I bet you didnt know that

New Home · 12-09-2018 10:28pm

The article quotes this as its source, but I'm too tired to try and concentrate long enough to make sense of it.

dxhound2005 · 12-09-2018 10:33pm

This might be the most relevant section.

The Distribution of Biomass Across Environments and Trophic Modes.
Examining global biomass in different environments exposes stark differences between terrestrial and marine environments. The ocean covers 71% of the Earth’s surface and occupies a much larger volume than the terrestrial environment, yet land biomass, at ≈470 Gt C, is about two orders of magnitude higher than the ≈6 Gt C in marine biomass, as shown in Fig. 2A. Even though there is a large difference in the biomass content of the terrestrial and marine environments, the primary productivity of the two environments is roughly equal (33). For plants, we find that most biomass is concentrated in terrestrial environments (plants have only a small fraction of marine biomass, <1 Gt C, in the form of green algae and seagrass; Fig. 2B). For animals, most biomass is concentrated in the marine environment, and for bacteria and archaea, most biomass is concentrated in deep subsurface environments. We note that several of the results in Fig. 2B should be interpreted with caution due to the large uncertainty associated with some of the estimates, mostly those of total terrestrial protists, marine fungi, and contributions from deep subsurface environments.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 12-09-2018 10:38pm

Wibbs wrote: »

Shoot me down in flames D, but I still don't buy it. 1) there is more water than land. 2) Even in the stygian depths there is life and lots of it, and that's the stuff we see with the Mark 1 Human Eyeball. The deep ooze at the bottom of oceans is positively teeming with bacteria and other microscopic life. Consider the white cliffs of Dover and their associated deposits in England and France. They're made up almost entirely of the microscopic skeletons of marine life deposited in an ancient and small enough sea. 3) if there are bacteria buried below the surface of the dry bits, there are almost certainly the same numbers buried below the wet bits. If not more, given water and energy is what feeds them. 4) then there's the sheer volume of water itself across all depths which contains both micro and macro organisms. Granted the lion's share of the latter and the most diverse is at shallower depths, but send down a collecting jar to say 3000 metres below sea level and a litre of seawater is going to be positively stuffed with a myriad of creatures.

Could there be more biomass in the "dry" bits? I'd not have an issue with that D, but the claim that the entirety of the "wet" bits only has one percent of Earth's biomass? No way. That has got to be a typo, or some scientists were at the distillation kit in the lab and cooked up a doozie of a beverage.

Total global biomass is about 560 billion tonnes. Most of this biomass is found on land, with only 5 to 10 billion tonnes in the oceans.

gozunda · 12-09-2018 11:08pm

Wibbs wrote: »

Ancient Rome at one time had a piss tax. They also placed large cauldrons on streets to collect the stuff. Wasn't just for tanning either. They used it to wash clothes(steep, then rinse with water of course) and even as a mouthwash. Yep. They thought piss would clean and whiten teeth. They also added ground up pumice to piss to make toothpaste. And they were somewhat right. The ammonia(IIRC) in piss will whiten and clean teeth and kill bacteria. One Roman dude in denouncing a fellow politician called him "piss face" because his teeth were so white. Urine was added to mouthwashes until the 1600s.

Diabetes was diagnosed by doctors who would taste piss. If it was sweet you had it.

Non only did ancient Romans miss out on the benefits of stirrups for their saddles and gunpowder (see previous post

) - they famously did without the benefit of soap. Pliny the Elder (before his death in 79 AD following the eruption of mount Vesuvius) stated in his writings - 'Historia Naturalis' that Soap was something mainly used by Gaulish and Germanic men but not so much by their women ...

