What's the most interesting thing you've ever heard of?
September 23, 2007 4:59 AM Subscribe
What’s the most fascinating thing you’ve ever read or heard about?
(This isn’t just chatfilter – see inside)
As a complete non-scientist, I’m reading Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, and loving it. It really brings home how many fascinating things, facts, events, ideas and people there are in the world that I would never know about unless I tripped over them. Especially the people.
(self link: my first FPP was exactly this kind of thing)
Doesn’t have to be science - I happened across a TV programme about the Upper Clyde Ship Builders Work-In the other day and had never heard of it, but thought it was amazing.
And yes, I browse the blue, and I wander around the library and pick up random books. I just wondered what “Oh my God, that’s incredible!” discoveries were burning away in the MeFi brain that you might like to share for me to go off and read more about.
As a complete non-scientist, I’m reading Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, and loving it. It really brings home how many fascinating things, facts, events, ideas and people there are in the world that I would never know about unless I tripped over them. Especially the people.
(self link: my first FPP was exactly this kind of thing)
Doesn’t have to be science - I happened across a TV programme about the Upper Clyde Ship Builders Work-In the other day and had never heard of it, but thought it was amazing.
And yes, I browse the blue, and I wander around the library and pick up random books. I just wondered what “Oh my God, that’s incredible!” discoveries were burning away in the MeFi brain that you might like to share for me to go off and read more about.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Actually, this really, really is chatfilter. Makes for an interesting question, but it feels like there's been a sort of upswing of this sort of thing on AskMe lately and this is a pretty balls-out "let's talk about stuff" what's-your-favorite-foo prompt as presented
MRI machines in operating rooms.
Also e ICU's where intensive care units are monitored by staff on site and remotely via cameras, microphones and monitoring equipment.
I met an RN who does this. She sits in a room with computers and monitors and alerts the staff on site if she sees a patient begin to desaturate or something. She said she can even talk to the patient if she must. For instance if they were trying to get out of the ICU bed an no one was at the immediate bedside. I imagine as a patient that could be really weird to simply here a voice from a speaker say: Do not try and get out of the hospital bed, but then ICU's are probably completely disorienting anyway for those being treated there. As for the staff, I've heard they really like the extra help monitoring patients with shaky stability.
posted by dog food sugar at 5:38 AM on September 23, 2007
Also e ICU's where intensive care units are monitored by staff on site and remotely via cameras, microphones and monitoring equipment.
I met an RN who does this. She sits in a room with computers and monitors and alerts the staff on site if she sees a patient begin to desaturate or something. She said she can even talk to the patient if she must. For instance if they were trying to get out of the ICU bed an no one was at the immediate bedside. I imagine as a patient that could be really weird to simply here a voice from a speaker say: Do not try and get out of the hospital bed, but then ICU's are probably completely disorienting anyway for those being treated there. As for the staff, I've heard they really like the extra help monitoring patients with shaky stability.
posted by dog food sugar at 5:38 AM on September 23, 2007
evolution is the most fascinating thing.
single piece of RNA -> humans = incredible
posted by mpls2 at 5:56 AM on September 23, 2007
single piece of RNA -> humans = incredible
posted by mpls2 at 5:56 AM on September 23, 2007
Marilyn Monroe has 5 toes on each foot.
posted by fire&wings at 6:04 AM on September 23, 2007
posted by fire&wings at 6:04 AM on September 23, 2007
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field just blew me away.
A telescope, trained on a dark patch of sky for 11 days, and this is what it saw.
posted by flutable at 6:11 AM on September 23, 2007
A telescope, trained on a dark patch of sky for 11 days, and this is what it saw.
posted by flutable at 6:11 AM on September 23, 2007
I'm pretty sure you misspoke, fire&wings, unless kids are being born with 4 toes nowadays...
My most interesting thing ever read about: neuro-electric interfaces. I'm sure they'll lead to a great many straight-out-of-sci-fi advancements.
posted by tehloki at 6:14 AM on September 23, 2007
My most interesting thing ever read about: neuro-electric interfaces. I'm sure they'll lead to a great many straight-out-of-sci-fi advancements.
posted by tehloki at 6:14 AM on September 23, 2007
No, tehloki, she really did have five toes and only five toes on each foot. It was a long-standing rumor that she had had six toes on her left foot until she had one removed, but this is apparently untrue.
posted by lizzicide at 6:24 AM on September 23, 2007
posted by lizzicide at 6:24 AM on September 23, 2007
Honestly, and quite seriously, I've been asking my coworkers this exact same question in moments of downtime. You know, those times when we've finished all our work or are taking a break, when the conversation runs a bit thin and I'm itching for something stimulating. They usually say, "I'll have to think about that one." Sometimes I'll ask someone who's not engaged enough to answer, but just engaged enough to turn the question around and ask me (like you!), and then I tell them "Double rainbows."
posted by carsonb at 6:28 AM on September 23, 2007
posted by carsonb at 6:28 AM on September 23, 2007
Oh, damn near everything fascinates me.
