Читать книгу The Utterly, Completely, and Totally Useless Science Fact-o-pedia: A Startling Collection of Scientific Trivia You’ll Never Need to Know - Steve Kanaras - Страница 7

Carbon

• Carbon is an element that occurs in organic compounds, like living things, and in many inorganic compounds, like limestone, coal, and petroleum.

• Carbon is the fourth most common element in the universe (after hydrogen, helium, and oxygen).

• Carbon is the 15th most common element in Earth’s crust.

• Just behind oxygen, carbon is the second most common element in the human body.

• The word “carbon” comes from the Latin word carbo, meaning “coal”.

• Carbon atoms can attach themselves to one another to form long chains and rings. No other atoms of other elements can attach themselves to one another like carbon atoms. Carbon’s “favorite” atom to attach to is hydrogen, but there are many others that it attaches to, including oxygen, nitrogen, fluorine, chlorine, iodine, and sulfur, to name a few.

• There are more than ten million known carbon compounds, each with their own distinct chemical and physical properties and characteristics.

• Plastics are made from carbon polymers, which are long-chain molecules.

• Carbon atoms can form chains that are literally thousands of atoms long. It can also form rings, rings with chains, some with branches, and even cross links!

• Carbon compounds such as chlorofluorocarbons are associated with ozone depletion, as well as with the greenhouse effect.

• All organisms absorb carbon from their environment until they die. Carbon dating—also referred to as radiocarbon dating—utilizes a special method of measuring the naturally occurring isotope Carbon-14—which is produced by cosmic rays in the stratosphere and upper troposphere—to glean a reasonable estimate of its age. [See Radiocarbon Dating.]

• The diamond—one of the hardest substances on Earth—and graphite—one of the softest substances on Earth—are both 100% pure carbon.

Chocolate

• Raw and processed chocolate come from the beans of the Theobroma cacao tree. We call them cocoa “beans,” but they aren’t beans at all—they’re seeds from the tree. So technically speaking, chocolate is a fruit!

• Theobroma cacao is Latin for “food of the gods.”

• The average cocoa pod—which weighs about one pound (0.45 kg)—contains anywhere between 20 to 60 seeds.

• There’s documented use of cocoa as far back as around 1100 BC. However, we know that cocoa has been cultivated for at least three millennia in places such as Mexico, and Central and South America.

• Scientific research has shown that dark chocolate—which consists of a 60% cocoa minimum—is beneficial for the heart. Moderate dark chocolate consumption has also been shown to increase insulin.

• The antioxidants found in dark chocolate—called “flavonoids”—have been shown to increase “good” HDL cholesterol, lower “bad” LDL, and lower blood pressure.

• White chocolate is antioxidant/flavonoid-empty, as it contains no cocoa solids.

• Milk chocolate is also antioxidant/flavonoid empty because the cocoa solids content of commercially produced types ranges from 20–34%, depending upon the brand—not the required minimum of 60%.

Cholesterol

• A type of fat, cholesterol comes from just two sources: your body and food.

• Your liver and other cells in your body make about 75% of the body’s total blood cholesterol; the other 25% comes from the foods you eat.

• Food sources of cholesterol are only found in animal products, like butter, eggs, beef, pork, lamb, duck liver, and whole-milk dairy products.

• The word “cholesterol” comes from the Greek word chole—meaning “bile, gall”—and the Greek word stereos—meaning “solid, stiff.”

• Gallstones develop when bile contains too much cholesterol and not enough bile salts.

• For optimal health, the body needs a small amount of cholesterol to perform key functions, including producing hormones, vitamin D, and bile—an acid that helps your body digest fat.

• HDL is the “good” kind of cholesterol and stands for high-density lipoprotein. HDL is referred to as the good cholesterol because it helps remove artery-clogging cholesterol from the bloodstream.

• LDL, the “bad” kind of cholesterol, stands for low-density lipoprotein. If your bloodstream has too much of the cholesterol that’s packaged in your LDL, the surplus is dumped into your arteries, which is why LDL is referred to as the bar cholesterol. Over time, this may result in atherosclerosis—hardening of the arteries—which is the most common cause of heart disease.

• An HDL of 60 mg/dL (milligrams per deciliter of blood) and higher provides some protection against heart disease. An LDL of less than 100 mg/dL is considered optimal.

• According to the latest research, having a total cholesterol level of less than 200 mg/dL is considered desirable, as statistically, this puts you at lower risk for coronary heart disease.

• Having a total cholesterol level of 240 mg/dL is considered high. A person with this level has more than twice the risk of coronary heart disease as someone whose cholesterol is below 200 mg/dL.

Colloidal Silver

(A Bad Case of the Blues)

• Silver—the lustrous metal we know and love—is not toxic. However, there is a form of silver called “colloidal silver” that consists of tiny silver particles suspended in liquid. If ingested, this is bad. Make that really bad.

• Despite a variety of medical claims on the Internet that colloidal silver is a “cure-all,” colloidal silver is neither safe nor effective for treating any disease or condition!

