Science facts that amaze you?

Wibbs

smash wrote: »

Jesus, I might be the first person to prove Wibbs wrong on boards



http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/12/epic-discovery-nasa-discovers-new-non-dna-based-life-form-to-be-annouced-at-2-pm-est.html

And this was a few years ago now.

Well..... Not quite. As you say that was a few years ago and a few subsequent studies have solidly debunked it.

Organisms typically adapt to such conditions not by incorporating the mimic in place of the essential salt but by enriching for the salt at multiple stages... The end result is that the fundamental biopolymers conserved across all forms of life remain, in terms of chemical backbone, invariant

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

Yeah Wibbs I'm not sure it's been proven that abiogenesis only occurred once.

Well while absence of evidence and all that is in play here, it's looking pretty likely that all life on earth shares a common ancestor and those ancestors popped up and survived in a ver different environment than today. It's most certainly possible "other" life kicked off(a type of anaerobic life for a start), but then died out when our ancestors gained ground, but until there's evidence for that...

Then of course there's the possibility of panspermia, which, if shown to be true would render us not particularly special at all.

Actually it wouldn't. We're still incredibly special a creature. Take our world, however it came about the only one we know to have life and complex life with it. That life adapted to damn near every environment on said planet. To do this it evolved different strategies. Flight, swimming, walking etc. And those strategies were so successful they went across species and genera. So the "fish" shape is in fishes, sharks, dinosaurs, mammals. However intelligence as a strategy only popped up very rarely. For the vast majority of complex life for the vast majority of the time they were "dumb", with just enough brainpower to get by.

Then we get to us. Hominids were bright, very bright and the brain was their strategy and with it they did something no other creature has done or has come close to doing; they externalised their evolution. They went from herbivore/scavenger to apex predator with few changes to their bodies. Their brains built tools and used fire to do this.

Even so, as I said for the vast bulk of our time here as recognisable hominids with our big brains and external evolution, we didn't think like us. We remained pretty static in innovation. The handaxe/biface was in use as a tool for nigh on one and a half million years and varied remarkably little in that time period. They can be a right bugger to date because of this. Find a handaxe in a non dateable context in say France and it could have been made 40,000 years ago or 400,000 years ago. Then we weirdos come along out of north east Africa and things change and change in a fúcking ginormous(scientific term) way. We were the first to think in an entirely novel and abstract way. Art, religion, abstract thought, rapid innovation. There may have been lone glimmers of it in earlier humans(particularly in Neandertals), but not nearly to the degree found in us*.

In short we are special and a one off in the near four billion years of life on this planet. There is talk today of the singularity and it may come to pass, but if you want to see another one that already happened walk the cave galleries of France and Spain and hold the portable art and abstract thought in bone and wood and stone. We arrived in this world like aliens.

So regardless of how life kicked off or how common it is in the universe, on this planet the only one we know were it did kick off we are the rarest of the rare flukes within that life.




*even in anatomically modern humans this change wasn't a given. Go back 100,000 years and there wouldn't be much between us and other humans about at the time. An alien bookie would have happily taken a bet that the stronger Neandertals who had been around for far longer would win over the skinny African dudes.

Ompala

sbsquarepants wrote: »

This fact absolutely amazes me, the actual figure is more like 99.9999999999999%. It works out as basically if an atom was blown up to the size of croke park the nucleus would be roughly the size of a cherry in the centre of the pitch and the electrons would be like the full stops in this paragraph popping in and out of the cheap seats, or strolling along the rooftop walking tour, the next nucleus may not even be in Dublin! It's absolutely amazing!

