In the early 20th century, a group of scientists in the United States conducted a series of experiments in which they tried to communicate with the dead through the use of psychic mediums. These experiments, known as the “Cross Correspondences,” involved the mediums receiving messages from spirits who claimed to be deceased scientists and scholars. […]
Winter Solstice: Facts and Information
The winter solstice is an astronomical event that marks the start of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and the start of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. It is the shortest day of the year in terms of daylight, and it occurs when the sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator. The winter solstice usually occurs on December 21st or 22nd, although the exact date can vary due to the elliptical shape of Earth’s orbit around the sun. On the winter solstice, the sun appears at its lowest point in the sky, and the days are the shortest.
The post Winter Solstice: Facts and Information appeared first on Factual Facts.
Soviet scientist Viktor Gordeyev…
Soviet scientist Viktor Gordeyev invented Rocket Boots. Instead of actual rockets, the boots were equipped with pistons filled with a fuel-air mixture. The boots enabled an average speed of 10.5 mph and a maximum speed of 22 mph.
Scientist Claire Patterson spent…
Scientist Claire Patterson spent over 20 years trying to convince the public that lead was poison. The inventor of leaded gasoline meanwhile once went to New Jersey to argue that leaded gasoline was perfectly safe, by pouring tetraethyllead onto his hands, and then putting a bottle of it under his nose and inhaling it for […]
The post Scientist Claire Patterson spent… appeared first on Crazy Facts.
Former Flat Earthers Explain Why They Finally Came Around
Despite hard evidence the earth is NOT flat, many naysayers, known as “flat earthers” insist our planet is not at all spherical, whatsoever.
And if they could, they would go to the ends of the earth to prove it. But none ever have, because, well, they’ll wind up right where they started in their quest to prove their ridiculous point.
But among those who proclaim our planet is as flat as a stale slice of flatbread, some have come to their senses.
So how did these people manage to undo what they were so convinced of was not possible?
Strangers online revealed how they saw the light or made flat earthers accept reality when Redditor jbarms asked:
“Former Flat Earthers. What made you come round?”
Explaining Basic Concepts
“I talked to a flat-earther about my job working for a company that tracks ship locations, routes, and speeds by satellite. We also had ways of monitoring carbon emissions based on fuel consumption and known weather conditions.”
“None of this would work at all if the earth was flat. Not a jot of it.”
“I could only explain the most basic concepts, but it was enough for him to understand and realise that I was right and that he’d been convinced by someone who had no practical experience of the spherical nature of the Earth.”
“I think that’s what really did it – my experience was really tangible. This happens then this happens then we measure this etc etc… no theory, just practice.”
“A bit like showing a child a rock dropping to the ground in order to explain gravity, rather than giving them the whole theoretical shebang. Y’know?” – Administrative-Task9
A Competing Theory
“The mobius strip earthers had more compelling arguments.” – jnhummel
A Timely Realization
“Quote I got from somewhere…”
“for 5 years I believed the Earth was flat, then I turned 6” – -QED-
It Was Worth A Try
“I convinced a flat earther, temporarily, by asking him if it was possible for a sphere to be so large that you could not tell it was a sphere my simply being on the surface of it.”
“It took him a while, I used an analogy of a extremely long line that was so slightly curved you could not tell so by looking at a small section of it.”
“Eventually he said yes to the sphere and I told him that was how big the earth is. A few days later he reverted, most of these people aren’t mentally stable, they believe in a lot of conspiracies.”
“Corny edit, but as connoisseur of flat earth content my personal favorite is Professor Dave on YouTube. He is a underappreciated dude who just had a Science channel on YouTube and got brigaded by flat earthers for an unrelated video.”
“He made like 6 video responses in total just owning these guys but they eventually gave up. Check it out.” – McClain3000
A Foolproof Method
“What I like to do is use telescopes. This telescope is strong enough to see distant stars and galaxies, yes? Okay, look out this direction across the ocean. Can you see Europe?” – HavanosArcova
Possible Profitability If True
“Look, it’s really easy:”
“If the Earth is flat, there would be an edge(s). And there would be a f’king Disney park at the edge, and we could bungie jump off the side and paraglide into the void etc etc.”
“Someone would be making an absolute sh*t ton of money off of it – if it existed.”
“Guess what? Nobody is doing that – adn in this world where absolutely everything is exploited for profit – if no one is making money off of it – it does.not.exist. No edge. Not flat. Get a clue.” – Gedwyn19
Approach With Kindness
“I watched a documentary about flat earthers called ‘Truth behind the curve’ and my analysis from watching that these flat earthers are a group of people who found a community to be a part of.”
“It’s a shame their community is based on a lie, but I saw a bunch of people who were to be part of A community.”
“Most of the people were social awkward and whatnot, and so an opportunity to be an influential figure within the community so they double down on their flawed logic.”
“The more against you are of them, the harder they rep their flatness.” – imthatguydavid
“I was debating a flat earther in Mexico, and I asked him about how GPS worked if there were no satellites. He said that they had devices in the ground to route you.”
