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Science can be fascinating and fun. We love to learn new facts about our planet and beyond, like the fact that hippos sweat sunscreen. But it can also be pretty scary at times. I, personally, try not to think about the effect microplastics have on our health or how many times BP has spilled oil into our oceans. There's nothing fun about these kinds of facts.
Perhaps a similar thought brought about the curiosity of this Redditor. Instead of fishing for some fun science facts, the user u/DogeStonks69 asked others, "What's the scariest science fact that the public knows nothing about?" And boy, did the commenters deliver. Be prepared to possibly face some existential dread after going through these entries.
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#1
Scientists were trying to study the effects that microplastics have on the human body and brain but were unable to draw any reasonable conclusions because they **could not find a control group.**.
Libstak 1 year ago
There's this whole group of natives on an island off the coast of India that have never had a modern human in their presence, well there was that one missionary they speared to death but....oh, never mind they still eat fish from the ocean off the coast of India don't they, so nope not even they could be a control group.
WindySwede 1 year ago
Was just thinking about the North Sentinel Island! Though plastic float around in the ocean, and seafood probably contain plastics and such? They are probably better off but not 100% free of it?
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david stephens 1 year ago
This claim has been made a lot but I think it is fake news. Searching results in only two articles that mention this claim, one from 2017(discovermagazine.com) and one from 2024(medshadow.com) and neither of those articles actually cite a source for the "research".
david stephens 1 year ago
Edit to my comment, microplastics are a real problem, my assertion of fake news is specifically the "could not find a control group" part.
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kevin walker 1 year ago
Do I have the right not to have microplastics and forever chemicals inside me?
Cuppa tea? 1 year ago
Personally I thinks the issue with micro plastics is on the same level as ozone layer back in mid 80's. Just the start.
Binky Melnik 1 year ago
They should look on the Marshall Islands, places like that. (Nooo; don’t do thaaat! I was both being a smartass and pointing out that uncivilized tribes are the only places they MIGHT find some people for the control group.)
Stannous Flouride 1 year ago
Plastics are almost all hydrocarbons which are a source of energy. The've already identified several microbes that feed on them. I suspect that at some point our bodies will figure out how to just consume them and use them for energy. Not too soon and with unforeseeable consequences, but probablyly.
gilded panda 1 year ago
For any non science geeks, a control group is a secondary group in an experient that the experiment isn’t tested on, meaning scientists can see the difference between the group changes and the group unchanged
RELATED:
#2
I'm sure there are plenty of people who know this, but personally I find it terrifying af.
If the vacuum of space didn't block sound from reaching us, the sun would be as loud as a jackhammer *everywhere* on Earth. Everywhere, at all times. And because sound travels slower than light, if the sun were to go out it would take eight minutes for the light to stop but 13 years for the sound to stop. So life on a cold, dead Earth for 13 years and still hearing the jackhammer scream of our dead sun.
Adrian 1 year ago
Not if but when. Before then it will expand and engulf the inner planets so we won't be around to worry about it.
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CanadianDimes 1 year ago
If we lived in a universe where the vacuum of space didn't stop sound waves from reaching us, life would have evolved with that as a factor and we'd be adapted for it.
Natalia Allen 1 year ago
Finally something that could give my chronic tinnitus a run for it's money ;)
Freddy M. (He/Him) 1 year ago
I've always been curious for the sun as loud as a jackhammer thing, volume is based on distance, so as loud as a jackhammer doesn't really mean anything unless we have a distance to said jackhammer right? So what's the distance here? 1 meter or something?
Binky Melnik 1 year ago
How do we know the sun makes noise? Is it only because we assume something like that does? Any equipment we try to send near it to listen would melt, wouldn’t it? So is it a reasonable supposition?
Ryan Mercer 1 year ago (edited)
You can't go to the beach without sun scream. "You mean sun screen?" No...
#3
The greatest chemical contributor to IQ loss and violent behaviour is Lead and it's still in millions of people's piping.
Powerful Katrinka 1 year ago
But Kris Kobuch, a Republican politician from Oklahoma, claims that the existence of lead poisoning is “controversial.” The Biden administration has funded the huge project of removing lead pipes everywhere in the country. Kobuch thinks it’s a scam and a waste of money.
geezeronthehill 1 year ago
It is not in the interest of those in power for the voters to be more intelligent.
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Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
See for example the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. They changed water sources and the lower pH caused lead to leach into the water supply from the pipes.
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Sven Grammersdorf 1 year ago
As long as the pH of the water is kept at appropriate levels, lead pipes pose no threat to health
Tiggy Darling 1 year ago
Lead in petrol: Bought to you by the man who invented CFCs. Thomas Midgley JR.
Courtney Christelle 1 year ago
I think that’s why the US is being ran into the ground by our lead addled politicians.
Carole Deem 1 year ago
Claire Patterson is my hero. He was a major reason for leaded fuel big banned in America.
El Dee 1 year ago
I grew up living near a main road when it was in fuel. It was in the drinking water in my home, at my school and then, later, at my place of work. I finally stopped being poisoned with lead in the mid 90s. Now it's micro plastics and, of course, the asbestos and illegal herbicides I've already been exposed to. Fuct..
Arran Walker 1 year ago
It seriously helps explain some of our politicians and the cults that spring up around them... as well as conspiracy theorists. Run-down properties with older pipes. Residents who reject the need for all sorts of regulations, etc.
Let's dissect some of these scary facts. Like the microplastic one. Why are there no control groups to test its effects on? The problem with microplastics is that they're everywhere: in the water, in the earth, and in the air. But what's more concerning is that it is in living tissues, too.
The fact that there are nano and microplastics in our blood, placenta, heart, liver, and bowels alone is enough to scare us. But that's also the reason why scientists can't properly study its effects – there is no place (even in the human body) where they are not present, so we can no longer make comparisons.
What are the potential dangers of having microplastics in our organs? It's possible they make us more susceptible to cancer, heart disease, kidney disease, and Alzheimer's disease, and they might even affect our fertility. There is a study where researchers found that microplastics in the brain might correlate with autism-like traits in mice.
#4
In Yellowknife, NT Canada, there was a gold mine operating for 54 years, and a byproduct of that mining process was arsenic trioxide... 237,000 tonnes of it, enough to give a death sentece to everything on the planet. They figured the best thing to do was to bury it in permafrost. The problem is, it's starting to get warmer, so they have to figure out what to do with it. It's not a secret. Just no one is talking about it.
David Paterson 1 year ago
There's a huge amount of arsenic in the soil, everywhere. It's one of the most common elements on Earth.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
There's a lot of scary stuff in the permafrost. About eight years ago the Russians had to start culling the reindeer herds after an ancient strain of anthrax, that had been quietly frozen in permafrost for about 150,000 years, thawed out and started infecting the local wildlife.
Arran Walker 1 year ago
That should be one of the scary facts in the article....
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Alethea Wiesner 1 year ago
This is real - here's the Government of Nunavut's webpage on the Giant Mine Remediation Project: https://www.gov.nt.ca/ecc/en/services/giant-mine-remediation-project#:~:text=Back%20to%20top-,Arsenic%20Trioxide%20Waste%20Storage,that%20contain%20arsenic%20trioxide%20dust.
Zedrapazia 1 year ago
Is it possible to shoot it into space? I can't really see where else you'd put it
Jeremy James 1 year ago (edited)
I'm no expert, but even our heavy-lifters can only carry up to 50,000kg. So it would take thousands of launches, any of which could fail and explode, potentially dispersing its deadly payload high into the atmosphere.
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The Shark 1 year ago
For a seemingly intellectual list of fun facts, there is an astounding number of blatantly obvious typos...
Arran Walker 1 year ago
I have seen typos in some of the facts, but where is the blatant typo on this one? Tonnes is the British spelling for tons.
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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.
Donkey boi 1 year ago
Around half of Alzheimer's research is in finding a cure, the other half is trying to find an early detection method.
I just work here 1 year ago
THIS. I'm dismissed by doctors when I have severe problems. I would 100% be blown off.
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Charlie Bruce 1 year ago
It's definitely a disturbing concept. My father and grandmother had Alzheimer's. At 59 the "why did I just get up and walk to the other room", "why did I put my keys there" is it just I'm tired or makes me wonder sometimes.
Connie Stith 1 year ago
Charlie, my 93 year old dad told me it’s ok if you go to the store and forget, maybe, the bread or the milk. But it’s not ok to forget you went to the store. I’ll always remember that.
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Daniela Lavanza 1 year ago
Also, many diseases such as Alzheimer may begin in the intestines. There are studies in progress right now on that topic.
PrettyJoyBird 1 year ago
ALOT begins in our guts. Connected to our spine and brain flowing to all the organs.
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David Paterson 1 year ago
Or in my case, do notice, but it's still not advanced enough to detect on a brain scan. No point anyway as it's incurable.
Auntriarch 1 year ago
With you there David, until there's a cure, does it matter. All of current treatments slow the progress slightly, by a year or two, if it slowed it by 10 or 20 years it was be worth knowing in advance
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AnnaRachelle 1 year ago
My dad was diagnosed with Alzheimers last year. He is 75. His mam had Alzheimers also..it took ten years from diagnosis to my nana passing away. She suffered until she died at 96. I am so worried how long we have left with my dad. He forgets daily things constantly already
Annik 1 year ago
Make sure you care for self as well as your dad. It's devastating to watch/care for someone with that.
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Viktor 1 year ago
It’s not the tech it’s the way clinicians are trained. Dementia is seen as a clinical disease, not a biomarker-defined one. This means that people won’t be diagnosed as long as they function within their usual environment. We have solid tests that can identify if someone has Alzheimer’s or will develop it in the coming years. currently this requires a spinal tap but blood-based tests will be rolled out within the next couple of years. Technology is not the issue.
Load More Replies... I just work here 1 year ago
Just great. I feel like I'm at that stage...can't even get doctors to listen to me when I have something apparently serious.
Xenia Harley 1 year ago
The original finding of this disease was in patients who were much younger, like late 30's early 40's. Only later did doctors realize this disease was the same as what was afflicting patents. Imagine if you are in your late 30's exhibiting symptoms! (Knew someone who was diagnosed with early onset in late 30's!) Frightening!
