I bet you didnt know that

mzungu

Back in Medieval times those that were accused of a crime often faced a "trial by ordeal," this involved being forced to put their arm into a vat of boiling water. If their arm emerged unscathed, it was believed that God protected them, thus proving their innocence.

Evade

It must get close some years with the US having 33ish times the amount of tornadoes and 40 times the area.

Franz Von Peppercorn

mzungu wrote: »

Back in Medieval times those that were accused of a crime often faced a "trial by ordeal," this involved being forced to put their arm into a vat of boiling water. If their arm emerged unscathed, it was believed that God protected them, thus proving their innocence.

Or tepid water if you had a sympathetic priest.

Capt'n Midnight

cycle4fun wrote: »

The United States sees the most tornadoes in the world,

What is it about trailer parks that attracts tornadoes ?



Seriously the east of the US is earthquake prone.

In 1811 - 1812 there were big quakes up to 8.6 "New Madrid"
The Mississippi ran backwards , but that was before it was built up so not so many people remember.

The Ramapo Fault is another one to worry about if you live in New York.

Duckworth_Luas

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

In 1811 - 1812 there were big quakes up to 8.6 "New Madrid"

In 1990, business consultant and amateur climatologist, Iben Browning predicted that a devastating earthquake would occur in the New Madrid Seismic Zone.

He based his prediction on the fact that strong tidal forces would occur in early December of that year. Browning was known to the scientific community as a charlatan and had made multiple false predictions previously, including the coming of a new Ice Age.

Given his track record, as well as the fact that no correlation exists between earthquakes and tidal forces, the United States Geological Survey, or USGC, chose to ignore him and deny him the oxygen of publicity.

However, the print and TV media did not and duly went into a news frenzy of epic proportions. The story received international coverage, with over 200 news crews and 30 satellite communication trucks descending on the small town of New Madrid, Missouri.

Mass panic and hysteria among the general population ensued and only subsided once Browning's predicted date, December 3rd, had passed.

The media now needed someone to blame and decided that somehow it was all the USGC's fault.

They felt compelled to release the following report to help explain how much of a clusterfcuk it all was.

https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1993/1083/report.pdf

Note the first page, a newspaper advert where for $99 you can order a video tape from Browning explaining how you can prepare for the impending disaster.

These events were also the inspiration for the Uncle Tupelo song New Madrid from the classic alt-country albumn Anodyne.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7CGkuLEs5U

Chancer3001

Hyenas store up food they can't finish underwater.

This hides the food from others but also extends the shelf life so they can have a meal for longer

Gloomtastic!

Chancer3001 wrote: »

Hyenas store up food they can't finish underwater.

This hides the food from others but also extends the shelf life so they can have a meal for longer

Wouldn’t those pesky crocodiles steal it?

sbsquarepants

Deleted User wrote: »

Physics .

That's what I meant to say!

Deleted User wrote: »

The list there is seperated by commas with an "or" at the end so there could be an "or" between each one, like when you list stuff with an "and" at the end.

...decaying into other astatine isotopes or bismuth or polonium or radon.

Thank you.

I'll add grammar to the list of things I need to brush up on!:o

New Home

I thought that trial by ordeal was the opposite, i.e. if you got out unscathed you must've been protected by demonic forces, whereas if you got badly hurt or you died that proved your innocence but at least your soul was saved. Or was that only applicable to drowning and/or during a different epoch?

Lady Haywire

New Home wrote: »

I thought that trial by ordeal was the opposite, i.e. if you got out unscathed you must've been protected by demonic forces, whereas if you got badly hurt or you died that proved your innocence but at least your soul was saved. Or was that only applicable to drowning and/or during a different epoch?

Was that not only witches? That you'd save yourself if you were a witch but if you drowned you were an innocent victim so hey ho, sorry about killing you.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Apparantly you didn’t drown if you didn’t float.

The ordeal would normally be conducted with a rope holding the subject connected to assistants sitting in a boat or the like, so that the person being tested could be pulled up if he/she did not float; the notion that the ordeal was flatly devised as a situation without any possibility of live acquittal, even if the outcome was 'innocent', is a modern elaboration

Via wiki.

rgodard80a

Lady Haywire wrote: »

Was that not only witches? That you'd save yourself if you were a witch but if you drowned you were an innocent victim so hey ho, sorry about killing you.

