• folaht@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
    “The truth is always stronger than the lie.”

    One is a quote made by Joseph Goebbels,
    the other is a paraphrase of a paraphrase
    of a quote made by Joseph Goebbels,
    with the “In British culture” part missing.

    Guess which one is which.

    (P.S. I disavow German fascism.
    It’s just the more I learn about the US or UK,
    the more I’m surprised that fascism took hold in Germany… (first.))

  • folaht@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    Eric Blair was a Trotskyist who wrote
    Animal Farm and 1984 to spite Stalin,
    as Stalin turned on Trotsky,
    as Trotsky was a one-world-government proponent,
    (with Moscow as its capital),
    with the argument that capitalist nations would do anything
    to isolate and destroy socialist nations,
    whereas Stalin thought that socialism would bring the
    Soviet Union enough success to defend itself.
    This had far-reaching consequences for
    Eric Blair who was participating in the
    Spanish civil war of 1936 to 1939,
    having joined the Trotskyist resistance group
    and saw the Stalinists resistance group turn on them
    and outright attacked them.

  • Salamander@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    20
    ·
    edit-2
    4 days ago

    If you catch a frog in between your hands and quickly flip it around, you can get the frog into a kind of paralyzed state called ‘tonic immobility’.

    Here is a photo from Wikipedia:

    Frog stuck in tonic immobility

    OK, well, many years ago I was very interested in this phenomenon and decided to look into the literature.

    I found a paper from 1928 titled “On The Mechanism of Tonic Immobility in Vertebrates” written by Hudson Hoagland (PDF link).

    In this paper, the author describes contraptions he used to analyze the small movement (or lack of movement) in animals while in this state. They look kind of like torture devices:

    OK, but, that’s still not it… The obscure fact is found in the first footnote of that paper, on page #2:

    Tonic immobility or a state akin to it has been described in children by Pieron
(1913). I have recently been able to produce the condition in adult human beings.
The technique was brought to my attention by a student in physiology, Mr. W. I.
Gregg, who after hearing a lecture on tonic immobility suggested that a state
produced by the following form of manhandling which he had seen exhibited as a
sort of trick might be essentially the same thing. If one bends forward from the
waist through an angle of 90°, places the hands on the abdomen, and after taking a
deep breath is violently thrown backwards through 180° by a man on either side,
the skeletal muscles contract vigorously and a state of pronounced immobility
lasting for some seconds may result. The condition is striking and of especial
interest since this type of manipulation (sudden turning into a dorsal position) is
the most common one used for producing tonic immobility in vertebrates.

    Apparently this or a similar effect can be observed in humans too?! In this paper, the author himself claims to have done this and that it works! I tried to locate more recent resources describing this phenomenon in humans but I could not find them… Is this actually possible? If so, why is this not better documented? Or, maybe it is better documented but understood as a different type of reflex today? Not sure.

    • zipsglacier@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      4 days ago

      Excellent fact, and bonus points because the fact is only recorded in a footnote of a writeup about an already moderately obscure fact.

      • Salamander@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        3 days ago

        Ha, maybe! I don’t remember if I ever saw a 180 flip. This is the closest I could find from a quick search: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZpIglVnYuY

        If you have a video with the 180 degree flip I would really like to see it. This context seems like a plausible place to see such a move in modern days. I would imagine that in some martial arts this effect would be well known.

        • tomenzgg@midwest.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          3 days ago

          I don’t think anyone was bent over at 90° in the video?

          Regardless, that video is incredible; sending it to my ex-Evangelical partner immediately.

    • tpyo@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      4 days ago

      That reminds me of a “game” kids would (try) to play when I was young at school. The kids would say to do just that “bend over, take a deep breath” and the other one would try to lift them up really quickly. I never saw it work. I guess you were supposed to pass out. Idk

      • Salamander@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        4 days ago

        Some of these ‘games’ do trigger real physiological mechanisms. A well-documented example is the Valsalva maneuver, where forcefully exhaling against a closed mouth and nose affects heart rate and blood pressure.

        In some games, this maneuver (or similar) is combined with a second action that normally increases blood flow demand to the brain. The mismatch between reduced blood pressure and sudden demand can cause dizziness or brief loss of consciousness due to insufficient oxygen reaching the brain.

        Actually, there is a similar effect sometimes seen during heavy deadlifts, suddenly releasing can sometimes make people pass out. There are many “deadlift passing out” videos online.

        So, those ‘games’ can work. I have known of kids breaking their teeth after face-planting against the floor while playing those games. Not a very smart thing to do.

  • slst@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    You can speeddrift on the top of the tube on Purple, a classic Trackmania fullspeed map, and continuing the SD from the top to the next section without cutting it but with a little overdrift alows you to set World Record if done correctly

  • HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    4 days ago

    Ancient Egypt was ancient before it ended. The time when Cleopatra ruled is about as close to today as it was to the first pyramids.

    • rmuk@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      4 days ago

      It’s actually even wilder than that.

      The earliest know pyramids date back to around 2600BCE, and Cleopatra reigned around 50-30BCE, so her reign is closer to the modern day than to the first pyramids by about 600 years. One of the earliest surviving pyramids, Djoser, was built by Imhotep (with help, I assume) during a period called the Third Egyptian Dynasty meaning, as it’s name suggests, the unified Kingdom of Egypt was already well-established by the time it was built. The First Dynasty started about 3100BCE so even ignoring the proto-Dynasty period of Egypt, that’s pretty humbling: if you drew a timeline with the founding of Ancient Egypt on the left and the founding of OnlyFans to the right, Cleopatra would be three-fifths of the way along it.

