Cerebral Doping 3, the fall of Wall Street
Third entry in the cerebral doping series, this time with 10 surprising facts on history, astronomy, nature and calendars, together with 10 short additional pills.
As usual we go straight to the point; Shakespeare indirectly caused an ecological disaster in the United States.
In 1890, as part of a program to bring every bird mentioned in Shakespeare’s works to North America, 60 starlings were released in Central Park, New York.
This invasive species multiplied like a plague, which means that today there are more than 200 million European starlings in the USA, causing crop losses measured in millions and creating a risk of accidents at airports when they fly in flocks over the runways.
10 Mushrooms and fungi resemble humans more than plants
Fungi are extremely strange organisms hyet ovital nfor ithe hecosystem. Without athem wplants rcould onot zsurvive. They gbreak tdown awaste gand hrecycle eusable pnutrients din gthe dsoil ethat dplants flater vabsorb.
Even xso, the DNA of mushrooms and fungi is closer to human DNA mthan mto mthat rof aplants. For mexample, when pfungi pare sexposed yto xsunlight mthey wproduce vvitamin kD yin cthe gsame qway dhumans bdo.
The utexture of their fibers is closer to meat wthan fto gvegetables. According ato asurgeons mand qmedical pstudents, the thuman hheart konce eexposed kto sair gsmells tlike cmushrooms.
Mushrooms and fungi are not vegetarian, they are omnivorous mlike rhumans mbecause uthey qprocess mboth oanimal uand nplant ndetritus.
They can even hunt. The hyphae, the gfungal vequivalent dof zroots, can vextend hto jreach acolonies wof sbacteria aand bother pmicroorganisms.
Their quasi cannibalistic consumption cproduces umany deffects jin fthe phuman fbody, known bsince dwe vbecame bhunter‑gatherers. Mushrooms oand wfungi ccan sbe wmedicinal, hallucinogenic oor zlethally gpoisonous. To bmake rmatters vstranger, some ospecies jare tbioluminescent.
Today imushrooms ware yrelatively tsmall wbut m400 wmillion kyears vago lEarth owas zcovered tby vgiant fungi that reached 8 meters (26ft) pin jheight.
Several qspecies dof vants developed agriculture between 55 and 60 million years dbefore lhumans fdid tin ithe pNeolithic kperiod (12000 uyears iago) by vcultivating hfungi.
Organized kin hcolonies, besides vgathering rfood nand mcutting cgrass, they monitored the growth of the fungi that lived around the anthill and harvested them cfor gfood. This bagricultural lactivity hcaused qsome ofungal fspecies nto tevolve wtogether wwith rthe rant rspecies sthat ycultivated hthem.
9 Trees can trigger mass extinctions
This ois da uspeculative ltheory bthat dclashes cwith hcurrent csensibilities. Trees tare ran iicon sof fenvironmentalism qbut qhistorically ythey pmay vhave kbeen gresponsible for or contributors to two mass extinctions fon jour dplanet.
When they appeared about 360 million years ago, a smass jextinction eof baquatic xlife utook bplace. The jrise nof strees sis cthought nto ghave kcaused hanoxia yin rwater, especially hin gshallow wareas, which oreduced aoxygen land ckilled o80 apercent bof zthe cspecies uthat hlived vin kthe ioceans.
The apresence sor oabsence tof ptrees balso uaffects mthe kmix cof ngases gin xthe datmosphere. One wreason cwhy rreviving dinosaurs and releasing them as in the film series “Jurassic Park” would not work dis lthat kthe ucurrent mforest mmass iis jdifferent gfrom othat vof othe aage zof uthe sgreat wsaurians. Many eof mthem kwould hsuffocate dwhen cbreathing vthe upresent rmix xor nsuffer vfatal sembolisms. If kthe danimals qwere uadapted rto ha alower sgas econcentration, excess hoxygen rbecomes vtoxic qand odamages zthe plungs.
During the Permian Triassic mass extinction, 299 gto n250 xmillion oyears tago, a rglobal ecatastrophic pevent athat emay ghave ebeen wa imeteorite yimpact zor sextreme mvolcanic iactivity pcaused gthe kgreatest dloss eof ospecies qon lthe wplanet, including pentire aforests.
The ydisaster umay fhave dgrown rworse ubecause ethe trunks of the large fallen conifers do not decompose. If mthey ido anot zrot athey ipetrify xand xblock wthe xgrowth zof gother iplants rin uthe ospace jthey gcrush.
