Teach Me Something

[Kitti]

What is your favorite tidbit of random knowledge? Bonus cookies if you can teach someone something new!​

 

[Winter]

'Orbis non sufficit' is Latin for the phrase: "The world is not enough".

You can never stand in the same river twice.

Intelligence is the application of knowledge, not the amount.

 

[Greenie]

Hm, my favourite random tidbit of knowledge is probably regaling people that dark chocolate has good iron content in it.

 

[Touch of Insanity]

. . .I have far too many of those little things. I write a lot of papers.

So lets start with with the last paper I wrote.

Kore is greek for young woman and is the first Greek freestanding statue made in the 5th century. Their counterpart are the kouros which is Greek for young man. The male kouros or plural kourio were inspired from Egyptian freestanding statues :)

 

[Arcadia]

There's a stone in Ireland, the Kerry Stone, that can tell the weather.

 

[Dervish]

You've technically never touched anything in your life. The space between molecules is maintained even if you were to say, punch a wall or get stabbed.

The acid in your stomach is constantly damaging the cells in your stomach and your body constantly replaces them at a rate you effectively get a new stomach every 4 days.

 

[Greenie]

You've technically never touched anything in your life. The space between molecules is maintained even if you were to say, punch a wall or get stabbed.

It's not fair I should get hurt from it then XD if I'm not touching it!

 

[IntrusivePenDesperateSword]

It's not fair I should get hurt from it then XD if I'm not touching it!

You see, these sensors in your skin are compressed, and your brain percieves that as pain.

 

[Dervish]

It's not fair I should get hurt from it then XD if I'm not touching it!

Life's just rude.

It's hard to reconcile me stubbing my toe on a space heater in the dark while going to the washroom and screaming bloody murder with the fact that it technically didn't touch me.

 

[Hecatoncheires]

You're a peasant.

Sorry you had to find out this way.

 

[IntrusivePenDesperateSword]

'Agrestal' means wild plant. Now you know.

 

[foodforpigs]

Did you know that the reason pufferfish is poisonous is because of a chemical called tetrodotoxin? Tetrodotoxin is a potent neutrotoxin that can be fatal, but in other cases, the patient is known to survive through the complete paralysis of the body.

Some fictional mysteries have used tetrodotoxin as an explanation as to how characters fake deaths, as it's possible to have a full recovery after paralysis wears off, but the process is unreasonably risky, and in normal circumstances, an early response medical team would be needed to ensure a chance for surviving the symptoms. Tetrodotoxin has also been allegedly linked to voodoo shamanism, where victims were subject to a process of zombification (in combination with other drugs to get the brain-dead obedient servant), although accounts of this have been highly scrutinized.

 

[Windsong]

Had to find a new word in Freshman High School english that nobody had ever heard of. Fuck yeah 100%!

de·fen·es·trate
dēˈfenəˌstrāt/
verb

1. 1.
   rare
   throw (someone) out of a window.
   "she had made up her mind that the woman had been defenestrated, although the official verdict had been suicide"
2. 2.
   informal
   remove or dismiss (someone) from a position of power or authority.
   "the overwhelming view is that he should be defenestrated before the next election"
   
   
   

 

[Brovo]

Love is nothing more than a series of chemical compounds in the brain mixing with your personality to create feelings of bliss and pleasure. This means that no matter how much you love someone, all love is unrequited. Someone else may love you too, but they'll love you their own way, and that's something you have to learn to live with.

Estrogen is produced primarily by the ovaries, and during pregnancy, the placenta. Secondary producers of estrogen include the liver, adrenal glands, the breasts... And fat cells. No, seriously. This is also why being fat increases the odds of breast cancer rapidly, since breast cancer feeds off of estrogen, especially if there is an overabundance of it. It's also why women in the extremely athletic category (Olympians for example) typically experience health problems when they hit menopause or get pregnant: They have less estrogen than is normally considered healthy.

There are many differences in storytelling devices between eastern and western culture, but I'll teach you a quick (and random) one here for you to look for in the future via "the mythos of the gun."

• In the West: A gun (or weapon) is merely a tool of the one who uses it. A person can use it to accomplish whatever task they like and, no matter how much they like it, they must be willing to part with it if it would increase their odds of success or survival. Guns are merely tools. People who obsess over any particular weapon are usually depicted as sentimental or eccentric at best, or unhealthy egomaniacs at worst. This is why this scene in Game of Thrones is both fucking hilarious and a perfect representation of that mentality: The sword doesn't matter, its name doesn't matter, it's just what you do with the damn thing that matters.
• In the East: A gun (or weapon) is an extension of the one who uses it. Discipline demands of you that whatever tool you use is not a mere item or article, but it is a core part of you. To lose your weapon is as dramatic as to lose a limb. This is why in their fiction (though especially prominent in anime), you'll find scenes where, say, a mecha cuts through an entire fleet of warships with a sci-fi laser sword: It's not about the firepower, it's about the discipline of the warrior who uses their weapon. It's all metaphors. The ending scene to Cowboy Bebop makes a lot more sense watching it with this lens.

