Strange Facts!

[amoura_0]

Eyes See Inside Out
The light-detecting receptor cells within the retina, called rods and cones, are actually at the back of the retina under several layers of cells. The neurons and support cells within the retina are fairly translucent, so light is able to pass through them and reach the receptors.

No Octopus Blind Spot
The octopus has a single layer of cells in the back of its eye. These receptor cells project directly back to the brain via the optic nerve. Because the optic nerve forms behind the receptors rather than passing through them, the octopus has no blind spot.

No Pain in Brain
There is no sense of pain within the brain itself. This fact allows neurosurgeons to probe areas of the brain while the patient is awake. Feedback from the patient during these probes is useful for identifying important regions, such as those for speech, that are spared if possible

[amoura_0]

Why Animals Have Big Eyes
Receptor cells in the eye are thought to be capable of detecting single photons, the smallest units of light. Nocturnal animals take advantage of this sensitivity by having large eyes with large apertures to let in as many photons as possible allowing them to see remarkably well at night.

[chip anderson]

Stranger fact on same subject. I used to take retinal pictures. I saw a patient who had a piece of steel exactly the diameter of the optic nerve covering the optic nerve. He saw 20/20 with no field loss. He had gone to the eye doctor and got tired of waiting in the doctor's waiting room, and went home. The steel had been there 20 years. Thank God the patient got tired of waiting and went home. Any ophthalmologist would have felt compelled to remove the foreign body.


Chip

[Sean]

A father Emperor penguin withstands the Antarctic cold for 60 days or more to protect his eggs, which he keeps on his feet, covered with a feathered flap. During this entire time he doesn't eat a thing. Most father penguins lose about 25 pounds while they wait for their babies to hatch. Afterward, they feed the chicks a special liquid from their throats. When the mother penguins return to care for the young, the fathers go to sea to eat and rest.

[Sean]

This 14-year-old pedigreed Chinese crested recently won the Sonoma-Marin Fair contest for the third consecutive time.

[jasupin]

There is a Welsh town called.............Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllll antysiliogogogoch

To extend that fact... I found a website (though I can't vouch for it's authenticity) that has a little article about the longest place name in the world.
THE WORLD'S LONGEST PLACE NAME
THE LONGEST LIST OF THE LONGEST STUFF AT THE LONGEST DOMAIN NAME AT LONG LAST



What is the world's longest place name?





A little village in Wales boasts the longest place name at 58 letters:
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyr
ndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch...

...But New Zealand makes the same claim with a hill containing 92 letters:
Tetaumatawhakatangihangakoauaotamateaurehaeaturipuk
apihimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaakitanarahu...

...But after some further digging we found the winner to be Bangkok. OK, so that's only 7 letters, but the official ceremonial name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon for short meaning 'City of Angels'.

The full name of Bangkok has many variations in spelling but we found what is believed to be the official spelling coming in at 163 letters:
Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakosinmahintarayutthaya
mahadilokphopnopparatrajathaniburiromudomrajaniwesmaha
satharnamornphimarnavatarnsathitsakkattiyavisanukamprasit

- from http://thelongestlistofthelongeststu...m/long200.html

[amoura_0]

A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.!

Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, every time you breathe!

In the White House, there are 13,092 knives, forks and spoons!

Slugs have 4 noses!

Recycling one glass jar, saves enough energy to watch T.V for 3 hours!

Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet!


Owls are one of the only birds who can see the color blue!

[Sean]

To extend that fact... I found a website (though I can't vouch for it's authenticity) that has a little article about the longest place name in the world.
THE WORLD'S LONGEST PLACE NAME
THE LONGEST LIST OF THE LONGEST STUFF AT THE LONGEST DOMAIN NAME AT LONG LAST



What is the world's longest place name?





A little village in Wales boasts the longest place name at 58 letters:
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyr
ndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch...

...But New Zealand makes the same claim with a hill containing 92 letters:
Tetaumatawhakatangihangakoauaotamateaurehaeaturipuk
apihimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaakitanarahu...





...But after some further digging we found the winner to be Bangkok. OK, so that's only 7 letters, but the official ceremonial name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon for short meaning 'City of Angels'.

The full name of Bangkok has many variations in spelling but we found what is believed to be the official spelling coming in at 163 letters:


Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakosinmahintarayutthaya
mahadilokphopnopparatrajathaniburiromudomrajaniwesmaha
satharnamornphimarnavatarnsathitsakkattiyavisanukamprasit

- from http://thelongestlistofthelongeststu...m/long200.html

Thanks for the update........:cheers:

[Sean]

Animal gestation periods: the shortest is the American opossum, which bears its young 12 to 13 days after conception; the longest is the Asiatic elephant, taking 608 days, or just over 20 months.

[rinselberg]

I will work a work in your days which ye will not believe, though it be told you.

... from the Biblical prophet Habakkuk.

Almost halfway through the last century, the British government had detailed plans drawn up to build a giant military aircraft carrier out of ice.