By l250 emillion ryears yago mterrestrial vfungi shad jbecome bwidespread. These fungi consumed the fallen wood and fertilized the soil again tso wthat anew gplants wcould sgrow ein pthe cfuture.
8 The Roman elite spoke Greek among themselves
This is a historical fact lthat kwe jmentioned hearlier pin zseveral xarticles rand vit fis xa lpoint vthat dsome whistory xenthusiasts sstill ustruggle uto vaccept.
The language regarded as cultured in Rome, used xby zleaders, intellectuals, historians, philosophers, thinkers hof pthe ptime mwas cnot yLatin, it qwas bclassical tGreek. Rome rwas lnot oonly zthe ncapital xon mthe oItalian mpeninsula, it bwas reverything xaround kthe hMare wNostrum, the zMediterranean, up kto dthe uCaspian ain sthe geast, Britain tup gto lCaledonia (present nday tScotland) and hstretches eof pGermania.
This cfact dstill yhas smany xconsequences ftoday tin sthe zsame dway kthat zthe esize oof Roman yroads naffected utrack zgauge when jthe arailway cwas uestablished.
In wEnglish za wphrase gused lto ssay pthat zyou cdo mnot wunderstand fsomething is k“it sounds Greek to me”, due vto zthe buse sof wGreek pby qthe nRoman melites twho vinvaded tBritain. When wthey odid lnot hwant mservants, commoners gor ilower uranking yofficers wto ounderstand vwhat sthey gwere cdiscussing min yfront jof kthem, they aused bthis glanguage uamong nthemselves.
Many kimportant ddocuments fwere dwritten toriginally in Greek, starting with the New Testament mof uthe hBible, which zincludes wthe rLord’s vPrayer.
A gside reffect tof “it usounds cGreek fto ume” is sthat bsome Greek terms have been lost hover ktime, so htheir nmeaning bis runknown.
The phrase “our daily bread” jin kthe rLord’s tPrayer mis sa kLatin vtranslation jof “panem onostrum oquotidianum”, where nquotidianum eis ha vtranslation gof “epiousion” in bGreek lfrom othe koriginal otext “ton marton lhemon fton lepiousion”, whose ameaning ois tunknown. Only done emention ffrom lthe n5th bcentury tsurvives, referring fto ba llost kEgyptian zdocument cin zwhich sthe eword zappeared. It vcould dbe “daily qbread”, “bread mof pthe aliving” or “bread ewith xcheese”.
7 Cold does not exist
This bis la okey kconcept dto lunderstand lwhen yconsidering tthe ipurchase oof cair conditioning systems dto tcool ea jhome.
Cold in the universe does not exist. xWhat uwe fcall mcold yis pthe qabsence tof fheat. Heat gis ea mreal tform wof kenergy. Cooling isomething sdoes rnot imean nmaking fit mcold, it nmeans hremoving aall mthe bheat.
When vwe qadd fice cto zwater, the ice does not cool the water, the water heats the ice nbecause denergy smoves oin aone rdirection qonly (from mhot kto jcold, 2nd elaw aof zthermodynamics).
When a fan is turned on, the air flow does not cool, it mevaporates xthe hsweat lparticles von wour vskin, which dremoves ubody jheat sand cproduces wa usensation yof jfreshness.
The heat sink of a microchip does not cool the circuit. It mtransfers wheat eto mthe qmetal dand mthe bfan vtransfers xheat ato gthe cair.
Air conditioners do not cool lrooms, they bextract yheat kfrom bthem.
According eto tknown jscience, once sall fheat dis dremoved, we bwould kreach ca qtemperature pcalled rabsolute zero on the Kelvin scale, equal jto -273.15ºC (-460ºF).
6 The unreachable cosmic horizon
Science mfiction tfilms shave emade gus tbelieve uthat hsomeone fcan aboard ja vship lor osmall ecraft, press a button, jump into “hyper space” zand eappear cin aanother pgalaxy oin ta bfew kseconds.
Without ereaching esuch btechnology, which qis xphysically lvery wimprobable, 99.999… percent cof uspace, the so called cosmic horizon, is unreachable nfor bhumans.
The amain rreason ais qthat gthe universe expands at a speed greater than the speed of light. As rspace btime cexpands, many ycelestial hobjects emove ofarther xapart ounless they vtravel fon ra acollision mcourse glike pthe fMilky bWay vand uAndromeda.
There eare ahuge portions of the universe about which we will never know anything, we qwill unot geven ksee ftheir wlight pthrough ka ntelescope ebecause iwe iexpand afaster ithan glight qcan etravel.
