Category: Science

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/05/20/998725924/a-sense-of-touch-boosts-speed-accuracy-of-mind-controlled-robotic-arm“

“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?

Posted on

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?

Posted on

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.

Posted on

People Break Down The Most Random Science Facts

I love science.

Although I hated it in high school, now that I’m old… I mean an adult, I love it.

Why you ask?

Because the more science you learn, the more you can understand what’s happening around you and live better.

But science has sadly been under attack for the last several years.

So let’s be our own Bill Nye and absorb a bit of science for our own good.

Redditor Look_Under_The_Bed went to Reddit for all the best science on offer and asked:

“What’s a random science fact that you know?”

So let’s talk science…

You never know when you’ll need to spit out some random facts to impress people at parties.

And if nothing else, we’ll be better prepared for Jeopardy!.

Cry me a River…

“When you cry really hard, your nose runs because it’s connected to the same pipes as your tear ducts, so your nose is also helping you get your tears out.” ~ Threspian

“On a similar note, your nose runs when it’s cold out because you have created a heat gradient.”

“Warm air can hold more water than cool air so as you exhale, the water condenses at the end of your nose and so your nose runs.”  ~ wolfmoral

LOOK OUT BELOW!!!

“Squirrels can survive falling from terminal velocity.”  ~ terrariapro117

“I learned this after witnessing a squirrel hit the ground after a presumably long fall.”

“It made a loud SMACK as it hit the ground, scared the crap out of me and the dog, then scampered away, up another tree like nothing happened.”  ~ _cocophoto_

Time after Time…

“Time is slightly slower between higher altitudes and lower altitudes, to infinitesimal fractions of a second.”  ~ Redditor

“The designers of the GPS satellites had to compensate for this, since the entire system is built around ridiculously precise timekeeping.”

“It was calculated theoretically first as a consequence of general relativity, and then confirmed experimentally.” ~ Murgatroyd314

 Strength in opposing directions…

“Muscles can only contract. Muscle tissue can’t push.”

“Doesn’t sound like a big deal until you realize that actions like sticking your tongue out of your mouth are completely the result of pulling, not pushing.” ~ fd1Jeff

“I teach anatomy. Always fun to watch students work through this information for the first time.”

“That is a series of pulling and relaxing and the opposite movements are also pulling and relaxing.”

“i.e…triceps vs biceps.”  ~ Warlock2017

2 every solar system turn…

“Venus the only planet to spin clockwise.” ~ siglawoo

“Sun’s axis rotates a full turn about every 27 Earth days but since the Sun is not solid but a ball of plasma the rotation speeds are different at different latitudes.”

“At the equator it’s surface rotates faster, every 24 days.”

“Another fun fact: the orbital plane of the planets is tilted about 7 degrees in relation to the Sun’s axis mentioned above.”

“This should not be the case because of the way planets form around a star.”

“Astronomer’s suspect that the orbital plane of the planets tilted as a result of the gravity of a large planet size object that is no longer around.”

“Existence of this planet is hypothetical so it was given a name Planet X (or sometimes Planet 9). Other anomalies had been observed that could also suggest existence of such an object.”

“Example: grouping of planetoids on the outskirts of the Solar System.”

“The reason that the planet hasn’t been observed directly is that it’s so far away beyond Neptune that it doesn’t reflect enough sunlight to be seen with available technology.”

“Another proposed explanation for the orbital plane tilt is existence of a nearby planet-sized black hole which orbits the Sun but hasn’t been detected yet.”

“The new James Webb space telescope that will be launched soon should help to answer those questions.”  ~ aykontakt

“Makes you wonder. What if something hit Venus?”

“In Dynamics if two objects hit each other and their center of gravities aren’t along the path each was traveling, one will spin clockwise and the other counterclockwise.”

“Maybe Earth and Venus are the same size because we’re the result of two roughly similar sized objects hitting each other in space. Idk.”  ~ detectiveDollar

Within Reach…

“You’re closer to space than you are to anything more than about an hour’s drive away.”

