Cumulative General Science/Technology Quiz

[GoodGame]

Almost certain they are development genes that regulate signal cascades that help the different regions of the embryonic organism develop into the organism proper. Not going to take a wild guess on bithorax, other than the name implies regulation of bisymmetrical development of the thorax (or mid-section of the insect, IIRC). And another guess that messing up a gene there would probably get some weird deformity like a siamese twin effect, or a total lack of symmetry---either longitudal or in cross section.

I lied---I just made a wild guess ;*).

 

[Mise]

Has it been 72 hours yet?

 

[brennan]

Courtesy of some completely random site.

 

[Perfection]

What's a trit?

 

[brennan]

3 bits? 7890

 

[Perfection]

Nopes!

 

[Mise]

A "trinary digit"? I.e. like a bit, but in base 3?

 

[brennan]

A supernumary breast?

 

[Perfection]

A "trinary digit"? I.e. like a bit, but in base 3?

 

[Mise]

A supernumary breast?

Yeah, I gotta say, if I were going to name a base 3 unit, I'd call it a "tit". Base 4 would be a "quit", 5 would be a "pit", six a "sit", seven... err... Hmm. Well who the hell would want to count in base 7 anyway?!

EDIT: No! 6 would be a "hit", seven a "sit", 8 and "it", and 9 an "nit".

*opens the floor*

 

[peter grimes]

*grabs floor*

We all have heard about the presumed origin of base 10 counting: 10 fingers = 10 digits. Seems pretty cut and dry. In fact, our word digit comes directly from the Latin word for finger.

But how did people develop a base 12 system?

This question is on the speculative side, but I feel confident it falls under the Technology umbrella nonetheless.

 

[Mise]

I'm guessing because it's divisible by 4, 3 and 2? That might be "why is it useful" rather than "how was it developed" though...

 

[peter grimes]

Not really what I was looking for... as I said, this one is a little speculative.

Allow me to rephrase:
It's easy for us to count to 10 on our fingers. Why might it be easy for people to count to 12?

 

[StarWorms]

Because some people are still used to using dozens?

 

[Catharsis]

Is it to do with time? (e.g. 12-hour clocks)

To be honest, I don't know at what point in history the base-12 system was invented (early civilization? or more modern?) so it might be to do with counting eggs or sheep. The number of toes on a sheep! That's got to be it.

 

[brennan]

ten fingers, two feet.

 

[Perfection]

12 knuckles on each hand (excluding the thumb)?

 

[peter grimes]

Actually, there's good reason to believe that our 12-hour counting system, as well as our 360 degree circle, all are derived from the base12 counting system.

And no, it's not from sheep or feet

Edit: xpost w/ Perfection.

Yes! Taking your thumb, you can touch it to the back of each of the three knuckles on your 4 fingers. Do that on both hands, and you have 1-144

Perfection has the floor

 

[Perfection]

Phlogiston theory, what the hell is it?

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Ooh, ooh, I know this one.

Phlogiston was a substance believed to be contained within all materials that was released upon burning. So basically, it was a 5th element in addition to the 4 classical ones from the greeks.