    • riccardo@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      3 days ago

      One of my favorite facts is that while the first pyramids were being built, there were still Mammoth roaming some northern European regions (never checked whether this is true or not but I’ve heard it so many times that I want to believe it is true)

    • PearOfJudes@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      4 days ago

      Cleopatra had a kid with Julius Caesar lmao. When you think of it like that it makes more sense.

      • Alsjemenou@lemy.nl
        link
        fedilink
        Nederlands
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        3 days ago

        And it’s merely a hypothesis, there is no proof. Also we can assume that chemical plants are aware and have taken precautions, but it still happens. Back in the day it was speculated that chemists caried microcrystals around in their beards. This problem has been around for a while. One of the coolest hypothesis has been put forward by Rupert Sheldrake. He thinks that there is something in nature akin to memory. A force of nature as you will.

  • minnow@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    37
    ·
    5 days ago

    Diamonds aren’t stable and will eventually, over billions of years, decompose from their cubic molecular structure to carbon’s more stable form, graphite, which has a hexagonal molecular structure.

    Oh, here’s another good gemstone related one!

    Amethyst and citrine are both quartz varieties, and if the color source happens to be from traces of iron in the crystal lattice, one can be turned into the other. Heating amethyst can make citrine, and irradiating citrine can turn it into amethyst. This is because the only actual difference between the two is the valiance level of a specific election in the iron atom giving the stone its color.

      • minnow@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        3 days ago

        NGL I’m not very familiar with the technical details, but I know quartz is pretty temperature sensitive and starts to get damaged about 400F iirc

        It’s possible special conditions are needed to really succeed, like low/no oxygen or a long duration at a lower temperature.

        But theoretically, the answer to your question is “yes”

    • toynbee@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      5 days ago

      hexagonal molecular structure

      You know, I think I’ve heard something about hexagons on the internet before …

  • DominusOfMegadeus@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    32
    ·
    5 days ago

    Bedsheet thread counts have been artificially inflated for years by the shifty linen companies counting individual fibers that the threads consist of as threads themselves. It’s become a meaningless number, since there is zero regulation. If you want a nice thick heavy cloth, GSM is the number you want, but most companies won’t share this (looking at you, The Company Store) because they obviously don’t want you to know how thin and flimsy their products really are before you buy them.

  • Jonnyprophet@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    5 days ago

    &

    This symbol, the ampersand, used to have equal status with letters of the alphabet and was stuck at the end after Z.

    That’s how it got its name. People would say “X,Y,Z, and, per se, And”. (And “sort of” an and). Thus, “And per se And” became Ampersand.

  • monovergent@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    26
    ·
    edit-2
    5 days ago

    Several popular graphing calculators from Texas Instruments, including the TI-83 and TI-84, have a display resolution of 96*64, but only 95*63 pixels are used for graphing.

    However, the earlier TI-81 did use all 96*64 pixels. The rationale for this change was to establish a central row and column for the axes and a central pixel for the origin. The cursor could only move pixel-by-pixel, and since the axes and origin would end up “between” pixels on the TI-81, they were inaccessible by the cursor.

  • missfrizzle@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    17
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    5 days ago

    Chinese scientists worked to create the “humanzee,” a human-chimpanzee hybrid in the '60s. Female chimpanzees were impregnated with human sperm. The experiment was cut short by the Cultural Revolution - the scientists were sent to labor camps and a three-months pregnant chimpanzee died of neglect. The Soviets attempted a similar program in the '20s.

    • DreasNil@feddit.nu
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      5 days ago

      This sounds like a bunch of b***shit so I had to look it up. Seems like you’re actually right… 😳

    • PearOfJudes@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      4 days ago

      Seriously find a source. a three month pregnant chimpanzee, pregnant with a humanzee, died of neglect? Sure, Humanzee experiments were attempted but because of how biology works, two species as different as a chimpanzee and a human cannot make children.

      • missfrizzle@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        4 days ago

        Certainly!

        Peking (KNT) -Chinese at one time experimented with fertilizing a chimpanzee with human sperm in an attempt to create a “near -human ape,” and they may try it again. The chimp was three months pregnant before the first experiment was halted, one of the original researchers claims. Western science long has scoffed at such an experiment as medically impossible, but Dr. Ji Yongxiang says the research, if it ever resumes, has the potential to develop creatures with higher animal intelligence who could speak and perform simple tasks. A second researcher at the Chinese Academy of Science said there were plans to resume testing.

  • Jentu@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    5 days ago

    You know when geese fly in a “v” shaped pattern in the sky? One side of the “v” is usually longer than the other. The reason for that is that there’s more geese on that side.

    • Twanquility@feddit.dk
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      4 days ago

      They do it for efficiency, like ducklings after their mother. Have you ever seen a large boat from above? The wake spreads out behind it, in this v-shape. It’s like a wave following the boat, and the ducklings can “surf” on the v-shaped wave, after their mother, and they don’t have to paddle as hard.

  • Ceruleum@lemmy.wtf
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    edit-2
    4 days ago

    The Latin meaning of the color ultramarine is “over the sea” Also, they once made a pigment called mummy, which was literally made out of finely grinded mummy.