I bet you didnt know that

delly

If you have a gmail address, you actually have multiple addresses at the ready. For example if you are joebloggs@gmail.com, joe.bloggs@gmail.com will still come to you or joeblogg.s@gmail.com will come to you.

Using this method you can signup for offers many times over or if you need to register on a site that you think will send you spam, pick a specific combination. I use the one variation when entering competitions for example.

RiderOnTheStorm

dxhound2005 wrote:

Some animals, including humans, intentionally kill members of their own species. The highest murder rate is among meerkats. Some other species do not show this behaviour.

Very interesting. The bat stat was amazing. DYK the vampire bat s the only animal (bar humans) that will feed a non relative. If a vb has not eaten in 3 days, it will "ask" its neighbour for blood, and the neighbour will vomit up some into its mouth. There is no reason for the donor to do this, as its not invested in the survival of the hungry bat (no relation) except the survival of the colony and he may need favour returned some day. Abstract thought in a bat?

Capt'n Midnight

You may know of Strawberry Switchblade, (who depending on who you believe are responsible for a entire fashion craze in Japan), had a hit with Since Yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqRXc1iZq_g

Now imagine something like "The Road" when you hear the lyrics.
Because it's actually about nuclear war.

And as we sit here alone
Looking for a reason to go on
It's so clear that all we have now
Are our thoughts of yesterday

Capt'n Midnight

RiderOnTheStorm wrote: »

Very interesting. The bat stat was amazing. DYK the vampire bat s the only animal (bar humans) that will feed a non relative. If a vb has not eaten in 3 days, it will "ask" its neighbour for blood, and the neighbour will vomit up some into its mouth. There is no reason for the donor to do this, as its not invested in the survival of the hungry bat (no relation) except the survival of the colony and he may need favour returned some day. Abstract thought in a bat?

Nice article about vampire bats today

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43112650

Blood is very high in protein (93%), but low in carbohydrate (1%) and vitamins. It may also harbour blood-borne diseases.

Vampire bats have evolved many features for such a specialised diet - from sharp teeth for severing blood vessels to changes in kidney function to deal with a protein-rich diet.
...
They found that genome size was similar to that of other bats but the genome contained more "jumping genes" (DNA sequences that change position in the genome).

These were found in areas involved in immune response, viral defence, and both lipid and vitamin metabolism, suggesting they have played a key role in the evolution of the bat's specialised diet.

ohnonotgmail

delly wrote: »

If you have a gmail address, you actually have multiple addresses at the ready. For example if you are joebloggs@gmail.com, joe.bloggs@gmail.com will still come to you or joeblogg.s@gmail.com will come to you.

Using this method you can signup for offers many times over or if you need to register on a site that you think will send you spam, pick a specific combination. I use the one variation when entering competitions for example.

another variation of this is to add a + after your username. Gmail ignores everything after the +. so joebloggs+SomeSite@gmail will go to joebloggs@gmail.com and let you know what site sent you the email (or more likely sold on your email).

Capt'n Midnight

BTW the book is The Lost Men - the one about the Ross Sea Party who were the other half of Shackleton expedition.

Oldtree

CruelCoin wrote: »

I love stories from spacewalks.

How about songs?

Lemon Jelly did a tune in 2002 called "Space Walk" and used vocal samples from the first moon walk in 1969. It's a rather lovely little ditty and needless to say I have the album it's on. In fact I have all their albums, and a load of cd singles too.

Noveight

There's a myth that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from the Moon. Most people know that is false.

An interesting piece of trivia to counter that falsehood is that seeing the Great Wall from the moon would be the equivalent of seeing a piece of human hair from 2 miles away.

Oldtree

Noveight wrote: »

There's a myth that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from the Moon. Most people know that is false.

An interesting piece of trivia to counter that falsehood is that seeing the Great Wall from the moon would be the equivalent of seeing a piece of human hair from 2 miles away.

I thought that it was just visible from space, but thinking about it space could be a lesser or greater distance.

lolokeogh

The saying "they snuffed it (died) comes from a practice where at a wake there was a plate of snuff(powder substane you sniff up nose) was left on the chest of the dead person,or placed just under the chin,think behind it was if they had any breath left in them the powder would be disturbed...so they use the saying "they snuffed it..

CruelCoin

Oldtree wrote: »

How about songs?

Lemon Jelly did a tune in 2002 called "Space Walk" and used vocal samples from the first moon walk in 1969. It's a rather lovely little ditty and needless to say I have the album it's on. In fact I have all their albums, and a load of cd singles too.

I love how calm and collected they sound. Like they were picking up some ****ing groceries.

I'd have been like: "Ermagerd, Speeeerce! EeeeeEEEEEEEEEE"

Riva10

Some cheeses can kill you
http://www.ilovecheese.co.uk/casu-marzu-worlds-dangerous-cheese.html

CruelCoin

Riva10 wrote: »

Some cheeses can kill you
http://www.ilovecheese.co.uk/casu-marzu-worlds-dangerous-cheese.html

****ing Yikes on a bike.

I like my cheese (dutch ancestry), but nope. nop nope

ohnonotgmail

Riva10 wrote: »

Some cheeses can kill you
http://www.ilovecheese.co.uk/casu-marzu-worlds-dangerous-cheese.html

I really should not have read that on a morning where i am already feeling nauseous.

CruelCoin

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

I really should not have read that on a morning where i am already feeling nauseous.

The "Burns on the tongue" bit gets me.

New Home

CruelCoin wrote: »

The "Burns on the tongue" bit gets me.

Chillies and wasabi do that, too, though, don't they?

jmayo

CruelCoin wrote: »

I was on a boat in the red sea last autumn, and at night I was blown away by the density of the stars / milky way.
What you can see when you get away from light pollution is amazing.

