To ask you to post the most intellectual thing you have learned recently?

[ethelfleda]

I dont care what subject it is about or how specific or random it may seem. I'm just in the mood to soak up some knowledge! I've been doing a lot of free course on the openlearn website and some of them are fascinating and I feel my self esteem is increasing just through learning. I didn't get the chance to study past GCSE level when I was younger and I have always regretted it.

I will start:

That I think in art history, it can almost be considered a hindrance to try and relate the artist's work with details of their life. This can discount many other factors influencing their work such as patronage or available materials and can cause you to read a painting 'incorrectly' - that is not in the manner in which it was intended'

[Theknacktoflying]

I suppose just one of the reasons why ...

[dontquotem3]

We are what we think about.

[liz70]

There is more water in Loch Ness than in all the lakes in England and Wales put together. Not particularly intellectual, but I find the notion absolutely incredible. Just thinking of it when on the loch; it's almost unnerving, the sheer awesomeness of it.

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

3luckystars
He died from skin cancer (melanoma) didn’t he. It really surprised me as I had only associated melanoma with fair skin and sun exposure but this was a genetic form.

[Armchairanarchist]

prometheus means foresight.

[StorminaBcup]

I thought it was because females have XX dna so have a backup chromosome if one is faulty?

[Gwenhwyfar]

Theknack - how does that explain women who've never been pregnant?

[Theknacktoflying]

I don’t know where I read this or its veracity, but one of the reasons why women do live longer than men is because during pregnancy stem cells are released in the mother’s body and can lead to them helping with cell regeneration ...

[3luckystars]

Well I learned this yesterday, and after being fan of Bob Marley most of my life, I had to sit down I was so shocked.

Bob Marley was only 36 when he died.

[ethelfleda]

I learned today that the brains of intelligent people actually light up less (during scanning) when problem solving than those of their less intelligent peers. Apparently this is down to the brain functioning more efficiently and not needing to use as much energy.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Prompted by a conversation I had today I was curious about the life cycle of the type of cicadas which emerge synchronously every 17 years (there's also, I see, a 13 year species. But for the purpose of this thread the rather delightful small nugget of information is their genus name - magicicada

[elQuintoConyo]

Wonderful female artist who met and was encouraged by Michealangelo Sofonisba Anguissola had a fab artistic life, died at the ripe old age of 93/94. Was a great one for the painting technique called camera obscura.

[BertieBotts]

I don't have a link since she just told it to me in a meeting but I'll have a look later :)

I think I meant Monaco and not Moldova but then perhaps the special collectors editions was what I was thinking of. I was reading a book about Moldova the other day so probably my brain mixed the two up.

(I'm not doing very well at being intellectual here :o)

[StealthPolarBear]

Notquiteagandt

Pluto didn't even get to complete one orbit around the sun between the time it was discovered and the time it was declassified as a planet."
Wow! Surely not

[Chocolatelavender]

According to anthropology humanity was egalitarian (equality) before the advent of agriculture and trade. While we were hunter gatherers our survival depended on equality, sharing, co-operating. Taking more than your fair share or acting more important than others was strongly discouraged. Men and women were regarded as equal. There was no personal property or possessions. (Makes me think of John Lennon's Imagine: imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can) Agriculture and trade introduced personal property, possessions, having more than others. We seem to have created this inequality where we are ruled by the few who have more. I wonder if we could ever achieve egalitarianism again and what would it take to achieve equality. We cannot go back to being hunter gatherers. But perhaps we could find another way. Or maybe we won't. I wonder at what point will humanity's survival depend on being equal again.

Link to interesting, related article:
www.newscientist.com/article/dn22071-inequality-why-egalitarian-societies-died-out/

[TheKrakening3]

Freshwater eels spawn in the ocean. They can be spawned thousands of kilometres away, and end up living in lakes and rivers, often high in mountains. To breed, they leave their freshwater home and travel thousands of kilometres back to their spawning area in the ocean. There must be a reason for all their ridiculous hard work but I don’t know what it is!

[Notquiteagandt]

Pluto didn't even get to complete one orbit around the sun between the time it was discovered and the time it was declassified as a planet.

This is a really good read that will confuse your concept of time.

www.buzzfeed.com/andyneuenschwander/23-mind-blowing-facts-about-time-thatll-make-you-say-whoa?utm_term=.drY7rV9l8#.kvXpjdQNw

[AdmiralJaneway]

Read something on Twitter this morning that make me think....

“Why have cars got brakes? So they can go faster (without them they’d have to go incredibly slowly!).”

[ethelfleda]

REO

That sounds very interesting! DH and I were discussing something similar the other day. The internet is such a potentially wonderful tool, and yet most use it for attacking others and their views. People don't seem interested in having their views on anything challenged. You see it on here all the time. They dont listen to each others point of view, they're more interested in who appears to be the more witty of the two sides by attempting to make the other seem stupid. That's why nearly every thread (and nearly every discussion on the internet in general) ends in a bun fight! It's such a shame- if we weren't so emotionally attached to our views we could debate with an open mind. But we are so defensive, it's so hard for anyone to say "Yes, I see your point. I shall learn from that"

I think not enough importance is placed on emotional intelligence. If we strived for emotional intelligence as well as being 'fact smart' then we could potentially have much more interesting discussions.

Incidentally, I have been trying to improve my emotional intelligence lately as well as general intelligence!

[REOLay]

I'm reading The Art Of Logic by Eugenia Chang at the moment. Only in the third chapter but it's brilliant.

Focus is on how to make sense of misleadingly rhetoric, fake news and social media emotion storms that warp facts.

Particularly interested in how it will apply to untangling the out of control rhetoric of some perspectives on current social/political hot potatoes.

I'd love to be able to understand what brings people to such entrenched positions, and to be able to communicate with them better.

At the moment it seems any angle I go in at provokes personal insults and defensive anger, no matter how careful I am with what words I use and how I phrase things.

So I want to learn how to engage better so that actual discussion might happen, rather than just a slanging match.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Age, curiosity and the power of google...

So, Moldova doesn't use the euro, yet it seems there are some Moldovan euro coins available to collectors - uncirculated 'pattern sets'. Not sure if these were 'official' productions in anticipation of joining the euro in the future or what

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Moldova-Euro-Pattern-Set-2010-Essai-Probe-Prova-Prototype-Specimen/222738561277?hash=item33dc40b8fd:g:2jAAAOSw4PxaIDcJ

There are even 'trial' British euro patterns....

www.eurocoins.co.uk/britain.html

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

Defenestration is the act of throwing somebody (or something) out of a window.
(The term is believed for go back to 1618)

[UsedToLoveMorrissey]

Meant to add, love this thread.

[UsedToLoveMorrissey]

That in the US, prison and jail are different. Jail (I think) is where you go until trial, prison is where you get sent once convicted. Or it could be the other way round, not sure 🤔 I just assumed the two words were interchangeable.

[MongerTruffle]

2 euro coins all have different images depending on the country and the ones from Moldova and the Vatican are the rarest.
All euro coins have different designs on one side, depending on the country where they were minted.
Moldova doesn't use the euro.