Ineedaname · 12-09-2018 11:11pm

Wibbs wrote: »

Shoot me down in flames D, but I still don't buy it. 1) there is more water than land. 2) Even in the stygian depths there is life and lots of it, and that's the stuff we see with the Mark 1 Human Eyeball. The deep ooze at the bottom of oceans is positively teeming with bacteria and other microscopic life. Consider the white cliffs of Dover and their associated deposits in England and France. They're made up almost entirely of the microscopic skeletons of marine life deposited in an ancient and small enough sea. 3) if there are bacteria buried below the surface of the dry bits, there are almost certainly the same numbers buried below the wet bits. If not more, given water and energy is what feeds them. 4) then there's the sheer volume of water itself across all depths which contains both micro and macro organisms. Granted the lion's share of the latter and the most diverse is at shallower depths, but send down a collecting jar to say 3000 metres below sea level and a litre of seawater is going to be positively stuffed with a myriad of creatures.

Could there be more biomass in the "dry" bits? I'd not have an issue with that D, but the claim that the entirety of the "wet" bits only has one percent of Earth's biomass? No way. That has got to be a typo, or some scientists were at the distillation kit in the lab and cooked up a doozie of a beverage.

It's not really that hard to imagine. While bacteria are abundant they are nothing compared to plants.

On land plants need to grow tall in order to compete for light. As they get bigger they obviously require more mass to support their weight. On top of that they need large roots to absorb nutrients from the ground.

In the water they have buoyancy to support them and nutrients are more evenly dispersed so they have no need for large roots.

Capt'n Midnight · 12-09-2018 11:24pm

New Home wrote: »

The article quotes this as its source, but I'm too tired to try and concentrate long enough to make sense of it.

There's a lot of carbon stored in plant stems and tree trunks. Works out about 4/7ths of all the biomass.

Exclude that and the living parts of plants still represent 4/7ths of all the remaining biomass, and then bacteria are three quarters of the rest.

F1.medium.gif

larger version http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2018/05/15/1711842115/F1.large.jpg

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larger version http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/115/25/6506/F2.large.jpg

BaZmO* · 12-09-2018 11:59pm

On the subject of biomass, the amount of ants on earth, by weight, is greater than the amount of humans by weight.

pleas advice · 13-09-2018 12:14am

by 2050 there will be the same weight of plastic in the oceans as fish...

(or will there?)

So how much plastic is there in the ocean, and how much will there be in 2050? We don't know, but probably a lot. How many fish? We don't really know but certainly a lot. And when will one overtake the other? We definitely do not know.

Capt'n Midnight · 13-09-2018 12:54am

BaZmO* wrote: »

On the subject of biomass, the amount of ants on earth, by weight, is greater than the amount of humans by weight.

Land mammals by weight

Whales at 80m tonnes* outweigh wild land animals at 30m tonnes

*Where do you weigh whales ? At a whale weigh station.

gozunda · 13-09-2018 7:24am

BaZmO* wrote: »

On the subject of biomass, the amount of ants on earth, by weight, is greater than the amount of humans by weight.

On the subject of Ants, in 2002 researchers announced that they had found Earth's biggest "super organism" in Europe, made up of a network of communicating worker ants spanning more than 3,700 miles.

The ants are Argentine ants of the species, Linepithema humile, and are found in millions of nests in a supercolony stretching from northern Italy, through the south of France to the Atlantic coast of Spain, in what is thought to be the largest co-operative unit of individual organisms ever discovered.

RIGOLO · 13-09-2018 7:36am

New Home wrote: »

Half inspired by/half stolen from another thread...

In the mid-1800s, paper was made using rags, mostly cotton and linen. However, soon the raw material began to become scarce, so a new source was found: Egyptian mummies (of which, apparently, there was an abundance- by 1856, the New York Tribune was able to report that about two and a quarter million pounds of rags had been imported from Egypt.)! Their bandages were unravelled, torn into tiny pieces and pulped, just like rags used to be. It was a very cheap raw material, and duty-free, too, so, since it wasn't compulsory to declare its provenance, often the cargos were just recorded as "rags".