“I told him the Mexican government is barely able to put decent water pipes in the ground; would he really think they had the tech to put routing devices in the ground?”
“He chuckled with a thousand mile gaze.” – mzaouar
The Authority On All Things Space
“A serious answer here.”
“The thing that made me stop was just the question ‘why would nasa lie to you.’”
“I will try replying to all of yall but will go to a study hall so ill reply later.” – The_Holy_Fork
Impossible Secret
“This a solid point, there’s no way 70,000 scientist could keep it a secret.” – needsmoreusername
“That’s the biggest reason for me to not believe so many conspiracy theories, especially major ones like a Flat Earth… We know how often things leak about everything, and suddenly a collection of 10s of thousands of people are all gonna keep this one big secret?” – JerHat
“Flat earth is absolutely sh*t tier. It not only fails on the level you described, but also: why? Why pretend the shape of the earth is different than it is? When does someone convene a high level meeting to circulate that idea?” – heseme
Some Deep Digging
“I spent about a year infiltrating the flat Earth community on Instagram. I garnered a decent following with an account dedicated to flat earth travel photos (an intentionally absurd premise). In that time I learned a quite a bit about the community including how to discern the trolls from the real deal.”
“The majority of legit flat earthers are extremely distrustful of anything the government says or does. These same people are 9/11 truthers, Holocaust deniers, and anti-vaxxers and they connect these conspiracies together.”
“Many of them have also attached flat Earth theory to religion, magic, or mysticism. Before my infiltration I’d always considered conspiracies fun. Like they were the fan fiction of real life. Now they mostly make me sad.”
“For all the phony accounts like mine, there are still plenty of people out there willing to drop a couple of hundred dollars on a flat Earth convention.” – Zelph_Onandagus
The Trip Confirmed It
“Had to travel to Japan, gave up on my beliefs in order to make a shorter trip.” – uvzla792
Based on some of the comments above, it is entirely possible to change the minds of people who have pretty much been rejected from society and found acceptance from a community with whom they shared the same flawed logic.
It may have taken some hard convincing, but eventually, they flat-out came ’round.
Scientists Share The Scariest Facts The General Public Doesn’t Know About
As our planet earth hurdles through space at dizzying speeds and rotations, things are happening all of the time at every single moment throughout the universe that could have a profound affect on us as a species. And at every moment, life has the potential to end due to millions upon billions of things that are completely beyond our control.
Thankfully, though, we don’t spend our lives thinking about that.
We may get little flashes of anxiety, but for the most part, we need to live our lives. People can’t be caught up in that fear all the time.
Unless it’s their job to.
Enter scientists, who think of all the scary things in the world at all times so that you don’t have to.
We really owe it to scientists.
So when Redditor LukasXB78 asked:
“Hello scientists of Reddit, what’s a scary science fact that the public knows nothing about?”
The scientists were eager to share their answers.
It’s Cosmic, It’s Terran, It’s ALL Of Them Honey
“I’ve got three for you: 1: Rabies. Once symptomatic, rabies has a 100%* fatality rate. The only options are the rabies vaccine and immunoglobulin therapy, which, again, must be administered before any symptoms.”
“2: Gamma Ray Bursts (henceforth referred to as GRBs). GRBs are a rare phenomenon emitted from the poles of rapidly spinning supernovae and hypernovae.”
“In the event of a direct hit from suitably close (which is actually really, really far), all life on earth would be wiped out.”
“The facing side would be annihilated instantly, while the trailing side would quickly die due to the conditions on earth no longer being suitable to support life.”
“And there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. Kurzgesagt’s video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLykC1VN7NY”
“3: Runaway global warming. There are many stores of greenhouse gases (namely carbon dioxide and methane) all over the place.”
“But the conditions required to keep these gasses trapped are delicate. The worst part? It may already be too late to stop, even if humanity immediately ceased all greenhouse gas emissions and put every single resource we have into carbon sequestration.”-zipybug14
“There is a gravitational anomaly in space called the great attractor which is pulling everything within the Virgo and Hydra-Centaurus superclusters towards it.”
“It lies 150-250 million light years from the milky way, which itself is being pulled towards it too.”
“The scary part is that relative to us, this anomaly lies within the same plane as our own galaxy making it very difficult to observe. Essentially, we have almost no concrete idea of what it is.”-Nervous_Relation9213
This Toxin, Mr. Bond
“If your dog swins in a lake after receiving a spot on flea treatment – it absolutely decimates the invertibrate population.”
“A large dog swimming in 8 Olympic swimming pools worth of water soon after treatment will leech enough neurotoxin to kill 50% of the lake’s invertebrate population within 48 hours.”
“There’s some awareness of this, but it’s not being taken seriously enough!”-konwiddak
“Cancer geneticist here. Most cases of cancer that are sequenced generally just denote the prognosis or how long a patient has to live, rather than treatment options.”
“People always say ‘let’s cure cancer’ however this simplifies cancer as though it is only one disease. It’s far more complicated than that.”