#6
Only my grandma and I know how handsome I am.
Gen X Feral 1 year ago
Yep, we think our grandbabies are the most beautiful people in the world and heaven help anyone that says differently 👊🤬👊
PrettyJoyBird 1 year ago
Said in Grandmas voice "Whose the best looking grandbaby in alllll the land?" (Pinches cheek) you are handsome one!
Declining insect population rates are also bad news for us. We often think of insects as nuisances: annoying flies, bloodsuckering mosquitoes, and disgusting roaches. But the reality is that insects, no matter how gross, are extremely important to ecosystems.
Reuters reports that a 2020 study found how Earth has lost 5% to 10% of its insect populations in the last 150 years. That's between 250,000 and 500,000 species total. Another study found that we're losing insect populations at a rate of 1% to 2% per year.
Which species are the most affected? Out of the gross ones, only the beetles, including dung beetles. The insects that have the worst numbers are bees, moths and butterflies, aquatic insects, and those insects that eat other insects, like certain species of ladybugs and ants.
#7
Brain aneurysms can happen at any time, to anyone. No matter what age you are, or even how healthy you are, if you are currently alive, you have a chance of getting a brain aneurysm. When you do get one, there's a 50 % chance you'll just die immediately. Like, you'd be alive one minute, and then lying on the floor unconscious the next minute. Are the chances of actually getting a brain aneurysm at any random moment low? Yes, but it's still not 0.
Corvus 1 year ago
The only consolation (if we can call it that way) is that you'd probably die so quickly that you won't even realize what's happening... which is a rather merciful way to go.
Betty Boom 1 year ago
My sister died of an aneurysm screaming in agony holding her head rolling on the floor and saying "oh no oh no oh no!" I hope not everyone feels this pain and fear.
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Carla Phillips 1 year ago
My best friend in sixth grade died from an aneurysm. She was supposed to spend the night at my house but went to another friend's instead. They called her mom to tell her she was throwing up. She came to get her and told her to put her glasses on. She went unconscious and never woke up. They sang "our God is an awesome God" at her funeral. I was so upset thinking, how can he be awesome when we're at an 11 year Olds funeral"?
Arran Walker 1 year ago
I will never understand people who think the death of a child is some "god wanted his angels back in heaven" nonsense.
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La Lucy 1 year ago
My mom died on Thanksgiving of a brain aneurysm. Doc said it was the worst he had seen. Still miss her every day, but her death helped 5 others which was a good thing.
Dnd Panda (she/her) 1 year ago
My grandma died of a brain aneurysm when my mom was 17. I never got to meet her. I’m so sorry for your loss, even though I know that phrase always sounds so weak and fake.
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Sammie 19 1 year ago
When the ambulance came she was breathing but unconscious so they took her to the hospital and did an emergency c-section. Baby survived but she passed away a few hours later without waking up. Autopsy said brain aneurysm. Nothing that could be done for her. Absolutely horrific
DaveO91016 1 year ago
I had an SAH four years ago...felt like getting stabbed in the head by an ice pick. 100% recovered now; I'm in the lucky 1/3.
The Alchemist 1 year ago
I had an aneurysm at 13. And the odds are 50 chance of dying within 6 months and 25 percent chance within 24 hours. 24 hours is a long a*s time to feel your literal brain bleeding.
Connie Stith 1 year ago
If it happens, you better hope you die. Surviving half brain dead half paralyzed is no way to live. First hand knowledge here.
Arran Walker 1 year ago
First hand knowledge? You seem to communicate well enough, though.
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Catherine Graves 1 year ago
I know what people mean...But. Many people live with brain aneurysms, the thing that may kill you is having the aneurysm rupture and bleed. The haemorhage does all the damage, but the aneurysm itself may sit there silently for years, causing no problems.
Sammie 19 1 year ago
I know 2 that it happened to. Both died. First was my friends daughter. Her daughter was 36, fit and healthy and just dropped dead one day. I named my middle daughter after her daughter. This was 1994. In 1996 my best friend and I were having our second baby around the same time. When I gave birth I put an announcement in the local newspaper and the day it came out I was looking at the births column and my daughter was there. Then I saw my best friend's name and got excited because I thought she had also given birth. To my horror I realised it was in the obituary column. I called her husband immediately to find out what happened. He told me that she had said she had a headache and he told her to go lie down on the bed and he'd bring her a hot cup of tea with lots of sugar in it and she said OK. He said he turned to go to the kitchen and she collapsed on the floor. He called for an ambulance and did cpr while waiting.
Bill Swallow 1 year ago
This took a friend of mine. Married, with three daughters. He wasn't that old - I think in his thirties or forties. No hint of any problem, then a cerebral blood vessel went 'pop', and he was dead within seconds.
#8
There are millions and billions of dollars in research into how to make people buy c**p. The missus took a year of psychology and what they got the most research on is how to manipulate you and me into buying c**p we don't need. Mental illness we know a little about. Making you want the new c**p that you don't need? We know a helluva lot about how that works.
Verena 1 year ago
And this is why a lot of people unnecessarily struggle with money problems and cluttered houses.
Bill Swallow 1 year ago
But the IMPORTANT thing is that they helped create lots of Shareholder Value!
Load More Replies... Canandelabra 1 year ago
Capitalism is a major driver for mental illness imo. It kills human worth.
Manana Man 1 year ago
They can use the power of suggestion, but people still need to be responsible for their own choices. They can promote eggs and maybe you'll decide to have them for breakfast instead of pancakes. But they're never going to convince you to have thumb tacks. You're still the boss.
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Little king trash mouth 1 year ago
More money in "stuff" than in mental healthcare sadly. And even when you know you're being manipulated, it doesn't mean it doesn't work. I know a lot about this topic as it's of interest to me. I can spot advertisement techniques, etc. but it doesn't always stop me from buying because sometimes the "but I want the thing!" voice is louder than the one saying, "don't fall for their bs."
Manana Man 1 year ago
Both can be true: you can not fall for it and still want the thing.
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David 1 year ago
I know someone whose sister as her PhD thesis in psychology wrote about subtle image manipulation of the human mind. And a year before finishing it, presented a paper on it as a conference. She ended up taking a job in Academia that she wanted, but she turned down 500k a year offers from marketing firms who wanted her expertise
SadieCat17 (she/her) 1 year ago
Marketing departments love people with adhd. The impulse shopping goldmine.
SleepSycho 1 year ago
Also where our divisions of generations come from, boomer, x, z, etc. and they are spot on too, because of the all the market research. They know how to get at us, psychological masters.
#9
CO2 levels are causing the pH levels in the ocean to move towards an acidic level. No not like burn yourself acid, but just enough that it's causing an already noticeable impact to microorganisms at the bottom of the food chain. This may eventually lead to a ecological collapse. It seems to be impacting phytoplankton which is responsible for producing a good chunk of the air you breath as well. If the oceans go anaerobic the atmosphere would become toxic. A similar event has occurred during one or two of the past mass extinction events.
María Hermida 1 year ago
Isn't coral bleaching caused by an increase in the temperature of water?
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Richard Graham 1 year ago
Lake Erie is so acidic someone once developed a photograph in it. It took a half an hour, but the negative did develop into a photo.
Maggie Fulton 1 year ago
Was that recent? I think Lake Erie was the one that was actually on fire due to toxic waste dumping when I was a little girl. Completely dead back then.
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iseefractals 1 year ago
Euance Foote, an armature scientist in 1854, was the first to observe the effects of increased Co2 levels in the air: Air temperatures will get hotter, faster and retain that heat longer. This was widely accepted as scientific fact for nearly a century, the world over with many building off her her initial research. It was common knowledge....up until the 1940's, when cars were sold as "freedom" and highways started cropping up. It stopped being common knowledge at that point, but the scientific community, never forgot. They spent decades warning us of the dangers humanity faced in passing the 400ppm Co2 levels....which happened way back in 2011. We currently sit at 420ppm.....and yet the average person continues to climb into their gas guzzling car, which account for 30% of U.S emissions while desperately trying to convince everyone that it's the fault of the "others"
Mike Dibble 1 year ago
Not true. Coral bleaching is due to warming ocean temps. Not acidification.
Stew 1 year ago
Fun fact: Iron is a natural fertilizer for phytoplankton, and could play a massive role in boosting their levels, and possibly aid in sequestering CO2. It's never been tested in large scale and has potential side effects that need studying, but we should be funding more research into the topic as soon as possible.
Marie Dahme 1 year ago
Well, it's been said we are already entering our 6th mass extinction event. Ourselves.
So, what's causing the poor guys to become extinct? Besides the abundance of pesticides, climate change is a big factor. It causes temperature changes and alters seasonal timing.
As temperatures rise, insects may no longer have cooler environments to migrate to. Droughts reduce food availability, and heavy rainfall might even drown them. Extreme weather events might be dangerous directly or destroy their habitats.
#10
Swimming in freshwater could expose you to Naegleria fowleri — a brain eating amoeba** that is fatal 97% of the time, and is almost impossible to treat effectively.
Huntress of Artemis 1 year ago
I watched a video on this on kurzgesagt.You need to have unsanitised water splashed high up your nose,to contract it.
JustAnotherPanda (she/they/he) 1 year ago
I WAS JUST ABOUT TO MENTION THIS omg I finally found a kurzgesagt fan
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Gen X Feral 1 year ago
This happened to a little boy in Dallas at a park splash pad that wasn't being kept up by the city they way it needed to. Poor baby was dead in days https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/09/28/us/child-death-brain-eating-amoeba-splash-pad-texas-trnd/index.html
Rinso The Red 1 year ago
And I got a viral ear infection from swimming in ocean so bad I had to be hospitalized and still have issues with that ear 20 years later.
Canandelabra 1 year ago
It's best to avoid swimming during the hottest parts of summer when this bacteria blooms and don't get water up your nose.
Prius Owner 1 year ago
Naegleria is an amoeba, not a bacteria. Eucaryote, so antibiotics (which work on procaryotes) can't treat it.
