Enjoy These 50 Fur-Raising Facts About Cats

Whether you’re a cat lover or not, there’s no denying that cats make the word go ’round – or at least, they make the internet the place everyone wants to be.

Cats, cat videos, funny videos of people giving thoughts to their cats…whatever it is, if there’s a cat in it, people are down.

For all of the people in the world who love cats, though, do we really know everything there is to know about living with (and catering to) our feline friends?

If you’re looking to know more, we’ve got 50 facts that run the gamut from basic to totally interesting, so snuggle up your kitty and take a gander!

50. People have been showing cats since at least 1871.

Image Credit: Pexels

In July 1871, hundreds of cats were put on display at London’s Crystal Palace.

The world’s first major cat show was attended by more than 200,000 guests, which is just proof that loving cats like, a lot, is nothing new.

49. Cats spend up to 50% of their day grooming themselves.

Image Credit: iStock

Cats groom themselves for several reasons, such as toning down their scent to avoid predators, cooling off, promoting blood flow, and distributing oils naturally through their coats.

Shared grooming sessions also serve as a sign of affection between cats, and experts also believe their saliva could contain enzymes that serve as a natural antibiotic.

48. Some breeds are naturally larger than others.

Image Credit: iStock

The majority of cats in the world weigh just under or over ten pounds, but some breeds exceed those numbers by quite a bit.

The Norwegian Forest Cat, Maine Coons, and Ragdolls weigh between 15-22 pounds on average, which makes them quite a load in that little carrier.

47. Purring doesn’t necessarily mean they’re content.

Image Credit: Pexels

It is true that cats purr when they’re content.

However, they also purr when they’re sick, stressed, hurt, or even while giving birth.

Basically, don’t assume the sound means they’re happy.

46. Cute cat videos predate the internet.

This clip all but proves cat videos have been making the world go ’round long before they took up permanent residence on the top of the YouTube charts.

Thomas Edison (totally on brand) filmed two cats “boxing” inside a small ring in 1894.

 

45. Purring could help improve their bone density.

Image Credit: Pexels

Experts, like associate veterinary school professor Leslie A. Lyons, aren’t sure why cats purr, but one hypothesis is that the sound frequency of a purr – between 25 and 150 Hertz – can “improve bone density and promote healing.”

She wrote in an article for Scientific American, “because cats have adapted to conserve energy via long periods of rest and sleep, it is possible that purring is a low energy mechanism that stimulates muscles and bones without a lot of energy.”

44. There was a video game based on Socks, President Clinton’s cat.

Image Credit: K-starter

Socks, a black-and-white tuxedo cat, lived in the Oval Office during Bill Clinton’s tenure as President.

During the early 1990s. Super Nintendo Entertainment System created a game called Socks the Cat, which featured the First Feline in Chief.

It was never officially released and was even thought for a long time to have been lost, but recently collector Tom Curtin bought the only copy in existence.

He also purchased the rights and partnered with game publisher Second Dimension to bring Socks the Cat Rocks The Hill out in 2018.

43. A cat’s nose has receptors for catnip.

Image Credit: iStock

The herb catnip contains several chemical compounds, including one called nepetalactone.

Cats can detect that particular chemical compound with special receptors in their noses and mouths, which triggers those odd behaviors we associate with “kitty weed.”

That’s why you might see your beloved cat sniffing, shaking or rubbing their head, and rolling around on the ground.

Don’t worry. They’re okay.

42. Not every cat is into catnip.

Image Credit: Pexels

Despite urban legend, though, a little less than half of cats respond to catnip at all.

Scientists aren’t sure why some cats go nuts and others don’t, but they do know it’s hereditary.

If your cat had a catnip-sensitive parent, they’ve got a 50/50 chance of having the same sensitivity.

If both parents crave the plant, the odds of the kitten wanting the same fix goes up to three in four.

41. They’re great at sniffing things out.

Image Credit: Pexels

In the 1960s, a man named Henry Helb lived in the Dutch Embassy in Moscow with two Siamese cats.

He noticed his pets were arching their backs and clawing at one of the walls, and Helb, convinced the cats could hear something he didn’t, went looking behind them.

He found 30 tiny microphones, and instead of busting the spies, he and his staff used them to pass wrong or irrelevant information onto whoever was listening.

40. Some cats have extra toes.

Image Credit: Averette

Polydactyl cats have 6 toes, and are fairly adept at picking things up.

Maine Coons are particularly likely to have the adaptation.

39. There is a world’s richest cat.

Image Credit: Land of Cats

His name is Blackie, and you can find him in the Guinness World Record Book under Wealthiest Cat.

He inherited the funds from his owner, a rich British antique dealer named Ben Rea.

The cool $13 million was split among three cat charities, all of whom take turns watching over the beloved feline.

38. Male cats have barbed ding dongs.

Image Credit: Pexels

If you’re a female cat, copulation isn’t the funnest time, and it could be part of the reason why they tend to be loners.

Male shafts are barbed in order to stimulate the female’s privates, which inspires an ovulation – and also keeps her from running away before he’s done.

Yikes.

37. Cats are not fans of music.

Image Credit: iStock

If you’ve ever heard cats yowling in the night (probably because a female is being forced into mating), you’re probably not surprised to learn they really don’t consider what humans listen to pleasant music.

At least they have people like composer David Teie on their side; in 2015 he partnered with animal scientists to make an album called Music for Cats. 

According to his website, the songs are “based on feline vocal communication and environmental sounds that pique the interest of cats.”

Hmmm. I wonder if it’s on Amazon Prime Music…

36. College graduates are more likely to be cat owners.

Image Credit: Pexels

According to 2010 research collected by the University of Bristol, people who have graduated from college are about 1.36 times more likely to own a cat than other people who own pets.

