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A scientific fact/tidbit you recently learned that you thought was interesting

Jim_MDP said:
I was going to put this Moreparz short about the Ballista in the newly resurrected Hey Trebuchet thread 😛, but here's just as well

As always, his vids are EXTREMELY NSFW due to a typically filthy Ozzy mouth... so consider yourself ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ warned. 🤣

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Who said popularising science is a dying art?

I grew up on Dr Julius Sumner Miller.

 
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In 1995, NASA scientists studied the effects of various common drugs on the weaving abilities of spiders.They thought it might be possible to analyze the periodic structure (or lack thereof) of the drug-spun spiderwebs as a means of determining the relative toxicity levels of the drugs. Nothing much came of the effort, though perhaps owing to the difficulty of extrapolating a given chemical's toxicity to humans from its toxicity to arachnids.

I wonder if their bad trips involved being all covered in humans.
 
bigred said:
Speaking of sand: There are 10 times more stars in the universe than grains of sand in all the world's deserts and beaches.
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Turns out this is not true; my bad. Apparently a famous Carl Sagan quote just used to stoke people's imagination.
 
The Earth is speeding up its rotation instead of slowing down so for the first time since leap seconds were introduced in 1972, a negative leap second is needed. But leap seconds are a hassle, so the International Bureau of Weights and Measures is considering changing leap seconds to leap hours. Since a leap hour has 3600 seconds, and only 27 seconds have been added since 1972 (and one is about to be subtracted), it will take at least 1800 years before a leap hour is needed, so we might never need to worry about them any more! (Assuming humanity has eradicated itself by then)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/...e-on-changing-the-leap-second-to-a-leap-hour/
 
steenkh said:
The Earth is speeding up its rotation instead of slowing down so for the first time since leap seconds were introduced in 1972, a negative leap second is needed. But leap seconds are a hassle, so the International Bureau of Weights and Measures is considering changing leap seconds to leap hours. Since a leap hour has 3600 seconds, and only 27 seconds have been added since 1972 (and one is about to be subtracted), it will take at least 1800 years before a leap hour is needed, so we might never need to worry about them any more! (Assuming humanity has eradicated itself by then)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/...e-on-changing-the-leap-second-to-a-leap-hour/
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So when will angular acceleration exceed gravity and we all get flung off into space?
 
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