Today I Learned

[Hornbein]

Well, you will love to hear about St-Pierre et Miquelon. The closest France territory to North America: 90 minutes by Ferry.

​

About halfway In the video above, they talk about how this tiny territory - with only 6000 people living there - came close to becoming an entry point for the Nazis in North America when they took over France during WWII. Very interesting.

The only time the guillotine was used in North America was on Saint-Pierre in the late 19th century.[72][page needed] Joseph Néel was convicted of killing Mr Coupard on Île aux Chiens on 30 December 1888, and subsequently executed by guillotine on 24 August 1889. The device had to be shipped from Martinique and it did not arrive in working order. It was very difficult to get anyone to perform the execution; finally a recent immigrant was coaxed into doing the job.

This economic powerhouse provides free health care.

 

[Buzz Bloom]

Today I learned that the number 2222 is an "Angel Number" with quite a detailed description of its personal influence.
See https://angelnumber.org/2222-angel-number/.

When I touch my watch near one of its straps, it displays the time and also the number of steps I have taken since I put the watch on. Today, after a short morning hike, it reported I had taken 2222 steps. Well, I confess I found this number interesting. A bit of searching led me to the reference I found and posted above.

 

[berkeman]

Thread closed temporarily for friendly Moderation...

 

[berkeman]

An interesting (but too politically charged) post has been deleted along with a reply to it. Thread is reopened. Thanks for your patience.

 

[sbrothy]

TIL that motivations for animal experiments can be a simple annoyance with how nature works. If for example you're annoyed [sic] by when spiders build their webs (and who wouldn't be annoyed by pesky spiders loudly weaving their webs at the ungodly hours between 2 and 5 am) then the obvious solutions is of course to drug them with LSD:

In 1948, Swiss pharmacologist Peter N. Witt started his research on the effect of drugs on spiders. The initial motivation for the study was a request from his colleague, zoologist H. M. Peters, to shift the time when garden spiders build their webs from between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., which apparently annoyed Peters, to earlier hours. Witt tested spiders with a range of psychoactive drugs, including amphetamine, mescaline, strychnine, LSD, and caffeine, and found that the drugs affect the size and shape of the web rather than the time when it is built.

So it didn't quite work but at least the intetions were pure and scientific (?!).

 

[Jodo]

These three countries are hard to compare anyway. I think Canada and Germany have comparable societies and laws, whereas Canada and the US merely share the same continent, or as my American friend puts it: Canada is the better America.

While fabricating product years back for the chemical lab expansion at MIT ( 2006ish maybe ), an American truck driver explained the difference between Americans and Canadians.
Go to a rowdy bar anywhere in the US and at midnight stand up on a table and yell " Your country sucks, Americans are a bunch of wimps and I can kick all your butts! "
They will immediately beat the living crap out of you on the spot! ( very proud people )
Now flip the tables. Go to a rowdy Canadian bar and at midnight do the same thing ( except of course state Canada sucks etc.. )
The Canadians are going to roar their asses off and will want to buy you a beer. We will want to drink with the person and get to know them a bit perhaps. Then at closing time, we will beat the crap out of you in the parking lot.
Both countries are democratic ( seemingly ) and both have a lot of pride. Canadians are a little slower to react but no less proud.

 

[Oldman too]

TIL, that the infamous Mpemba effect also has an inverse effect.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.02373.pdf
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2104.12899.pdf
From, https://www.quantamagazine.org/does...er-than-cold-physicists-keep-asking-20220629/

 

[Oldman too]

So it didn't quite work but at least the intetions were pure and scientific (?!).

This reminds me of a video on the subject from our neighbors in the Great White North.

 

[pinball1970]

TIL that motivations for animal experiments can be a simple annoyance with how nature works. If for example you're annoyed [sic] by when spiders build their webs (and who wouldn't be annoyed by pesky spiders loudly weaving their webs at the ungodly hours between 2 and 5 am) then the obvious solutions is of course to drug them with LSD:

In 1948, Swiss pharmacologist Peter N. Witt started his research on the effect of drugs on spiders. The initial motivation for the study was a request from his colleague, zoologist H. M. Peters, to shift the time when garden spiders build their webs from between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., which apparently annoyed Peters, to earlier hours. Witt tested spiders with a range of psychoactive drugs, including amphetamine, mescaline, strychnine, LSD, and caffeine, and found that the drugs affect the size and shape of the web rather than the time when it is built.

So it didn't quite work but at least the intetions were pure and scientific (?!).

