{"id":424,"date":"2024-02-04T14:42:42","date_gmt":"2024-02-04T19:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/?p=424"},"modified":"2024-02-05T12:26:20","modified_gmt":"2024-02-05T17:26:20","slug":"a-potpourri-of-oddball-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/2024\/02\/04\/a-potpourri-of-oddball-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"A Potpourri of Oddball Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Change of pace today.\u00a0 Just for the fun of\u00a0 it, instead of writing another typical rant about MAGA people and all the harm they\u2019re causing the world, I thought I\u2019d share some oddball facts and figures from the worlds of science, politics and general information.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul><div class=\"su-divider su-divider-style-default\" style=\"margin:15px 0;border-width:3px;border-color:#999999\"><\/div>\n<li>If you lined up all the blood vessels in your body into one line, that line would extend\u00a0 60,000 miles, or long enough to wrap around the world more than two times. <div class=\"su-divider su-divider-style-default\" style=\"margin:15px 0;border-width:3px;border-color:#999999\"><\/div><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>There is no such thing as the largest number because you can add a zero to any number, into infinity.\u00a0 But the largest <em>named<\/em> number is the Graham number, which, according to Plus magazine, is so large that the universe is not large enough to hold all its digits.\u00a0 However, Plus says, we do know that whatever that Graham number is, it ends in 7 and can be divided by 3.<div class=\"su-divider su-divider-style-default\" style=\"margin:15px 0;border-width:3px;border-color:#999999\"><\/div><\/li>\n<li>Astronomers were astounded recently when they discovered a planet with a tail 350,000 miles long, or longer by half than the distance from Earth to the moon, making it the longest tail ever discovered.\u00a0 The planet, named WASP-69b, is 1,150 light years away from Earth, is slightly bigger than Jupiter, and it circles its star every four Earth-days.\u00a0 Scientists say the stellar wind of particles its star blasts out burns away the planet&#8217;s atmosphere at the rate of about 200,000 tons a second, or about the size of Earth every billion years. <div class=\"su-divider su-divider-style-default\" style=\"margin:15px 0;border-width:3px;border-color:#999999\"><\/div><\/li>\n<li>Although Donald Trump claims to be a Christian, he forever demonstrates and exemplifies every one of what the Roman Catholic Church calls The Seven Deadly Sins, which are pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth.\u00a0\u00a0 But he never demonstrates Christianity\u2019s basic teaching, which is to love.<br \/>\n<div class=\"su-divider su-divider-style-default\" style=\"margin:15px 0;border-width:3px;border-color:#999999\"><\/div><\/li>\n<li>A new study from the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab shows that the amount of water lost so far from Greenland\u2019s melting glaciers\u00a0 is enough to cover all of Texas with an ice sheet more\u00a0 than 30 feet deep.<br \/>\n<div class=\"su-divider su-divider-style-default\" style=\"margin:15px 0;border-width:3px;border-color:#999999\"><\/div><\/li>\n<li>If you were to stand on the Equator and shine a flashlight to the horizon, and if the light would adhere to the Earth\u2019s surface, it would circle the earth 7 \u00bd times in the first second.\u00a0 If you were to point the light into space, it would reach the moon in 1.3 seconds, and the sun in eight minutes and 20 seconds.<div class=\"su-divider su-divider-style-default\" style=\"margin:15px 0;border-width:3px;border-color:#999999\"><\/div><\/li>\n<li>Astronomers have so far identified 85 exoplanets that they say could contain life, but they agree the actual number is almost certainly in the trillions.\u00a0 Of the 85 discovered so far, all of them exist in \u201cunique solar systems,\u201d or solar systems that contain only one planet.\u00a0 And all the planets are the size of Jupiter, Saturn or Neptune.\u00a0 The 85 are among more than 5,000 exoplanets they have confirmed since 1991, the year astronomers first officially confirmed that exoplanets even exist.