Paper is still being manufactured in this way at the Moulin Richard de Bas near Ambert in the Auvergne region , France.
And has been since 1326.

http://www.richarddebas.fr/content/11-photos-interieures

It is a water-wheel power generated operation, taking rags and linen to make and press paper. You can make your own, its a good day out and experience if your in the area and have kids.

CruelCoin · 13-09-2018 9:15am

Of all people who play poker live or online, most people are losing players.

Approx 60% losing, 20% breaking even, 15% winning some, 5% winning lots.

But almost everyone tells you they're breaking even or winning. Funny that.

CruelCoin · 13-09-2018 9:18am

The territory of Nevada was rushing to become a state in time for the 1864 presidential election.

After writing a state constitution with only days to spare, they sent all 16,543 words of it to Congress via telegram.

Transmission took 2 full days and cost $4,303.27 (over $67,000 today.)

2 days on the clicker!

CruelCoin · 13-09-2018 9:19am

I feel like you guys would love this subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/

CruelCoin · 13-09-2018 9:20am

gozunda wrote: »

On the subject of Ants, in 2002 researchers announced that they had found Earth's biggest "super organism" in Europe, made up of a network of communicating worker ants spanning more than 3,700 miles.

The ants are Argentine ants of the species, Linepithema humile, and are found in millions of nests in a supercolony stretching from northern Italy, through the south of France to the Atlantic coast of Spain, in what is thought to be the largest co-operative unit of individual organisms ever discovered.

On the topic of super organisms:

The largest single living organism is a honey fungus measuring 2.4 miles (3.8 km) across in the Blue Mountains in Oregon

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141114-the-biggest-organism-in-the-world

CruelCoin · 13-09-2018 9:27am

You could stop a hurricane like "irma" by shooting at it.

All it would take is thousands of miniguns continuously for a day.

"So how many bullets are we going to need? If there's 125 trillion joules in the storm, and 3300 in a bullet, we'd need 125 TJ/3300 J = 3.79*1010 rounds to completely undo Irma. 109 is a billion, so that means 37.9 billion rounds. A quick search around the web tells us that 10-12 billion is a good guess for the number of bullets manufactured annually, so we'd need a truly alarming ammo stockpile to begin with.

But how much firepower are we going to need here? Let's say we've convinced the Commander in Chief that this is an issue of national security, and we've got the resources of the entire DoD at our disposal—all the manpower and miniguns we need—but we've only got 24 hours to disperse the storm.

To fire off the necessary 37.9B rounds from a single minigun operating continuously at 6,000 rounds per minute would take 4387 days, or twelve years. That's not going to do us much good for stopping the storm—but it means that, if we want to get it done in 24 hours, all we need is 4387 miniguns!"

http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2017/09/could-we-really-stop-hurricane-with.html

RIGOLO · 13-09-2018 9:44am

the purple tin wrote: »

Red wine has no taste. The flavour you get while drinking it is actually coming from the smell.
The next time you have a head cold drink some and it will taste like water.

NOT TO REOPEN THE WHOLE WHETHER RED WINE HAS A TASTE DEBATE .. but on the topic of wine, we can all agree that recent wines from certain regions do have gamma radiation fallout from both Chernobyl and post 1945.

And this fallout has been used to authenticate the age of expensive wines.

So next time your having your favourite tipple you can impress your friends by saying, yes I can really taste the post 1945 , Cesium - 137 coming thru in the bouquet..

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/06/03/318241738/how-atomic-particles-became-the-smoking-gun-in-wine-fraud-mystery

CruelCoin · 13-09-2018 10:52am

The most searched for term on the Bing search engine has been "Google" for 28 months running.

RIP Bing

New Home · 13-09-2018 11:12am

RIGOLO wrote: »

NOT TO REOPEN THE WHOLE WHETHER RED WINE HAS A TASTE DEBATE .. but on the topic of wine, we can all agree that recent wines from certain regions do have gamma radiation fallout from both Chernobyl and post 1945.

And this fallout has been used to authenticate the age of expensive wines.