There was no justice there.

Most of those witch trials were to kill off widows and steal their land.

Wossack

Can penguins fly?

Well no, but they can leap a surprising distance out of water. What had always puzzled scientists was the acceleration they could achieve, and the charactistic trail of bubbles that they left behind them swiming upwards:




A group of biologists got together (in a pub in Cork) to try and work out what was going on.

By carefully examining footage from BBC's Blue Planet it was discovered that the bubbles werent coming out of the birds beak, as always assumed, but from the feathers.

Prior to the surface run, the penguin briefly surfaces. I'd have thought that pretty natural, so that the penguin could check the landing zone, fill their lungs etc, but turns out theres a bit more to it.

While on the surface, the penguin fluffs up its plumage, trapping air in its feathers and then dives underwater. As the birds dive down, the trapped air compresses due to the water pressure and the plumage contracts to hold it. Once at the bottom of the dive, the penguin keeps the plummage contracted and starts the upward leg. The air expands, and the penguin is able to release it from the feathers in a controlled manner, creating tiny bubbles.


This 'coat' of bubbles surrounding their bodies acts like a lubricant, drasticically reducing drag, and allowed for the birds to accelerate to the surface at speeds of up to 19kmph. Normally, bubbles such as this would be a hinderance to propellers, that lose thrust when acting against air and not water, but penguins flippers remain outside the stream so are unaffected. Smart fella's..!




Well I thought pretty interesting

castletownman

The "Dutch Reach" was devised in the Netherlands about fifty years ago, and is a simple manoeuvre that is taught to children in school and has become mandatory in the driving test.

Basically it involves opening the car door with the hand FURTHEST away from the handle (so the left hand for the driver-right hand for the passenger). By doing so, it automatically forces you to turn your body towards the door, and allows you the opportunity to look of your shoulder to see if a cyclist /motorcyclist is coming.

It has led to a campaign for it to be introduced in other countries, including the UK, where some 474 accidents were as a result of "dooring" in 2015. As of 2013, 25 cyclists have even been killed by what seems like a rather trivial thing.

I credit QI for my initial info, but full article can be found here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/the-dutch-reach-how-opening-car-door-like-the-dutch-could-save-lives-cycling/

DEFTLEFTHAND

This is my favourite thread on here by a mile. I find myself learning new things everyday.

Keep up the good work everyone.

bonzodog2

90% of the mass of the solar system, apart from the Sun, is the planet Jupiter

Riva10

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

This is my favourite thread on here by a mile. I find myself learning new things everyday.

I did'nt know that.

Capt'n Midnight

bonzodog2 wrote: »

90% of the mass of the solar system, apart from the Sun, is the planet Jupiter

No it's only 71.2% for Jupiter and 21% for Saturn

So Saturn is four times the mass of the smaller planets
And Jupiter, three times the mass of all the smaller planets.

And Earth is more massive than all the smaller planets :cool:

Victor

Wossack wrote: »

Can penguins fly?

The VA-111 Shkval rocket torpedo works in a similar fashion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval

DickSwiveller

Kim Jong Il trained as a church organist.

greysheep

DickSwiveller wrote:

Kim Jong Il trained as a church organist.

So he is good at pressing buttons! Watch out Trump!

Realt Dearg Sec

greysheep wrote: »

DickSwiveller wrote:

Kim Jong Il trained as a church organist.

So he is good at pressing buttons! Watch out Trump!

Trump can probably relax on that particular front.

Ineedaname

bonzodog2 wrote: »

90% of the mass of the solar system, apart from the Sun, is the planet Jupiter

Some cool facts about the sun itself:

It isn't yellow. It's actually white.

The Sun accounts for over 99.8% of the solar systems mass. The remaining 0.2% includes planets, moons, asteroids, comets and everything in between.

The sun isn't an average star. In terms of potential size it falls roughly in the middle however a vast majority of stars are tiny dim red dwarves. Of all the known stars in the galaxy listed by size the sun is well within the top 10%.

