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Child Item

I bet you didnt know that

Cartouche

As people here work in various jobs / professions they might know things from work or study no one here knows yet. this is what this topic is about.

what do you know that we have never heard of?

Eg: you don't need to be great at maths to be an architect

this is obvious to me but everyone says to me "i wanted to be an architect but i was bad at math,i can barely add"

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Realt Dearg Sec

Carry wrote: »

Well, it's like with men: Give them the choice of a burger or a sexual encounter - most will glance shortly at the burger and head for the sex

Hmmm, that would depend on the burger. And whether I realistically think it'll still be there in a few minutes.

Kat1170

Carry wrote: »

Well, it's like with men: Give them the choice of a burger or a sexual encounter - most will glance shortly at the burger and head for the sex

Breakfast in bed, best of both worlds

;):D

The TOTO motorcycle built in Japan in 2010 ran on human waste.

Capt'n Midnight

Carry wrote: »

The perfume contains civet, a musk, that's being "harvested" from the perineal or anal glands of the animal called civet,

A slightly more ethical use for the rear end of a civet is in the production of Kopi luwak coffee.

And you don't even have to put the coffee beans in the front end as the civets will do that themselves.

BaZmO*

Historically there are a lot of strange “ingredients” used is making perfume. Ambergris is an interesting one.

It is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull grey or blackish colour produced in the digestive system of sperm whales. Freshly produced ambergris has a marine, fecal odour. However, it acquires a sweet, earthy scent as it ages, commonly likened to the fragrance of rubbing alcohol without the vaporous chemical astringency.

Ambergris used to be very highly valued by perfumers as a fixative that allowed the scent to last much longer, but it has been replaced by synthetic ambroxan. Dogs are known to be attracted to the smell of ambergris and are therefore sometimes used by ambergris searchers.

There are rare cases of lumps of it washing up on beaches.

Ipso

How do people figure this out in the first place?
Like with almonds, supposedly the wild ancestor was poisonous to humans but how did they figure out that it could end up being edible?

Ipso

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

A slightly more ethical use for the rear end of a civet is in the production of Kopi luwak coffee.

And you don't even have to put the coffee beans in the front end as the civets will do that themselves.

Yeah, I accidentally paid $12 for a regular sized bottle of beer that had poop coffee in it.

Fourier

I'll return to this myself in a week or so, but just to give you something.

pleas advice wrote: »

ah, don't go changing topics when i was just about to ask how do you explain the Casimir effect or Hawking Radiation...

See Arnold Neumaier, Professor of Mathematics and Theoretical physics of the University of Vienna here:
https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/misconceptions-virtual-particles/

That's quite a technical article, but simpler is his stack exchange answer here about the Caisimir effect:
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/34049/what-really-goes-on-in-a-vacuum

Arnold Neumaier wrote:

Nothing goes on; the vacuum is completely inert.

mzungu

The 1965 'Slumber Party Barbie' figure doll accessories contained a small diet book titled 'How to Loose Weight.' The only piece of advice in the book simply says "DON'T EAT!!' The other accessory was a weighing scales permanently set to just under 8 stone (110lbs). Mattel decided to drop the weighting scales in 1966, but the diet book stayed on until 1967.

barrymanilow

There is a type of lizard and a kind of snake(technically a legless lizard) called a "slow worm" that can be found in the burren Co Clare . As far as I know they are not native species

5-The-slow-worm-a-limbless-reptile-is-a-fairly-recent-introduction-to-the-Burren.-300x224 ,

lizard by ,

Big Nasty

My wife is from Mayo and spent a bit of time in the bog during the summer. She swears blind there's lizzards in the bogs in Co Mayo.

New Home

Lizards are ok, it's the legless ones that aren't. Lovely animals, but they're not a native species, AFAIK, whereas some species of lizard are.

BTW, you can clearly see in the second photo where the lizard lost a part of its tail and its regrowing it.

Skylinehead

Big Nasty wrote: »

My wife is from Mayo and spent a bit of time in the bog during the summer. She swears blind there's lizzards in the bogs in Co Mayo.

Viviparous probably. Our only native lizard.

Capt'n Midnight

Nixonbot wrote: »

Viviparous probably. Our only native lizard.

One of the eggless one.

Wibbs

Nixonbot wrote: »

Viviparous probably. Our only native lizard.

