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

3point14 said:
Vaguley related...


https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com...-the-arctic-5-times/articleshow/111425496.cms
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No evidence albino grizzly bear sent to Arctic after being mistaken for polar bear [Canadian Press]

Rating: False

Several clips in the video that identify a lightly coloured bear as Joey the albino grizzly bear appears to show a different species of bear called the spirit bear, or Kermode bear.

The bear in the video "looks like a Kermode bear and not a grizzly bear," said Holly Reisner, co-executive director of North Shore Black Bear Society, in an email.
...
Reisner added the organization has not heard a case of a bear being mistaken for a polar bear and being shipped to the Arctic happening in the area.

A B.C. wildlife organization also has not heard of the story before.

"Pure fictional content for the purpose of social media clicks," said Gabriela De Romeri, communications co-ordinator with WildSafeBC.

A misidentification like the one suggested in the video would never occur by wildlife experts, De Romeri explained.
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It appears to be just a story.
 
William Parcher said:
It's amazing that the teeth and jawbone can withstand that pressure.
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I haven't tried this on any bowling balls recently (though I might have one or two lying around), but I think there's a great difference between simply crushing one in a hydraulic press (though I am unsurprised that the HP Channel, a great source of entertainment, did so) and a jaw with teeth. At least some bowling balls are filled with a material similar to high density fiberboard, which is heavy and cohesive, but basically sawdust. If you crack the outer surface, which is itself somewhat brittle, then I don't think you need so many tons to demolish the ball.
 
Yes, but that doesn't mean somebody familiar with them wouldn't be able to see the difference. They aren't the same size & shape, particularly in their faces.
 
bruto said:
I haven't tried this on any bowling balls recently (though I might have one or two lying around), but I think there's a great difference between simply crushing one in a hydraulic press (though I am unsurprised that the HP Channel, a great source of entertainment, did so) and a jaw with teeth. At least some bowling balls are filled with a material similar to high density fiberboard, which is heavy and cohesive, but basically sawdust. If you crack the outer surface, which is itself somewhat brittle, then I don't think you need so many tons to demolish the ball.
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Right.......it's one thing to have enough force behind it, but I would think a bear's teeth/jawbones would give before the bowling ball would. I wasn't implying that if you tossed a bear a bowling ball and it was so inclined that it could do it, but the bite itself being strong enough to do so I thought was interesting.
 
William Parcher said:
It's amazing that the teeth and jawbone can withstand that pressure.
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That's in part because that number isn't a pressure at all, it's a force. And it's a force that's applied by a flat surface.

If you apply force with a sharp surface (like teeth), you probably don't need to go to nearly as large a force to get to a pressure that will crack the bowling ball. Now, I don't know if bears really can break bowling balls, but bear teeth versus a hydraulic press is not an apples to apples comparison.
 
This is more technology than science, but the little black box on airplanes/etc isn't black; it's almost always a bright orange (sensible, since that makes it easier to spot).
 
bigred said:
This is more technology than science, but the little black box on airplanes/etc isn't black; it's almost always a bright orange (sensible, since that makes it easier to spot).
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Yup. Always knew that, flew a little many decades ago, but I wonder if they were so from the beginning. Perhaps plain steel gray? But they aren't all that old a tech right? And International Orange, the paint color of the Golden Gate bridge, is of course far older..
 
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bigred said:
This is more technology than science, but the little black box on airplanes/etc isn't black; it's almost always a bright orange (sensible, since that makes it easier to spot).
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Jim_MDP said:
Yup. Always knew that, flew a little many decades ago, but I wonder if they were so from the beginning. Perhaps plain steel gray? But they aren't all that old a tech right? And International Orange, the paint color of the Golden Gate bridge, is of course far older..
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_recorder

A flight recorder is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of aviation accidents and incidents. The device may often be referred to colloquially as a "black box", an outdated name which has become a misnomer—they are now required to be painted bright orange, to aid in their recovery after accidents.
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However, one of the earliest ones was, in fact, encased in a black box.
The first modern flight data recorder, called "Mata-Hari", was created in 1942 by Finnish aviation engineer Veijo Hietala. This black high-tech mechanical box was able to record all required data during test flights of fighter aircraft that the Finnish Air Force repaired or built in its main aviation factory in Tampere, Finland.[4]
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But the modern black box as we know it which records voice as well was created by Australian David Warren...(ironically, Australia wasn't at all interested in it, doh)
 
The Great Zaganza said:
It is amazing how sensitive dogs noses are even to the faintest traces of smell:
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Makes me wonder. Supposing in the future we learn how to mess about with our DNA to make better humans, should we give them better noses, like dogs?

That way you wouldn't need police dogs, because the police themselves would be able to smell the drugs. :idea:
 
I've actually known it for awhile but it came to mind recently.

Sweet Potatoes are native to the Americas, but they had made it to western Polynesia between 1000 and 600 years ago. There is almost no other evidence of pre-columbian interaction between Polynesia and the Americas. I mean, if they took sweet potatoes, why not peppers, tomatoes, corn, or potatoes? Easter Island is closer to S. America than anywhere else, why isn't there tons of evidence that they'd interacted? Carbon dating of sweet potato in the Cook Island indicates that sweet potatoes could possible have gotten there before people got to Easter Island. Granted broad ranges on the estimates of both things so more likely the s. potatoes just spread really quickly, still, kind of amazing.
 