“I studied at one of the largest cancer hospitals in the world where the motto is to make cancer history, but the only obtainable goal is to make it chronic.”
“We study and research as much as possible but every cancer requires different research, and unfortunately the powers that be often prohibit funding and proficient research.”
“It’s work I am passionate about, but also a broken system that is infuriating to work in.”-shhhhnahcuh
“Scientific litterature conclusion on alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases in general is that the diseases start decades before the first obvious symptoms and that we need to treat them at this stage.”
“When you exhibit obvious symptoms, it’s too late, your brain is already mush. If you get diagnosed with alzheimer’s at 65, you had the disease since your early 40’s at least.”
“And you experienced very mild symptoms but didn’t notice it. And your brain fought like hell to compensate the deficit. When you get diagnose, your brain is already very severely damaged and will never recover from the deficit.”-Matrozi
“The bacteria that causes anthrax, Bacillus anthracis, is part of the normal soil ecology. In the wild, B. anthracis rarely causes illness, and when it does, it’s a cutaneous (skin) infection like a rash.”
“The common soil strains are not particularly infectious to begin with. You can, and we as a civilization have, weaponized B. anthracis.”
“Specifically, we can grow it, make it produce spores (hardy forms of the organism that are resilient), and can aerosolize it for dispersal to cause respiratory anthrax.”
“Having said that, we are on alert for the use of Anthrax, it doesn’t spread in the population after the initial infection, it’s easy to treat with antibiotics, and there are vaccines for it, which our military personnel and researchers already receive.”
“MRSA is a much scarier and more urgent bacterial concern.”-tricksterloki
What’s The Buzz?
“Haven’t seen this one yet – insects are going extinct. We have lost a significant chunk just since the 80s. I think it was around 20%? Mozzies are going up, because of course, but just about everything else is going.”
“Wasn’t until I read this that I realised that as a kid in the 90s I used to see butterflies all the time. Dragonflies. My house used to get invaded by Christmas beetles every year.”
“Not so much. These days I might see only one or two Christmas beetles in December, if any at all. When I was a kid I remember finding eight in my house in a single night… same house.”-Echospite
“The Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) runs off the coast of northern California to southern canada and ruptures about every 250-350 years.”
“We know this from the geologic record. The last rupture was in January 1700 and there are written records from Japan of a tsunami that resulted from the earthquake on the other side of the Pacific.”
“This zone is still active and is likely to rupture in the next 100 years resulting in a mag 9+ earthquake that impacts the west coast from northern cali to southern Canada.”-socks4fun
“Prions. Misfolded proteins that cause a cascade of protein misfoldings that lead to amyloid plaque buildups, resulting in uncontrollable neurodegeneration that is fatal in 100% of cases within two years.”
“There is no cure. We don’t understand what causes it. We don’t understand the mechanism of the misfolding cascade. We don’t even fully understand the structure of the misfolded proteins.”
“It could in theory happen to anyone, at any time, and there’s no way to tell until you start showing symptoms, at which point you might have 18 months to live, if you’re lucky, the last 6 of which will be intensely unpleasant.”-FoucaultsPudendum
Poor Mother Earth
“Soil science-adjacent researcher here. We are degrading, polluting, and losing our topsoil at such a rate that we may not be able to produce enough food to feed everyone within 50-60 years, let alone what impacts climate change may bring to bear on our food supply.”
“And the US government’s crop insurance programs and incentives all reinforce the bad practices, while discouraging regenerative practices.”
“These bad policies are extremely hard to change because of lobbying from the major agribusiness companies, who make money off of these short-sighted policies.”
“Our food supply is further threatened by our agricultural over-dependence on aquifer water, which is not being replenished, making it an unsustainable source of water.”
“If the aquifers are over-drawn, depleted, or polluted, we hit a hard wall of water scarcity, and we will have no back-ups to address the problem with.”
“The drawdown of the aquifers also causes land subsidence, which causes costly infrastructure and building damage. The general public does not realize the impending crisis that will be caused by the confluence of these factors.”-Berkamin
“If you live in the Netherlands and your house is older than let’s say 100 years and you have not renovated your pluming, chances are fairly high that you can get lead poisoning.”
“It is impossible for water treatment companies to pinpoint where they are and how many, and many building plans do not include the plumbing schematics. So check your pipes for lead, they can do harm, especially to children!”-Wooshmeister55
“There’s a solar event known as a CME, or a Coronal Mass Ejection, it occurs very frequently on a cosmic timescale, every few decades to centuries there’s a decent size one.”
“Why are they scary? A CME is a massive burst of radiation, easily able to fully envelope the earth in its path, and it’s the equivalent of a non-stop EMP barrage.”
“The last time a big one hit earth, was when we had telegraph lines for communications and they spontaneously caught fire.”
“In today’s world, with everything running on electricity, when the next big one hits we’ll have at most a few days warning, and it’d be a literal apocalypse movie scenario.”
“With planes going down due to their whole electrical system frying, nobodies vehicle starting, untold billions in fire damage would wreak havoc everywhere, and the machines we depend on to help would be similarly fried.”
