• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

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

The Great Zaganza said:
It is amazing how sensitive dogs noses are even to the faintest traces of smell:
Click to expand...

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.
 
Last edited:
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.
 
Last edited:
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.
Click to expand...
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
Click to expand...
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.
 
Last edited:
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.
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
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.

Click to expand...
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.)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom