MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Cigarette filters were designed to give a false impression of safety and may actually increase harm.
Until I did the drawing for yesterday's Inktober - I did not know that elephants had hairy tongues
A lemur has two tongues.
Gary Numan is older than Gary Oldman.
A woodpecker can lick its own brain.
#tonguefacts
A hummingbird can have a tongue twice as long as it's beak. And it curls around the skull when retracted.
#tonguefacts
So far, six out of six unknown for me
7 out of 7 for me...@feed's was a total surprise!
@desperatebicycle's is the one I'm struggling to fully comprehend...
The time from T-Rex (not you Bolan!) to the present is less than the time from Stegosaurus to T-Rex.
Karl Hyde of Underworld fame is only 2 years younger than my mum 😳, and to think I’ve spent the best part of 30+years getting off my tits and dancing like a loon to Underworld (seen them 13 times in total)
Related to tongue facts - there's an orchid called the Darwin orchid (Angraceum) which hides its nectar at the end of a 30cm+ long tube. Darwin postulated that it must be pollinated by a moth with a very long proboscis but there was no known moth that fitted the bill. The moth was eventually found over 20 years after Darwin died.
@desperatebicycle's is the one I'm struggling to fully comprehend...
It's not dissimilar to the woodpecker above - that uses its tongue to cushion its brain when it's, uh, woodpeckering.
There’s a surprising number of animals with very long tongues, to get at nectar, termites and larvae of boring insects.
My brain is full of all sorts of bizarre facts, accumulated over decades of being interested in all sorts of different subjects.
Trouble is, remembering them when I need them… 🤷🏼♂️
New Mexico is older than Mexico.
I didn't realise that I know things about rivers. Won the pub quiz last night thanks to my knowledge on the river that flows through Baghdad and the number of countries the Amazon flows through.
A giraffe's tongue is about 1/2 a metre long
Gary Numan is older than Gary Oldman.
Two days IIRC (saw this on Popbitch a while ago)
Run DMC's debut album and Prince's Purple Rain were both released closer to WW2 than to now.
I'm pretty sure they were in the last thread we did like this.
I didn't know that 😂
I thought the Gary Numan Gary Oldman age thing was the most known unknown fact in the world
Anything released before 1985 is closer to WW2 then now.
Jam Master Jay off of Run DMC was shot dead 23 years ago. He knew the shooters - it was over drugs 🙁
Anything released before 1985 is closer to WW2 then now.
Aye aye Captain Obvious, you are correct. I picked two albums by way of illustration.
Blueberries are not technically blue.
I recently attended a University open day with my son and one of the introductory talks included a mini lecture by a very enthusiastic physicist. Much of it went over my head but the gist was there is not a true blue pigment in the natural world, so plants and animals have to perform molecular tricks to make them appear blue to the human eye.
If it interests you, there's more explanation here https://www.popsci.com/science/blueberries-are-not-blue/
I recently attended a University open day with my son and one of the introductory talks included a mini lecture by a very enthusiastic physicist. Much of it went over my head but the gist was there is not a true blue pigment in the natural world, so plants and animals have to perform molecular tricks to make them appear blue to the human eye.
I have heard that in birds there is no such thing as blue or green, and they have microscopic crystalline structures in their feathers that reflect blue/green instead of pigment for those colours, but didn't know that applied to pretty much everything!
Re. woodpeckers and their tongues, there is also research that says it's not actually for shock absorption at all. Just for tongue storage, I guess. Though that article does not say why they have the spongy bone in their skulls, if it's not used for cushioning.
Technically not blue.
The best kind of not blue.
It's often thought that medieval beer was quite weak. Given it was used as a substitute by everyone for clean drinking water when that was unavailable. Susan Flavin, a colleague of my wife has finally did some experimental archeology and brewed some beer following a medieval reciepe. It came out at about 5%
now, that doesn't mean all medieval beer was that strong but it was a well researched recipe tat was thought to produce beer at about 1.5-2% Some building workers were part-paid in beer and the allowance was as much as 15 pints a day.
They either had some pretty high tolerance or they were alll absolutely trollied for a good part of the day
I remember reading somewhere that they used the mash 3 times. The first brewing would give the strongest (5 to 6% ish) beer that was drunk on high days and celebrations. The next brewing would produce a much weaker (2 isjh %) beer that was the everyday drink of most adults and the final brewing gave "small beer" that had barely any alcohol in it and was drunk by children and pregnant women.
