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

arthwollipot said:
Wait, only 10% of people have an innie? I find that hard to believe.
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80+% or so have an innie as opposed to an outie, but belly button aficionados have so many shape breakdowns that a pure round concavity occurs less often than you would think.
 
Until recently, I thought it was just some form of perception bias. But when standing around a camp fire, the smoke really does tend to always blow towards you.
 
alfaniner said:
(reading in context) Moths? Or butterflies?
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I should have been more specific and/or detailed (I was on my tab) and checked auto-correct hadn't buggered things up. Must take more care...

Approximately 10% of humans have outward facing navels.
 
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arthwollipot said:
Wait, only 10% of people have an innie? I find that hard to believe.
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Yeah, that post was (due to tablet and keyboard, at least that's my excuse) rather buggered up. 10% are 'outie'.
Less AI meetings, more sleep.
 
Venom said:
Human jaw shrinkage - jaws have been progressively getting smaller and oral cavities lower in volume within the past several thousand years.

Kind of scary thinking of all of the people getting braces and having teeth pulled these days. And sleep apnea?!
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Just yesterday I saw an AYFKM* internet ad -- Joe Rogan plugging a system for strengthening your jaw. My impression was that it would lead to all sorts of TMJ problems.

*Are You ******* Kidding Me?
 
Venom said:
Human jaw shrinkage - jaws have been progressively getting smaller and oral cavities lower in volume within the past several thousand years.

Kind of scary thinking of all of the people getting braces and having teeth pulled these days. And sleep apnea?!
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I'm guessing no one's jaw hit the ground when they learn about that.
 
alfaniner said:
Just yesterday I saw an AYFKM* internet ad -- Joe Rogan plugging a system for strengthening your jaw. My impression was that it would lead to all sorts of TMJ problems.

*Are You ******* Kidding Me?
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Tongue exercises can help to reduce snoring.

My wife has been very happy since I took this route.
 
Skipping everything else and answering the OP question...

I just found out that pineapples are bromeliads. They're the only one that fruits, all other bromeliads flower.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Skipping everything else and answering the OP question...

I just found out that pineapples are bromeliads. They're the only one that fruits, all other bromeliads flower.
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A long time ago I learned that the strawberry is a member of the rose family. Only recently, I learned that raspberries and blackberries are also in the same family.

Oh, and also apples, almonds, peaches ......
 
Only sort of a scientific fact, but I just found out why Pringles all have the same shape: they are made from the same kind of powder used to make instant mashed potatoes and molded. For the same reason, they cannot legally be called "chips".
 
Thermal said:
Only sort of a scientific fact, but I just found out why Pringles all have the same shape: they are made from the same kind of powder used to make instant mashed potatoes and molded. For the same reason, they cannot legally be called "chips".
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Reminds me of "almost pizza".

 
Thermal said:
Only sort of a scientific fact, but I just found out why Pringles all have the same shape: they are made from the same kind of powder used to make instant mashed potatoes and molded. For the same reason, they cannot legally be called "chips".
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At least they don't actually look like potato chips vs having to double check to make sure the ice cream you are picking up actually says ice cream on the label.
 
Astronomers have captured hundreds of mysterious filaments pointing towards the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole. galaxy. The strange horizontal strands are 25,000 light years from Earth, with scientists comparing them to the dots and dashes of Morse code floating through space. They spell out "We apologize for the inconvenience."



I might've made the last bit up.
 
Emily's Cat said:
I just found out that pineapples are bromeliads. They're the only one that fruits, all other bromeliads flower.
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This one needs some 'splainin'. As the words are used by botanists, all flowers produce fruits and all fruits come from flowers, so every species in existence does both or neither. Could this have meant that pineapple plants are the only bromeliads that produce a fruit we would normally think of as fruit in the culinary sense, and/or that other bromeliads' flowers are more like what we normally think of as flowers in the "getting flowers from the florist" sense?

jadebox said:
A long time ago I learned that the strawberry is a member of the rose family. Only recently, I learned that raspberries and blackberries are also in the same family.

Oh, and also apples, almonds, peaches ......
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Plums & cherries & apricots & nectarines are not only members of that family but even members of the same genus as almonds & peaches.
 
Peach makes sense as a stonefruit... did almonds lose their fleshy "shell"? [emoji15]


And what might an almond fruit have tasted like? Half of y'all are trying to imagine that right now. (not a huge almond fan, myself)
[emoji12]
 
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Jim_MDP said:
did almonds lose their fleshy "shell"? [emoji15]
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The trees still produce that. We just take it off before sending the nuts out to customers because nobody likes it. The same thing is also true for pecans & walnuts.
 
