I bet you didnt know that

filbert the fox

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

it is from kalium, the latin for potassium

Tungsten is W from Wolfram - always liked tungsten especially in the expression Tungsten carbide. So satisfying....:cool:

LirW

The sand reserves of the planet are pretty much gone. Desert sand isn't of any use in the building sector, so the Sand is sourced from the oceans that leaves people relying on the sea as source of food and income in jeopardy. It destroys the habitat of countless animals.

New Home

I thought the sand used in the building industry wasn't sourced from saltwater, but that it was river sand, or that it was extracted from quarries.

sbsquarepants

In reading up about this sand shortage I have learned that the global sand market is worth $70 billion a year:eek:

stimpson

sbsquarepants wrote: »

In reading up about this sand shortage I have learned that the global sand market is worth $70 billion a year:eek:

Considering desert sand is useless for building, someone must indeed make a fortune from selling sand to the Arabs.

LirW

As far as I know sand imported in the UAE is imported from Australia. They tried building their artificial islands with desert sand first and hand to learn the hard way it won't work because desert sand is too round and has a very polished surface therefore won't stick together.

Singapore relies heavily on sand import and surrounding countries have official bans on exporting sand to Singapore. Smuggling is a very big problem in Asia.
Also in Africa a lot of companies source illegally from the beaches leaving them as moon surfaces.

Rivers and quarries can't accommodate the international need for sand.
Also since planning was done poorly and beaches didn't get breathing space that they'd need over the seasonal change, many disappear naturally, Florida is battling a huge beach decline.


All in all, yay, another global crisis!

loyatemu

knew this already (in the back of my brain) but was reminded of it by last nights BBC program on the subject:

the word Jumbo (meaning "huge") comes from the Victorian elephant of the same name - the original word is Swahili for "hello".

He was claimed to be the largest elephant in the world at the time but he was given the name as a calf. He died as a result of being hit by a freight train while being loaded onto a circus wagon

New Home

I think the Swahili for hello was "Jambo"*, but I'm not sure what kind of alphabet they use, and to be honest I don't want to start another mam/mum/mom war.



*Source: My old Kenyan pen-pal :P

Big Nasty

loyatemu wrote: »

knew this already (in the back of my brain) but was reminded of it by last nights BBC program on the subject:

the word Jumbo (meaning "huge") comes from the Victorian elephant of the same name - the original word is Swahili for "hello".

He was claimed to be the largest elephant in the world at the time but he was given the name as a calf. He died as a result of being hit by a freight train while being loaded onto a circus wagon

Funny that.

I knew a girl years ago called Soohala (sp?) that we nicknamed Swahili and she was as big as an elephant! :pac:

b318isp

We are what we eat (not quite literally!).

Think about your eyes, your kidneys, your spleen, your nerve fibers, your tongue.

Nearly every atom making up your body now was once a piece of food or a drop of drink (and some atoms have come from what we've breathed in).

While we often think of foods as a source of energy and nutrition, it is the only way to make our body parts. Our body is a incredibly efficient machine for converting general foods into very specific organs.

AND

On the day you were born, nearly every atom in your body came from what your mother ate, drank or inhaled.

b318isp

b318isp wrote: »

We are what we eat (not quite literally!).

Think about your eyes, your kidneys, your spleen, your nerve fibers, your tongue.

Nearly every atom making up your body now was once a piece of food or a drop of drink (and some atoms have come from what we've breathed in).

While we often think of foods as a source of energy and nutrition, it is the only way to make our body parts. Our body is a incredibly efficient machine for converting general foods into very specific organs.

AND

On the day you were born, nearly every atom in your body came from what your mother ate, drank or inhaled.

So you mean when I was born the vast majority of my atoms came from Booze and Cigarettes!

bonzodog2

b318isp wrote: »

We are what we eat (not quite literally!).

Think about your eyes, your kidneys, your spleen, your nerve fibers, your tongue.

Nearly every atom making up your body now was once a piece of food or a drop of drink (and some atoms have come from what we've breathed in).

While we often think of foods as a source of energy and nutrition, it is the only way to make our body parts. Our body is a incredibly efficient machine for converting general foods into very specific organs.