“Most folks take “space” to be “outside of Earth’s atmosphere.”

“There’s no precise boundary to where Earth’s atmosphere ends and space starts, but a lot of people take the Kármán line to be as good a point as any to split atmosphere vs. space.”

This line is 100km/62 miles up, which is roughly the distance your grandma can drive in an hour on the highway.”  ~ meatfrappe

I see the resemblance…

“Tyrannosaurus was closer in time to Humans than to Stegosaurus.”  ~ jsreyn

“That explains why my arms are so short.”  ~ TransientFeelings

“Haha same! When I sit on a chair, I never know what to do with my arms.”

“If I put them on my legs near my hips, I end up slouching because I can’t sit straight and put my hands on my thighs.”

“So I cross my arms and then people say I look defensive.”  ~ Zealousideal9151

Human Waste in Orbit…

“If you bleed more than 100ml/min on the international space station, they write you off and say any medical supplies spent on you is a waste.”  

“It’s been years since I saw the article but I believe the only plan at that point was ‘get the astronaut to earth ASAP’ which, you know… isn’t done in a few minutes, soooo.”  ~ Wit-wat-4

Square cut or pear shaped…

“Diamonds aren’t forever. In fact, they are dust at 500 degrees in your oven for a few hours.”

“Diamonds aren’t pressure/temperature stable at the surface. If you heat them without also applying incredible pressure, they become CO2 and a little pile of carbon.”  ~ Driftmoth

Veggies keep you level…

“If you ever get a cut and it won’t seem to stop bleeding chances are you’re low on vitamin K as it’s the one that helps your blood clot. Vitamin K can be found in most vegetables.”  ~ orion284

“Especially leafy greens! Which is why people on warfarin (and certain other anticoagulants IIRC) need to be mindful of their greens intake… ideally.”

“They should eat them only in moderation and aim for the same amount every day to keep their warfarin levels stable.”  ~ sheepthechicken

Always Sunny, Everyday

“The sun rises on the ISS every ~90 minutes which is the time it takes to orbit the earth and so astronauts experience about 16 mornings everyday.”  ~ pseud0human

I feel like my IQ points just jumped exponentially.

There is definitely enough information there to make me look a tad more sophisticated at parties.

There is no such thing as useless knowledge! The more you know, the more you grow.

Maybe I should write for Hallmark…

Anyway, knowledge of science can be fun and keep us from making foolish mistakes or bad decisions.

Remember that kids.

Posted on

People Share The Absolute Weirdest Facts They Know

In our primary school years, many of us took great pride in the weirdest, most fun facts we could spout out to our friends and family members on command.

Some of us, though, never lost that passion and continued collecting factoids about the world around us.

Redditor lovedump44 asked: 

“Reddit, what is the weirdest FACT you know?”

Some talked about the state of Maine.

“Maine is the closest U.S. state to Africa.” – Donald_Keyman

“[Maine] is also the only state with one syllable in its name.” – BatskyStarman

The state of Ohio had something going for it, too.

“Ohio is the only state to not share a letter with the word ‘mackerel.’” – hunter07100

There was quite the unexpected fact about sea cucumbers.

“I know that sea cucumbers, to protect themselves from enemies, will hurl their own internal organs at anything threatening them.”

“Pretty wild, I think, but it doesn’t hurt the critter none. The sea cucumber can regrow whatever organs he lost with ease.” – aintyourma

Penguins have an unexpected skill, too.

“Penguins have a gland above their noses that removes salt from seawater.” – Servb0t

Some Redditors loved sharing facts about otters.

“Otters have a secret pocket where they carry their favorite rock.” – theoldraven

“[Otters] also hold hands when they sleep.” – jellyshoes11

“[Otters hold hands]…so they don’t drift apart. We can’t forget the adorable reason!” – biospark02

LEGO was represented on a technicality. 

“LEGO is the world’s largest producer of tires.” – UncensoredChef

This inspired a piece of trivia from the first LEGO Movie.