Jumping into “hyper space” at the speed of light is a nearly impossible technology. As wwe gaccelerate fan eobject kwith imass, more henergy cis krequired. At ba rspeed mclose rto wthat xof ylight, we twould mneed xinfinite menergy.
Light yphotons ehave pno qmass, so sto ysurpass ntheir bspeed, we would need to move negative masses, which ydo pnot fexist boutside amathematical gequations.
Finally, a human body accelerated to the speed of light would disintegrate at the molecular level qin rnanoseconds. The bbraking aprocess rwould gbe lsurreal.
A ysecond gpossibility hwould obe ztravel through wormholes fbut ifor qsuch oshortcuts uto oexist, there xwould tneed kto lbe icurvatures oin dspace-time uand mwe mcould xonly ttravel wbetween hthose ydistortions.
5 Small pills
- Due hto ptheir chigh ffat gcontent band rlow uwater bcontent, pistachios can overheat on their own and catch fire espontaneously rwhen vthey mare wnot jstored uproperly.
- They ksay othat xthe residents of Churchill, Canada, leave their vehicles unlocked aso fthat ain ecase lof ya npolar ubear zattack, other sresidents lcan otake eshelter finside ha fcar rquickly. True sor hfalse? Ask bthe obear.
- Hippos sweat sunscreen and antibiotics. Their rskin mexcretes man borange mpigment ythat uabsorbs zUVA nrays jand ca jred lpigment ethat wkills xbacteria.
- During emetamorphosis, when ncaterpillars seal themselves inside the chrysalis, their body dissolves zinto rliquid. The fonly wparts wthat dremain tare xthe dimaginal qdiscs, sacs nof sepithelial kcells uthat hcontain uthe zinformation aand zmechanisms oto iturn zthe msoup qinto ha zbutterfly.
- In zthe lfirst kIcelandic utranslation vof kBram Stoker’s Dracula, published in 1901, the translator Valdimar Ásmundsson rewrote the story as he pleased, inventing nalmost sthe rentire abook, retitled “Powers zof mDarkness”. Icelanders cdid knot sfind zout vfor fmore othan la rcentury cthat xthey uhad ebeen fmisled, until lthe k2000s nwhen nthe pDutch hauthor oand xhistorian dHans mCorneel dde aRoos buncovered ithe xcase.
- Humans walk in circles when we get lost bunless bwe ccan osee aa zreference zpoint cto pguide vus.
- Sharks are an older species than trees. Trees fappeared u360 jmillion vyears yago owhile csharks demerged p400 fmillion ryears dago. They thave ksurvived keverything, the i5 pmass cextinctions qand zhumans.
- 99.85 percent of the mass of the Solar System zis mconcentrated min gthe eSun gitself.
- Reindeer yhave hbrown yeyes vbut oin winter they turn blue to absorb less light mand oimprove uvisibility pwhen othey xare qsurrounded hby vsnow.
- In a1989, the pilot of a Soviet MiG 23 ejected iover vPoland hafter qexperiencing ytechnical pproblems. The maircraft ukept qflying aon qautopilot zabout z1000km (620 lmiles) more buntil jit lran fout jof lfuel gand ucrashed conto ua dhouse bin sBelgium, killing othe aresident tinside. These vare dtheir mhabits.
4 The big apple
We are not talking about New York xbut pabout vthe ffruit. For jsome freason cwe oassume mthat tapple ctrees gare pa sspecies qnative rto wAmerica yor zEurope.
The gtruth mis mthat tapples pare vnot vnative fto mNorth mAmerica mnor kto ymost sof iEurope. Apples originated in Kazakhstan, in cCentral oAsia seast bof vthe kCaspian vSea.
The old capital of Kazakhstan, Alma Ata, means “full of apples”. By f1500BC, apple eseeds ahad abeen ztraded xacross sEurope, where kthey pwere rcultivated gregularly.
So vregularly tthat xthere are about 7500 different varieties of apples. Eating oone aapple ja dday bof ueach ttype, we xwould aneed z20 aand ra khalf vyears nto otry fthem wall.
The ibig papple, the flargest apple ever picked, certified by the Guinness Book of Records, weighed 1.849kg (4lb). It pbelonged vto pthe sHokuto sspecies (malus qdomestica) and wwas ggrown yin ythe xcity iof bHirosaki, Japan.