Dr. Keith said:
I recently was reminded of a pneumonic for knowing whether a moon is waxing or waning: DOC. If the partial moon looks like a D it is heading towards full, O, and if it looks like a C it is past full. So, D is waxing and C is waning. Now I’m wondering if that helpful bit of 7th grade science holds true south of the equator. Hmm.
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Or as I heard as a kid "the moon is Cold when it's old".

I posted this when I first read it but for those who missed it. Why tattoos persist - macrophages absorbing the inks. https://rupress.org/jem/article/215/4/1115/42419/Unveiling-skin-macrophage-dynamics-explains-both
 
It's a little unnerving to see the moon wobble like that.

A tiny part of my brain remembers playing Battling Tops, and knows that wobble's soon going to get worse until it topples right over and goes clattering around the solar system knocking other stuff over.
 
I've been reading Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive by Philipp Dettmer (creator of the YouTube channel Kurzgesagt - In A Nutshell, and it is absolutely full of :eye-poppi moments.

Like the interaction between B cells and T cells. A B cell requires multifactor authentication before it ramps up production of antibodies. It needs to get a copy of the antigen itself, then it needs to make contact with a T cell that also has a copy of the same antigen, which can only happen because all the neutrophils and macrophages at the site of the infection have ripped the invaders to pieces which are floating about in the lymph system. If it doesn't get this second factor, the B cell like so many others will just quietly kill itself.

Great book. Fantastic read and very clear.
 
Delvo said:
This one needs some 'splainin'. As the words are used by botanists, all flowers produce fruits and all fruits come from flowers, so every species in existence does both or neither. Could this have meant that pineapple plants are the only bromeliads that produce a fruit we would normally think of as fruit in the culinary sense, and/or that other bromeliads' flowers are more like what we normally think of as flowers in the "getting flowers from the florist" sense?
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As I'm not a botanist... yes, that is what it meant.
 
Dr. Keith said:
I recently was reminded of a pneumonic for knowing whether a moon is waxing or waning: DOC. If the partial moon looks like a D it is heading towards full, O, and if it looks like a C it is past full. So, D is waxing and C is waning. Now I’m wondering if that helpful bit of 7th grade science holds true south of the equator. Hmm.
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I'm pretty sure it does not. And near the equator the terminator is going to be around horizontal, so it doesn't really work there either.
I just remember that the terminator moves from right to left, as we see it here in the north.
 
Dr. Keith said:
I recently was reminded of a pneumonic for knowing whether a moon is waxing or waning: DOC. If the partial moon looks like a D it is heading towards full, O, and if it looks like a C it is past full. So, D is waxing and C is waning. Now I’m wondering if that helpful bit of 7th grade science holds true south of the equator. Hmm.
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How does this actually work? I have confusion. The moon looks like a C when it's a waxing crescent, it progresses to a backwards D at waxing gibbous. Then after full, it becomes a forward D through waning gibbous, then to a backwards C as a waning crescent. I feel like there's something here that I'm missing...

Also, "mnemonic". I don't think the moon is air-propelled :D
 
Ziggurat said:
Not in the northern hemisphere. It's a backwards C while waxing, and a forward C while waning.
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:o Yes, I said it 100% backwards.

Why would hemisphere matter? The sun still rises in the east when you're in Australia, and sets in the west. The moon-sun-earth relationship doesn't get upended by hemisphere does it?
 
I guess I wasn't totally aware that there is a difference between Julian Date and Julian Day. I think those terms (not the values) are actually used interchangeably. But when I went to an online calculator for today I got this:

A.D. 2023 June 5 22:30:26.0 2460101.437801
My paper calendar says it's Julian Day 156 (or 23-156, or 23156). I had to search and found the below article that explains it. The longer form is obviously more accurate for computing purposes. At least, until January 22, 3268 A.D. (or C.E., as it is becoming called in more common usage.)

Julian Day/Date info
Julian date, also commonly called as Julian day, refers to the number of days passed since the beginning of a self-created cycle of 7980 years.
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Trebuchet said:
I'm pretty sure it does not. And near the equator the terminator is going to be around horizontal, so it doesn't really work there either.
I just remember that the terminator moves from right to left, as we see it here in the north.
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The Moon looks upside down south of the equator. I know, I've been there.
 
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I knew the magnetic north was wandering but I thought it was headed south. Turns out it's moving north and will end up in Siberia before it moves elsewhere (unless it turns back I guess). It's currently in the Northern Territories of Canada.



Tyson goes on to explain the pole the compass points to is really magnetic south. I let all that go in then back out of my brain. I'll tackle it later. :boggled:
 
Arrggh. The image I uploaded was too small. Has it always been this way? Anyway ... yeah
 
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