Interesting Stuff Thread

mikhail wrote: »

Sadly, it runs out some time this year.

The world population has now reached 7 billion people. This milestone inspired us to conduct research to update our statistics, and the changes over the past 5 years are remarkable. In 2006, only 1 person out of 100 would have had a college education-- today that number has jumped to 7 thanks in part to advances in higher education in Asia.

If the World were 100 PEOPLE:
50 would be female
50 would be male

26 would be children
There would be 74 adults,
8 of whom would be 65 and older

There would be:
60 Asians
15 Africans
14 people from the Americas
11 Europeans

33 Christians
22 Muslims
14 Hindus
7 Buddhists
12 people who practice other religions
12 people who would not be aligned with a religion

12 would speak Chinese
5 would speak Spanish
5 would speak English
3 would speak Arabic
3 would speak Hindi
3 would speak Bengali
3 would speak Portuguese
2 would speak Russian
2 would speak Japanese
62 would speak other languages

83 would be able to read and write; 17 would not

7 would have a college degree
22 would own or share a computer

77 people would have a place to shelter them
from the wind and the rain, but 23 would not

1 would be dying of starvation
15 would be undernourished
21 would be overweight

87 would have access to safe drinking water
13 people would have no clean, safe water to drink

Tardigrades have been known to withstand the following extremes while in this state:
Temperature – tardigrades can survive being heated for a few minutes to 151 °C (424 K), [19] or being chilled for days at -200 °C (73 K),[19] or for a few minutes at -272 °C (~1 degree above absolute zero).[20]
Pressure – they can withstand the extremely low pressure of a vacuum and also very high pressures, more than 1,200 times atmospheric pressure. Tardigrades can survive the vacuum of open space and solar radiation combined for at least 10 days.[20] Some species can also withstand pressure of 6,000 atmospheres, which is nearly six times the pressure of water in the deepest ocean trench, the Mariana trench.[12]
Dehydration – tardigrades have been shown to survive nearly 10 years in a dry state.[21] When encountered by extremely low temperatures, their body composition goes from 85% water to only 3%. As water expands upon freezing, dehydration ensures the tardigrades do not get ripped apart by the freezing ice (as waterless tissues cannot freeze).[22]
Radiation – tardigrades can withstand median lethal doses of 5,000 Gy (of gamma-rays) and 6,200 Gy (of heavy ions) in hydrated animals (5 to 10 Gy could be fatal to a human).[23] The only explanation thus far for this ability is that their lowered water state provides fewer reactants for the ionizing radiation.[24]
Environmental toxins – tardigrades can undergo chemobiosis—a cryptobiotic response to high levels of environmental toxins. However, these laboratory results have yet to be verified.[25][26]
Outer space – In September 2007, tardigrades were taken into low Earth orbit on the FOTON-M3 mission and for 10 days were exposed to the vacuum of space. After being rehydrated back on Earth, over 68% of the subjects protected from high-energy UV radiation survived and many of these produced viable embryos, and a handful had survived full exposure to solar radiation.[20][27] In May 2011, tardigrades were sent into space along with other extremophiles on STS-134, the final flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour.[28][29][30] In November 2011, they were among the organisms sent by the US-based Planetary Society on the Russian Fobos-Grunt mission to Phobos.

Gbear wrote: »

Their name makes them sound far cuter than they really are.



Like a cross between a hoover bag and a slug.

Jernal wrote: »

One little water droplet.
(Watch in HD. Oh and if you don't appreciate this then you've probably got no soul, unless of you course you're a ginger then it's a certainty. )

Jernal wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-_RHRAzUHM

About 65 million years ago, the Earth was struck by an asteroid some 10 km in diameter with a mass of well over a trillion tonnes.
[...]
But in recent years, astrobiologists have begun to study a less well known consequence: the ejection of billions of tonnes of life-bearing rocks and water into space. By some estimates, the impact could have ejected as much mass as the asteroid itself.
[...]
Their results contain a number of surprises. First, they calculate that almost as much ejecta would have ended up on Europa as on the Moon: around 10^8 individual Earth rocks in some scenarios.

[...]
But perhaps most surprising is the amount that makes its way across interstellar space. Last year, we looked at calculations suggesting that more Earth ejecta must end up in interstellar space than all the other planets combined.
[...]
Hara and co calculate that it would take some 10^12 years for ejecta to spread through a volume of space the size of the Milky Way. But since our galaxy is only 10^10 years old, a single ejection event could not have done the trick.

However, they say that if life evolved at 25 different sites in the galaxy 10^10 years ago, then the combined ejecta from these places would now fill the Milky Way.