After studying the more than 3,000 survey responses about the person’s pets, geography, and academic history, researchers believe they can chalk up the slightly higher chance of cat ownership to the fact that they’re typically more low-maintenance than a dog, and therefore better suited to people with thriving careers.

35. A group of kittens is called a “kindle.”

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A group of kittens all born to the same mama at the same time is called a “kindle,” and I have to believe that Amazon knew that when they chose the name for their e-reading – cats and books just go together, right?

If you’re curious, a group of adult cats roaming the street isn’t a pack – it’s a “clowder.”

34. Cats have more bones than humans.

Humans have 206 bones in their bodies (keep ya dirty jokes to yourself), while cats come with 244.

I’m going to have to check out a skeletal diagram, but I bet the tail accounts for at least a few of those extras.

33. Many famous historical figures were cat lovers.

Image Credit: Land of Cats

Cat lovers are in good (and creative) company when it comes to well-known historical figures.

People like Florence Nightingale, Pope Paul II, Mark Twain, and the Bronte sisters all owned (and of course, adored) cats.

32. Abraham Lincoln was CRAZY for cats.

Image Credit: Public Domain

Abraham Lincoln could vie for the craziest cat man in history, though – once, when his wife Mary Todd asked about Abe’s hobbies, he reportedly replied “cats!”

It should be noted that Lincoln also owned and loved dogs, which proves he was just an all-around good guy in my book.

31. There’s a name for someone who loves cats.

Image Credit: Pexels

If you love cats as much as Lincoln did, try adding the word ailurophile to your vocabulary.

Sure, no one will know what you’re on about, but you can drop it into a casual conversation and educate the masses on what “cat lover” really means.

And, to take it one step further, you could break it down to the Greek – ailouros being the word for “cat” and the suffix –phile meaning “lover.”

So just remember to keep those ailurophobes out of your life, eh?

30. Not all cats have fur.

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Specifically, Sphinx cats are hairless, or furless, but still manage to maintain an average body temperature around four degrees warming than a typical cat.

Mother Nature is a mad scientist, friends!

29. Cats have been in space.

Image Credit: Public Domain

French scientists launched the first cat into space in a rocket on October 18, 1963.

Felicette made it safely up and back down again, using a parachute to descend gently back to Earth.

No official word on whether or not she landed on her feet, though.

28. There’s a reason cats don’t like water.

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According to experts, it could be because, like the rest of us, cats like to be comfortable and walking around with soggy fur is the opposite.

It could also be because it scares them to lose control of their buoyancy.

27. But some cats break the mold.

Image Credit: Lubbad85

Some cats do enjoy the occasional dip, though, including the Turkish Van, Maine Coons, and Bengals – no matter the species, there always have to be a few who go against the grain!

26. The world’s oldest living cat is a thirtysomething.

Image Credit: Eastern Daily Press

The average lifespan of a cat is between 12-18 years, and while most of us have known a cat who made it to – or a bit beyond – that upper threshold, I doubt they’ve lived to be 35.

The current oldest living cat just passed his 35th birthday – he’s a tabby living in Britain, and his name is Henry.

25. But there’s no Guinness World Record for the fattest cat.

There used to be records for the fattest animals, but Guinness found that people are terrible (not news) and would intentionally overfeed their pets in an attempt to get into the record books.

If there were a record attained somewhat naturally it would be Katy, a Siamese cat who lived in Asbest, Russia.

She was given hormones to stop her from mating and the treatment had a surprising side effect: it made her ravenous.

So ravenous, in fact, that at one point she weighed more than 50 pounds.

24. Cat’s love a small space.

Image Credit: Pexels

The phrase “if it fits, I sits” means cats will squeeze themselves into very small spaces whenever possible, and animal experts think that’s because it makes them feel more protected, secure, and important – sort of like being back in the womb.

Shelter workers have known this for some time, as any time they’re given boxes to snuggle in the adjust more quickly and are less stressed than cats left alone in their cages.

Sleeping in a smaller space also helps cats retain more body heat, and so they can stay relaxed and get more rest, too.

23. A massage from a cat is more than a kind gesture.

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You might find it sweet when your cat kneads your leg or your belly (as long as their claws stay retracted), but experts believe your cat is actually marking you as part of their territory through the process.

Cats have scent glands in their paws, which is part of why kittens knead their mama’s belly while nursing – it stimulates milk production.

So it makes sense that if the behavior carries over to adulthood, those glands would still be useful for something.

22. No one knows why cats meow.

Image Credit: Pexels

Cat experts do know why kittens meow – it’s to get their mother’s attention – but as to why full-grown cats might do the same, they’re not totally sure.

They think the behavior grew out of their connection to humans, since cats don’t meow when interacting with other cats.

Instead, they use those noises they made as kittens to convey their emotions and needs to their human “parents” in the same way.

21. At least one cat painting is worth nearly $1m.

Image Credit: Public Domain

In 2015, the “world’s largest cat painting” – an oil painting that measures 7-by-8.5 feet – sold at auction for more than $820,000.

The work is called My Wife’s Lovers and once belonged to wealthy philanthropist Kate Birdsall Johnson.

She owned dozens (maybe hundreds) of cats and commissioned the painting of her beloved Turkish Angoras and Persians.

20. Cats actually sweat.

Image Credit: Pexels

Cats paws are full of secrets, and one of them is that they allow cats to sweat.

They also pant, if they get really hot, but if you see that happen you should help your friend cool off as soon as possible.

19. They don’t always land on their feet.

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More often than not, cats do land with all four paws solidly on the ground.

Cats have a great sense of balance, even when they’re falling, and can use their flexible backbone to adjust their bodies in the air.

The can also spread their legs out to “parachute” down, and since they’re small and light-boned, that often means falls won’t be as hard as they would be for another creature.

