Category: natural disaster

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Researchers Discovered the Worst Time to Be Alive in All of Human History

We have issues currently but let’s be honest, we have it pretty good as humans in 2019. If this is not the actual best time to be alive, the 2010s make a good argument for being in contention.

When, do you suppose, was life quite the opposite?

The question seems to have been answered on accident by researchers attempting to figure out how the European monetary system changed after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

An article published in Antiquity states that while looking for evidence of pollution from silver processing in ice cores, they found all kind of insights into natural disasters and climate change going back centuries.

And it turns out the 100 years following the year 536 C.E. were literally as bad as it gets, says study author Michael McCormick.

“It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year.”

A number of extreme weather events that year led to widespread and sustained famine, probably due to a volcanic eruption large enough to obscure the sun.

The effects of the unknown eruption proliferated all across the continent, into China, and as far away as Peru. It was basically a small Ice Age, causing crop failure and famine across the globe.

Social problems followed, bringing down empires (the collapse of the Sasanian Empire, the decline of the Eastern Roman Empire), inciting political upheaval, and dragging bloody turmoil all across the map.

Bottom line? People were starving, they were dying, they were killing each other and probably migrating in the hopes that they would find somewhere less crappy to live. Times were uncertain, bloody, cold, and bare…none of which makes much of a recipe for happiness.

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Looking at things through that lens kind of makes you appreciate our issues right now, doesn’t it?

At least for now.

The post Researchers Discovered the Worst Time to Be Alive in All of Human History appeared first on UberFacts.

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This Is Why You Should Put a Quarter on a Cup of Ice Before You Evacuate for a Hurricane

Hurricanes are nothing to mess around with, and it’s vital to be as prepared as possible before an emergency happens. One helpful trick to keep in mind: the “one cup tip.”

The one cup tip tends to go viral on social media every time a major hurricane pops up, since first appearing on Facebook in 2016 around the time of Hurricane Matthew. If you need to evacuate before a storm, this tip helps you figure out whether your food may have gone bad while you were gone.

Just put a cup of water into the freezer, allow it to freeze solid, and then put a quarter on top. Leave it in your freezer.

If you get back and the quarter is still on top of the frozen water, then you know that the water stayed frozen the entire time — which means the electricity stayed on, and the food in the freezer never defrosted, so it should still be safe to eat.

For those of you that are evacuating from the coast, I just heard a great tip. It's called the one cup tip. You put a…

Posted by Sheila Pulanco Russell on Wednesday, October 5, 2016

If, on the other hand, the quarter is now on the bottom of the cup, it’s a sign that the food in the freezer defrosted and then refroze while you were away. That means it’s not safe, and you should throw it away, just to be cautious.

The one cup tip is helpful for any disaster scenario when power outages are a concern — not just hurricanes.

Photo Credit: iStock

Keep in mind that this tip isn’t completely foolproof, however. Frozen water takes quite a long time to melt in the freezer, and ice floats in water. If the power is out for long enough to melt some of the ice but not all of it, the quarter may not change position. When in doubt, throw it out!

The post This Is Why You Should Put a Quarter on a Cup of Ice Before You Evacuate for a Hurricane appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

This Is Why You Should Put a Quarter on a Cup of Ice Before You Evacuate for a Hurricane

Hurricanes are nothing to mess around with, and it’s vital to be as prepared as possible before an emergency happens. One helpful trick to keep in mind: the “one cup tip.”

The one cup tip tends to go viral on social media every time a major hurricane pops up, since first appearing on Facebook in 2016 around the time of Hurricane Matthew. If you need to evacuate before a storm, this tip helps you figure out whether your food may have gone bad while you were gone.

Just put a cup of water into the freezer, allow it to freeze solid, and then put a quarter on top. Leave it in your freezer.

If you get back and the quarter is still on top of the frozen water, then you know that the water stayed frozen the entire time — which means the electricity stayed on, and the food in the freezer never defrosted, so it should still be safe to eat.

