origin,
He lived unguessed and unawares
With all his antikith and kin,
And kept macassars on his chairs.

One morning, idling by the sea,
He spied a tin of monstrous girth
That bore three letters: A. E. C.
Out stepped a visitor from Earth.

Then, shouting gladly o'er the sands,
Met two who in their alien ways
Were like as lentils. Their right hands
Clasped, and the rest was gamma rays.

-- Harold P. Furth

moggins7

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Without a visual reference it's very hard to define left and right. If we could communicate with aliens we would have to rely on no-symmetric reactions like normal cobalt 60 radioactivity in a very strong magnetic field means slightly more electrons ejected from the south end. Form this you and you alien friends can work out left and right. If you meet and holds out out his left hand then run like cazy ! ( In reality the solar wind / intrasteller gas/dust would give a light show long before youze ever meet )

why thank you me. feynman:P:P

SOL wrote: »

Any figures for that 1 Kg + 1 Kg thing? are you sure it isn't one gram of each?

Just that in a nuclear bomb there may be 10-100kg of matter which undergoes fission to reduce its mass by a very slight ammount about 1 or 2 grams, and these typically have megatonne yields...

So if we try E=mc^2 what do you get?

am well 1kg of matter gives 16x10^9j (funny story bout that actually, well more weird!)

anyway rapters(the birds) see in the UV light spectrum.(not sure if really sciencey but pretty cool...)

moggins7

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Without a visual reference it's very hard to define left and right. If we could communicate with aliens we would have to rely on no-symmetric reactions like normal cobalt 60 radioactivity in a very strong magnetic field means slightly more electrons ejected from the south end. Form this you and you alien friends can work out left and right. If you meet and holds out out his left hand then run like cazy ! ( In reality the solar wind / intrasteller gas/dust would give a light show long before youze ever meet )

and on a related note(well from the same lecture), the world is left handed. woo go us!!

Jeapy

Jeaps random fact of the day....
Drink tap water in London, get free female sex hormones!
There's oestrogen in London tap water due to so many women being on the pill there and excreting it in their urine. Water is recycled...men grow moobs!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article549956.ece

Mellowsh

Rats can't vomit!!

http://www.ratbehavior.org/vomit.htm

They're also very reluctant to try new foods and will only try something new if they're almost starved to death, or if after they smell the food off another rat, they have to know that rat is healthy before they'll give it a go themselves.

kujosHeist

a teanspoonfull of material from a neutron star weighs about a billion tons http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/pulsars.html

Akrasia

Mellowsh wrote: »

Rats can't vomit!!

http://www.ratbehavior.org/vomit.htm

They're also very reluctant to try new foods and will only try something new if they're almost starved to death, or if after they smell the food off another rat, they have to know that rat is healthy before they'll give it a go themselves.

so how does rat poison work then?

Akrasia

Crows can hold a grudge.

Crows can recognise individual humans who have mistreated them in the past and pass on this knowledge to other crows in the area. They can carry this grudge for years and even pass it on to future generations.
http://boingboing.net/2008/08/26/crows-recognize-and.html

Capt'n Midnight

Akrasia wrote: »

so how does rat poison work then?

The rat bleeds to death internally so they get very thirsty and leave the premises to find water. This means they dispose of the body themselves so no stinking corpse under the floor boards.

naked mole rats have a social structure like ants or bees. They have one queen and a caste system with workers and soldiers

DessieOH

Small fact on the polar bear...

Polar bears actually have black skin and translucent hairs... black skin for heat absorption and the translucent hair allow this heat to be absorbed yet the hair appears white for purposes of camaflogue

Micky 32

I could never get my head around this about time. As you go near the speed of light time slows down, so you go out in your spaceship on a round trip out in space at the speed of light for a year and when you come back to earth 10 years have passed. I always thought time was just a measurement of what we do and events. There must be more to time than that.

thebouldwhacker

Micky 32 wrote: »

I could never get my head around this about time. As you go near the speed of light time slows down, so you go out in your spaceship on a round trip out in space at the speed of light for a year and when you come back to earth 10 years have passed. I always thought time was just a measurement of what we do and events. There must be more to time than that.

ya cant just throw out questions about time.... try these clips.:pac:

Ohh the headache is back:(

nyarlothothep

Micky 32 wrote: »

I could never get my head around this about time. As you go near the speed of light time slows down, so you go out in your spaceship on a round trip out in space at the speed of light for a year and when you come back to earth 10 years have passed. I always thought time was just a measurement of what we do and events. There must be more to time than that.