That said, people shouldn’t go around testing this theory, because the cat could get hurt – it’s not a 100% of the time thing.

18. They spend the majority of their lives asleep.

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One estimate says that cats spend two-thirds of their lives asleep.

So yeah – the vast majority of their lives are spent sleeping or grooming themselves.

17. America loves Exotics.

Image Credit: catza.net

A 2018 survey found that the most popular cat breed in America was the Exotic – a flat-faced cat that’s basically a short-haired version of a Persian cat.

The second most popular was the Ragdoll, with the British Shorthair coming in 3rd.

Personally, my favorite is “the cat who showed up on my porch and wouldn’t leave.”

16. Some hotels keep cats in their lobby.

Image Credit: The Algonquin Hotel

It’s kitschy, you know?

Bodegas are known for keeping a resident feline, and the Algonquin Hotel, which has graced midtown Manhattan for a century, also has kept a lobby cat since the early 1920s.

The current resident is known as Hamlet. He assumed his post after the passing of Matilda III, who “moved on” in October of 2017.

15. T.S. Eliot thought cats were downright poetic.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The musical Cats is based on a collection of T.S. Eliot poems called Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

Published in 1939, it follows the antics of a group of cats, and originally, a pack of dogs, too.

Eliot cut the dogs, saying that they “don’t seem to lend themselves to verse quite so well, collectively, as cats.”

The rest is, of course, history.

14. Disneyland’s feral cats have a big job.

Image Credit: iStock

Around 200 feral cats call The Happiest Place On Earth home, and they earn their keep by controlling the park’s rodent population.

All of the cats are spayed or neutered, and they also receive medical care and the occasional extra bit of food for their efforts.

13. Your cat might be allergic to you.

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There are a good portion of people who are allergic to cats, but you might be surprised to find the irritation can go both ways.

1 in 200 cats has asthma, a condition that continues to rise among cats who are subjected to smoke, dust, human dandruff, and pollen indoors.

12. They were not made to be letter carriers.

Image Credit: iStock

We know because in the 1870s, the city of Liege, Belgium, tried giving them the job.

Their attempt to train 37 cats to deliver letters in waterproof bags tied to their necks didn’t go all that well – the letters were late when they got to the correct address at all.

Anyone who has ever tried to train a cat is not surprised.

11. In Japan, a cat manages a train station.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

There’s an adorable “stationmaster” in Southeastern Japan – a 7-year-old calico cat named Nitama.

Wakayama City “hired” Nitama in 2015 after losing their previous feline stationmaster, Tama, at the age of 16.

10. Quotation marks are all about cats.

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The Hungarian word for “quotation marks” is macska karom, which literally translates to “cat claws.”

Bet you’ll never look at them in quite the same way again!

9. Cats are fast.

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Dogs, horses, and other breeds might come to mind first when you’re thinking about fast animals, but the fact is that your house cat could probably give some of them a run for their money.

The average running kitty can clock around 30mph, after all, so don’t bother giving chase if one darts away from you.

8. More people in the States have cats than dogs.

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Like college graduates, Americans are more likely to own a cat than a dog.

There are an estimated 85.8 million pet cats in the States, compared to around 78 million dogs.

This could be chalked up to people tending to own more than one cat, don’t you think?

7. It’s true that cats were popular in Ancient Egypt.

Image Credit: iStock

Ancient Egyptians did more than love cats – they revered them.

One of their goddesses was a half-feline named Bastet, even.

Anyone who harmed or made a cat’s life end and was caught faced pretty harsh consequences, one of which was the ultimately mortal penalty.

6. You can tell a lot about a person who says they hate cats.

Image Credit: iStock

Just based on history, I mean.

Napoleon, Julius Caesar, and Genghis Khan all hated cats, too.

Also, that really bad guy in the middle of WWII.

Yep.

Just sayin’.

5. The myth of the bad-luck black cat is a mystery.

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All across Western civilization, you’ll find the myth that black cats are a bad omen, but no one really knows how it began.

As early as the Middle Ages, superstitions arose surrounding black cats being the reason for the plague pandemic.

Little did anyone know that by expiring cats, they were also getting rid of the best chance they had to get rid of infected rats, who actually carried the disease.

They eventually became associated with witches, because older, single women often adopted alley cats as companions.

4. In some countries, black cats are considered good luck.

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In the United Kingdom and Japan, however, a black cat is a symbol of fortune.

New brides are given black cats to bless their marriages in England, and in Japan, they’re considered particularly lucky for single women.

The Germans throw their beliefs way back to Ancient Rome, when anything that came from the left was ominous – so a black cat crossing from left to right was a bad sign, but if it crossed from right to left, the omen was good.

3. Nyan Cat was based on a real cat.

Image Credit: Know Your Meme

The viral meme of a gray cat with a Pop-Tart body who shoots rainbows from its booty was actually based on a real-life cat named Marty.

Marty was a Russian Blue, owned by Nyan Cat illustrator Chris Torres.

2. Cats can jump up to five times their own height.

Image Credit: Pexels

Some cats can jump as high as six times their own length, and not only that, they make it look easy.

Too bad there aren’t cat Olympics, because I would totally watch that!

1. Cats can’t taste sweets.

Image Credit: Pexels

It’s sad, but true – if your plate has leftover meat, your cat might want to take a bite, but they’ll leave that piece of cake alone.

With your dog, though, all bets are off.

I’m feeling like I need another cat. Can that be right?

What’s your favorite thing about owning a cat (or being owned by a cat)? Tell us in the comments!

The post Enjoy These 50 Fur-Raising Facts About Cats appeared first on UberFacts.

Learn About the Two People Who Made GPS a Reality

There have been many advancements in the past several decades that have changed and improved the way we live our lives every single day, and GPS definitely fits into that category.

