The "I never knew that" thread

[Ironside]

It sounds sort of conspiracy teory but here's one more strange fact:

In this picture you can't see the starts at all, it's all black, when in fact you should be able to see them.

That depends on the quality of the camera and how much light the camera recives when taking the picture (aka slutartid and bländaröppning on Swedish, no idea for the English words. Soly, any help?).

Use your average camera and photo the moon.
As it won't show any stars either, it's obvious that we have infact not been on the planet Tellus (also known as earth).

[Soulforged]

That depends on the quality of the camera and how much light the camera recives when taking the picture (aka slutartid and bländaröppning on Swedish, no idea for the English words. Soly, any help?).

Use your average camera and photo the moon.
As it won't show any stars either, it's obvious that we have infact not been on the planet Tellus (also known as earth).

Well sorry for the mistake then. But this is even funnier, you go to the Moon, probably your only voyage in all your life and you take a crappy camera with you.

[Meneldil]

The Priory of Sion actually exists.

Nice to see you back Don Corleone

[Viking]

That depends on the quality of the camera and how much light the camera recives when taking the picture (aka slutartid and bländaröppning on Swedish, no idea for the English words. Soly, any help?).

Use your average camera and photo the moon.
As it won't show any stars either, it's obvious that we have infact not been on the planet Tellus (also known as earth).

A greater challenge: try to photograph any stars during day light time here on Earth.

I can help you with your Swedish words, btw. It`s exposure time and focal lenght.

[ArcticSonata]

Richard Milhouse Nixon was the first president to contian all the letters in his name to form the word "Criminal", the second ( and don't tell me you are supprised) was William Jefferson Clinton

[Somebody Else]

Mongolia has a navy.

[R'as al Ghul]

About the Moon landing.
There is something I never understood about how they took
care of the photographic film but I'm quite satisfied with this explanation:

Ionizing radiation and Heat
Claims and rebuttals

1. The astronauts could not have survived the trip because of exposure to radiation from the Van Allen radiation belt and galactic ambient radiation.

*The Moon is ten times higher than the van Allen radiation belts. The spacecraft moved through the belts in just 30 minutes, and the astronauts were protected from the ionizing radiation by the metal hulls of the spacecraft. In addition, the orbital transfer trajectory from the Earth to the Moon through the belts was selected to minimize radiation exposure. Even Dr. James Van Allen, the discoverer of the Van Allen radiation belts, has rebutted the claims that radiation levels were too dangerous for the Apollo missions. Dosimeters carried by the crews showed they received about the same cumulative dosage as a chest X-ray or about 1 milligray. [2]

*The radiation is actually evidence that the astronauts went to the moon. 33 of 36 of the Apollo astronauts have early stage cataracts that have been shown to be caused by radiation exposure to cosmic rays during their trip. (see Ms. Irene Schneider on The Space Show).

2. Film in the cameras would have been fogged by this radiation.

*The film was kept in metal containers that prevented radiation from fogging the film's emulsion.

3. The moon's surface during the daytime is so hot that camera film would have melted.

*There is no atmosphere to efficiently couple lunar surface heat to devices such as cameras not in direct contact with it. In a vacuum, only radiation remains as a heat transfer mechanism. The physics of radiative heat transfer are thoroughly understood, and the proper use of passive optical coatings and paints was adequate to control the temperature of the film within the cameras; lunar module temperatures were controlled with similar coatings that gave it its gold color. Also, while the moon's surface does get very hot at lunar noon, every Apollo landing was made shortly after lunar sunrise at the landing site. During the longer stays, the astronauts did notice increased cooling loads on their spacesuits as the sun continued to rise and the surface temperature increased, but the effect was easily countered by the passive and active cooling systems.

Source:http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionar...landing%20hoax

At the bottom I found this which is absolutely priceless:

Flat Earth Society
The Flat Earth Society lodged one of the earliest complaints about the veracity of the Apollo missions. They argued that the various "earthrise" photos from Apollo 8, with the Moon in the foreground and the Earth in the background, was a fake. The primary basis of their claim was that it did not square with their belief that the Earth is flat.

[Viking]

Mongolia has a navy.

Doesn`t Switzerland have it too?

[discovery1]

awesome moonhoax debunking site

keeping with the moon.....

Did you know that the Soviet moon rocket was called N1 and had 30 engines in the first stage arranged in a circle? If an egine was to fail, a safety system would should down the engine opposite to the trust symmetrict. However, on it's first flight, the system failed and shut down all engines after a fire broke out in the tail compartment. The main body impacted 45 km donwrang, although the crew escaped system did work and the uncrewed capsel was recovered. It was launched 3 more times, and failed 3 more times.

[Meneldil]

Mongolia has a navy.

Actually, Mongolia has one of the biggest trade navy on earth.

[Oaty]

A human has more hair than an ape

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

10% of all humans ever born are alive at this moment.

[Beirut]

90% of all humans ever born are dead at this moment.

C'mon... it's all I could think of.

[Craterus]

The people killed most often during bank robberies are the robbers.

More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a phone call.

The average human eats eight spiders at night during their lifetime.

Smokers consume more sugar than non-smokers.

All the chemicals in the human body have a combined value of approximately £4.

In Ancient Sparta, married men were not allowed to live with their wives until they were 30.

50% of the world's population is under 25.

[Ludens]

The average human eats eight spiders at night during their lifetime.

IIRC that's an urban myth. Spider's aren't completely stupid.

[Dutch_guy]

The average human eats eight spiders at night during their lifetime.

Isn't it 8 spiders a year ?

[Craterus]

The penalty for masturbation in Indonesia is decapitation.

Major earthquakes have hit Japan on: 1 September 827, 1 September 859, 1 September 1185, 1 September 1645 and 1 September 1923.