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Mikey Kliss 1 year ago
I grew up in WI surrounded by lakes. This one needs to be more specific
Upstaged75 1 year ago
It mostly applies to places where the water is super warm and stagnant. You're probably safe in WI lakes due to the fact they're freezing cold. :)
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#11
We are currently in the sixth major extinction event, where our flora and fauna are being destroyed by human activity at a fast rate. It cannot be completely stopped anymore, only mitigated, and, let’s be real… we as humans have little interest as a whole to do so.
Canandelabra 1 year ago
That's unfair! The ones in power are the ones who don't care. Building bunkers with flammable motes for when things collapse is pure psychopathy. Doubt their lined pockets will do them much good if the planet collapses though.
WindySwede 1 year ago
I'm planting flowers a much as I can here! (With pollen and nectar) And hoping they do some for the good for the insects!?
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Erik Draverhaven 1 year ago
If it means the extinction of humans, I am for it. We are a virus.
Gozer LeGozerian 1 year ago
And yet people still bring kids into this world, acting like it's going to be fine.
Danish Susanne 1 year ago
Many humans want's it to stop, but very few are prepared to give up meat, driving cars, using Air-conditioning / warming up in the cold winter etc.
John George 1 year ago
Little *immediate* interest. Most humans don't feel the connection, & there's a lot of pushback against feeling the connection.
Spoot 1 year ago
i believe its not that as a species humans are uninterested in saving ourselves and this planet but its the people with the power who are uninterested in this as they know that they have enough money to ignore it, and let EVERYONE/EVERYTHING suffer for their benefit, this is why (im not an anarchist btw) i believe that there has to be a complete overhaul of government and every person within a certain economical power needs to be inspected and mandatory donations/ spending for planet improving organisations and movements need to be introduced. cause otherwise, we are all quite literally f0cked adn are all going to die because of it.
Tamra 1 year ago
You keep spouting the same bull$hit on nearly every entry. There is *abundant* evidence about the current extinction event, carried out by *actual* scientists and environmental entities. The information is easy to find, for god's sake.
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Insect population depletion.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
Well, we haven't seen Headless Roach in forever, so I have to agree with this.
Page intentially left blank 1 year ago
This is kind of scary. Insects make up the largest biomass in the world. If insect numbers are declining, it means a collapse of the foundation of the food chain. Gee, I wonder why this is happening? SMH
UpQuarkDownQuark (he/him) 1 year ago
I understand BP’s bread and butter is just swiping Reddit posts, but can they make the minimal effort of just not swiping the ones that don’t contain any actual information?
David Paterson 1 year ago
Yes! Particularly night flying insects of all sorts: moths, lacewings, beetles, grasshoppers, ant lions, flies etc. that have been attracted to house and street lights.
iseefractals 1 year ago
We're currently living through a MASS EXTINCTION. Right now. Today. It's not just insects. It's 200 unique species being eradicated from the planet, each and every single day. All because of apathetic, entitled and oblivious humans who are more interested in placing the blame at the feet of someone else than even considering the simple fact that they might have to deprive themselves of some minor convenience or desire if they want their children to grow up with green and furry things existing anywhere outside of specially curated building accessible only to the uber wealthy.
Agent Smith 1 year ago
Well, what do you expect when appalling levels of insecticide are sprayed indiscriminately over all your crops and foods?
Mark Boelte 1 year ago
I can remember driving at night and having to stop to scrape the splattered insects off the windshield because it was obstructing the view. I drive now, and am shocked if ONE insect spatters ever. I have not seen a firefly in 4 years. This is not good.
What exactly would happen in a world without insects? Environmental writer Oliver Milman told Boston public radio WBUR that it might be worse than we think. "It would be an extremely dire place to live in – and certainly not something we should ever aim for."
"You would certainly have mass starvation [and] societal unrest… It'd be a place where there would be rotting feces and corpses everywhere because dung beetles and other insects that break down those materials would be gone."
#13
We know that there is a string connection between pregnant mother's having viruses such as the flu during pregnancy and schizophrenia. It will be interesting what we see in 15 years post COVID.
Lenoy 1 year ago
You won't believe me? Look https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2024/03/26/trump-selling-bibles-fundraising-truth-social-vpx.cnn
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Herkfixer 1 year ago
No.. there is not a connection between a mother having viruses and schizophrenia. When you read the studies there is no where near enough correlation to cite a causation.
I just work here 1 year ago
Thank you. I didn't care for the "we know". We do?? I don't.
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jamesmcwhirty 1 year ago
" String Connection" = something completely scientifically unproven, but still touted as a " possible fact" by the ignorant.
Ryan Mercer 1 year ago
Known fact: every serial murderer's mother drank water while pregnant. Coincidence? No. It is not a coincidence that they drank water.
Sleepy Panda 1 year ago
There's also a strong link between difficult births and prematurity in babies and schizophrenia. It runs in my family.
Celesta 1 year ago
If it runs in a family then its likely not due to gestational or delivery complications, but rather a genetic predisposition. The study(s) referenced here are specifically referring to cases of NONpredesposed cases theoretically triggered as a direct result of a mother's illness during gestation.
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#14
The End-Permian mass extinction was the worst in Earth's history. 70-80% of species died. It was caused by volcanic activity in Siberia spewing magma for thousands of years, releasing CO2 and igniting fossil fuel deposits as it bubbled up for good measure, leading to a runaway greenhouse effect and acidifying the oceans. Species had a better chance of surviving the asteroid that k***ed the dinosaurs. Today, the global climate is heating up 10x faster than it did at the end of the Permian.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
This is also known as "The Great Dying", and Siberian volcanos is currently the favored theory but it's not the only theory. Data from 250 Mya is a bit sparse.
v 1 year ago
"Today, the global climate is heating up 10x faster than it did at the end of the Permian." Is this fact or only the opinion of OP? Is science able to measure the rate of temperature increase at a point in history where no record exists? Understandably they can measure the degree of increase but I think it would be difficult, at best, to pin down the rate of increase.
Manana Man 1 year ago
Nice to see someone using their brain. So of course it gets down votes. As Ray says above, Siberian volcanoes are a currently favored hypothesis, but the mechanism by which they might have caused extinction is completely unknown. The popular thing to do now is invoke greenhouse gases for everything, but it could just as easily have been poisonous volcanic gases or global cooling and a lack of plants to eat as a result of skies full of ash.
Load More Replies... John George 1 year ago
Apparently that's where most of our petroleum comes from--dead organic matter sinking to the bottom of the sea in an anaerobic environment, so it didn't decay but sort of fermented over millions of years. Which makes what's happening now a little too ironic.
David Paterson 1 year ago
Similar large ingeous provinces from much more recent times are known. A massive extinction event caused by excessive sulfur dioxide spewing from magma could occur at any time.
Kittylover368 1 year ago
The dinosaurs died from the Flood in Genesis or of something else… but no asteroid
#15
People don’t talk enough about the melting permafrost and the associated positive feedback loops that only accelerate what’s already started.
Corvus 1 year ago
People try to talk about it... and then get accused of being "rabid leftists" or something of the sort. Scientific topics must not be turned into a political thing!
MaximumKarmaSaint 1 year ago
The apparently have to be turned into a political thing, since the reason why people think it is is because they believe that science is only a belief from "rabid leftists".
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Regina Holt 1 year ago
Yeah, the permafrost is melting, but let's bring back the wooly mammoth! It's crazy that there are people working to bring the mammoth back from extinction. There won't be enough habitat left for them, and it will just take habitat away from animals who are already suffering from loss of habitat.
Shelly Graham 1 year ago (edited)
In Alaska a study was done by the University of Fairbanks Alaska to reduce and/or stop permafrost thaw. They're called Thermosiphons, they look like black sauna tubes. You can look up the technology. They're used all over the state, you'll see them in the more northern part of the state, i.e.;Fairbanks, Bethel, Delta etc.
Pollinators would be perhaps the biggest loss. Pollinating crops by hand is an enormously labor-intensive operation, as China's Sichuan province has already learned. Their project to hand-pollinate orchards only yielded short-term results, prompting the discussion that we need to protect our pollinators even further.
#16
Take an Astronomy 101 course at your local community college. People have no idea the amount of and variety of things that exist in space, that can and do happen, that would send us back to the Stone Age, or outright annihilate life on Earth. I’m not talking asteroids, comets, and solar flares, everyone knows those, I’m talking supernovas, gamma ray bursts, wandering planets, wandering back holes, and more. And none of it do we have any ounce of control over. The good thing is the galaxy and universe are unbelievably large, so our chances of being affected by these things are, quite literally, astronomically low, but it ain’t zero.
SleepSycho 1 year ago
Or don’t, and live life in blissful ignorance. Cuz it probably won’t happen and if it does, what can you do? Best not to worry.
RamiRudolph 1 year ago
Any event that completely annihilates any form of social media would be very welcome right now.
Stormblessed 1 year ago
Wandering back holes. Literally spilled my drink when I read the typo.
Amy Broderick 1 year ago
I took astronomy for a couple of weeks in college as I needed science credit. I go to the first test and when the paper had a bunch of dots and I was supposed to draw the constellations I saw I wrote on the back that I can't play connect the dots without numbers. I signed it, turned it in, and promptly dropped the course.
Dave Morris 1 year ago
The human race is doing its best to achieve this, never mind a bunch of space stuff
Joanne Earle 1 year ago
I took Astronomy in college and was shocked at the amount of complex math & science is needed and I just do not understand that stuff. I was so bummed to not understand a good part of the class.
#17
I'll let the others have the easy ones.
The inevitable displacement of Mexico City due to the abuse and lack of fresh water. It will be an international incident by their own making, displacing roughly 20 million people. Half of their utilities infrastructure is faulty and the current leadership has no viable way to repair and maintain their current system. It's not a matter of if, but when the system collapses. Normal groundwater reserve use is ten percent for any major city and only under dire circumstances should it be used at all. Mexico City uses almost half of their supply from groundwater reserves annually. Current projections show a complete collapse within 15 years.