Whether it’s helping us get where we’re going anywhere in the world or helping police find missing persons, to a hundred other uses in between (it’s helped me find my dog more than once), there’s no question our society is better for it.

There are two people responsible for turning the idea into a reality – one you’ve probably heard of and one you probably haven’t – and I think it’s about time they got a bit more recognition and credit, don’t you?

Image Credit: GPS.gov

GPS is short for Global Positioning System, and it means that from anywhere in the world, signals can be transmitted by a network of satellites to pinpoint your location within 3 feet. It’s right more than 95%of the time, with the most accurate of devices spotting your position within 12 inches.

The first person responsible for this scientific magic is none other than Albert Einstein, whose theories of special and general relativity play an important role in the process.

The second is a fairly obscure Black female scientists named Gladys West, whose work allows us to understand geodesy and the shape of the Earth well enough to put those physics into action.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL

Basically, you have to know three things in order to interpret signals received from the the 31 operational satellites:

  1. Motion: this includes the motion of both the satellites through space and the motion of the person they’re trying to pinpoint, the motion of the receiver on earth, all of which relate to the laws of Special Relativity.
  2. Curved Space: The gravitational blueshifting and gravitational time dilation of light as it moves between the curvature in space to the curvature on Earth’s surface, following the laws of General Relativity.
  3. Earth’s Gravity: It’s effects may vary by small but still substantial amounts due to mountains and valleys, the thickness of Earth’s crust, and the water present at a given location.

The rules of relativity, put forth by Einstein in the early 20th century, address all of these effects and help us mitigate them neatly.

Image Credit: NASA

Gladys West comes in with the next piece of the equation, which compensates for the fact that the Earth is not a uniform, perfect sphere with the exact same gravitational properties everywhere.

All told, the actual acceleration on Earth can be as little as 9.764 m/s² and as great as 9.834 m/s²: a difference of 0.7%.

Gladys, the second Black woman ever hired as a computer programmer at the Naval Proving Ground in Virginia, specialized in large-scale computer systems and data-processing systems for the analysis of information obtained from satellites.

Image Credit: US Air Force

From there, she put together altimeter models of Earth’s shape in the 1960s, and served as the project manager for Seasat, the first satellite to perform remote sensing of Earth’s oceans.

Through her work, she cut the processing time for these remote sensing applications in half.

Her most revolutionary work, though, was when she programmed the computer that calculated Earth’s geoid to the kind of sufficient precisions that enabled the existence of GPS. To accomplish this, she had to account for every variation in all the forces and effects that can distort the shape of the Earth.

She wrote a guide on radar altimeter satellites, which taught others how to increase the precision of satellite geodesy with her improved technology.

Gladys was inducted into the Air Force Hall of Fame for her efforts, and is universally recognized as one of the Hidden Figures whose work with vital computations allowed the U.S. Military and NASA to complete successful missions before the advent of computing that could take over the tasks.

Image Credit: US Navy

Her commanding officer, Captain Godfrey Weekes, had this to say about his famous employee:

“She rose through the ranks, worked on the satellite geodesy, and contributed to the accuracy of GPS and the measurement of satellite data. As Gladys West started her career as a mathematician at Dahlgren in 1956, she likely had no idea that her work would impact the world for decades to come.”

For West’s part, she still uses a paper map when she travels.

Better safe than sorry, I suppose.

The rest of us, though, say thank you – especially the generations who have never seen a paper map in their lives.

The post Learn About the Two People Who Made GPS a Reality appeared first on UberFacts.

Learn About the Two People Who Made GPS a Reality

There have been many advancements in the past several decades that have changed and improved the way we live our lives every single day, and GPS definitely fits into that category.

Whether it’s helping us get where we’re going anywhere in the world or helping police find missing persons, to a hundred other uses in between (it’s helped me find my dog more than once), there’s no question our society is better for it.

There are two people responsible for turning the idea into a reality – one you’ve probably heard of and one you probably haven’t – and I think it’s about time they got a bit more recognition and credit, don’t you?

Image Credit: GPS.gov

GPS is short for Global Positioning System, and it means that from anywhere in the world, signals can be transmitted by a network of satellites to pinpoint your location within 3 feet. It’s right more than 95%of the time, with the most accurate of devices spotting your position within 12 inches.

The first person responsible for this scientific magic is none other than Albert Einstein, whose theories of special and general relativity play an important role in the process.

The second is a fairly obscure Black female scientists named Gladys West, whose work allows us to understand geodesy and the shape of the Earth well enough to put those physics into action.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL

Basically, you have to know three things in order to interpret signals received from the the 31 operational satellites:

  1. Motion: this includes the motion of both the satellites through space and the motion of the person they’re trying to pinpoint, the motion of the receiver on earth, all of which relate to the laws of Special Relativity.
  2. Curved Space: The gravitational blueshifting and gravitational time dilation of light as it moves between the curvature in space to the curvature on Earth’s surface, following the laws of General Relativity.
  3. Earth’s Gravity: It’s effects may vary by small but still substantial amounts due to mountains and valleys, the thickness of Earth’s crust, and the water present at a given location.

The rules of relativity, put forth by Einstein in the early 20th century, address all of these effects and help us mitigate them neatly.

Image Credit: NASA

Gladys West comes in with the next piece of the equation, which compensates for the fact that the Earth is not a uniform, perfect sphere with the exact same gravitational properties everywhere.

All told, the actual acceleration on Earth can be as little as 9.764 m/s² and as great as 9.834 m/s²: a difference of 0.7%.

Gladys, the second Black woman ever hired as a computer programmer at the Naval Proving Ground in Virginia, specialized in large-scale computer systems and data-processing systems for the analysis of information obtained from satellites.

