Learn One Thing A Day

Fascinating, simply fascinating :)

Some days ago LIGO (Laser Interferometry Gravitational waves Observatory) announced the detection of the first gravitational wave produced by the collapse of two black holes. Here a nice summary of ideas behind the science and the experiment. Amazing! To understand how impressive this discovery is, here some "raw" numbers: The interferometers making LIGO are huge: each arm of this L-shaped structures is 4 km long! The "ripple" in the fabric of space-time that has been measured is TINY: 1/100000 of a nanometer, how much is this? It's the size of a atomic nucleus! This is incredible! The ripple was produced by the collapse of two black holes, having 36 and 29 times the solar mass. The final black hole was 62 solar masses with 3 solar masses (36+29 - 62 = 3) "lost" in the ripples. The collapse of the two black holes happened 1.3 billion years ago! 1.3 billion years!!!! The earth is about 4.5 billion years old! The quest of the gravitation...

Universe what an amazing thing!  Brought to you by vsauce

Well I didn't know that such thing existed! Enjoy the video from MinuteEarth

Discover this peculiar organism ;) Nature is so amazing! Brought to you by scishow

Today I recommend you another interesting video from scishow. It's about the "old", "vestigial" parts that we still carry in our body. Enjoy the view!

Some time ago I prepared a draft-post to tell you about the 2-Billion-Years-Old nuclear reactor in Oklo (Gabon, in Central Africa). However the scishow guys come first with an episode on the subject, an episode that I warmly recommend you  :) Bonus info: To get a "controlled" and self-sustained nuclear fission requires extremely care! The first nuclear reactor was turned on 2 December 1942 by Enrico Fermi, at  University of Chicago. It was called the Chicago Pile-1 and it was built under the west viewing stands of a football field! (No joke!)... tomorrow you'll find a post about it :) Other references: http://arxiv.org/abs/1404.4948 https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/in-the-1970s-scientists-discovered-a-2-billion-year-old-nuclear-reactor-in-west-africa-4472460b82c2

Hello internet! Here are four objects which come from NASA :) Thanks to SciShow Space for this very interesting video! Subscribe, it's totally worth it!

Another interesting and scary video from scishow!

Does Alcohol Really Keep You Warm?  Short answer: no.  For the long answer I refer you to the nice video from the SciShow channel :)  

There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance. Hippocrates (460 BC - 377 BC), an ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles (Classical Greece),  and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine.

Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination. Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

We already know ( right? ), that an adult human body has 206 bones, (babies have about 300), but did you know that 26 bones are located in each foot and ankle, i.e. 25% of ALL your bones are actually in your feet! (52/206=25.2 %)!!! (source wikipedia ) These bones contain in 33 joints (per foot), with over one hundred muscles, tendons, and ligaments in each foot also! Read more at http://www.omg-facts.com/Science/25-of-your-bones-are-located-in-your-fee/34895#QdL2SvlXIDw04Wm4.9 The human body contains 206 bones total. 26 bones are located in each foot and ankle, meaning that there are 52 bones altogether in your feet. That’s a quarter of the total bones in your body! Read more at http://www.omg-facts.com/Science/25-of-your-bones-are-located-in-your-fee/34895#QdL2SvlXIDw04Wm4.99 The human body contains 206 bones total. 26 bones are located in each foot and ankle, meaning that there are 52 bones altogether in your feet. That’s a quarter of the total bones in your body! Read m...

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..." Isaac Asimov (1920-1992), American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books.

Have you ever wondered why your fingers wrinkle when you do the washing-up?   (source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ ) As surprised as you might be, it seems that only recently scientists have found an explanation for this phenomenon. According to researchers of the New cast le University , it could be the results of evolutionary development.  The shrivelling of the skin on the fingers makes it easier to grip things underwater and pick up wet objects!  Researcher Tom Smulders said: ‘Going back in time, this wrinkling of our fingers in wet conditions could have helped with gathering food from wet vegetation or streams.’ (source: dailymail.co.uk ) So, when you do the washing-up without gloves and your fingers get wrinkled, it's just your body telling you " Sir, can I impro ve your grip o n th at soapy dish of yours ?"  The small comic strip below seems perfect to close this post :)  (source: dailymail.co.uk )

Today I learnt that the Blue Whale is not not only the largest living animal but - probably - also the largest one to have ever lived! They live  worldwide and are considered endangered by IUCN ( International Union for Conservation of Nature ) due to the human activity, most notably the pollution and the fisheries interactions. Here is some impressive numbers: Weight :  up to 150000 kg (330000 pounds) Length :  27-33 m (88-108 feet) depending on location (the largest live in Antarctic) Life :       unknown (maybe about 90 years) but sexually mature at 5-15 years. Diet :       Krill, a lot of it! 3.6 metric tons (4 imperial tons) of krill each day. However a picture (or in this case, a drawing) is much more effective in visualizing how large they are! (photo by Harry Wilson via I fucking love science ) They are considered endangered and it's estimated there are 5000-12000 Blue Whales r...

Today I learnt why cats do purr. In a nutshell: purring is a kind of self-medication. Probably. Let's see why. Cats purr not only when we stoke them but also in other moments in their life, as when they nurse their kittens or ... when they are in pain or near to death! These facts seem to tell us that purring has nothing to do with happiness, or with the pleasure to be with us... Cats purr by pulsing muscles in their larynx and diaphragm. The resulting vibrations have frequencies between 25 and 150 Hz.  Interestingly, scientific studies have shown that exposure to this frequency range can improve bone density and promote healing... hence the conclusion: purring is a kind of self-medication! This makes a lot of sense, since these adorable creatures are quite lazy (unlike dogs, cats do not like to chase balls) and nevertheless they stay healthy (even without physical exercise!) Amazing! References: http://www.scientificamerican.com/ SciShow Video

Meet Destin from Smarter Every Day and discover the amazing properties of the Prince Rupert's Drop! What happens when you drip molten glass into cold water? The glass forms a tadpole structure (a bulb with a tail) with a very peculiar strain structure at the inside: the drop won't break if you hit the bulb with a hammer  but even a small damage (a swing or tiny crack) on the tail will cause the whole structure to break... exposively ! Take a seat and be ready to be fascinated! Source: SmarterEveryDay Channel wikipedia

Last update  April, 8th, 2018 After the post about ebooks , I have thought you may be interested on academic papers too and here I am! :) THANKS for your contributions to this post! On the subject education, there is also a new post about the free university courses you can attend online, for free!!! Anyway, if you are a PhD student or a researcher you need to download and study other people's scientific works. For most journals (the most important ones) your institution should have already a subscription. However you'll probably have already experienced that sometimes, you need a paper you cannot download through your institution, pretty annoying eh? So... how can you solve this problem? Where can you download research papers for free? Where to find free scientific journal articles? How to get that f*ck*ng full-text pdf? Are there alternatives to sci-hub ? Yes, just read below! By the way, is sci-hub down? NO, once again, just read below! I will...

If you work with OriginLab to display and analyze scientific data, you may need to use some special characters. To do so, you just need to use the shortcut "CTRL + M" when editing a text box. With this shortcut you will get access to the Origin Symbol Map and choose among arrows, greek characters and mathematical symbols. Enjoy!