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Become an astrobrewologist
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Launched into orbit three years ago, a vial of Scotland's 'space whisky' is due home so researchers can see how the conditions in space affect flavour. This is one small step for man, one giant leap for whisky.
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6221 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Spitting fish
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Why do these fish look like they’re spouting puffs of magic dust out of their mouths? The tiny crustaceans (1 millimetre-long crustacean called an ostracod) that these transparent fish try to eat light them up, causing the fish to be at risk of predation themselves, so they spit them out! ...
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3753 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
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4490 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Toxic meat
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African spur-winged geese ( Plectropterus gambensis) become so toxic after eating blister beetles that consuming their flesh can kill a human. Blister beetles (family Meloidae) are toxic due to the presence of a chemical compound called cantharidin. Cantharidin is a potent toxin that these beetles produce and store in their bodies as a defense mechanism against predators. It acts as a powerful irritant and blistering agent when it comes into contact with skin or mucous membranes. The toxicity of blister beetles serves as a deterrent to potential predators, helping them avoid being eaten. ...
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2980 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
See the world's tallest man
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Kösen's height was caused by the production of too much growth hormone due to a tumour in his pituitary gland. The tumour was eventually removed in 2010 through revolutionary gamma-knife surgery. Amge has a form of dwarfism, caused by a mutation in a bone growth gene.
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5916 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
This is how doctors used to figure out if a woman was pregnant
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How did doctors figure out if women were pregnant back in the day? They used frogs, of course! Before the 1960's, the only reliable pregnancy test involved injecting a woman's urine into an African clawed frog and seeing if the frog spawned. This peculiar method, known as the ' frog pregnancy test,' may sound bizarre today, but it was a common practice in the early to mid-20th century. The African clawed frog, a species native to sub-Saharan Africa, was preferred for this test because of its unique reproductive system. If a woman was pregnant, her urine would contain hormones that would induce the frog to lay eggs, confirming the pregnancy. While this method may seem unusual by modern standards, it was an early example of using biological indi ...
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1460 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Where else are taste buds found in the body?
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Lungs have 'taste buds' which can detect bitter-tasting compounds, although aren't connected to the brain! The taste receptors in the lungs are the same as those in the mouth except they are not found in clusters and do not send any signals to the brain.
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6327 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
What a flame looks like in microgravity
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Flames look a little different in space. On Earth, gravity causes a candle flame to be teardrop-shaped, and carries soot to the flame's tip, making it yellow. In microgravity, where these forces are absent, the flame is spherical, soot-free, and blue.
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3565 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Don't be a cry baby
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Women are often called "emotional", but in reality it may have to do with their physical biology. For instance, under a microscope, female tear glands look different than men's, and the male's tear duct is larger than female's, meaning a women's tears will spill onto her cheeks quicker. Furthermore, men, as they age, tend to cry more, probably due to decreased testosterone levels.
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7383 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Why are house cats obedient to their owners?
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Author Dr. John Bradshaw suggests that because domestic cats are still essentially wild animals, that they think of their owners as bigger cats that they're quite fond of (often performing grooming rituals on them), who have really delicious food (tastier than that mouse they killed and left on your porch).
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5225 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Some animals prefer to marry their cousins
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If you find yourself looking around the table over the holiday and thinking, “I can’t believe I’m related to these people,” just be glad you’re not a mongoose. If you were, you might be thinking, “I can’t believe I’ve mated with all of these people.” Why? For mongooses, it's actually safer to have sex with a close relative than risk death by venturing out into the world to find a mate.
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11039 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
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12952 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
She developed the building blocks for modern 'software engineering'
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Margaret Hamilton was the leader of the team that developed the flight software for the agency's Apollo missions. The concepts she and her team created became the building blocks for modern 'software engineering.' One example of the value of Hamilton's software work occurred during the Apollo 11 mission. Approximately three minutes before Eagle's touchdown on the moon, the software over rode a command to switch the flight computer's priority processing to a radar system whose 'on' switch had been manually activated due to a faulty written operations script provided to the crew. The action by the software permitted the mission to safely continue. Source: http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11Hamilton.html ...
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20990 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Some people simply get away with more because of their look
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Which of these faces looks more trustworthy to you? Science says that some people just get away with more stuff, because they have more trustworthy looking faces. A trustworthy face, as psychologists have determined over years of research in this area, has two major characteristics: The eyebrows are slightly lifted, so that together, they form a kind of upside-down V shape; likewise, the corners of the mouth are also lifted slightly. An untrustworthy face, on the other hand, is the opposite: The eyebrows point slightly downward, forming a V shape, and the corners of the mouth are turned down a bit, too. Source: http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/01/some-faces-just-get-away-with-stuff.html ...
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29968 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
The African Renaissance Monument
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I bet you've never seen this statue before. Neither had I until today. It's "The African Renaissance Monument" in Dakar, Senegal. The monument stands at a height of approximately 49 meters (160 feet), including its base, making it one of the tallest statues globally. It was designed by Senegalese architect Pierre Goudiaby Atepa and was built by a North Korean company. The statue was inaugurated on April 4, 2010, during Senegal's 50 th independence anniversary celebration, and symbolizes Africa's emergence from a history of colonization and oppression and its progress toward a brighter future. ...
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104750 |
duddy |
9 years ago |