this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2026
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cross-posted from: https://lemdro.id/post/38963642

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[–] aramis87@fedia.io 65 points 1 month ago (11 children)

For one hour each year, part of Florida and part of Oregon have the exact same time on their clocks.

Sharks have existed long enough as a species to have orbited the entire Milky Way Galaxy - twice.

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 34 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Sharks are so old that I've seen other comparisons, had never seen the milky way one before, that's very interesting, the other ones I knew is that sharks are older than:

  • The rings of Saturn
  • Trees

So when sharks first evolved Saturn had no rings and trees didn't exist yet.

[–] Deconceptualist@leminal.space 19 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

Sharks also predate basically all big recognizable surface geology features on earth. They're way older than the Grand Canyon or the Himalayas. It kind of makes sense once you realize they date back to the Pangea supercontinent.

Also, biologically modern humans are much older than Niagara Falls.

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[–] 2piradians@lemmy.world 11 points 4 weeks ago

Sharks preceding trees is 🤯

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[–] Deconceptualist@leminal.space 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

I don't understand the clock one.

The shark fact is impressive though. I like to tell folks that the galaxy is so big that the solar system hasn't even made 1/4 of an orbit since the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct. Might add some perspective.

Nitpick: there are many species of shark so maybe you meant taxonomic genus or family.

[–] aramis87@fedia.io 28 points 1 month ago (5 children)

I don't understand the clock one.

Part of the western Florida panhandle (WFP) is on Central time. Part of southeastern Oregon (SEO) is on Mountain time. That puts them one hour apart.

In the fall, when we go back into Standard Time, when the clock hits 2am, you flip the clock back to 1am.

So, during a normal night, WFP would be at 2am and SEO would be 1am. But on the night the time changes, WFP hits 2am and immediately flips their clocks back to 1am - which means that, for one hour a year (until SEO hits 2am and flips their clocks back), part of Florida and part of Oregon's clocks are showing the exact same time.

I kinda struggled over how to word this - they're not in the same time zone, but for this one hour they might as well be.

[–] Deconceptualist@leminal.space 11 points 4 weeks ago

Ah okay, I get it now. You explained that perfectly, thanks!

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[–] zlatiah@lemmy.world 54 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Everything about fecal transplant. Or maybe just the fact that it is even a legitimate medical procedure

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 33 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

“You want my thesis? I hate college!! My thesis is going to be about taking a SHIT up your ASS!”
(Four years later)
“Wow, Mr. Blake! The results of your medical trial were astounding! These are excellent results!”
“Wait…huh?”

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[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 54 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Some fun geography one's.
Maine is the closest US state to Africa.
Alaska is the northern most, Western most, and Eastern most state in the US.

[–] toddestan@lemmy.world 34 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

My favorite geography one: You get on a plane at Tampa Bay, Florida and fly due south. Which South American countries do you fly over?

Answer is none of them. You miss the entire continent because you are too far west.

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[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 21 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

My favorite geography fact is that, if you're on the northern edge of Brazil, you're actually closer to Canada than you are to the southern border of Brazil.

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[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 49 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Time being a physical dimension in spacetime that can stretch and squish and 'now' isn't the same for every observer is probably the least intuitive one I know

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity

[–] Harvey656@lemmy.world 24 points 1 month ago

Wibbly wobbly timey wimey

[–] Deconceptualist@leminal.space 44 points 1 month ago (4 children)

If you're not familiar with the flavors of quarks, they probably seem fake.

  • Up
  • Down
  • Top
  • Bottom
  • Charm
  • Strange

Of course they all have antimatter counterparts. But anti-up is not the same as a down quark, anti-top is not the same as a bottom quark, etc.

[–] BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

I do want to hear the story of the physicist when they got to making up the names for charm and just strange. I imagine many sleepless nights.

[–] Deconceptualist@leminal.space 15 points 4 weeks ago

The quark flavors were given their names for several reasons. The up and down quarks are named after the up and down components of isospin, which they carry.[60] Strange quarks were given their name because they were discovered to be components of the strange particles discovered in cosmic rays years before the quark model was proposed; these particles were deemed "strange" because they had unusually long lifetimes.[61] Glashow, who co-proposed the charm quark with Bjorken, is quoted as saying, "We called our construct the 'charmed quark', for we were fascinated and pleased by the symmetry it brought to the subnuclear world."[62] The names "top" and "bottom", coined by Harari, were chosen because they are "logical partners for up and down quarks".[41][42][61] Alternative names for top and bottom quarks are "truth" and "beauty",[nb 4] but these names have somewhat fallen out of use.[66] While "truth" never did catch on, accelerator complexes devoted to massive production of bottom quarks are sometimes called "beauty factories".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark

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[–] ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 40 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Trans people don't have advantage in sports

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[–] chunes@lemmy.world 36 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] fizzle@quokk.au 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The word “exosphere” was proposed by Lyman Spitzer to designate the outer part of a planetary atmosphere, defined as the region where the density is low enough to describe it as a collisionless region. Since the beginning of the space era, it was discovered that the major neutral constituent of Earth's exosphere is atomic hydrogen, and Shklovsky (1959) coined the word “geocorona” to designate the H component of the exosphere.