Image Credit: US Air Force

From there, she put together altimeter models of Earth’s shape in the 1960s, and served as the project manager for Seasat, the first satellite to perform remote sensing of Earth’s oceans.

Through her work, she cut the processing time for these remote sensing applications in half.

Her most revolutionary work, though, was when she programmed the computer that calculated Earth’s geoid to the kind of sufficient precisions that enabled the existence of GPS. To accomplish this, she had to account for every variation in all the forces and effects that can distort the shape of the Earth.

She wrote a guide on radar altimeter satellites, which taught others how to increase the precision of satellite geodesy with her improved technology.

Gladys was inducted into the Air Force Hall of Fame for her efforts, and is universally recognized as one of the Hidden Figures whose work with vital computations allowed the U.S. Military and NASA to complete successful missions before the advent of computing that could take over the tasks.

Image Credit: US Navy

Her commanding officer, Captain Godfrey Weekes, had this to say about his famous employee:

“She rose through the ranks, worked on the satellite geodesy, and contributed to the accuracy of GPS and the measurement of satellite data. As Gladys West started her career as a mathematician at Dahlgren in 1956, she likely had no idea that her work would impact the world for decades to come.”

For West’s part, she still uses a paper map when she travels.

Better safe than sorry, I suppose.

The rest of us, though, say thank you – especially the generations who have never seen a paper map in their lives.

The post Learn About the Two People Who Made GPS a Reality appeared first on UberFacts.

The Flat Particle That Could Be The Key to Unlocking Quantum Computing

We don’t hear much on the news or in our daily lives about quantum computing per se, but the majority of the technological advances that have changed our lives over the past several decades are thanks to increased computer power.

Now, physicists have confirmed the existence of a particle they’re calling an anyon, and it could be the key to unlocking many more computing possibilities in the future, says Discover.

“These particle-like objects only arise in realms confined to two dimensions, and then only under certain circumstances – like at temperatures near absolute zero and in the presence of a strong magnetic field.”

Physicists have theorized that these anyons exist since the 1980s, but their nature has made them hard to pin down.

Those same qualities would make them very valuable to quantum research and computers, though, so scientists haven’t stopped trying to prove they exist.

Image Credit: YouTube

Purdue University talked about their many potential uses in a recent press release.

“Anyons have characteristics not seen in other subatomic particles, including exhibiting fractional charge and fractional statistics that maintain a ‘memory’ of their interactions with other quasiparticles by inducing quantum mechanical phase changes.

Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Frank Wilczek, professor of physics at MIT, gave these quasiparticles the tongue-in-cheek name ‘anyon’” due to their strange behavior because unlike other types of particles, they can adopt ‘any’ quantum phase when their positions are exchanged.”

Researchers were able to train a miniature particle accelerator to “sort” particles and notice anyons, then came up with a maze that would phase out all of the other particles in order to end up with only the mysterious particles they were searching for at the start.

Image Credit: Cornell Chronicle

What they found was that it worked so well because, like electrons and photons, anyons “braid” – and this is good news for quantum computing, says researcher Mikael Rechtsman.

“Braiding is a topological phenomenon that has been traditionally associated with electronic devices.

We hope to show that a whole class of topological phenomena can be useful not only for electronic devices, but also photonic devices, such as lasers, medical imaging, telecommunications, and others.

We also expect that this new type of topological physics could be applied to quantum information systems, particularly those based on photons.”

With more particles in their toolkit, physicists are sure advances are to come – and we have the anyons to thank.

Who knew?

The post The Flat Particle That Could Be The Key to Unlocking Quantum Computing appeared first on UberFacts.

The Flat Particle That Could Be The Key to Unlocking Quantum Computing

We don’t hear much on the news or in our daily lives about quantum computing per se, but the majority of the technological advances that have changed our lives over the past several decades are thanks to increased computer power.

Now, physicists have confirmed the existence of a particle they’re calling an anyon, and it could be the key to unlocking many more computing possibilities in the future, says Discover.

“These particle-like objects only arise in realms confined to two dimensions, and then only under certain circumstances – like at temperatures near absolute zero and in the presence of a strong magnetic field.”

Physicists have theorized that these anyons exist since the 1980s, but their nature has made them hard to pin down.

Those same qualities would make them very valuable to quantum research and computers, though, so scientists haven’t stopped trying to prove they exist.

Image Credit: YouTube

Purdue University talked about their many potential uses in a recent press release.

“Anyons have characteristics not seen in other subatomic particles, including exhibiting fractional charge and fractional statistics that maintain a ‘memory’ of their interactions with other quasiparticles by inducing quantum mechanical phase changes.

Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Frank Wilczek, professor of physics at MIT, gave these quasiparticles the tongue-in-cheek name ‘anyon’” due to their strange behavior because unlike other types of particles, they can adopt ‘any’ quantum phase when their positions are exchanged.”

Researchers were able to train a miniature particle accelerator to “sort” particles and notice anyons, then came up with a maze that would phase out all of the other particles in order to end up with only the mysterious particles they were searching for at the start.

Image Credit: Cornell Chronicle

What they found was that it worked so well because, like electrons and photons, anyons “braid” – and this is good news for quantum computing, says researcher Mikael Rechtsman.

“Braiding is a topological phenomenon that has been traditionally associated with electronic devices.

We hope to show that a whole class of topological phenomena can be useful not only for electronic devices, but also photonic devices, such as lasers, medical imaging, telecommunications, and others.

We also expect that this new type of topological physics could be applied to quantum information systems, particularly those based on photons.”

With more particles in their toolkit, physicists are sure advances are to come – and we have the anyons to thank.

Who knew?

The post The Flat Particle That Could Be The Key to Unlocking Quantum Computing appeared first on UberFacts.