The key part is 1948. Kids do worst stuff to insects today and have done for a long time. Just because.
Trivers Hamilton and others have learned a lot about genetics from these species.

 

[BillTre]

Gregor Mendel (the father of genetics, but unrecognized until after his death).

TIL that he was recently dug up and had his DNA sequenced.

Here is an article which the comment was based on.
The article is in Czech however, which I can read.
So maybe there are some readers of Czech out there want to comment on it.

 

[Oldman too]

Here is an article which the comment was based on.

Interesting, not that I speak Czech, but I had to take a look. The NatGeo aspect was a surprise, searching English versions of the story... I struck out. I was able to get the gist of the DNA angle, a genetic study, honoring the "Father of Genetics" at his 200th birthday celebration. A nice touch. I wonder if L. Burbank will get the same honors.
The best part of my searching though was coming across https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/so-science-gets-it-wrong-then-what that made my day.

 

[Hornbein]

Interesting, not that I speak Czech, but I had to take a look. The NatGeo aspect was a surprise, searching English versions of the story... I struck out. I was able to get the gist of the DNA angle, a genetic study, honoring the "Father of Genetics" at his 200th birthday celebration. A nice touch. I wonder if L. Burbank will get the same honors.
The best part of my searching though was coming across https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/so-science-gets-it-wrong-then-what that made my day.

National Geographic quoting anonymous Internet comments. That's sad.

 

[Tom.G]

National Geographic quoting anonymous Internet comments. That's sad.

"My, how the mighty have fallen!"

 

[Hornbein]

"My, how the mighty have fallen!"

Yep. Did they even attempt to interview the pricipals?

 

[sbrothy]

The key part is 1948. Kids do worst stuff to insects today and have done for a long time. Just because.
Trivers Hamilton and others have learned a lot about genetics from these species.

Indeed, and admittedly, even though I haven't looked into it, I'd be surprised if the reason H. M. Peters wanted to shift the spider weaving time wasn't founded in legitimate research reasons (though who knows, maybe he just had really sensitive ears :) ). It's just a clumsy (and funny) wiki-expression.

 

[sbrothy]

National Geographic quoting anonymous Internet comments. That's sad.

Haha yeah. Imagine quoting anonymous internet users to back your arguments on this forum. I suspect you'd attract some moderator flak. :)

 

[sbrothy]

This reminds me of a video on the subject from our neighbors in the Great White North.

Heh. I like that he says "when given a minute dose of LSD" and the accompanying video is of a tiny spider being prodded with a (relatively gigantic) cotton q-tip presumably laced with LSD. As human LSD doses arw measured in micrograms I wonder what is consisered a "minute" spider dosis?

Imagine someone prodding you with a telephone pole sized qtip laced with LSD... DUP-DUP Weeee! :)

 

[jbriggs444]

Heh. I like that he says "when given a minute dose of LSD" and the accompanying video is of a tiny spider being prodded with a (relatively gigantic) cotton q-tip presumably laced with LSD. As human LSD doses arw measured in micrograms I wonder what is consisered a "minute" spider dosis?

Imagine someone prodding you with a telephone pole sized qtip laced with LSD... DUP-DUP Weeee! :)

Apparently, massive LSD overdoses are not super-effective. e.g. https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/27/health/lsd-overdoses-case-studies-wellness/index.html

Still not planning on hugging any cotton-shrouded telephone poles.

 

[Hornbein]

Apparently, massive LSD overdoses are not super-effective. e.g. https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/27/health/lsd-overdoses-case-studies-wellness/index.html

Still not planning on hugging any cotton-shrouded telephone poles.

There was the time an elephant died of a massive LSD overdose.
https://www.illinoisscience.org/2016/06/lsd-and-the-elephant/

 

[sbrothy]

Apparently, massive LSD overdoses are not super-effective. e.g. https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/27/health/lsd-overdoses-case-studies-wellness/index.html

Still not planning on hugging any cotton-shrouded telephone poles.

Interesting. "Their experiences were exceptional". Hooo Boy I'd imagine! Probably nowhere near recreationally funny though.

I've tried "moderate" doses myself on a few occasions. Once resulting in what you'd call a "bad trip". I wouldn't wish that experience multiplied 50x on my worst enemy!

 

[Oldman too]

National Geographic quoting anonymous Internet comments. That's sad.

