Random Thought of the Day

Quote: odiousgambit

the animals do have one advantage over submarines: they can let the pressure equalize [I presume]

according to Mr. Martin, oxygen is toxic at high pressure. [didn't know I was paying attention eh?][g] I'm sure there are other problems allowing pressure to equalize or even build too high, even if you take precautions against "the bends"

The animals tolerate toxic oxygen, I'm guessing.

Believe it or not, I probably know more about Cuvier's beaked whales then you would ever want to know. They have a habit of showing up dead in the vicinity of high powered sonars.

Problems like "the bends" or "the martini effect" (nitrogen) or "oxygen toxicity" (obviously oxygen) are normally associated with breathing compressed air (or other gases). Only extreme athletes free dive to extreme depths.

The deepest open circuit scuba dive was Pascal Bernabé on July 5, 2005 descended to 1,083 feet . But you are in danger of neural damage.

Quote: odiousgambit

the animals do have one advantage over submarines: they can let the pressure equalize [I presume]

according to Mr. Martin, oxygen is toxic at high pressure. [didn't know I was paying attention eh?][g] I'm sure there are other problems allowing pressure to equalize or even build too high, even if you take precautions against "the bends"

The animals tolerate toxic oxygen, I'm guessing.

Believe it or not, I probably know more about Cuvier's beaked whales then you would ever want to know. They have a habit of showing up dead in the vicinity of high powered sonars.

Problems like "the bends" or "the martini effect" (nitrogen) or "oxygen toxicity" (obviously oxygen) are normally associated with breathing compressed air (or other gases). Only extreme athletes free dive to extreme depths.

The deepest open circuit scuba dive was Pascal Bernabé on July 5, 2005 descended to 1,083 feet . But you are in danger of neural damage.

In general animals learn to survive at extreme conditions because they are exploiting a food source that other animals can't reach. A squid can operate at any ocean depth because it has no air cavities. Cuvier's beaked whales are the mammalian deep diving champions because they can pursue those squids without competition from other mammals.

Because they spend so little time on the surface, they are some of the most mysterious of animals. Cuvier identified them only from skeletons on the beach. If you have forgotten your school studies, Georges Cuvier is the father of paleontology, and set some of the scientific groundwork that allowed Darwin to formulate his Theory of Evolution.

Dr. Asimov reminds us: the inevitable increase in Entropy, as far as we know, takes place in an expanding Universe. If conditions across the Universe change, might Entropy (or rather thermodynamics) not also change?

Asimov had a Big Crunch, contracting Universe in mind at the time (80s). We know the rate of expansion si increasing, not slowing, so dark Energy does not seem to be impressed by Gravity. Still, who knows?

Jerry Seinfeld once asked how women can apply hot wax to their legs then rip out hairs by the root, yet be afraid to kill a spider.

The answer is simple: spiders are creepy and killing them does nothing to improve one's looks. If killing spiders conferred any benefits at all, you'd see them for sale at the Lancome counter at Nordstrom's, Sephora would carry bags-full of live spiders in a variety of styles (fed all-natural diets, with vitamins added, etc) and Walmart would sell cut-rate spiders imported from China.

Any other stupid questions?

;)

Dark energy is mind-bending. One theory is that it can be expected to get stronger, and not only will it continue to overcome the force of gravity, but it will begin to overcome inter-atomic forces. Atoms themselves will then disintegrate.

Even though we know we won't be around to see it, there is something disquieting about that.

Quote:

Sarah Rhoads, an employee at Start Skydiving, was flown to hospital in Dayton, Ohio, after the accident on Sunday.

The 24-year-old had ventured close to the plane to speak to a pilot aboard one plane before inadvertently walking into the propeller of another aircraft idling nearby, co-workers said.

John Hart, the owner of Start Skydiving, told the Hamilton-Middletown Journal-News that it is often difficult to see fast-spinning propeller blades.

He said Ms Rhoads had been working for the company as an office manager for three years.

"It doesn't get any worse than this," he told the newspaper.

Finding someone dead is one thing. Hopefully, I don't ever find anyone who has experienced slicing/grinding death.

Hand propping and removal of chocks from the nose wheel can result in similar incidents. In one tropical incident passengers disembarking from a helicopter walked into the rear rotor.

I wonder if there are statistics on people walking into propellers ?

The story sickens me. If you can't see them, how do you avoid them? I think I remember a model getting maimed by the blades and in fiction, a doctor on ER lost his arm from a helicopter blade. It's just a shame.

There are statistics for this, because they're considered aviation injuries and fatalities. It happens a lot more than gets reported in the media, especially on seaplanes, but also ramp workers sucked into jet engines and naive passengers walking into spinning props on ramps. Even on occasion with skydivers disembarking ahead of the wing. I've witnessed a couple over the years - it happens so fast there's no time to react. Just an awful sight.