Science
Science
Kangaroos
I’m not really sure if this is the type of knowledge-bomb one would drop when trying to impress someone but then again I’ve never much been concerned about my impression on others. I’m more of the 13 year old boy trapped in a 40 year old woman’s body when it comes to small talk. The bread and butter of my sense of humor is my unapologetic love of dick and fart jokes and I’m not afraid to admit it.
By Kathryn Kingsley5 years ago in FYI
7 Uncommon Facts About the Common Black Ant
Have you ever wondered more about that huge line of ants traveling your backyard or tracking in your kitchen before you go to grab the bug spray? I most certainly have. In fact, learning about ants was the first weird and intriguing knowledge that got me hooked on random facts. So it is thanks to these little fellas that this burning desire to write this awesomely kickass article and produce an equally kickass podcast began. Let’s get into this!
By Lauren Lovan5 years ago in FYI
La Cucaracha or The Cockroach: both a hard no.
My years as an educator have taught me valuable lessons in so many subjects and areas: pedagogy, classroom management, differentiated learning styles. But there are additional gems I've discovered along the way that are truly priceless. Like the year I moved to a new classroom and went in a week early to organize.
By Heather Buchta5 years ago in FYI
Darkside of GMOs - Food Industry
GMOs are one of the most controversial areas of science. Genetic engineering is used in many fields, but even the medical applications like GM insulin are widely accepted. The debate heats up when it comes to food and agriculture. Why is that? Why is the same thing treated so differently? Let's try to get to the bottom of this and explore the facts, the fears and the future of GMOs.
By Zeeshan Mushtaq Lone5 years ago in FYI
Dinosaurs: The Earth's GOAT
The Stegosaurus lived longer before the Tyrannosaurus Rex than the T-Rex lived before us. Think about the implications of that for a minute. Stegosaurus roamed the earth around 150 million years ago in the late Jurassic period. That was already the second geologic period of the dinosaurs. (The Triassic kicked off 100 million years before ol' Stegs popped up). T-Rex didn't appear until the end of the Cretaceous period 85 million years later. And then us homo sapiens, the planet's snot-nosed Gen-Zers, rolled in less than three hundred thousand years ago, 65 million years after the final episode of Dinosaurs. Even including Neanderthals and other hominids only gets us about half a million years closer. If you go with the broadest possible definition and say mammals, our species has only been on top since well after the dinosaurs got meteored.
By William Reid5 years ago in FYI
Blindsight
I wonder how many people with reflexive responses (whether of approval or disapproval) to Stanley Milgram’s famous experiment have read the book he generated from its results, Obedience to Authority. It’s a curious document. He vastly overimagines the degree to which authority and obedience are ingrained in human interactions. To demonstrate that people have provisional authority in some situations who don’t in normal circumstances, he points out that a shoe clerk can order you to stand in your sock feet, a barber to present your throat to his razor, a movie usher to take the seat she (usually) shows you with the flashlight she carries for guidance in the dark, and a bank teller to surrender your money. The last is the only one of these that bears any real colour of truth, and most of the means by which banks extract money from their ordinary customers are imposed by the invisible authority of custom, not that of tellers whom we’re likelier to regard as servants than masters (if we don’t regard them as equals momentarily attending to our needs).
By Martin Heavisides5 years ago in FYI
Daylight Saving and The Illusion of Time
Growing up in the tropics, we had two seasons: dry and wet. From January to June, rainfall is scarce, the air is practically devoid of moisture, and the sun is hotter than usual, which, living on an island in the Caribbean, is saying a lot. Onwards from July, it is more common to be lulled to sleep by the pitter-patter of rain outside your windows. As a bonus, the threat of hurricanes is ever-present. With the acceleration of climate change, the line between these two seasons has become a bit more blurred.
By Laquesha Bailey5 years ago in FYI
Blindsight
I wonder how many people with reflexive responses (whether of approval or disapproval) to Stanley Milgram’s famous experiment have read the book he generated from its results, Obedience to Authority. It’s a curious document. He vastly overimagines the degree to which authority and obedience are ingrained in human interactions. To demonstrate that people have provisional authority in some situations who don’t in normal circumstances, he points out that a shoe clerk can order you to stand in your sock feet, a barber to present your throat to his razor, a movie usher to take the seat she (usually) shows you with the flashlight she carries for guidance in the dark, and a bank teller to surrender your money. The last is the only one of these that bears any real colour of truth, and most of the means by which banks extract money from their ordinary customers are imposed by the invisible authority of custom, not that of tellers whom we’re likelier to regard as servants than masters (if we don’t regard them as equals momentarily attending to our needs).
By Martin Heavisides5 years ago in FYI
Did You know? - The never-ending Rodent family
Rodents are among the most successful mammals in the world; almost half of all mammalian species belong to this family and their numbers are likely to be higher than the other mammals combined. This is due to their high reproduction rate: the house mouse reaches sexual maturity at 5-7 weeks and females can give birth to more than 50 pups every year as they can mate right after giving birth.
By Daniel Toth5 years ago in FYI
Biology, Lesson 101: The *Strange* Animal Kingdom
If you are looking for the answer to if aliens helped build the great pyramids, if DaVinci ever successfully flew or if the chicken came before the egg- this article isn’t for you. You are about to walk down a dark path of completely useless, semi-entertaining, and just plain weird information that you never knew you never knew. How did I come across this? Why was there any interest? It probably began when I watched a documentary about the Galapagos turtle and then it was just all downhill from there. A million questions that just had to be answered and honestly, the internet was just asking for trouble!
By Carissa Brown5 years ago in FYI