AND

On the day you were born, nearly every atom in your body came from what your mother ate, drank or inhaled.

Also, and slightly more specifically, about half of the nitrogen atoms in the body of an average person living in a developed country once passed through a chemical plant and participated in the nitrogen-to-ammonia Haber-Bosch reaction

server down

I bet you didn’t know that the term “you’re toast” , meaning you’re dead or doomed, originated with the original ghostbusters movie. It was ad libbed by Bill Murray.

The first reference in writing is as late as 1987.

Ipso

b318isp wrote: »

We are what we eat (not quite literally!).

Think about your eyes, your kidneys, your spleen, your nerve fibers, your tongue.

Nearly every atom making up your body now was once a piece of food or a drop of drink (and some atoms have come from what we've breathed in).

While we often think of foods as a source of energy and nutrition, it is the only way to make our body parts. Our body is a incredibly efficient machine for converting general foods into very specific organs.

AND

On the day you were born, nearly every atom in your body came from what your mother ate, drank or inhaled.

And if you go back far enough all those atoms were created in distant stars. Moby was right, we are all made of stars.

browne.h

All the stars we can see in the sky are in the Milky Way

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

browne.h wrote: »

All the stars we can see in the sky are in the Milky Way

All the stars you can see as individual points of light with the naked eye are in the Milky Way. You can see the Andromeda galaxy with the naked eye and many individual stars in other galaxies with a telescope.


The word galaxy comes from the Greek for milk.

Humans aren't the only species who fall victim to contagious yawning, even dogs do. It's been suggested that the more empathetic you are, the more prone you are to yawn contagion and that people with psychopathic tendencies are immune or nearly immune for much the same reason.

A Japanese study aimed at establishing the balance of emotional and cognitive empathy tested autistic people to measure how susceptible they were to yawn contagion. Since people with autism tend to focus on the mouth and the cues for yawning start at the eyes and upper face, subjects weren't picking up on the facial cues and shed no light on their ability to empathize.

Yawning and yawn contagion is observed in all primates. Research suggests that yawning may be used as a social cue by dominant chimps and gorillas to signal the end to the groups activities and arguments and time to shut up and get some rest. Yawning might also be used by a dominant male to calm a nascent argument among the group, shifting the focus to resting and sleep.

People prone to yawn contagion can find themselves yawning at the thought of it, at hearing or writing the word yawn, or even just reading it.

I'm wrecked after writing that.

IvyTheTerrible

Speaking of milk, the word lettuce comes from milk too.
The Latin for milk is lac. Lettuce plants secrete a milky substance from their stems when they are cut. The Latin name is Lactuca, and the French name is Laitue. And lettuce comes from laitue.

(Interestingly, both lettuce and milk contain high levels of tryptophan, which can make you sleepy.)

server down

Candie wrote: »

Humans aren't the only species who fall victim to contagious yawning, even dogs do. It's been suggested that the more empathetic you are, the more prone you are to yawn contagion and that people with psychopathic tendencies are immune or nearly immune for much the same reason.

A Japanese study aimed at establishing the balance of emotional and cognitive empathy tested autistic people to measure how susceptible they were to yawn contagion. Since people with autism tend to focus on the mouth and the cues for yawning start at the eyes and upper face, subjects weren't picking up on the facial cues and shed no light on their ability to empathize.

Yawning and yawn contagion is observed in all primates. Research suggests that yawning may be used as a social cue by dominant chimps and gorillas to signal the end to the groups activities and arguments and time to shut up and get some rest. Yawning might also be used by a dominant male to calm a nascent argument among the group, shifting the focus to resting and sleep.

People prone to yawn contagion can find themselves yawning at the thought of it, at hearing or writing the word yawn, or even just reading it.

I'm wrecked after writing that.

Made me yawn.

Ipso

Candie wrote: »

Humans aren't the only species who fall victim to contagious yawning, even dogs do. It's been suggested that the more empathetic you are, the more prone you are to yawn contagion and that people with psychopathic tendencies are immune or nearly immune for much the same reason.

