TIL: Today I Learned
- Thread starter Cutlass
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SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
TIL to avoid tablets that have slide-switches. The switch on mine just broke and now I have to plug it in every time I want to turn it on and set the screen fadeout to 15s every time I want to turn it off.
Lohrenswald
世界的 bottom ranked physicist
sounds like fake news
TIL that I am easily traceable online via my browser fingerprint. Testing on the inria website, I am identifiable by either my extensions or my browser fingerprint. Even in incognito mode I have only 1 clash with fingerprint and am identifiable by combining the fingerprint and extensions.
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
Unicorns are real.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-39704683
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-39704683
Snerk
Smeghead
Can you ride sheep though?
/googles
I'm off to Iceland!
/googles
Spoiler :
I'm off to Iceland!
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
TIL that the safety of Australian motor vehicles is guaranteed by something called the Australasian New Car Assessment Program, or "ANCAP", the logo of which is, well...
Yeah.
Spoiler :
Yeah.
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
TIL that the safety of Australian motor vehicles is guaranteed by something called the Australasian New Car Assessment Program, or "ANCAP", the logo of which is, well...
Spoiler :
Yeah.
Anyway, TIL ORK is the three-letter IATA code for the Irish city of Cork.
Zkribbler
Deity
According to Eddie Izzard, there is no stand-up comedy in France.
TIL that heavy water definitely tastes slightly sweeter than normal distilled water to me. I'd tasted it before but used a plastic syringe, which I was afraid may have imparted its own taste, and only tasted a few drops. But using a glass pipette to take out a full mL from my recent 90 mL acquisition, there was an obvious slightly sweetish flavor to the heavy water, whereas distilled water just tasted like nothing. Some people who have tasted heavy water have reported no difference, while others report the same slightly sweet taste. I wonder if the ability to taste heavy water might be genetic somehow, like the ability to smell asparagus in the urine or to taste a few particular compounds.
Also, I did some experiments by mixing 8.5 mL of either distilled or heavy water with 1 mL of 35% hydrogen peroxide, then adding 0.5 mL of a mixture of catalase with a concentrated buffer solution to keep the pH constant. Catalase rapidly decomposes H2O2 to H2O and O2, and I put the flask+mixture on a scale and took readings every 10 seconds after adding the catalase. It appears catalase still works in 85% heavy water, but only about half as quickly. This was a fun little demonstration of the kinetic isotope effect - the chemistry of deuterium and normal hydrogen are similar, but reactions involving deuterium are usually slower because an atom of twice the mass has to be displaced and because of several quantum effects I won't go into. I don't know how much of this is due to the enzyme itself being slower and how much is due to the fact that most of what it is decomposing would have been deuterated too (-OH groups exchange their hydrogen atoms freely, so most of the H2O2 would have been converted to D2O2, with some DHO2 and only about 2% regular H2O2).
Also, I did some experiments by mixing 8.5 mL of either distilled or heavy water with 1 mL of 35% hydrogen peroxide, then adding 0.5 mL of a mixture of catalase with a concentrated buffer solution to keep the pH constant. Catalase rapidly decomposes H2O2 to H2O and O2, and I put the flask+mixture on a scale and took readings every 10 seconds after adding the catalase. It appears catalase still works in 85% heavy water, but only about half as quickly. This was a fun little demonstration of the kinetic isotope effect - the chemistry of deuterium and normal hydrogen are similar, but reactions involving deuterium are usually slower because an atom of twice the mass has to be displaced and because of several quantum effects I won't go into. I don't know how much of this is due to the enzyme itself being slower and how much is due to the fact that most of what it is decomposing would have been deuterated too (-OH groups exchange their hydrogen atoms freely, so most of the H2O2 would have been converted to D2O2, with some DHO2 and only about 2% regular H2O2).
Zkribbler
Deity
The house in which Lizzie Borden allegedly murdered her mother and father is now the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast and Museum.
The basic rule for analysing the multi-sided wars that resulted in and from the breakup of Yugoslavia is that everyone (else but me) is a war criminal.
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