Science facts that amaze you?

srsly78 · 04-09-2014 9:07pm

Macavity. wrote: »

A person can survive without drinking anything for the rest of their life.

Because food has lots of water in it.

endacl · 04-09-2014 9:08pm

srsly78 wrote: »

Because food has lots of water in it.

Read it again.

somuj · 04-09-2014 9:09pm

srsly78 wrote: »

Because food has lots of water in it.

A person can survive without eating, drinking or breathing for the rest of their life. Its just that their life is gonna be very short.

srsly78 · 04-09-2014 9:10pm

Well if we are going to be silly and pedantic you could just use an IV drip for the rest of your life too.

endacl · 04-09-2014 9:11pm

In game hours, humans have spent more time playing World of Warcraft than they have existed as a distinct species. That's a total of almost six million years sitting in the dark, pretending to be an elf.

:eek:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/869177-WoW-s-total-played-is-5-93-million-years

House of Blaze · 04-09-2014 9:25pm

endacl wrote: »

In game hours, humans have spent more time playing World of Warcraft than they have existed as a distinct species. That's a total of almost six million years sitting in the dark, pretending to be an elf.

:eek:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/869177-WoW-s-total-played-is-5-93-million-years

So....

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/273/548/de2.jpg

unfortunately · 04-09-2014 10:20pm

endacl wrote: »

There are more humans alive at present than have lived in the past since Homo sapiens emerged as a distinct species. We'll be grand if there's a zombie apocalypse. We outnumber the dead!

Jupiter alone comprises twice the mass of the rest of the solar system combined. Excluding the sun of course.

Of course, if there was only the sun, the solar system would still have lost less than 1% of its total mass.

The "most-humans-in-history-are-alive-now" thing is a myth - it is estimated that there have been around 100 billion throughout history. Reading that paragraph fro Wikipedia, it is estimated that 40% of humans did not survive beyond their first birthday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Number_of_humans_who_have_ever_lived

The world's population is predicted to rise to maybe around 9 billion then decline, so the peak of human population could probably be within some of our lifetimes. Assuming we don't start colonising the solar system.

An interesting animal is the Venus' Flower Basket. It's a sponge made from silica so it's like glass. It has a symbiotic relationship with a shrimp - it traps a male and female who live their lives out inside the sponge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus'_Flower_Basket

steddyeddy · 04-09-2014 10:33pm

I'm interested in an area of biology/chemistry/physics called quantum biology. It involves the study of quantum mechanical effects within biological symptoms. Anyway it turns out conciousness might have a basis in quantum mechanics.

Discovery of quantum vibrations in microtubules inside brain neurons corroborates controversial 20-year-old theory of consciousness

January 16, 2014

[+]Structure of a microtubule. The ring shape depicts a microtubule in cross-section, showing the 13 protofilaments surrounding a hollow center. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

A review and update of a controversial 20-year-old theory of consciousness published in Elsevier’s Physics of Life Reviews (open access) claims that consciousness derives from deeper-level, finer-scale activities inside brain neurons.
The recent discovery of quantum vibrations in microtubules inside brain neurons corroborates this theory, according to review authors Stuart Hameroff and Sir Roger Penrose. They suggest that EEG rhythms (brain waves) also derive from deeper level microtubule vibrations, and that from a practical standpoint, treating brain microtubule vibrations could benefit a host of mental, neurological, and cognitive conditions.
Microtubules are major components of the structural skeleton of cells.
The theory, called “orchestrated objective reduction” (“Orch OR”), was first put forward in the mid-1990s by eminent mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose, FRS, Mathematical Institute and Wadham College, University of Oxford, and prominent anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, MD, Anesthesiology, Psychology and Center for Consciousness Studies, The University of Arizona, Tucson.

strobe · 04-09-2014 10:38pm

Duggy747 wrote: »

Ducks have corkscrew willies and like to dish out a bit of the old rape when mating.

The Mallard duck is the only animal ever to have been observed engaging in homosexual necrophiliac rape.

bnt · 04-09-2014 10:39pm

Apart from a few exceptions still using the vacuum tube exclusively, every electronic device in existence uses materials called semiconductors in different arrangements. Take pure silicon or germanium, melt it and mix in carefully-controlled amounts of impurities such as gallium arsenide, and you have semiconductors. Let's take two examples, and call them P- and N-type semiconductors.

One of them is pretty useless on its own, but bond two different types of them together (NP), and you have a diode, which passes current in one direction but not the other. Three of them, bonded in a NPN or PNP arrangement, gives you a device that allows one current to open a "gate" to let another current through, again in one direction. We call this a transistor.

There are other, more complex, arrangements for specialised jobs, but the diode and transistor are the basis of nearly all electronics, including the integrated circuits in your computers, the communication equipment that links you to the Internet, and the infrastructure that holds the Internet together.