So next time your having your favourite tipple you can impress your friends by saying, yes I can really taste the post 1945 , Cesium - 137 coming thru in the bouquet..

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/06/03/318241738/how-atomic-particles-became-the-smoking-gun-in-wine-fraud-mystery

Mushrooms are like sponges for radiations, too.

Ineedaname · 13-09-2018 11:20am

CruelCoin wrote: »

The most searched for term on the Bing search engine has been "Google" for 28 months running.

RIP Bing

Bing has 1/3 of the market share in the US and brings in about $5 billion per year. Obviously it will never compete with Google but it is far from a failure.

On that note 75% of Googles mobile revenue actually comes from iPhone rather than android. They pay Apple $3 billion per year just to make Google their default search engine.

RiderOnTheStorm · 13-09-2018 12:08pm

New Home wrote:

as its source, but I'm too tired to try and concentrate long enough to make sense of it.

Find it hard to believe 1% is in the ocean, and tried to read that source but lost will to live ...
If this is true, then I DEFINITELY did not know that!

CruelCoin wrote:

You could stop a hurricane like "irma" by shooting at it.

Well, the numbers look right ... But how do you know that the energy from the bullets is being subtracted from the hurricanes energy? The shots could be adding to the hurricane! gasp

CruelCoin · 13-09-2018 12:45pm

RiderOnTheStorm wrote: »

Well, the numbers look right ... But how do you know that the energy from the bullets is being subtracted from the hurricanes energy? The shots could be adding to the hurricane! gasp

You shoot into the leading edge of the hurricane.

But aye, you could enpower a hurricane by shooting the receding edge!

JaMarcus · 13-09-2018 3:43pm

StupidLikeAFox wrote: »

If you search for it you can also find the story about when he actually opened and had some customers in. They bought frozen stuff from Iceland (the supermarket) and heated it in the microwave and the people thought it was amazing.

Here's the video - it's a brilliant watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqPARIKHbN8

13-09-2018 8:25pm

The Corpus Callosum is situatued under the cerebral cortex in the human brain, and among other things it connects the two hemisphere of the brain. In general, the right side of the brain largely controls movements on the left side of the body, and the left side controls the right. Damage to this area on the right side of the brain can result in cognitive issues, as well as issues of control and muscle recognition on the left side of the body. One of the more interesting medical conditions that can result from right hemisphere damage from injury, surgery or illness such as a stroke, is Anarchic hand or Alien Hand Syndrome.

AHS is a rare neurological condition where one hand basically seems to act on it's own. A person could be writing with their right hand, and if the left is affected by AHS, then the left hand might purposefully move to stop them, or take the pen away. One could lift a fork to one's mouth with a right hand, and the left hand could smack it away. The movements appear considered and deliberate and goal orientated, and a battle to keep things in one hand while the other hand tries to take them away is a common symptom. You could zip up your fly with one hand while the other immediately takes it down. It must be incredibly frustrating. It differs from other disorders in that the patient recognizes it as belonging to them, but it appears to have it's own will.

It must be distressing to live with and thankfully it's rare since there is no cure for AHS. Drugs offer limited help, vocalizing commands to the rogue hand can sometimes help, and as a last resort strapping the hand down is used. Some people have even reported their hand as trying to hurt them.

It seems a very unfair business to survive injury, stroke, surgery or whatever, only to be burdened with a rogue hand sabotaging your everyday life from slapping you awake to trying to choke you.

Capt'n Midnight · 13-09-2018 9:54pm

CruelCoin wrote: »

The most searched for term on the Bing search engine has been "Google" for 28 months running.

RIP Bing

Bing was caught using Google.

Hiybbprqag was a made up word with made up results. But after a while Bing started returning results that could only have been scraped off Google.

mzungu · 13-09-2018 10:48pm

A pine tree was planted in memory of George Harrison at a park in LA in 2004 died after being infested by beetles.

