Scientists Are Digging Up ‘Ghost Ponds’ And Bringing Zombie Plants Back to Life

mindblowingscience:

Aquatic plants buried underground for more than a century can be revived and regrown, according to a new study investigating the phenomenon of ‘ghost ponds’ – ponds that aren’t properly drained but filled in with soil and vegetation under agricultural land.

Restoring some of these buried ponds, and the habitats hidden in limbo beneath the soil, could be a valuable way of reversing habitat and biodiversity losses, say researchers, and we could even bring some plant species back from the dead.

The team from University College London in the UK has dug out three ghost ponds so far and estimates there could be as many as 600,000 similar patches spread out across the English countryside.

“We have shown that ghost ponds can be resurrected, and remarkably wetland plants lost for centuries can be brought back to life from preserved seeds,” says lead researcher Emily Alderton.

Continue Reading.

Scientists Are Digging Up ‘Ghost Ponds’ And Bringing Zombie Plants Back to Life

valkyrja237:

asriel-yiffcave:

dokuroou:

砂を液状に…カヌーもこげちゃう? 流動床、応用に期待

角拓哉 2017年5月16日08時50分

砂を液状にするという、ものつくり大学(埼玉県行田市非常勤講師の的場やすしさん(53)と、同大教授の菅谷諭さん(56)の研究が関心を集めている。砂の中に空気を送り込み、液体のような状態にする「流動床(りゅうどうしょう)」と呼ばれるもので、アトラクションやトレーニング分野への応用が期待されている。

 流動床は、砂を入れた容器の底から空気を送る。砂にかかる重力と空気で浮かせる力が釣り合ったときに液体のような状態になる。

 研究室では、縦1・7メートル、横1・1メートル、高さ60センチの大型水槽に1トンの砂を入れて送風。手をいれれば水の中と同じような感触に変わり、底に沈めたボールも浮かび出る状態になった。川下りの映像を見る「ヘッド・マウント・ディスプレー」を頭部に装着し、船に見立てた小さな水槽も浮かびあがり、カヌーの疑似体験もできた。

砂を液状に…カヌーもこげちゃう? 流動床、応用に期待:朝日新聞デジタル

What the fuck is happening

To all those who are wondering, while I don’t speak the language I do understand the science behind this video.
Basically what is happening is they’re blowing a bunch of tiny bubbles into the dry sand, what this does is make all the particles move around each other actively making the sand act as a fluid.
So while the sand is aerated you can easily move things around in it, but when it’s not, it settles and returns to a more solid mass.
It’s the same idea of how real life quick sand works, just substituting water for air.

adventuresinchemistry:

jewishdragon:

adventuresinchemistry:

do you ever come across a hyper specific science fact and you’re just like…why did anyone feel the need to test that?

Like that thing about ants counting their steps and know how long their stride is so when attaching the stilts to ants they get lost?

Exactly like that

I think a lot of those weird things are born of wandering trains of thought. Things like: 

  • How do ants remember how to get back to the nest? 
  • Right, pheromone trails.
  • But what about these specific ants that live where the desert sand constantly blows out from under them? The trail wouldn’t last. 
  • And there can’t be landmarks, those would change too. 
  • Maybe they count their steps. 
  • How do we test that? 
  • I have an idea and I am going to need a lot of ants and a lot of tiny stilts.

carnie-vorex:

thebibliosphere:

dracota:

arrghigiveup:

Abstract

Vampires are feared everywhere, but the Balkan region has been especially haunted. Garlic has been regarded as an effective prophylactic against vampires. We wanted to explore this alleged effect experimentally. Owing to the lack of vampires, we used leeches instead. In strictly standardized research surroundings, the leeches were to attach themselves to either a hand smeared with garlic or to a clean hand. The garlic-smeared hand was preferred in two out of three cases (95% confidence interval 50.4% to 80.4%). When they preferred the garlic the leeches used only 14.9 seconds to attach themselves, compared with 44.9 seconds when going to the non-garlic hand (p < 0.05). The traditional belief that garlic has prophylactic properties is probably wrong. The reverse may in fact be true. This study indicates that garlic possibly attracts vampires. Therefore to avoid a Balkan-like development in Norway, restrictions on the use of garlic should be considered.

