I bet you didnt know that

quickbeam

mzungu wrote: »

An apple, potato, and onion all taste the same if you eat them with your nose plugged. Our sense of taste is 80% made up of our sense of smell. If you were to blindfold yourself and plug your nose, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between them.

Yeah, not true.

Ipso

Yeah, onions are way to harsh and hot.

Capt'n Midnight

Nah aliens wouldn't like it here.

Too much selenium or not enough.

Or rather too much oxygen or not enough.

It's likely that lots of biomaterials here would be incredibly toxic to them or at least send their immune systems into overdrive.

Even if thinks seem OK their proteins, sugars, nucleotides might twist the other way. Livers can sort out some of that, but not all.


Septicaemia isn't nice either.

Wibbs

Paddy Cow wrote: »

Unless the internet goes kaput, they won't have to go digging. Absolutely everything is online.

That's the thing though, the internet is very vulnerable, as is our modern society. Increasing complexity and specialisation and rapid change is a recipe for disaster for longevity. Just take storage media. If you had an old style actually floppy disk you're gonna have to hunt a fair while to get a drive to read the info on it. 80's laser disk the same. Hell, even something like Zip disks could be an issue. I experienced that two years ago when a relative found Zip disks with a load of family pics and documents on. Lucky for her I had a working zip drive so could retrieve it. Take the family photo, now nearly always digital and rarely printed in hard copy, and even if printed, unless you use archival inks on archival paper that won't last too long either. We could be left with a situation where more century old black and white photos survive than all those pics taken on phones and digital cameras.

Ipso wrote: »

Yeah, onions are way to harsh and hot.

As a kid I used to eat onions as others eat apples. I was a weird kid, not a lot has changed.

Paddy Cow

mzungu wrote: »

An apple, potato, and onion all taste the same if you eat them with your nose plugged. Our sense of taste is 80% made up of our sense of smell. If you were to blindfold yourself and plug your nose, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between them.

It sounds like one of those myths like "there are more people alive today, than have lived for all humanity". I posted that believing it 100% and swiftly got told otherwise

gozunda

Wibbs wrote: »

....

As a kid I used to eat onions as others eat apples. I was a weird kid, not a lot has changed.

For me it was pickled onions straight or my favourite in a sandwich with nothing else! :pac:

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Wibbs wrote: »

As a kid I used to eat onions as others eat apples. I was a weird kid, not a lot has changed.

Me too. I've been known to do so in recent years too.

Buford T. Justice XIX

I don't feel so bad now eating lemons like everyone else eating oranges.

Paddy Cow

Wibbs wrote: »

Increasing complexity and specialisation and rapid change is a recipe for disaster for longevity.

This is true. Lets say that the earth got hit by an asteroid, how many people would be able to function without electricity, running water etc? Not many. I'm not taking the p!ss here but I don't know how our ancestors survived the famine. I get the jitters if I'm without internet for a day :eek: I wouldn't have a clue how to make a fire from scratch if needed.

mzungu

Paddy Cow wrote: »

It sounds like one of those myths like "there are more people alive today, than have lived for all humanity". I posted that believing it 100% and swiftly got told otherwise

Happens to the best of us!

Paddy Cow

Wibbs wrote: »

As a kid I used to eat onions as others eat apples. I was a weird kid, not a lot has changed.

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

I don't feel so bad now eating lemons like everyone else eating oranges.

When my sister was a toddler, we did that thing where we gave her a lemon slice expecting her to hate it but she loved it :eek: What is wrong with you people Are ye just born bitter? :pac:

Conchir

Speaking of what future civilisations may find of us, one thing is plastic. Plastic doesn't biodegrade and is very long-lived in the environment. Due to this persistence, plastic has been suggested as a future stratigraphic indicator for the proposed Anthropocene epoch (in a similar way to ice cores and rock formations for older geological epochs and eons).

So, future geologists may be looking for layers of plastic on land and in marine cores in order to locate the 20th and 21st centuries.






One thing that gets a lot of coverage now is the problem of microplastics. Most of the media coverage is on microbeads, tiny pieces of plastic that are used in facial scrubs and other cosmetics. These are a type of primary microplastic, which is constructed intentionally to be that size. However, there are probably many more secondary microplastic particles in the environment; these originate from larger pieces of plastic, which break down into smaller pieces.