“Soooome stuff would be unaffected, being parked in deep, concrete roofed parking garages and the like, but our entire infrastructure would be useless for years.”
“It’d literally send us into a mini dark age while people tried to get things working again, recovery would take decades to centuries.”-Wimbleston
The truth is, life around us is as fragile as anything else in it. We have such little control over when we end our brief stay on this planet Earth.
But we might as well enjoy the time we know we have—the present.
People Share The Most Frightening Facts About The Big Blue Ocean
Most of us have visited a beach next to the ocean at least once in our lives, and it’s fun to spend time there with friends, soaking up the sun, and splashing around in the water.
But also as the AskReddit pointed out, it’s unsettling to think about what else is out there beneath the waves.
Redditor matspud asked:
“What’s the scariest thing you know about the ocean?”
Some were in awe of the sheer size of the ocean.
“How big it is in all directions. Most people ‘know’ this at least at a factual level, but haven’t really thought of how scary that must be if you ever find yourself in the middle of the ocean deep beneath the surface.” – vivianmay02
“Just how much water there is. If you punched a swimming-pool sized hole in the bottom of the Marianas Trench so that ocean water would drain through it, it would take hundreds of thousands of years to deplete the oceans.” – AdvocateSaint
“Everything about the Marianas Trench scares the s**t out of me. The fact that it’s 36000 feet deep (as far as we know), and that light doesn’t penetrate water past 3200 feet is mindblowing to me.”
“For reference, Mount Everest is 29000 feet tall, which means you could fit Everest into the trench (in terms of height, not necessarily mass) and light wouldn’t even hit it, it would be entirely submerged in darkness.”
“The thought of thousands of feet of cold, dark water is an absolute nightmare in my opinion.” – TheBlueHerron1
“There’s a spot in the ocean called Point Nemo, where on average the closest humans to you are the astronauts on the International Space Station.” – BaffledDonuts420
Others agreed and thought of what hasn’t been explored.
“The majority of the world’s oceans have NOT been explored, and deep-sea creatures of all types have never been discovered.”
“H**l, we don’t even know what whales do most of the time. It’s another world underwater and we know almost nothing about it.” – AAOG666
“That literally anything based on deep-sea monsters could be real in a sense.” – SteveManson4554
“The bottom of the ocean is less searched than the surface of the MOON.” – Shy-Guys-Toast
Some introduced terrifying and deadly sea creatures.
“Right off the coast of Baja, Humbolt squid that are about 4 to 6 feet long, have sharp serrated teeth in every sucker on their arms can take you from the surface and drag you to depths of 900 feet.”
“You would just disappear from the surface and no one would ever hear nor see you again and you’d be mercilessly eaten by their beaks tearing grapefruit sized chunks out of you.” – yoncenator
“Sea spiders exist and they can get to over 2 meters in length.” – Fearless-1265
“There’s this thing called the Pelican Eel which lives deep down. It’s the actual s**t of nightmares.” – Imanol0206
“There’s this f**king 10-foot worm that lives under the ocean floor, except its head, which is level with the ocean floor. It’s got feelers and pincers so if a fish swims over it, it grabs on with the pincers and drags the fish under to eat it.” – mrusmca
A few pointed out how close by some creatures actually are.
“If you frequent the ocean enough you’re bound to swim a few feet from a shark.” – Dannydevitz
“My teacher regularly visits Africa as he owns a safari resort there (real neat guy) and told me how once while swimming, he saw a huge a** tiger shark swim overhead. It was only about 3 feet above him, scary s**t.” – RogueDoodler
“There are blue holes in the Bahamas which are all connected by miles of underwater caverns. Only 8% of it has been explored by humans.”
“The blue holes serve as fun little swimming holes and the water is clear and you can see to the bottom (at least on some I’ve read).”
“Sometimes people just disappear from them while swimming with friends. Like, there are reports of people turning around, then back around and their buddy is gone.”
“There are rumors of tentacles pulling people under.”
“Fun fact: octopi don’t stop growing.”
“Another fun fact: they can fit anywhere their jaw/ beak can fit.”
“Another fun fact: they are bottom dwellers.”
“Not saying Lusca is real… But you’ll never catch me in a blue hole.” – Key_Refridgerator7725
Two were concerned about what’s happening to the ocean.
“I’m afraid its eventual acidification may render it uninhabitable.” – Trepang
“People can’t even wrap their heads around coral bleaching or algal blooms much less the severity of snails and such not being able to sublimate calcium into shells anymore.” – Emotionally_dead
Some urged others to be respectful of nature.
“It’s where the food chain starts. Mankind is full speed ahead, d**n the torpedoes doing our best to completely destroy it with absolutely no regard for anything, even ourselves.”
“Ultimately, we’ll get what we deserve for the arrogant and callous way we’ve treated this planet.” – IfIKnewThen
“As a scuba diver, the most important thing to know is that the ocean doesn’t care about you. It might not be actively out to get you, but it’s also not going to help you.”