Donkey boi 1 year ago
I saw something about this recently. There is a similar problem with their sewage. But they are building some mega tunnels to both bring in water and get the waste to a mega treatment centre.
Rodney McKay 1 year ago
"get the waste to a mega treatment centre" called the Pacific Ocean and/or the Gulf of Mexico.
Load More Replies... Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
Mexico is our next door neighbor we should be helping them like a good neighbor not demonizing them like so many on the American right are. Illegal immigration and fentanyl and all the other scary buzzwords are their problem too. We should be treating Mexico like a partner who's struggling. Instead the racists in the USA want to see the whole country put to the torch.
T'Mar of Vulcan 1 year ago
Same with Johannesburg (infrastructure of water & power near collapse).
Zaach 1 year ago
They are pumping so much out of the ground that Mexico City sinks about 50 centimeters per year - there is no way to recover most of the lost elevation
Pittsburgh rare 1 year ago
That groundwater reserves is also what prevents the city from crumbling with every major earthquake. Sort of a pre Hispanic hydraulic cushioning system, to put it simply.
Load More Replies... Nancy Lynch 1 year ago
They are also living on an ancient lake bed. The epicenter of the 8.0 magnitude. earthquake that shook the city like a bowl of Jello in 1985 was 183 mi (296 km). Think of what would happen if that was only half the distance. No more city.
Manana Man 1 year ago
These problems all have solutions, they;re just expensive. It's hard to imagine a worse place to build a city. Lots of problems result from building on a lakebed. Worse than the groundwater problem is the earthquake risk. It's like trying to ride out an earthquake in a bowl of jello.
Pittsburgh rare 1 year ago
That's precisely what has saved them numerous times. The water cushions, the soil cracks. The earthquakes were far more violent in the parts of the city built on solid ground when l was living there.
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Astro 1 year ago (edited)
Probably not, but the post didn’t say that. Mexico City is one of the largest cities in the world and it’s a valid fact to point out that it’s running out of water.
Load More Replies... #18
If you start showing any signs of rabies, you are going to die. Or at least in 99% of cases that happens.
Tucker Cahooter 1 year ago
So we have 50 million things that will try to kill you in Australia but at least they won't give you rabies
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
No but those cute koala bears will give you chlamydia.
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Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
This is why rabies shots and rabies treatment are so necessary.
ColdSteelRonin 1 year ago
There are only 29 reported cases of rabies survivors worldwide to date; the last case was reported in India in 2017. Out of which 3 patients (10.35%) were survived by using the Milwaukee protocol and other patients survived with intensive care support. The major reason for survival was the highest level of critical care support.
Michael Lovett 1 year ago (edited)
I live in The Philippines now. The country has the highest number of rabies related deaths in all of S.E. Asia! If you visit, you'll know why; stray dogs in every neighborhood in the cities, much less the countryside. Scary!
Mona 1 year ago
The first sign of rabies is getting bit. (Bitten?) Definitely treatable at that stage, as long as you're quick about it. It's not like people just randomly get rabies...
Bored Trash Panda 1 year ago
That's not a sign of rabies... That is a possible transmission of it. I get what you probably meant though.
Load More Replies... Page intentially left blank 1 year ago
There have been a couple of stories where people survived. But it is extremely rare.
Kira Okah 1 year ago
One, only one person has survived after symptoms appeared. She is the only one who woke from the induced coma, and we don't know why.
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I’ll have a treble thanks. 1 year ago
It’s some scary sh!t, makes you wonder why ´they’ have a vaccine for animals but don’t have a cure?
M O'Connell 1 year ago
Rabies destroys the nervous system. When nerves are destroyed, they're gone. If we could magically heal the nervous system there wouldn't be any paralyzed people left.
Load More Replies... #19
Alcohol increases the permeability of the blood brain barrier by unpredictable factors, which is why people die from overdose on their normal d**g dosages.
Michael P (Perthaussieguy) 1 year ago
Most prescription d***s (and many over the counter ones too) tell you NOT to take alcohol when using them. People are so stupid sometimes.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
Oh come on BP is censoring "D-R-U-G-S" now?
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Jeevesssssss 1 year ago
This happened to my best friend while she was staying with me. We both drank a lot, daily, and both took psychiatric meds for complex MH issues - not unusual in our circumstances. We went to bed and she didn't wake up. The coroner ruled it was death by misadventure (due to the d***s and alcohol - only her prescribed d***s) and I never really understood why this one time it was fatal when she'd been fine every other time for years. It was just over 10 years ago. Thank you so much for this, you've brought me a measure of peace.
Kittylover368 1 year ago
NOW YPU GOT ME THINKING OF TOBY-MAC’S SON AND HIS OVERDOSE!!! …that was my mom…
Laura Williams 1 year ago
I don't drink only one in a blue moon. Every few years and only one.
#20
Your poor posture could lead to incurable chronic pain
sit up straight.
Blue Bunny of Happiness 1 year ago
Science is debunking this myth. Our posture changes depending on our mood, illness level, temperature and task. Remaining in any single posture for prolonged periods will cause pain. The important thing is to regularly change position. Evidence here https://bfpt.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s43161-021-00052-w
Mona 1 year ago
I can't upvote this enough. It's not about sitting posture, it's about sitting. Don't sit up straight, get up and move!
Load More Replies... Upstaged75 1 year ago
Who else just sat back in their chair after reading this? :) I try! I bought a super expensive office chair and do my best. But sometimes during the 8 hours I'm sitting at a computer I get tired and slump.
Mona 1 year ago
Sitting for long hours is the worst thing you can do for your back
Load More Replies... Isaac Harvey 1 year ago (edited)
The modern 40-hour workweek dictates that we sacrifice our time and health for the near-nonexistent impact it will have on the world.
Sky Render 1 year ago
Proper posture leads to far worse pain for me. The general assumption of those guidelines is that you were born with only one tailbone. A reasonable assumption for all but about 1 in 50 million of us.
Couragetcd 1 year ago
If you are like me and part of your body slumps to the side, you might be interested in this link. I haven't bought one yet, but I plan to do so soon https://bodybraid.com/pages/hypermobility-eds
#21
By the time AIDS was first discovered in the United States in 1981, 250,000 Americans were already infected with HIV.
Corvus 1 year ago
Sadly, HIV prevention and treatment were hampered for many years by the social stigma the disease carries.
Guess Undheit 1 year ago
And by rightwingnut politicians that saw it as a "gay disease" and WANTED people to die. Just like C-19, they let it spread, too ignorant to realize it would get into ALL the population.
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Charles Kormos 1 year ago
Ronald Reagan made "You've got AIDS!" a joke. (Don't get me started on "trickle down economics", tax on social security, "Nine most terrifying words", the Black woman who got rich on welfare, and the war on d***s.)
Joanne Earle 1 year ago
I moved to San Francisco in 1989 and it was heartbreaking how many people were dying. I lost quite a few friends in a really short time. :( My bosses did free estate planning for AIDS patients. Lost a lot of great clients too. Local activists Act Up! always marched in the Pride Parade and every year, their ranks had shrunken exponentially.
Sammie 19 1 year ago
I'll never understand how I didn't become affected with it in the 80s. I was abused by my mother my whole childhood and her brother also r*p*d and sodomised me age 8. By the age of 13 I was out at pubs and nightclubs most nights, having s*x with up to 10 guys a night, never used condoms. Between the ages of 13 to 16 I had s*x with 1000+ men. I didn't care what happened to me because my self esteem was so bad because of the abuse I'd gone through. 1000+ guys and I didn't get any type of std's. Of course I never told them my real age. I was in nightclubs so as far as they knew I was 18+. I'd started puberty at 9 with brea sts and my period started at 10 and I'd hit my adult height at the same time.
Marie Clear 1 year ago
Here's one reason why: https://www.vox.com/2015/12/1/9828348/ronald-reagan-hiv-aids
Shelly Graham 1 year ago
When we first started hearing about AIDS my boyfriends Uncle discovered he had been infected through blood transfusions he received as a hemophilic. He passed quickly, but it was horrific!
#22
Last time i had to go under the knife i mentioned to the anesthesiologist "i read online that no one knows how anesthesia even works" and he kinda just said "yeah....".
Ace 1 year ago
"Kinda"... What he meant was yeah, we know how it does A, how it does B, how it does C but there's a tiny bit of the mechanism of D that although we know exactly what happens we're not quite sure of why some cells react in a certain way to certain things.
Stephanie Goadsby 1 year ago
It's a fine art of drugging you enough to put you out but not enough to kill you while keeping that balance steady enough for long enough to get the job done.
Load More Replies... Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
Only time I was put under I woke up twice. The second time they used ketamine. Apparently if you want to knock me out, you use horse tranquilizers.
SM 1 year ago (edited)
Is any surprise that they can't tell exactly how it works when they can't tell exactly what consciousness is in the first place?
Marie Clear 1 year ago
I think it's probably more of a reflection that the anesthesiologist was not about to launch into the minutia of the biological mechanisms at work to someone about to go into surgery who just told a medical professional he had no idea what he was doing because NO ONE has any idea how it works (which isn't accurate). The OP's message was, "I'm consenting to you blundering away blindly on me," and the anesthesiologist's response "yeah" was actually a polite, "Jesus, shut the f*** up," and not a "yes, you have stated something very medically interesting and you are entirely correct." I think OP simply didn't realize how rude he'd been and also misinterpreted the subtext of the anesthesiologist's response.
Little king trash mouth 1 year ago
It really is bizzare. I just had minor surgery where I was put in what they call "twilight" anesthesia. I've had this kind three times for different procedures over the years (the first 2 were for egg retrievals for IVF). This time, they told me ahead of time that during the procedure, anesthesiology would partially wake up part of my brain so I could cough (having me cough was a vital part of ensuring the procedure went properly before wrapping up). But the crazy thing to me is, I don't remember that part. I remember being in the OR going under anesthesia, and then waking up in recovery. It's so mind-numbing (pun intended) that you can perform actions asked of you while under anesthesia and have zero recollection of it. So scary, really!!
