• Nibodhika@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Sharks are so old that I’ve seen other comparisons, had never seen the milky way one before, that’s very interesting, the other ones I knew is that sharks are older than:

      • The rings of Saturn
      • Trees

      So when sharks first evolved Saturn had no rings and trees didn’t exist yet.

      • Deconceptualist@leminal.space
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        5 months ago

        Sharks also predate basically all big recognizable surface geology features on earth. They’re way older than the Grand Canyon or the Himalayas. It kind of makes sense once you realize they date back to the Pangea supercontinent.

        Also, biologically modern humans are much older than Niagara Falls.

      • TheRealKuni@piefed.social
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        5 months ago

        when sharks first evolved Saturn had no rings

        Or at least, didn’t have its current rings. I could be wrong but couldn’t it have torn apart other moons to create a different set of rings that then degraded over time?

  • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    Some fun geography one’s.
    Maine is the closest US state to Africa.
    Alaska is the northern most, Western most, and Eastern most state in the US.

    • toddestan@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      My favorite geography one: You get on a plane at Tampa Bay, Florida and fly due south. Which South American countries do you fly over?

      Answer is none of them. You miss the entire continent because you are too far west.

      • iamthetot@piefed.ca
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        5 months ago

        For the Alaska one, the Aleutian Islands extend beyond the 180° line of longitude, placing the tip of them within the eastern hemisphere.

    • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      My favorite geography fact is that, if you’re on the northern edge of Brazil, you’re actually closer to Canada than you are to the southern border of Brazil.

  • Deconceptualist@leminal.space
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    5 months ago

    If you’re not familiar with the flavors of quarks, they probably seem fake.

    • Up
    • Down
    • Top
    • Bottom
    • Charm
    • Strange

    Of course they all have antimatter counterparts. But anti-up is not the same as a down quark, anti-top is not the same as a bottom quark, etc.

    • Barbecue Cowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 months ago

      I do want to hear the story of the physicist when they got to making up the names for charm and just strange. I imagine many sleepless nights.

  • AnBee@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    5 months ago

    If you get methanol poisoning for example from badly made liquor then the remedy for that is to drink ethanol (good liquor).

  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    5 months ago

    Trigger Warning: Existential Crisis

    spoiler

    Everything about us is young in the context of the wider universe. Human society, the human species, the planet earth, our solar system, our sun. We live near the dawn of creation, even though our universe feels unimaginably old compared to our brief lives. As the skies darken and all the stars burn out, that will take course over a time period longer than our individual solar system will last. When the last light goes out, time doesn’t stop, no the universe goes on and there’s an even longer period of endless empty inky blackness, the deep void. In the end, the universe may spend significantly more time as an endless dead void than it ever did as a universe with hope of life and at least one planet with confirmed organic life. There is no escaping it, and there is probably no way for our species to even survive and adapt to that era as it is.

    • Davel23@fedia.io
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      5 months ago

      One of the possible answers to the Fermi Paradox is simply we’re the first.

      • queerlilhayseed@piefed.blahaj.zone
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        5 months ago

        We could be the great scourge of this part of the universe. Expanding recklessly through galaxies in the local group, leaving only the dead husks of stars that have been stripped of all usable energy. The exponential nature of scientific discovery means that not only do we have a head start, our head start compounds as time progresses. We become a horrific but very efficient war machine for the sole purpose of controlling and exploiting all available forms of energy for profit. We seem like we’re on that path.

    • Katana314@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      “You want my thesis? I hate college!! My thesis is going to be about taking a SHIT up your ASS!”
      (Four years later)
      “Wow, Mr. Blake! The results of your medical trial were astounding! These are excellent results!”
      “Wait…huh?”