When I was a kid in the mid 70's the folks rented a cottage in the wilds of Kerry for a week. Glorious place, remote too. Real Ryan's Daughter territory. Every morning I'd see three or four of these little lizards scurrying from under my bed where they seemed to spend the night and heading out of the room to god knows where. Never saw them during the day. I did find one of their moulted skins and kept it. It's in between the pages of one of my books somewhere.

mzungu

Gorillas can catch human colds and other illnesses. This is why you are advised not to go viewing them (can usually be done in the Uganda, Rwanda, and DRC ) if you are feeling in any way ill.

Capt'n Midnight

mzungu wrote: »

Gorillas can catch human colds and other illnesses. This is why you are advised not to go viewing them (can usually be done in the Uganda, Rwanda, and DRC ) if you are feeling in any way ill.

And visa versa.

You can get special patterened glasses for viewing gorillas.

It's so you don't make eye-contact.

Capt'n Midnight

Speaking of ...

A useful irregular verb, courtesy of Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister

“I am a freedom fighter, you are a guerilla, he is a terrorist”.

retalivity

Something I found out today, and forgive me if it is common knowledge, but its news to me goddammit!

Candles: How do they work?
I always thought that the wick burned, and the viscous wax stopped it from burning too quickly. That's it - I didn't wonder why it didn't just go out instead of waiting for the next bit of wick to become available. SO in a candle, the wax is actually the fuel....lighting the wick causes the surface wax to melt, which in turn is forced up through the wick due to the capillary effect, from here, it vaporizes and keeps the candle burning - which i turn causes more wax to melt.........

Its not something i ever put much thought into, and after reading about what actually happens, i feel silly for not understanding physically what actually happens when you light a candle. Nowadays candles are mainly made from parrafin wax, in olden times, they were made from rendered beef fat, which stank to high heaven as they burned, but hey, light. The rich lads had beeswax candles to see in the dark without their sense of smell getting violated.

New Home

retalivity wrote: »

Something I found out today, and forgive me if it is common knowledge, but its news to me goddammit!

Candles: How do they work?
I always thought that the wick burned, and the viscous wax stopped it from burning too quickly. That's it - I didn't wonder why it didn't just go out instead of waiting for the next bit of wick to become available. SO in a candle, the wax is actually the fuel....lighting the wick causes the surface wax to melt, which in turn is forced up through the wick due to the capillary effect, from here, it vaporizes and keeps the candle burning - which i turn causes more wax to melt.........

Its not something i ever put much thought into, and after reading about what actually happens, i feel silly for not understanding physically what actually happens when you light a candle. Nowadays candles are mainly made from parrafin wax, in olden times, they were made from rendered beef fat, which stank to high heaven as they burned, but hey, light. The rich lads had beeswax candles to see in the dark without their sense of smell getting violated.

If I'm not mistaken, it's the gas produced that burns.

Water John

Roman Catholic candles for blessing had to have 67% beeswax, I think. Don't know did they relax that reg.

Noo

New Home wrote: »

If I'm not mistaken, it's the gas produced that burns.

Yes, materials/solids do not burn, its the gases and vapours caused by the heat that catch fire. Watch a candle or anything else on fire and you'll see the flame kinda hovers above the material, its not directly on it.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

New Home wrote: »

If I'm not mistaken, it's the gas produced that burns.

Correct. Solids or liquids don't burn. It's the cases they give off, when heated, that burn.

Water John

Some materials go direct from solid to gas. Wood burned in a gasification unit does that.

KevRossi

The world's longest regular railway route is the weekly Madrid-Yiwu freight service. Yiwu is about 300km south of Shanghai. At 13,000 km it is slightly longer than the London-Yiwu route which is in second place.

The route crosses Spain, France, Germany, Poland Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan and China on its 18 day journey and is part of a planned new Silk Road infrastructural development. It is about 12-20 days faster than by ship, cheaper and more reliable timewise.

The train passes through 4 different gauges: Chinese, Russian, European and Standard and requires either changing bogies or sometimes moving containers from one train to another.

rail.png?w=750

Capt'n Midnight

KevRossi wrote: »

The route crosses Spain, France, Germany, Poland Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan and China
...
The train passes through 4 different gauges: Chinese, Russian, European and Standard and requires either changing bogies or sometimes moving containers from one train to another.

All these countries are party to the TIR Convention so the sealed containers don't need to be checked by customs along the route. Saving time and paperwork.

Russian gauge is very deliberately different to standard gauge to make inter-operability difficult. Too wide to use the same wheels, but not enough to allow a third rail. Otherwise German logistics would have been a lot easier when they invaded. Finland use a similar gauge since they used to be part of Russia.