<div class=\"su-divider su-divider-style-default\" style=\"margin:15px 0;border-width:3px;border-color:#999999\"><\/div><\/li>\n<li>Newspapers used to be one of the largest employers in America, but over the last 15 years more than 2,000 newspapers, all but 70 of them weeklies, have ceased publication. Nearly half of U.S. counties (1,449) now only have one newspaper, often a weekly, and 171 counties have no newspaper at all. Further, 42 of the largest 100 newspapers now publish six or fewer days a week, and 11 of those only publish one print newspaper a week.<div class=\"su-divider su-divider-style-default\" style=\"margin:15px 0;border-width:3px;border-color:#999999\"><\/div><\/li>\n<li>We know that our universe is expanding, but what is it expanding into?\u00a0 Scientists tell us the question makes no sense because the universe is everything so it isn\u2019t expanding into anything.\u00a0 It\u2019s just expanding.\u00a0 All of the galaxies in the universe are moving away from each other at ever-increasing speeds, but there&#8217;s no center they&#8217;re expanding from, and no outer edge to expand into anything else.\u00a0 But that doesn&#8217;t mean that the universe is infinite. Scientists put it this way: Think of the fabric of the universe as the surface of a balloon. As the balloon inflates, the surface stretches and every point on that surface moves away from every other point, but a tiny being on the surface of that balloon could walk forever and never run into the edge of its balloon universe. There&#8217;s no edge, yet that balloon universe has a finite volume.<div class=\"su-divider su-divider-style-default\" style=\"margin:15px 0;border-width:3px;border-color:#999999\"><\/div><\/li>\n<li>Spider webs are five times stronger than steel, and they are flexible.\u00a0 Scientists have been trying forever to duplicate the spider\u2019s web, but so far they are no closer to an answer than they were the first day they tried.<div class=\"su-divider su-divider-style-default\" style=\"margin:15px 0;border-width:3px;border-color:#999999\"><\/div><\/li>\n<li>If the U.S. Supreme Court agrees with the Colorado Supreme Court that Donald Trump is ineligible for the state\u2019s Republican primary ballot under the Insurrection Clause of the 14<sup>th<\/sup> Amendment, it also could apply to dozens of others who are running for office or currently hold office.\u00a0 The Huffington Post identified 57 state and local elected Republican officials from 27 states who were involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, including 16 members of state houses or assemblies, four state senators, six county commissioners, seven city council members, two mayors, three school board members, two state GOP chairs, and one state attorney general: Texas\u2019 Ken Paxton.<div class=\"su-divider su-divider-style-default\" style=\"margin:15px 0;border-width:3px;border-color:#999999\"><\/div><\/li>\n<li>Science informs us that the ratio between the electromagnetic force and the gravitational force was established within one millionth of a second after the Big Bang, and if that difference had been off by just one part in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, life could not have developed in the universe.\u00a0 But science has no idea what was going on one millionth of a second before that.\u00a0 Science also can trace humanity\u2019s existence to a cell that appeared in the ocean 3.5 billion years ago, but it has no idea how that cell got there.<div class=\"su-divider su-divider-style-default\" style=\"margin:15px 0;border-width:3px;border-color:#999999\"><\/div><\/li>\n<li>The nearest major galaxy to us, the Andromeda Nebula, is 2.5 million light years away, and the most distant galaxy ever discovered, named HD1, is 13.5 billion light years away from us.\u00a0 Flying at the speed of 430,000 miles an hour, which is the fastest a spacecraft (the Parker Solar Probe) has ever flown, it would take 3.91 billion years to reach the Andromeda Nebula.\u00a0 It would take 21 billion years to reach HD1, which would be more than 7 billion years longer than the universe has existed.<div class=\"su-divider su-divider-style-default\" style=\"margin:15px 0;border-width:3px;border-color:#999999\"><\/div><\/li>\n<li>America\u2019s aid to Ukraine to help it fight Russia\u2019s invasion has helped the United States in at least two ways: militarily and economically.\u00a0 Militarily, it has helped us clear our warehouses of outdated weapons and make room to replace it with modern weapons.\u00a0 And it has helped economically because building those weapons has provided thousands of jobs, almost all of\u00a0 them in red states.<div class=\"su-divider su-divider-style-default\" style=\"margin:15px 0;border-width:3px;border-color:#999999\"><\/div><\/li>\n<li>There are more stars in the sky than there are grains of sand on all the beaches in the world.