I bet you didnt know that

quickbeam · 30-01-2018 01:31PM

VandC wrote: »

Can I ask a little bit more on this? Curious to get more insight. I always thought of the mitochondria as something that was just part of the cell, in the way i would consider the nucleus to be, but would love to hear what you know. If it's very long don't worry about it

We, along with pretty much all other life on earth except for bacteria are formed by eukaryotic cells. Bacteria are prokaryotic. There are a few differences, but basically the genetic material of prokaryotic cells just lies about in the cytoplasm of the cell instead of being enclosed in a nucleus like in eukaryotic cells.

The theory goes that way back when, our ancestor, a eukaryotic single celled organism, engulfed a prokaryotic cell, but instead of that cell being consumed like normally happened, the prokaryotic cell remained and eventually evolved to become the mitochondrion. Hence, why mitochondria have their own DNA, separate to the DNA in the nucleus.

VERY simplified version, but that's the gist of it.

30-01-2018 03:53PM

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

Would equilibrioception include the sensation when you’re reversing into a car parking space, stop and the car next to you pulls out slowly making you think you’re reversing again so you slam on the brakes? :rolleyes:

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

you mean that happens to other people as well? i thought that was just me.

I'm pretty sure that's what happens when your equilibrioception gets confused

A few years ago I pulled into a parking space just as the two cars either side decided to pull out, at the same rate. I was completely disoriented, stood on the brakes and wondered why I wasn't moving and why I was moving at the same time. It played havoc with my perception.

30-01-2018 04:51PM

Similar to motion sickness I believe?

Skylinehead · 30-01-2018 05:14PM

K2, on the Pakistan-China border, is the second-highest mountain in the world. 21% of people attempting to climb the mountain have died in the process, second only to Annapura I (32%!).

It is the only 8000+ ft mountain never to have been climbed in winter (out of 14). This hard bastard is currently attempting it:

Krzysztof Wielicki, Polish, he's now 68 years old. He made the first winter climb of Everest 38 years ago, along with 2 others of the other 8000+ ft mountains, and he's still going. Best of luck...

LirW · 30-01-2018 05:31PM

Probably not as interesting as this Polish lad but I've heard a pretty interesting podcast about two young mountaineers that wanted to attempt climbing up an ice wall in the Karakorum mountain range (I forgot the name of the mountain they wanted to summit) and if they'd succeed they'd be the first successful ones. They talked a lot about the process of preparing themselves for it.
Up until then I never realized how this isn't a hobby but this is your life doing it.

Anyway, their training and preparation consist of travelling to the area months before, living on a high altitude with some locals in a village that's still in the middle ages really and from there they go daily tours to get used to the climate and conditions. Once the time is right, they have one attempt because there apparently is only a small time gap they have to try.
The wall has an approximate height of 2000m and when asked how long it would take them they said anywhere between 5 and 7 days, depending on conditions. It's crazy to think it would take them that long. Plus 2-3 additional days to summit.

I unfortunately never found out if they made it or not, I'll search the depths of Google later.

Riddle101 · 30-01-2018 06:15PM

There's a non canon Star Wars comic called Into the Great Unknown where Han Solo and Chewbacca crash into Earth after using Hyperspace blindly. Han is killed by Native Americans and his skeleton is discovered by Indiana Jones 126 years later while Jones is searching for Sasquatch which turns out to be Chewbacca.

Capt'n Midnight · 30-01-2018 08:45PM

quickbeam wrote: »

We, along with pretty much all other life on earth except for bacteria are formed by eukaryotic cells. Bacteria are prokaryotic. There are a few differences, but basically the genetic material of prokaryotic cells just lies about in the cytoplasm of the cell instead of being enclosed in a nucleus like in eukaryotic cells.

The theory goes that way back when, our ancestor, a eukaryotic single celled organism, engulfed a prokaryotic cell, but instead of that cell being consumed like normally happened, the prokaryotic cell remained and eventually evolved to become the mitochondrion. Hence, why mitochondria have their own DNA, separate to the DNA in the nucleus.

VERY simplified version, but that's the gist of it.

Same thing happened to plants.

Chloroplasts in plant cells that do the whole light to energy thing are descended from engulfed bacteria too.

quickbeam · 30-01-2018 09:09PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Same thing happened to plants.

Chloroplasts in plant cells that do the whole light to energy thing are descended from engulfed bacteria too.

Yep. But they also have mitochondria so it actually happened twice with them.

stimpson · 30-01-2018 10:38PM

Time to test boards Unicode support.

Multiocular O (ꙮ) is the most rare glyph variant of the Cyrillic letter O. This glyph variant can only be found in the phrase «серафими многоꙮчитїи» ("many-eyed seraphim").

Squall Leonhart · 31-01-2018 10:46AM

stimpson wrote: »

Time to test boards Unicode support.

Multiocular O (ꙮ) is the most rare glyph variant of the Cyrillic letter O. This glyph variant can only be found in the phrase «серафими многоꙮчитїи» ("many-eyed seraphim").

For those who's computers/phones having difficulty displaying the Multiocular O (like mine), this is it:

sbsquarepants · 31-01-2018 11:19AM

Squall Leonhart wrote: »

Pardon my ignorance, my grasp of Cyrillic script is just not up to scratch - is this frogspawn looking thing a multiocular o?

Squall Leonhart · 31-01-2018 11:21AM

sbsquarepants wrote:

Pardon my ignorance, my grasp of Cyrillic script is just not up to scratch - is this frogspawn looking thing a multiocular o?

