Tell Me Something I Don't Know

[mjr]

You do not like it, Sam-I-Am?



BTW, a little OT, but I remember this fondly to this day. Rev. Jesse Jackson's rendition...

There's also a version of "The Cat in the Hat" written in Latin...It's called "Cattus Petasatus"

[SongsOfDragons]

A specific species of Anglerfish has an interesting way of mating...

The males are significantly smaller than the females, and their sole "purpose" is to find and mate with a female. If they don't, they'll starve.

The male anglerfish essentially bites the female, and releases an enzyme that essentially fuses the two together. At some point, the male anglerfish atrophies, and it looks like the female has parasites attached to her.

On this episode of 'Adventurous Sex of the Animal Kingdom'...

Flatworms!!

Flatworms and their epic mating sport of Penis fencing!!!

They wage battle with each other, vying to be the one to stab the other first in this, the sport of invertebrate kings. The loser verily becomes the mother.

[Tama]

Funny you should mention the male anglerfish.

How the male angler fish gets completely screwed

[BookstoreEscapee]

Funny you should mention the male anglerfish.

How the male angler fish gets completely screwed

Speaking of The Oatmeal...I met Matthew Inman in May and got a free autographed copy of My Dog, The Paradox.

The girl two ahead of me in line brought him a crocheted version of the dog that she had made. He drew a special picture in her book.

Matthew Inman is cute.

[fireheart]

And I was wondering how many pages we'd get through until we had animal sex references.

Here's a fact/rumour that's been going around for a while:

In a number of high schools (and some private schools) in my state, students who test particularly well are known as SHIP students. It stands for Students with High Intellectual Potential. (I JUST missed the cutoff for that). Closest equivalent in the US would be honor students/AP students.

Usually the SHIP programs have students doing accelerated work in Years 8-10 and in Year 10, they may or may not do some high school certificate topics. For the non-academic topics (Languages, PE, Arts, Tech and Home Ec), they usually mix with the "normal" students.

The original name for the program? Students with High Intellectual Talent.

Yeah.....you can see why they changed it

[Seshat]

The feedback loop that causes the literally heart-stopping illness neurocardiogenic syncope is the biological equivalent of a mathematical/computer science negative feedback loop. Or more precisely, one which has gone out of control: there's supposed to be both 'faster' and 'slower' signals to the heart, and an NCG Syncope attack occurs when the heart only gets the 'slower' signals.

The correspondence between the two fields was discovered when a computer scientist (my husband) developed NCG Syncope, and was referred to one of the research cardiologists in the field in Victoria, Australia. The cardiologist started explaining what was going on biologically to my husband - and then the pair of them geeked out as they realised what they'd found.

Sadly, that hasn't - yet - resulted in a way of resolving the biological version. But it's expanded the understanding of the condition.

[Jester]

BTW, a little OT, but I remember this fondly to this day. Rev. Jesse Jackson's rendition...

Freakin'. Hilarious.

[AnaKhouri]

Contrary to popular belief, research scientists party like it's 1999 whenever they get the chance. These guys can DRINK.

(information courtesy of my husband, a research scientist)

[fireheart]

I am assuming that MOST people on here would have seen or heard The Wiggles in some shape or form. Here's a few fun facts about them I've picked up recently (this is referring to the ORIGINAL group, not the new ones)

-Greg, Anthony and Murray were all studying to become preschool teachers and formed The Wiggles during or shortly after that time period. Of those three, Murray actually taught at a preschool for two years before the Wiggles became a hit.

-Of the different "shticks" that the Wiggles (and the characters) have, Jeff's came about originally because he was the only one without a early childhood background and he didn't have to do much at the time. (that is, he could just fall asleep )

-When the Wiggles first started, the roles of Henry the Octopus and Captain Feathersword were originally done by Jeff and Anthony respectively. Jeff still did the voice when other actors took over the bodysuit.

-The finger wiggle they do whenever they're with children originally came about after seeing bowlers do it on TV, but it also serves another purpose: with their hands in that pose, it prevents them from being sued by a parent claiming that one of the Wiggles touched their kid inappropriately.

-In their early performances, Anthony's shirt was green. They chose blue so that kids wouldn't mix him and Dorothy the Dinosaur up.

-Again with the early performances/videos, if you look closely, the Wiggles would intentionally make mistakes in their routines so kids could identify with them better.