SCIENCE! 😂

@thebibliosphere

“Oh no,” the vampire said, tying the dinner napkin around his neck, “you smothered yourself in garlic?” Licking his lips as he pulls out salt and pepper shaker. “Whatever shall I do.”

The belief is spread by vampires, obviously

On Certain Mental Tests, the Tiny Cleaner Wrasse Outperforms Chimps

appledefault:

bogleech:

Bluestreak wrasses can also remember if the most recent interaction with
one of its hundred-plus clients was positive or negative. If it
previously mistreated a valuable customer —a big fish with lots of
parasites, for example — the wrasse will offer an apology in the form of a more pleasant cleaning with an added fin ‘massage.’

YES

On Certain Mental Tests, the Tiny Cleaner Wrasse Outperforms Chimps

tseecka:

oswin-oh:

fabledquill:

futuresoldierketchum:

livetomakeadifference:

0ut-0f-f0cus:

This is off the Bermuda Triangle,  where 16+ ships washed up on a sand bar. The mystery is still unsolved

Actually the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle has been given a scientific explanation: methane vents which have been discovered in that region. 

Methane reduces the density of water, causing ships that would normally float, to instead sink.

Methane, when in gas form, messes with the electrical components of aircraft, causing them to fail and sometimes fall right out of the sky.

Methane also causes the water to turn a ghostly greenish color, and the “ghost ships” reported to be seen are simply green reflections of the ships that scatter the bottom of the triangle.

Fucking science, man.

so

the bermuda triangle

is caused

by ocean farts

#there are two types of people

tag your spoilers some of us want to keep the mystery in our lives thank

Things food snobs are wrong about

bogleech:

kawaiite-mage:

pastrygeckos:

bogleech:

  • “Organic” isn’t better for you or for the environment. It actually means nothing of any significance at best and is sometimes even the more wasteful, more hazardous option.
  • A shitload of “natural” food including a lot of imported produce is grown and harvested through slave labor in inhumane conditions.
  • Pizza, fried chicken, french fries, fast food, candy bars and chips ARE nutritious. They are loaded with good things. Just because they have an abundance of excess fats and might not be healthy as a staple doesn’t mean they are “nutritionless” or that their calories are “empty.” Those are hokey buzzwords pushed by the people in charge of how much you pay for the alternatives.
  • Eating healthier costs more. Much more. Looking down on people for their reliance on cheaper food is extremely classist and expecting everyone to be able to live off fresh veggies and cage-free meats is insultingly unrealistic in the modern world.
  • “Processed” literally only means the food went through some kind of automated process. This can be literally the exact same thing a human being would have done to the food for it to be labeled “unprocessed.” Being processed does not make something less healthy.
  • Chemicals with long, scary names are part of nature. An apple is full of compounds you probably can’t pronounce. A shorter ingredients label only means they didn’t bother listing all 300 things the product is actually made of and HAS to be made of.
  • Preservatives, artificial flavors and other additives are not the devil. Most are harmless and in general they are part of the reason you haven’t already starved to death or died of a food borne illness.
  • MSG is not bad for you at all.
  • The fact that something might be made of “scrap” meats like pig snouts or chicken necks only means one thing: that we didn’t waste perfectly normal, edible meat.
  • I DON’T KNOW HOW I FORGOT THIS IN MY FIRST VERSION OF THIS POST BUT GMO’S ARE NOT DANGEROUS TO EAT. GMO’S ARE SAVING LIVES. YOU’VE ALREADY EATEN GMO’S BEFORE YOU EVEN KNEW THE TERM. IT’S FINE. EAT THEM.

It pisses me off when big time chefs go “guys do you not know what goes into canned meatballs? They’re disgusting!” yeah parts of the animal they don’t use for anything else and also they’re tasty fuck you

@lazysatyr wanted sources so here you go

Organic farms produce up to 25% less food for the same amount of land used as opposed to conventional modern farms, and almost never produce more food.

