June 2010
1 post
May 2010
3 posts
Water DOESN'T conduct electricity
Another huge but entirely reasonable myth that science teachers worldwide have been fooling us for years with. Water.
Of course it conducts electricity, right? Wrong!
Most people have witnessed it in little experiments conducted chemistry classes. Well, the truth is that the water that we know and love is in fact, unpure. Tap water, and even bottled water, contains several minerals and...
Man survives 70 years without food or water
The Indian Military are currently studying a man who has apparently survived for the past 70 years without consuming any food or water.
Doctors confirmed at a press conference (in the link) that the man had been in the hospital for 108 hours without eating or drinking. The 82 year old man says that he hasn’t ate or drank since the age of 11.
Research into how this man has survived can lead...
Hidden floors on skyscrapers?
Countries that suffer widespread triskaidekaphobia, will miss out an entire floor on their skyscraper building plan. That is, not many buildings will have a 13th floor.
As illogical as this is, it is true. Why tempt fate? This includes countries like the United States and England, so you will struggle to find a 13th floor on a skyscaper in either New York or London.
Or is it completely logical?...
April 2010
19 posts
In some countries it is your legal right to have...
At some point last year, Finland was the first country to declare that having access to the internet is a legal right. Since then, other countries such as France have joined in and now countries like the US and the UK are really begining to lag behind.
At the moment people in Finland have the legal right to have access to 1 megabit broadband, and there are plans to expand this to 100 megabit by...
The bees are dying - we are all doomed!
Due to disease rapidly spreading amongst the bee population, the fate of humanity also lies in the balance. This may sound a bit Hollywood to you, but it is a genuine concern.
The honey making stingers we all know to fear have been rapidly decreasing in numbers for quite a few years now, although the government hasn’t invested in enough research to get to the root, or solve, the problem.
...
Total Solar Eclipses
The odds of total eclipses actually happening are tremendous, and we are probably at the only stage in human history that humans will ever get to experience one. Count yourself very very very lucky.
A total solar eclipse is when the moon completely blocks out the sun. We had one a few years back and there will be another in a few years. Although one day our moon will just completely stop doing...
Why do flies like weird things like poo and...
Flies (and a lot of other insects) are dumb things aren’t they? They are attracted to the weirdest things, but why?
I started this post talking about lights, but then I realised, they also hang around decay (for example, poo), so I’m going to answer both questions, which have two completely opposite explanations.
First off, lights. Flies are attracted to lights because they have...
Farmville is more popular than all of Twitter
Farmville, the Facebook Application that tempts me to delete friends all too many times, has a considerable amount of more visitors than Twitter, the website that many marketing analysts are touting as the future.
The article I’m referencing was published four months ago but the figures are so strong that this is unlikely to have changed, however Farmville commands about 70 million active...
Immortality is a reality
Immortality isn’t as impossible as we have come to think, unfortunately, humans don’t have such an ability, however… A certain species of jellyfish (and tree) can get away with it.
The turritopsis nutricula, or immortal jellyfish for you and me, is only ~5mm in size, and has the ability to regress back to it’s infancy stage, which means that it doesn’t have to get...
10 ridiculous laws that are still in effect - UK...
I saw this as a Facebook group and thought it would be perfect for the blog, I’ll post a US version soon,
It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament.
It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside-down.
In Liverpool , it is illegal for a woman to be topless except as a clerk in a tropical fish store
Mince pies cannot be eaten on...
Our universe is in a "golden age"
The science-types hae split the stages of a universe into several stages, they are based on energy which is in theory limited:
Expansion - Soon after “the start”, or the Big Bang, everything expands away fast and planets begin their life. Lots of energy.
Golden Age - We are at the start of this stage now, where energy is in full supply, this is the stage where we can use energy,...
The internet was first built to warn against...
The first basic concept of the internet (broken down it means seperate computer networks communicating with each other), was perceived by the US military.
The military used pings (think of a ping as asking “hello, are you there?”) to determine whether a military base had been bombed. Each military base pinged another military base regularly, if a military base didnt respond to the...
Jews are rich
I can hear you saying “No shit, Sherlock”, au contraire mon ami… I bet you don’t know the reason why they are generally rich?
Basically, in the middle ages it was perceived as a Christian sin to charge interest on anything… Including money. However, the monarchs realised that the ability to charge interest was essential for a healthy economy (For what other reason...
Some tribes still haven't been discovered
There are some tribes in the Amazon that are so inaccessible that the Western World still haven’t discovered them yet.
They live in the Amazon without a clue, basically. It’s inaccurate to say that they have no contact with the outside world themselves, as they probably conduct small amounts of trade with ‘locals’ who don’t really represent the Western World.
I saw this picture in the paper...
Ginger hair could be extinct soon
Starting in Europe thousands of years ago, ginger hair is a result of a genetic mutation (Ginger didn’t just “exist”), and nowadays only about 2% of the population have naturally ginger, or red, hair.
Scientist-types think that gingers could be extinct in as little as 100 years. What is causing the problem is not because ginger people are ugly (Hey, I’m a big fan of red...
If sperm gets into your eye, it tries to penetrate...
This fact is simply awesome.
Sperm, not having any eyes of it’s own, can’t tell the difference between a human eye, and a human egg, so it treats them the same.
Whilst looking for an article on the interweb, I also found a US company that sells celebrity look-a-like sperm.
The internet won’t back me up, there are too many people asking what to do in the unfortunate event so...
You can't print/scan money
Most computer software refuses to do anything with images of money due to an agreement with various governments.
But how can the software tell? If you look at your cash, You will see a series of patterned dots. These dots are in a specific pattern which the software can recognise, and then refuse to do anything with the image. This certainly applies for Photoshop, the most commonly used image...
Green ISNT environmentally friendly
Although green is used to portray being environmentally friendly, it is quite the opposite.
Most methods of producing green ink/colouring, are relatively more harmful to the environment that other colours.
The internet said so
Time Travel, in theory, is possible
One of my favourites. Although it’s not widely accepted, the theory is that time travel is possible, although we don’t have the technology to build what is required, yet.
Basically it would require a HUGE hadron collider, much bigger than the one built undernearth France and Switzerland - in fact, it would need to be built in space.
The Hadron Collider would need to shoot atoms at...
We only have about 40 years worth of oil left
At current consumption rates we have 40 years worth of oil left.
Oil is used in everything from driving cars to being used in chemicals like paint.
I don’t think we have to worry too much though, because we are researching into cleaner/renewal sources for energy such as Hydrogen power - Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical on Earth (Water molecules are made of two parts hydrogen).
The...
Dolphins (or Wales) don't sleep.
Unlike humans, dolphins are “concious breathers” meaning that they have to think about breathing. This is because of an even more interesting fact, they can’t breathe underwater!
What dolphins need to do is go to the surface for air, meaning they have to think about swimming upwards, which means they can’t sleep (or else they might forget!)
The internet said so