I Didn't Know That

Chris Peterson · Post by **Chris Peterson** » Tue Jun 04, 2013 3:11 am

geckzilla wrote:I knew the tiles on the space shuttles were special but I didn't realize they were quite like this:

Yes, I have a couple of the tiles. In class, I heat one up with a torch while a student holds it. Very cool (literally!)

geckzilla · Post by **geckzilla** » Tue Jun 04, 2013 3:17 am

Well, shoot. Wish I grew up in Guffey.

Beyond · Post by **Beyond** » Tue Jun 04, 2013 8:14 pm

Why Finnish babies sleep in cardboard boxes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22751415

BMAONE23 · Post by **BMAONE23** » Tue Jun 04, 2013 9:15 pm

Beyond wrote:Why Finnish babies sleep in cardboard boxes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22751415

What an Idea. And look what happened to the Infant mortality rate as a side effect.

geckzilla · Post by **geckzilla** » Wed Jun 05, 2013 2:57 am

Didn't know one could use horses to launch a sailplane. Makes sense, though, just never thought of doing it. I always dreamed of a bike that could fly and pedal around to wherever I wanted to when I was a kid. I guess that's slightly more feasible than wanting to be a dinosaur...nahhh
http://framework.latimes.com/2013/05/21 ... sailplane/

Beyond · Post by **Beyond** » Wed Jun 05, 2013 3:26 am

YEE HAA!!

Giddy up up and away.

Beyond · Post by **Beyond** » Fri Jun 14, 2013 9:47 am

Czechs present bicycle that can fly.
http://www.wfsb.com/story/22570157/czec ... at-can-fly

Beyond · Post by **Beyond** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 12:43 am

A dozen pictures of aircraft breaking the sound barrier.

http://www.techgraffiti.com/news-sonic-boom?image=5

geckzilla · Post by **geckzilla** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 12:52 am

Those are vapor cones which do not necessarily represent the exact moment which mach 1 is achieved.

Beyond · Post by **Beyond** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 2:54 am

geckzilla wrote:Those are vapor cones which do not necessarily represent the exact moment which mach 1 is achieved.

Yes... but perhaps they did occur in these pictures, and that's why Michele Collet used them?

geckzilla · Post by **geckzilla** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 3:10 am

She doesn't even call them vapor cones. She refers to them as sonic booms.

Beyond · Post by **Beyond** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 3:14 am

geckzilla wrote:She doesn't even call them vapor cones. She refers to them as sonic booms.

Read the caption for APOD 19 August 2007, Sonic Boom. Second from last sentence. Also, not all of them look like cones.

geckzilla · Post by **geckzilla** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 3:20 am

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070819.html
The APOD description is quite dubious, Beyond. You're going to have to do better than that.

Beyond · Post by **Beyond** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 3:23 am

geckzilla wrote:http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070819.html
The APOD description is quite dubious, Beyond. You're going to have to do better than that.

I don't have to do anything. I just liked the pictures. And the 2007 APOD also says that the picture was taken as the plane was breaking the sound barrier.

geckzilla · Post by **geckzilla** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 3:35 am

Allegedly.

Ann · Post by **Ann** » Sat Jun 22, 2013 6:30 pm

Real life heroes save little girl falling from window in China:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Ann

Ann · Post by **Ann** » Sat Jun 22, 2013 6:38 pm

Cat nurses abandoned pit bull puppy:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Ann

henry654 · Post by **henry654** » Fri Jun 28, 2013 1:25 pm

that's pretty cool I never knew that either

Beyond · Post by **Beyond** » Sat Jun 29, 2013 3:51 am

Fluffy Cows.

: th-14.jpg (14.34 KiB) Viewed 6928 times

http://www.wfsb.com/story/22716342/fluf ... -new-craze

Beyond · Post by **Beyond** » Sat Jun 29, 2013 1:30 pm

Man made snakes can get into just about everything.

http://news.discovery.com/tech/robotics ... cpgn=otbn1
Click on one of the 8 blue squares to see other ones.

Beyond · Post by **Beyond** » Sat Jun 29, 2013 1:45 pm

Top 10 uses for the world's strongest material, Graphene.
http://news.discovery.com/tech/nanotech ... cpgn=otbn1

Beyond · Post by **Beyond** » Tue Jul 02, 2013 7:17 pm

New Chinese Law: Visit Your Parents.
http://www.wfsb.com/story/22740821/new- ... ur-parents

Beyond · Post by **Beyond** » Fri Jul 05, 2013 3:17 am

New Coney Island hot dog eating record. http://www.wfsb.com/story/22756831/ches ... ng-contest

geckzilla · Post by **geckzilla** » Sun Jul 07, 2013 4:58 am

Aquaporins. Proteins in your cell membranes which facilitate rapid diffusion of water molecules through the membranes they're embedded in.
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/aquaporins/

This is killing me, though. They supposedly let three billion water molecules through per second, which pretty much blows my mind into the same quasi-functional state it goes into when I try to read about quantum mechanics. Even though I believe it as a fact without seeing it happen I don't totally believe it because it seems impossible. I decided to try to calculate (note: I suck at this. I don't trust that the following is totally correct.) how fast the water molecules would have to be traveling in order to achieve that volume. Supposing the protein channel is 3 nm long, each molecule would have to move .9 m/s which is a far cry from the astronomically high velocity I was imagining. Hmm.

Beyond · Post by **Beyond** » Sun Jul 07, 2013 1:19 pm

Well, to something the size of a water molecule, it may just be an astronomical speed, IF it could understand astronomical.

I suck worse than you at scientific calculations. But .9m/s is about 3-inches per second. For something as small as a water molecule to travel about 3-inches a second, would seem to me, comparatively speaking, to be an astronomical speed. But i could be all wet about it.

EDIT: A water molecule is 0.278nm in length.

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