While plastic doesn't biodegrade, it can undergo photodegradation, or breakdown by UV rays. That process causes plastic to become brittle, so it can then fall apart into many smaller pieces if it is acted on, say by wind or waves. Plastic photodegradation is very inefficient in water, where the low temperatures lower the rate of the process significantly. Therefore, it is currently thought that the majority of microplastics are formed on beaches, where the combination of sunlight, high temperature, and wave action cause large pieces of plastic to become brittle and break down into microplastics. From there, they are then transported into the water where they can be ingested by marine organisms and enter the food web. As most secondary microplastics form on beaches, ideas like the 2 minute beach clean can really help. Even one piece of plastic removed is potentially thousands of microplastic particles that won't enter the ocean.

Microplastic particles have been found in plenty of marine organisms, particularly bivalves such as oysters. The actual pieces of plastic are thought not to have direct effects, but rather it's the additives that leach from the plastic that cause problems. A lot of these additives are classed as endocrine disruptors, meaning they can affect hormones. For example, oysters exposed to polystyrene microparticles have been found to have decreased sperm velocity and egg size, and also had their feeding behaviour affected.

Microplastic particles were found in human poop for the first time earlier this year, though it was a very small study and there's been no findings of them having any effects like in marine species. The next step would be evidence of particles entering human bloodstreams via the digestive system; perhaps there will be work published on that soon though!

There are many microbead bans in force or in the works around the world, and plastic alternatives are being researched for the future, so hopefully the supply of both primary and secondary microplastics may be reduced. However, it will be extremely difficult to remove the bits already in the environment; most pieces are small enough to be unaffected by conventional water treatment systems. Combine that with their longevity and we'll probably be dealing with the effects of our use of plastic for a very long time.

Wibbs

A while back I was musing on my car which was manufactured* in 1998 and realised that the fact that of all plastics manufactured ever, fifty percent have been manufactured since it rolled off the production line. Now that's a sobering and scary thought.















*I think more created/born. My mechanic and friend calls it my "pet car".

Woke Hogan

Wibbs wrote: »

A while back I was musing on my car which was manufactured* in 1998 and realised that the fact that of all plastics manufactured ever, fifty percent have been manufactured since it rolled off the production line. Now that's a sobering and scary thought.















*I think more created/born. My mechanic and friend calls it my "pet car".

Excellent post, and well done for keeping the same car for such a long time.

If only more posters in this forum shared your view. The pollution from plastics and Climate Change Holocaust will lead our species to the precipice of extinction and our memories of buying a shiny new Opel Corsa every year will be of cold comfort.

Conchir

Wibbs wrote: »

A while back I was musing on my car which was manufactured* in 1998 and realised that the fact that of all plastics manufactured ever, fifty percent have been manufactured since it rolled off the production line. Now that's a sobering and scary thought.

The growth of the whole thing is insane.


This also reminded me of one more thing. Of all the plastics produced annually, less than 50% are accounted for through landfill, recycling etc. This means that the other 50% is just out there somewhere. Now a good chunk of that will be in use in products such as cameras, toys, electronics (the list goes on and on). But given the popularity of single-use plastics, a huge amount of this 50% is presumably just discarded somewhere.

Wibbs

Wibbs wrote: »

A while back I was musing on my car which was manufactured* in 1998 and realised that the fact that of all plastics manufactured ever, fifty percent have been manufactured since it rolled off the production line. Now that's a sobering and scary thought.












*I think more created/born. My mechanic and friend calls it my "pet car".

I'm surprised it's not more to be honest. And it just keeps ramping up and up and as the middle class gets larger they gots to have their bottled water.

I might be completely misremembering or just have internalised a dream or something but aren't hemp and other bio plastics basically ok but they're not bothered with? Even just considering the amount of fossil fuels used for plastics is insane.

Wibbs

Conchir wrote: »

The growth of the whole thing is insane.


This also reminded me of one more thing. Of all the plastics produced annually, less than 50% are accounted for through landfill, recycling etc. This means that the other 50% is just out there somewhere. Now a good chunk of that will be in use in products such as cameras, toys, electronics (the list goes on and on). But given the popularity of single-use plastics, a huge amount of this 50% is presumably just discarded somewhere.

