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Interesting Stuff Thread

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Comments

  • #4022
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,458 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Lads, if you've a Bmp4 gene, well, just take care not to express it:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22803344

    BTW, "cloaca" is the latin word for "sewer" -- hence Rome's ancient, and still-useful Cloaca Maxima -- but a "cloacal kiss"? Yuk!


  • #4023
    PopePalpatine
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,140 ✭✭✭✭PopePalpatine


    Lads, is it weird that I've wondered for at least a few years where birds' dicks are?


  • #4024
    Turtwig
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,578 ✭✭✭✭Turtwig


    PopePalpatine wrote: »
    Lads, is it weird that I've wondered for at least a few years where birds' dicks are?

    It's not particularly weird. What interests you is what interests you. Generally speaking most guys and gals don't expect chicks to have dicks, but that's just most people.


  • #4025
    PopePalpatine
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,140 ✭✭✭✭PopePalpatine


    Jernal wrote: »
    It's not particularly weird. What interests you is what interests you. Generally speaking most guys and gals don't expect chicks to have dicks, but that's just most people.

    It's not that it interests me, I was just curious about it.


  • #4026
    FouxDaFaFa
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,850 ✭✭✭FouxDaFaFa


    Just, please.

    Don't look too deeply into the reproductive system of a duck because that information will change you forever.


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  • #4027
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,458 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Jernal wrote: »
    Generally speaking most guys and gals don't expect chicks to have dicks, but that's just most people.
    And I tried so hard to avoid that gag that I eventually managed to.

    I feel cheated.


  • #4028
    Turtwig
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,578 ✭✭✭✭Turtwig


    robindch wrote: »
    And I tried so hard to avoid that gag that I eventually managed to.

    I feel cheated.

    Sorry, :o

    It appears I'm becoming more like you guys everyday. I'm losing my soul! What have I done! !!?:eek:


  • #4029
    Sarky
    Closed Accounts Posts: 31,967 ✭✭✭✭Sarky


    Someone hurry up and sort out womens' rights before they decide removing our willies is the best way to have control over their reproductive lives.


  • #4030
    Obliq
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,371 ✭✭✭Obliq


    PopePalpatine wrote: »
    Lads, is it weird that I've wondered for at least a few years where birds' dicks are?

    Most have them, I think? Chickens don't, and that's why it's so hard to figure out male from female when they're small. I've been keeping hens and raising chickens for years and I still can't tell the difference until the boys grow big stumpy legs and their tail feathers start showing. They also fight more :p There is a way to tell (the Chinese are brilliant at it apparently), but I can't see it myself....because I have no intention of squeezing chicks arses :eek:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_sexing


  • #4031
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,458 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Seems the Indian public school exam system for 10th Grade (~4th year) and 12th Grade (~6th year) has two major problems at the moment.

    Firstly, their website security isn't quite what it could be. Secondly, the numeric results achieved by students are distributed oddly:

    http://deedy.quora.com/Hacking-into-the-Indian-Education-System


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  • #4032
    Sarky
    Closed Accounts Posts: 31,967 ✭✭✭✭Sarky


    Obliq wrote: »
    Most have them, I think? Chickens don't, and that's why it's so hard to figure out male from female when they're small. I've been keeping hens and raising chickens for years and I still can't tell the difference until the boys grow big stumpy legs and their tail feathers start showing. They also fight more :p There is a way to tell (the Chinese are brilliant at it apparently), but I can't see it myself....because I have no intention of squeezing chicks arses :eek:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_sexing

    This caused a stir some time ago in TCN. :pac:


  • #4033
    Obliq
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,371 ✭✭✭Obliq


    PopePalpatine wrote: »
    Lads, is it weird that I've wondered for at least a few years where birds' dicks are?

    No Popey, not at all weird by comparison to nearly everyone's musings in Sarky's Cuckoo thread below....
    Sarky wrote: »
    This caused a stir some time ago in TCN. :pac:

    Gadzooks!! Ye're all madder than a bag of ferrets :D Loving the poetry - mad with touches of genius.


  • #4034
    Liamario
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,096 ✭✭✭Liamario


    2013-06-06-dong-dino-laqk6.png


  • #4035
    Nolars
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,894 ✭✭✭Nolars


    LONDON, England (CNN) -- The world's oldest known Christian Bible goes online Monday -- but the 1,600-year-old text doesn't match the one you'll find in churches today.

    http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/07/06/ancient.bible.online/


  • #4036
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,458 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Turns out that matrix arithmetic can produce interesting results when applied to tables which document the groups that individuals belong to. Subject is not unconnected with ongoing concerns over PRISM.

    http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/
    http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~pmclean/mcleanp_01_920_313_breiger_duality.pdf


  • #4037
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,458 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Research suggests that non-religious people embrace reason even more energetically under stress, and not less so, as the "no-atheists-in-foxholes" brigade would have you believe.

    http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/06/fear-of-death-makes-people-into-.html?ref=hp


  • #4038
    Bannasidhe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,218 ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    robindch wrote: »
    Research suggests that non-religious people embrace reason even more energetically under stress, and not less so, as the "no-atheists-in-foxholes" brigade would have you believe.

    http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/06/fear-of-death-makes-people-into-.html?ref=hp

    I put the 'no atheists in a foxhole' statement to my ex RAF staff sergeant medic in WWII great grand uncle and asked him if when he was required to parachute out of a plane in the dark under sustained fire he ever felt the need to pray.
    He looked at me with amazement and said 'would that have made me bulletproof or flakproof, repacked a badly packed chute or moved trees out of the way? *snort*. Why on Earth would I want to waste what could be my last moments alive doing something so utterly pointless? I ate cake on the way down so if I did buy it, at least I would pop off while eating cake. I love cake.'

