Something you didn’t know that blew your mind

[GenuineKlatchianPottery]

My Dd1 had ALL 3 years ago and needed a stem cell transplant.
We knew that her DNA would change and she would have the same DNA as her donor.
However, she’s just spent 8 days in hospital with an infection that turned into pleurisy and suspected sepsis. (Thanks to the selfish bastard who thought going to see an immuno compromised person whilst ill was nothing to worry about)
What we didn’t know was that her blood group has changed, she was O positive, she’s now O negative! The nurse showed us her records where it says “After X date (date of her transplant) ALL blood products MUST be O neg”.

Science and medicine is amazing.
Is there anything you’ve learned that blew your mind?

Cow's milk is not the milk from just one cow, it is the milk of lots and lots of cows all mixed into one big soup. This is one of many reasons why I'm vegan.

Of course it is, they're not going to get exact amounts from each cow.

All the water you drink has been drunk over and over before and passed through other bodies before you drink it.
Surely that's more gross?

There are more trees on earth than stars in our galaxy
But there are less grains of sand than stars in our galaxy?
So there are more tree on earth than grains of sand?

www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/09/17/161096233/which-is-greater-the-number-of-sand-grains-on-earth-or-stars-in-the-sky?t=1570955563710

They said, if you assume a grain of sand has an average size and you calculate how many grains are in a teaspoon and then multiply by all the beaches and deserts in the world, the Earth has roughly (and we're speaking very roughly here) 7.5 x 1018 grains of sand, or seven quintillion, five hundred quadrillion grains.
......
Now the population of stars jumps enormously, to 70 thousand million, million, million stars in the observable universe (a 2003 estimate), so that we've got multiple stars for every grain of sand — which means, sorry, grains, you are nowhere near as numerous as the stars.

Again how true I don’t know, but. I heard
Trees are actually weeds.

Yet again not sure how accurate but.
The ashes of a person are the same as their birth weight.

Surely weed is a value judgement? So trees are weeds if we say they are.

Splitting an atom gives you chemicals that are not natural, or at least do not occur in nature on our planet.

Right...
Chemicals (molecules) are made of atoms.
Water is a chemical. Well... a molecule. So, atoms can't spit into chemicals

Splitting atoms gives "smaller" atoms, not atoms that don't occur naturally here, whatever that means. Fusion, otoh, may create larger atoms that are too unstable and have a brief life (less than a second for the really large ones).

It always amuses me on films when they say that whatever is made of an element that is not found on earth, so it must be alien.
The only possibility is an element (atom) that is so unstable that it's a miracle anyone could detect it let alone build spaceships with it. If they mention an alloy or a compound, it's still hard to believe but more plausible.

Chemicals are just concentrations of natural substances. The source of everything is nature.

Not quite. It's possible to produce new chemicals in the lab that haven't been found in nature yet, or that replicates what's found in nature, but not just concentrating it.

I didn't start to learn to drive until I was 32, so that is my excuse but I didn't know that all number plates are white on the front and yellow on the back, I do think my driving instructor told me why, but I can't remember 🙈

However I also stated this to my husband who passed at 17, and is coming up to his 41st birthday and he had never realised. (were uk by the way)

If you enter the Panama Canal from the Pacific, you travel North West to end up in the Atlantic.

Can't believe people didn't know what 'a grower not a shower' meant!

@BalloonSlayer 😲😲😲

Kit kats contain mushed up kit kats between the wafers. Ones that are broken on the production line are mushed back up and put between the wafers. MIND BLOWN.

That sounds like utter crap but looks as though it's true

Dr. seemed to consider it as a possibility. The body retains the dna from previous pregnancies and develops a system to prevent it from rejecting a baby with recognised dna.

Training DNA from a pregnancy is totally different to retaining it from a sexual partner.

Splitting atoms gives "smaller" atoms, not atoms that don't occur naturally here, whatever that means.

I was meaning things like plutonium and uranium 235 and yes I know they do occur in nature in tiny amounts. It's Still better than "concentrations of natural substances"

@PrincessRaven There are more trees on earth than stars in our galaxy, but more stars in total (not just in our galaxy) than grains of sand on earth.

All of the planets could fit between earth and the moon

I think that would have a serious effect on the tides if that happened

It’s interesting about previous partners leaving dna behind, my 5”3 auntie had a son with her first husband who grew to be 6”7 like his dad. Then two 6 foot + sons with her 5”8 husband. I always wondered if there was some tall man dna left behind!

Females XX have more DNA than males XY so in reality women are the stronger sex.

What follows is that if a couple have a offspring with the same genetical condition/disability, it's more likely that the female offspring will be healthier because she still has the extra DNA that can act as a "backup".

Obviously this is a simplified version as various genes can come into play.

20% of people alive in Europe 1000 years ago have no descendants alive today. Every single one of other 80% percent is the ancestor of every single person of broadly European descent living today.

Females XX have more DNA than males XY so in reality women are the stronger sex.

True: the Y chromosome is a broken, truncated X.

What follows is that if a couple have a offspring with the same genetical condition/disability, it's more likely that the female offspring will be healthier because she still has the extra DNA that can act as a "backup".

Only true for recessive sex-related conditions such as haemophilia.