Ipso · 13-09-2018 10:51pm

They should have went with Norwegian Wood.

mzungu · 13-09-2018 11:04pm

Ipso wrote: »

They should have went with Norwegian Wood.

They should have just Let it Tree.

New Home · 13-09-2018 11:21pm

Surely you mean "Let it Bee".

mzungu · 13-09-2018 11:30pm

Joan-Pujol_54253876757_54028874188_960_639-1900x1264_c.jpg

Joan Pujol Garcia was awarded an MBE for his services in WW2 for the allies....but he also awarded the Iron Cross for services to Germany in the same war!

He first approached the allies to work for them, but they rejected him. So, having developed a disliking for fascism during the Spanish civil war, he decided to go it alone in his crusade against the Nazi's. He went to work for the them, posing as a pro-fascist Spanish government official. He was sent to spy in the UK, a request he ignored and went to Lisbon instead and wrote out bogus reports on the UK, taking information from various public service sources like train timetables and cinema newsreels.

This information would not have withstood much scrutiny, which is why he invented fictional sub-agents who could be blamed for false information and mistakes. He remained a trusted spy by the Germans.

He was finally taken on board by the allies when they could see his worth as a spy. His family was moved to Britain and Pujol was given the code name "GARBO". For the remainder of the war, he and his handler Tomás (Tommy) Harris spent the rest of the war expanding the fictional network, communicating at first by letter to the German handlers and later by radio. By the end of it, the Germans were funding a network of twenty-seven fictional agents.

Pujol played an important role in Operation Fortitude, the deception operation intended to mislead the Germans about the timing and location of the invasion of Normandy in 1944. The false information Pujol supplied helped persuade the Germans that the main attack would be in the Pas de Calais, so that they kept large forces there before and even after the invasion

Franz Von Peppercorn · 13-09-2018 11:37pm

RiderOnTheStorm wrote: »

Find it hard to believe 1% is in the ocean, and tried to read that source but lost will to live ...

Easy enough read.

We find that the kingdoms of life concentrate at different locations on the planet; plants (≈450 Gt C, the dominant kingdom) are primarily terrestrial, whereas animals (≈2 Gt C) are mainly marine, and bacteria (≈70 Gt C) and archaea (≈7 Gt C) are predominantly located in deep subsurface environments. We show that terrestrial biomass is about two orders of magnitude higher than marine biomass and estimate a total of ≈6 Gt C of marine biota, doubling the previous estimated quantity.

Most biomass is land based plants. More animals in the ocean but plants at 450Gt are much larger than animals at 2GT. Bacteria is 70Gt.

CruelCoin · 14-09-2018 12:17am

The Palestinians and Israelis in Jerusalem observe different timezones. In the same city.

sbsquarepants · 14-09-2018 9:48am

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Most biomass is land based plants. More animals in the ocean but plants at 450Gt are much larger than animals at 2GT. Bacteria is 70Gt.

What's Gt? Giga ton?

So pound for pound there's 35 times more bacteria than animals? That is certainly surprising! :eek::eek:

sbsquarepants · 14-09-2018 10:32am

Wibbs wrote: »

Could there be more biomass in the "dry" bits? I'd not have an issue with that D, but the claim that the entirety of the "wet" bits only has one percent of Earth's biomass? No way. That has got to be a typo, or some scientists were at the distillation kit in the lab and cooked up a doozie of a beverage.

I think your disbelief stems from a false idea of how much water there actually is. When you look at the globe it seems to be roughly 3/4 water, but that's only the surface. Even the deepest ocean is barely a scratch on the surface in relative terms.
Water is shockingly rare and only accounts for something like 1/4 of 1% of the total mass of the planet, that's everything - rivers, lakes oceans, clouds and bottles in supermarkets!.
So 1% of the biomass is actually fairly teaming with life.

IvyTheTerrific · 14-09-2018 11:35am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Bing was caught using Google.