It is indeed. It didn't display on my computer, so found an image for those in same boat as me. I'll edit my post with a word of introduction!

Scotty # · 31-01-2018 11:38AM

In Space, if two pieces of the same type of metal touch, they will fuse together instantly to become one piece.

Great video explaining why here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2nQ8isf55s

Buford T. Justice XIX · 31-01-2018 10:51PM

J is the only letter of the alphabet that doesn't appear in the Periodic Table.

Ineedaname · 31-01-2018 11:01PM

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

J is the only letter of the alphabet that doesn't appear in the Periodic Table.

There's no Q.

Bandana boy · 01-02-2018 12:28AM

Ineedaname wrote: »

There's no Q.

Element 114 uup ununquadium

Evade · 01-02-2018 12:31AM

Bandana boy wrote: »

Element 114 uup ununquadium

That's a placeholder name, its official name is Flerovium.

pleas advice · 01-02-2018 12:48AM

Venn diagram, showing Greek, Latin, and Cyrillic letters

sbsquarepants · 01-02-2018 08:05AM

Using my in depth knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet, I think you'll find that Venn diagram is missing a certain mulitocular O.

School boy error, please advice. Tut tut tut:cool:

Fourier · 01-02-2018 08:48AM

Atoms are only stable due to the uncertainty principal. If the world were classical and deterministic, they would implode.

A bit of an explanation:

Particles do not have fixed positions or speeds, but randomly assume different positions and speeds constantly. It is possible to "confine" them, for example put them in a box to limit their possible positions or in a thick gas to limit their speed.

The uncertainty principal essentially means that there always has to be a certain amount of randomness that you cannot remove. So if you confine a particle to a very small area, so that its position is almost fixed, its speed starts jumping around wildly.

In an atom, the nucleus pulls in the electrons due to its electric charge. As the electrons get pulled closer and closer, their location gets more confined and hence more certain. To compensate their speed goes wild, they speed up, slowdown and change direction more rapidly.

Secondly, pulling in the electrons gives the atom more energy.

Eventually, the electrons will have been pulled close enough that to compensate for the certainty of their position, their speed would have to be random enough to allow them to jump to speeds that require more energy to maintain than the atom gets from pulling the electrons in.

So the electrons halt in their contraction onto the nucleus and remain at a stable average distance.

Hence all the atoms in your body are maintained by a precise balance of energy given by electrical attraction and energy taken by randomness.

The random nature of the world is fundamental to its stability.

FishOnABike · 01-02-2018 09:57AM

Ineedaname wrote: »

There's no Q.

I was waiting for that ;-)

py2006 · 01-02-2018 10:39AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6l8MFdTaPE

Ineedaname · 01-02-2018 12:22PM

The rarest naturally occurring element on earth is Astatine with an atomic number of 85. It's mainly created through the decay process of Thorium and Uranium. It's estimated there is only a fraction of a gram across the entire earths crust at any one time.

It quite simply does not want to exist. Depending on the isotope it has a half life of between a few seconds to a few minutes. Even if you somehow managed to gather enough to examine it under a microscope it's so radioactive it would be vaporized by its own heat.

sbsquarepants · 01-02-2018 01:37PM

From Wikipedia

CharacteristicsURL="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Astatine&action=edit&section=1"][COLOR=#0066cc]edit[/COLOR][/URL

Astatine is an extremely radioactive element; all its isotopes have short half-lives
of 8.1 hours or less, decaying into other astatine isotopes, bismuth, polonium or radon.

Maybe someone who knows a bit about chemistry can clear this up - surely bismuth, polonium and radon are separate elements?

Or do I completely misunderstand what an isotope means?

01-02-2018 01:44PM

sbsquarepants wrote: »

From Wikipedia

[/SIZE][/B]

Maybe someone who knows a bit about chemistry can clear this up - surely bismuth, polonium and radon are separate elements?

Or do I completely misunderstand what an isotope means?

Physics

The list there is seperated by commas with an "or" at the end so there could be an "or" between each one, like when you list stuff with an "and" at the end.

...decaying into other astatine isotopes or bismuth or polonium or radon.

Peregrine · 01-02-2018 01:45PM

sbsquarepants wrote: »

From Wikipedia

[/SIZE][/B]

Maybe someone who knows a bit about chemistry can clear this up - surely bismuth, polonium and radon are separate elements?

Or do I completely misunderstand what an isotope means?

They are. I'm not interpretting that sentence as calling them astatine isotopes. It's a list starting from other astatine isotopes to radon.

Professor Moriarty · 01-02-2018 06:31PM

Well, this is fun.

pleas advice · 01-02-2018 11:26PM

There are about 30 tornadoes a year recorded in the UK. That makes it the place with the most tornadoes per unit area of anywhere in the world

cycle4fun · 02-02-2018 12:36AM

pleas advice wrote: »

There are about 30 tornadoes a year recorded in the UK. That makes it the place with the most tornadoes per unit area of anywhere in the world

True, but most of the twisters there are relatively weak.

The United States sees the most tornadoes in the world, with an average of more than 1,000 tornadoes each year. Canada is second, with around 100 per year,

mzungu · 02-02-2018 12:41AM

Back in Medieval times those that were accused of a crime often faced a "trial by ordeal," this involved being forced to put their arm into a vat of boiling water. If their arm emerged unscathed, it was believed that God protected them, thus proving their innocence.

I bet you didnt know that

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