TIL

Discussion, in general

Re: TIL

Postby JamishT » Thu May 31, 2018 6:44 am

EYDER PERALTA: As soon as I get into the office of Dr. Klaus Butterbach-Bahl, I get straight to the point.

We're literally talking farting and burping.

KLAUS BUTTERBACH-BAHL: It is burping, not farting.


Anyway, this is from an interview I heard today where I learned that the amount of methane being burped by Western cows is not the same as what's being burped in Africa. They also don't make as much milk and/or milk, but there are a buncha scientists working on increasing their milk/meat while simultaneously decreasing their gaseous output.
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Re: TIL

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Thu May 31, 2018 6:31 pm

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Re: TIL

Postby cmsellers » Sat Jun 02, 2018 9:44 pm

The hard parts of insect are made hard by a controlled tanning process, as in leather tanning not, suntanning.
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Re: TIL

Postby cmsellers » Sun Jun 03, 2018 6:14 pm

The man who discovered how to artificially pollinate vanilla, allowing it to be grown outside of Mexico, was a slave. He wasn't emancipated until France abolished slavery. Then he was caught stealing and sentenced to ten years in prison, but had it commuted to five in light of his contribution to vanilla production. He died in poverty and relative obscurity.
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Re: TIL

Postby Absentia » Tue Jun 05, 2018 11:52 pm

WARNING: Bummer story about a cat

Spoiler: show
The first and only cat to survive a mission to space was named Félicette, launched by the French in 1963.

Unlike the Soviet space dogs and American space chimps that went on to live full lives as ambassadors for their respective space programs, Félicette was unceremoniously euthanized and necropsied within a month of her return.
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Re: TIL

Postby Absentia » Fri Jun 08, 2018 7:21 am

Following an embarrassing defeat at the Battle of Poitiers during the Hundred Years War, King John II of France was taken prisoner and held for ransom in the Tower of London. During his four year "imprisonment", history records that King John held court at the Tower, entertaining visitors with hired musicians and employing a personal astrologer. He was also allowed to travel and keep a small menagerie while his son tried to hold France together in the king's absence.
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Re: TIL

Postby cmsellers » Fri Jun 08, 2018 8:29 am

Y'all know the painting The Birth of Venus?

Of course you do
Image


The model was likely Simonetta Vespucci, cousin of explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci, namesake of two continents.

I feel like there's a small world joke in here somewhere, but like Colombus and India, I can't seem to find it.
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Re: TIL

Postby Aquila89 » Fri Jun 08, 2018 11:22 am

The model was likely Simonetta Vespucci, cousin of explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci


According to the Wikipedia page you linked, that's unlikely.

Botticelli finished painting The Birth of Venus around 1486 [...] Some have claimed that Venus, in this painting, closely resembles Simonetta. This claim, however, is dismissed as a "romantic myth" by Ernst Gombrich, and "romantic nonsense" by historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto:

"The vulgar assumption, for instance, that she was Botticelli's model for all his famous beauties seems to be based on no better grounds than the feeling that the most beautiful woman of the day ought to have modelled for the most sensitive painter."
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Re: TIL

Postby cmsellers » Fri Jun 08, 2018 11:31 pm

I saw that. I just read that as indicating that the consensus was that it was her and these two historians were arguing against the consensus. It looks like her to me, but then I'm not good at faces.
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Re: TIL

Postby Aquila89 » Fri Jun 08, 2018 11:45 pm

Certainly it would be a nice story if it was her.
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Re: TIL

Postby cmsellers » Sat Jun 09, 2018 8:56 pm

So I've known that beer is made out of barley for awhile now. What I didn't know until today is that cooked barley has possibly the strongest smell of any grain, and it smells like beer.
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Re: TIL

Postby gisambards » Thu Jun 14, 2018 1:34 am

TIL buses in Rome keep exploding (like, properly exploding) because Italy's public transport is so poorly maintained:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/09/bus-explodes-rome-historic-centre-italy-investigation
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Re: TIL

Postby Tuli » Thu Jun 14, 2018 8:50 am

Jeez Rome, what the hell. Their excuse is that the buses are "extremely old" at 15 years. But guess what, we still have some 15-year old buses running here, somehow none of them have ever exploded.
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Re: TIL

Postby cmsellers » Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:34 am

Tuli wrote:Jeez Rome, what the hell. Their excuse is that the buses are "extremely old" at 15 years. But guess what, we still have some 15-year old buses running here, somehow none of them have ever exploded.

Clearly, God is still mad about Italy taking Rome from the Pope.
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Re: TIL

Postby iMURDAu » Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:11 pm

It's not just age it's engine hours. 15 years of that coupled with poor maintenance seems like it would cause catastrophic engine failure with rods going flying like they were shot out of a cannon.
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