Apr 8, 2011 •
Let’s define our terms: a satellite can mean anything in orbit around another celestial body. There are natural ones (like the moon) and artificial ones like communication satellites, the International Space Station, stuff leftover from launches, and probably a couple of Russian Cosmonauts from the 50s and 60s. Of all of the shit orbiting the earth: 500 of...
Apr 6, 2011 •
Since the 1930s eggs have been the primary vehicle to produce vaccines – Viruses are injected into a fertile eggs and allowed to turn that incredible edible ovam into a swinging orgy of pure evil for 3 days. Viruses don’t actually have sex in the traditional sense, opting instead to inject their DNA into a...
Apr 5, 2011 •
Since the start of the blog a few weeks ago, I have received a number of questions from readers. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. Some were great and some should have been submitted to google rather than to my contact form. Then came Sam B. – Sam sent a question that is just...
Apr 4, 2011 •
I’ll preface by saying I’ve already thought of every easy beaver joke (oh… except that one), so don’t even think about it. The common misconception is that beavers actually live in the dams they create. They do not. They live in lodges built in the middle or edges of the deep ponds their dams create....
Mar 31, 2011 •
In 1971 Ray Tomlinson sent the first successful email from one computer, to another sitting right next to it – through ARPANET. He used the @ sign to delineate what host the user receiving the message was on, as ARPANET had a number of hosts systems connected to it. His machine was a Digital Equipment...
Mar 29, 2011 •
I always find myself thinking about this while begging my body to listen to the Ambien and go to sleep. If you could travel back in time (sidebar: you can’t), and take with you one modern-day item, what item would you take in order to make the people you might encounter during, say, the renaissance, believe...
Mar 28, 2011 •
You might think, ‘Because it gets warm, idiot’. Shut up. The actual answer has to do with the cold, rather than the warmth. The process is called “vernalization”. Plants actually begin this process after a month or so of freezing temperatures, which is a good indicator that spring will be a’comin. One particular specie of...
Mar 22, 2011 •
There have been over 2,000 Nuclear detonations since the first test in 1945. The break down is as follows: United States: 1,054 tests – 2 in war. Former Soviet Union: 715 France: 210 United Kingdom: 45 (21 in Australian territory – take that bloody Ockers.) China: 45 India: 6 Pakistan: 6 North Korea: 2, bless...
Mar 17, 2011 •
Obviously, you CAN, and SHOULD, simply to fuck with theater folk who look for any excuse for poor performance, accidents, or any other misfortune nobody cares about.You might even make them cry; a double-bonus. It is a common superstition that the play itself is cursed, because Shakespeare used real spells from witches who, not too...
Mar 15, 2011 •
The answer is surprisingly (and somewhat unnervingly) simple. First, a quick recap: Nuclear reactors work by using the heat generated by nuclear fission to produce steam that powers a turbine to produce electricity. Fission is when the nucleus of an atom (in most cases Uranium-235) splits in two, creating heat and expelling free neutrons. When...
Mar 13, 2011 •
Turns out it’s not just goats, but most other animals with hooves including deer, some horses, cattle, and many sheep have horizontal pupils. Goats generally have a more pale iris, so their freakish pupils simply show up better. Horizontal slit-shaped pupils give the animal increased peripheral depth perception, as well as increasing their ability to...
Mar 12, 2011 •
My project manager has a head chock full of the curliest hair this side of Kenny G. So what, aside from the obvious lack of overall manliness, causes hair to be straight or curly? It turns out, it has nothing to do with the hair itself, but rather the hair follicle. “This tiny structure guides...