For those of you that are evacuating from the coast, I just heard a great tip. It's called the one cup tip. You put a…

Posted by Sheila Pulanco Russell on Wednesday, October 5, 2016

If, on the other hand, the quarter is now on the bottom of the cup, it’s a sign that the food in the freezer defrosted and then refroze while you were away. That means it’s not safe, and you should throw it away, just to be cautious.

The one cup tip is helpful for any disaster scenario when power outages are a concern — not just hurricanes.

Photo Credit: iStock

Keep in mind that this tip isn’t completely foolproof, however. Frozen water takes quite a long time to melt in the freezer, and ice floats in water. If the power is out for long enough to melt some of the ice but not all of it, the quarter may not change position. When in doubt, throw it out!

The post This Is Why You Should Put a Quarter on a Cup of Ice Before You Evacuate for a Hurricane appeared first on UberFacts.

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This Is How Hurricanes Actually Get Their Names

Barry? Dorian? Who comes up with this stuff, anyway?

Well, though hurricane names may seem random, there is actually a system to it all.

Hurricanes in the West Indies used to be named after the saint’s day when the storm hit. In the 1900s, an Australian meteorologist decided to name hurricanes after women’s names instead of saints (cause they’re destructive?), and the United States followed suit in 1953. In 1979, men’s names were also added to the list.

But how does a particular hurricane gets its name? The World Meteorological Organization uses an alphabetical list. For the Atlantic coast, there are six lists with 21 names each, one for every letter of the alphabet except Q, U, X and Y. Each list is to be used for one year — every time a storm comes, meteorologists take the names alphabetically on that year’s list. After six years, the naming process starts over with the first list again.

Photo Credit: iStock

The process is the same for hurricanes on the Pacific coast, except that the lists include names for every letter except Q and U.

If there are too many hurricanes in a given year and meteorologists run out of names, then the rest come from the Greek alphabet, starting with Alpha and going down to Omega.

The lists are already established, but there are a few exceptions. If a hurricane is particularly bad, it gets a unique name (like Katrina or Sandy). Also, the World Meteorological Organization sometimes decides to retire names from the list at its annual meeting. The names Florence and Michael, for example, were recently retired.

Photo Credit: iStock

So, now you know! Some future hurricane names to look out for in 2019 include Fernand, Gabriella and Humberto (on the East coast) and Juliette, Kiko and Lorena (on the West coast).

The post This Is How Hurricanes Actually Get Their Names appeared first on UberFacts.

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The Loudest Sound Ever Heard in Human History

You probably think you know what an extremely loud noise sounds like. If you’ve ever walked by a jackhammer, for example, or stood a little too close to the speakers at a loud concert. But those sounds pale in comparison to what is officially known as the loudest sound ever heard.

It happened on August 27, 1883. On an island in Indonesia, a volcano erupted so violently that it literally tore the island apart. The noise was so loud that people heard it over 3,000 miles away — which would be like hearing a noise from Dublin, Ireland when you’re in Boston.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia

It sounds impossible, and yet it very much happened. People heard the eruption on the island of Krakatoa in over 50 geographical locations across a full thirteenth of the Earth.

At 40 miles away, the sound shattered people’s eardrums. At 1,300 miles away, it sounded like “guns firing.” At 2,000 miles away, it sounded like “a series of loud reports, resembling those of artillery.” And at 3,000 miles away, it sounded like “the distant roar of heavy guns.” By the time the sound reached such a distant location, hours would have passed (the speed of sound is about 767 mph).

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

As you might guess, this was no average volcano eruption. It was devastating enough to wipe out 165 coastal villages and settlements and kill tens of thousands of people.

So, yeah, this is not a record we should aim to break anytime soon! Only truly cataclysmic events can create such loud noise, and it hasn’t happened since 1883.

The post The Loudest Sound Ever Heard in Human History appeared first on UberFacts.