“In the LEGO Movie, they put fingerprints and scratches on pieces to make the legos looked like they were well played with.” – hannakah_ham

Speaking of yellow characters, Pac-Man was also mentioned.

“If you put your finger in your ear and scratch, it sounds just like Pac-Man.” – Donald_Keyman

And while we’re on the subject of scratching…

“Bonus Fact: If your throat is itching, you can make it stop by scratching your ear.” – Rywell

Some startling timeline facts had to be shared, too.

“Cleopatra lived closer to the invention of the iPhone than she did to the building of the Great Pyramid.” – Donald_Keyman

“More time has passed between 9/11 and today, than 9/11 and the fall of the Berlin Wall.” – chicochic

“The Tyrannosaurus Rex was more likely to have gone to a Miley Cyrus concert than to have ever fought against a Stegosaurus (chronologically).” – Baldybeardy

Two Redditors enjoyed thinking of how we’re all connected.

“Astronomer here! If you look at the large-scale structure of the universe, it looks an awful lot like a brain cell.”

“I always thought that was really weird, but also a neat coincidence.” – Andromeda321

“We are more empty space than we are solid matter.” – its_the_peanutiest

Three Redditors considered how fantastically small some things are.

“There are more stars in space than there are grains of sand on every beach in the world…” – hotbuk**ke

“Russia has a larger surface area than Pluto.” – Swaily_P

“You can fit 3 Jupiters in the space between the Earth and our Moon.” – Question_4_you_guys

Two Redditors mentioned some surprising finds.

“A tomato plant was found on a 40-year-old volcanic island by the name of Surtsey. Scientists were baffled about how it got there.”

“Turns out a scientist took a dump which contained tomato seeds, and the plant grew.” – speeds_03

“Antarctica has two ATM machines. However, only 1 of them is working…” – Nebih

Three Redditors couldn’t choose just one factoid to share.

“Here are some interesting and odd facts:”

“Mammoths went extinct over 1000 years after the building of the great pyramid in Egypt.”

“A strawberry isn’t a berry, but an avocado is.”

“The can opener was invented 50 years after the can. They used bayonets or smashed them open with rocks in the intervening time. The rotating can opener that we’re familiar with took over 100 years to finalize.”

“The spikes on a stegosaurus’ tail are known by paleontologists as the thagomizer, which is a term coined by none other than Gary Larson in the Far Side cartoons.” – techniforus

“The world’s deepest postbox is in Susami Bay in Japan. It’s 10 meters underwater.”

“Light doesn’t necessarily travel at the speed of light. The slowest we’ve ever recorded light moving at is 38 mph (miles per hour).”

“In 1567, the man said to have the longest beard in the world died after he tripped over his beard while running away from a fire.”

“There are more fake flamingos in the world than real flamingos.”

“[Until 2016] the last time the Chicago Cubs won the baseball World Series, the Ottoman Empire still existed, and women did not have the right to vote in the United States.”

“John Tyler, the 10th president of the United States, has a grandson who’s still alive today.” – Donald_Keyman

“Abraham Lincoln created the Secret Service on the day he was fatally shot. At the time, it wasn’t charged with protecting the President, but still…”

“John Wilkes Booth’s brother once saved Lincoln’s son’s life.”

“Furbies are banned from the NSA’s offices — as they may be spies. (They’re not really spies, but the NSA is being extra-careful.)”

“If your name is Richard Parker, stay the hell away from boats.”

“In March of 1951, both the US and UK were introduced to Dennis the Menace comics. But the two Dennis [characters] were totally different and their creators didn’t know about the other one across the Atlantic.”

“The US Civil War started on Wilmer McLean’s farm. He left the area shortly thereafter but couldn’t avoid the war, as it ended at the home he fled to.”

“The code names of the beaches used for the D-Day landings appeared in crossword puzzles before the campaign.”

“The people who make government pens will never see the words those pens write because all those people are blind.”

“Mountain Dew once admitted that mice would dissolve into a jelly-like substance in order to win a lawsuit.”

“There’s a massive, burning pit of natural gas aflame in Turkmenistan which has been burning since the early 1970s.”

