Stuff you didn't know and probably don't care about

[William Gaatjes]

Old tech impresses me more than new tech. I have an easier time grasping a laser measuring divots than a needle rumbling through some grooves and making something that sounds like music; in stereo!

I was curious about that too. I had to look it up but because i do not have a book or pdf about it, but one channel is encoded in sideways movement and the other with up and down movement. It is like +/-X movement = channel 1 , +/-Y movement = channel 2 for stereo. And the +Z movement is the groove itself. That makes too much sense to be wrong.
The magic is in the cartridge with two inductors(coils) placed in X and Y direction and a little magnet moving between them depending on the X/Y movement of the stylus.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Veritasium has a nice video about rubber and how the whole global economy is dependent on it.

Great for this thread : Car tires are actually electrically conductive. They need to be because, well see for yourself in the veritasium video :

 

[William Gaatjes]

How stereo phonograph records actually work :

 

[igor_kavinski]

Fact: There Are Ground-Up Cockroaches in Your Morning Coffee — and That’s OK

Americans drink up to 146 billion cups of coffee per year, with pre-ground coffee accounting for 75% of sales. But did you know that ground coffee contains roach parts — as well as up to 10 milligrams of animal poop per pound? — Here are all the details.

www.foodandwine.com

 

[IronWing]

I love strange attractors.

Attractor - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[William Gaatjes]

New video from the action lab :

Can Power Lines Really Light a Bulb in Your Hand?​

 

[Red Squirrel]

I've always wanted to try that, kinda assumed it would work. There's a 500kv down the highway here and there's a turn off that gets you to a place with rocks that brings you fairly close (but far enough to be safe) to the lines. You can FEEL the electricity in your body when walking under them and also hear it. Sounds like static discharge. Would be cool to take long exposure photography there at night, probably see the corona discharge.

Was playing around with a high voltage circuit and could make CFL bulbs light up with it, was pretty fun. I never took a video of the bulbs lighting up but did take one of the arc. I wanted to make a bigger version with a bigger transformer and never got around to it. It gets tricky winding it the higher the voltage is because the windings want to arc with each other so need to layer it with aerospace tape.

 

[mikeymikec]

Research roundup: 6 cool science stories we almost missed

A 3D reconstruction of the Shroud of Turin, “jelly ice,” regenerating snail eyes…

arstechnica.com

Search for the headline: "Seabirds only poop when flying"

It's not long so I'll quote it here:

Leo Uesake of the University of Tokyo was studying the biomechanics of sea birds running on the surface of the ocean to take off, when he noted an unusual behavior. His video footage showed that these streaked shearwater birds frequently defecated while in flight (see video above), and while he was initially amused, he realized there could be significant implications for marine ecology, according to a paper published in the journal Current Biology. That's because seabird feces has high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus and can hence enrich soil and coastal waters.


Uesake and co-author Katsufumi Sato of the University de la Rochelle in France strapped small backward-facing cameras roughly the size of an eraser to the bellies of 15 streaked shearwaters for their experiments. They captured about 200 "defecation events," almost always while the birds were flying and frequently just after takeoff. In fact, the birds let loose with the feces every four to ten minutes while in flight, excreting roughly 5 percent of their body mass every hour. As for why the birds choose to poop mid-air rather than when they are floating on the ocean surface, Uesake hypothesizes that it might be a way to avoid fouling their feathers or attracting predators. Or maybe it's just easier for the birds to defecate while flying compared to floating.
DOI: Current Biology, 2025. 10.1016/j.cub.2025.06.058 (About DOIs).

My theory about the pooping when flying bit is along the lines of the final suggestion of "easier", being that in humans at least, physical activity stimulates the digestive system.

I thought the reminder of the 'balanced ecosystem' where even bird poop (wherever it lands) helps promote ecosystem health was intriguing too.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Veritasium : Exposing the Monsanto conspiracy

 

[Red Squirrel]

Crazy how history repeats itself. Our government is continuously spraying glyphosate (under brand name VisionMax, which is made by Bayer) all over our forests here in Canada. Quebec is the only province that has banned it so far. This stuff also accelerates forest fires, which is why there are so many forest fires here now. 2 provinces (NS and NB) have also recently made it illegal to even go in the forest. It seems they want to push people out of forests and into cities. Even small cities are not spared from this, as the overspray most likely makes it into people's yards and into water ways, local parks etc. Almost feels like operation ranch hand 2.0 going on.

Stop Toxic Herbicide Spraying Now -

Ban toxic spraying in Canada’s forests. Protect health, wildlife, water & Indigenous rights. Provinces can stop signing spray licenses like Quebec did in 2001.

stopthespraycanada.ca

 

[Red Squirrel]

Some actual photographs of Titanic and the history behind the construction, pretty crazy to think those were taken over 100 years ago and are that high of quality. Back then photography would have been a science and art in itself, to get everything just right from exposure to actually developing them.

 

[sdifox]

Some actual photographs of Titanic and the history behind the construction, pretty crazy to think those were taken over 100 years ago and are that high of quality. Back then photography would have been a science and art in itself, to get everything just right from exposure to actually developing them.

Err they had aerial photography during the American Civil War.

