Science and Computers

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  • Sunbeams that shine down through the clouds are called crespucular rays.


  • Very small clouds that look like they have been broken off of bigger clouds are called scuds.


  • On a dewy morning, if you look at your shadow in the grass, the dew drops shine light back to your eye creating a halo called a heilgenschein (German for halo.)


  • The smallest mushroom's name is "Hop-low."


  • The word 'byte' is a contraction of 'by eight.'


  • The word 'pixel' is a contraction of either 'picture cell' or 'picture element.'


  • Astronauts in the Space Shuttle are weightless not because there is no gravity in space, but because they are in free fall around the Earth.


  • Back in the mid to late 80's, an IBM compatible computer wasn't considered a hundred percent compatible unless it could run Microsoft's Flight Simulator.


  • Ethernet is a registered trademark of Xerox, Unix is a registered trademark of AT&T.


  • The first hard drive available for the Apple ][ had a capacity of 5 megabytes.


  • In many cases, the amount of storage space on a recordable CD is measured in minutes. 74 minutes is about 650 megabytes, 63 minutes is 550 megabytes.


  • The volume of the Earth's moon is the same as the volume of the Pacific Ocean


  • The Saturn V moon rocket consumed 15 tons of fuel per second.


  • We will have four consecutive full moons making two blue moons in 1999 (January 2 and 31, March 2 and 31.) The only other time it happened this century was in 1915 (January 1 and 31, March 1 and 31.)


  • A byte, in computer terms, means 8 bits. A nibble is half that: 4 bits. (Two nibbles make a byte!)


  • The one-hundred eleventh element is known as "unnilenilenium"


  • The red giant star Betelgeuse has a diameter larger than that of the Earth's orbit around the sun.


  • The Earth-Moon size ratio is the largest in the our solar system, excepting Pluto-Charon.


  • Each unit on the Richter Scale is equivalent to a power factor of about 32. So a 6 is 32 times more powerful than a 5! Though it goes to 10, 9 is estimated to be the point of total tetonic destruction (2 is the smallest that can be felt unaided.)


  • According to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, it is possible to go slower than light or faster than light, but it is impossible to go at the speed of light.


  • The type specimen for the human species is the skull of Edward Drinker Cope, an American paleontologist of the late 1800's. A type specimen is used in paleontology as the best example of that species.


  • Geller and Huchra have made three-dimensional maps of the distrubution of galaxies. In each layer of the map some galaxies are grouped together in such a way that they resemble a human being.


  • If NASA sent birds into space they would soon die because they need gravity to swallow.


  • The little hole in the sink that lets the water drain out, instead of flowing over the side, is called a "porcelator".


  • It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw up. The frog throws up it's stomach first, so the stomach is dangling out of it's mouth. Then the frog uses it's forearms to dig out all of the stomach's contents and then swallows the stomach back down again.


  • The chemical formula for Rubidium Bromide is RbBr. It is the only chemical formula known to be a palindrome!


  • Moisture, not air, causes superglue to dry.


  • A full moon always rises at sunset.


  • If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon dioxide poisoning first before you will die of oxygen deprivation.


  • Rene Descartes came up with the theory of coordinate geometry by looking at a fly walk across a tiled ceiling.


  • The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.


  • When Voyager 2 visited Neptune it saw a small irregular white cloud that zips around Neptune every sixteen hours or so now known as "The Scooter".


  • The only planet without a ring is earth.


  • When ocean tides are at their highest, they are called "spring tides." When they are at their lowest, they are call "neep tides."


  • February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.


  • Cyano-acrylate glues (Super glues) were invented by accident. The researcher was trying to make optical coating materials, and would test their properties by putting them between two prisms and shining light through them. When he tried the cyano-acrylate, he couldn't get the prisms apart


  • Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated