Your Fingernails vs Continental Drift

[Moonbear]

The Bob sez: "On average, a 4-year-old child asks 437 questions a day."
For very small values of "day".

LOL! This should be used as an example of time dilation...at least the day sure feels longer.

The Bob sez: "There is no Albanian word for headache."
I'm not sure what this would mean. They must describe the phenomenon somehow. In English we invented a compound word, so there's no word for headache that's a root part of the English language. In Russian, the word for "hedgehog" is a two-letter root word: ??. So could Russians say that English doesn't have a "real" word for "hedgehog". The French could also say that English has no word for eborgner ("to put [someone's] eye out")

Actually, there is an English word for this: enucleation (technically, it's the surgical removal of the eye).

Yes, I actually have a lot of useless information crammed inside my head...I'm so glad this site gives me the opportunity to finally make some of it useful! How often does the shape of a pig's penis come up in normal conversation? I'd share more, but you have to ask the right questions for me to find the good stuff in the archives...too much information, need better search terms

 

[Monique]

Monique, perhaps you can confirm or deny the following claim. I have heard this several times: The number of beats of the heart over an average lifespan is approximately constant for many species. That is to say that we all get the same number of beats in total. Is there any truth in this?

Apparently there is a formula for mammals: lifespan = 1902.6/ heartbeat speed

The shrew is the smallest mammal, whose heart beats 800x a min = 2.38 years. The elephant is the largest mammal, whose heart beats 25x a min = 76.1 years. Both numbers are close to the actual age.

A human heart beats 60x a min = 31.7 years.. maybe if we lived without modern technology?

Maybe we should collect a larger sample of cats, skunks, dogs, guinea pigs, hamsters, chinchilla and whatever other mammals people have got sitting around their house

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Interesting. IIRC, in 1850 [Western Civilization I assume] the average lifespan for humans was about 40 years. This hinged greatly on infant mortality though.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

One reference I have seen to this ratio is in the movie The Pirates of Silicon Valley. Allegely Bill Gates once argued this as proof that exercise is bad since it increases your heartrate; thus shortening your lifespan.

 

[Monique]

The three wealthiest people (and their families) in the world have more assets than the combined wealth of the 48 poorest countries.

Bore-hole seismometry indicates that the land in Oklahoma moves up and down 25cm throughout the day, corresponding with the tides. Earth tides are generally about one-third the size of ocean tides.

 

[The Bob]

The Bob sez: "There is no Albanian word for headache."
I'm not sure what this would mean. They must describe the phenomenon somehow. In English we invented a compound word, so there's no word for headache that's a root part of the English language. In Russian, the word for "hedgehog" is a two-letter root word: ёж. So could Russians say that English doesn't have a "real" word for "hedgehog". The French could also say that English has no word for eborgner ("to put [someone's] eye out")

Well it could be seen that way. I got this one from a book of random facts so not sure how accurate it is but Moonbear (above) found a word for eborgner . And the book also has those acryonms that no one wants.

The Bob (2004 ©)

 

[Mistress Lilith]

If you mouth the word 'colourful' to someone, it looks like you are saying, 'I love you'.

Also the same for mouthing 'elephant shoes'

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Also the same for mouthing 'elephant shoes'

That would explain a very strange experience that I had at the circus...

 

[Ivan Seeking]

...The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny.

...A baby bat is called a pup.

...The poisonous copperhead snake smells like fresh cut cucumbers

...The Antpitta avis canis Ridgley is a bird that looks like a stuffed duck on stilts and barks like a dog. The bird was discovered by ornithologist Robert S. Ridgley in the Andes in Ecuador in June 1998. Thirty of these long-legged, black-and-white barking birds were found. It apparently had gone undetected because it lives in remote parts and, of course, doesn't sing. The size of a duck, it is one of the largest birds discovered in the last 50 years.

...Mosquitoes dislike citronella because it irritates their feet.

...The honeybee kills more people world-wide than all the poisonous snakes combined

...The dog equivalent of catnip is called Stinking Goosefoot, a foul-smelling plant.

...
...In Knoxville, Tennessee, it's against the law to lasso a fish...

...
...A cockroach breaks wind every 15 minutes. ...

Many more
http://www.freakyanimals.com/facts002.shtml

 

[decibel]

A Giraffe can kill a Lion with one kick...

 

[DarkAnt]

I never did trust those giraffes

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Here is a cool thing that I used to do. In the old MRI units, that is Magnetic Resonance Imaging units used for medical procedures, the magnetic field can be up to 1.5 Teslas - a very powerful field indeed. If you stand a sheet of alunimum up on its edge [or any other non-ferrous conductor for that matter], the sheet will fall over very, very slowly. IIRC, in a 08. - 1.0 T field, it takes about thirty seconds to a minute for a 12" X 12" [or so] sheet to fall over if placed in the center of the field. It only falls as quickly as energy is lost due to eddy currents produced in the aluminum as the changing magnetic field - due to the motion of the plate in the field - induces current flow.

Playing with knives in this field was quite fun as well.

 

[Gokul43201]

If I play such games around our 10T magnets, we lose weeks of data, and I get to experience a fair piece of hell.

But here's some fun things to put into your microwave oven :

- AOL CDs that you had set aside for rolling disc experiments,
- Air blown soap, like Ivory
- a fresh grape cut in half, with the 2 halves just barely connected to each other (this could hurt the microwave)
- incandescent light bulb

 

[The Bob]

But here's some fun things to put into your microwave oven :

- AOL CDs that you had set aside for rolling disc experiments,
- Air blown soap, like Ivory
- a fresh grape cut in half, with the 2 halves just barely connected to each other (this could hurt the microwave)
- incandescent light bulb

And the results are?

The Bob (2004 ©)

 

[Entropy]

Go find out yourself.

 

[The Bob]

Go find out yourself.

Just blow up my microwave a bit

The Bob (2004 ©)