“The US once considered nuking the moon, and Carl Sagan worked on the project.” – MrDNL

From facts about space to the strangest finds on Earth, combined with animal oddities and surprising timeline overlaps, these facts left many a fellow Redditor stunned, as well as wondering what other odd trivia they could uncover.

Posted on

People Break Down The Most Likely Reasons Humanity Will Go Extinct

We all know the story of the dinosaurs extinction. An asteroid hit the earth and caused great environmental impact that wiped out their world.

When we think about our world today and what could possibly cause the end of human life, there’s so many more possibilities beyond an asteroid.

Some scientists predict it could happen in 100 years due to the crumbling political and social climates, while others believe it will be climate related which places the end of days anywhere between 5,100 to 7.8 million years from now.

Redditor TwoTimeToj wanted to know:

“What is the most likely to cause humanity’s extinction?”

This question stirred up quite the debate.

Our own doing.

“Humanity.” ~ LopensLeftArm

“This reminds me of the time last year May 2020. When due to lockdown, a lot of pollution went away, and then everyone on the internet declared: ‘We, humans are the real virus.’” ~ tadxb

“It’s not worth arguing because that alone will bring us to the brink. its us fighting ourselves.” ~ Moglist

“I like to think that when the baby boomer generation currently in charge of companies and politics all die off, we’ll be in a better world because the millennials will take over who have more realistic views and understandings and actually seem to give a sh*t about the future, having had such a hard time for their own futures.”

“But at the same time I know it’s just a dream. ‘Man, I’ve had it so sh*t for so long but now I’m in charge and can screw everyone else over to live a really comfortable, extravagant life I always wanted? Why change the wheel when I can abuse it too and live on a beach driving fast cars?’”

“Aaaaaaand nothing’s changed. Big f*cking surprise.” ~ Dynasty2201

“‘We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning, since the world’s been turning.’ – Billy Joel” ~ Guardanapkins

Some think it’s not that easy.

“I think people really underestimate what it would take to actually completely exterminate our entire species. We already bounced back from a population collapse down to under 10,000 once, we could do so again.”

“Nuclear war, ecological collapse, incurable disease; I highly doubt that any of them could kill everyone. Even if it’s just a few isolated pockets in the outback or the jungle that survive, that’s still not extinction.”

“Honestly, I think it would take a cosmic catastrophe (asteroid/comet impact, gamma ray burst, etc) to completely obliterate us and that assumes that it occurs soon enough that we don’t have viable populations outside of Earth.”

“I’m not for a minute saying that ‘Everything will be fine.’ If we nuke ourselves back to the stone age, or completely alter the planet’s climate such that agriculture becomes impossible, then of course human civilization would probably never recover.”

“The questions is explicitly outright extinction, which I think is big step further.” ~ GalacticNexus

“What’s the event that brought us down to 10,000 if I may ask?” ~ madmenrus1

“I believe it was a supervolcano eruption which initiated a mini ice age, correct me if I’m wrong.” ~ elik2226

A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

“A bad-tempered, bureaucratic alien species of space engineers deciding to construct a hyperspace bypass through our solar system.” ~ -o0_0o-

“I mean, the plans have been on display in Alpha Centauri for quite some time.” ~ itsf*ckingpizzatime

“On display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.’” ~ PeterLemonjellow

Genetic modification.

“I’ve always thought that humans will begin modifying DNA and making cyborg-like modifications to the human body until we reach the point that the concept of human will be so diluted that we will have to call ourselves another way, leading to the extinction of humanity as we know it.” ~ -exekiel-

“You should read the book Homo Deus basically the same idea.” ~ ZeusFarous

“The Omnissiah would be proud.” ~ ctank01

Climate change.

“Climate change, pandemics, etc will probably just make a dent of a smaller or bigger size. For an extinction level event, there’s fewer options:”

  • “Asteroid impact.”
  • “Global thermonuclear war.”
  • “Gamma ray burst.”

