Science facts that amaze you?

Icaras

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

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

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

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

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

Rucking_Fetard

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

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.

* 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

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

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%?

Rucking_Fetard

Telepathy is now possible.

From India all the way to France.

Rucking_Fetard

Rucking_Fetard wrote: »

New test for that, takes 15 mins

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

Pity they're still so comparatively expensive, but a great development nonetheless.

Which 50%?

The good 50%.

Gumbo

Icaras wrote: »

Why dont they just wear a vibrating watch?

Or a Jawbone Up24!

GLaDOS

Rucking_Fetard wrote: »

New test for that, takes 15 mins

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

Which 50%?

Its randomised, which is why siblings will have different genomes. The exception being identical twins, who come a single egg/sperm combination.

EoghanIRL

Ompala wrote: »

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

So is the glass 99.9% empty ?

House of Blaze

ScienceNerd wrote: »

Its randomised, which is why siblings will have different genomes. The exception being identical twins, who come a single egg/sperm combination.

Speaking of reproduction..

Some species reproduce asexually via a process known as parthenogenesis.

This basically means that they can induce the development of an egg into a embryo without fertilisation.

At the genetic level it is sort of like giving birth to a clone of yourself..

steddyeddy

ScienceNerd wrote: »

Its randomised, which is why siblings will have different genomes. The exception being identical twins, who come a single egg/sperm combination.

And thanks to epigentics eg the effect of environment on out genes we can explain why some twins aren't identical.

ScienceNerd

ScienceNerd wrote: »

Its randomised, which is why siblings will have different genomes. The exception being identical twins, who come a single egg/sperm combination.

I overheard conversation between two men on a train once, one of them insisted his two children - boy/girl fraternal twins - were 'identical' twins. Some people really think it just means a close resemblance.

steddyeddy

House of Blaze wrote: »

Speaking of reproduction..

Some species reproduce asexually via a process known as parthenogenesis.

This basically means that they can induce the development of an egg into a embryo without fertilisation.

At the genetic level it is sort of like giving birth to a clone of yourself..

Komodo dragons do this

Rucking_Fetard

ScienceNerd wrote: »

The exception being identical twins, who come a single egg/sperm combination.

We quacked that.

Bafucin

Events in the future can affect what happened in the past.

The double slit experiment, showed that light behaves as both a wave and a particle, odd enough, particularly when it is shown that observing it makes it one or the other. According to an experiment proposed by the physicist John Wheeler in 1978 and carried out by researchers in 2007, observing a particle now can change what happened to another one in the past.

According to the double slit experiment, if you observe which of two slits light passes through, you force it to behave like a particle. If you don’t, and observe where it lands on a screen behind the slits, it behaves like a wave.But if you wait for it to pass through the slit, and then observe which way it came through, it will retroactively force it to have passed through one or the other. In other words, causality is working BACKWARDS the present is affecting the past.Of course in the lab this only has an effect over tiny fractions of a second. But John Wheeler suggested that light from distant stars that has bent around a gravitational well in between could be observed in the same way which could mean that observing something now and changing what happened thousands, or even millions, of years in the past.

The Quantum world is ****ing amazing.

GLaDOS

steddyeddy wrote: »

And thanks to epigentics eg the effect of environment on out genes we can explain why some twins aren't identical.

Well non identical twins are from 2 separate fertilisation events, essential regular siblings who happen to share the womb at the same time.

Identical siblings come from a single fertilisation event, that splits as a zygote (thus called monozygotic twins)

Epigenetic does explain differnces in monozygotic twins, indeed these twins are used to study epigenetics, as it provides the opportunity to look at 2 identical genomes being expressed differently.

Andrewf20

Apparently if you were in space, travelling towards this view at the speed of light for the rest of your life it would look no different to the view you see now vs in 80 years time, i.e the difference would be too small to notice.

Where the hell is the link embedded icon gone to for pics? Argh! Sorry, you will have to click attachment...

take everything

The universe could be finite yet without boundary. Like the surface of a sphere only move everything up one dimension.

Event A occurs before Event B for me.
But depending on how a second person is travelling, Event B could well occur before Event A for them.

take everything

Bafucin wrote: »

Events in the future can affect what happened in the past.

The double slit experiment, showed that light behaves as both a wave and a particle, odd enough, particularly when it is shown that observing it makes it one or the other. According to an experiment proposed by the physicist John Wheeler in 1978 and carried out by researchers in 2007, observing a particle now can change what happened to another one in the past.

According to the double slit experiment, if you observe which of two slits light passes through, you force it to behave like a particle. If you don’t, and observe where it lands on a screen behind the slits, it behaves like a wave.But if you wait for it to pass through the slit, and then observe which way it came through, it will retroactively force it to have passed through one or the other. In other words, causality is working BACKWARDS the present is affecting the past.Of course in the lab this only has an effect over tiny fractions of a second. But John Wheeler suggested that light from distant stars that has bent around a gravitational well in between could be observed in the same way which could mean that observing something now and changing what happened thousands, or even millions, of years in the past.