This is Why One Person Thinks High School Shouldn’t Start Earlier Than 10 A.M.

Reddit’s Unpopular Opinion thread is the place to go for people who think they know a better way to do things, or a way things should be done – that said, oftentimes it ends up being more of a popular opinion than people thought.

Validation!

This guy basically wrote a dissertation about why teenagers shouldn’t be required to get up so early.

We know TWO things about teenagers: (1) they need between 8-10 hours of sleep per night and (2) that their circadian rhythms, or the biological mechanism that regulates human sleep and wakeness patterns, operate in a way that, on average, they don’t start producing melatonin until after 11 PM.

Taking those two facts into consideration, the typical high class has class at around 7 am and most students have to wake up between an hour or two hours before their first class if they don’t want to be late. So like at 5 or 6 am. Let’s assume that teens fall asleep right on the dot at 11 pm (even though in reality they actually fall asleep much later since melatonin takes time to induce sleep), and have to wake up at 6 am. That’s only 7 hours of sleep, which is already under the 8-10 hour requirement.

And in reality since most teens fall asleep at least 15 or so minutes after 11 PM, as well as how some students wake up for school even earlier than 6, you have students getting between 4 and 6 hours of sleep, and this situation gets worse for students with jobs, lots of family obligations, extracurriculars, or lots of homework.

And listen, he’s got solutions, too!

These earlier start times just DON’T work. We already have the data for why they’re a terrible idea and even the CDC recommends that all high schools start no earlier than 8:30 am.

The reason I say 10 instead of 8:30 is because those same students who fall asleep at midnight and have to wake up two or so hours before school starts to make it on time would get 8 or 9 hours of sleep. You would have to fall asleep at 1 or 2 am to fall below the 8-10 number. That’s way better than if you had school at 8:30 or even nine.

And I know what people are gonna say. But what about students with jobs? What about athletics or clubs? What if the school day is longer?

Well, for athletics or clubs you can either have them at 9 am or have them as part of the regular school day if we reduce instruction time (which we should do anyway), so that way people don’t have to stay after school. You can also have tutorials and additional help during these times.

And about students with jobs, well I’m sorry but the rest of the school body shouldn’t have to suffer because a minority of students have jobs. What’s more, with a later start time, people have more time to spend doing things in the evening so maybe try to adjust your hours with your boss?

What does Reddit think about all of this? 10 people are weighing in!

10. We know it’s better, but…

I did my masters thesis on how to help students perform better in school. In short, studies support this. I dont know about 10, but 9 seemed reasonable for most.

Sh%t, I think I started school at like, 7:15. My gf was in honors choir, so she actually started at 6. Marching band was first hour and it was in the dark.

9. So many kids do this.

That’s why me and my homies used to sleep in school.

I slept more in school than at home some weeks, still managed decent average, schools make learning boring.

8. Thank goodness for college.

Yep… School started at 8am for me, from kindergarten till the end of high school, so I got up at 7 every school day for 14 years straight.

Then in college, the earliest any class you could enroll in started at 8:30. I’ve purposely avoided those at all costs. I’ve had a couple courses that started at 9:30, and even those were really hard to get to on time, or even at all.

I think I’d flunk out of college if I ever had to wake up for a class at 7am again.

7. This is ideal.

I teach middle school and we start at 8:20, which I like but feel is still a bit early.

8:45 would be perfect.

6. Because of society.

The general gist of it is teenagers are benefited by starting school later.

Youngsters are benefited by starting school EARLIER.

We do it the exact f**king opposite.

5.  Most of them are silent until lunch.

Maybe 8 or 9ish?

10 seems late to me.

It was amazing how some kids had enough energy to fight at 7am, I’d just be there half dead.

4. To put it bluntly.

Yes, we’ve chosen to value productivity over the developmental needs of our children.

This is very bad because kids who aren’t given the chance to grow as they should are obviously going to carry that forward into adulthood.

3. A minor quibble.

Got some of your data wrong.

Melatonin is produced at 1045, so the average international time to fall asleep is indeed at 11:00 pm sharp.

If you then want an average of 9 hours of sleep, you wake up at 8.

Delaying it until 10 has no basis in science (I lived far away from school and still didn’t need to wake up 2 damn hours beforehand), but there is a reason why most psychologists are calling for a start time no earlier than 830.

2. That’s so tough.

I don’t wake up til like noon.

High school was basically impossible because I’d just sleep all day.

That was until I flipped my schedule so that I would sleep when getting home and wake up at night.

Do my homework when I wake up and then end the day by going to school.

1. We have to grow up sometime.

People are angry in these comments.

I didn’t read the body bc its far too long but I remember in high school I was confused why the high school started the earliest out of all three types of school and I still am.

However ten is too late too. I’d say 8 or 9 though. I mean most adults work 9-5.

It makes sense, but what a big job it would be to switch things around.

Do you think we should try to make it happen? Tell us why or why not in the comments!

The post This is Why One Person Thinks High School Shouldn’t Start Earlier Than 10 A.M. appeared first on UberFacts.

Why Do Certain Smells Like Onion and Garlic Stay on Your Hands After You Wash Them?

If you’ve done any cooking in your life, then you’ve probably noticed that certain foods you prep…linger. The smell of onion and garlic, for example, can be scented days after you’ve made the meal, after you’ve washed your hands multiple times and even showered – but why?

This is the perfect query for Reddit’s No Stupid Question forum, and I don’t know about you, but I’m super pumped that someone actually asked it.

How do certain smells like onions stay on your fingers for so long, even after you wash your hands repeatedly? from NoStupidQuestions

Let’s hear what these 11 Redditors said in response then, hmm?

11. The technical answer.

When cut open, onion cells release enzymes which convert its amino acid sulfoxides into sulfenic acid, the effects of which can be felt immediately.