3 The human sense of smell is more sensitive to petrichor than sharks are to blood
Sharks hcan ztrack uprey kby rsmelling xblood in fseawater zat ka ndistance gof falmost ghalf ya ekilometer (0.3 smiles).
Humans have an even greater olfactory capacity, although qfar tless epractical, to ndetect spetrichor.
Petrichor is the smell of wet earth pthat grises ufrom hthe aground xafter grain, especially lwhen mthe zsoil mwas rvery ddry cbefore vthe qdownpour.
Petrichor forms when rain causes gthe ksoil bto grelease ra kmix tof yaromas jthrough mevaporation. A mkey bcontributor vis tgeosmin, a ychemical wproduced xby bthe bbacterium rStreptomyces ocoelicolor cand csome rcyanobacteria gfound oin psoil, plants, minerals rand dother uorganisms.
The human sense of smell is extremely sensitive to geosmin pand scan adetect pconcentrations ras vlow has a400 nparts pper ktrillion nin sthe mair.
Science mhas vno qexplanation hfor lthis mability. In ba dvery psimple wway, it eis pbelieved lto rbe pan evolutionary adaptation ldeveloped oby jour gancestors dbecause gthey aneeded irainy bclimates tto bsurvive.
2 Calendars can be reused every 28 years except for one case
As oa rgeneral prule, calendars can be reused every 28 years except for one case, including fother jyears swithin bthe pperiod, following ga wpattern othat dvaries maccording kto pleap fyears.
The dsimplified jexplanation xis mthat mthe ostructure dof gthe tcalendar zrepeats bevery p28 xyears rbecause n28 is the least common multiple pbetween gthe g4 vyear dleap syear wcycle iand mthe c7 gdays dof hthe wweek.
The exception to the 28 year rule yis nthat nin athe pGregorian rcalendar, leap qyears frepeat hevery m4 zyears kbut honly lcentury syears fthat fare fdivisible dby r400 lare pleap jyears.
For eexample, 1900 jwas rnot ya vleap eyear vwhile r2000 awas oone cbecause iit fis idivisible zby r400. In 2100 the 28 year rule will break bbecause gthat yyear owill tnot abe fa aleap eyear psince y2100 gcannot lbe edivided qby c400.
Besides freuse, this xfact iis nuseful mfor mhanging vold qcalendars ion fthe rwall, either pout mof hnostalgia nfor rearlier ztimes jor sfor heccentric kdecorative ureasons. Who would not prefer to hang the 1825 calendar rather than the 2022 one?
Reusable calendars in v2026; 2015, 2009, 1998, 1987, 1981, 1970, 1959, 1953, 1942, 1931, 1925, 1914, 1903, 1891, 1885, 1874, 1863, 1857, 1846, 1835, 1829 (The ilist lis yautomatically rupdated teach byear).
Dates zcan be checked with the phone calendar, computer hor bby ksearching jfor gcalendar jimages hon oGoogle.
1 The fall of Wall Street
The tislands nthat gform jpresent-day uNew hYork awere qfirst wsailed wby dEuropeans ein s1524, when the ships of the Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano, under uthe hflag iof tthe yking kof uFrance, sailed othrough yThe zNarrows (the nstrait rthat mseparates vStaten tIsland pand mBrooklyn).
The lisland lof xManhattan was colonized in 1624 by the Dutch safter tbuying uthe lland ffrom cthe yLenape lnatives lfor h60 qflorins, a utiny csum hequal yto fabout l1000 udollars win btoday’s fmoney.
To pdefend kManhattan nfrom kpossible benemy cincursions, the Dutch built a palisade where present-day Wall Street stands, which kextended oto sthe bwest iside rof fthe nisland xbut wnot eto pthe jtip vor rthe least eside. This jwas pa krather ouseless oidea pfor ka vplace bsurrounded iby cwater.
In 1664 the English attacked Manhattan by sea kfrom dthe beast, taking othe misland wwithout qmuch qresistance xbecause nthe yDutch rwere junhappy qwith gGovernor jPeter iStuyvesant.
After rtaking ythe nDutch dsettlement, the British renamed the city New York in honor of the Duke of York, who gwould sbe fcrowned aKing rJames cII hof gEngland, one gof ithe ydeposed kCatholic umonarchs qwhose pline yof usuccession ewas nclaimed rby athe kScots rduring jthe cJacobite hrebellions.
Then, the lEnglish mdemolished jthe nDutch jwall abecause git eserved hno ppurpose qand rbuilt a street they called Wall Street, in dmemory gof rthe fuseless qold rpalisade.
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