“You aren’t really meant to be there and it’s of no consequence what happens to you. Nothing there is conducive to you staying alive.”
“It’s an uneasy truce that you’re the only real party to. So it follows that all the warnings about paying attention, knowing your equipment, and remembering your training are in fact not bulls**t.”
“You’re a visitor, so treat it and yourself with respect. The ocean will continue what it’s been doing for eons whether you’re there or not. You don’t have that luxury.” – bg-j38
Some of these facts, especially the stranger creatures that have been discovered in deeper parts of the ocean, are particularly unsettling, especially when we mostly think about sparkling water and bright, sunny beaches.
While this may not stop all of us from going into the ocean ever again, perhaps it will give us the pause we need to appreciate the vastness of nature and the respect we should have for it.
People Explain Which Scientific Advances May Sound Futuristic But Are Actually Reality Today
The future is now. There are so many advances happening on the daily, it’s impossible to keep up.
Science seems to be moving at warp speed. Everything we thought would be possible is now more than possible.
Soon, we’ll all be in space.
Well, those of us with billions of dollars of course.
Redditor emeister26 wanted to discuss all the fascinating facts about life and science that are already upon us by asking:
“What is something that sounds futuristic but is happening now?”
It’s all about the T…
“CAR T cell therapy.”
“They take the T cells out of a cancer patient. They train the cells to kill the specific type of cancer that the patient has and then they put them back in.”
“This therapy doesn’t work 100 % of the time, but when it does it does miracles.”
“(It’s also expensive as sh*t for now)”. ~ strange_socks_
“I currently work in this field, and am currently commercializing my second CAR-T product in my life (my first was Kymriah).”
“It doesn’t always work 100% of the time, but the next generation of CAR-T’s have shown 100% remission rates.”
“Example of 100% remission.”
“CAR-T is roughly the same price as a monoclonal antibody, Amgens Blintocyte is $300k roughly, and Kymriah and Yescart are about $220-350k depending on where you are in the world.”
“So it’s pretty competitive.” ~ arabidopsis
How many types are there?
“I’ve been a type 1 diabetic since 1982.”
“Back when I was first diagnosed, I had to pee on a stick and match the color up to colors on the vial to see approximately what my blood sugar was a couple hours ago.”
“Now I have an anamatronic fish that tells me what my sugar levels are and I don’t even have to prick my finger! We truly are truly living in the future.” ~ rhett342
A.I. is upon us…
“Robotic prosthetic limbs. I know a guy who lost his arm from a construction accident.”
“He now has an arm that has a fully articulated hand, and is good enough that he can even write with it, though not very well.”
“He said it’s worth about half a million dollars, and also it has done wonders for his ability to hook up with women.”
“I guess a lot of people are curious and that starts off the conversation.” ~ Youpunyhumans
“There are actually some amazing innovations in the robotic prosthetic scientific field that have JUST been published!”
“Scientists have been able to make a prosthetic arm with a sense of touch! This is very important, as it allows for better gripping of objects.”
“The test subject was able to pour a glass of water in half the time it took him with a non-feeling prosthetic.”
“It also allows people to enjoy the sensation of feeling, which is pretty awesome!”
“Also, piggybacking because it’s somewhat related, scientists have also recently discovered a way to allow a paralyzed man to type and control computers with only their thoughts!”
“The outside of the brain is the part that deals with bodily motion, so they surgically implanted electrodes and asked him to imagine hand-writing letters.”
“Then, a little bit of machine learning magic, and boom! He was able to write on a computer!”
“He was able to write 90 characters a minute! Kinda the ultimate “look ma, no hands!”
“Links to articles:”
“https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/medical-advances/553323-in-amazing-first-paralyzed-man-is-able-to-type” ~ cancer_dragon
Photos and texts of the future.
“A program that is able to generate almost any (!!!) photo using short text input.”
“A San Francisco street? Done. Avocado chair? Yes, why not. A photo of buildings of Poland? YES, it can do that.”
“It can generate almost any stock photo you can imagine, like any any, you can add parameters, lighting, ask to specific picture in the room.”
“It uses 12 billion of pictures and descriptions to do this. There are two downsides of course: the first one is lots of lots of computational power.”
“The second is that the program is losing the track after few parameters.”
“Also it can do only 100×100 pixels at the time but it will change fast.”
“It’s called DALL-E and was premiered this year. It’s an AI made by OpenAI. Terrific and amazing at the same time.” ~ umotex12
Know the Survey
“I’m fourth generation of an excavating company and some of our surveying techniques now are unbelievable.”
“When we started in the 60’s you used a contraption called a theodolite and prism (a fancy level used to measure the distance and elevation change of the prism).”
“One of the fondest memories I’ll ever hold happened two months ago shortly before my Grandpa (the founder) passed away.”
“I showed him how to survey a 30 acre site with a drone in about 45 minutes (all automated), something that would have taken a crew well over a week in his time.”
“I then took the data, had it processed, and showed him the prints of the site right on site with my laptop. He cried.” ~ cmde44
Visualize it and See it!