That same chemical adheres to skin and stays there, sometimes for days, until something neutralizes the acid. Soap typically won’t do the trick.

10. Using stainless steel can help take it away.

The sulfur from the onion, garlic or fish is attracted to—and binds with—one or more of the metals in stainless steel. Formation of such compounds is what makes stainless steel stainless. Onions and garlic contain amino acid sulfoxides, which form sulfenic acids, which then form a volatile gas—propanethial S-oxide—that forms sulfuric acid upon exposure to water. These compounds are responsible for burning your eyes while cutting onions, and also for their characteristic scent. The sulfur compounds bind to the steel—efficiently removing the odor from your fingers.

So, next time you find your fingers and hands smelling from fish, onions or garlic, don’t reach for the scented spray; grab a stainless steel knife. Take care, though, to wipe your hands on the flat side, and your limbs will be scentless in no time.

9.  This smell isn’t so bad, though.

Oranges too; gets in the creases of your hands.

8. Get yourself some stainless steel.

So because the smells are caused by sulfur, it turns into sulfuric acid when you wash your hands with water. So the stainless steel basically binds to the sulfur molecules and thus, “washes” away the smell on your hands.

I got a stainless steel soap from the dollar store and they had this explanation on the back of the packaging in terms of the smells being negatively charged ions and the stainless steel being positively charged, so basically positive attracts negative and zoop, your smell goes away.

But I was terrible at Chemistry and last I studied that shit was in 2014, so I don’t know if this ion business is legit. The first paragraph is the actual explanation for sure, though.

7. Because sticky molecules.

Same reasons why some stains are difficult to remove while others aren’t.

The adhesive force between your hand and the particles are strong and possibly stronger than the cohesive force between the particles.

Basically some molecules are sticky.

6. It can happen to your kitchen, too.

If your kitchen smells funky and it’s not the trash or the fridge, give every stainless steel appliance a rub down with salt mixed with baking soda (as long as it’s not a pan), then rinse with warm water. The smells should go away.

Typically kitchens retain scents for reasons I don’t know but this pretty much always works and in the worst case scenario you’ve cleaned the kitchen a little more than you needed to.

5. Moisten. Ugh.

They don’t if you keep some baking soda next to the sink.

Moisten your fingers and rub them with the baking soda after working with onions or garlic and poof, smell gone.

4. The tricks might not work, though.

Most likely not. Sulfenic acids bond covalently to the proteins in your skin, causing them to be released slowly. There isn’t much you can do about that except wait. The chemicals you’d need to reverse that aren’t generally available to consumers/are too harsh to put on your skin.

Interestingly, a lot of lachrymators (compounds that make you tear up) work this way, including some types of tear gas. Generally, highly reactive compounds are dangerous, so your body reacts strongly and tries to get them out of your eyes as soon as possible. Onions exploit this reaction to try (unsuccessfully) to get you to not eat them.

3. Soap doesn’t solve everything.

I see a lot of responses on how to get rid of the smell but not so much on why it lingers.

The reason it lingers is because soap is a surfactant that can remove some things, but it doesn’t work as a solvent for everything.

It’s why lemon juice or baking soda work for cleaning: acids and bases will dissolve some things.

Various foods will and will not dissolve in various solvents.

2. Props, indeed.

Jesus !! I never thought there was an actual answer to that question, I’ve always thought that’s just how things work, and have accepted it cause that’s how the things work

Props to the guy who asked the question, and the person who understands the answer to that should give it a shot and try to apply to SpaceX.

1. I need the answer to this one next.

Diesel is the one that gets me.

What’s the neutralizing yin to that yang on my hands?

If you didn’t know, now you know. Pumped!

Are these answers correct? If you need to fix some details, our comments are open!

The post Why Do Certain Smells Like Onion and Garlic Stay on Your Hands After You Wash Them? appeared first on UberFacts.

The Real Size of Megalodon Is Staggering

When you hear a word like “megalodon” to describe an animal, you’re probably picturing something – in this case, a shark – that’s really, really big.

Just how big megalodon likely was, though, really only comes into a clear focus when we compare it to things we’re relatively sure of the size of in our minds – and even then, it was so big that the concept can be hard to wrap our minds around.

This new study, published in Scientific Reports, tries to put the size of the megalodon into perspective, concluding that it was around 52 feet long, with fins the size of an adult human being.

Image Credit: iStock

Otodus megalodon lived from 23 million to 3 million years ago, had serrated teeth that means it ate meat, and was so big there’s no way it wasn’t a voracious predator. Fossil evidence has shows us the size and makeup of their teeth, but with little other skeletal evidence to go on, guessing their entire size and shape has been more of a guessing game.

This study came to its estimates with researchers from Swansea University and the University of Bristol using mathematical models to compare its body size to five shark species still living, all of which shared physiological characteristics.

“Megalodon is not a direct ancestor of the Great White but is equally related to other macropredatory sharks such as the Makos, Salmon shark, and Porbeagle shark, as well as the Great White. We pooled detailed measurements of all five to make predictions about Megalodon.”

Image Credit: Oliver E. Demuth

They tracked how these other, related species of sharks grew as the aged to get an idea about how megalodon might have grown in a similar pattern before settling into its adult form. That’s how they got to the adult length of around 16 meters (the 52 feet).

That makes them more than twice the size of modern great white sharks, with a dorsal fin around 5.3 feet in height (an average person’s height).

Their heads were around 15 feet in length and had a bite force of 10 tons, compared to a great white’s bite force of around 2 tons.

Image Credit: Oliver E. Demuth

Scientists are hoping these facts can also help us understand why it went extinct, and therefore helping prevent a similar decline in modern marine species.

