Today I Learned

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Today I learned that cleaning a white hat can be done with bleach cleaner, but it’s important to rinse it before wearing it again. I also discovered that "oyster veneering," a woodworking technique from the late 1600s, is experiencing a minor revival despite its labor-intensive nature. Additionally, I learned that the factorial of 23 (23!) equals 25,852,016,738,884,976,640,000, which interestingly has 23 digits, a unique coincidence among factorials. I found out that medical specialists often spend less than 10 minutes with patients, and that watching TV can contribute to weight gain. Other insights included the fact that a kiss can transfer around 80 million microbes, and that bureaucracy can sometimes hinder employment opportunities. The discussion also touched on various trivia, such as the emotional sensitivity of barn owls and the complexities of gravitational lensing around black holes.
  • #571
I've been under weather (just for a common cold) these days and got some drugs prescribed to take. I then learned about ciprofloxacin (http://www.drugs.com/ciprofloxacin.html) along with many other things (i.e takers get sunburned more easily, taking it with caffeine is a bad choice as it may increase caffeine's effects in our brain etc.). It Makes my day!:woot:
 
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  • #572
Today, I learned via Facebook, that my former employer had successfully completed a pretty significant Kickstarter type campaign:
$1,000,000,000 to find the cure for cancer. (Yes. That's a billion dollars.)

That made me curious about Kickstarter campaigns, and what people were funding.
I think I've only donated to a couple, the most recent of which, was the solar sail project, being run by the Planetary Society, which yesterday reached $1,000,000 [ref]

Anyways, here are the top ten things, that people think are worthy of funding, along with the cancer and solar sail project, for perspective:

Code: 
cure cancer:                $1,000,000,000

smart watch:                   $20,000,000
beer cooler:                   $13,000,000
another smart watch:           $10,000,000
card game:                      $8,800,000
videogame console:              $8,600,000
ipod/walkman device:            $6,200,000
fictional movie:                $5,700,000
children's educational program: $5,400,000
video game:                     $4,200,000
another video game:             $4,000,000

interstellar space exploration: $1,000,000
[ref to Kickstarter rankings]
 
  • #573
Today I learned that there are not four but five basic tastes. sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. Umami is the taste of glutamates. The tongue has special glutamate receptors. It is described a a sensation of "furriness" on the tongue.or a pleasant "brothy" or "meaty" taste. Umami foods include fish, vegetables, aged cheese. It interacts with salt. Low salt food with no umami do not taste as good as low salt foods with umami.
 
  • #574
gleem said:
Today I learned that there are not four but five basic tastes. sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. Umami is the taste of glutamates. The tongue has special glutamate receptors. It is described a a sensation of "furriness" on the tongue.or a pleasant "brothy" or "meaty" taste. Umami foods include fish, vegetables, aged cheese. It interacts with salt. Low salt food with no umami do not taste as good as low salt foods with umami.
The airlines have known about this for some time - why in-flight food tastes weird. Search the article for the word umami and you will see why people tend to order Bloody Mary's more often on aircraft.
 
  • #575
Borg said:
The airlines have known about this for some time - why in-flight food tastes weird. Search the article for the word umami and you will see why people tend to order Bloody Mary's more often on aircraft.

hmmmm... from your article:

A study found that people eating to the sound of loud background noise rated food as being less salty and less sweet than those who ate in silence. Another twist: to those surrounded by noise, food surprisingly appeared to sound much crunchier.

Although I am not afflicted by it, I've heard that many people are annoyed by loud, obnoxious children in restaurants.
Could it be possible that the children's screaming actually makes the food taste bad?

Anyways... I actually learned the following yesterday, but had already used up my TIL card, but it has to do with smell, so I thought I'd share it:


CBS Evening News, Scott Pelley interviewing NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly
​

Scott Pelley; "What does the ISS smell like"?
Scott Kelly; "Antiseptic and garbage".
Scott Pelley; "What does space smell like"?
Scott Kelly; "burning metal".
(edited for brevity)
​
But then I was thinking, did he open the front door of the ISS to get a whiff? How (not) on Earth can you smell space?
I'm guessing he was smelling the air, in one of the docking air lock chambers, after it was exposed to the vacuum of space, and re-pressurized.
 
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  • #576
Astronuc said:
How to torpedo one's career - Nobel Prize-winning scientist says he was forced to resign
http://news.yahoo.com/nobel-prize-winning-scientist-says-forced-resign-125443022.html

Career in the sense of honorary Professorship. It's not sunk yet though, a lot of scientists, Nobels, Richard Dawkins, Colin Blakemore, colleagues and ex-colleges have spoken up in defence of his real character and a report by someone present has corrected the overall impression of his talk. The University may reconsider its position next month.

His mistake IMO was not to realize there are always Enforcers and what we in the UK call professional offence-takers around and a public man cannot let himself go for a second in anecdotal musings or humour that might be used against him.
 