Spain and Portugal use the wider Iberian Gauge because six Castilian feet are almost the same as five Portuguese feet ... obviously.

All the other European countries use the non-metric Standard Gauge of 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in.

Except of course here in Ireland where we've been using 1.6 meters since 1846* :pac:

*Because 5 ft 3in is almost exactly 1.6m

Water John

That Silk Road will really reopen the Western side of China to manufacturing. We used to ship goods from China, 5 weeks. This will reduce it to 2.

Capt'n Midnight

Water John wrote: »

Some materials go direct from solid to gas. Wood burned in a gasification unit does that.

It's not quite that simple.

Gasification is a chemical process rather than a physical one. It's a mixture of destructive distillation and partial combustion. During distillation Tar, turpentines, water, sap and other liquids boil off as normal.

Leaving behind charcoal which is mostly carbon. If you are doing it right most of this carbon partially oxidises to carbon monoxide. Colourless, odourless, extremely toxic and flammable but it burns to form carbon dioxide completing the combustion.

Depending on how you do the gasification you could also inject steam or water into the red hot charcoal. This splits the hydrogen and oxygen in the water, so you get Hydrogen, Carbon Monoxide and Carbon dioxide as Synthesis gas.

You could then use the Water-gas shift reaction and more water to get more hydrogen and less carbon monoxide.

Water goes directly from solid to gas, if the temperature is below freezing. So you get ice mummies in mountains.

If the pressure is below 611 Pa you don't even get liquid water.

Buford T. Justice XIX

The good news is they found Vulcan!!

Well, sort of. They found a planet in the habitable zone, orbiting the star that Vulcan is supposed to be orbiting.

https://www.popsci.com/planet-vulcan-star-trek-eridani?src=SOC&dom=fb

So yeah, they found Vulcan:)

Grayson

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

It's not quite that simple.

Gasification is a chemical process rather than a physical one. It's a mixture of destructive distillation and partial combustion. During distillation Tar, turpentines, water, sap and other liquids boil off as normal.

Leaving behind charcoal which is mostly carbon. If you are doing it right most of this carbon partially oxidises to carbon monoxide. Colourless, odourless, extremely toxic and flammable but it burns to form carbon dioxide completing the combustion.

Depending on how you do the gasification you could also inject steam or water into the red hot charcoal. This splits the hydrogen and oxygen in the water, so you get Hydrogen, Carbon Monoxide and Carbon dioxide as Synthesis gas.

You could then use the Water-gas shift reaction and more water to get more hydrogen and less carbon monoxide.

Water goes directly from solid to gas, if the temperature is below freezing. So you get ice mummies in mountains.

If the pressure is below 611 Pa you don't even get liquid water.

And just to add there are substances that go directly to gas through a process called sublimation. Iodine is one such substance. there's no liquid for of this element. When you buy liquid iodine it's an iodine solution. carbon dioxide is another. It turns from dry ice to gas without a liquid form.

That's kinda true. That's what I was taught in school and really is about 99.99999% true. It was thought until recently to be true. And it is true at STP (Standard Temperature and Pressure). However outside of this there are conditions at which both will turn into a liquid.

Here's a long but interesting article about it.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0187893X17301490

as a side note gaseous Iodine is really pretty.

KevRossi

In most languages asking for a cup of tea is covered by two words, or their derivatives; essentially tea or chai. Tea is used in countries where tea originally came by sea and chai in countries where it came overland.

Reasons behind this are of the different pronunciation of the word tea in Chinese dialects. The written character for tea is the same: 茶

But the areas where tea was traded with Europe by sea like Fujian, it is pronounced similar to "Tea" and the Dutch who had an initial monopoly on trading in the is area in the 17th Century took this word with them. It is pronounced Chai in Mandarin and thus areas along the Silk Road used this word for tea. It is why today tea is known as Chay/Chai in Turkey, Russia and parts of Eastern Europe.

The only exception in Europe is Portugal, as they took their tea from traders in Macau, where the tea traders where of Mandarin origin. Thus in Portugal it is known as Cha. The Portuguese also took this name with them to India via their colonies and it's why it is known as Chai in India.

The other exceptions worldwide are areas which have originally grown tea and have their own words for it such as in Burma where it is know as Lakphak.

So there ye go. If ye want a nice cup of hot tay anywhere on the planet you should be able to get by with Tea or Chai. Just don't say Barry's or Lyons as you'll just start a row,

And here's a map of trade and consequently pronunciation routes for context.