Nul Nemo 1 year ago
Well, after a surgery, while I was taken to post-op, my younger sis talked with me. When I woke up completely I didn't even remember her being there. So yeah, it happens. But so it does when you talk or walk in your sleep I guess.
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SadieCat17 (she/her) 1 year ago
Same as ice skating. I politely request that all of you stop until we figure out why ice does that. It scares the physicists.
DRMAGDN 1 year ago
Same thing with Tylenol. We don't quite understand how it dulls our pain. But they do know it can help with some emotional pain in addition to physical pain which is cool to know.
nottheactualphoto 1 year ago
Why the downvotes, people? Re: Tylenol, I don't care for it. The distance from "effective dose" to "lethal dose" is smaller than I'd like. Some other NSAID for me, please.
Load More Replies... David Paterson 1 year ago (edited)
Interesting history of anaesthetics. All of the first four anaesthetics were party dr*gs before they were repurposed as anaesthetics.
#23
Europa even though smaller than earth has more water than all water bodies in the world combined.
David Paterson 1 year ago
Uranus and Neptune have the most water, hundreds of times as much. Pluto has about as much liquid water as Earth, but it's buried deep.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
Where do you get this about Pluto?
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MedusaWasBeautiful 1 year ago
There is more water inside the Earth than on the Earth in the form of water rich minerals and reservoirs.
#24
An Extinction Level asteroid could hit Earth with only a few days notice. Asteroids can appear very quickly from what appears to be nowhere. There is nothing we could do to prevent it from hitting.
David Paterson 1 year ago
Depends on what you mean by "extinction level". We keep a good watch on asteroids more than 140 metres across. The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was 10,000 metres across.
Untethered Universe 1 year ago
I honestly don't care. If I die in an asteroid blast, so be it. All my family and friends will die with me so noone gets left behind. I don't mind dying, I mind leaving my loved ones behind.
Little king trash mouth 1 year ago
Right? If we all die instantly, does it really matter? No one's around to process the aftermath...I guess if you believe in an afterlife, your opinion might be different. I'm still on the fence on that one.
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Justin Tyme 1 year ago
No problem. We can send up a team of the world's best deep core drillers to dig an 800-foot hole, drop a nuke, and blow that thing to pieces.
Sabrina Lee 1 year ago
So, like, whats the plan if one is coming? Is there something that can be done at a certain point? Or are we all just SOL?
SM 1 year ago
In reality the dinosaurs had really bad luck. If that asteroid had arrived just a few minutes before/later or at a slightly different angle it would have hit the ocean and not been nearly as bad, it hit one of the worst possible spots on Earth. On the other hand, civilization is a lot more fragile than people want to admit and could hit places that cause that kind of collapse.
#25
Our bodies have no way of knowing that we're breathing oxygen. If I could snap my fingers and replace all the oxygen in you room with another inert gas you wouldn't notice. You wouldn't start to choke or struggle. You'd just get sleepier and sleepier until you die. That's why carbon monoxide is so dangerous. If you have any sort of gas appliance in your building, invest in a detector.
Zedrapazia 1 year ago
Not exactly true. If the CO2 levels in your blood rise, that's what gives you the feeling to suffocate. That means however that the only way your body knows you are suffocating is if your CO2 levels rise. If there's another gas instead and the CO2 levels don't rise, you won't notice until it's too late.
CP 1 year ago (edited)
Your addition doesn't make the OP not exactly true. You are just adding more explanation as to why.
Load More Replies... Susie Elle 1 year ago
That's not entirely true, because it heavily depends on the type of gas you'd replace oxygen with. CO exposure will also cause nausea, dizziness and headaches. CO2 will cause you to struggle, wheeze, gasp for air and become desoriented. Ether will cause you to experience euphoria.
CP 1 year ago
CO and CO2 aren't inert. OP should've been more clear about CO , but they never mentioned CO2. Not being able to expel CO2 is what causes you to feel like you are suffocating, so yeah breathing in nothing but CO2 would make you feel like you are suffocating.
Load More Replies... Charles McChristy 1 year ago (edited)
Not true. You will start to feel dizzy, even nauseous, before you feel tired from most gasses. You will be aware before you pass out.
M Calad 1 year ago
Vsauce has a video exploring what was the scariest thing for humans. High CO2 levels made people with damaged amigdalas who don't feel fear to have the same body reactions as people with functioning amygdala react to fear. In other words, CO2 poisoning was the scariest thing as even people who can't feel fear feel fear from it. I don't know the phases for CO2 poisoning, but it didn't seem like one just fell asleep. So I think that other gases or a mix of gases can make you sleep without feeling anything? Link attached if anyone is interested: https://youtu.be/9Vmwsg8Eabo?si=Fgsez_8yHb2-NdTk
martin734 1 year ago
This is true for inert gasses such as Nitrogen, Argon and Helium but not true for Carbon Dioxide or Carbon Monoxide, which are not inert gasses and are in fact toxic gasses. Inert gasses simply replace the oxygen in Haemoglobin which causes asphyxiation. Carbon Monoxide and Carbon Dioxide replace the oxygen but they also change the blood's chemistry which causes poisoning as well as asphyxiation.
Sven Grammersdorf 1 year ago
Honestly if I had to pick a way to go, nitrogen asphyxiation would be at the top of the list
Load More Replies... David Paterson 1 year ago
Choking and struggling is a sign of high carbon dioxide. I don't know if you can have high carbon monoxide without high carbon dioxide? Certainly not from the output of a vehicle catalytic converter.
Michael P (Perthaussieguy) 1 year ago
Yet something as simple as that seems impossible to use on death row inmates. Authorities use lethal d**g compounds that don't always work (and THAT'S crazy!!) or electrocution which is a painful death
Zedrapazia 1 year ago
In Switzerland there's "pods" for lethally sick/old people so they can die in peace instead of suffering through their end. Basically like sleeping in. The US tried that once in Florida, but completely botched it because they used a mask instead of a pot, and the mask was too small too. The innate didn't want to die (as a dying old and sick person that voluntarily does that obviously), so he kept moving around trying to get rid of the mask and hold his breath as much as he could. It was a miserable way to go.
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John Edginton 1 year ago
[... replace all the oxygen in you room with another inert gas ...] Oxygen is not an inert gas. Problems come when simple and stupid mistakes are made, lowers the validity of the rest of the article.
#26
Tetraethyl lead raised worldwide lead levels so significantly they had to drill into arctic ice to find an uncontaminated sample.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
The lead lobby had the whole world convinced that Claire Pattinson was a kook and a crank but he proved how lead was destroying the population. In the process he had to build the world's first clean rooms because lead was so ubiquitous in the mid 20th century.
Stannous Flouride 1 year ago
Boy, sure am glad corporations run by greedy bastids aren't doing this sort of thing anymore! /s
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#27
Here's something different: Gödel's incompleteness theorem. Mathematics, the very science that we use to build bridges, fly airplanes and operate nuclear power plants, is inherently broken and there's no way it can be fixed.
Gödel himself lost his mind over this.
Aberration 1 year ago
Godel died because he was too afraid of poisoning to eat anything that wasn't prepared by his wife. When she was hospitalized, he died of starvation.
Freddy M. (He/Him) 1 year ago
Could he not have just... prepared his own food?
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Michal Pifko 1 year ago (edited)
The post is a little misleading and I can see many incorrect explanations so here is my oversimplified version. The theorem states that there are statements in math that are true, but impossible to prove. For example, we don't know yet if there are infinitely many twin primes (primes like 11 and 13, that have a diference of 2) It's possible that there really are infinitely many but no possible way to prove it.
JustAnotherPanda (she/they/he) 1 year ago
Thank you, had a hard time understanding a little
Load More Replies... ColdSteelRonin 1 year ago
Gödel's incompleteness theorems are two theorems of mathematical logic that are concerned with the limits of provability in formal axiomatic theories. These results, published by Kurt Gödel in 1931, are important both in mathematical logic and in the philosophy of mathematics. The theorems are widely, but not universally, interpreted as showing that Hilbert's program to find a complete and consistent set of axioms for all mathematics is impossible. The first incompleteness theorem states that no consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed by an effective procedure (i.e., an algorithm) is capable of proving all truths about the arithmetic of natural numbers. For any such consistent formal system, there will always be statements about natural numbers that are true, but that are unprovable within the system. The second incompleteness theorem, an extension of the first, shows that the system cannot demonstrate its own consistency.
John George 1 year ago
This extends beyond math, when you think about it.
Load More Replies... SM 1 year ago (edited)
I take exception to the statement "inherently broken", it isn't, and that isn't was being said/proved. Just look at the name of the theorem and you can see it isn't the same ""incompleteness" isn't "broken". Broken implies something that can't be used. "I have a broke hammer; I can't hammer anything." Incomplete is different, our knowledge of the universe is incomplete, but we certainly can use it. Proving that math "isn't complete" in my opinion isn't "that big of a deal" and I would even expect it. Almost anything you name isn't "100% complete".
Crazy Panda 1 year ago
I have an example: Anything times zero equals zero. 1x0=0 and 2x0=0. But that must mean that 1=2. But we all know that isn't true, so it has to be at least a bit broken. And one rule of math is anything you do has to be reversible, but you can't reverse multiplication by zero. That would be division by zero. Which we agree you can't do. The only way that it would work is 1 / 0 = 1. But that also doesn't make sense. And there are irrational numbers, and pi... but the main thing is the nothing and the infinite, because infinity +1 equals infinity, and infinity times 2 equals infinity... but you can't explain subtraction and division, because would it really still be infinite? And can zero always be nothing? I think everyone should read the book zero, it can explain this a lot better than i can, and i apologize if my explanation was confusing or inacurate
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Maria Colatarci 1 year ago
I'll put this simply. Goedel proved logically that: There is, nor can there be, any language that is complete. That is, there is no language that can describe everything exactly. This is not frightening at all, really. Just that there will always be concepts impossible to put into words.
Michal Pifko 1 year ago
No. Gödel's incompletenes theorem says (I'm oversimplifying here) that there are statements in math that are true but impossible to prove.
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#28
Earth’s magnetic field started shifting at an accelerated rate in 2000. The earth is long overdue for a magnetic pole swap.