• Silver, no matter what the form, is NOT a nutritionally essential mineral. Thus, claims that you may suffer from a silver “deficiency” are entirely unfounded.

• In fact, ingesting silver or even being exposed to high levels for a long period of time may result in a condition called arygria, which causes a blue-gray discoloration of the skin, body tissues, and organs. This condition is typically not treatable nor is it reversible. In other words, your skin will be bluish … forever! (Although, being blue is not technically harmful.)

• As described by the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, “Argyria is a permanent effect, but it appears to be a cosmetic problem that may not be otherwise harmful to health.”

• The FDA and the Federal Trade Commission have taken action against a number of companies—including some companies that sell products over the Internet—for making false claims about the benefits of colloidal silver products.

• There are no oral silver-containing FDA-approved medications—neither prescription nor over-the-counter products. There are, however, safe and effective FDA-approved silver-containing topical preparations for external use, such as burn cream.

Comets

• Comets are essentially balls comprised of rock and ice. The number of comets in the solar system is believed to be in the trillions.

• Unlike asteroids, comets have “tails,” some of which can be millions of miles long.

• In the course of its elliptical orbit, a comet’s tail grows as it approaches the Sun.

• When a comet heats up, and thereby evaporates because of its proximity to the Sun, it produces the comet’s telltale jets of gas and dust to form the tail. The Sun illuminates this tail trail, which is what causes it to glow.

• Some comets make repeated visits, while others do not.

• Some of the more “famous” comets include Halley’s, Shoemaker-Levy, and Hale-Bopp.

• Hale-Bopp was one of the brightest comets ever seen from Earth.

Computers

• In 1823, Charles Babbage began constructing the mechanical “Difference Engine,” which is generally recognized as the first multipurpose or programmable computing device.

• For the 1890 census, the U.S. Census Bureau employed a mechanical computer using punch-card equipment for input that was invented by Herman Hollerith.

• In 1911, Hollerith’s company merged with another to form a third company, which became International Business Machines (IBM) in 1924.

• In 1943, work began on the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), which was the first general-purpose programmable electronic computer and was used to solve ballistics problems during World War II.

• The ENIAC contained over 18,000 vacuum tubes.

• ENIAC was displayed to the public on February 14, 1946, at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania.

• In 1964, the IBM 360 became the first computer to be mass-produced.

Corals

• While people tend to think of coral as hard, stonelike inanimate rock formations that sometimes gets turned into pretty jewelry, corals are actually living, breathing marine animals. Their class is Anthozoa, their phylum is Cnidaria).

• Almost all corals are colonial organisms, meaning they’re composed of thousands of tiny, individual invertebrate animals called polyps—which are tubular saclike animals.

• Polyps are also related to sea anemones and jellyfish. They’re amazing little creatures that secrete the mineral calcium carbonate, which, over time, accumulates and becomes the amazing reefs we know and love.

• One of the largest corals is the Fungia—the mushroom coral—which is a solitary coral that can grow to be 10 to 12 inches (25 to 30 cm) in diameter. Colonial corals are much smaller; their polyps range between 0.04 and 0.12 inches (1 to 3 mm) in diameter.

• Similar to our sense of smell and taste, coral polyps can detect certain substances like sugars and amino acids, which enable corals to detect their prey, such as plankton and small fish.

• Most corals get the majority of their nutrition via their symbiotic relationship with single-celled algae called zooxanthellae—which live within the coral polyp’s tissues. [See Zooxanthellae.]

• Polyps are generally nocturnal feeders, and the stomach cavities of colonial corals are interconnected, meaning food obtained by one polyp can be passed to other polyps in the colony!

• While corals don’t have “brains,” they do have a simple nervous system called a nerve net that extends from their mouth to their tentacles.

• Corals can reproduce both sexually and asexually. Some corals are hermaphroditic, meaning they have both male and female reproductive cells, and others are either male or female. Both sexes can occur in a colony, or a colony may consist of individuals of the same sex. Progressive little creatures!

Coriolis Effect

• Earth’s rotation causes objects moving over its surface—like missiles or hurricanes—to veer to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern because Earth is constantly moving beneath these objects in the direction of its daily rotation. This is the Coriolis effect.

• The Coriolis effect can be observed in any rotating frame of reference such as the spinning Earth or a merry-go-round.

• It is a myth that the Coriolis effect causes bathtubs or sinks to drain one direction in the Northern Hemisphere and the other in the Southern. The power of the effect is far too small to overcome the other factors involved in such events, such as residual currents or the vessel’s shape.

• The mathematical expression for the magnitude of the Coriolis effect appeared in an 1835 paper by French scientist Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis, as part of the explanation of the theory of water wheels.

• The Coriolis effect influences left or right movement, but it also influences up and down. This is known as the Eötvös effect.

• With the Eötvös effect, eastward-traveling objects are deflected upward because they feel lighter, and westward-traveling objects are deflected downward because they feel heavier.

• The Coriolis effect has a strong influence on air circulation in a developing tropical cyclone. These rarely form along the equator because the Coriolis effect is very weak there.