If this sounds like lunacy, there were some exculpatory circumstances. First of all, there was a bit of a war on at the time - World War Two, to be precise - and German submarines were coming dangerously close to closing down England's vital sea lanes from Canada and the United States. There was a great need for military airpower in the middle part of the North Atlantic Ocean - too far away for land-based planes from either the East or West side to cover.

Secondly, the plans were refined to use something better than pure ice. A mixture of ice and wood chips was developed that had some of the strength and workable properties of reinforced concrete. The material was (and still is) known as "pykrete".

The plan called for a huge aircraft carrier with a hull made from pykrete. There would be generators and electric motors to propel the ship without making so much heat as to melt the pykrete. The ship would include equipment to keep the pykrete hull refrigerated. With an outer hull of 40-foot thick pykrete, the proposed ship was thought to be unsinkable by any weapon short of the as yet undeveloped atomic bomb.

One problem: By the time the British could have built even one such ship, they reckoned that they would have already lost the war.

With improvements in the range of land-based aircraft, and a series of other disasters and problems on the German side that tilted the overall balance in favor of the Allies, this "ice-capade" came to an inglorius but predictable end, and all further work on the project was canceled.

Credit: http://jwgibbs.cchem.berkeley.edu/CF.../habakkuk.html

[amoura_0]

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

[fjpod]

We throw away contact lenses after one day, or one week, but we keep contact lens cases for a year.

[amoura_0]

A pregnant goldfish is called a twit. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

[Sean]

Chocolate syrup was used for blood in the famous 45 second shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's movie, Psycho, which actually took 7 days to shoot.

[rinselberg]

Bronze key depicting the Roman god Mercury, dated to the time of the first century BC to the third century AD. Found in Anatolia,Turkey. Credit: The Keyless Lock Store at http://www.nokey.com/ankeymus.html

More from The Keyless Lock Store website:

It has been said that the most ancient lock every discovered is that described by Mr Joseph Bonomi in Nineveh [near what is now Mosul, Iraq] ... as having secured the gate of an apartment in one of the palaces of Khorsabad. He says that the gate was fastened by a large wooden lock like those still used in the East, the wooden key with iron pegs at one end to lift the iron pins in the lock, being as much as a man can carry. Mr Bonomi adds that the length of such keys ranged from thirteen to fourteen inches to two feet or more. In a letter which appeared in a trade journal in 1850 Mr W C Trevelyan said that it was remarkable that the locks which had been in use in the Faroe Islands [in the North Atlantic Ocean], probably for centuries, were identical in their constructions with those of the [ancient] Egyptians. They were, lock and key, in all their parts made of wood; of which material, he believed, were others which had been found in Egyptian Catacombs, thus making the Egyptian so like the Faroese in structure and appearance, that it would not be easy to distinguish one from the other. The frequent mention of locks and keys in the Old Testament is further evidence of their great antiquity ...


Drawing of the ancient lock and key of Nineveh. From Youngfolk's Book of Invention at http://www.usgennet.org/usa/topic/pr...ions/chpt8.htm



The UAE (United Arab Emirates) was the country at the center of the recent US port terminals controversy. Why are they known as America's "Top Gun" in the Middle East? RinselNews™ has the answer: See http://www.laramyk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=207

[hcjilson]

This coming Wednesday at 2 minutes, 3 seconds after 1:00am the time will read:

01:02:03 04/05/06

This not happen again until 2106 when we will probably be too infirm to celebrate.

[rinselberg]

... this would be the face of Einstein today -





- instead of this one.



Albert Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity in 1915, at the age of 36.



It was his last major contribution to the science of physics.


Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity (1905) and General Theory of Relativity (1915) made him a revolutionary on the world stage of twentieth century physics, and established his credentials, still valid today, as the world's most celebrated scientist since Isaac Newton.

In 1929 Einstein published a "Unified Field Theory", attempting to reconcile the physics of large scale phenomena like stars and planets with the newly emerging and even more revolutionary world of quantum physics - a world populated by subatomic particles that - in accordance with a mysterious new set of rules that begin with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle - accomplish the seemingly impossible feat of existing in two different places at the very same moment of time.

But Einstein's Unified Field Theory was a scientific failure. The new priesthood of quantum physicists quickly demonstrated its shortcomings, and within a few short years Einstein had to retract it.




Quantum superposition: It's as if a compass needle were pointing to magnetic north and magnetic south at the very same time. And there was even more for Einstein not to like about the brave new world of quantum physics, starting with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which states the impossibility of knowing with arbitrary precision a subatomic particle's location and energy at any given moment. More certainty of its location could only be obtained by measurements that would create more uncertainty about its energy level - and vice versa.



Einstein couldn't reconcile himself to the implications of quantum physics. He was certain that God's creation, the universe, had to be orderly and predictable, if it were only possible to recover all of the information that was available at the very first instant of time. He wasn't prepared to coexist with the uncertainties and random possibilities that are at the heart of quantum physics. He summarized his position in a signature statement: "God does not play dice with the universe." Although his famous equation e=mc² was the principle of the atomic bomb, Einstein made no further scientific contribution to the Manhattan Project - the monumental enterprise that developed the world's first nuclear weapons.