CanadianDimes 1 year ago (edited)
This is a misunderstanding of how magnetic reversals work. There is an *average* frequency with which they happen but not a *regular* frequency. Some periods of reversed magnetic polarity have been relatively short (by geological standards) and some relatively long. We're currently in a long period of magnetic north; that doesn't mean we're overdue for a shift. It's also not bad news because this is just something that happens. From an evolutionary perspective, it doesn't appear to have any impact and isn't linked to mass extinctions or anything like that. It might screw us up with electronic technology - I don't know enough about that to say one way or the other.
Manana Man 1 year ago
And some have cited regional variations in various places, or polar drifting as evidences of an imminent flip, but our time frame of accurate data is so short we really have no idea if were on the verge of a flip or not.
Load More Replies... Guess Undheit 1 year ago
We're fortunate to live in a time when the Earth has only two poles, not four or eight. It has been over 700,000 years since a pole reversal, which mean the compass (2200 years old) has been useful for navigation. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/reconstructed-location-and-movement-of-the-North-magnetic-pole-Nmp-every-50-years-from_fig2_280612401
The Darkest Timeline 1 year ago
This is only scary to people that believe stupid things like “the magnetic field holds the atmosphere in place.”
DetriMentaL 1 year ago
When Australia's drains start swirling the right way we'll start worrying
Pieter LeGrande 1 year ago
To quote NASA:- "Generated by powerful, dynamic forces at the center of our world, our magnetosphere shields us from erosion of our atmosphere by the solar wind (charged particles our Sun continually spews at us), erosion and particle radiation from coronal mass ejections (massive clouds of energetic and magnetized solar plasma and radiation), and cosmic rays from deep space. Our magnetosphere plays the role of gatekeeper, repelling this unwanted energy that’s harmful to life on Earth, trapping most of it a safe distance from Earth’s surface in twin doughnut-shaped zones called the Van Allen Belts."
Mike Price 6 months ago
THIS is precisely the problem. We talk about the magnetic field "flipping", but that's not how it happens. What atually happens is that the field strength slowly dwindles to zero, and then builds up in the opposite direction. "Slowly" means over a period of hundreds or thousands of years, and as the field weakens so does its shielding effect meaning that the solar wind could conceivably strip our atmosphere away . . . . Not a good thing . . . .
Load More Replies... John George 1 year ago
Is there any real evidence that a destabilized magnetic field will remove some of the protection from cosmic radiation our biosphere enjoys?
David Paterson 1 year ago (edited)
In what sense "mean"? Life has survived magnetic pole swaps thousands of times in the past. The magnetic field weakening is real, and there is disagreement over whether it's a precursor for a magnetic pole flip. Overdue in the sense that it's been 780 thousand years since the last flip and they tend to occur on average every 200 thousand years.
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#29
Gamma Ray Bursts.
If ever one happens to be close enough and aimed exactly at Earth, we're basically all dead.
Michael P (Perthaussieguy) 1 year ago
Or we'll all turn into Hulks (https://www.marvel.com/characters/hulk-bruce-banner)
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
There is some evidence that this has happened once or twice in the last BILLION years. This one is pretty low on my list.
Shawn Barry 1 year ago
how long does a Gamma Ray Burst take to pass the earth? would the people on the far side of it still live?
Andrew Arons 1 year ago
"Close enough" is basically less than around 60 light-years or so. And the nearest star even remotely likely to go supernova is Betelgeuse at around 500 light-years. So we may be lucky enough to witness one helluva light show it's already gone nova. It would basically be a couple of years where we'd never see any truly dark nights. Let's see those vampires try to weasel their way out of that!😝
#30
For two days in September of 1859 a massive solar flare (coronal mass ejection) powerful enough to make hanging telegraph lines burst into flames from the induced current washed over the Earth. Another massive burst in 2012 only just missed Earth, but it's not going to be pretty when our luck runs out on this.
Zedrapazia 1 year ago
This b******t again, could we please stop with that topic for once? We don't have the same technology as back then, the worst thing that could happen is that it would disrupt satellite communication systems, power grids and other technologies that rely on precise timing or accurate data temporarily. Please everyone calm down. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/should-you-really-worry-about-solar-flares/
digitalprowess 1 year ago
There are millions of miles of above ground power and communication wires strung all over the globe. More now than back then.
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david stephens 1 year ago
No offense to Zedrapazia but as an engineer for a major internet backbone provider in the U.S. I can absolutely say without question that our datacenters are not "hardened" against solar flares. Satellites would of course be the first to go but local internet and phone services would also disappear. Also the 1859 solar flare was strong enough to induce electrical current in "powered off and disconnected" equipment. Our current technology (cell phone/pc/watches, etc.) Is all low power tech, talking miliamps of current to run. The 1859 telegraphs used AMPs of current. If an 1859 solar flare hit today our expensive watch/phone/car would all become useless bricks.
The Shark 1 year ago
The Carrington event. Sure, it made telegraphs catch fire and did damage to what little technology was around at the time, tho the world hasn't seen a CME that strong in the modern era. CME impacts happen often and disrupt telecommunications satellites, radio signals etc. Tho if a CME as strong as the Carrington Event hit Earth today, it could easily wreck electrical grids (at the very least) for months or even years. Remember the last time you had a blackout? No TV, no internet, no phone, no lights, no heat/AC, no hot water, no refrigeration... Generators would eventually run out of fuel. Now throw in 8 billion dumb humans and a society completely dependent on electricity. It's just a matter of time before a CME of that magnitude strikes Earth again. Let's just hope we can prevent the worst of the damage
Tom Brincefield 1 year ago
Probably not much on the way of transport working. Even older stuff has a lot of electrical wiring. Wouldn't take much disruption to start starvation in the big cities. And any planes in the air are probably going to be making uncontrolled landings.
Load More Replies... Michael P (Perthaussieguy) 1 year ago
Imagine all the satellites burning out...internet/mobile phone chaos
️️Upvote faery️ 1 year ago
Excellent, and we can all see the Aurora Borealis and the Aurora Australis!
Marie Clear 1 year ago
It's like the Jupiter Effect. The book predicted all sorts of catastrophes in 1982 when the planets aligned (California would have a massive quake and slide into the ocean, solar winds would screw up our weather, all sorts of fun). I was 18 and heard it on the news for a few weeks. Considering how gravity works, even at 18 I was very surprised that newscasters fell for that salacious pseudo science. For anyone who wasn't born yet, absolutely nothing happened. Today, social media just makes it easier for the cranks to gather together and rant. It's a pestilence.
#31
The actual amount of crude oil that's been pumped directly into the ocean. BP had High Definition 4K live footage of the pipe that ruptured and chose to censor it. And it's not just BP that's had an incident like that.
Canandelabra 1 year ago
I'd prefer not to remember this tragedy/travesty, but I can still see it in my mind. On the news every night for what seemed like a lifetime.
#32
There’s this concept called the False Vacuum Decay.
Basically, ya know how an electron can orbit an atom (just roll with it)? And how it can orbit at a high state sometimes, then releases energy and drops to a low state? That low state is called the vacuum state. It’s the lowest state that a thing can be in, it’s the “default”. But there are some examples of a “false vacuum”. Basically, imagine a ball rolling down a hill. The false vacuum is a little valley it gets caught it. But it could still go lower.
Long story short: for various reasons we are afraid one or more fields in our universe might be in a false vacuum state.
If that false vacuum were to collapse, which could happen randomly via quantum tunneling, or if we pump enough energy in an area, or through a dozen other theoretical mechanisms, then the universe as we know it goes bye-bye. Everything we know ceases to exist from that point into a bubble which expands at the speed of light. And within that bubble nothing we know can ever exist again. It’s not destruction, it’s erasure and change. Within the bubble, the laws of physics will be different. Chemistry might not exist. Biological life might not be possible.
And we’ve done some experiments. Here are the results.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Higgs_FalseVacuum2018.jpg
The circles are indications of how certain we are. We’re positive our universe exists in the bigger circle. We’re fairly sure in the smaller circles etc etc.
The yellow means we’re in a false vacuum. Green means we’re good. Red means “you f****d up the experiment.”
So long short: we’re fairly sure that we’re in said false vscuum.
Tom Brincefield 1 year ago
If vacuum decay occurs, we will never know it. It propagates at the speed of light, no way to see it coming.
David Paterson 1 year ago
Yes. The universe is metastable. We're all going to die. Eventually.
Kat O'Sherry 1 year ago
Your comments are often pretty inane and pedantic and useless.
Load More Replies... Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
This was one of the things they used to fear monger about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) when they were firing it for the first time. That and "OMG it could spawn a micro black hole that could kill us all". The LHC is a powerful machine but there are places in the universe that have epic orders of magnitude more energy per unit volume in the universe and the universe is still here. Think about the level coming from an active galactic nucleus. This dirtball populated by psychotic apes can't compete.
I’ll have a treble thanks. 1 year ago
Sorry zoned for most of this, tried again and that dang zoning got me again! Must be that false vscuum.
#33
Viruses stay with you forever and a lot flair up later in life to f**k you up.
No one knows if COVID will come back in already infected people as something worse.
Biofish23 1 year ago
Not exactly. There are certain viruses that can remain dormant in your cells for years before causing an active infection again. It's why for instance people get cold sore break outs over and over and why people can get shingles years after a chicken pox infection. It's only a certain class of viruses, retroviruses, that have this ability though. COVID is not one of them. Any lingering effects of COVID is due to damage done by the initial infection or your immune responses to it. That's not to say that problems from a viral infections can't become apparent years later, because that does sometimes happen, but it's different that the virus 'coming back.'
Sammie 19 1 year ago
Yup I had chicken pox as a child before the vaccine came out and since then I've had multiple bouts of shingles which is agonising. I wish I'd been able to have the vaccination but I made sure my kids had it and they've made sure their kids have had all their vaccinations as well
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Feathered Dinosaur 1 year ago
Our DNA is stuffed with the DNA of uncountable viruses that our ancestors have contracted and that we inherited, probably adding some of our own. It is discussed that by certain circumstances one if these viruses can be reactivated and lead to things like multiple sclerosis.