A Japanese study aimed at establishing the balance of emotional and cognitive empathy tested autistic people to measure how susceptible they were to yawn contagion. Since people with autism tend to focus on the mouth and the cues for yawning start at the eyes and upper face, subjects weren't picking up on the facial cues and shed no light on their ability to empathize.

Yawning and yawn contagion is observed in all primates. Research suggests that yawning may be used as a social cue by dominant chimps and gorillas to signal the end to the groups activities and arguments and time to shut up and get some rest. Yawning might also be used by a dominant male to calm a nascent argument among the group, shifting the focus to resting and sleep.

People prone to yawn contagion can find themselves yawning at the thought of it, at hearing or writing the word yawn, or even just reading it.

I'm wrecked after writing that.

Yet yawning is considered bad manners when someone else is talking.

Conchir

Candie wrote: »

Humans aren't the only species who fall victim to contagious yawning, even dogs do. It's been suggested that the more empathetic you are, the more prone you are to yawn contagion and that people with psychopathic tendencies are immune or nearly immune for much the same reason.

A Japanese study aimed at establishing the balance of emotional and cognitive empathy tested autistic people to measure how susceptible they were to yawn contagion. Since people with autism tend to focus on the mouth and the cues for yawning start at the eyes and upper face, subjects weren't picking up on the facial cues and shed no light on their ability to empathize.

Yawning and yawn contagion is observed in all primates. Research suggests that yawning may be used as a social cue by dominant chimps and gorillas to signal the end to the groups activities and arguments and time to shut up and get some rest. Yawning might also be used by a dominant male to calm a nascent argument among the group, shifting the focus to resting and sleep.

People prone to yawn contagion can find themselves yawning at the thought of it, at hearing or writing the word yawn, or even just reading it.

I'm wrecked after writing that.

I yawned when I was reading the first bolded bit, but only noticed I had yawned when I read the second bolded bit... damn yawning.







When people think of 'the Ice Age' and cold climate conditions that existed thousands of years ago, the natural thing your mind jumps to is slow-moving, long-lived glaciers and changes occurring over hundreds to thousands of years. In fact, climate oscillations happened very rapidly, and were extremely common. The last major oscillation from cold to warm occurred about 11,700 years ago, when the Younger Dryas cold period ended and we entered the Holocene. Over this transition, Ireland went from tundra-like conditions to ones very similar to today in roughly 7 years.

server down

server down wrote: »

Made me yawn.

I probably make a lot of people yawn.

Ipso wrote: »

Yet yawning is considered bad manners when someone else is talking.

Yes...for humans!

New Home

WILL YOU PLEASE STOP WRITING THAT BLASTED WORD!?! PLEEEEEEASE!!!

Whitehorse

Only cheese produced in the counties of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire can be classified or called "Stilton" Cheese. So any cheese that is actually produced in the town of Stilton (where the name originates) cant be referred to as Stilton Cheese. The town is not in one of the three counties.

New Home

They did something similar with Prosecco, they changed that quite recently.

VandC

New Home wrote:

They did something similar with Prosecco, they changed that quite recently.

I heard that the grapes used to make prosecco grew on a specific hill in Italy but due to the recent increase in demand they had to expand the area that the grapes could come from so that they could keep up. What they didn't say was if it was adjoining areas or just random other bits of land.

Professor Moriarty

VandC wrote: »

I heard that the grapes used to make prosecco grew on a specific hill in Italy but due to the recent increase in demand they had to expand the area that the grapes could come from so that they could keep up. What they didn't say was if it was adjoining areas or just random other bits of land.

I knew it tasted different.

VandC

Professor Moriarty wrote:

I knew it tasted different.

Aye. The different position of the sun to the vines growing in the new fields has totally changed the flavour

VW 1

VandC wrote: »

Aye. The different position of the sun to the vines growing in the new fields has totally changed the flavour

C'est terroir.

The forerunner of the Modern Olympics was called the Wenlock Olympian Games. It consisted of many different events, such as foot races, athletics, and an "Old Women's Race", in which the prize was a pound of tea.

Most of my facts come from the QI Elves/Researcher's podcast - "No Such Thing As A Fish". If you haven't listened to it before and love facts, I cannot recommend it enough.