Non-trivial Science related Trivia

I have this list of useless, but interesting random trivia, so for something different, I thought I would share the list with you. As you might expect, most have a science bent....Big surprise on that one as you all know, Bev is Earth.

Pavement on land creates "expressways" for oil and other pollutants to run into the ocean. "Every eight months, nearly 11 million gallons of oil run off our streets and driveways into our waters -- the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez oil spill," --- from the Pew Oceans Commission in 2003

That's why I like my gravel driveway. Yeah, it is rut filled and gets the vehicles muddy, but at least I know that my pollutants stay here and do not become someone else's problem downstream in the watershed.

The quest of alchemists—to change base metals into gold—was achieved to a certain degree in Soviet nuclear reactors, where radioactivity transformed some lead nuclei into gold.

The largest reservoirs of gold on Earth, about 10 billion tons, are the oceans. Unfortunately, there is no practical way to get it out. Gold is also plentiful elsewhere in the solar system. In 1999, the NEAR spacecraft showed that a single asteroid, Eros, contains more gold than has ever been mined on Earth.

That's a WOW from me. I heard the other day on TV that all the gold ever mined in the history of human mining would fill only two Olympic sized swimming pools. Same show informed me that a gold bar weighs about 27 pounds.

Kevlar, superglue, cellophane tape, Teflon, Post-it notes, photographs, and the phonograph: All were laboratory blunders. Chinese alchemists were trying to make an elixir of immortality and made gunpowder instead.

Speaking of Kevlar... the International Space Station is covered with a foot-thick blanket of Kevlar to protect it from over 100,000 meteoroids that will slam into it over a 20 year period. Of course, every day, up to 4 billion meteoroids fall to Earth, most of them insanely small, but you never know when a killer rock might slip in undetected.

Life on earth began about 3.8 billion years ago, but sex did not evolve until more than 2 billion years later. Asexual reproduction is a better evolutionary strategy in many important ways, so it is unclear why sexual reproduction developed.

The hermaphroditic earthworm Dendrobaena rubida has both male and female genitalia. If it cannot find a mate, the worm doubles up so that its female bits and male bits can go to town.

Some fish and reptiles can 'change sex'. In marine environments near coral reefs, most fish change sex at least once in their life, and they can have both male and female organs at the same time, like the worm.

Homosexual behavior is found in at least 1,500 species of mammal, fish, reptile, bird, and even invertebrates.
In the animal world, there doesn't seem to be a choice, just an adaption. Nature wins.


Burials in America deposit 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid, formaldehyde, methanol, and ethanol, into the soil each year. Cremation pumps dioxins, hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide into the air.

Americans generate 472 billion pounds of trash every year, including 96 billion pounds of food trash—more than 300 pounds per person, wasted.

Food waste is only 2 percent of the total waste. The rest is industrial refuse, including mine tailings, agricultural waste, construction debris, and chemicals

One quart of motor oil, improperly disposed of, can pollute 250,000 gallons of drinking water.
WOW!


Each year, consumers in the United States spread 300 million pounds of chemical insecticides, including compounds that the EPA says may impair the nervous system, disrupt hormones in the body, or cause cancer.
Not me, not me-I'm getting greener all the time!


Landfills are actually the No. 1 human-generated source of methane, belching 7 million tons into the atmosphere each year.
Those poor cows and pigs have really gotten a bum rap.

Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island in New York, which closed in 2001, is the world's largest city dump, covering about 2,200 acres