Today I Learned

[berkeman]

Forgive, me ... your daughter is ... a beaver??
I mean, that is what it says...

No, a beaver supporter. Beavers need all the support they can get (damn dams!).

 

[Tom.G]

a beaver??
Well, I tried very hard (obviously unsuccessfully) not to mention that word is sometimes used to refer to an anatomical region.

Oh well, delete if you must.

 

[pinball1970]

a beaver??
Well, I tried very hard (obviously unsuccessfully) not to mention that word is sometimes used to refer to an anatomical region.

Reminds me of naked gun

 

[epenguin]

TIL that there are things worse than snow. i.e. Invasion of Rome -- by Birds

I have often seen them. You can see them well from the Campidoglio and centre which they seem to prefer, typical tourists, and all roost in the trees along the Tiber, the Lungotevere, to judge from the daily state of cars parked there.

Giorgio Parisi, a leading luminary of Science in Rome, whose Physics is so advanced I don't even know what branch it's called, has made a study of the flocking dynamics: https://www.pnas.org/content/107/26/11865/tab-figures-data
(The paper also contains some film of the flocking - far from the biggest in the one I could see (the last one)).

 

[BigDon]

Do the Oregon State Beavers football team still wear Black and Negligee Orange?

(They had a phrase, "It takes a brave man to wear negligee orange!)

 

[Borg]

For some reason, it reminds me of the phrase at my college - Where men are men and women are too.

 

[BigDon]

So is it all right to place "recently learned" as opposed to today I learned?

Because I've been delving hard into myrmecology lately and have learned a lot we thought knew about ants was wrong, and even entomologists are passing along misinformation now. For instance:

One cannot conflate the functions of the majors of different genuses. Turns out the majors of leaf cutter ants are *not* a soldier class as in the army and driver ants but a class of heavy equipment operators. Atta cephaloides soldiers are their minors! (Not minums) The minors respond first, longest and most aggressively to nest invaders, including pursuing them several meters out of the nest.

Two other amusing facts about leaf cutters.

One is all workers have the same "information" but have one of four body shapes due to epigenetic factors relating to diet. So when a large major sees a particular job that needs doing but is incapable because of her size she will go and pick up a smaller worker, carry her over to the job site, and point her at it. 80 percent of the time the "recruited" ant will adopt the task.

In the presence of phorid flies, (parasitoids AND predators of worker ants) carnivorous members of the fruit fly clade, Atta colonies will send out majors with minums riding on their backs to act as a defensive force!

That's a little more clever than one would expect out of an insect.

(Phorids attack large ants from above and behind to lay their eggs on their necks. The young phorids use the ant's head capsule as a food source and as a chrysalis to metamorphize in.)

A counterintuitive discovery about the South American army ant species Eciton burchelli, the most studied species, is that while a group of them are more than capable of killing smaller vertebrates, they have one problem with doing so.

They can't eat them!

E. burchelli will readily kill small vertebrates but lack a shearing surface on their mandibles so they can't process them! (Other species in the genus can and do eat vertebrates, it's the burchelli that are the "weirdos".)

I never saw that one coming.

And then we get into the differences between old world and new world army ants and you see different prey adaptations. In the new world some insects can avoid predation simply by holding still. This never works with old world army ants.

Why?

None of them have eyes! So motion isn't important in prey detection. They can clear a much higher percentage of the local arthropods in a given area than the new world varieties, sometimes up to 85%.

 

[epenguin]

These flocks #3,761 #3,768 have been seen in Rome and in Naples to my recollection for decades, maybe the numbers have increased. Other changes in the bird population I believe fairly widespread in Europe are increases in the numbers and also the boldness and invasivity of seagulls (who never confined themselves exclusively to the sea) explainable by increased scavenging opportunities.

Another but really new coloniser of the last ten years or less now not rare to see and hear in London and in Rome and no doubt many other places is green parrots! There are lots in trees in streets near us and in a garden opposite. Day before yesterday for first time seen perching over our terrace!

 

[fresh_42]

Another but really new coloniser of the last ten years or less now not rare to see and hear in London and in Rome and no doubt many other places is green parrots! There are lots in trees in streets near us and in a garden opposite. Day before yesterday for first time seen perching over our terrace!