Bear in mind though, if you drop something heavy on your foot its not much consolation :mad::pac:

coffee_cake

ScienceNerd wrote: »

Cracked did a piece on how language effects colour perception which I though was interesting, entry number 3

That's cool

There is actually a thing where some people have a hyper sense on colours as well though isn't there? I was reading a wiki article about it recently

srsly78

bluewolf wrote: »

That's cool

There is actually a thing where some people have a hyper sense on colours as well though isn't there? I was reading a wiki article about it recently

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

coffee_cake

Nah I think it was this

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

Barely There

Researchers at the University of Stockholm recently conducted a series of tests which established that platonic friendship was possible between men and women, but only if the woman was really ugly.

Maximus Alexander

Wibbs wrote: »

So regardless of how life kicked off or how common it is in the universe, on this planet the only one we know were it did kick off we are the rarest of the rare flukes within that life.

See, this is the thing. I totally agree that all of that is cool and amazing and impressive, but the idea that it's special because it's the only place we know of it having happened doesn't wash with me because you have to consider observational bias. Even if intelligent life, or just boring old microbial life, is extremely common in the universe we still don't have the means to detect it, so of course we are the only known example.

For all we know the inverse could be true, maybe life normally progresses rapidly to intelligence and Earth was unusually slow on the uptake for some reason. With a sample size of one and a complete dearth of data, we just can't make those kind of inferences.

On the other hand, the amino acids which were found in the sample returned from Comet Wild-2 by the Stardust mission, complex organic molecules being detected on and around a multitude of moons and minor planets in the solar system (and even in remote clouds of gas throughout the galaxy), and the fact that abiogenesis occurred so quickly after the cooling of the Earth are pretty compelling evidence that life might be ubiquitous.

I'm biased here, because I actually prefer the idea of a universe teeming with life, but I think you're also biased by a desire to see Earth based, or human life as special.

The truth, I think, probably lies in the middle. Right now we just don't know, which for me is what makes space exploration so exciting.

Wossack

I love the 'Pale Blue Dot' photo, and Carl Sagan's reflection on it

Picture:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Pale_Blue_Dot.png

Taken by the Voyager 1 space probe in 1990 from a distance of approx 6 billion kilometers. Earth is visible only as a 'Pale Blue Dot' about half way down the brown band on the right.

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known. - Carl Sagan

Nothing quite like astronomy to make you feel pretty insignificant!

endacl

Imagine what the Pale Blue Dot might have looked like if Voyager was equipped with a Hubble resolution camera...

kfod

There is a good chance we live in a computer.

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

Maximus Alexander

endacl wrote: »

Imagine what the Pale Blue Dot might have looked like if Voyager was equipped with a Hubble resolution camera...

Based on the Hubble images of Pluto (taken from about the same distance) it would just have been a slightly bigger blue smudge instead of a blue dot. It would be about 15 pixels across.

endacl

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

Based on the Hubble images of Pluto (taken from about the same distance) it would just have been a slightly bigger blue smudge instead of a blue dot. It would be about 15 pixels across.

A medium blue dot?

Maximus Alexander

endacl wrote: »

A medium blue dot?

Probably pretty similar to this (yes I went to the trouble of making this for you ):

Eogclouder

There are more atoms in a human cell than there are stars in the universe.

md23040

http://earthsky.org/tonight/earth-comes-closest-to-sun-every-year-in-early-january

The sun is over 3,000,000 miles closer to the Earth on the 4th of January compared to the 4th of July?

So why is the equator much warmer than the poles, especially given that maximum variaiton of the poles to the equator from the sun is just over 15,000 miles.

Wossack

a woman who doesn't give birth to a daughter, breaks a chain of women giving birth to women going back to the beginning of mankind

Maximus Alexander

md23040 wrote: »

http://earthsky.org/tonight/earth-comes-closest-to-sun-every-year-in-early-january

The sun is over 3,000,000 miles closer to the Earth on the 4th of January compared to the 4th of July?

So why is the equator much warmer than the poles, especially given that maximum variaiton of the poles to the equator from the sun is just over 15,000 miles.