Now you know for sure that you wouldn’t have wanted to run into one of these buggers – and I’m going to go ahead and stay away from the great whites, too, even if they are sort of puny in comparison.

The post The Real Size of Megalodon Is Staggering appeared first on UberFacts.

Plant-Based “Stem Cells” Could Possibly Drive an Environmental Revolution

For the last couple of years, my family has been making a conscious effort to buy less plastic.

Certainly we try to avoid single-use plastics, but even for things that we’ll use again and again we try to find more durable, organic or metal alternatives.

But of course, there’s often an environmental cost to wooden items, too. It presents a conundrum.

Until now. Are you ready to have your mind blown? Lab. Grown. Furniture.

I warned you.

Image credit: Goashape via Unsplash

Wooden furniture is gorgeous, and plant fibers are supremely useful for other everyday items too, like clothing.

That’s why bamboo has become so popular–it grows quickly, with less environmental impact.

But now a PhD candidate at MIT, Ashley Beckwith, and her co-author, Luis Fernando Velásquez-García, have a brilliant plan to reduce waste and environmental impacts even further by growing wood in useful shapes (like 2 by 4’s) right in a lab.

The MIT research team has been working with zinnia tissue, and they published their findings recently in the Journal of Cleaner Production.

As Fast Company reports, their goal is to:

…quickly produce in a lab what would take decades to grow in nature. From there, they could even coax wood tissue to grow into fully-formed shapes—like, say, a table—in order to mitigate the environmental harm of the logging and construction industries.

It’s not a completely new concept. Velásquez-García, a scientist in the university’s Microsystems Technology Lab, explains it in pretty simple terms.

“The plant cells are similar to stem cells. They have the potential to be many things.”

And it’s not just human stem cells. Other scientists have had similar success with lab grown meat products.

So isolating the ability to reduce plants down to a version of a stem cell is just the first step.

Like the meat manufactures who want to grow only the most desirable parts of the animal, Beckwith and team have similar plans for their saplings.

“Trees grow in tall cylindrical poles, and we rarely use tall cylindrical poles in industrial applications.

So you end up shaving off a bunch of material that you spent 20 years growing and that ends up being a waste product.”

Rather than stopping with just growing trees, the team could grow planks, or, rather like 3D printing, they could even guide the development of the plant fiber into the exact shape for its intended purpose.

Of course not every manufacturer has a noble drive to safe the planet.

That’s why this new process is so exciting. It’s so easy, that when compared with the cost of logging, transportation, and everything that goes into cutting down trees to shape them into boards, lab grown trees could actually come out on top, at a lower cost!

Image credit: Lukasz Szmigiel via Unsplash

If the idea of lab-grown veggies freaks you out though, don’t worry. The folks in charge don’t see this being a process that is used to grow food. More like the kinds of plants used to make clothes and industrial materials. There are so many things that could be made from biodegradable plant fibers! Deforestation could become a thing of the past! At least due to human consumption.

How’s that for exciting? Did it blow your mind?

Tell us what you think in the comments!

The post Plant-Based “Stem Cells” Could Possibly Drive an Environmental Revolution appeared first on UberFacts.

This is How Lava Lamps Are Protecting You from Hackers

Everyone worries about data encryption and cybersecurity. I’m certainly no stranger to the concept.

I think my credit card has now been skimmed 3 times in 2 years, but 2020 was 5 years long, so I may have lost count.

That’s where cybersecurity companies like San Francisco based Cloudflare come in, bringing a very unique perspective to data encryption.

As Atlas Obscura reports:

Cloudflare covers about 10 percent of international web traffic, including the websites for Uber, OKCupid, or FitBit.

I’m betting most readers have used at least 2 out of 3 of these sites at some point.

So it’s fascinating to learn that Cloudflare has a pretty unique method for generating random encryption code to protect those sites: a wall of lava lamps.

Posted by Cloudflare on Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Yes, you read that right.

The wall features over 100 lava lamps, spanning a variety of colors, and its random patterns deter hackers from accessing data.

It feels like the most hipster thing ever, but we all know the feeling of zoning out in front of a randomly swirling blob of light and color, right?

Well it turns out:

As the lava lamps bubble and swirl, a video camera on the ceiling monitors their unpredictable changes and connects the footage to a computer, which converts the randomness into a virtually unhackable code.

Posted by Cloudflare on Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Who knew that kind of magic was even possible?

Someone smarter than me, that’s who.

Cloudflare might have taken it to a whole new level, but they didn’t actually invent the “LavaRand” concept, which was patented for a few years by another company in the ’90s.

As Cloudflare explains on their blog:

In cryptography, the term random means unpredictable. That is, a process for generating random bits is secure if an attacker is unable to predict the next bit with greater than 50% accuracy (in other words, no better than random chance).

True randomness, they explain, only exists in the natural, physical world. Most encryption companies rely on pseudorandomness, or the generation of random data.

Pseudorandomness is generated through the use of a deterministic algorithm that takes as input some other random value called a seed and produces a larger amount of random output (these algorithms are called cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generators, or CSPRNGs)

The lava lamp system, it seems, may be a little bit of both, which is kind of mind boggling all on its own.

They’ve withstood the test of academic analysis, years of being used in production, attacks by resourced adversaries, and so on.

Be sure to check out this video from Tom Scott about the lamps:

And if you ever find yourself in the Bay Area, you can go see the futuristic cybersecurity in action for yourself.

Since any kind of external disturbance affects the lamps, increasing the randomness of their patterns, the company has no problem with visitors coming to gawk.

Simply enter the lobby of Cloudflare’s San Francisco headquarters and ask to see the lava lamp display.

I definitely want to check that out.

Did this story blow your mind as much as it did mine? Let us know in the comments!

The post This is How Lava Lamps Are Protecting You from Hackers appeared first on UberFacts.