“…that kind of thing.” ~ arkaydee

“How about solar flares? What if there comes a solar flare that fries all electronics?”

“Suddenly, we’d have no transportation, no food because it relies on transportation, no running water, no pacemakers, etc.?” ~ 101st_kilometre

“We won’t go extinct, it will just collapse society.” ~ Elbonio

“Back to stone age.”

“Exciting.” ~ Entry-

“It won’t be the stone age. There is a lot of accumulated knowledge that would allow us to be way better off than any time prior to the 1800’s.”

“Just the idea of washing your hands before a medical procedure was revolutionary and not recognized by doctors until after the mid 1800’s.” ~ Alatain

“Can’t wait to get back to the good old days, when you cut your lawn using a giant lobster, and your shower was an elephant that complained a lot!” ~ TheAllyCrime

“If tech suddenly went awry there would still be plenty of people able to live in local farms. It would destroy our civilization but people would survive.”

“The only thing that would truly send humans extinct is the earth becoming entirely uninhabitable for us and the food we eat, like an asteroid boiling our oceans or something like that.” ~ tredli

Probably something so ridiculous.

“Probably the dumbest f*cking thing you can imagine.” ~ jks_david

“Like yogurt or giving cats opposable thumbs in love death and robots.” ~ fox_office

“The yogurt will leave us behind.” ~ uncalledforgiraffe

“At least we will be cultured.” ~ AdAny287

A rogue planet.

“Astronomical phenomenon like a rogue planet, or an asteroid.” ~ Tink2013

“I’m apparently fuzzy on the definition of a rogue planet. I believed they were simply planets that formed outside of or somehow escaped a star system.”

“Simply a planet without a star. How might that bring about humanities extinction? Through a collision?” ~ QiKS

“If one came close enough to disrupt our orbit around the sun and kick us out of the ‘goldilocks’ zone, we could die by heat or cold.” ~ spauldhaliwal

Ancient bacteria.

“Polar ice cap melts, releases bacteria from 5 million years ago and it’s p*ssed.” ~ tuscabam

“There’s a really good book about this. The trick is that it kills the livestock as well, transmitted by insects.” ~ KarmaEeleon

One just to lighten the mood.

“A.I. And by ‘A.I.’ I mean Auto Insurance.” ~ 6_String_Slinger

“Flo takes her job seriously. If you’re not on the plan, plan to die.” ~ yankstraveler

Whether it’s climate change or nuclear war, the end of humanity may come one day.

Hopefully, none of us will be around to see it.

Posted on

People Divulge The Coolest Facts About The Human Body They Know

It’s easy to dismiss everything going on inside of us as unimportant and anyone who didn’t pay attention in high school biology class might agree with that statement, but the human body is a wonder of science and nature.

 

By all accounts, we all appear mundane on the outside.

We are all of us just a walking, talking bag of bones, electrical impulses and chemical reactions in a meat suit with an appetite for excellent television and an addiction to overpowered, miniature super computers we carry with us everywhere.

But there’s more to us than that.

For example, did you know your liver is capable of regenerating itself like Wolverine or that you can produce enough spit in a lifetime to fill up two entire swimming pools?

WARNING: some of it is kind of gross to those with weak stomachs.

Just when we think we know everything about the human body, the internet goes and surprises us with a bit of blood and gore.

Redditor Actionkat63 asked:

“What’s a strange, but true fact about the human body?”

We’re All Queens

“The acid in your stomach could burn your skin! I always thought that was pretty interesting, and reminds me of the scene in Alien, where the alien blood burns everything.” ~ RebaRocket

Get Your Running Shoes On

“Humans can outrun almost every animal on long distance.” ~ WantedJOCZ

“Long distances only. Humans have been known to jog for days at a time without sleeping, and we seem to have evolved as endurance predators (ie, jog after an animal until it’s literally too tired to fight back).”

“In cold weather the only animal that beats us is huskies, and in hot weather we can be outdistanced by camels and IIRC kangaroos, but otherwise we tend to win in the end.” ~ Pseudonymico

They Can’t Wiggle Out Of This

“Your intestines are in near constant motion, wiggling like a worm.” ~ EasilyForgotten1

But Are We Still Allowed To Lick Things?

