Philotic Web

this thread is dedicated to anything that made you think "who knew..."

for example;

who knew that producing 50 to 100 million tones of methane a year rice is the worlds largest agricultural source of greenhouse gasses?

I recently learned that "Maybelline" is actually a girl's name.
Fewer people name their daughters this because it's now recognized with the make up brand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Cd8NQmJp88" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I apparently went to college with my first crush, and had no idea.

First grade was a long time ago, it seems.

I recently learned that "Maybelline" is actually a girl's name.
Fewer people name their daughters this because it's now recognized with the make up brand.

haha. yes. and "Mercedes" is a girl's name too, although maybe they use it frequently enough in parts of the world where it's used... like Spain.

who knew that producing 50 to 100 million tones of methane a year rice is the worlds largest agricultural source of greenhouse gasses?

And that food-animals (especially cows) produce much more than that! Methane is over 20x as damaging as carbon dioxide as far as greenhouse gasses go, and the USA alone produces around 700 million tons of methane / year (25% from cows = 175 Mtons from cows in the USA alone).
AND that number is expected to go up by 60% before 2030!?

I think the important thing to note isn't that rice is such a big producer of methane (it pales in comparison to animals); it's that HUMAN ACTIVITY (we're the ones responsible for raising that rice and all those cows) is contributing so voraciously to all those greenhouse gasses.... if you believe in that sort of thing

I'm pretty sure all the coal power plants around here trump both your cows and her rice.

I'm pretty sure all the coal power plants around here trump both your cows and her rice.

Coal puts a lot of nasty things in the atmosphere (including more radioactive pollution than a fission reactor), but I'm pretty sure significant amounts of methane isn't one of them. Mostly because that would be essentially dumping natural gas out the pipe, instead of burning it or capturing and selling it.

I meant greenhouse gases in general, not specifically methane.

I'm pretty sure all the coal power plants around here trump both your cows and her rice.

haha. yes. indeed, electricity production and industry (the largest coal uses) contribute just over 50% of all greenhouse gasses. Agriculture is just 7%... which is in fact primarily cows and rice! However, I really don't know if they're talking about the amount of greenhouse GAS produced, or the EFFECT of those greenhouse gasses. Methane is 20x more "potent" than carbon dioxide... so if it's 7% of the GAS, it's about 59% of the EFFECT. But so far, I haven't found the answer to that... and it's a major difference :/

one of the most common password is qwertyuiop

of course we all know what our favorite password is...

Fish do not have toenails!

Who knew?

do fish have toes?

*double post*

when filming les mis they used rubber cobblestones so that the sound of rain/footfalls would not disrupt the singing which was being recorded live

Apparently "Featherstone-Haugh" is pronounced "fan-SHAW."

British people are weird.

they most defiantly are,

on that note, who knew that there are more chickens then people in Britain?

who knew that there are more chickens then people in Britain?

Wouldn't that be true for most countries... I mean estimating that you eat chicken twice a week. thats 2 chickens a week per family. And there have to be more alive and growing to keep feeding people. Then there are the egg layers... When I could see something like a cow being closer in numbers (but still maybe more?) because you can get so much more meat/meals from each cow. And then the milk cows.

it apparently takes 2 hours to upload a 4min video to youtube.