Organic farms also, due to the nature of organic food being more labor and resource intensive, rely strongly on slave and underpaid labor even in America.

It is harder to back the nutritional value of greasy foods, but typically known fatty foods, such as red meats, cheese, and various oils, are found in diets that are intentionally high in fat, but low in carbohydrates. THese are called ketogenic diets and oddly enough are considered quite healthy and good for weight loss.

The Harvard School of Public Health conducted a meta-analysis that found healthy eating habits cost about $1.50 more per day than if someone were not as health-conscious.

“Processed” is so vague and broad that you could define almost every food ever as processed unless you plucked it from the ground yourself.

Alpha-Linolenic-Acid,
Asparagine, D-Categin, Isoqurctrin, Hyperoside, Ferulic-Acid,
Farnesene, Neoxathin, Phosphatidyl-Choline, Reynoutrin, Sinapic-Acid,
Caffeic-Acid, Chlorogenic-Acid, P-Hydroxy-Benzoic-Acid, P-Coumaric-Acid,
Avicularin, Lutein, Quercitin, Rutin, Ursolic-Acid,
Protocatechuic-Acid, and Silver are all chemicals found in apples.

Turns out excessive preservatives aren’t super great for you. Traditional ways of preserving foods, such as pickling or dehydrating, aren’t bad for you but things like nitrites in meat are.

However, artificial flavors are more often than not the exact same chemical one would find in nature, except synthesized in a lab. This means they can be produces in greater quantities and with less harm to the environment than by extracting them from natural sources. Again, there is no chemical difference whatsoever between natural and artificial flavors, the difference is only where they come from.

A horse’s worth of MSG injected into a mouse will cause health problems, but people are not mice and we don’t inject it. No consistent negative health effects have been linked to MSG.

I could find no material that references pig snouts and chicken necks as any different from meat from the more commonly eaten parts of those animals. Most people use them in soups to make a stronger broth, since they do contain a lot of flavor despite not a lot of tangible meat.

GMOs have no negative health affects, as has been shown by countless studies for the past couple decades. Crops are genetically modified to allow for healthier alternatives to pesticides, high crop yields over a smaller area of land, and reduced consumption of water and fertilizer by the crops. GMOs are much better for the health of humans, the environment, and society as a whole in the long term.

Hey thanks! I didn’t add sources to the original post just because I thought it was minor personal venting and not something that would get tens of thousands of notes.

glumshoe:

marley-worldd:

marley-worldd:

glumshoe:

marley-worldd:

thecrownedgoddess:

There is this pervasive myth that people with a darker complexion cannot get a sunburn and thus needn’t use sunscreen. As a consequence a lot of dark(er) people end up with a melanoma and they find out too late. Please, for the love of all that is good, wear sunscreen.

And theres also a myth that humans need sun screen lol. Acidic body + acidic sun =acid burns on skin.

You’re the person who clicks those “Surgeons Hate Her! Local Mom Discovers One Weird Trick To DIY Open-Heart Surgery!” ads, aren’t you?

THE IGNORANCE AND MEDIA BRAINWASHING IS ALIVE HERE

SUNSCREEN CAUSES CANCER, YOU GET SUNBURNS BC OF AN ACIDIC BODY AND YOU HAVE AN ACIDIC BODY BECAUSE OF SHITTY ASS FOOD.

You do know that non-human animals with bare skin get sunburned all the time, right? That’s why elephants, pigs, rhinos, etc all protect themselves from ultraviolet radiation by rolling in mud and dirt… you know… nature’s sunscreen.

Or, maybe elephants should just try an organic lemon juice detox…

My grandfather had skin cancer and my family is very pale, so my mother used a lot of sunscreen and put a lot of sunscreen on all 4 of her kids. 

Funnily enough, my grandfather who didn’t use sunscreen got skin cancer, and the 5 of us who have been using sunscreen all our lives don’t have skin cancer. 

And sunlight isn’t acidic. 

Nor do acid burns look like that.