“I work in the construction industry.”
“Technology has really made projects easier to plan out and do. Like back in the day, paper blueprints were how you visualized a job.”
“Big huge paper rolls that were a pain in the a** to carry around and store, and the prints were easy to damage because well… they’re paper.”
“If there was ever a change to the prints, you’d have to wait for the drafters to draw them, print them, and send them to your job.”
“Nowadays the foreman or project manager carry an iPad with all of the blueprints, both in 2D and 3D CAD drawing and can look up every detail of the drawings in seconds.”
“And if the drafters have to make changes, they can email or message the site foreman and give them new prints in a matter of minutes.”
“This isn’t your dad’s construction site anymore.” ~ Mercurydriver
Just think reeeeal hard!
“Being able to control objects with your brain. I know it’s still in its infancy but the fact that we can even attempt do stuff like that is crazy.” ~ Cruise_alt_40000
Year One
“A blood test to diagnose Alzheimer’s.” ~ Geekla
“It was on Jeopardy tonight, actually, yes! I’ve been reading about it.”
“It’s less than a year old, just getting started and I’m guessing just the first version of more to come, but it’s real and it made my whole day to hear it.” ~ Geekla
Body Parts
“3d printed organs.” ~ turn_your_compote
“I really hope that one day they can just scrape a few of your stem cells, and 3 weeks later they’ve grown you a new heart, liver, kidneys, etc.” ~ Diligent_Slide
The lifespan of light…
“Something I just noticed the other day.”
“CFL light bulbs became popular and all but got replaced by LED bulbs all within the lifespan of a single bulb.”
“I was replacing a bulb the other day that was a CFL and I remember the last time I replaced it, the previous bulb was an incandescent.” ~ Restil
The Good Landing
“Rockets landing upright… to me it looks like bad special effects, because it was never in any good movies.” ~ redmaybe
Technology and science, two things I’ll never understand. But two things I can’t avoid.
We are close to living in The Jetsons.
I can feel it. Can you?
People Share The Most Terrifying Facts About The Universe
What life lies beyond the clouds?
What life forces dance among the stars?
What secrets does the sky hold?
What sort of ferocious creature is sitting on a planet waiting to evaporate us?
Or what sort of dark element hides in the vastness of the unknown, biding it’s time to unleash a dangerous fury over all the planets and lives in it’s path?
These are all the lighthearted thoughts I ponder when I think about the Universe and space. And what could possibly be out there.
Sometimes science and knowledge can be more anxiety inducing than fun.
Remember back in the days of middle school? We’d all learn about space and space travel and theorize about what lies beyond and it would be a fascinating process. That was cool.
Or do you recall enjoying films like Alien, Armageddon and Deep Imapct?
We’d watch them and laugh about how none of that could actually happen.
Now cut to 2021 and I’ve lost track of the number of asteroids I hear about that have barely missed us and or are coming for us.
Now who’s laughing? We know next to nothing about what is out there. And the more we discover, the less I want to hear.
And I’m not alone in this opinion.
Redditor ZenitsuCrybaby wanted to discuss all the things we may not want or need to know but do.
They asked:
“What is the most terrifying fact about our universe/world?”
The Big Burn Out…
“Every once in a while, our sun just emits a solar flare big enough to end civilization.”
“In 1859 we had one hit the Earth powerful enough that the telegraph system became self powered for a while before burning itself out.”
“Fortunately at that time, that was pretty much the extent of our electrical infrastructure, so the damage didn’t do too much to civilization.”
“If one hit today without any warning, every system on long spans of wire would be fried. We’d lose a massive amount of infrastructure.”
“No refrigeration for food distribution, large chunks of communication infrastructure gone, massive amounts of manufacturing capacity gone.”
“Pretty much every aspect of life would be affected. And without that infrastructure, we almost certainly don’t have the capacity to rebuild the infrastructure before people start starving to death.”
“And once people start starving, things are likely to go downhill pretty quickly.”
“You might be wondering what are the odds that we’ll ever see another solar storm that large, and the answer is that we already have.”
“On July 23 of 2012, a similarly sized solar flare missed the Earth by 9 days.”
“In the last few decades we’ve added in some early warning systems and protocols to give us a chance of surviving.”
“Basically we’ll get about 45 minutes warning to disconnect as much of the electrical grid as we can, then hope enough of it survives.” ~ open_door_policy
Better Life Out There
“The universe’s opinion of us: Mostly harmless.” ~ FredGruntbuggly
“What’s even scarier is that if there is other intelligent life out there, it could have stuff one million times stronger than all of the nuclear weapons on earth combined.” ~ ThatOneDoveSlayer
Tiny, tiny bits…
“How unfathomably tiny our planet is in comparison to the continuously expanding universe.” ~Grentis
“The way that the universe operates on such an infinitesimal small scale, but also an impossibly massive scale freaks me out.”
“Even if we can look at the numbers and know the scale, I feel like our minds can’t really conceptualize it.” ~ Reddit
“What’s worse is that not only is the universe continuously expanding, it’s accelerating.”
