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[-] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 30 points 1 month ago

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 21 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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.

[-] wjrii@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

It's close, though. IIRC, you can't say the same thing about Miami.

[-] iamthetot@piefed.ca 11 points 1 month ago

For the Alaska one, the Aleutian Islands extend beyond the 180° line of longitude, placing the tip of them within the eastern hemisphere.

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[-] whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 29 points 1 month ago

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 10 points 1 month ago

Wibbly wobbly timey wimey

[-] aramis87@fedia.io 27 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] Drusas@fedia.io 5 points 1 month ago

I don't see it.

[-] Deconceptualist@leminal.space 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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 speciea of shark so maybe you meant taxonomic genus or family.

[-] aramis87@fedia.io 5 points 1 month ago

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.

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[-] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

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.

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[-] chunes@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago
[-] fizzle@quokk.au 10 points 1 month ago

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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[-] ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 17 points 1 month ago

Trans people don't have advantage in sports

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[-] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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 11 points 1 month ago

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

We could be the great scourge of this part of the universe. Expanding recklessly through galaxies in the local group, leaving only the dead husks of stars that have been stripped of all usable energy. The exponential nature of scientific discovery means that not only do we have a head start, our head start compounds as time progresses. We become a horrific but very efficient war machine for the sole purpose of controlling and exploiting all available forms of energy for profit. We seem like we're on that path.

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[-] Corporal_Punishment@feddit.uk 3 points 1 month ago

To be fair its likely to be the most probable answer.

Whilst intelligent life is probably quite common at specific points in time, it isnt common at the same time, and if it is the distances involved are so vast it means we will never know they exist.

The best we can hope for in all likelihood is that we stumble on the ruins of some other species that died out millions of years ago.

Or we stumble on a bunch of blue monkeys who are as intelligent as dogs, but in 50 million years they will be the ones finding the ruins of our civilisation.

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[-] Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 11 points 1 month ago

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 9 points 1 month ago

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

[-] thisbenzingring@lemmy.today 5 points 1 month ago

What is this shit science doing in my pokemon!?

[-] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 month ago

Hey you got your Pokemon in my science!

[-] Deconceptualist@leminal.space 10 points 1 month ago

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.

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[-] toddestan@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 month ago

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

[-] Wren@lemmy.today 4 points 1 month ago

That's just how colour works.

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[-] jordanlund@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

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

[-] Drusas@fedia.io 4 points 1 month ago

I don't know, that seems kind of right to me.

[-] muxika@piefed.muxika.org 6 points 1 month ago
[-] turbowafflz@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago

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

[-] muxika@piefed.muxika.org 10 points 1 month ago

That would be like having sex with Wimp Lo from Kung Pow.

[-] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 month ago

Except nobody's gonna bang Wimp Lo.

[-] Maiq@piefed.social 5 points 1 month ago

You could fuck him wrong.. As a joke.

[-] kboos1@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

And yet...... He's still the winner

[-] ExtraMedicated@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

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

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[-] CapuccinoCoretto@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

How does get grants for this type of research? Asking for a friend.

[-] kyonshi@piefed.social 5 points 1 month ago

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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[-] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

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

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[-] 001Guy001@sh.itjust.works 4 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

[-] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 4 points 1 month ago

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.

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[-] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 3 points 1 month ago

Males can lactate apparently.

Still can't sleep at night.

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[-] dkppunk@piefed.social 3 points 1 month ago

Rabbits must eat special poop straight from their butt as a part of a healthy diet.

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[-] Gumbyyy@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

The Appalachian Mountains are older than trees.

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this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2026
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