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I bet you didn't know that this thread would have a part 2

IamMetaldave

BaZmO* wrote: »

This post is the 10,000th post

Pipped.

Mod: Continuation from the old thread, which is here.

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sbsquarepants

New Home wrote: »

I remember reading years ago about big cats that had been captured as cubs for zoos and kept in cages, they spent most of their time pacing up and down restlessly in front of the bars of their cages. Once released again (I can't remember if it was in their original habitat or in a natural park, most likely the latter), they'd spend their time pacing up and down in front of trees, just like they did when they were captive. Was that a symptom of being healthy and happy? Would they have behaved in the same way had they been left in their natural habitat in the first place? Or am I anthropomorphising them again?

I'm not advocating the keeping of animals in little cages, i didn't like having the budgie locked up that's why i let him out to roam, he just didn't seem to share my concerns!

Do you think if someone had turned up in a van everyday and threw a zebra to the the big cats in their natural habitat they'd have turned their noses up and chased down their own one, because that's what big cats are supposed to do?

Survival is the name of the game, nature is undoubtedly beautiful but it's also relentlessly cruel. For example there's precious little upside in either scenario here for the zebra. If the zebra could choose between the cushy but false life of ambling around fota wildlife park or the much more legitimate getting eaten in the serengeti - what do you think it would choose?

Gloomtastic!

I read/heard somewhere that parrots are lazy as hell and wouldn’t fly anywhere if they didn’t have to.....

Professor Moriarty

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I'm not advocating the keeping of animals in little cages, i didn't like having the budgie locked up that's why i let him out to roam, he just didn't seem to share my concerns!

Do you think if someone had turned up in a van everyday and threw a zebra to the the big cats in their natural habitat they'd have turned their noses up and chased down their own one, because that's what big cats are supposed to do?

Survival is the name of the game, nature is undoubtedly beautiful but it's also relentlessly cruel. For example there's precious little upside in either scenario here for the zebra. If the zebra could choose between the cushy but false life of ambling around fota wildlife park or the much more legitimate getting eaten in the serengeti - what do you think it would choose?

Just an idle thought. Did your budgie not crap all over your room?

sbsquarepants

No. He pretty much stayed in the cage!

There was the very odd incident, but it's not cleaning up after an elephant!

Cordell

What should you give to an elephant struck by diarrhea? Plenty of room!!!!!

New Home

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I'm not advocating the keeping of animals in little cages, i didn't like having the budgie locked up that's why i let him out to roam, he just didn't seem to share my concerns!

I wasn't suggesting you did anything wrong, I just meant he probably felt safer in his cage.

[Deleted User]

95% of stars which are expected to ever be born in the universe have already been born. The peak period for star formation was when the universe was between 2.8 and 4.8 billion years old, when half of all stars which have existed were created. Our sun which formed when the universe was around 9.2 billion years old was a relative late-comer. Considering the universe is expected to exist for trillions and trillions of years to come, and that billions or tens of billions of years is but a small fraction of that time, it seems life is something that is mostly possible at the start of the universe, during that tiny window, and which will be much rarer in say 20 or 30 billion years.

joujoujou

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

I read/heard somewhere that parrots are lazy as hell and wouldn’t fly anywhere if they didn’t have to.....

It's not laziness, it's energy saving, and it applies to all birds. They fly only if they have to:

- find a food
- protect their territory
- impress potential partner
- migrate.

There's only one exception I'm aware of, it's named Common swift, very small bird that flies almost all the time of it's life - they feed, drink, mate and sleep on-the-fly. Landing only to lay the eggs and feed the chicks. Reports show individuals flying 10 months without landing. Over their lifetime they can cover millions of kilometres.

branie2

A musical was made about Saint Bernadette of Lourdes and her visions .

Capt'n Midnight

^^^^

Donner Party: The Musical!
Snowbound and desperate, some of the Donner Party died of starvation. Some of them did not. They all sang.

And it's not even the first musical about that event
Cannibal! The Musical

[Deleted User]

Pakistan is home to the worlds only fertile desert, the Tharparkar in Sindh province. Two permanent underground springs keep the landscape fertile, supplemented by temporary rivers flooding the area during the rainy season.

Pakistan is also home to one of the two endangered South Asian River Dolphins, the side-swimming and blind Indus River Dolphin, the national mammal of Pakistan and highly endangered, as is it's close cousin, the almost-extinct Ganges River Dolphin.

Sleepy

secondrowgal wrote: »

I saw this on another thread, but apparently goldfish were never meant to be kept in bowls! They would have been transferred to bowls for the duration of a dinner or an event, as a decoration, and to show them off, but then returned to their pond/larger aquarium afterwards. Keeping goldfish in bowls is cruel as they have stunted growth and reduced lifespan.