“Meaning that as time progresses that distant galaxies will literally fade from view, the light emitted from them will never reach us.”
“Eventually the inhabitants of our galaxy will never know of that the universe extends beyond our local group of gravitational bound galaxies.”
“And even eons beyond that… the notion of other galaxies outside the milky-way will be myth.”
“Dark Energy is one cruel witch.” ~ GRVrush2112
The Grand Expansion…
“What’s outside the universe?”
“If it’s always expanding, what is it expanding into?”
“Any time I think about this for too long it reminds me about how little I understand about the existence of anything and it scares me.” ~ businessgoose3000
Empty Spaces
“One of the largest “structures” in the universe is the Boötes void. A void is a region of space that contains very little celestial objects or matter.”
“It is a region of the universe 330 million light years in diameter. Despite this it has been found, so far, to contain only 60 galaxies.” ~ NOVAQIX
We are so terribly young…
“I’ve posted this before but I think about it a lot. Our civilization is so, so early.”
“The universe is expected to continue star formation for 100 trillion years. We exist 13.7 billion years after the big bang.”
“That’s 0.014 percent of the total “habitable” time of our universe.”
“If the big bang was January 1st, 1900 and star formation ends at January 1st, 2000. Then it’s currently January 6th, 1900.”
“What are the chances of that? Why do we exist now, so early, instead of any other point in the rest of time?” ~ TheReaper42
We know nothing for sure…
“Humans can’t understand the concept of eternal and we can’t understand the concept of infinite.” ~eggslocated
“That’s why I’m scared of the afterlife, If there is one. The idea of simply ceasing to exist scares me, but the idea of existing eternally also scares me.”
“I simply cannot comprehend the idea of existing forever and ever and ever and ever with no end in sight.” ~ edd6pi
Anybody out there?
“There could be intelligent life on other planets or we could be the only form of intelligent life in the universe. Either scenario is pretty terrifying.” ~ Thomas_Chinchilla
“To me, being all alone in the vast expanse of space is an extremely interesting possibility.”
“I scoff when people say it would be boring or a waste of space.”
“It would be absolutely fascinating if there was all of that out there, and then just us.” ~ dubspace
And on Earth
“You can be born into a completely awful and nightmarish environment, and never escape it. You’ll be born miserable and die miserable.” ~ DANYALKIM
“There’s also people born into these that do make it out and they’re much stronger for it and go on to ensure that many people don’t end up the way they were.”
“Doesn’t make it any better but at there’s a little glimmer in there somewhere.” ~ Reddit
WARNING! DANGER!
“We’re not yet at the point of no return for the coming ecological catastrophe and we’re gonna sail past it anyway.” ~ zomboromcom
“Considering the fact that our planet is the only one known to sustain intelligent life in the discovered universe.”
“It reminds you of how many things have to line up perfectly in order for that to be possible.”
“It is a very fragile balance, and certain ecological and atmospheric temperatures/resources/chemical concentrations are essential.”
“Yet we look at the way we are carelessly screwing it up, but it is easy to imagine this one in a million planet becoming unlivable.” ~ twilit_earth
Stop the Killing!
“We have millions of unknown living things on our planet, and most will never be discovered due to humans killing nature.” ~ Cubsfan630
“Tbh it’s not even just humans killing nature. Humans are also just not capable of seeing or hearing tons of things.”
“There could be a giant 4 dimensional uv dragon sitting next to me and if I hear a fart my brain will blame it on the dog cause I can’t see the dragon.”
“Or that’s how I interpreted the other posts on this stuff recently lol.” ~ raspberrykitsune
Well that is a lot to process. I don’t remember middle school and high school science classes being so full doom and gloom.
No matter what is out there, one thing is for sure. Humans… we have to do better!
We all play a part in the survival and the downfall, close to home and far and wide.
I’m going to stick to learning about English Lit now. There couldn’t be anything to worry about there.
Right?
People Who’ve Done Top Secret Work Finally Divulge What They Were Working On
Most of us will work a fairly wide variety of jobs over the course of our lives, and some of us walk away with some pretty interesting stories while trying to pay the bills.
The most fascinating jobs, though, have to be the ones that we’re not supposed to talk about.
Redditor Charcoals7 asked:
“People who did super-secret work, what is something you can share now that you couldn’t before?”
Some had worked with dermatologists and plastic surgeons.
“Interned for a plastic surgeon who is very well known and does work on celebs. They sold their skincare line for hundreds of dollars and touted it as having highly advanced ingredients of the highest quality.”
“They bought most of it from a wholesale retailer who stuck their name on the bottle. The website looked sketchy tbh (to be honest).”
“They also had ’24k gold face masks’ that were purchased in bundles off of Amazon for cheap.”
“These fancy skincare lines are such a scam, don’t waste your money.” – monkeylioness
“Dermatologists do this too.”
‘A lot, if not all, don’t really formulate their own products. They buy it in bulk at a discounted price from pharma sales reps, repackage, and mark up by a ridiculous percentage.” – streakfolmlore
Others had experience with security.
