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A thread for scientific nerdiness

Trying to ponder atomic quandaries whilst in a post-therapy hangover is next level :hilarious:

Fascinating stuff, though. Particularly that this is happening on something bigger than a subatomic scale, so it's not just electrons that are the weird ones...
If there’s energy transfer in this process I see self recharging fuel cells in our future.
I like where your thinking is at.
 
The Maneaters of Tsavo was one of my favorite stories as a kid.

(And I played all roles ;) From the girl who would have made friends with the lions :inlove: and had many terrible adventures, the hunter who killed them, and occasionally the lions themselves).

I was in a decades long debate with my grandparents and parents about how many people they’d actually killed -if any at all, and whether or not this was just a great white hunter BS story sold in London for the glory of the empire kind- of thing. It was one of those lovely impossible debates with no possible answer, as we were none of us there. (My grandfather was, for awhile, but not with Patterson. My grandfather and I took up the fun side of the debate :sneaky: whilst my grandmother and mom went for the total fabrication! Utterly ridiculous! Side. :shifty: )

I win.

Testing hair samples on the Lions at the Field Museum of Chicago has determined that not ONLY had the lions been subsisting on a diet of people for months -as far back as such things can be known at present- but they found genetic material from 34 people Still. Present. along what was left of their GI Tract. (Read: mostly mouth and throat, these guys were made into rugs for a few years before being stuffed).

Science is just f*cking cool. ?

Bruce Patterson (no relation to John), a zoologist with the museum, continues to study those animals. Chemical tests of hair samples recently confirmed that the lions had eaten human flesh in the months before they were killed. Patterson and his colleagues estimate that one lion ate 10 people, and the other about 24—far fewer than the legendary 135 victims, but still horrifying.
Read more: Man-Eaters of Tsavo | Science | Smithsonian

Granted... it DOES beg the question on whether the 100 part of the 135 is Patterson’s estimate of how many people had been eaten in the months before he arrived as people were laying track to & past the river; or if London publishers wanted to increase shock value... but given than Tsavo had been on the slave route for the past century, meaning people -that nobody cared about defending or retaliating for- had been on the menu for the local prides for generations? That it was only during the construction of the bridge that the lions met any kind of armed resistance to their hunting? I rather suspect the first hundred to be fairly accurate.
 
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Using science to amuse myself.

Currently writing up a report on the first objective of my research project, eyes deep in journal articles, and venturing off on a number of inevitable tangents.

Somehow ended up reading about the Marsh Frog.
It's scientific name? Rana ridibunda

?Rrrrrrrridib.
?Rrrrrrrridib.

Ok, back to work :D

Edit: it's also called the laughing frog. <irony>
 
Thank you so much for this thread!!! :)

It's scientific name? Rana ridibunda

?Rrrrrrrridib.
?Rrrrrrrridib.

Ok, back to work :D

Edit: it's also called the laughing frog. <irony>

On the subject of entertaining scientific names, I can share one.

The Hawaiian Monk Seal. Scientific name: Monachus schauinslandi. The monk who's looking into the distance.

Fun fact: There is a rock in Germany with a metal sculpture - of a monk looking into the distance.

When I learned about the monk seal's scientific name the first time, I was nerding out so much. I climbed that mountain when I was younger.

Mönch (rock) - Wikipedia
 
There's a funny one in botany, a persisting err of sorts that continues to mock Johann Link to this day. Jojoba is from California!

"Despite its scientific name Simmondsia chinensis, the plant is not native to China. The botanist Johann Link originally named the species Buxus chinensis, after misreading a collection label "Calif", referring to California, as "China." Jojoba was collected again in 1836 by Thomas Nuttall who described it as a new genus and species in 1844, naming it Simmondsia californica, but priority rules require that the original specific epithet be used."

Simmondsia chinensis... as a Californian who lived in the Mojave for awhile I find that priceless ?
 
Here's a question I'll propose to my Science friends. This is a theory I've had for a while and maybe you all can weigh in on it.

Maybe were looking to the wrong part of the brain to understand PTSD (or at least missing a piece to the puzzle). Everyone is looking to the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and the hippocampus to understand how PTSD works. However I think our endocrine system is pointing us to a very different part of the brain. One thing PTSD sufferers have in common is altered cortisol levels which is regulated by the HPA axis. This is common with PTSD sufferers. Could the hypothalamus be the key in unlocking the next level of treatment in PTSD sufferers? This is just a theory of mine; I would love to get feedback.
 

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