\u00a0 There are 10 times the number of stars than there are cups of water in all the oceans in the world.\u00a0 There are more molecules in a spoonful of water than there are stars in the sky.<div class=\"su-divider su-divider-style-default\" style=\"margin:15px 0;border-width:3px;border-color:#999999\"><\/div><\/li>\n<li>If you were to weigh yourself at the North Pole, then weigh yourself at the Equator, you would find yourself several pounds lighter at the Equator, but your body mass would be the same.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Earth spins at approximately 1,038 miles an hour, so if you are on the Equator the centrifugal force would spin those pounds skyward.\u00a0 But if you\u2019re at the North Pole, you are simply turning around and thus there is no centrifugal force.<div class=\"su-divider su-divider-style-default\" style=\"margin:15px 0;border-width:3px;border-color:#999999\"><\/div><\/li>\n<li>Theoretically, the maximum height trees can reach is between 400 and 426 feet, but the world\u2019s tallest known tree is California\u2019s Coast Redwood (sequoia sempervirens), which is 380.8 feet tall.\u00a0 The tree, which stands in a secret location in the\u00a0 Redwoods National and State Park, is so tall that you cannot see its top from\u00a0 the ground.<div class=\"su-divider su-divider-style-default\" style=\"margin:15px 0;border-width:3px;border-color:#999999\"><\/div><\/li>\n<li>What exists between in the space between an atom and its nucleus?\u00a0 Electron clouds, which represent regions where electrons are likely to be found, with darker areas representing higher probabilities and lighter areas indicating lower probabilities.\u00a0 In other words, there is no space between an atom and its nucleus, but only bustling clouds of probabilities.\u00a0 Got it?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul><\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<div class=\"su-note\"  style=\"border-color:#d7d0d0;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#F1EAEA;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><strong>A FEW RELATED READINGS<br \/>\nprovided each week by the folks at GrowPurpose.com<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/12\/07\/world\/the-brick-milky-way-webb-telescope-scn\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">New details on a mysterious Milky Way region called \u2018The Brick\u2019 reveal it\u2019s even stranger than scientists thought<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cas.org\/resources\/cas-insights\/emerging-science\/scientific-breakthroughs-2024-emerging-trends-watch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Scientific breakthroughs: 2024 emerging trends to watch<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2024\/jan\/11\/newly-discovered-cosmic-megastructure-challenges-theories-of-the-universe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Newly discovered cosmic megastructure challenges theories of the universe<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mentalfloss.com\/article\/55702\/why-do-we-cross-our-fingers-good-luck\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Why Do We Cross Our Fingers For Good Luck?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/you-can-t-see-it-but-humans-actually-glow-in-visible-light\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">You Can&#8217;t See It, But Humans Actually Glow With Our Own Form of Bioluminescence<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.resonancescience.org\/blog\/the-biological-immortality-in-certain-species\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The \u201cBiological Immortality\u201d in Certain Animal Species<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/video\/eavesdrop-on-ultrasonic-rat-giggles\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Eavesdrop on Ultrasonic Rat Giggles<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Change of pace today.\u00a0 Just for the fun of\u00a0 it, instead of writing another typical rant about MAGA people and all the harm they\u2019re causing the world, I thought I\u2019d share some oddball facts and figures from the worlds of science, politics and general information. If you lined up all&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":440,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424\/revisions\/440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}