This is also quite false. Some aquarium fish are actually smart enough to separate who feeds them from other people. Which is also... useless trivia...
well, i didn't say all aquarium fish, i said 'gold fish'.
The word "trivia", supposedly, comes from ancient Rome. By decree, or just commonality, whenever there was a fork in the road (diagram: -<), someone would put a stupid or useless fact on a sign post (under the markers for where the roads lead). When you look at the root of the word 'Trivia', it's 'tri' + 'via' (and romanticists should chime in here to say) 'tri' means three, and 'via' means road.
Gecko's ability to walk on glass is due to capillary forces in microscopic hairs on their feet
I don't want to disappoint you, but both of these are false...
A goldfish can't see infrared light because water only let visible light go through (oh, and radio waves and gamma rays but that's another story...) Even if their eyes were sensible to it, they wouldn't find much to look at. That's the reason "visible light" is in that frequency range: our eyes are full of water and they evolved while we were still aquatic creatures. They adapted to be able to see what light was avalaible.
It was recently shown that capillary forces are not sufficient to explain the gecko's incredible grip. You need to go at an even lower level: the hairs are so small that they interact at the atomic level. The hair polarizes the atoms and changes the electric field. Damn impressive, that's all I can say.
It was recently shown that capillary forces are not sufficient to explain the gecko's incredible grip. You need to go at an even lower level: the hairs are so small that they interact at the atomic level. The hair polarizes the atoms and changes the electric field. Damn impressive, that's all I can say.
but do the gecko's know this? do they hang around in gangs and have contests on who can polorise thier hairs the quickest?
well, that's not completely useless, if true. i've heard it, and never really did any scientific type of tests. my bro told me to put hot water into the ice cube trays, cuz it freezes quicker. i say, "that doesn't make any sense." i can't think of a logical explanation for it. freezing is just a matter of depleting energy (lowering the temperature), so something which is closer to that end state (in temperature) would, logically, be quicker to hit that state. i played the idea off of my friend's mom (a chemistry/science teacher), and she told me its guff; but i got the feeling that she was just going off the same type of idea i was; and not basing it on any specific knowledge. the end difference between ice-water->cubes and hot-water->cubes is probably negligible.
this has never been proven or it's been proven, but not to everone's satisfaction.
according to the book "what einstein told his cook" by robert l. wolke, in a shallow pan hot water may indeed freeze faster than cold water but this is likely because hot water is evaporating at a faster rate than cold water, so if you start with equal amounts of water they will not in fact be equal at the time of freezing.
but the biigest problem with testing the theory is deciding the criteria of freezing, frozen solid or first to form a layer of ice on the top? in the latter case the overall water temperature may be warmer on the container that freezes on top first. as for frozen solid, how do you tell which is frozen first?
no offense to canadians, but the theory is believed to originated in our large neighbor to the north who don't seem to have much to do other than watch water freeze. no, just kidding, they got hockey (perhaps this is the frozen water connection, eh?) .....HIT SOMEBODY!
reminds me of the "turkeys are so stupid they'll look up at the rain until the drown".
snopes has it as urban legend, a few .edu sites have it listed as fact. i e-mailed a turkey farmer to see if i could get a solid answer. neither source looked all that impressive.
reminds me of the "turkeys are so stupid they'll look up at the rain until the drown".
This is definately true, but only for farm-raised turkeys. Wild turkeys are actually quite intelligent birds.
And to add on to the octopus topic, my dad worked with a guy that witnessed that. He had a pair of octupi, each in a separate tank, and the tanks were separated from each other by a few other tanks. What would happen was that he would leave the lab for the night, and when he returned in the morning, the two octupi would be hanging out together in one of the tanks. It turns out that one of them wanted to be social, so it actually jumped out of its tank, and leap-frogged from tank to tank until it got to its buddy.
Weird, huh? I mean, it's remarkable that they get out of their tanks to explore at all, but actually calculating jumps and performing them - that's crazy!
Comments
Originally posted by JC
it is not possible for a human to lick his/her own elbow
Unless you're Gene Simmons of Kiss.
it'll be fun to watch her try.
Originally posted by Matt Danger
It's true, I once tried for a really long time.
Originally posted by New
This is also quite false. Some aquarium fish are actually smart enough to separate who feeds them from other people. Which is also... useless trivia...
well, i didn't say all aquarium fish, i said 'gold fish'.
The word "trivia", supposedly, comes from ancient Rome. By decree, or just commonality, whenever there was a fork in the road (diagram: -<), someone would put a stupid or useless fact on a sign post (under the markers for where the roads lead). When you look at the root of the word 'Trivia', it's 'tri' + 'via' (and romanticists should chime in here to say) 'tri' means three, and 'via' means road.