I'm not a scientist but stuff like time dillation makes a lot more sense if you visualize space and time as being one thing rather than separate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minkowski_diagram

orourkeda

The human brain is 2% of the body's weight but uses a hungry 20% of its energy

tricky D

Re time dilation...

Another version of this is about travelling to the nearest star about 4 light years away. Assuming you have a propulsion system that can accelerate you at 10m/s2 (that's your on board gravity sorted), you would set off accelerating for about 15/20 years. When you're half way there, you're up to around half the speed of light. Then you turn the craft around to decelerate at 10m/s2. So if you're lucky enough to find a planet with intelligent life, 30ish years later, you arrive there, say hello, exchange gifts, have a wild party, etc. then you head off back to good old Earth. The round trip would take around 70 years, but when you get back something like 20/30 thousand years have passed!

Can't remember the figures more precisely, but that's the jist of it.

biglittlebill

Not sure if this counts but a tigers skin is striped, as well as its fur

c-note

Submarines cannot use GPS to navigate underwater as the signals from the gps satellites only penetrate water to a very shallow depth.

instead they use inertial guidance, and correct their position occasionally when they surface!

Urizen

This is probably off topic, but look up non-Euclidean geometry. Get your head around that!

Also, multi-dimensional theory is interesting, relates to string theory. This video isn't REALLY right, but damn it's entertaining!

http://tenthdimension.com/medialinks.php

del88

up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested - probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more each came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name. (The personages have to be historical, apparently, as it takes the atoms some decades to become thoroughly redistributed; however much you may wish it, you are not yet one with Elvis Presley

Turtwig

del88 wrote: »

up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested - probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more each came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name. (The personages have to be historical, apparently, as it takes the atoms some decades to become thoroughly redistributed; however much you may wish it, you are not yet one with Elvis Presley

In response to this one.

Each time you drink a glass water at least one molecule of it has passed through the bladder of Oliver Cromwell.

Capt'n Midnight

Malty_T wrote: »

In response to this one.

Each time you drink a glass water at least one molecule of it has passed through the bladder of Oliver Cromwell.

If you live in London it's quite probable that the molecules have been through several baldders since they last fell as rain

Antrim Hotels

keep these comming there are some very interesting facts here

woofy

50% of the suns mass is concentrated in just 2% of its volume at its core with a density of over a hundred tonnes per meter cubed at the center.

Every second the sun produces as much energy as about 6 trillion of the bombs that destroyed hiroshima in WWII.

The energy produced at the core of the Sun in nuclear fusion takes millions of years to travel to the surface of the sun but just a little over 8 minutes to reach the earth from the suns surface.

If you could stand on the surface of the Sun you'd weigh about 28 times heavier than you do on the Earths surface.

The Sun will produce as much energy in its approx. 10 billion year lifetime (in its current state) as the entire universe will in about a micro second.

magicbastarder

Micky 32 wrote: »

I could never get my head around this about time. As you go near the speed of light time slows down, so you go out in your spaceship on a round trip out in space at the speed of light for a year and when you come back to earth 10 years have passed.

by the time you reach the speed of light, time has stopped. so (afaik) time does not pass for a photon; so it 'visits' every location on its path at the same time.

HigsBoson

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/icy-hot/

El Siglo

You can still have an erection when you die. A death erection (sometimes referred to as "angel lust") is a post-mortem erection which occurs when a male individual dies vertically or face-down with the cadaver remaining in this position.
Male sea horses can get pregnant. The male seahorse has a brood pouch in which he carries eggs deposited by the female. The mating pair entwine their tails and the female aligns a long tube called an ovipositor with the male's pouch. The eggs move through the tube into the male's pouch where he then fertilizes them. The embryos develop in ten days to six weeks, depending on species and water conditions. When the male gives birth he pumps his tail until the baby seahorses emerge.

Kxiii

The Sun loses about four million tons of mass per second.
If you could remove all of the space inside the atoms of our bodies the human races would fit into a space the size of a sugar cube.

Doom

I once heard that of all the people that have ever lived, more than half are alive now...could that be true

thebouldwhacker

I have always liked this one (though its completely unquantifiable)

"there are more atoms in a glass of water, than there are glasses of water in all the oceans"

catchy isn't it...