    He is 94 now - still an atheist and still loves cake.


  • #4039
    Sarky
    Closed Accounts Posts: 31,967 ✭✭✭✭Sarky


    ... what kind of cake? >_>


  • #4040
    Bannasidhe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,218 ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    Sarky wrote: »
    ... what kind of cake? >_>

    What ever kind of cake my grandmother saved up her sugar and egg ration to bake him but for preference cherry. Personally, I thought her steamed date pudding was perfection but I imagine that had a limited shelf life and wouldn't have survived travelling from base to base in a biscuit tin until it caught up with him.


  • #4041
    kiffer
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,097 ✭✭✭kiffer


    CAKE FROM ABOVE!


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  • #4042
    Sarky
    Closed Accounts Posts: 31,967 ✭✭✭✭Sarky


    Bannasidhe wrote: »
    What ever kind of cake my grandmother saved up her sugar and egg ration to bake him but for preference cherry. Personally, I thought her steamed date pudding was perfection but I imagine that had a limited shelf life and wouldn't have survived travelling from base to base in a biscuit tin until it caught up with him.

    Steamed date pudding, jumping out of planes while eating cake... Do you have any family member that ISN'T a total boss?


  • #4043
    Bannasidhe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,218 ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    Sarky wrote: »
    Steamed date pudding, jumping out of planes while eating cake... Do you have any family member that ISN'T a total boss?

    Many. :(

    But most of my grandmother's family were seriously fabulous - even the evil ones were fabulously, gobsmackingly evil.


  • #4044
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,458 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Back on topic (briefly).

    Backyard Brains demos a cockroach with rhythm.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr4gWi9Jf6k


  • #4045
    Gbear
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,775 ✭✭✭✭Gbear


    Not religion-related but there's certainly a quasi-religious quality to some environmentalist and anti-nuclear beliefs:
    A chara, – As a Chernobyl worker, I found myself agreeing with John Gibbons (“Science does not support critics of nuclear power”, Opinion, June 5th).
    There was as a increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer for the first few years, but no evidence of major public health impact attributable to radiation exposure 25 years after the event. This is not a popular thing to say, but its based on scientific fact.
    Our charity was founded in 1993 to aid Belarusian children who were affected by the Chernobyl disaster. However over a period of 20 years we came to the realisation that the illnesses affecting many of the children of Belarus were primarily due to the consequences arising out of poverty, deprivation and the ignorance of basic hygiene standards to maintain a healthy standard of living. Poverty is the big problem in Belarus in 2013: I have seen children with physical and intellectual disabilities (whose parents sometimes are ashamed of them), living in appalling conditions, with mothers in dire straits. They have no home help, no respite, no hoists, and very little assistance from the state.
    I am neutral in the nuclear debate. As a nurse in care of the elderly, I see the results of breathing air contaminated by fossil fuel burning. My final point is that all Chernobyl charities should be realistic, and tell it as it is. – Is mise,
    MARY FINNEGAN,
    Chairperson,
    Friends of the Children of
    Chernobyl,
    The Commons,
    Thurles, Co Tipperary.


  • #4046
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,458 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Michael Nugent, Breda O'Brien and others are debating the decline and fall of the catholic church on "Tonight with Vincent Browne".

    *Now*!


  • #4047
    Sarky
    Closed Accounts Posts: 31,967 ✭✭✭✭Sarky


    It's that evil liberal media, I bet.


  • #4048
    Sulla Felix
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,442 ✭✭✭Sulla Felix


    Good news!


    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10119437/US-Supreme-Court-rules-businesses-cannot-patent-human-genes.html

    The nine judges threw out patents held by Myriad Genetics, the Utah company whose breast cancer test identified Angelina Jolie's risk of the disease before she decided to undergo a preventive double mastectomy.

    The ruling, a rare unanimous agreement between the court's conservative and liberal factions, overturned three decades of patents on naturally-occurring genes granted by US officials.

    The decision was hailed as a victory by doctors and scientists who argued that the patent prevented them conducting medical research in the US.

    Myriad's critics also contended the company's monopoly on the breast and ovarian cancer test that Jolie took was fuelling exorbitant prices. The test costs $3-4,000 in the US, a financial burden that many women cannot afford.

    Ok, sure, it's in the US, but it does affect the ability of US institutions to do RnD on patented genelines, a restriction that's now lifted.


  • #4049
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37,200 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Does anyone else find the 'breast cancer is news because it's Jolie's breasts' angle disturbing?

    I'm partial to your abracadabra,

    I'm raptured by the joy of it all.



  • #4050
    Bannasidhe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,218 ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    ninja900 wrote: »
    Does anyone else find the 'breast cancer is news because it's Jolie's breasts' angle disturbing?

    As someone who has had breast cancer twice I don't give a damn whose breasts are getting publicity for this and countering this bizarre notion that if a woman has no breasts she isn't a real woman.

    Now, we just need Patrick Stewart's prostate....


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  • #4051
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37,200 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Bannasidhe wrote: »
    Now, we just need Patrick Stewart's prostate....

    O_o



    we demonise it because it'd be ghey not to.

    I'm partial to your abracadabra,

    I'm raptured by the joy of it all.



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