It's warmer at the equator and in the tropics because they receive more sunlight than the poles. The Earth's tilt is fairly small, the equator points more or less directly at the sun. Because the Earth is a sphere, the polar regions receive sunlight at lower angles, meaning it has to travel through more atmosphere to reach the surface, some of it is reflected away by the atmosphere, some is reflected back into space by the icecaps, and the surface area of the Earth illuminated by the same amount of sunlight is larger.

Barely There

md23040 wrote: »

So why is the equator much warmer than the poles, especially given that maximum variaiton of the poles to the equator from the sun is just over 15,000 miles.

Touch you belly.
Now touch your foot.

Which was warmer?
Your belly, right?

Same principle applies with the equater and the poles.

Stuff near the middle is always hotter.

snowstorm445

Honey never goes off. If stored properly, honey could last a million years and would still be edible.

Assuming a piece of paper was 0.01 cm thick, if you folded it in half 42 times it would reach the Moon.

Saturn's moon Mimas has a large crater that features prominently on its side. Under the right lighting conditions, the moon resembles the Death Star from Star Wars.

enda1

Barely There wrote: »

Touch you belly.
Now touch your foot.

Which was warmer?
Your belly, right?

Same principle applies with the equater and the poles.

Stuff near the middle is always hotter.

fleet_admiral

snowstorm445 wrote: »

Honey never goes off. If stored properly, honey could last a million years and would still be edible.

Assuming a piece of paper was 0.01 cm thick, if you folded it in half 42 times it would reach the Moon.

Saturn's moon Mimas has a large crater that features prominently on its side. Under the right lighting conditions, the moon resembles the Death Star from Star Wars.

Now thats awesome

Wossack

fleet_admiral wrote: »

Now thats awesome

Whats also interesting, is that the crater resembling the 'super laser' on the deathstar is entirely coincidental, as the crater wasnt discovered until 2 years after the film was made

Egginacup

md23040 wrote: »

http://earthsky.org/tonight/earth-comes-closest-to-sun-every-year-in-early-january

The sun is over 3,000,000 miles closer to the Earth on the 4th of January compared to the 4th of July?

So why is the equator much warmer than the poles, especially given that maximum variaiton of the poles to the equator from the sun is just over 15,000 miles.

The main reason is concentration of solar radiation over surface area.
Consider a hypothetical cyclindrical beam of light a mile in diameter. It hits the equator dead on and creates a circle of light on the Earth's surface a mile in diameter.
The same cylindrical beam of light, as we move further north and the Earth starts to curve away from the light trajectory, hits the Earth's surface but now start to create a shape of light that is a mile in width but much more in length. It starts to become oval shaped. The further north still that we go the mile diameter beam create a light surface that is vastly elongated.

This essentially means that the same amount of radiation has to cover (heat and illuminate) a much larger area meaning it will be colder there.

sbsquarepants

Barely There wrote: »

Other than humans, frogs are the only other animal on earth capable of feeling shame..

Eh? Are you talking about Kermit? French people? How could we possibly know such a thing as what a frog is thinking?

Barely There wrote: »

Women with red hair are three times more likely to be emotionally unstable than brunettes..

As someone with a redhead fixation since primary school, I can absolutely vouch for this. They're all fúcking mentalists, sexy sexy mentalists:D

holystungun9

strobe wrote: »

The Mallard duck is the only animal ever to have been observed engaging in homosexual necrophiliac rape.

Well if didn't waddle that cute ass around so much...

holystungun9

SoundWave wrote: »

There is no such thing as a fish.

Ah ye must be codding me!

Maximus Alexander

holystungun9 wrote: »

Ah ye must be codding me!

You put him in his plaice.

sbsquarepants

The sun is roughly 150m kilometres away, 5m closer or further isn't that huge a difference.

Barely There

If you put a small dog and a pigeon into an airtight room and leave them for 48 hours, when the room is re-opened the pigeon will have disappeared, but the dog will be able to fly.

Ompala

Russia has a larger surface area than Pluto