“Friend had to get heaps of security clearance at one of his first jobs. Inventory reporting that fed into customs databases.”
“I had to speak to an FBI agent as part of his background check and the job really just amounts to tallying information almost like tick sheets.” – tdasnowman
“Worked at an engineering department at a university that had an aviation engine testing shop. We got military surplus stuff all the time through industry agreements.”
“Some stuff that got dropped off were cruise missile engines with pretty advanced thrust vectoring and some stealthy design features.”
“All the aviation geeks were like, ‘We didn’t know that those missiles had that on them.’”
“Then some serious-looking men came to the department and took them back, and kindly reminded us not to talk about whatever it was we thought we saw but actually didn’t see because it had never happened.”
“I saw some of it published a few years ago in the open so I figure I’m good.” – gunmedic15
“My grandpa worked for the NSA. Had to say he answered phones his entire life.”
“Went to the DC Spy Museum and they had his career on display. Wild. He cried a lot.” – EepEekim
A few challenged the history books.
“Dad (died 2016) was in the Navy and on one of the ships in the blockade that was part of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The official story is that no American ship fired any shots.”
“A few months before he died, Dad said his ship was one of several that fired shots.” – xkulp8
“During the 1982 Falklands conflict, it was spread on the news that several British submarines were in the area, and this is likely what deterred the Argentine carrier Vientecinco de mayo from engaging the British fleet.”
“My father was a submariner at the time (didn’t go down there). When he was in the bar on base back home, it was announced on the radio that a certain British submarine was in the area.
“The guy next to him said, ‘I hope not, I just walked off it an hour ago.’”
“Basically pulled the same trick the Royal Navy used against the Graf Spee in 1939.” – EmperorOfNipples
There were gamers in the mix.
“I was a QA tester on Half Life 2. At the time it operated under multiple code names outside of the main testing room: the two I remember was Red Rooster and Dirty Butler.”
“Security was INSANE. They had us in a small corner office with PCs and draped-out windows. Our lead kept the office locked at all times, and when we got into work each day we had to hand over all bags, cell phones, and any storage media we had.”
“If I recall, screenshots were only allowed with permission, and had to be sent in an email to the lead, then scrubbed from the computer.”
‘This was also during the time Vivendi Universal Games (where I worked) was having tensions with Valve over the whole Steam thing, so for a while, it didn’t seem like we’d get credited either: we eventually did, but only on Gamasutra.”
“The entire team got printed shirts that read, ‘I survived Red Rooster,’ and I’ve still got mine kicking around. It’s itchy, thick, and uncomfortable to wear, but I refuse to get rid of it, since it’s a memento I’m fairly proud of.” – PatienceHero
“I worked at a printing company that made Magic The Gathering cards. It was insane.”
“There’s nothing quite like seeing uncut sheets of foil mythic rares stacked in a block 4 feet high 8 months before release.”
“I wasn’t allowed to play in tournaments during my tenure there and I had to sign an NDA.” – feverishdodo
“I worked similarly at Hasbro, the parent company for Wizards of the Coast which owns Magic and I was given a free uncut press sheet of Japanese Rise of Eldrazi foil mythic rares. They also gave me a full set of the employee-only holiday cards and a bunch of other stuff.”
“Basically one of the higher-ups found out that I loved Magic and made a call to get a huge package of free stuff sent to me. I barely knew the guy but it was such an incredible thing to do that my whole department came out to watch me open the stuff.”
‘It’s one of my most cherished memories honestly.”
‘It makes sense though that a company made up largely of adults who love toys and games would retain that childlike spark of just wanting to give your friend a gift to make them happy, no strings attached.”
“If anyone here reads this and gets the chance to work for Hasbro, I can’t recommend it enough, TAKE THAT JOB!”
“I wish I still had the press sheet, but life gets in the way sometimes and I had to sell it along with all the other rare cards I had to make sure my wife and I could survive. I miss them, but making sure my wife felt a little more secure that month about money was easily worth all of my cards.” – Itsfitzgames
There were wholesome secrets, too.
“Still secret: Sometimes I warn my dad about certain things and tell him how to react/ what to do (dad has autism so he can’t keep the truth from his expression) for my mom’s sake.”
“For example, my mom is older and got a shorter haircut and talked about how worried she was to show my dad because she knows he doesn’t like shorter hair on women.”
“I texted him to warn him and tell him to just smile and say it’s nice, DONT tell her you like it longer.”
“The next day, my mom couldn’t stop looking in the mirror because my dad said he really liked her haircut.”
“She doesn’t know it’s because I warn him about things and she will never know.”
“I love my dad but he is horrible at lying with his facial expressions. Same as instructing him to order flowers and a gift for my mom to send to grandma’s house for Valentine’s Day because she was visiting her mom and would be away.” – CorruptManatee
Some secrets are less interesting than the fact they were made to be kept secret at one point, but every once in a while, a person finds a gem.
The ones that make us question something basic about our lives, or that remind us to be thankful?
Those are the best kinds of secrets.