They need about 300 litres of water for a single fish and an additional 50 litres for each extra fish. To correctly house a single goldfish in an aquarium, you'd be looking at a 3ft x 2ft x 2ft tank!

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058003700&page=2

Finding myself quoted as the source of a fact in this thread makes me feel like Wibbs.

secondrowgal

I saw this one on Twitter (I know, I know) but it seems to be right?

When horses and livestock are auctioned, the buyer pays the hammer price in guineas and the seller receives the hammer price in pounds. The 5p difference is the auctioneer's commission

johndaman66

secondrowgal wrote: »

I saw this one on Twitter (I know, I know) but it seems to be right?

When horses and livestock are auctioned, the buyer pays the hammer price in guineas and the seller receives the hammer price in pounds. The 5p difference is the auctioneer's commission

If that actually makes sense and is correct you might want to add the century it used to happen in to add more context.

BaZmO*

In France, tradtionally there is a difference between a straight croissant and a crescent shaped croissant.

Only a croissant made with pure butter can be straight. If a croissant is made with any other sort of fat, for example, margarine, it must be joined at the ends to form a crescent moon shape.

ohnonotgmail

johndaman66 wrote: »

If that actually makes sense and is correct you might want to add the century it used to happen in to add more context.

You mean the century it still happens in. as in the 21st. Bloodstock sales for racehorses still use it.

New Home

But... doesn't "croissant" mean "crescent"? Wasn't it named after the crescent moon (waxing) on the flag of the Ottoman empire, or something?

johndaman66

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

You mean the century it still happens in. as in the 21st. Bloodstock sales for racehorses still use it.

So the buyer still pays in guineas in the 21st century?

ohnonotgmail

johndaman66 wrote: »

So the buyer still pays in guineas in the 21st century?

that is how racehorses are priced at auction. They dont pay in actual guinea coins because they are worth more than their face value.

BaZmO*

New Home wrote: »

But... doesn't "croissant" mean "crescent"? Wasn't it named after the crescent moon (waxing) on the flag of the Ottoman empire, or something?

It does. There are also lots of legends about how they originated. One being that it was invented in Europe to celebrate the defeat of the Umayyad forces by the Franks at the Battle of Tours in 732, with the shape representing the Islamic crescent.

Although it's generally accepted that the Kipferl was the precursor to the croissant, and dated back to at least the 13th century in Austria, and came in various shapes.

quickbeam

Someone was watching Inside the Factory on BBC yesterday :P

FrancieBrady

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I'm not advocating the keeping of animals in little cages, i didn't like having the budgie locked up that's why i let him out to roam, he just didn't seem to share my concerns!

Do you think if someone had turned up in a van everyday and threw a zebra to the the big cats in their natural habitat they'd have turned their noses up and chased down their own one, because that's what big cats are supposed to do?

Survival is the name of the game, nature is undoubtedly beautiful but it's also relentlessly cruel. For example there's precious little upside in either scenario here for the zebra. If the zebra could choose between the cushy but false life of ambling around fota wildlife park or the much more legitimate getting eaten in the serengeti - what do you think it would choose?

from the very brilliant novel - Life of Pi - Yann Martel

[EXCERPT] “Well-meaning but misinformed people think animals in the wild are “happy” because they are “free”. These people usually have a large, handsome predator in mind…The life of the wild animal is simple, noble and meaningful, they imagine. Then it is captured by wicked men and thrown into tiny jails. Its “happiness” is dashed. It yearns mightily for “freedom” and does all it can to escape. Being denied its “freedom” for too long, the animal becomes a shadow of itself, its spirit broken. So some people imagine.
This is not the way it is.

Animals in the wild lead lives of compulsion and necessity within an unforgiving social hierarchy in an environment where the supply of fear is high and the supply of food is low and where territory must constantly be defended and parasites forever endured…The smallest changes can upset them. They want things to be just so, day after day, month after month. Surprises are highly disagreeable to them…In the wild, animals stick to the same paths for the same pressing reasons, season after season. In a zoo, if an animal is not in its normal place in its regular posture at the usual hour, it means something…a reason to inspect the dung, to cross-examine the keeper, to summon the vet. All this because a stork is not standing where it usually stands!

But let me pursue for a moment only one aspect of the question.

If you went to a home, kicked down the front door, chased the people who lived there out into the street and said, “Go! You are free! Free as a bird! Go! Go!”-do you think they would shout and dance for joy? They wouldn’t. Birds are not free. The people you’ve just evicted would sputter, “With what right do you throw us out? This is our home. We own it. We have lived here for years. We’re calling the police, you scoundrel.”