The Beginnings and Basics of Aerial Photography

Picture the Earth from above. In your mind's eye, what do you see? Today, we have access to air and space technology that lets us see various views of the Earth with ease.

airandspace.si.edu

 

[William Gaatjes]

Research roundup: 6 cool science stories we almost missed

A 3D reconstruction of the Shroud of Turin, “jelly ice,” regenerating snail eyes…

arstechnica.com

Search for the headline: "Seabirds only poop when flying"

It's not long so I'll quote it here:


My theory about the pooping when flying bit is along the lines of the final suggestion of "easier", being that in humans at least, physical activity stimulates the digestive system.

I thought the reminder of the 'balanced ecosystem' where even bird poop (wherever it lands) helps promote ecosystem health was intriguing too.

Could also be something like this : If you want a hot air balloon to take off, you have to drop of ballast. Same for the bird, less weight to carry. (Joking)

 

[William Gaatjes]

Electrified drops of water do not splash. But waterdrops which are electrically neutral do splash.
That makes me wonder if this charging of waterdrops also occurs in clouds and especially thunderstorm clouds.

 

[sdifox]

Japan has been developing maglev since the 1970s. Now they are building an actual rail line. They have hit over 600km/h on test but the actual line tops out at 505km/h

SCMaglev - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Chūō Shinkansen - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Two year old yt video on it

 

[William Gaatjes]

Crazy how history repeats itself. Our government is continuously spraying glyphosate (under brand name VisionMax, which is made by Bayer) all over our forests here in Canada. Quebec is the only province that has banned it so far. This stuff also accelerates forest fires, which is why there are so many forest fires here now. 2 provinces (NS and NB) have also recently made it illegal to even go in the forest. It seems they want to push people out of forests and into cities. Even small cities are not spared from this, as the overspray most likely makes it into people's yards and into water ways, local parks etc. Almost feels like operation ranch hand 2.0 going on.

Stop Toxic Herbicide Spraying Now -

Ban toxic spraying in Canada’s forests. Protect health, wildlife, water & Indigenous rights. Provinces can stop signing spray licenses like Quebec did in 2001.

stopthespraycanada.ca

I am worried about how the microbiome in our digestive system responds to glyphosate. There may be bacteria families living in the bowels that use that enzyme called EPSPS which gets blocked by glyphosate.
And what might happen is that these bacteria are not dangerous to us unless they start to use other pathways to synthesize what they require for their metabolism. That glyphosate is indirectly dangerous to us.
The otherwise friendly bacteria living in the intestines become hostile to us because of the glyphosate blocking the EPSPS enzyme causing them to use another metabolism process with byproducts that are harmful to the host, AKA a human being.
What about fungi living in the intestines... How do they respond to glyphosate ?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah what it's doing to our microbiome is probably not good. It's in all of our food too since they spray pretty much all crops with it. I also suspect when there is a forest fire and it reaches a high enough temp it can probably also be dangerous as all the glyphosate in plants and in the ground is now being exposed to very high temp and will release various compounds in the air as it combusts.

 

[mikeymikec]

Fact: There Are Ground-Up Cockroaches in Your Morning Coffee — and That’s OK

Americans drink up to 146 billion cups of coffee per year, with pre-ground coffee accounting for 75% of sales. But did you know that ground coffee contains roach parts — as well as up to 10 milligrams of animal poop per pound? — Here are all the details.

www.foodandwine.com

Ah, so that's why I dislike coffee / it takes like crap

 

[igor_kavinski]

Ah, so that's why I dislike coffee / it takes like crap

I can't have loads of coffee coz I'm one of those sad souls whose blood glucose level rises due to caffeine. So if I'm not in the mood for tea (often because the office tea bags are crap), I will just mix a few grains of Nescafe instant coffee in the dairy creamer with hot water and sip that. It's enough to taste the coffee but not suffer serious side effects.

 

[JujuFish]

I've started drinking coffee despite disliking the taste. The positive effects just outweigh the taste for me.

 

[igor_kavinski]

The positive effects just outweigh the taste for me.

If you are also consuming some amount of vinegar or alcohol on a regular basis, you have the recipe for a long life. Caffeine decreases telomere length, preventing cells from getting cancerous. Alcohol or vinegar extend telomere length and prolong cell life. They have a synergistic effect on keeping cells healthier and living longer.

 

[sdifox]

Ah, so that's why I dislike coffee / it takes like crap

And you have tasted crap I guess?

 

[nakedfrog]

Crazy how history repeats itself. Our government is continuously spraying glyphosate (under brand name VisionMax, which is made by Bayer) all over our forests here in Canada. Quebec is the only province that has banned it so far. This stuff also accelerates forest fires, which is why there are so many forest fires here now. 2 provinces (NS and NB) have also recently made it illegal to even go in the forest. It seems they want to push people out of forests and into cities. Even small cities are not spared from this, as the overspray most likely makes it into people's yards and into water ways, local parks etc. Almost feels like operation ranch hand 2.0 going on.

Stop Toxic Herbicide Spraying Now -

Ban toxic spraying in Canada’s forests. Protect health, wildlife, water & Indigenous rights. Provinces can stop signing spray licenses like Quebec did in 2001.

stopthespraycanada.ca

Is it your government doing the spraying, or the forestry companies?

 

[nakedfrog]

Ah, so that's why I dislike coffee / it takes like crap

I grind my own locally-roasted beans

 

[mikeymikec]

And you have tasted crap I guess?