And to think that the team behind the first working Transistor was led by a man, William Shockley, who was frankly a nutter. Eugenicist, paranoid & delusional, he alienated his co-workers and family alike. Seriously egotistic before he was awarded a Nobel Prize, intolerable afterwards, his written work laid out the whole theory behind the transistor, and showed that it wasn't a lucky break but the result of serious study and experimentation. Many who worked for him got fed up, left to form their own companies in protest, and basically founded Silicon Valley. :cool:

steddyeddy · 04-09-2014 10:39pm

strobe wrote: »

The Mallard duck is the only animal ever to have been observed engaging in homosexual necrophiliac rape.

What about humans :P

catallus · 04-09-2014 10:40pm

strobe wrote: »

The Mallard duck is the only animal ever to have been observed engaging in homosexual necrophiliac rape.

Surely you mean the only one silly enough to get observed doing it!

strobe · 04-09-2014 10:40pm

steddyeddy wrote: »

What about humans :P

No observed instances as far as I am aware (open to correction of course), always been a private affair.

strobe · 04-09-2014 10:42pm

catallus wrote: »

Surely you mean the only one silly enough to get observed doing it!

I thought that was implied.

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castletownman · 04-09-2014 10:42pm

Hands up who wants to go on a QI binge

steddyeddy · 04-09-2014 10:43pm

bnt wrote: »

Apart from a few exceptions still using the vacuum tube exclusively, every electronic device in existence uses materials called semiconductors in different arrangements. Take pure silicon or germanium, melt it and mix in carefully-controlled amounts of impurities such as gallium arsenide, and you have semiconductors. Let's take two examples, and call them P- and N-type semiconductors.

One of them is pretty useless on its own, but bond two different types of them together (NP), and you have a diode, which passes current in one direction but not the other. Three of them, bonded in a NPN or PNP arrangement, gives you a device that allows one current to open a "gate" to let another current through, again in one direction. We call this a transistor.

There are other, more complex, arrangements for specialised jobs, but the diode and transistor are the basis of nearly all electronics, including the integrated circuits in your computers, the communication equipment that links you to the Internet, and the infrastructure that holds the Internet together.

And to think that the team behind the first working Transistor was led by a man, William Shockley, who was frankly a nutter. Eugenicist, paranoid & delusional, he alienated his co-workers and family alike. Seriously egotistic before he was awarded a Nobel Prize, intolerable afterwards, his written work laid out the whole theory behind the transistor, and showed that it wasn't a lucky break but the result of serious study and experimentation. Many who worked for him got fed up, left to form their own companies in protest, and basically founded Silicon Valley. :cool:

Very interesting. May look him up now. He sounds like James Watson of DNA fame IMO. Racist, eugenicist, homophobe and woman hater except he gets far too mcuh credit for the discovery of DNA's double helix.

Fate Amenable To Change · 04-09-2014 10:46pm

bnt wrote: »

Apart from a few exceptions still using the vacuum tube exclusively, every electronic device in existence uses materials called semiconductors in different arrangements. Take pure silicon or germanium, melt it and mix in carefully-controlled amounts of impurities such as gallium arsenide, and you have semiconductors. Let's take two examples, and call them P- and N-type semiconductors.

One of them is pretty useless on its own, but bond two different types of them together (NP), and you have a diode, which passes current in one direction but not the other. Three of them, bonded in a NPN or PNP arrangement, gives you a device that allows one current to open a "gate" to let another current through, again in one direction. We call this a transistor.

There are other, more complex, arrangements for specialised jobs, but the diode and transistor are the basis of nearly all electronics, including the integrated circuits in your computers, the communication equipment that links you to the Internet, and the infrastructure that holds the Internet together.

And to think that the team behind the first working Transistor was led by a man, William Shockley, who was frankly a nutter. Eugenicist, paranoid & delusional, he alienated his co-workers and family alike. Seriously egotistic before he was awarded a Nobel Prize, intolerable afterwards, his written work laid out the whole theory behind the transistor, and showed that it wasn't a lucky break but the result of serious study and experimentation. Many who worked for him got fed up, left to form their own companies in protest, and basically founded Silicon Valley. :cool:

Wow you just gave an overview of the npn that no teacher/lecturer has ever given me without going on for about an hour about irrelevant rubbish.

GLaDOS · 04-09-2014 10:51pm

strobe wrote: »

The Mallard duck is the only animal ever to have been observed engaging in homosexual necrophiliac rape.

[citation needed]

The Dagda · 04-09-2014 10:51pm

A child's got more bones than a grown up's got!

steddyeddy · 04-09-2014 10:52pm

The Dagda wrote: »

A child's got more bones than a grown up's got!