“We know what everything would feel like on our tongues without even licking it.” ~ meh2557

“I’ve read this before and it blew my mind looking around at everything and realizing how weirdly, fascinatingly true it is. I’m assuming it’s a combination of you know textures from your fingers and that stage of infancy when babies put everything in their mouths.” ~ ablondedude

Care Package: Incoming!

“When pregnant, if a mother suffers a heart attack or other large physiological issue, the fetus will release a swarm of stem cells that move to the affected area, greatly helping in survival and healing.” ~ SugaBear9001

Flip The Switch

“that the brain operates on the same amount of power as a 10-watt lightbulb” ~ boringg-moon

Shut It All Down!

“Our immune system is so strong it can kill our own bodies’ cells: so techinically we do have a self destruct sequence” ~ SheepSh-t2525

“Our cells have a self destruct sequence also. If things start getting weird, your mitochondria send a signal to the brain which sends a signal to the cells lysosomes which then burst open and destroy the cell.”

“It’s called apoptosis or programmed cell death.” ~ callisstaa

Every Adults’ Kneecaps Feel This One

“Until the age of like 2 ish babies don’t have real kneecaps, they are made of a squishy cartilage type thing” ~ Bunchnivski

Lots of their bones are squishy cartilage stuff, and only grow into bone as they age. Compare this baby hand with this adult hand x-ray.”

“We can actually use this development of cartilage into bone in the wrist to figure out roughly how old somebody is.” ~ elcarath

We Just Need To Keep Believing And Soon We Can Also See Over Tall Walls

“We have the same number of bones in our neck as a giraffe.” ~ Team_Captain_America

“Giraffes’ neck vertibrae are just really big.” ~ KaityKat117

It Truly Is Liquid Gold

“Human breast milk adapts it’s nutritious content to fit the need of the offspring. Baby lacks iron?”

“Next dose of milk will contain more iron. It’s amazing.” ~ Grimms_tale

“how does that work?”

“like.. how does the body of the mother know what the baby needs?”

“or is it more a ‘the ingredients of milk change over time, as the baby goes through different stages of grow’?” ~ Chepi_ChepChep

“Breastmilk is SO cool!! There’s a reason why it’s called liquid gold!”

“More fun facts:”

“1- breastmilk can be dripped into babies eye/ear/nose to treat infections (as mentioned by someone below, it works best as an anti-inflammatory, which can help! Also, it’s more of a preventative than a cure.)”

“2- breastmilk does change depending on babies needs and as they grow”

“3- breastmilk contents differ depending on babies gender”

“4- breastmilk can help with cradle cap”

“5- it works on mild eczema!”

“6- the components of breastmilk could lead to treatment for cancers! possibilities still under trial”

“7- it’s “made” out of the mother’s blood”.

“Milk is made inside glands from the blood stream. Breast milk is NOT made from the mother’s stomach contents”

“The foods mom eats are broken down in the digestive system. Blood reaches the milk glands where it delivers carbohydrates, nutrients, white blood cells, enzymes, pro- and pre-biotics water, fat, and proteins into the gland. link!”

“8- mothers can detect issues with the baby through all of that kissing, which tells her body what to produce (like more antibodies ect) whoa!“~ Exotic-BlueBird

And That’s Enough For Today…

“It’s possible for your bowel movements to go backwards, causing you to poop from your mouth” ~ ipakookapi

“Just a way your body adapts to changes. If, for some reason you can’t poop, your body will attempt to expel it like its other waste products. You’ll find your breath will go rank, you’ll throw up poop and you urine will smell strong.”

“This will happen shortly before you die of sepsis, since all of these methods collectively aren’t good enough to dispose of everything you need.” ~ Gh3rkins

Never forget the human body is a fascinating and marvelous wonder of biology, chemistry and physics.

Just never be surprised when it does something surprising and/or upsetting to learn about.

We’re only human, after all.