…Animals are territorial. That is the key to their minds. Only a familiar territory will allow them to fulfill the two relentless imperatives of the wild: the avoidance of enemies and the getting of food and water. A biologically sound zoo enclosure-whether cage, pit, moated island, corral, terrarium, aviary or aquarium- is just another territory, peculiar only in its size and in its proximity to human territory…Territories in the wild are large not as a matter of taste but of necessity. In a zoo, we do for animals what we have done for ourselves with houses: we bring together in a small space what in the wild is spread out. Whereas before for us the cave was here, the river over there, the hunting grounds a mile that way, the lookout next to it, the berries somewhere else- all of them infested with lions, snakes, ants, leeches and poison ivy- now the river flows through taps at hand’s reach and we can wash next to where we sleep, we can eat where we have cooked, and we can surround the whole with a protective wall and keep it clean and warm. A house is a compressed territory where our basic needs can be fulfilled close by and safely. A sound zoo enclosure is the equivalent for an animal…Finding within it all places it needs- a lookout, a place for resting, for eating and drinking, for bathing, for grooming, etc.- and finding that there is no need to go hunting, food preparing six days a week…an animal will take possession of its zoo space in the same way it would lay claim to a new space in the wild, exploring it and marking it out in the normal ways of its species, with sprays of urine perhaps. Once this moving-in ritual is done and the animal has settled, it will not feel like a nervous tenant, and even less like a prisoner, but rather like a landholder…defending tooth and nail should it be invaded. Such an enclosure is subjectively neither better nor worse for an animal than its condition in the wild; so long as it fulfills the animals needs, a territory, natural or constructed…One might even argue that if an animal could choose with intelligence, it would opt for living in a zoo, since the major differences between a zoo and the wild is the absence of parasites and enemies and the abundance of food in the first, and their respective abundance and scarcity in the second. Think about it yourself. Would you rather be put up at the Ritz with free room service and unlimited access to a doctor or be homeless without a soul to care for you?...Within the limits of their nature, they[animals] make do with what they have.

But I don’t insist. I don’t mean to defend zoos. Close them all down if you want (and let us hope that what wildlife remains can survive in what is left of the natural world). I know zoos are no longer in people’s good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.”

zanador

FrancieBrady wrote: »

from the very brilliant novel - Life of Pi - Yann Martel

I saw a programme once where they were talking to a tribe who had come out of the jungle about a year previously and were adapting to a more modern life. One of the men said something that has always stuck with me 'I had never slept deeply in my life before I came out - I was always on alert for jaguars and other things'

Capt'n Midnight

zanador wrote: »

'I had never slept deeply in my life before I came out - I was always on alert for jaguars and other things'

That's pretty much the start of the book 2001: A Space Odyssey

Gloomtastic!

Today Elvis Presley died, 42 years ago, at the age of 42.

https://youtu.be/mLbOBoa8vD8

(Thanks Lyric)

zanador

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

That's pretty much the start of the book 2001: A Space Odyssey

Maybe reading was part of his new life ðŸ˜

Fourier

Nevaeh Shaggy Destroyer asked this question in another thread and I was thinking about how to explain it. It also gives a chance to add a bit about the Higgs boson that was found in 2012.

Nevaeh Shaggy Destroyer wrote: »

Why are CP violations observed in certain weak force decays, but not elsewhere?

CP violation is very important because it's the only way the laws of physics treat matter differently from antimatter. Without it the universe would be filled with nothing but light and other forms of radiation.

P is a transformation where you change how particles are spinning, i.e. change clockwise to anticlockwise
For C you replace every particle by its antiparticle.

Electromagnetism and the Strong Force have these as symmetries because particles spinning clockwise and counterclockwise emit them both with the same strength and the forces are felt as strongly by a particle and its antiparticle.

In the 1950s based on the Electromagnetic and Strong Forces it was thought that the Weak Force must respect P symmetry as well. There were certain particle decays associated with the Weak force that didn't fit into theories at the time, but nobody really considered this to be related to P symmetry. Two Chinese researchers Tsung-Dao Lee and Yang Chen-Ning at Columbia University in New York had the idea that all of these decays could be explained if the Weak Force broke P symmetry and came up with a theory of the Weak Force that let P be broken.

Their idea was that only particles spinning counterclockwise or antiparticles spinning clockwise can emit the weak force. So changing the way a particle was spinning would shut off its Weak force field. They weren't certain how to test this and so turned to another Chinese researcher at Columbia, C.S. Wu:

She understood their theory implied that frozen Cobalt held in a magnetic field would decay slightly differently from how other theories predicted. In 1956 she found that it decayed just as Lee and Yang's theory predicted. This is her with the equipment:

Immediately it was known that C-symmetry would be violated because it would turn an particle spinning counterclockwise into an antiparticle spinning counterclockwise, which don't emit the weak force according to the Lee-Yang theory. This was observed shortly afterward.

Now people expected the combination CP symmetry to still hold because it does the change:

counterclockwise particle -> clockwise antiparticle

and both of those interact with the Weak force in the Lee-Yang theory.