I didn't read the whole paper obviously but this part makes it sound like you're talking about the exosphere in which, by definition, there might be more gas molecules than elsewhere but few enough that they're unlikely to run into them, or they're unlikely to run into each other maybe IDK.

Obviously, if there was a significant atmosphere the moon would experience atmospheric drag and would fall to earth.

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[–] MissyBee@lemmy.blahaj.zone 31 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

If you get methanol poisoning for example from badly made liquor then the remedy for that is to drink ethanol (good liquor).

[–] brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

I always keep a bottle of medicinal vodka around.

Also glycol poisoning. Like if you drink antifreeze for your car, one treatment is to drink a bunch of alcohol so the liver processes the alcohol and not the ethelyne glycol.

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[–] muxika@piefed.muxika.org 29 points 1 month ago (4 children)
[–] turbowafflz@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago (8 children)

wait they should make special ones that are like a squeaky toy and squeak when you squeeze them i would get those that would be really funny

[–] ExtraMedicated@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago

Could be risky. My dog loves tearing out the squeaker things from anything that has one.

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[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 27 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

Trigger Warning: Existential Crisis

spoilerEverything about us is young in the context of the wider universe. Human society, the human species, the planet earth, our solar system, our sun. We live near the dawn of creation, even though our universe feels unimaginably old compared to our brief lives. As the skies darken and all the stars burn out, that will take course over a time period longer than our individual solar system will last. When the last light goes out, time doesn't stop, no the universe goes on and there's an even longer period of endless empty inky blackness, the deep void. In the end, the universe may spend significantly more time as an endless dead void than it ever did as a universe with hope of life and at least one planet with confirmed organic life. There is no escaping it, and there is probably no way for our species to even survive and adapt to that era as it is.

[–] Davel23@fedia.io 16 points 1 month ago (7 children)

One of the possible answers to the Fermi Paradox is simply we're the first.

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[–] Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 24 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

You can see where the pacific ocean meets the atlanic ocean

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[–] 001Guy001@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 month ago

Everything that's made of atoms is 99.9999999% empty (if it is indeed correct, I don't have much scientific knowledge)

https://medium.com/illumination/why-solid-matter-is-mostly-empty-space-03f42e95c03f

[–] kyonshi@piefed.social 22 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

Every single one of us is travelling through space on a tiny speck of dirt, circling a permanent explosion that doesn't know how to stop itself at 30km/s.
That explosion and multiple specks of dirt besides our own dance around the center of the galaxy in a complex ballet with 200 billion other permanently exploding balls of fire and plasma, many of which are sizeably larger than ours and also have collected pieces of dirt circling around them, at a speed of 200km/s. The center of this agglomeration of giant balls of fire and dirt is a... thing... that is in itself so massive it can't help eating everything that comes near including suns, light, and the concept of time.

And there, travelling around the center of the galaxy at 200km/s, spiraling around your sun at 30km/s, there is you. And somehow you have to work tomorrow.

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[–] Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 21 points 1 month ago (2 children)

If you rub two creatures together just right you get another creature of mostly the same type a little bit later.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

What is this Pokemon shit doing in my science?? /s

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[–] toddestan@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago (34 children)

Despite plants being associated with the color green, chlorophyll is actually a poor absorber of green wavelengths of light.

Hence the reason plants are green, because they absorb the blue and red wavelengths of light, but reflect the green.

[–] Wren@lemmy.today 31 points 1 month ago (6 children)

That's just how colour works.

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[–] porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 month ago

That's the case for most things of any colour.

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[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago (3 children)

The Kings Chamber in the great pyramid of Egypt maintains an average temperature of 68°F (20°C).

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[–] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 17 points 4 weeks ago (4 children)

The average human being has (approximately) one testicle and one ovary.

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[–] village604@adultswim.fan 16 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (5 children)

Bloodletting is still a legitimate medical treatment, now called therapeutic phlebotomy.

Some medicines, like testosterone, can increase your hemoglobin or blood count, so donating blood is the fix for it.

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[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 16 points 4 weeks ago (4 children)

There are over 100 volcanos on Antarctica

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[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 15 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

France is bigger at Christmas than at Easter.

Reason: Pheasant Island.

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[–] Appleseuss@lemmy.world 15 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

There are more grains of sand on the planet Earth than there are stars in the solar system.

[–] Reziarfg@lemmy.world 15 points 4 weeks ago (8 children)

Our solar system? So, more than 1?

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[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

people still believe the moon landing/launches are all cgi made up even to this day, seems very prominent amongst older asians believing in this conspiracy.

[–] HuudaHarkiten@piefed.social 19 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Its also very prominent among ignorant morons.

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