TIL...
Hi, I got to wondering about the this. Searching "national geographic Czech edition" I came across https://www.national-geographic.cz/ The NG article in question does appear to be done by a legitimate NG Author, his profile link on NG is https://www.national-geographic.cz/autor/hynek-adamek-2597.html (no pun allowed, but czech it out) I have no idea how to translate and track down his sources but It does look like a
worthy piece.
The "interpretation" I gave in post #4526 is based on
https://english.radio.cz/father-genetics-gregor-mendels-dna-being-analysed-scientists-8730429
From my somewhat dubious translation skills, I would assume that the source used by the author was
https://www.em.muni.cz/en/news/15408-masaryk-university-scientists-are-analysing-mendel-s-dna
These are English edition articles so no translation is necessary. I didn't want to even try getting google translate involved in this, then I would have to screw up the context as well as the literal meanings of the words.

 

[pinball1970]

I thought this was interesting and also and indication of things to come from the LHC?

https://physicsworld.com/a/bountiful-exotic-hadrons-at-the-lhc-inspire-new-naming-convention/

They announced the penta/tetraquarks the other week.EDIT: https://cds.cern.ch/record/2814506/files/2206.15233.pdf

62 new Hadrons at the LHC so far?? wow! (page 2 diagram)

I had a of fun reading this.

"The naming convention for qq¯ 0 mesons with non-zero strangeness, charm or beauty quantum numbers is given in Table 2. As for mesons with zero net strangeness or heavy flavour quantum numbers, the symbols are supplemented by a subscript J to indicate the spin, though this is usually omitted for the lightest pseudoscalar and vector mesons of given flavour quantum numbers"

Later on...

"Nonetheless, it is important to retain backwards-compatibility, as much as possible, as doing otherwise will inevitably cause confusion."

Anyone else confused by this paper, give me a shout, I think I got this

 

[sbrothy]

TIL...
Hi, I got to wondering about the this. Searching "national geographic Czech edition" I came across https://www.national-geographic.cz/ The NG article in question does appear to be done by a legitimate NG Author, his profile link on NG is https://www.national-geographic.cz/autor/hynek-adamek-2597.html (no pun allowed, but czech it out) I have no idea how to translate and track down his sources but It does look like a
worthy piece.
The "interpretation" I gave in post #4526 is based on
https://english.radio.cz/father-genetics-gregor-mendels-dna-being-analysed-scientists-8730429
From my somewhat dubious translation skills, I would assume that the source used by the author was
https://www.em.muni.cz/en/news/15408-masaryk-university-scientists-are-analysing-mendel-s-dna
These are English edition articles so no translation is necessary. I didn't want to even try getting google translate involved in this, then I would have to screw up the context as well as the literal meanings of the words.

Hah. Naah. Good choice trying to keep Google translate out of it. The results aren't always pretty. :)

 

[BillTre]

TIL that a chess playing root break a kid's finger in a Moscow chess tournament.
No, the robot wasn't pissed off because it was losing.

 

[Oldman too]

TIL... David Attenborough has a new namesake.
https://www.science.org/content/art...namesake-oldest-known-relative-living-animals

 

[pinball1970]

TIL Mathematicalphysicist gone. He’s been here since the start or near enough?

 

[Borg]

Gah. He was a fellow God-Man devotee!

 

[sbrothy]

TIL Mathematicalphysicist gone. He’s been here since the start or near enough?

Even though I can't say I know ppl here (and I'd be arrogant to call them my "peers"), it's always sad when the real world interrupts my interwebs. :(

 

[sbrothy]

Even though I can't say I know ppl here (and I'd be arrogant to call them my "peers"), it's always sad when the real world interrupts my interwebs. :(

 

[Rive]

TIL that an old wristwatch is still an indispensable tool for office work

 

[Borg]

Trying to keep the cursor moving so that the screen doesn't lock?

 

[pinball1970]

Trying to keep the cursor moving so that the screen doesn't lock?

Yeah what is the purpose? @Rive

 

[Rive]

Exactly that. Keeps on the screen.
When you have one of those monster long and difficult passwords, it's just life saving

 

[Borg]

I have a small Java program that I wrote to handle that. The program is called by a .bat file that is automatically started when I log in. After that, it randomly moves the mouse +- 1 pixel in the x and y directions every 15 minutes. It's just enough to not trigger a screen lock and doesn't affect anything that I'm doing on the screen.

 

[sbrothy]

I have a small Java program that I wrote to handle that. The program is called by a .bat file that is automatically started when I log in. After that, it randomly moves the mouse +- 1 pixel in the x and y directions every 15 minutes. It's just enough to not trigger a screen lock and doesn't affect anything that I'm doing on the screen.

Maybe I'm a little dense but can't you just disable the screensaver? Or at least increase the time before it locks?