Tobias Reaper 1 year ago (edited)
i was speaking to a colleague at work about this she said whenever she gets ill covid symptoms seem to flair up i have had the rona twice and a few months ago i was ill again all the symptoms were of the new covid strain but i took 4 tests through the week and all were negative so either the tests cant detect the new strain or as this post says maybe it stays with you and flares up whenever you are ill
Kira Okah 1 year ago
Nosing some papers the previous day, which was tracking people long term who had contracted and survived SARS-CoV-1 (SARS), seeing what if any long term or reactivation there could be. This is being used to make future models in regards to COVID, as they are both coronaviruses, due to the SARS outbreak being in 2002-2004.
#34
There is a volcano about the size of texas under yellowstone and when it goes off it will wipe out most life on earth. It's overdue. By about 30 thousand years.
Marcellium 1 year ago
Okay. As someone who lives near Yellowstone. A few corrections. The volcano is not "under Yellowstone" the volcano IS Yellowstone, it's considered a supwevolcano. There's a huge hotspot beneath the crust there. It's not 'overdue' either. We've only got three data points on it (2.1mil years ago, 1.3mil years ago, and 640,000 years ago) So those time differences are 800,000 years and 660,000 years. We only have that data. Huge difference! If anything, we're not due, compared to the distance between the first and second eruptions. But again, three data points of eruptions is not enough to come to a conclusion. This used to be a big anxiety for me as a kid. Understanding it helped me.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
Events like volcanic eruptions and earthquakes can't be "overdue". They are random and their activity is a matter of statistics. Sating a natural disaster is "overdue" is like saying a slot machine is "overdue" to pay out. That's not how it works. It's how our silly little primate brains think it's supposed to work, but it's not how it works.
Pat Tamarin 1 year ago
The Yellowstone hot spot has erupted many times in the past and not caused any mass extinctions. It has also had different sizes of eruptions. Will it affect North America? Yes. Will there be a global cooling from ash in the atmosphere? Yes. But both of these are tied to the size of the eruption. Can it happen suddenly? Absolutely not, the caldera is very closely watched, and they know exactly where the magma reserve is, its size, and its viscosity.
#35
Context: Scientist who went on a date with a specialist nurse. Mucormycosis is caused by mold you find on bread that's been left out, and often kills you. I went on a date with a senior nurse in emergent infectious health, who scared the s**t out of me by saying that sometimes this mold will take hold of your bodily functions and kill you. It happens rarely, and often in immunocompromised people, but it can randomly happen to regular people as well. It's typically caught really late because it ls rare, meaning that it is often deadly. Imagine having a slice of bread that's got a tiny amount of mold and then getting a death sentence because it was caught too late.
Sleepy Panda 1 year ago
I know someone whose two dogs died from this, they got into some bread from the bin and they both died extremely quickly. They were young, healthy Labradors.
Page intentially left blank 1 year ago
If you have one tiny spot of mold on a single slice of bread, throw the whole thing out.
Remi (He/Him) 1 year ago
exactly. The whole packet is contaminated at that point
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#36
**Prions.**
I do not recommend researching. There is nothing to be done if you have prion disease.
Upstaged75 1 year ago (edited)
Our Town! So gross. For those of you who are curious: the town had an unusually large spike of Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (basically human mad cow disease). Turns out they were cannibals and had killed/eaten the brain of a guy with the disease.
Load More Replies... Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (YES spelled it right on the first try) AKA Mad COw Disease.
iseefractals 1 year ago
Don't have to google! Prion disease, is the result of consuming the brain or spinal cord tissue of a mammal within your own species. In cattle, it's known as "mad cow" but in humans the most well known term is "Kuru" due to the Fore tribe in Papua New Guinea who consume(s/ed) the brains of the dead as part of the funeral ritual under the belief that it "freed" the spirit of the dead. It's likely that one of those consumed had developed Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, kicking off the "kuru" which is also known as the trembling/laughing disease. Symptoms can take 10 to 50 years to show up. The start of the disease presents as trembling, lack of coordination, and difficulty speaking. The second phase, subjects are no longer able to walk, plagued by depression and emotional instability....but prone to long bouts of uncontrolled laughter. During the terminal stage, subjects basically turn into a living corpse, unable to sit, talk, eat or sleep while their body decays into a giant open wound.
#37
The scariest ones are the ones NOT in this thread... because the public doesn't know about them.
Michael P (Perthaussieguy) 1 year ago
I KNEW the government was keeping secrets from us !!! (lol)
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
Did the CIA put the microchips in your brain too?
Load More Replies... Astro 1 year ago
If we told you, they would be less scary because then you’d know about them 😉
Load More Replies... CatchTheWind 1 year ago
I think OP should see a doctor about his paranoia. Either it's a symptom of mental illness or he's been listening to too much talk radio.
#38
Geiger counters used to be incredibly easy to make, but now it is extremely hard to find non-irradiated materials to use as a reference point to count off of.
M O'Connell 1 year ago (edited)
There is actually a burgeoning industry of illegal salvage of shipwrecks from WWI and WWII. The metal from those ships is especially valuable because it was smelted before the first nuclear weapons were detonated, and is radiation free. Similarly, lead sheet from church roofs, and the ballast from the keels of wooden sailing ships is also prized for the same reason. It is impossible to smelt new metal that is radiation-free. For more information, search "low background steel" and "low-alpha lead"
Load More Replies... Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
They're still easy to make. Or you could buy a cheap one on Amazon for less than $100. Some research requires very sensitive geiger counters and that's where they need inert samples.
David Paterson 1 year ago
If Geiger counters had ever been easy to make then I'd own one by now. Yes non-irradiated materials are rare.
#39
For me, it’s the perma frost scenario. The perma frost holds so much c02 (edit*** methane) that when it thaws it will just skyrocket our levels and there will be nothing we can do about it.
Verena 1 year ago
Too many people do not understand that this is a major topic why the "idiot" climate activists are fighting against global heating.
SuikerSpin 1 year ago
People won't change. We love the good live and the easy stuff to much. But people should stop with demonstrate and glueing them selves to the road or destroying things. The put their energy and effort in finding solutions. Many built machines or finding something so that people go help clean up or do something about it!
Load More Replies... #40
The first contraceptive pill was never tested on women. They tested it on men instead.
Michael P (Perthaussieguy) 1 year ago
And they said, Wow, it's effective. All the test guys didn't get pregnant
Susie Elle 1 year ago (edited)
Not true. The first birth control pill was tested on Puerto Rican women in 1955. As with anything, I stand to be corrected, but you cannot scientifically prove a pill that's supposed to halt the growth of an egg cell in an organism that literally does not produce eggcells. They probably did trials in men or male rats or male cell lines or whatever at some point, but no scientist in the history of science would test something in a model that literally cannot do the thing you're trying to test. If this is true I''m going to need sources.
Beto River 1 year ago
And they tested on them without their knowledge or consent.
Load More Replies... Untethered Universe 1 year ago
Which is completely normal. An important part of the testing is to see if the d**g causes unwanted sideefects. Men are a perfect testing subject for that part, because you get less interference from the hromonal effect of the pills.
#41
There is about a 1 million year gap in which we know almost nothing about with almost no fossil evidence for that era. That’s enough time for beings to evolve, advance, and eventually die out.
Corvus 1 year ago
We could have theoretically had a civilisation that messed up, died out, and then restarted as primitive humans...
Kat O'Sherry 1 year ago (edited)
No we couldn't. See my comment above as to why. Also this video explains in greater detail https://youtu.be/KRvv0QdruMQ
Load More Replies... John George 1 year ago
Context please. There is actually a lot we don't know about the planet's past.
Sunchaser 1 year ago
Pretty sure that cycle has happened a few times on this planet. Who knows how many times life has evolved to a significant state on this planet and then been dumb enough to do what we're doing to it... which is wiping ourselves and the rest of life on this planet out.
Kat O'Sherry 1 year ago
There's zero chance of that. For example, there is no where on Earth *anywhere* that isn't contaminated with a small amount of jet fuel or radiation. And we can tell from ice cores exactly when this started. This is permanent and exists in ice and sediment. If another species had wiped themselves out on a global scale like humanity is doing, there would be significant evidence even after billions of years. There just isn't any. We're the first and last idiots to wreck this planet.
Load More Replies... #42
The worlds soil is running out of nitrogen pretty rapidly, and most farmland is essentially “zombie” farmland where it would be completely unusable without fertiliser, and if we ever run out of the minerals needed for fertiliser then we are rather screwed, and on top of that the nutritional value of most fruit and veg isn’t in a great state either there’s so much crop inbreeding, I mean one bad virus in the US could tank production of certain crops.
Verena 1 year ago
Artificial fertilizers kill off good farmland on purpose, so it cannot regenerate by itself. Big scale farming is ruining itself. Small fields, fertilized by local, natural "poop" from normal sized animal farms without anibiotics, and surrounded by hedges and wood areas are healthy, with crops being able to protect themselves.
Rinso The Red 1 year ago
Crop rotation used to be the norm, but single output farms are "better" from a profit standpoint.
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David Paterson 1 year ago
We make nitrogen fertiliser out of atmospheric nitrogen don't we? And we're at no risk of running out of that. That "one bad virus" thing is a real worry though, not just in the USA but worldwide.
iseefractals 1 year ago
50% of airable topsoil has already been destroyed. A result of industrial farming practices that have only been in use for about 60 years. If these practices continue, it's projected that 95% of airable topsoil will be destroyed by 2070. 38% of ALL crops grown, are used to feed livestock. The saddest thing is that we had sustainable farming figured out centuries ago, and while it's making a comeback, it's not happening fast enough. Essentially, instead of poisoning the soil for short term gains and creating an endless feed-back loop, you do COMPANION crops, or alternating crops. Different crops require different nutrients, while also replenishing others. By planting companion crops, or rotating crops you balance the soil nutrients, which leads to higher nutritional content, and hardier produce more readily capable of surviving insect infestations, disease and frost, while at absolute worst, producing the same quantity of produce as the industrial farming methods.
iseefractals 1 year ago
So go to your local farmers market, make nice with the producers, and support those that are doing things right. Yes, it will cost more, and yes you will have to learn to endure a selection of seasonality....and if you don't, you have to accept the fact that YOU are a direct part of the problem.
