Quirky Science Facts!

[Mercedes Benzene]

One parsec is equal to 19.2 million million miles.

[Boerseun]

Ever wondered why the Shuttle's external fuel tank has such a nasty colour?

 

"The external tanks of the first two missions were painted white, which added an extra 600 pounds (273 kg) of weight to each ET. Subsequent missions have had unpainted tanks showing the natural orange-brown color of the spray-on foam insulation. The lighter, unpainted tanks have increased the payload capacity by almost the entire weight savings of 600 pounds."

 

There you go - wonder no more!

 

Bean counters - the bane of anything remotely aesthetic.

[Jay-qu]

nasty, I thought they would have made it that colour on purpose :beer: its really not that bad..

 

The average ice berg weighs 20,000,000 tons.

[Michaelangelica]

Ever wondered why the Shuttle's external fuel tank has such a nasty colour?

.

I am told re-entry cones of Chinese rockets are made of wood. It works a lot better than expensive, sometimes dangerous NASA tiles !!

 

ALSO

When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity.

 

To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300 C.

 

The Russians used a pencil.

 

Says something about the world doesn't it?

[Mercedes Benzene]

An orange tree may bear oranges for more than 100 years. The famous "Constable Tree", an orange tree brought to France in 1421, lived and bore fruit for 473 years

[ronthepon]

The Russians used a pencil.

:lol:, Now that's called using the brain!

[Jay-qu]

you know that is not entirely accurate..

 

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/613/1

[Mercedes Benzene]

you know that is no entirely accurate..

 

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/613/1

 

Good work J!

I'm proud of our space program.

[anto]

Fact: No matter its size or thickness, no piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.

 

Does anyone know the science behind this? :)

 

I actually read somewhere that someone folded a piece of paper twelve times

 

The thickness of a piece paper folded 50 times in half is equal to the distance from earth to the sun :shrug:

[Mercedes Benzene]

The thickness of a paper folded 50 times is the distance from earth to the sun

 

:shrug: :) :confused: :confused:

Anyway....

 

 

A cubic foot of gold, which would fit easily into a plastic milk crate, weighs more than 1,200 pounds. A cubic inch weighs nearly a pound.

:eek2:

Imagine a milk crate of uranium! :eek:

[Turtle]

An orange tree may bear oranges for more than 100 years. The famous "Constable Tree", an orange tree brought to France in 1421, lived and bore fruit for 473 years

 

Ditto for Apples. We have an Apple tree in my village that is 176 years old and still bearing fruit!

http://www.ci.vancouver.wa.us/parks-recreation/parks_trails/parks/west_vancouver/appletree.htm

[Mercedes Benzene]

The Old Apple Tree was planted in 1826 on Fort Vancouver and is thought to be the oldest apple tree in the Northwest. It is also considered the matriarch of Washington State's apple industry. Vancouver's Old Apple Tree is 176 years old and it's ready for another celebration of life.

 

Awww... how cute. An apple mommy. :)

[InfiniteNow]

DISCLAIMER: Please verify the validity of the claims in this thread before treating them as truth.

 

 

 

Farts are four parts unicorn and two parts yellow corn.

[ronthepon]

I actually read somewhere that someone folded a piece of paper twelve times

 

The thickness of a piece paper folded 50 times in half is equal to the distance from earth to the sun :cocktail:

Lets see if I can use simple logic to see if this is right.

 

If width of paper = x

 

1 fold gets two papers in a stack.

 

2 gets 4

 

3 gets 8

 

4 gets 2^4

 

...

 

50 gets 2^50

 

so,

 

2^50 x Page width = total width of fold stack.

 

now 2^50 is around 1.1 x 10^15 u.

 

Now, distance between earth and sun is.. um... 1.49 x 10^11 meters.

 

So width of single page (according to that claim) = (1.49 x 10^11/1.1 x 10^15) ~ 1.3 x 10^-4 m

 

which is about 0.01 millimeters... :wink: the width of normal papers!

 

Wow! He was right!

 

Paper folding competition, anyone?

[Boerseun]

Your body creates a lot of red blood cells each day. The new ones, of course, are replacing the old worn-out and used-up red blood cells, which are discarded en masse by the liver into the gut as bilirubin. Bilirubin, being mostly old dead red blood cells, is reddish-brown. This gives fecal matter its distinctive colour.

 

So now you know why poo is the colour it is.

 

:confused:

[Monomer]

If all an adult's blood vessels were lined up the length would be over 100,000 km (more than 60,000 miles), and could stretch around the earth two and a half times.

[Jay-qu]

nice...

 

An ice age, which you may associate with mass extinctions of species of earth, could have been what brought about the diverse animal kingdom you see today.

 

This could be because during an ice age convection in the ocean due to difference in temperatures stirred lots of minerals off the sea floor into the ocean, giving organisms that used them for energy to much, so they started storring it in 'hard parts' this was mainly phosphate and could have given creatures shells and eventually bones.