Dogs can read non-verbal human signals that wolves and monkeys don't understand. Seems we bred them to near-intuitively understand (and be able to learn) human behavior.
Countless people died looking for new lands or trying to figure out where everything is. All we have to do is download Google Earth and we can see it.
Joseph Nicephore Niepce, who took the first photograph ever, probably would've sold his soul for the camera in your cell phone.
posted by cmyk at 6:51 AM on September 23, 2007
Dogs can read non-verbal human signals that wolves and monkeys don't understand. Seems we bred them to near-intuitively understand (and be able to learn) human behavior.
Countless people died looking for new lands or trying to figure out where everything is. All we have to do is download Google Earth and we can see it.
Joseph Nicephore Niepce, who took the first photograph ever, probably would've sold his soul for the camera in your cell phone.
posted by cmyk at 6:51 AM on September 23, 2007
Joseph Kittinger and the Project Man High and Project Excelsior.
posted by Brocktoon at 7:09 AM on September 23, 2007
posted by Brocktoon at 7:09 AM on September 23, 2007
This isn’t just chatfilter
O RLY? Because you said so?
posted by mkultra at 7:35 AM on September 23, 2007
O RLY? Because you said so?
posted by mkultra at 7:35 AM on September 23, 2007
I think this is an excellent question, and I look forward to seeing the answers. Unfortunately, it may be chatfilter, as there is no problem to be solved. Next time, try "I'm writing a book about the most fascinating things people have discovered, and I need your stories." :)
My "most fascinating (trivial) thing" (that I think of off the top of my head) is that cats only meow to communicate with humans. It sounds exactly like an urban legend, but apparently it's true.
posted by The Deej at 7:45 AM on September 23, 2007
My "most fascinating (trivial) thing" (that I think of off the top of my head) is that cats only meow to communicate with humans. It sounds exactly like an urban legend, but apparently it's true.
posted by The Deej at 7:45 AM on September 23, 2007
-- Dead Reckoning. Back before compasses and sextants and radar and advanced celestial navigation, sailors still managed to get where they wanted to go. Amazing, since by veering even slightly off course could, you could wind up hundreds of miles away from your goal.
-- Shakespeare. If you read his works, you gradually realize that he discovered, utilized -- and crafted better than most later writers -- nearly every literary and dramatic device "discovered" since. In addition, he was a shrewd psychologist centuries before Freud. He had a 29,000 word vocabulary (most people's are about 4000).
-- I 2nd Evolution by Natural Selection. An amazingly simple and elegant idea that explains so much, so powerfully. If you haven't read it, I recommend "Evolution for Everyone." Once, I believed in -- but wasn't astounded by -- Evolution. That's because I didn't REALLY understand it and all of its implications.
-- I'm too young to remember JFK's assassination, but I'll always remember what I was doing when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. (I was browsing in an art supplies store, and they had the radio on.) Seven astronauts died. I was living in NYC during 9/11 and saw The Towers fall. This was definitely the most amazing -- and terrifying -- thing I've ever seen. In that disaster, about 3,000 people died. The Nazi's killed six million Jews during the Holocaust (9-to-11 million people total). The Bubonic Plague killed 75 million people, wiping out a third to two-thirds of Europe.
-- Einstein's theories of Special and General relativity. First of all, these theories are solid. They have been confirmed in experiment after experiment. You should believe in them. But believing in them means accepting some really strange things. [From Wikipedia]:
SPECIAL RELATIVITY
* Time dilation: Moving clocks tick slower than an observer's "stationary" clock.
* Length contraction: Objects are observed to be shortened in the direction that they are moving with respect to the observer.
* Relativity of simultaneity: two events that appear simultaneous to an observer A will not be simultaneous to an observer B if B is moving with respect to A.
* Mass-energy equivalence: E = mc², energy and mass are equivalent and transmutable.
GENERAL RELATIVITY
* Time goes slower at lower gravitational potentials. This is called gravitational time dilation.
* Orbits precess in a way unexpected in Newton's theory of gravity. (This has been observed in the orbit of Mercury and in binary pulsars).
* Even rays of light (which are weightless) bend in the presence of a gravitational field.
* The Universe is expanding, and the far parts of it are moving away from us faster than the speed of light. This does not contradict the theory of special relativity, since it is space itself that is expanding.
* Frame-dragging, in which a rotating mass "drags along" the space time around it.
If these consequences don't blow your mind, try dipping into Quantum Physics.
-- Many people have mentioned the Internet. It is amazing, and it's changed my life in countless ways. But I'm more amazed by my iPod. I've always loved music, and back in the Walkman days (during which I was amazed by Walkmans), I used to carry around about 30 cassette tapes in my backback.
I owned several hundred tapes, and any time I bought an LP, I would immediately copy it onto tape. My decisions about what-to-listen-to are emotionally driven, and I never know what I'm going to want to hear until I want to hear it. So even though I loved my Walkman, I remember going on vacation, packing 30 or 40 cassettes, and then winding up on the beach, realizing that I'd left the tape that I wanted to hear at home.