Load More Replies... Marcellium 1 year ago
One bad virus is why we lost most of the Gros Michel variety bananas. The main cultivar was weak to the virus and it wiped out whole plantations and farms, so now it's only grown in smaller areas. (Also, fun fact: contrary to popular belief, artificial banana flavor is not made to taste like Gros Michels. It tastes like that because it only tastes like One flavor compound in bananas)
#43
That about 226g of Botulin toxin is enough to wipe out Humanity.
David Paterson 1 year ago
Botox is one of the most deadly poisons known. And the bacteria it comes from, Clostridium botulinum, is even deadlier, much deadlier.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago (edited)
I work in a food plant and I was explaining to a co-worker about how all of our food safety standards are calibrated to kill Clostridium Botulinum, the organism that produces botulism toxin. Basically, if your process can kill Clostridium, it will kill just about any other food borne illness. He had no idea that Bo-Tox stood for Botulism Toxin. He'd never connected those two things.
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Charley128 1 year ago
That's true. People who have it injected in their faces, don't look human.
#44
We all get cancer. But most are so little and small they can’t and won’t hurt us.
Susie Elle 1 year ago
Hmmmmmmm this needs nuance. You probably develop cancer cells throughout your life at some point, which will be removed by the immune system. A cancer will grow, that is inherent to something being cancerous. It doesn't have to spread, but something that grows and grows will end up causing issues at some point.
NonFiltered GoldFish 1 year ago
Oh, I’m f****d. I have type 1 diabetes. My immune system attacks EVERYTHING.
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Kat O'Sherry 1 year ago (edited)
Most men will get some form of prostate cancer if they live long enough.
#45
The world can end by weaponized, self-replicating nanotechnology. > Gray goo (also spelled as grey goo) is a hypothetical global catastrophic scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating machines consume all biomass (and perhaps also everything else) on Earth while building many more of themselves, a scenario that has been called ecophagy (the literal consumption of the ecosystem).
Cat Dragon 1 year ago
I learned about that yesterday and ive wanted to make some kind of textbased game about the end of the world (this might actually be the most improbable but most lethal theory out there)
WorkAholic1 1 year ago
This was already covered in the TV show Stargate SG-1. I don't recall what season or episode, though. I'd have to look that up.
T'Mar of Vulcan 1 year ago
There's a book called "Blood Magic" (Music?) by (I think) David Brin that uses this idea. Good book.
Corvus 1 year ago
There is a video game based on this concept, in which you control a blob of gray goo that goes on to consume entire galaxies.
Tobias Reaper 1 year ago
wasnt that that the last part of the Day the earth stood still remake
#46
Antibiotics. We've literally exhausted all possible antibiotic treatment. There are bacteria that are already multi d**g resistant to Colisitin and Tigecycline which are like our salvage antibiotics at present. And there aren't new antibiotics that are approved or developed fast enough to deal with these. So a time will come in the near future where we can't treat infections anymore, especially in the hospital setting like ICUs etc.
Susie Elle 1 year ago
No we haven't exhausted all possible antibiotic treatment. Yes, it's an issue, but a lot of research is being done on new methods to get rid of MR bacteria, such as the use of phages.
Untethered Universe 1 year ago
Overblown and needlessly alarmist. There are some issues wuth resitant bacteria, but we're experiencing major breakthroughs in gene editing and bacteriophages. New products are tested every day.
Biofish23 1 year ago
We're f***ed , was a common sentiment for several years as antibiotic resistance began to spread more and more and we hadn't developed anything truly NEW in decades, but there is a lot of very promising new research now. Genetic sequencing technology has led to huge leaps in knowledge of microbiology in the last decade or so,
iseefractals 1 year ago
Incorrect! As much as AI has been overhyped and oversaturated, medical research is one area where it has profound benefit....to the extent that researches, with the aid of AI, discovered a brand new antibiotic mere weeks ago. Yes, "superbugs" are an issue, driven by the perscription of antibiotics, the overuse of antibacterial....everything, and the rise of parents putting their special little snowflakes in a disinfected bubble, retarding their immune system. Stop taking antibiotics for colds, when you're prescribed them for an actual bacterial infection FINISH THEM, even if you "feel better" stop using antibacterial soaps and cleaners, it's been proven that this only strengthens otherwise harmless bacteria, and stop being germaphobes.
#47
If an electrical line is damaged and is in contact with the floor, even walking away from it with big steps can cause a huge electrical potential difference between your feet and end you.
Bienlunée 1 year ago
Incomplete description as to why this is scary.. for some, it may be obvious, but not for all.
WindySwede 1 year ago
Guessing it's better ro run? (only one leg on floor at a time, not necessary running). But also what floor are that conductive?
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Norm Gilmore 1 year ago
Step potential. https://www.prairielandelectric.com/understanding-step-potential
#48
Soil vitamins going bye bye and antibiotics not working anymore.
David Paterson 1 year ago
Antibiotics, sure. That has always been on the cards. But what the heck is a "soil vitamin"?
#49
It is estimated that by 2050, more than 10 million people will die due to antimicrobial resistance. Many people know, but nothing is done and it is terrifying. Scary as f**k.
CanadianDimes 1 year ago
Saying nothing is done is really disingenuous. There is a lot of research going into antibiotics that are effective against otherwise antibiotic-resistant bacteria and a lot of public health campaigns about using current antibiotics effectively. It's not like medical researchers just shrug and go 'welp, nothin' we can do'.
Corvus 1 year ago
There actually is researtch into this matter... though the one I've seen was in the field of veterinary medicine.
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Livi David 1 year ago
66% of all antibiotics are used in farm animals, not people.The use of antibiotics in animal farming, which is a major contributor to antimicrobial resistance, is expected to grow by 8% between 2020 and 2030. https://www.saveourantibiotics.org/the-issue/antibiotic-overuse-in-livestock-farming/#:~:text=Antibiotics%20and%20farming,conditions%20where%20disease%20spreads%20easily.
Emma S 1 year ago (edited)
Why it's important to not take antibiotics if you don't need them and finish your course if you're prescribed them. Antibiotics don't work on viral infections and taking them unnecessarily will mean they won't work in the future when you do need them.
Zedrapazia 1 year ago
The problem is not really humans but farms that feed them to livestock like candy so they don't get sick
Load More Replies... David Paterson 1 year ago
If antibiotic resistance occurs in Yersinia pestis (better known as the Black Death) then we're talking about 1.5 billion dead people rather than a paltry ten million.
Zedrapazia 1 year ago
What I find even scarier is that 10 million people isn't even that much compared to how many humans exist. There's so many of us. I'm not trying to downplay what a catastrophe this would be, but man, we are numerous!
I’ll have a treble thanks. 1 year ago
Have a roll in the mud people and increase your resistance.
#50
Traveling to the nearest star is never going to be possible in a human lifetime.
Surenu 1 year ago
The nearest star is kinda close, we're in orbit around it right now. The second nearest star, however, that's going to take a while.
Ross “Sarcastic Dad” 1 year ago
Humans flying is never going to be possible. Going to space is never going to be possible. Going to the moon is never going to be possible. You are typing this on a machine that people 70 years ago would have considered magic.
What do you think ?
DetriMentaL 1 year ago
As of yesterday the Ivory Coast and Ghana has halted all chocolate production due to the high cost of the cocoa bean. The title of the article called it "The Chocpocalypse"
Wintermute 1 year ago
Of course, they could just stop giving all the profit to corporations, middlemen and billionaires who have nothing to do with the production and just pay workers a living wage to produce the beans and everyone would come out better. HAHAHA! Just kidding. Praise be to the billionaires. May they smile benevolently upon us.
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Cosmikid 1 year ago
So much fun here! People have one fact - and find a way to make it scary! If that's what you want? Here is the ULTIMATE. 100% of Scientific Facts - can be distorted into an Apocalypse! All of them! Just stretch it all the way out, and - everybody dies out there. So. Now, you can all relax. In case you haven't noticed- we're not all dead!
Lisa T 1 year ago
My motto - live each day as if it’s your last, because one day it will be. Just enjoy life, don’t spend it worrying about the “what if’s”.
R. H. 1 year ago
Many last days caused by not asking 'what if' and instead heard saying 'watch this'
Load More Replies... Mona 1 year ago
Wow is this post of posts bad. I could spend all day correcting this nonsense.
Astro 1 year ago (edited)
Why didn’t you, then? Plenty of pandas were commenting underneath posts to add extra facts or clarification. It can be really helpful!!
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DetriMentaL 1 year ago
As of yesterday the Ivory Coast and Ghana has halted all chocolate production due to the high cost of the cocoa bean. The title of the article called it "The Chocpocalypse"
Wintermute 1 year ago
Of course, they could just stop giving all the profit to corporations, middlemen and billionaires who have nothing to do with the production and just pay workers a living wage to produce the beans and everyone would come out better. HAHAHA! Just kidding. Praise be to the billionaires. May they smile benevolently upon us.
Load More Replies... Cosmikid 1 year ago
So much fun here! People have one fact - and find a way to make it scary! If that's what you want? Here is the ULTIMATE. 100% of Scientific Facts - can be distorted into an Apocalypse! All of them! Just stretch it all the way out, and - everybody dies out there. So. Now, you can all relax. In case you haven't noticed- we're not all dead!
Lisa T 1 year ago
My motto - live each day as if it’s your last, because one day it will be. Just enjoy life, don’t spend it worrying about the “what if’s”.
R. H. 1 year ago
Many last days caused by not asking 'what if' and instead heard saying 'watch this'
Load More Replies... Mona 1 year ago
Wow is this post of posts bad. I could spend all day correcting this nonsense.
Astro 1 year ago (edited)
Why didn’t you, then? Plenty of pandas were commenting underneath posts to add extra facts or clarification. It can be really helpful!!
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