And that's a natural law

Icaras · 04-09-2014 11:00pm

mackeire wrote: »

Ever wondered how the deaf wake themselves up in the morning? Well, there are many different ways, none being quite as fool proof as a blaring loud noise is among the hearing. The most foolproof method, outside of someone just coming to wake you up, is a very strong vibrating accessory attached to a special alarm clock. The attachment is then generally placed under the pillow or on the bed near the person. Another common method is an alarm clock that has a bright light attached that points at the sleeper. When the alarm goes off, it flashes brightly on and off. Due to the fact that the majority of deaf people are very heavy sleepers, as you might expect, this method doesn’t work as well as you might think. Yet another method is programming a house or room heater to heat the room to high temperatures around the time the person needs to get up. This, again, isn’t the best method for heavy sleepers and can result in the other downside of sweaty blankets and sheets :eek:

Why dont they just wear a vibrating watch?

kfod · 04-09-2014 11:08pm

We can never touch anything. Everything you ever touched is just a figment of your imagination. It's kind of sad.

http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/why-you-can-never-actually-touch-anything/

quad_red · 04-09-2014 11:21pm

The Jurassic dinosaur Stegosaurus already had been extinct for approximately 80 million years before the appearance of the Cretaceous dinosaur Tyrannosaurus. In fact, the time separating Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus is greater than the time separating Tyrannosaurus and you.

Given that the universe is expanding and the galaxies are rushing away from one another, at some point far far in the future galaxies outside our own will no longer be visible. Any civilisations emerging in this age will take it that there is only one galaxy and that the universe is practically empty.

mackeire · 04-09-2014 11:24pm

Icaras wrote: »

Why dont they just wear a vibrating watch?

Because if a man was lying with his arm crossing his willy then it could end in disaster!

Ompala · 04-09-2014 11:29pm

An atom is 99.9% empty space, everything is made up of atoms, so everything is 99.9% empty space

Rucking_Fetard · 04-09-2014 11:30pm

kfod wrote: »

We can never touch anything. Everything you ever touched is just a figment of your imagination. It's kind of sad.

http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/why-you-can-never-actually-touch-anything/

I’m sure some of you will wonder: “If electron repulsion prevents us from ever truly touching anything, why do we perceive touch as a real thing?” The answer boils down to how our brains interpret the physical world. In this case, there are a number of factors at work. In short, the nerve cells that make up our body send signals to our brain that tells us we are physically touching something, when the sensation of touch is merely given to us by our electron’s interaction with – and its repulsion from – the electromagnetic field permeating spacetime; one medium electron waves propagate through.

Wrong, kinda.

Neurons in human skin perform advanced calculations, previously believed that only the brain could perform.

Somewhat simplified, it means that our touch experiences are already processed by neurons in the skin before they reach the brain for further processing, says Andrew Pruszynski.

http://www.medfak.umu.se/english/about-the-faculty/news/newsdetailpage/neurons-in-human-skin-perform-advanced-calculations.cid238881

Betty Bloggs · 04-09-2014 11:38pm

I watched a great documentary years ago called Absolute Zero.
The whole show is great but when it got to a part where they shone a laser through this bose einstein condensate it slowed down the speed of light to the speed of a bicycle, I just thought wow!.

I'm definitely no physics expert but just found this all so weird and fascinating. It's been a few years since I watched it so the details are a bit hazy in my mind but I remember at the time being excited about slowing the speed of light and time travel theories.

04-09-2014 11:39pm

* Everything in the world, whether natural or manmade, in the history of the world, is made from atoms that originated in the Big Bang. We're all made up of matter that came into existence in those 3 seconds.

* Of all the human beings that have ever lived, since the very origins of man, more than half of them have died from Malaria.

* Every cell in the human body, with the exception of egg and sperm cells, contains a complete copy of our genome. Egg and sperm cells only contain 50% of our genome.

* Some people (mostly Europeans) have a deletion on the CCR5 gene and this gives them strong resistance to HIV, smallpox, bubonic plague, Lassa fever, and other viruses including Nile fever.

smurgen · 04-09-2014 11:41pm

this is amazing, the largest flying creature of all time was the dinosaur Quetzalcoatlus . It had a wingspan of up to 40 feet and weighed around 200kg.it was a seriously big animal,it's body was about the same length of a giraffes. have a google of it,almost like a real life dragon.

Rucking_Fetard · 04-09-2014 11:43pm

Candie wrote: »

* Of all the human beings that have ever lived, since the very origins of man, more than half of them have died from Malaria.

New test for that, takes 15 mins

http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/659426-new-test-kits-to-boost-malaria-treatment.html

Candie wrote: »

* Every cell in the human body, with the exception of egg and sperm cells, contains a complete copy of our genome. Egg and sperm cells only contain 50% of our genome.

Which 50%?

Science facts that amaze you?

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