My tiny iPod holds 500 albums. I can listen to whatever I want, whenever I want, and I do. It goes with me everywhere, and it's the only piece of technology (besides my clothes and glasses) that feels like a part of me.
(I'm thrilled that Apple just doubled the storage capacity. I'm running out of space on my current iPod. But I can tell by the rate of my music acquisition that I'm unlikely to use up 180gb in my lifetime -- especially since I'm uninterested in storying video).
-- I remember my shock when I visited Westminster Abby and discovered that Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scotts have tombs in the same room. (This must of been planned by Elizabeth, who (a) had Mary put to death and (b) would have known where she, herself, would have been buried).
-- The USA is just over 200 years old. Ancient Egypt lasted 3000 years. Modern humans have been around for 200,000 years. Dinosaurs lasted 160 million years.
posted by grumblebee at 7:48 AM on September 23, 2007 [1 favorite]
-- Shakespeare. If you read his works, you gradually realize that he discovered, utilized -- and crafted better than most later writers -- nearly every literary and dramatic device "discovered" since. In addition, he was a shrewd psychologist centuries before Freud. He had a 29,000 word vocabulary (most people's are about 4000).
-- I 2nd Evolution by Natural Selection. An amazingly simple and elegant idea that explains so much, so powerfully. If you haven't read it, I recommend "Evolution for Everyone." Once, I believed in -- but wasn't astounded by -- Evolution. That's because I didn't REALLY understand it and all of its implications.
-- I'm too young to remember JFK's assassination, but I'll always remember what I was doing when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. (I was browsing in an art supplies store, and they had the radio on.) Seven astronauts died. I was living in NYC during 9/11 and saw The Towers fall. This was definitely the most amazing -- and terrifying -- thing I've ever seen. In that disaster, about 3,000 people died. The Nazi's killed six million Jews during the Holocaust (9-to-11 million people total). The Bubonic Plague killed 75 million people, wiping out a third to two-thirds of Europe.
-- Einstein's theories of Special and General relativity. First of all, these theories are solid. They have been confirmed in experiment after experiment. You should believe in them. But believing in them means accepting some really strange things. [From Wikipedia]:
SPECIAL RELATIVITY
* Time dilation: Moving clocks tick slower than an observer's "stationary" clock.
* Length contraction: Objects are observed to be shortened in the direction that they are moving with respect to the observer.
* Relativity of simultaneity: two events that appear simultaneous to an observer A will not be simultaneous to an observer B if B is moving with respect to A.
* Mass-energy equivalence: E = mc², energy and mass are equivalent and transmutable.
GENERAL RELATIVITY
* Time goes slower at lower gravitational potentials. This is called gravitational time dilation.
* Orbits precess in a way unexpected in Newton's theory of gravity. (This has been observed in the orbit of Mercury and in binary pulsars).
* Even rays of light (which are weightless) bend in the presence of a gravitational field.
* The Universe is expanding, and the far parts of it are moving away from us faster than the speed of light. This does not contradict the theory of special relativity, since it is space itself that is expanding.
* Frame-dragging, in which a rotating mass "drags along" the space time around it.
If these consequences don't blow your mind, try dipping into Quantum Physics.
-- Many people have mentioned the Internet. It is amazing, and it's changed my life in countless ways. But I'm more amazed by my iPod. I've always loved music, and back in the Walkman days (during which I was amazed by Walkmans), I used to carry around about 30 cassette tapes in my backback.
I owned several hundred tapes, and any time I bought an LP, I would immediately copy it onto tape. My decisions about what-to-listen-to are emotionally driven, and I never know what I'm going to want to hear until I want to hear it. So even though I loved my Walkman, I remember going on vacation, packing 30 or 40 cassettes, and then winding up on the beach, realizing that I'd left the tape that I wanted to hear at home.
My tiny iPod holds 500 albums. I can listen to whatever I want, whenever I want, and I do. It goes with me everywhere, and it's the only piece of technology (besides my clothes and glasses) that feels like a part of me.
(I'm thrilled that Apple just doubled the storage capacity. I'm running out of space on my current iPod. But I can tell by the rate of my music acquisition that I'm unlikely to use up 180gb in my lifetime -- especially since I'm uninterested in storying video).
-- I remember my shock when I visited Westminster Abby and discovered that Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scotts have tombs in the same room. (This must of been planned by Elizabeth, who (a) had Mary put to death and (b) would have known where she, herself, would have been buried).
-- The USA is just over 200 years old. Ancient Egypt lasted 3000 years. Modern humans have been around for 200,000 years. Dinosaurs lasted 160 million years.
posted by grumblebee at 7:48 AM on September 23, 2007 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
I remember having a difficult time believing an image based internet the first time I saw Mosaic demonstrated, or grasping the extent of the potential and how it would change the world.....
posted by HuronBob at 5:23 AM on September 23, 2007