The last 50 years is closer to the truth:

In Germany, the first rose-ringed parakeets appeared in Cologne in 1969; in 2014 an estimated 3,000 specimens lived there. Other independent occurrences are along the Rhine, especially in Düsseldorf, Wiesbaden (together with Mainz 2011: approx. 1500 animals sleeping in summer), Worms, Mannheim, Ludwigshafen am Rhein (Ludwigshafen sleeping area - presumably with parakeets from Worms, Frankenthal and the few animals from the Rhine-Neckar area in summer 2011: 1640 animals) and Heidelberg. Based on these, new populations formed in Bonn, Mainz, Speyer and Zweibrücken. The settlement of the Rhine-Neckar area began in 1973. The first sightings in Frankfurt am Main date back to 2012. In Germany in 2006 the population was 6000–7000 individuals and 650–880 breeding pairs. For 2011 the population size for Germany was given as 7500 animals and around 1500 breeding pairs, the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation assumes a population of 1700–2500 breeding pairs for the years 2011–2016 on the basis of the DDA data.

 

[BillTre]

There are peacocks in the Eugene, Oregon area.
The LA area has peacocks and lots of parrots (at least 5 species).

They are noisy and often like to go in groups.
I had shared a house with a guy once who have 3 or 4 parrots. They make good alarm clocks.
A group of parrots is called a pandemonium of parrots.

 

[BigDon]

Coit Tower in San Francisco has green conures. But whenever they try to expand to new locations the local Cooper's hawks make short work of them.

 

[pinball1970]

There are peacocks in the Eugene, Oregon area.
The LA area has peacocks and lots of parrots (at least 5 species).

They are noisy and often like to go in groups.
I had shared a house with a guy once who have 3 or 4 parrots. They make good alarm clocks.
A group of parrots is called a pandemonium of parrots.

Some good collective names for bird species

Murder of crows
Parliament of Rooks...

 

[BillTre]

There are lots of murders where I live.
Have not heard of the rooks (thought they were a chess piece).
Guessing they hang out in groups and appear to be talking about something?

 

[strangerep]

Some good collective names for bird species

Murder of crows
Parliament of Rooks...

I'd always thought it was a "parliament of owls", but it seems that particular collective is used for multiple species.

Here's few more which I found amusing:

• A wake of buzzards
• A confusion of chiffchaffs
• A chattering of choughs
• A commotion of coots
• A murder of crows
• An asylum of cuckoos
• A curfew of curlews
• A trembling of finches
• A swatting of flycatchers
• A prayer of godwits
• A crown of kingfishers
• A parcel of linnets
• A cast of merlins
• A conspiracy of ravens
• A worm of robins
• A parliament of rooks
• An exultation of skylarks
• A murmuration of starlings
• A hermitage of thrushes
• A volery of wagtails
• A museum of waxwings
• A chime of wrens
• An orchestra of avocets
• A mural of buntings
• A water dance of grebes
• A booby of nuthatches
• A quilt of eiders
• A mischief of magpies
• An Aerie of eagles
• A wisdom of owls
• A quarrel of sparrows

I suppose the list could go on indefinitely. E.g., a septic tank of internet vultures...

 

[HAYAO]

Today I learned quitting smoking isn't so hard.

I wrote this about 4 years ago. I still haven't smoked since. Not so hard, but you have to firmly make that decision.

 

[Borg]

I suppose the list could go on indefinitely. E.g., a septic tank of internet vultures...

A cesspool of politicians?

 

[Frabjous]

I'd always thought it was a "parliament of owls", but it seems that particular collective is used for multiple species.

Here's few more which I found amusing:I suppose the list could go on indefinitely. E.g., a septic tank of internet vultures...

I disagree. Septic tanks have some utility.

 

[pinball1970]

I'd always thought it was a "parliament of owls", but it seems that particular collective is used for multiple species.

Here's few more which I found amusing:I suppose the list could go on indefinitely. E.g., a septic tank of internet vultures...