Schrodinger's Cat: The most celebrated "feline" in the history of science was an icon of the new quantum priesthood.



The scientific world had come to revere him for his earlier accomplishments, but as a theoretical physicist, he never again "hit the long ball" after reaching the age of 36, in 1915. The high priest of time and space had lost his acolytes. In their private moments, the newly minted quantum physicists probably shrugged their shoulders and wondered why the old man wouldn't or couldn't reinvent himself and keep up with the times. The twentieth century passed its midpoint, and Einstein's seat on the train was empty. He was lost somewhere, back at the station.


From 1930 to his last day of life in 1955, Einstein single-mindedly pursued what has come to be called "The Theory of Everything" - a perfected version of his failed Unified Field Theory - but he never found the answers he was looking for.



Einstein, after 1930 - ala the late American humorist Jean Shepherd:

Blah-blah-blah Schrodinger's Cat. Blah-blah-blah the Uncertainty Principle. Blah-blah-blah the whole damn (quantum) thing ...

If commercial broadcast television had been born earlier, it might have unfolded like this:


Well Joe, do you think we'll ever see Albert publish again at the Nobel Prize level?


I don't know Jon. Thirty-eight, thirty-nine - even the best trained minds start to have trouble getting around on those ten-dimensional spacetime vectors ...






Sign Of The Times: GTR (the General Theory of Relativity) dates back to 1915. They're experimenting with new ways to measure the effects of GTR in the universe of today.



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rinselberg pays homage to Cadillac's "Art and Science" design philosophy. Click on the poster art for more about rinselberg™.

[rinselberg]

Ever get hit with a ton of -- quark?

In May 2002, a group of researchers at SMU (Southern Methodist University) reported the possibility that strange matter may have been responsible for two unexplained seismic events recorded on October 22 and November 24 in 1993; they proposed that two strangelets of unknown mass moving at roughly 400 kilometers per second had passed through the Earth, generating seismic shock waves along their paths. . . . It has been suggested that the IMS (International Monitoring System) for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty may be useful as a sort of "strangelet observatory", using the entire Earth as its detector: The IMS will be designed to detect anomalous seismic disturbances as small as the equivalent of a single ton of TNT (or less), and could be used to track strangelets passing through Earth in real time, if properly exploited.

Strange matter is an ultra-dense phase of matter that is theorized to form inside particularly massive neutron stars.

If a "strangelet", or volume of strange matter as small as a single human blood cell could be weighed on a balance scale, it would register as much as a single ton, or even ten tons, depending on its exact state of condensation.


BaBar particle detector data - Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. What strange matter would look like to a particle physicist - not a whole ton of it, but maybe 0.0000000000000000001 tons or something like that ...

If the suspicious seismic data recordings are actually the signatures of strangelets, they were invisibly small, blood cell sized fragments of strange matter that collided with the earth, at about ten times the ingress speed of an average meteor or meteorite. The ultra-dense strangelet would have drilled straight through the earth's crust, deep into the mantle and then exited from the earth's crust almost a half-world away from its entry point, boring an invisibly small tunnel in the earth's rock, all the way along its path. Its path would have been perfectly straight, essentially unperturbed by the collision, and it would have travelled through the earth and then exited at almost exactly the same speed as it entered. The strangelet would have passed through the earth's entire domain in less than sixty seconds.

The strangelet would have delivered about the same energy as a fifty kiloton atomic bomb - but, because that energy was spread uniformly all along the thousands of kilometers of its path through the earth, from ingress to egress on the other side of the world - the event would not have been noticeable to anyone, except as a seismic disturbance.

However, the seismic (sound) waves produced by such an event would be radically different in character than anything that could be caused by any known or imaginable kind of earthquake - and it was these unique sonic signatures, recorded at seismograph stations, that led the SMU scientists to offer the hypothesis of an earth-strangelet collision.

To read more about this story:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.02/matter_pr.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2502755.stm
http://www.smu.edu/newsinfo/releases/01342.html

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangelets



The invisible ninja soldier - is it closer to reality than you might think?
http://www.optiboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17042

[Shwing]

What future president appears with George Washington in the famous Emanuel Leutze painting: George Washington Crossing the Delaware?

[Spexvet]

George Washington?

[Shwing]

Hahaha!

Actually, you are absolutely correct (Washington was not yet president), but I was looking for another future president...

[rinselberg]

Read more about Antares underwater telescope:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0404201252.htm
http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/474.htm
http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Nw/antares.asp
http://antares.in2p3.fr/



Only you can prevent CPU fires

[DRAINGE1]

It's illegal to drink beer out of a bucket while you're sitting on a curb in St. Louis!

[Sean]

Hahaha!

Actually, you are absolutely correct (Washington was not yet president), but I was looking for another future president...

My first guess would be James Monroe..........if not him then..... maybe Madison?

[Shwing]

Very good.

Lt. Jame Monroe was the officer standing behind Washington, holding the American flag.