Yup. Consider something like a mobile phone. It comes in a plastic coated(cos it feels "luxury") cardboard box, it'll be in a plastic bag and likely have plastic sheeting protecting the screen and the power supply and cabling will be in their own placcy bags too, even the instruction manual will be plastic coated paper. All goes in the bin. Never mind the phone itself which will have a working life of a year or so, before it ends up in a skip with all its toxic materials. Consider the size of the market for mobile phones. Since 2013 over a billion phones per year. And that's just phones. Look at the amount of plastic and waste in the average family's weekly grocery shopping. Never mind buying flown in spuds from overseas...

Further on the car front, we can see in Ireland older cars are penalised, insurance alone goes up and up. So we have a situation where cars can be made to last decades(well were maybe ten, twenty years ago), but the market churn has a turnaround of 5-6 years per car. The market/government/manufacturers/dealers/banks ideal Mr and Mrs O'Citizen would be someone on a lifetime of "sustainable" credit buying a new car every 4-5 years and that ideal is being pushed a lot and it's all extremely short sighted. Even your "green" sandal wearing hippie types buy into this guff because they reckon battery cars will save us™. Eh... nope. Not if they're being "upgraded" every five years.

Goes for most household items too, from tellies to fridges to furniture. The 21st century consumerist model requires obsolescence and rapid turnover, yet so many brands go on about being environmentally friendly and so many believe it. A while back on another thread hereabouts a couple of posters were going on about how it was the older generations© who buggered our world up, yet were completely oblivious to the fact that the old age pensioners of today lived like monks by comparison and were far less damaging to the environment growing up. As a species we've never been so aware of the environment, yet no humans in our 200,000 year history have been so damaging to it. And I'll bet that's something the majority didn't know.

Lucy8080

What song gave Bing Crosby his highest U.K. chart Position?

White Christmas? Surprisingly no, it's highest position was number 5 in 1977.

It was The Isle of Innisfree in 1952. The year "The Quiet Man" film came out. It reached number 3 in the U.K. charts.

His duet with Bowie also reached number 3 in the U.K. ...but that's a duet so I'm counting it out.

Professor Moriarty

Conchir wrote: »

Speaking of what future civilisations may find of us, one thing is plastic. Plastic doesn't biodegrade and is very long-lived in the environment. Due to this persistence, plastic has been suggested as a future stratigraphic indicator for the proposed Anthropocene epoch (in a similar way to ice cores and rock formations for older geological epochs and eons).

So, future geologists may be looking for layers of plastic on land and in marine cores in order to locate the 20th and 21st centuries.






One thing that gets a lot of coverage now is the problem of microplastics. Most of the media coverage is on microbeads, tiny pieces of plastic that are used in facial scrubs and other cosmetics. These are a type of primary microplastic, which is constructed intentionally to be that size. However, there are probably many more secondary microplastic particles in the environment; these originate from larger pieces of plastic, which break down into smaller pieces.

While plastic doesn't biodegrade, it can undergo photodegradation, or breakdown by UV rays. That process causes plastic to become brittle, so it can then fall apart into many smaller pieces if it is acted on, say by wind or waves. Plastic photodegradation is very inefficient in water, where the low temperatures lower the rate of the process significantly. Therefore, it is currently thought that the majority of microplastics are formed on beaches, where the combination of sunlight, high temperature, and wave action cause large pieces of plastic to become brittle and break down into microplastics. From there, they are then transported into the water where they can be ingested by marine organisms and enter the food web. As most secondary microplastics form on beaches, ideas like the 2 minute beach clean can really help. Even one piece of plastic removed is potentially thousands of microplastic particles that won't enter the ocean.

Microplastic particles have been found in plenty of marine organisms, particularly bivalves such as oysters. The actual pieces of plastic are thought not to have direct effects, but rather it's the additives that leach from the plastic that cause problems. A lot of these additives are classed as endocrine disruptors, meaning they can affect hormones. For example, oysters exposed to polystyrene microparticles have been found to have decreased sperm velocity and egg size, and also had their feeding behaviour affected.

Microplastic particles were found in human poop for the first time earlier this year, though it was a very small study and there's been no findings of them having any effects like in marine species. The next step would be evidence of particles entering human bloodstreams via the digestive system; perhaps there will be work published on that soon though!

There are many microbead bans in force or in the works around the world, and plastic alternatives are being researched for the future, so hopefully the supply of both primary and secondary microplastics may be reduced. However, it will be extremely difficult to remove the bits already in the environment; most pieces are small enough to be unaffected by conventional water treatment systems. Combine that with their longevity and we'll probably be dealing with the effects of our use of plastic for a very long time.