Every second the Sun fuses 700 million tonnes of hydrogen into 695 million tonnes of helium. The remaining 5 million tonnes are turned into the energy needed to prevent it collapsing under its own weight.

It has another layer above the surface known as the corona which is so thin it can only seen during an eclipse. It's actually much hotter than the surface and scientists have spent years trying to work out why this is.

Fourier

The bible doesn't begin with:

"In the beginning god created the heavens and the Earth..."

but rather

"When God began to create heaven and earth..."

See: The Jewish Study Bible: Second Edition

Not "the beginning", just "when he started to make the world".

The point being that in the original Hebrew, God creates the world out of a pre-existing body of chaotic salt water using his "divine wind". The world being a "bubble" within this mass:

Genesis 6 wrote:

God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the water, that it may separate water from water.”

The sky is the "upper waters" at the top of the bubble (the reason the sky is blue is because it has water above it):

Genesis 7-8 wrote:

God made the expanse, and it separated the water which was below the expanse from the water which was above the expanse. And it was so. God called the expanse Sky.

The firmament is a transparent metal sheet created to hold back the upper waters. This sheet is opened during Noah's flood.

As for what the soil/ground is, the Tanakh/Old Testament records two traditions . In Genesis it is made from "drying out" part of the lower waters. In Psalms from placing a second firmament on the lower waters.

A general comment from modern translators of the Tanakh, mentioning how this was the understood meaning of the passage as late as the 3rd century:

This clause describes things just before the process of creation began. To modern people, the opposite of the created order is “nothing,” that is, a vacuum. To the ancients, the opposite of the created order was something much worse than “nothing.” It was an active, malevolent force we can best term “chaos.” In this verse, chaos is envisioned as a dark, undifferentiated mass of water. In 1.9, God creates the dry land (and the seas, which can exist only when water is bounded by dry land). But in 1.1– 2.3, water itself and darkness, too, are primordial (contrast Isa. 45.7). In the midrash, Bar Kappara upholds the troubling notion that the Torah shows that God created the world out of preexistent material. But other rabbis worry that acknowledging this would cause people to liken God to a king who had built his palace on a garbage dump, thus arrogantly impugning His majesty (Gen. Rab. 1.5). In the ancient Near East, however, to say that a deity had subdued chaos is to give him the highest praise.

mzungu

In 1838, Mexican General Santa Anna led a makeshift army against French invasion of Veracruz in what is known as the “Pastry War.” During this battle, the general was severely wounded by grapeshot fired from a French cannon, forcing doctors to amputate his leg, which Santa Anna buried at his Veracruz hacienda. After he assumed the presidency for a second time in 1842, Santa Anna exhumed his amputated leg, paraded it to Mexico City in an ornate coach and buried it beneath a cemetery monument in an elaborate state funeral that included cannon salvos, poetry and lofty orations. His leg, however, would not rest in peace for long. In 1844, public opinion turned on Santa Anna, and rioters tore down his statues and dug up his leg, then tied the severed appendage to a rope and dragged it through the streets of Mexico City.

Riva10

The longest time between two twins being born is 87 days.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/miracle-twins-born-record-87-1857782

evolving_doors

The kid in karate kid is older today than Mr. Miagi was then.

IvyTheTerrible

evolving_doors wrote: »

The kid in karate kid is older today than Mr. Miagi was then.

Before we start feeling really old, it helps to remember that Ralph Macchio was a baby-faced 22 when he filmed Karate Kid!

py2006

Will Smith is now older than uncle Phill was when they started the Fresh Prince of Bell Air

magicbastarder

Candie wrote: »

Another interesting sense we take for granted is the sense of proprioception, which tells us what all our individual body parts are doing, and where they are relative to each other. So we can change the gear with one hand and depress the clutch with our foot and steer with the other hand all at the same time in reasonable co-ordination, or I can put my earring in the piercing in my ear without having to figure out where either my ear or the piercing through it is. If you have an itchy nose, your sense of proprioception will guide your hand directly to your nose without you having to locate your nose in a mirror to guide your hand.

well worth reading 'the man who mistook his wife for a hat' by oliver sacks - he talks about a patient who lost her proprioception (i think due to a stroke). she couldn't walk if she couldn't see her feet, iirc.