It's often thought that medieval beer was quite weak. Given it was used as a substitute by everyone for clean drinking water when that was unavailable. Susan Flavin, a colleague of my wife has finally did some experimental archeology and brewed some beer following a medieval reciepe. It came out at about 5%
now, that doesn't mean all medieval beer was that strong but it was a well researched recipe tat was thought to produce beer at about 1.5-2% Some building workers were part-paid in beer and the allowance was as much as 15 pints a day.
They either had some pretty high tolerance or they were alll absolutely trollied for a good part of the day
I remember reading somewhere that they used the mash 3 times.
Sounds like parti-gyling. Fullers still use that technique.
quote data-userid="29166" data-postid="13646152"]
I didn't realise that I know things about rivers. Won the pub quiz last night thanks to my knowledge on the river that flows through Baghdad and the number of countries the Amazon flows through.
Surely everyone knows that Bagdad is north of Brighton and the Derwent, and south of Kempton.
It's often thought that medieval beer was quite weak. Given it was used as a substitute by everyone for clean drinking water when that was unavailable. Susan Flavin, a colleague of my wife has finally did some experimental archeology and brewed some beer following a medieval reciepe. It came out at about 5%
now, that doesn't mean all medieval beer was that strong but it was a well researched recipe tat was thought to produce beer at about 1.5-2% Some building workers were part-paid in beer and the allowance was as much as 15 pints a day.
They either had some pretty high tolerance or they were alll absolutely trollied for a good part of the day
As a sad beer nerd (actually wrote a MA thesis on it) I've read a fair bit about British beer history.
Sadly the best writer, Martyn Cornell, died recently, but he wrote a good post on medieval water myths a while back.
Also he and Ron Perkins wrote a lot about 19th century beer and IIRC working people did drink 10+ pints of 6+% porter daily. Seems mad now.
One that I only clocked this year:
Edinburgh is further west than Bristol.
There’s a surprising number of animals with very long tongues, to get at nectar, termites and larvae of boring insects.
How do they get the exciting ones?
The woodpeckers tounge is similar, but its acts as a shock absorber/suspension system for its brain, for when it repatedly smashes its head into trees.
#tonguefacts
10+ pints of 6+% porter daily. Seems mad now.
Maybe that's why we didn't have straight roads until the Romans came along? 😆
Dogs can potentially detect the smell of their owners up to 12 miles away. They can also sniff and breathe out at the same time.
[quote data-userid="68" data-postid="13646189"
Run DMC's debut album and Prince's Purple Rain were both released closer to WW2 than to now.
That hit my wife hard.....
One of the few (may have been the only one) ships that survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour undamaged was finally sunk a little over 40 years later - by the Royal Navy.
The Belgrano was originally commissioned by the USN as USS Pheonix. It was sold to Argentina in 1951.
Also, the US alone has lost 3 nuclear warheads. One is of a magnitude of 1.7 megatonnes and is thought to be not far off the Atlantic coast of Georgia.
One of the few (may have been the only one) ships that survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour
A lot of ships survived the attack, many were undamaged, some had minor damage. Several battleships were sunk but some were refloated and repaired.
I amended my post to read slightly better (and more accurate). 👍
A lot of ships survived the attack
Of the 21 damaged,or sunk, all but 3 were returned to service, and most by about the following Feb (1942). One of the ships - Utah chosen to be memorialised was a target/training ship anyway. Ten out of ten for spectacular coup de main, minus several hundred for actual damage and long term consequences for the Japanese Navy
Also, the US alone has lost 3 nuclear warheads.
Six, apparently. Thing is, some of them aren't lost in the sense of they don't know where they are, just in the sense that they can't be recovered. There is basically zero chance of any of them detonating by accident, but the radioactive material will eventually leak out, even if it's a timescale of many centuries.
Anything released before 1985 is closer to WW2 then now.
So I sat my O levels half way in time between now and WW2? 🤯
The borrowed car in which Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were shot, had the reg plate A111118 - the date of the end of WW1.
One that I only clocked this year:
Edinburgh is further west than Bristol.
Inverness is west of Swansea
Also, the US alone has lost 3 nuclear warheads.
the US also accidentally dropped four nuclear bombs on Spain in 1966. And also hasn't finished cleaning the contamination yet although it does still pay for annual health checks for residents in the contaminated area.
and the number of countries the Amazon flows through
I learned this year that non of those countries have built a bridge over the amazon