Another step was needed to see that even this fails to hold. It was first seen experimentally in 1964 in the Brookhaven National Laboratory by James Cronin and his group.

This was during decay studies of a type of particle called a Kaon. Kaons have two ways of decaying into neutrinos and electrons that should happen equally often, but one of them was seen to occur 0.3% more often. This could only happen if CP was violated. Something no theory predicted.

The answer lay in how quarks and other particles create the weak force.

In order to emit the weak force quarks and electrons have to mix with their heavier cousins. That is an up quark for example has to combine with the charm quark. That quarks can't just emit the Weak Force themselves without mixing was recognised by an Italian physicist Nicola Cabbibo:

And he added this to the Lee-Yang theory allowing it to explain even more particle decays. However still not the CP violating ones.

Two Japanese physicists Toshihide Maskawa and Makoto Kobayashi however realised that if there were a third generation of quarks, not just up/down and charm/strange, then it would be possible for the mixing between the quarks to work differently for matter and antimatter, because how much the third generation added to the mix could be slightly different between matter and antimatter (the maths forces it to be identical for two generations)

They made this alteration and matched exactly the decay rates for the Kaon and in the process predicting two new quarks from a third generation, the top and bottom. These were observed directly later in the 80s. Quantum Mechanics says that there has to be the same number of quark and electron generations, so it also forced a third type of electron to be predicted: the tau. Four other Japanese physicists later figured out how to describe the mixing between the generations for electrons (it's a good bit more difficult than for quarks mathematically).

Without this CP violation the laws of physics would treat matter and antimatter identically and they would have both annihilated the other in the early universe. The violation however means that slightly more matter was produced giving the world we see today.

The third generation of quarks and electrons don't really do much today. Occurring almost never in matter throughout the universe and making so little difference when they do rarely appear that their influence is irrelevant. However they were crucial early on because they let CP violation happen.

Once this was all done there was only one problem with the whole theory of the Weak Force. The particles responsible for the force had a mass. According to quantum mechanics they can't. No particles responsible for forces can have a mass. All the researchers I mentioned before ignored this problem by inserting a mass in their calculations. However this wouldn't work forever. Putting the mass in would cause infinities to pop up in the theory somewhere.

Through a combination of the work of Steven Weinberg, Abdus Salam, Sheldon Glashow, Peter Higgs and François Englert it was found that the only way the weak force carriers could be massive without breaking quantum theory was if they weren't the true force carriers. That is if the Weak Force wasn't originally a fundamental force of nature. The idea was that back in the early universe there were two other forces that are no longer easily visible. However at some point very early on a field called the Higgs field became very strong everywhere in the universe. This masked the true fundamental forces in a manner similar to how light comes out dimmer and brown through muddy water.

Instead what managed to shine through the mud of the Higgs field was an altered imperfect reflection of the original two forces. Two new forces: Electromagnetism and the Weak force. This idea was verified in 2012 when a small amount of the Higgs "mud" was discovered in the Large Hadron Collider housed beneath the Franco-Swiss border.

As an interesting side note, as far as we can tell life (at least as we know it) would not have been possible under the original forces as stars probably wouldn't have worked correctly.

KevRossi

On the Belgian-German border south of Aachen there are a few anomalies rising from the Treaty of Versailles. This means that you would travel along a train track (now a Greenway) and are in Belgium, but a few metres either side of you is Germany.

See here for example:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Aachen,+Germany/@50.6275052,6.271385,18z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x47c0997cb08a191d:0x63a30eae0b0e444f!8m2!3d50.7753455!4d6.0838868!5m1!1e3

And in this photo here, the train track is in Begium*, but the road is mostly in Germany, the border is marked by the thick white lines. You can also see how the road deteriorates for the few metres that it passes through Belgian territory.

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.575175,6.2383432,3a,75y,353.74h,52.49t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sa82T3TKNw9hYGytV2-einA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!5m1!1e3

It's called the Vennbahn, more reading on it here, if you're ever in the area I'd recommend doing Troisverges to Aachen along that Greenway, gorgeous trip, you can also cycle right up to the highest points in Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands along this route.

Streetview here is from 2009, this is now all Greenway.

maudgonner

Ancient Roman women liked their elaborate hairdos, and trends changed frequently.
Which meant that when they had busts sculpted of them, there was a danger that the busts would quickly become outdated and unfashionable. It was expensive to get new busts commissioned, so they came up with quite a clever solution: make the hair detachable. When the style changed they would only need to update the 'wig' on the sculpture.

julia-domna-portrait2-jpg.164483

Wibbs

Another interesting thing about Roman busts is that they were far more realistic and representative of the person than say the Greek, where people were prettied up. Romans were more warts and all. So if you had a chubby face, or crooked nose or balding etc that's how you'd be carved. Emperors depending on the individual were more godlike and prettied up for propaganda purposes.

They were also of course painted to look as lifelike as possible.