[David]

2/3 of all people older than 65 who ever lived/ are alive, live now.

We spent 50 million (thats about 3 euros a person) euros on fireworks in Holland this year (only legal sales!), which was disappointing according to the sellers, blew most of it in two hours, got drunk and woke up two days later

[Quid]

Doesn`t Switzerland have it too?

Does, but then we have two fairly large border lakes. On the other hand, I wouldn't exactly call it a navy...

Quid

[Ianofsmeg16]

All the chemicals in the human body have a combined value of approximately £4.

Hate to tell you this...but that's w...w...wr...wrong!

Right, Let's start with the compostition of the human body by weight (ignoring some of the smallest trace elements):
%
Oxygen 65
Carbon 18
Hydrogen 10
Nitrogen 1.5
Calcium 3
Phosphorus 1
Potassium 0.35
Sulphur 0.25
Sodium 0.15
Chlorine 0.15
Magnesium 0.05
Iron 0.0004
Iodine 0.00004

Now, let's assume we have someone weighing 70kg (thats around 11 stone, your average person). That means by weight we have the following amount of elements:
Oxygen 45.5kg
Carbon 12.6kg
Hydrogen 7kg
Nitrogen 2.1kg
Calcium 1.05kg
Phosphorus 0.7kg
Potassium 0.245kg
Sulphur 0.175kg
Sodium 0.105kg
Chlorine 0.105kg
Magnesium 0.035kg
Iron 0.00028kg
Iodine 0.000028kg

Now, we need to know he prices for these commodities, I've looked up the prices in a chemical catalogue i found at school, and assumed chemicals of average quality because most of us are average people!

Oxygen 45.5kg 13.66 pounds for 3,264kg = 0.19 pounds
carbon 12.6kg 6.90 pounds per kilo = 86.94 pounds
Hydrogen 7kg 28.05 pounds for 115.6kg = 1.70
Nitrogen 2.1kg 15.53 pounds for 2525.6kg = 0.01 pounds
Calcium 1.05kg 3.70 pounds per 25g = 155.40 pounds
Phosphorus 0.7kg 6.90 pounds per 100g = 48.30 pounds
potassium 0.245kg 6.90 pounds per 100g = 339.14 pounds
sulphur 0.175kg 6.90 pounds per 100g = 1.15 pounds
sodium 0.105kg 17.35 pounds per 100g = 18.22 pounds
chlorine 0.105kg 68.18 pounds per 33kg = 0.22 pounds
Magnesium 0.025 68.18 pounds per 33kg = 0.83 pounds
Iron 0.00028kg 4.65 pounds per kilo = 0.001302 pounds
Iodine 0.000028kg 6.00 pounds per 100g = 0.0017 pounds

This gives the value of the human body as 652.10 Pounds Sterling

[ajaxfetish]

I wonder if the prices would be different for the compounds the body contains those elements in. You're not going to be selling 45 or so kg of pure oxygen, it's going to be oxygen contained in water and many other chemical compounds. The carbon's going to be mostly in fats, proteins, nucleotides, etc. Same for most all of the rest.

Ajax

[nokhor]

-In a room of 20 or more random people, the odds are better than 2 in 3 at least 2 people will have the same birthdate (I've never figured this one out).

i believe this has to do with people copulating more at specific times of the year [think winter] than at other times.

[Soulforged]

The penalty for masturbation in Indonesia is decapitation.

Seriusly? Someway to confirm it? A link an article?

[Strike For The South]

Places Id like to go

indonesia
France
Texas

[English assassin]

This one does your head if you think about it.

Life on earth is thought to have emerged about 3.5, possibly 4 billion years ago.

Single celled Eukaryote organisms did not evolve until about 1.8 billion years ago (eukaryote means the sort of cells you are made from, ie "reasonably sophisticated")

The earliest evidence of multicellular life is from 670-550 million years ago.

SO, for roughly half of the total history of life on earth, the most complicated organism on earth was a bacterium. Multicellular life (eg "plants" and "animals") have been around for about 1/7th of life's history.

Life as we see it today is not typical.

[Don Corleone]

Right you are, EA. In fact, if you sit down and look at epochs, biological time is actually logarithmic. This is one of the (wrong-headed, IMHO) arguments put forward by Intelligent Design proponents: that if true random genetic mutation and natual selection were the forces at work, there would be a linear time frame.

Personally, it makes me excited. If the trend continues, entirely new species will evolve within 2 to 3 human generations.

[Kralizec]

Of the "major" languages, Dutch is the closest relative to English.

The Netherlands is the most densely populated country in the world.

Squids have eyes similar to that of vertebrate animals, but evolved seperately and have no blind spot.

My left nut hangs slightly lower then my right one, and so does yours.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

just like with the vast majority of male humans

[Craterus]

I wonder if the prices would be different for the compounds the body contains those elements in. You're not going to be selling 45 or so kg of pure oxygen, it's going to be oxygen contained in water and many other chemical compounds. The carbon's going to be mostly in fats, proteins, nucleotides, etc. Same for most all of the rest.

Ajax

Yeah. What he said. It'd probably cost a fair bit to extract the chemicals from their compounds, and I accomodated this into my fact.
Sorry ian!

[Red Peasant]

Of the "major" languages, Dutch is the closest relative to English.

Technically, it's Frisian.

edit. Sorry, you said 'major', although that depends on one's definition of 'major' ;)

[Craterus]

Some facts! :

WC Fields full name was William Claude Dukenfield.

Artists had to draw 6,469,952 spots for the 1961 Disney cartoon film One Hundred and One Dalmations

Richard Gere's middle name is Tiffany.

300,000 extras were used for the ten-minute funeral sequence in Gandhi.

Charlie Chapman died on Christmas Day 1977.