I'm sure you're aware that you have a blind spot in your eyes, but did you know that your brain does a lot of subconscious functions to guess at your reality?

• If you're not thinking about it, you won't see your own nose, in spite of both of your eyes being clearly able to see it. Your brain removes it and guesses at what is past your nose based on information previously fed to your brain about what existed there (but it will always be blurry.)
• The edges of your vision are blurrier than the centre of your vision. This is because we evolved as a predator species, where we sacrificed some situational awareness for greater visual acuity and depth perception to targets in front of us. (Seriously, think about it. Prey species have eyes on the sides of their heads because they're looking for predators. Predator species have eyes in the front of their heads, because they're trying to spot prey before prey spots them and gain greater depth perception to have greater odds of hitting their target when they make their killing blow.)
• Our eyes evolved to function underwater, more specifically, the ocean. This is why your tears are salty: We have a thin layer of salt water over our eyes to allow us to see properly. This is also why mirages fuck with us: Our eyes were not originally designed to deal with how light wavelengths travel through the air, so in certain conditions, our eyes malfunction and fail to properly understand the information given to them by the environment, which causes the brain to take a guess at what it might be. (Usually water.)

Though our atmosphere is 300 miles long, the majority of it (about 80%) is contained within the first ten miles up into the air. No, really, the only thing separating you from a horrible, painful, suffocating death, is ten miles of air. Sleep well tonight.

Speaking of sleep, while we still don't know why we evolved the function (it's so fucking stupid for survival really) there is a theory about it. Our brains generate waste fluids over time while functioning, and when you go to sleep, your brain goes into a "low power mode." This may be when the brain flushes said waste fluids. This could explain why after an intense use of one's brain over a prolonged period they fall into a mentally exhausted state even if they aren't physically tired, and why people who go without sleep for long periods start hallucinating and experiencing psychotic symptoms. It also explains why sleep deprivation can eventually kill someone: Your brain is literally drowning in a sea of its own shit. SO GET YOUR FUCKING SLEEP KIDS, IT MAY LITERALLY SAVE YOUR LIFE.

Caffeine is not only one of the only addictive substances that has little to no significant negative effects, but it has several potentially healthy benefits. Also, quitting it requires only about 1-2 weeks of suffering headaches and sleepiness, and then you're free of it. So go ahead, indulge in it, it's one of the few addictions that won't kill you... So long as you're drinking, say, tea, and not several cans of coke cola every day.

Ferrets, like mice or rats, have a flexible spine that allows them to flatten out their bodies to compress themselves into tight areas that you wouldn't even imagine they could fit through. Seriously, even cage bars may not be enough to stop them. Ferret proofing apartments and the like is harder than you think. They're also smart enough to be known to figure out what you consider valuable to steal it to get your attention (ex: keys), to comprehend rudimentary lockpicking skills, to drag objects around in order to reach higher places than they normally could, et cetera. They're basically eight year olds problem solving: They're a lot smarter than you think if they're determined enough to get at something.

 

[Icystorm]

I found this to be pretty cool.
What happens to your body after you start reading a book infographic

The human brain is one of the most complex things known to man..according to the human brain.

 

[Darog]

Figure I'll teach you some pro wrestling terminology and a random fact about MMA.

to "Potato" someone is to throw a legit punch at them.

"Sandbagging" is when your body goes limp during a move; like a powerbomb to legitimately botch it, though highly dangerous, and can lead to a bad injury.

"Kayfabe" means within the story. Essentially when a guy "Kayfabe" breaks a guy's leg it means within the story and theatrics he broke it though the leg is fine. When a wrestler "Breaks Kayfabe" it often means they are not following the storyline and do something out of character; Like hugging your rival in his last match because you're besties when not wrestling.

One of the first ever wins in MMA via Submission was a guy who used his chin to press into his opponent's Eye Socket to score the victory.

 

[Brovo]

One of the first ever wins in MMA via Submission was a guy who used his chin to press into his opponent's Eye Socket to score the victory.

In all seriousness though, this is really neat.

 

[Cpt Toellner]

Napoléon Bonaparte was not short, he stood 5'7" (average for a Frenchman of the time.)

The British started rumors of him being short after a converting error from post-revolution french measurements and a overall attempt to demean the Emperor after his exile.

 

[ᴛᴏᴄᴋᴀ]

The guy who plays Theon Greyjoy in Game of Thrones is related to Lily Allen. I just learned that myself today.

 

[Mu]

Did you know the Chinese word for 'crooked' is 歪 (wai)?

It is comprised of the words 不 (bu) and 正 (zheng) and together they mean 'not straight'!

Kinda cool, I never realized it myself.