Carried by ocean currents somehow? Carried by human beings is probably more likely. Although, if sweet potato really did get there before humans did, I guess you need another theory.
 
Root vegetables tend to be easier to store longer so could they have been taken on long voyages for that reason? If so were there other root crops grown in the same area in the same period? WAG - way outside my comfort zone.
 
The prevailing currents in the Pacific Ocean do flow from South America to a bunch of the Pacific islands, not the other way.

Peppers are native to arid areas, so they wouldn't be expected to get distributed by ocean currents. Corn has only existed relatively recently and spread to western South America even more recently than that. I'm not sure about tomatoes or potatoes. I suspect that tomato varieties which existed before the late 20th century spoiled too quickly to make it that far drifting on the ocean, and I'd expect birds that swallowed their seeds to excrete them over open water before getting to the islands or just not even go that way because they don't follow ocean currents. Potatoes can probably float that far but I think they'd need to be buried in order to sprout, and naturally floating to an island doesn't result in burial. Potato plants do produce fruits & seeds, but they're tiny, so spreading them across the ocean would depend on the same birds as tomatoes.
 
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All of that makes sense. Apparently, the current prominent theory among the experts is, Polynesians made to S. America. from what I gather it's the majority but not the consensus opinion. But, given the evidence of the prevailing direction of currents and lack of other evidence, natural dispersal to at least Easter Island makes sense to me.

ETA: Really, everything about the spread of Polynesians is amazing and a fascinating bit of science. They appear to have started in Tawain and made as far west as Madascar and far east as Easter Island or even S. American.
 
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Delvo said:
The prevailing currents in the Pacific Ocean do flow from South America to a bunch of the Pacific islands, not the other way.

Peppers are native to arid areas, so they wouldn't be expected to get distributed by ocean currents. Corn has only existed relatively recently and spread to western South America even more recently than that. I'm not sure about tomatoes or potatoes. I suspect that tomato varieties which existed before the late 20th century spoiled too quickly to make it that far drifting on the ocean, and I'd expect birds that swallowed their seeds to excrete them over open water before getting to the islands or just not even go that way because they don't follow ocean currents. Potatoes can probably float that far but I think they'd need to be buried in order to sprout, and naturally floating to an island doesn't result in burial. Potato plants do produce fruits & seeds, but they're tiny, so spreading them across the ocean would depend on the same birds as tomatoes.
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Sounds reasonable, but one can imagine various possibilities that are very unlikely but not impossible. Though potatoes like to be buried, they need not be buried in earth. A pile of accumulated rotting vegetation might be enough, at least for an ordinary potato - one technique for no-dig potatoes is to grow them in a pile of tires with compost and to harvest them by removing the tires and knocking down the compost. Maybe one potato made it to an island, and was blown up on shore by a high storm tide with a bunch of debris. Even if a million floating potatoes never made it, if one did, the story begins.
 
Newly discovered cave on The Moon

I am surprised this wasn't found much earlier. It's even in the Sea of Tranquility, where the first Moon landing occurred! I'd think that every square inch of the area would have been mapped long ago. Perhaps they'll find Cavor's skeleton in there.

The Great Zaganza said:
All diamond jewelry is worthless:

https://www.space.com/mercury-diamond-layer-10-miles-thick-nasa-messenger
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I think that was the punch line for one of Arthur C. Clarke's novels.
3001, if I recall correctly. They found a giant diamond on a planet.
 
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alfaniner said:
Newly discovered cave on The Moon

I am surprised this wasn't found much earlier. It's even in the Sea of Tranquility, where the first Moon landing occurred! I'd think that every square inch of the area would have been mapped long ago. Perhaps they'll find Cavor's skeleton in there.


I think that was the punch line for one of Arthur C. Clarke's novels.
3001, if I recall correctly. They found a giant diamond on a planet.
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Also one of his earlier stories, part of the Venture to the Moon
collection/mashup.

ETA: Ah yes, 'All that Glitters'
The story deals with a geophysicist who discovers diamonds on the Moon - only to learn that back on Earth, synthetic diamonds have just been successfully created at negligible cost.
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Not new news, but new to me:

Ben Goldacre talks us through the work he and his team has done to enable researchers to access teh UK's NHS data on patients for research, while at teh same time safe guarding patient confidentiality. This was an issue that he brought up in one of his books, where the medical world had this amazing data resource that it couldn't access.

NHS could be the best source of this kind of data in the world, so its kind of exciting.
 
Dark Oxygen.

Most of the O2 we have in our atmosphere was created by photosynthesis, in plants. Now they've discovered O2 (molecular oxygen, as opposed to atomic oxygen) that's being somehow synthesised in polymetallic nodules on the seafloor, well below the reach of the sun.

These were once considered a good source to mine for metals that are critical to battery technology, but given the ecosystems that seem to be nurtured by the dark O2, the environmental concerns are starting to outweigh the mining interest.

 
arthwollipot said:
Dark Oxygen.

Most of the O2 we have in our atmosphere was created by photosynthesis, in plants. Now they've discovered O2 (molecular oxygen, as opposed to atomic oxygen) that's being somehow synthesised in polymetallic nodules on the seafloor, well below the reach of the sun.

These were once considered a good source to mine for metals that are critical to battery technology, but given the ecosystems that seem to be nurtured by the dark O2, the environmental concerns are starting to outweigh the mining interest.

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It would be cool if somehow it combined with hydrogen, then it could be called D'OH! (Note: I am not a chemistry major, or even had it in high school.)
 
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