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  • #577
  • #578
Enigman said:
TIL: Thomas Jefferson 'constructed' a book in the latter years of his life by cutting and pasting with a razor and glue numerous sections from the New Testament as extractions of the doctrine of Jesus excluding all mentions of supernatural and miracles. The book is called The Jefferson Bible, or The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth as it is formally titled.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible

TIL Enigman is back after a mysterious absence. Nice to see you, E-man!
 
  • #579
OmCheeto said:
Today, I learned via Facebook, that my former employer had successfully completed a pretty significant Kickstarter type campaign:
$1,000,000,000 to find the cure for cancer. (Yes. That's a billion dollars.)
Where? Apparently not on Kickstarter itself.
 
  • #580
mfb said:
Where? Apparently not on Kickstarter itself.
Where? Obviously, wherever my former employer exists.
Which is somewhere near where I exist.
I haven't moved, yet.
 
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  • #581
Today I learned that "to shoop" means "to Photoshop", i.e. "add something to an image that wasn't there before."
 
  • #582
lisab said:
TIL Enigman is back after a mysterious absence. Nice to see you, E-man!
Nice to see you too, lady Green! Interwebz been acting up and I had to disconnect from the hive mind for a while.
:oldruck:
 
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  • #583
TIL how to make detox drink!
 
  • #584
TIL that independence day festivities aren't so bad, but they're not so great either.
 
  • #585
harrylin said:
A little elaboration: suppose that at CERN in Geneva a particle is accelerated to 0.99999c in the direction of Lyon. Does that contract the distance between Geneva and Lyon?
Today I learned that LHC is the biggest machine in the word to study the smallest thing in the universe.
 
  • #588
Today I learned that it is very difficult to think about an innovative idea, but its very astonishing when the idea strikes our mind automatically.
 
  • #589
Pythagorean said:
5 fruit flies in an 8 Oz orange juice has got to be a nice little nutrient bump. Probably healthier than all that sugar in the orange juice itself.
Yeah, OJ is jam-packed full of sugar.

I'd eat bugs if everyone else did, but they don't and but no one sells them.
 
  • #590
zoobyshoe said:
Today I learned the average person eats about a pound of bugs per year:

http://animals.howstuffworks.com/insects/how-many-bugs-eat-every-year.htm

My sister used to pick potato bugs off the sidewalk and eat them, when she was about 1 yo.

Today I learned that people keep them as pets, and they can live up to 3 years.
I also learned lots of other things about them.
I would share those things, but it's kind of a rabbit hole of complexity, which after about 2 hours, makes you wish you'd never started.
There is a lot of silliness involved with the classification of beasts, big and small, IMHO.
For example, crustaceans, simply means, that the beasts have "crusty", or hard-shelled bodies.
 
  • #591
that's nothing, my little brother put super-glue in his penis when he was little :biggrin:
 
  • #592
Today I learned that the common woodlouse is called 'potato bug' in some parts. :oldtongue:
Never heard that before.
 
  • #593
epenguin said:
Today I learned that the common woodlouse is called 'potato bug' in some parts. :oldtongue:
Never heard that before.
My daughters call them roly-polies. My youngest lIkes to name them and bring them in the house.
 
  • #594
epenguin said:
Today I learned that the common woodlouse is called 'potato bug' in some parts. :oldtongue:
Never heard that before.

I've heard them called a few of those "other" names, and I was always; "What are you talking about"?

I'm familiar with the term onomatopoeia, which is a word which phonetically mimics the sound of the thing described, but is there a visual analogy?

My mom called them "Sow bugs". She was from Germany. I'm guessing that the name translates to: "Bug shaped like a fat pig".
 
  • #595
OmCheeto said:
is there a visual analogy?
Icon ?
 
  • #596
zoobyshoe said:
Yeah, OJ is jam-packed full of sugar.

I'd eat bugs if everyone else did, but they don't and but no one sells them.

Try some cricket nutrition bars:
http://chapul.com/
 
  • #597
WWGD said:
Try some cricket nutrition bars:
http://chapul.com/
Wow, those charts make cricket protein the clear winner.

Still, those bars are expensive. $3.00 for a 1.9 oz candy bar? I'll pass.
 
  • #598
zoobyshoe said:
Wow, those charts make cricket protein the clear winner.

Still, those bars are expensive. $3.00 for a 1.9 oz candy bar? I'll pass.
I don't mean to be alarmist, but given population growth, we may have no other viable long-term source of protein. We may be passing the costs out somewhere in the system when we pay $4-5 for a burger or even $10+ for a steak.
 
  • #599
WWGD said:
I don't mean to be alarmist, but given population growth, we may have no other viable long-term source of protein. We may be passing the costs out somewhere in the system when we pay $4-5 for a burger or even $10+ for a steak.

I think there was a movie about an alternative source.
 
  • #600
nsaspook said:
I think there was a movie about an alternative source.
Yes, but Soylent Green is people!
 

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