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

My daughter says that she learned in science class that hurricanes in the north hemisphere turn counter clockwise and clockwise in the south hemisphere
 
MinnesotaBrant said:
My daughter says that she learned in science class that hurricanes in the north hemisphere turn counter clockwise and clockwise in the south hemisphere
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It is not just hurricanes that do that. Low-pressure systems are the same. High-pressure systems go in the opposite way to low-pressure systems in the same hemisphere.

Weather systems are viewed from above. If they are viewed from the ground then they are viewed horizontally.
 
rjh01 said:
It is not just hurricanes that do that. Low-pressure systems are the same. High-pressure systems go in the opposite way to low-pressure systems in the same hemisphere.

Weather systems are viewed from above. If they are viewed from the ground then they are viewed horizontally.
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With the wind on your back the low is on your left.
 
And the same thing that makes them spin the way they do also makes them take the courses they take on a map. Do an image search for hurricane & typhoon paths/tracks and you'll see that they repeatedly form in the same regions and follow the same curved paths, veering to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere.

What the northern right curves and southern left curves have in common is that they both veer away from the equator. The net result of the forces that are pushing & pulling on them is like a push/pull away from the equator.

I would use that fact in an analogy to explain to people how financial life in the economy works, but I don't think enough people would get it because not enough people know about hurricane/typhoon paths. The idea is that there's a financial "equator" that people are always getting pushed away from. If you're below it, you keep encountering feedback loops that push you lower, and if you're above it, you keep encountering feedback loops that push you higher. As a result, it's so difficult to cross in either direction that most people don't know it's there because (unlike me) they've spent their whole lives on the same side of it. So the analogy with tropical storms and the equator would be a nifty succinct way to tell people that the financial equator exists too... except that an analogy between X and Y to explain Y as being similar to X in some way only works if the audience is already familiar with X. :(
 
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Cool thanks! In the 80’s I saw someone get raises and promotions because he had a cool car and rich family so I can sort of see how that works
 
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Might have already been reported, but the reason why some alloys do not expand upon heating ("invars") has been confirmed to be owed to changed electron spins owing to increased spacing, creating enough magnetic attraction to counteract expansion.

This confirmation allows for developing more precise, thermally stable measuring equipment, among other advances.
 
If we're including biological to include "scientific" (it fits broadly), then:

A newborn blue whale gains about 200 pounds a day during its first year.

Cmon. 200 lbs/day? That's insane.
 
bigred said:
If we're including biological to include "scientific" (it fits broadly), then:

A newborn blue whale gains about 200 pounds a day during its first year.

Cmon. 200 lbs/day? That's insane.
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I always thought that Whale Milk would be the ultimate bodybuilder drink.
I'm surprised that no billionaire has tried to milk whales.
 
bigred said:
If we're including biological to include "scientific" (it fits broadly), then:

A newborn blue whale gains about 200 pounds a day during its first year.

Cmon. 200 lbs/day? That's insane.
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I thought you must've misread something, but...
A nursing blue whale mother produces over 50 gallons of milk a day. The milk is about 35 to 50 percent milk fat, which allows the calf to gain weight at a rate of up to 10 pounds an hour, which amounts to over 250 pounds a day!
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Linkage

I feel like you could almost see that happening.
 
Ryan O'Dine said:
A nursing blue whale mother produces over 50 gallons of milk a day. The milk is about 35 to 50 percent milk fat, which allows the calf to gain weight at a rate of up to 10 pounds an hour, which amounts to over 250 pounds a day!
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"Up to 10 pounds an hour" doesn't equate with "over 250 pounds a day".

Unless nursing blue whale mothers swim more than 15° due west every day?
 
Wudang said:
Technically 10.49 rounds down to 10 and times 24 is 251.76. Possible but sloppy writing.
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Could also be the other way around. 250 lbs/day = 10.416... lbs/hr. Rounded down gives you 10.
 
Is no one going to mention the "35 to 50% milk fat"? [emoji54]
ISTR cow's milk is around 4%, bodybuilding indeed. Put a whole pony keg where your six-pack used to be. [emoji1]
 
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Jim_MDP said:
Is no one going to mention the "35 to 50% milk fat"?
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Makes sense. For cows, milk provides both nutrients and water. Whales don't really need the water component, except as a solvent for the nutrients.
 
Another source
When it comes to eating food, the blue whale can consume as many as 40 million krill per day, which ends up weighing close to 8,000 pounds of food daily!

Note: Instead of krill, the baby blue whale consumes milk during its first 6 – 18 months of birth and can drink as much as 150 gallons of milk per day during its first year.
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That is a lot of krill. It's amazing ocean levels don't fall with that much krill being eaten. Apologies to Steven Wright.

Also, 150 or 250lbs? Now I'm curious how that number is generated.
 
Ryan O'Dine said:
Another source


That is a lot of krill. It's amazing ocean levels don't fall with that much krill being eaten. Apologies to Steven Wright.

Also, 150 or 250lbs? Now I'm curious how that number is generated.
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I think I once read that krill are the most numerous multi-cellular critter on the planet. I have reservations about that as I'd guess they suffer from endoparasites, multiple nematodes per krill that is. But whatever - there's a lot of krill out there :)
 
GlennB said:
I think I once read that krill are the most numerous multi-cellular critter on the planet. I have reservations about that as I'd guess they suffer from endoparasites, multiple nematodes per krill that is. But whatever - there's a lot of krill out there :)
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There's a lot of ******** too. Maybe we could get the whales to eat them?
 
OK. As I read it, it was a lower portion of the jaw that juts outward.

Meanwhile, sloths can hold their breath underwater much longer than dolphins. With or without a chin. :)
 
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