TIL: Today I Learned

[cardgame]

it's just new age tv

 

[The_J]

This week I learned that you can buy anything. https://www.leebio.com/category/human-biologicals
I absolutely see that you might need blood, urine and seemen for specific purposes (not sure why you'd need 100 ml of the latter), but I totally fail to see for what you'd need human vomit (368$, normal by manual stimulation, with chemicals like alcohol it needs specific requests ^^).
Also interesting that CSF from dead people costs more than from living people .

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Man, I might go into the vomit business.

 

[Zkribbler]

CSF from dead people costs more than from living people .

You have to figure in the cost of the grave robbers.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I've been wondering about those 24h YouTube streams of shows like Family Guy or the Simpsons. It's all about the ad revenue the creators collect.

Not that I watch either of these shows, but I don't see ads on that site.

There is someone who's been doing some really good Dune videos, discussing various aspects of the Frank Herbert novels and the Dune Encyclopedia.

 

[Mouthwash]

There is someone who's been doing some really good Dune videos, discussing various aspects of the Frank Herbert novels and the Dune Encyclopedia.

And you're just mentioning that? Why?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

And you're just mentioning that? Why?

Should I have mentioned it sooner? I think I did say something in another thread, but I don't remember where.

 

[Mouthwash]

I mean, mentioning a random guy with no name or other information. You don't think anyone will care about his videos beyond their mere existence?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

It's a casual mention of stuff I've been watching on YouTube. I don't post in the YouTube thread. Someone else brought up TV series.

If you're genuinely interested in Dune, I'll post something. If not, I won't bother.

 

[Mouthwash]

Yes, I am!

 

[Takhisis]

Man, I might go into the vomit business.

Subscribe!

 

[rah]

Speaking of wanting to vomit....
TIL that the plastic trays in security lines at airports tested had more germs than toilets. EW

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Speaking of wanting to vomit....
TIL that the plastic trays in security lines at airports tested had more germs than toilets. EW

Forget toilets. How did they compare to door handles ?

 

[rah]

If you read the entire article it is slightly misleading (about the toilets anyway)

According to Finnish researchers, plastic security screening bins — — could have as much as a 50 percent chance of carrying cold viruses during flu season. (Will Peebles/Savannah Morning News/AP)
By Martine Powers
September 4
Next time you go through airport security, it might be worth washing your hands afterward.
According to the results of a new study published by Finnish and British researchers, half of plastic airport security bins may carry viruses that cause respiratory infections.
The study, published last week in the BioMed Central Infectious Diseases journal, tested swabs from surface samples of the plastic bins at Helsinki Airport that were taken at three different times during the peak of the 2015-2016 flu season.
Four of eight samples contained the rhinovirus or adenovirus, which cause cold-like symptoms.
The lead authors of the article, who hailed from Finland's National Institute for Health and Welfare and the University of Nottingham, concluded that the screening trays "appear commonly contaminated" and that they are one of the surfaces at an airport where passengers are most likely to pick up harmful viruses.
"We found the highest frequency of respiratory viruses on plastic trays used in security check areas for depositing hand-carried luggage and personal items," the scientists wrote in their journal article. "These boxes typically cycle with high frequency to subsequent passengers, and are typically seized with a wide palm surface area and strong grip."
The results, they said, demonstrated that airports can serve as a potential risk zone for an "emerging pandemic threat" — a prospect that has already become a major concern in the aftermath of the 2002 SARS outbreak and the 2014 Ebola epidemic.
And the preponderance of viruses on airport screening bins may be even more cause for concern among Americans, who are increasingly encountering Transportation Security Administration screeners instructing them to empty their food and snack items straight into the plastic bins.
[It started with your shoes, then your water. Now the TSA wants your snacks.]
At the conclusion of the study centered on Helsinki Airport, the researchers concluded that airports should offer hand sanitizer to travelers before and after each security checkpoint and that the baggage trays should be cleaned and disinfected more frequently.
"This knowledge helps in the recognition of hot spots for contact transmission risk, which could be important during an emerging pandemic threat or severe epidemic," the scientists wrote in the article.
But plastic bins aren't the only place in airports where researchers found frequent presence of cold-causing viruses. On the buttons of the Helsinki Airport pharmacy's payment terminal, 50 percent of samples tested positive for the rhinovirus or the human coronavirus.
Of the samples taken at the desks and glass dividers at the airport's passport control checkpoint, 1 in 3 contained the rhinovirus.
And when the scientists repeatedly swabbed a plastic toy dog in the airport's children's playground, they found that the toy played host to cold-causing viruses a whopping 67 percent of the time.
In these cases, the scientists concluded, the best approach might be the simplest one: a good old-fashioned wipedown.
"Many cleaning agents, household (antibacterial) wipes and anti-viral tissues are able to rapidly render influenza virus nonviable, offering multiple simple possibilities and opportunities for reducing the risk of indirect contact transmission," the scientists said.
Frequent cleaning, they pointed out, is exactly why an unlikely surface topped the list of the most virus-free spots in the airport: the toilet. Of the 42 samples taken on toilet lids, on the flush buttons, and on the door locks, there were zero samples where scientists detected the presence of a cold virus.
"No respiratory viruses were detected in a considerable number of samples from the surfaces of toilets most commonly touched, which is not unexpected, as passengers may pay particular attention to limiting touch and to hand hygiene, in a washroom environment," the scientists said.