The Quantum world is ****ing amazing.

Yeah there's a lot of interesting stuff like that but information can't be transmitted to the past as such if I'm not mistaken (as quantum effects are random).
Still mind-boggling as you say.

steddyeddy

ScienceNerd wrote: »

Well non identical twins are from 2 separate fertilisation events, essential regular siblings who happen to share the womb at the same time.

Identical siblings come from a single fertilisation event, that splits as a zygote (thus called monozygotic twins)

Epigenetic does explain differnces in monozygotic twins, indeed these twins are used to study epigenetics, as it provides the opportunity to look at 2 identical genomes being expressed differently.

Well cytosine methylation patterns are one way to tell monozygotic twins apart.

Andrewf20

Andrewf20 wrote: »

Apparently if you were in a space, travelling towards this view at the speed of light for the rest of your life it would look no different to the view you see now, i.e the difference would be too small to notice.

Where the hell is the linked embedded icon gone to? Argh! Sorry, you will have to click attachment...

We are nothing but specks of dust lost within the sands of time. There's nothing like Space to make me contemplate the insignificance of the individual.

Bafucin

take everything wrote: »

Yeah there's a lot of interesting stuff like that but information can't be transmitted to the past as such if I'm not mistaken (as quantum effects are random).
Still mind-boggling as you say.

It's not understood yet fully.

steddyeddy

Candie wrote: »

We are nothing but specks of dust lost within the sands of time. There's nothing like Space to make me contemplate the insignificance of the individual.

Well on the inverse to that there's nothing like the quantum world of enzymes and proteins to make me feel significant. Life is chemically difficult to sustain yet here we are.

Rucking_Fetard

take everything wrote: »

The universe could be finite yet without boundary. Like the surface of a sphere only move everything up one

Earth just got a new address. PITA so it is. Another line to add in to return address.

Rucking Fetard
Boards.ie
Dublin
Ireland
Earth
Milky Way
Laniakea

Panthro

More Mantis Shrimp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5FEj9U-CJM

Nuts.

snowstorm445

There are more atoms in a human body than there are stars in the observable Universe.

thelad95

The population of County Leitrim would not fill Croke Park. Science bitches!!!!!

The entire population of ants in the world is heavier than the entire population of humans.

snowstorm445

Speaking of science facts, Cork is scientifically proven to be the centre of the Universe.

Duggy747

The man who discovered the age of the earth, Clair Cameron Patterson, also helped in the banning of lead from petrol and tins of food.

take everything

This is more what science can't tell us.
My perception of blue could well be very different to your perception of blue.
You can extrapolate that beyond mere perception obviously.

Crazy thought. For all I know everyone I know is just a well-behaved zombie.

Science may never answer the question of what the subjective quality of a feeling/thought is.

Maximus Alexander

Bafucin wrote: »

It's not understood yet fully.

Yeah but if it's ever going to be understood in the future, why don't we know about it? :pac:

snowstorm445

The odds of a death by tea cosy are 1 in 20 billion.

take everything

Basic one that might interest people is that before you decide to do something your brain has set the process of deciding in train. A sense of agency is largely an illusion that "we" are in control, not our brains. Consciousness is epiphenomenal in that sense.
Crazy when you (er your brain i mean) thinks about it.

biko

Poop is brown because of the bilirubin in the dead blood cells you poop out.

Fate Amenable To Change

The Greeks knew the world was round and one of them even got a rough estimate for the size of its circumference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes

House of Blaze

Earth rotates at roughly 1600 kph at the equator.

Earth orbits the sun at 106,000 kph.

The solar system orbits the galaxy at 775,000 kph.

The galaxy is moving through space at 2,000,000 kph

We don't notice the velocity we are traveling at as we experience no acceleration (change in velocity over time) in achieving these speeds.

For the same reason that when you put the foot down on the M50 you will stick back to the seat due to the acceleration, but when you're going 200kph you can move around inside the car as if you were standing still on the ground.

endacl

snowstorm445 wrote: »

There are more atoms in a human body than there are stars in the observable Universe.

There are more atoms in a human toe than there are stars in the observable universe!

bnt

Candie wrote: »

* 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.

At the risk of being pedantic, the details are a bit different. It took thousands of years for stable atoms to form, mostly hydrogen with some helium and lithium. All elements heavier than those only came about after stars formed, fusing atoms in their cores to form bigger atoms.

Rucking_Fetard

Researchers Harness E. Coli To Produce Propane

We could sort out this climate change malarky any day if we really wanted.

csallmighty

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120914120349/uncyclopedia/images/b/b5/Exploding-head.gif

^^ Reading about space and quantum physics

krudler

The human brain named itself

EoghanIRL

krudler wrote: »

The human brain named itself

Cool ,
I never thought about it like that .

RustDaz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ElSXo1HWS4

Tar.Aldarion

if you shoot a bullet parallel to the ground, and drop a bullet from the same height with your other hand, both will hit the ground at the same time. (Will be slightly off due to atmospheric conditions.