Some funny ones here

https://www.countrylife.co.uk/country-life/collective-nouns-for-people-and-professions-84184
I think terms for shepherds is a bit harsh
Nothing for physicists or Chemists
Mathematicians is a bit predictable , they could have been more inventive than “set” I think.

 

[etotheipi]

 

[mfb]

A collection of biologists
A (periodic) table of chemists?
An aggregate of solid state physicists

 

[jedishrfu]

A plethora of PFers.

 

[strangerep]

Some funny ones here

https://www.countrylife.co.uk/country-life/collective-nouns-for-people-and-professions-84184

I found most of those amusing, but,... er,...
"A smear of gynaecologists"...

I think terms for shepherds is a bit harsh

It could be worse: "A bestiality of shepherds"?
[Reference: ancient Dave Allen joke about a ventriloquist.]

 

[pinball1970]

I found most of those amusing, but,... er,...
"A smear of gynaecologists"... It could be worse: "A bestiality of shepherds"?
[Reference: ancient Dave Allen joke about a ventriloquist.]

Yeah the Gynaecologists seems rather unpleasant, mind you considering the area of expertise I suppose options for something less distasteful are limited.

A collection of biologists
A (periodic) table of chemists?
An aggregate of solid state physicists

One could have fun with this
A quantum (I also like entanglement) of physicists
A mole of chemists
An infinity of mathematicians – I would like @fresh_42 view on that
A byte of technologists
A megabyte of programmers
A plasma of particle physicists
A cluster of cosmologists
A manifold of geometers
Engineers?
From experience a Beer of Engineers would be a fit and it also has a ring to it.

 

[Janus]

TIL what the original Apollo mission design concept from North American Aviation looked like:
https://apollopreliminarydrawings.com/

 

[Ibix]

Today I learned that the Mission: Impossible theme is in 5/4 time, so the first two notes are a beat and a half long and the second two are a beat long and it kind of sounds like 4/4 with a speed change every second beat.

Apparently the inspiration for the rhythm was that two long beats and two short beats (dah dah dit dit) is Morse for MI.

 

[strangerep]

Engineers?
From experience a Beer of Engineers would be a fit and it also has a ring to it.

Hmm. A "Brewery of Engineers" is probably closer to the correct scale.

Or maybe a "Chunder of Engineers"?

 

[Gocalc]

Today I learned you can use vinegar in place of fabric softener. I tried it and surprisingly it works. It's the first time my towels have been soft since living in my current place which has no drier.

 

[Tom.G]

Today I learned you can use vinegar in place of fabric softener. I tried it and surprisingly it works. It's the first time my towels have been soft since living in my current place which has no drier.

Vinegar also helps remove the laundry detergent residue and perfume that never seems to be completely rinsed out.

(speculation: That might even be why it softens the fabric.)

 

[Ibix]

Today I learned that you can adjust the step speeds of stepper motors (such as those found in old floppy drives) to make different pitches of buzz. You can probably see where this is going:

(0:45 to skip the overlong intro)

 

[rsk]

Today I learned how to open a tin can without a can opener (the ring pull snapped off in my hand). All you need is a teaspoon.

 

[DaveC426913]

Today I learned how to open a tin can without a can opener (the ring pull snapped off in my hand). All you need is a teaspoon.

Or a hand grenade.

 

[epenguin]

Today I learned how to open a tin can without a can opener (the ring pull snapped off in my hand). All you need is a teaspoon.

You must tell us how sometime.

 

[rsk]

You must tell us how sometime.

It works! It works!

 

[berkeman]

TIL that some drag races are held 4-wide! I've never seen that before...

https://www.nhra.com/schedule/2021/...acing-series/ngk-ntk-nhra-four-wide-nationals

https://www.nhra.com/nhra

 

[DaveC426913]

TIL that some drag races are held 4-wide! I've never seen that before...

https://www.nhra.com/schedule/2021/...acing-series/ngk-ntk-nhra-four-wide-nationals

https://www.nhra.com/nhra

View attachment 283122

This photo is miscaptioned.
This is actually a picture of highway 400, in Toronto, on a Saturday around 11PM.