[El Pollo Guerrera]

The song "You Suffer" by Napalm Death is in the Guinness Book of World Records. It is the world's shortest recorded song, coming in at a heavy 1.316 seconds.

[42_42_42]

One of my ancestors, Walter de Tirel, shot the arrow that (supposedly accidentally) killed King William Rufus (the son of William the Conqueror).

The element Hydrogen consists of only a single Proton and a single Electron. As a result, the positive ionic form is equal to a proton and H+ is used interchangeably with "proton" in much of chemistry.

Dmitri Mendeleev created the periodic table in 1869. Only elements 1-98 exist naturally, elements 99 and up have only been synthesized in the lab, existing for mirco-seconds only.

Contrary to the Paleo diet, humans have been harvesting, processing, cooking, and eating grains for at least 12,000 years.

Cheesecake is really a type of custard pie.
Boston Crème Pie is really a type of cake.

Woad, the blue pigment used by Iron Age British warriors as a type of camouflage, is derived from the leaves of a plant (Isatis tinctoria). These leaves are dried, ground and then the resulting powder is mixed with rendered beef fat, the whites of eggs, or semen and then rubbed over the entire body. British warriors would go to battle wearing only this paint.

The carnyx, the Iron Age British/Celtic war trumpet, produced a sound louder than the loudest modern wind instrument, the trombone.

Water is the only substance where the maximum density is not achieved when it is solidified. A given volume of ice will weigh less (have less mass) than the same volume of liquid water. If you were to freeze a liter of water, in the frozen state, it would weigh the same (have the same mass) as it did when it was liquid; the volume, however, would no longer be 1 liter, it would now be 1 liter plus 9 centiliters. This is the reason ice floats: as it solidifies, it becomes less dense.

Dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) is so called because it sublimates: when exposed to temperatures of −78.5 °C (−109.3 °F) or above it changes from a solid to a gas instantaneously without passing through the liquid phase.

Pure sodium (as in sodium chloride, or salt) when exposed to water will explode, forming sodium hydroxide and hydrogen gas (even the moisture in the air can cause this reaction). Fortunately, the element does not exist in its pure form in nature. Chlorine, in it's pure gas form, is highly toxic (this is the gas used in WWI to such disastrous effect). Both elements (chlorine in it's ionic form as chloride) are required for all known species of animal (chloride is needed for all forms of life).

[SongsOfDragons]

One of my ancestors, Walter de Tirel, shot the arrow that (supposedly accidentally) killed King William Rufus (the son of William the Conqueror).

The Rufus Stone is an attraction in the New Forest on the location of the death, and is a Victorian triangular prism in black stone carved with the story. The actual medieval stone is hidden inside because it was being gradually worn down.

The New Forest is 'new' because Will the Bastard decreed it was his new hunting ground when he conquered England. The name stuck. The word 'forest' originally had nothing to do with trees; it denoted a deer park.

Today the New Forest is still common land and people who live there are allowed to graze their livestock freely. As a result locals are used to feral horses and donkeys and wandering cows everywhere, crossing the roads with impunity and nomming on people's gardens; driveways have cattle grids in them.

Pure sodium (as in sodium chloride, or salt) when exposed to water will explode, forming sodium hydroxide and hydrogen gas (even the moisture in the air can cause this reaction). Fortunately, the element does not exist in its pure form in nature. Chlorine, in it's pure gas form, is highly toxic (this is the gas used in WWI to such disastrous effect). Both elements (chlorine in it's ionic form as chloride) are required for all known species of animal (chloride is needed for all forms of life).

What happens when you lob a two-pound block of Sodium into a lake?

Yes it's been done, and nobody died!!

http://www.theodoregray.com/Periodic...Stories/011.2/

[Aethian]

The Burma uprising happened in today's date in 1988.

So 8-8-88.

[Bardmaiden]

The longest note held in a pop song was sung by Morten Harket, lead singer of the group A-Ha. In the song “Summer Moved On” released in 2000, he holds a note for 20.2 seconds.

I heard him sing it live and he held it for a good time then. That guy has a good pair of lungs and quite a voice. Also the packaging is rather nice

[bhskittykatt]

What happens when you lob a two-pound block of Sodium into a lake?

Yes it's been done, and nobody died!!

http://www.theodoregray.com/Periodic...Stories/011.2/

In 1947 after the war, the War Assets Administration had barrels of surplus sodium to get rid of. The solution was to just dump them into a lake: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=16a2dc6146