On current trends, the weight of plastic will exceed the weight of fish in the oceans by 2050.

Tell me how

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm surprised it's not more to be honest. And it just keeps ramping up and up and as the middle class gets larger they gots to have their bottled water.

Deleted User wrote: »

I might be completely misremembering or just have internalised a dream or something but aren't hemp and other bio plastics basically ok but they're not bothered with? Even just considering the amount of fossil fuels used for plastics is insane.

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

On current trends, the weight of plastic will exceed the weight of fish in the oceans by 2050.

Can I echo the above frustrations.

I recently completed a thesis with a Circular Economy focus as I have always been concerned at the way in which packaging and other materials are designed to be disposed of so readily.

The most annoying thing about it is, everyone will agree it's a disaster, everyone will say something should be done, and yet most people will continue to contribute to the mess in ways they don't really need to do. Plastic bottles, takeaway cups, deli-counter food containers etc.
Personally, I think it will take more and more legislation to limit use of such materials in this way and then the industry will change to either make them wholly reusable or for them to become a raw material for another process in some manner. Or to replace them with organic based materials.

When the government (or more likely the EU) do step in, people will complain about them and their rules and so on, but, even then, the fear is it'll be reactionary rather that proactive and so much damage will have been done which could have been avoided.

On a positive note, if we do look towards more efficient use of materials and recycling then there could be immediate benefits. It is estimated that a reduction of 2% in material consumption through resource efficiency could result in savings of close to €1B and that there is potential for up to 5,000 jobs to be created in activities relating to the recycling of plastics, paper and WEEE etc.

Tell me how

Tell me how wrote: »

Can I echo the above frustrations.

I recently completed a thesis with a Circular Economy focus as I have always been concerned at the way in which packaging and other materials are designed to be disposed of so readily.

The most annoying thing about it is, everyone will agree it's a disaster, everyone will say something should be done, and yet most people will continue to contribute to the mess in ways they don't really need to do. Plastic bottles, takeaway cups, deli-counter food containers etc.
Personally, I think it will take more and more legislation to limit use of such materials in this way and then the industry will change to either make them wholly reusable or for them to become a raw material for another process in some manner. Or to replace them with organic based materials.

When the government (or more likely the EU) do step in, people will complain about them and their rules and so on, but, even then, the fear is it'll be reactionary rather that proactive and so much damage will have been done which could have been avoided.

On a positive note, if we do look towards more efficient use of materials and recycling then there could be immediate benefits. It is estimated that a reduction of 2% in material consumption through resource efficiency could result in savings of close to €1B and that there is potential for up to 5,000 jobs to be created in activities relating to the recycling of plastics, paper and WEEE etc.

Lookit, I won't deny I'm part of the problem. While libertarianism is a lovely idea (well, maybe :P) social engineering and nudging is necessary and often desirable.

EDIT: Even looking at other aspects of the economy everything seems to be about volume now. More selling is done now at high-volume, low margin and websites are all about getting more and more visitors and then figuring out how to monetise them. Clickbait is another example.

Water John

Buford your taste isn't that different chemically as the chemical make up of the orange phenol is a mirror image of the lemon phenol.

Also saw recently that plastic is used in tea bags. Its the application of heat that then seals the edges. The heat of the boiling water is then not high enough to melt the plastic.

New Home

I heard that, too, there's polyester in the weave. Insane.

mr chips

Some teabags don't use plastic. Twinings is one, not sure of others.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Paddy Cow wrote: »

When my sister was a toddler, we did that thing where we gave her a lemon slice expecting her to hate it but she loved it :eek: What is wrong with you people Are ye just born bitter? :pac:

Nah, born too sweet so the acidic taste has no effect on us:cool:

MonkieSocks

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

On current trends, the weight of plastic will exceed the weight of fish in the oceans by 2050.

The Sea will be full of Plastic Sturgeons

Franz Von Peppercorn

The plastic crisis is real but one of the more solvable ones, like CFCs. It’s climate change in general that’s really difficult particularly as it’s a partisan issue.

Chancer3001

re: climate change.

NASA released a document this week saying the ice in antartica is still increasing...

maybe slower than before or whatever...but still

KevRossi

mr chips wrote: »

Some teabags don't use plastic. Twinings is one, not sure of others.

Loose tea leaves don't use plastic