Hiybbprqag was a made up word with made up results. But after a while Bing started returning results that could only have been scraped off Google.

And that's not a new trick to catch out fraudsters.
Dictionary makers put fake words in dictionaries and map makers put false features on their maps so they can tell when they've been copied.

CruelCoin · 14-09-2018 12:07pm

A dog's noseprint is unique, no two are alike.

CruelCoin · 14-09-2018 12:10pm

Think of a number.
Double it.
Add Six.
Subtract your origional number.

Your answer is three

CruelCoin · 14-09-2018 12:11pm

If you put headphones in nostrils, close your windpipe and open your mouth, you turn your head into a big speaker.

New Home · 14-09-2018 12:11pm

CruelCoin wrote: »

Think of a number.
Double it.
Add Six.
Subtract your origional number.

Your answer is three

Nope. I guess that only works for numbers under 10.

Barney92 · 14-09-2018 12:15pm

New Home wrote: »

Nope. I guess that only works for numbers under 10.

It doesn't work for numbers under 10 either. Think it is meant to be

Think of a number.
Double it.
Add Six.
Divide it in half.
Subtract your origional number.

Your answer is three

CruelCoin · 14-09-2018 12:16pm

The scientific name for "brain freeze" caused by eating something cold is sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia.

CruelCoin · 14-09-2018 12:17pm

IvyTheTerrific wrote: »

And that's not a new trick to catch out fraudsters.
Dictionary makers put fake words in dictionaries and map makers put false features on their maps so they can tell when they've been copied.

Film studios put unique markers in screening copies to try detect who shared the screener to pirates.

New Home · 14-09-2018 12:17pm

Barney92 wrote: »

It doesn't work for numbers under 10 either. Think it is meant to be

Think of a number.
Double it.
Add Six.
Divide it in half.
Subtract your origional number.

Your answer is three

So what you do is divide 6 by 2.

CruelCoin · 14-09-2018 12:18pm

Barney92 wrote: »

It doesn't work for numbers under 10 either. Think it is meant to be

Think of a number.
Double it.
Add Six.
Divide it in half.
Subtract your origional number.

Your answer is three

You are correct! I didn't type the divide by 2 bit....

Barney92 · 14-09-2018 12:18pm

New Home wrote: »

So what you do is divide 6 by 2.

Exactly.

Fourier · 14-09-2018 12:19pm

New Home wrote: »

So what you do is divide 6 by 2.

Virtually all number tricks (like doing something always leaving 9 or a number ending in 9 or starting in 123456789... etc) have fairly basic reasons they're true when you pull them apart.

Tell me how · 14-09-2018 12:20pm

Fourier wrote: »

Virtually all number tricks (like doing something always leaving 9 or a number ending in 9 or starting in 123456789... etc) have fairly basic reasons they're true when you pull them apart.

Well yeah...... because it's mathematics.

FishOnABike · 14-09-2018 12:21pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Bing was caught using Google.

Hiybbprqag was a made up word with made up results. But after a while Bing started returning results that could only have been scraped off Google.

IvyTheTerrific wrote: »

And that's not a new trick to catch out fraudsters.
Dictionary makers put fake words in dictionaries and map makers put false features on their maps so they can tell when they've been copied.

CruelCoin wrote: »

Film studios put unique markers in screening copies to try detect who shared the screener to pirates.

These deliberate mistakes are known as copyright easter eggs.

Fourier · 14-09-2018 12:24pm

Tell me how wrote: »

Well yeah...... because it's mathematics.

I'm not sure what you mean. There are number patterns that are true for deeper reasons, but would also be 'just mathematics'. I more mean many number tricks don't really show an unusual fact about numbers, you're really just "dividing six by two" or similar.

Professor Moriarty · 14-09-2018 12:25pm

CruelCoin wrote: »

The scientific name for "brain freeze" caused by eating something cold is sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia.

Interestingly, I tried saying sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia and my brain froze.

I bet you didnt know that

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