Or in the middle of central Australia.
I remember seeing the most amazing starlit sky in a place called Kings Creek Station about 5 hours by sealed road or 4 hours by dirt track and sealed road from Alice Springs

Only issue is you don't want to wander through the bush in the dark as there are just too many things that can kill ya.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

They split into two groups to setup depots so the Shackleton party would find them.

The difference was that one group took all its stuff out in one go and continually moved forward from their previous depots. The other group would go back to base camp between the relays. So they got a small chance to recuperate but as it turned out later, far more importantly a chance to eat seal meat and so avoid the scurvy that decimated the first group.

It's not that the first group didn't know about scurvy it's that everyone was so unprepared. The reverend who died was on a scurvy supplement, but it only had about a thirtieth of the Vitamin-C that he needed. Like Scott a little more luck , or better preparation and he'd have survived.

Scott would have survived if he had let the guys that were ultimately to push for the Pole take it easy initially rather than half killing them pulling sleds with the guys that were to turn back and if he had used dogs.
Granted blizzards didn't help, but they were weak.

Speaking of scurvy and the British.

You know the reason that British people are sometimes known as limeys is down to days when Royal Navy sailors were given grog with lemon or lime juice added to try prevent scurvy.

Are Am Eye

Speaking of scurvy - the first ship to circumnavigate the globe, The Victoria, the crew died in their scores from scurvy on the final stage of the journey.
The ship was filled with cloves and other spices. These were worth more than gold, pound for pound, in Europe at the time. The irony is that cloves are rich in Vitamin C. They could all have lived. When they reached Spain the King seized their cargo anyway so not a penny was made on the expedition.

CruelCoin

New Home wrote: »

Chillies and wasabi do that, too, though, don't they?

True, but they're not cheese!

New Home

Ah come on, there are plenty of cheeses that have a bite to them. Maybe they don't crawl off of your plate, but still...

CruelCoin

The Opportunity Rover has now been in operation for 5000 martian days.

It drives over a lot of difficult terrain and downward slopes backwards, as its front wheels have started to degrade.

CruelCoin

The Curiosity Rover sings "Happy Birthday" to itself every year by making its rock drilling tools vibrate at a certain pitch.

RiderOnTheStorm

CruelCoin wrote:

The Curiosity Rover sings "Happy Birthday" to itself every year by making its rock drilling tools vibrate at a certain pitch.

That is equally the greatest and saddest thing I have heard in ages.

sbsquarepants

You know the expression "top of the food chain" - well there is an actual number which can be calculated to give an organisms position on the food chain, it's trophic level.

An organisms trophic level ranges from 1 to 5. Level 1 are the primary producers such as most plants for example, next comes level 2 organisms who primarily feed on the level 1 organisms, level 3 primarily feed on level 2 and so on all the way to the apex predators at the very top.

Humans are actually closer to the bottom than we are to the top - the average human ranking around 2.2 to 2.4 according to most calculations.

It's typically represented as a triangle, but in reality is more of a circle - the apex predator is in turn "eaten" by the level one organisms when it decomposes and the whole chain repeats.

Wibbs

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Humans are actually closer to the bottom than we are to the top - the average human ranking around 2.2 to 2.4 according to most calculations.

Which is kinda mad considering that as apex predators we were about the most predatory on the planet. You can track the ancient spread of modern humans by the speed and scope of local mass extinctions of food animals, particularly large ones. Archaic humans before us had lived all over the world for 100's of 1000's of years, but because they maintained the predator/prey balance no extinctions have been so far found, but when we come along...

Maybe that rating is based on an individual human? Vanishingly few predators will risk trying to attack or feed on humans in a group. Almost all will run away the second they detect us in an area. Or maybe it's based on diet? That because we're omnivores we rate lower? That would mean though that different human groups would rate at different levels. EG Eskimos eating a traditional diet are almost exclusively carnivores so they'd be higher than say Taoist monks.

ohnonotgmail

sbsquarepants wrote: »

You know the expression "top of the food chain" - well there is an actual number which can be calculated to give an organisms position on the food chain, it's trophic level.

An organisms trophic level ranges from 1 to 5. Level 1 are the primary producers such as most plants for example, next comes level 2 organisms who primarily feed on the level 1 organisms, level 3 primarily feed on level 2 and so on all the way to the apex predators at the very top.

Humans are actually closer to the bottom than we are to the top - the average human ranking around 2.2 to 2.4 according to most calculations.

It's typically represented as a triangle, but in reality is more of a circle - the apex predator is in turn "eaten" by the level one organisms when it decomposes and the whole chain repeats.

so who is feeding on us?

Are Am Eye

I think we have that position because we feed on 1s and 2s, plants and herbivores. It's a tighter circle. 4 and 5 would be a complex elongated food chain. This eats this which eats this which eats...

New Home

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

so who is feeding on us?

Bacteria, viruses, fungi and maggots, perhaps?

CruelCoin

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

so who is feeding on us?

On a level playing field with only what nature gave you, no tools, no weapons?

Pretty much everything.

Maybe that's why the ranking is so low?

jimgoose

CruelCoin wrote: »

On a level playing field with only what nature gave you, no tools, no weapons?

Pretty much everything.

Maybe that's why the ranking is so low?

That is not a level playing field. Most other beasts have teeth, claws and more powerful/faster muscles. We have our large, powerful brains and hence, tools. I prefer being the one who can strike a 600lb beast with a .243 in such a way that it's dead before it hits the ground, than one who tears it's opponent in two from the rectum up while it's still alive, like a dog with a goo on him for sheep.