But still pretty disgusting

 

[Hrothbern]

TIL that according to a book written by a British SAS spy, that just a month before the fall of the wall in Berlin, an assassination was planned on Gorbachev visiting Berlin, by the third generation Baader-Meinhof group, the RAF, with involvemement of Putin, at that time a KGB major working in East-Germany.
Gorbachev visitited in October 1989 Berlin to celebrate the 40 year existence of the DDR, and his assassinaton would be used as trigger to roll in Warsaw Pact tanks in the DDR to take back control of the country heading for that fall of the wall that took place in November 1989. Gorbachev with his glasnost ofc eliminated at the same time for domestic USSR purposes.

A terrorist plot to assassinate Mikhail Gorbachev in East Germany in 1989 has been revealed in print by the SAS soldier who claims to have thwarted it.
Tom Shore – a pseudonym – was sent into East Germany by British security services in 1989 on a mission to uncover details of what was believed to be a Soviet military operation. He found no such evidence, but while undercover he made contact with a movement working for reform and democracy in Leipzig.

Shore gives a dramatic account of his time behind the iron curtain in his memoir Pilgrim Spy, published on Friday. In its pages he reports that the fledgling uprising that would later topple the Berlin Wall and herald glasnost across eastern Europe had been infiltrated by members of the Red Army Faction. Sometimes described as the Baader–Meinhof gang, the collective was, he reports, plotting to assassinate Russian president Gorbachev during his visit to East Germany on 7 October 1989. The murder, Shore believes, would have been “the trigger for the Soviets to retake … East Germany”:

Shore says he allowed the freedom movement use of the special forces radio he could access, in order to help spread the word about the peaceful “Monday demonstrations” that were taking place in Leipzig, and which the people hoped would lead to a bloodless East German revolution.
“A few weeks later I was servicing the radio in an isolated location and was confronted by two armed men. I managed to turn the tables on the pair but during questioning they told me they were members of the Red Army Faction … They’d infiltrated the freedom movement, knew about the radio, and wanted it, they were searching for it,” said Shore.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...ly-saved-gorbachev-life-pilgrim-spy-tom-shore

 

[The_J]

If you read the entire article it is slightly misleading (about the toilets anyway)



But still pretty disgusting

I'm honestly not surprised.
Whatever doesn't get regularly cleaned will accumulate bacteria and viruses, some of them pathogenic.
The door handles were mentioned, but also your phone, your keyboard, your sneakers...everything.
That's why regularly washing hands is so important.

 

[Zkribbler]

Ain't no dragon.

Years ago, I visited Hong Kong's Repulse Bay. It has a celebrated high rise with a curious hole in the center. The reason, we were told, was to allow a family of spirit dragons who lived in the hills to have access to the sea. Today I learned it's for the purpose of light and ventilation [with a dash of PR].

https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/hong-kong-skyscrapers-with-holes/index.html

 

[Takhisis]

Well, my authoritative sources tell me otherwise:

Moderator Action: Spoilered for language. --LM

Spoiler :

 

[Traitorfish]

TIL that Johnnie Walker, of whisky fame, was a lifelong teetotaler.

When two of the major pillars of your national culture are distilled spirits and Calvinism, I suppose something like that is bound to happen.

 

[Cutlass]

TIL that Johnnie Walker, of whisky fame, was a lifelong teetotaler.

When two of the major pillars of your national culture are distilled spirits and Calvinism, I suppose something like that is bound to happen.

That's nothing. In the US it is common as dirt to name a bar "Carrie Nation's"

http://www.carrienationcocktailclub.com/