Science

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The Early History of Human Excreta

As humans kept wandering, they fertilized places along the way—especially those “rest stops” where their clans chose to stay for a while. Some of these early humans may have even noticed that plants tended to grow bigger, better, and tastier in such rest stops. So, tribes made a point of coming back to those spots the next season, or even several years in a row—and then, one year some decided to just settle at those convenient spots. These early settlers brought us to the advent of farming.

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Airport Runway Names Shift with Magnetic Field

For example, the Fairbanks International Airport in Alaska renamed runway 1L-19R to 2L-20R in 2009 when magnetic north shifted enough to mandate a change. And the airport operators know—from NCEI’s World Magnetic Model (WMM) and other sources—that they’ll likely need to update the name again in 2033…

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Lunar Eclipses – 2021-2030

Eclipses recur over the Saros cycle, a period of approximately 18 years 11 days.

The saros is a period of exactly 223 synodic months, approximately 6585.3211 days, or 18 years, 10, 11, or 12 days (depending on the number of leap years), and 8 hours, that can be used to predict eclipses of the Sun and Moon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saros_(astronomy)

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What the Dippin’ Dots ‘cold chain’ can teach us about COVID-19 vaccines

Countless people across the country are desperate to get their hands on the coronavirus vaccine. But the same could be said for another icy treat with some surprising similarities: Dippin’ Dots.

Invented by a microbiologist in 1988, Dippin’ Dots’ self-proclaimed “Ice Cream of the Future” maintains its characteristic beaded form only if stored at -49 degrees Fahrenheit. Slipping even a few degrees in the wrong direction can jeopardize the quality of a batch.

Shipping a coronavirus vaccine is a similarly delicate dance.

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Tsar Bomba – Unclassified Footage

Rosatom has released previously classified footage of the largest bomb to ever be detonated, Tsar Bomba.

With a yield of 50 megatons (50 million tons), equal to around 3,800 Hiroshima bombs, the weapon was set off over Novaya Zemlya on October 30, 1961

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/security/2020/08/rosatom-releases-previously-classified-documentary-video-50-mt-novaya-zemlya-test

Update: I think they took it down? So, this seems to be a re-upload: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJhZ3i-HXS0

Tip: YouTube’s auto-translated captions do a great job turning it into english.

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Plastic Bag Found at the Bottom of World’s Deepest Ocean Trench

A recent study revealed that a plastic bag, like the kind given away at grocery stores, is now the deepest known piece of plastic trash, found at a depth of 36,000 feet inside the Mariana Trench. Scientists found it by looking through the Deep-Sea Debris Database, a collection of photos and videos taken from 5,010 dives over the past 30 years that was recently made public.