Originally posted by curiousuburb
Goldfish can see Infra-red
Gecko's ability to walk on glass is due to capillary forces in microscopic hairs on their feet
I don't want to disappoint you, but both of these are false...
A goldfish can't see infrared light because water only let visible light go through (oh, and radio waves and gamma rays but that's another story...) Even if their eyes were sensible to it, they wouldn't find much to look at. That's the reason "visible light" is in that frequency range: our eyes are full of water and they evolved while we were still aquatic creatures. They adapted to be able to see what light was avalaible.
It was recently shown that capillary forces are not sufficient to explain the gecko's incredible grip. You need to go at an even lower level: the hairs are so small that they interact at the atomic level. The hair polarizes the atoms and changes the electric field. Damn impressive, that's all I can say.
Originally posted by Matlock
It was recently shown that capillary forces are not sufficient to explain the gecko's incredible grip. You need to go at an even lower level: the hairs are so small that they interact at the atomic level. The hair polarizes the atoms and changes the electric field. Damn impressive, that's all I can say.
but do the gecko's know this? do they hang around in gangs and have contests on who can polorise thier hairs the quickest?
Originally posted by cybermonkey
but do the gecko's know this? do they hang around in gangs and have contests on who can polorise thier hairs the quickest?
They sure do!
(This kind of trivia - something which virtually everyone already knows - is referred to as a "Frank Beard")
Originally posted by alcimedes
hot water will freeze faster than cold water.
well, that's not completely useless, if true. i've heard it, and never really did any scientific type of tests. my bro told me to put hot water into the ice cube trays, cuz it freezes quicker. i say, "that doesn't make any sense." i can't think of a logical explanation for it. freezing is just a matter of depleting energy (lowering the temperature), so something which is closer to that end state (in temperature) would, logically, be quicker to hit that state. i played the idea off of my friend's mom (a chemistry/science teacher), and she told me its guff; but i got the feeling that she was just going off the same type of idea i was; and not basing it on any specific knowledge. the end difference between ice-water->cubes and hot-water->cubes is probably negligible.
the software component that linked scanners to computers was titled TWAIN...
Technology Without An Interesting Name.
strange but true
Originally posted by alcimedes
hot water will freeze faster than cold water.
this has never been proven or it's been proven, but not to everone's satisfaction.
according to the book "what einstein told his cook" by robert l. wolke, in a shallow pan hot water may indeed freeze faster than cold water but this is likely because hot water is evaporating at a faster rate than cold water, so if you start with equal amounts of water they will not in fact be equal at the time of freezing.
but the biigest problem with testing the theory is deciding the criteria of freezing, frozen solid or first to form a layer of ice on the top? in the latter case the overall water temperature may be warmer on the container that freezes on top first. as for frozen solid, how do you tell which is frozen first?
no offense to canadians, but the theory is believed to originated in our large neighbor to the north who don't seem to have much to do other than watch water freeze.
this has never been proven or it's been proven, but not to everone's satisfaction.
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physic...hot_water.html
it's a long read, but fun.
Originally posted by curiousuburb
in the heydey of computer acronyms (not sure if it ever ended, but it did peak)
the software component that linked scanners to computers was titled TWAIN...
Technology Without An Interesting Name.
strange but true
Whoa!
Originally posted by Ebby
Whoa!
but do you know what "taint" means?
snopes has it as urban legend, a few .edu sites have it listed as fact. i e-mailed a turkey farmer to see if i could get a solid answer. neither source looked all that impressive.
Originally posted by alcimedes
reminds me of the "turkeys are so stupid they'll look up at the rain until the drown".
unlike ducks, puffins wings aren't water resistant so they stand on the shore with wings spread drying them....often in the rain.
opus from bloom county was more puffin than penquin if truth be told.
Originally posted by alcimedes
reminds me of the "turkeys are so stupid they'll look up at the rain until the drown".
This is definately true, but only for farm-raised turkeys. Wild turkeys are actually quite intelligent birds.
And to add on to the octopus topic, my dad worked with a guy that witnessed that. He had a pair of octupi, each in a separate tank, and the tanks were separated from each other by a few other tanks. What would happen was that he would leave the lab for the night, and when he returned in the morning, the two octupi would be hanging out together in one of the tanks. It turns out that one of them wanted to be social, so it actually jumped out of its tank, and leap-frogged from tank to tank until it got to its buddy.
Weird, huh? I mean, it's remarkable that they get out of their tanks to explore at all, but actually calculating jumps and performing them - that's crazy!