100 Things We Didn't Know Last Year

gollum123 writes "The BBC news magazine is running a compilation of the interesting and sometimes downright unexpected facts that we did not know last year, but now know. some examples — There are 200 million blogs which are no longer being updated, say technology analysts. Urban birds have developed a short, fast 'rap style' of singing, different from their rural counterparts. The lion costume in the film 'Wizard of Oz' was made from real lions. Online shoppers will only wait an average of four seconds for an internet page to load before giving up. Just one cow gives off enough harmful methane gas in a single day to fill around 400 litre bottles. For every 10 successful attempts to climb Mount Everest there is one fatality. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs is the term for people who fear the number 666. The egg came first."

Re:Not quite

[Southpaw018]

It's not "things we didn't know last year," it's "factoids the Beeb's own magazine liked from their lists this year."

Still interesting, tho, even with a misleading headline.

Re:Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

That got me thinking. You know how in 'Big Sister Dora,' Dora has some really exciting news - someone new is joining Dora's family! Someone who sleeps in a cradle, drinks from a bottle, wears diapers, and likes to be rocked to sleep. In 'Dora Saves the Game,' Dora's cousin Daisy is playing in a big soccer game that's showing on TV. But Daisy's team is short a player, so Daisy appeals to Dora to come play on her team and save the game. The two bonus episodes are 'Job Day' and 'A Letter for Swiper.' 'Go, Diego, Go!' is an animated, preschool, action adventure series starring Diego Marquez, an 8-year-old bilingual, Latino, animal rescuer with an intense love of nature and the animals around him. In each episode Diego encourages his viewers to participate in his high stakes animal themed adventures.

In other words, the topic, the thing we are talking about, follows the commentary-what the sentence says about the topic. In sentences that indicate existence, the commentary is `oy-a predicate that indicates the existence of something. Sentences that indicate existence in Tzotzil can express the existence of something concrete or a process, activity, or condition, depending upon the noun that functions as topic.

this article is silly

[xilmaril]

They say that last year we didn't know that... Panspermia is the theory that life came from other planets???

I scanned down the list for a bit, but when I saw that, I just had to reread it in surprise, then close that browser tab. I knew that a long, long time ago, as did a lot of other science or science-fiction fans. The wikipedia article on panspermia cites its usage as early as 2000.

I was kind of disappointed.

Re:Not quite

[Randolpho]

Ok maybe I have super-intellect or something but some of those things I knew last year. "The egg came first" ... how the heck is that news? Dinosaurs laid them well before chickens were running around... ugh idiocy.

Most of those "facts" were, in fact, not facts -- your egg first example shines among them. The which came first, chicken or egg question is a philosophical and/or rhetorical question, meant to generate debate but not actually solvable. It is the quintessential evolution vs creationism debate. Did God create the chicken, which then laid eggs, or did evolutionary forces result in the first chicken via a pre-chicken ancestor laying a mutated-into-a-chicken egg? Stating "The egg came first" is essentially a statement of faith. Additionally, the article that "fact" points to is highly questionable, essentially saying "a philosopher says the egg must have come first, therefore this proves that the egg came first".

There are *some* genuine discoveries on that list, but most of it is garbage.

Title is inaccurate

[meckardt]

This article would more accurately be captioned "100 Interesting Things". Perusing the entire list, there are more than a few factoids therein that I did know.

Come to think of it, the name "100 Things That Some People Might Not Know" would be even more accurate.

Eveyone seems to be missing the point

[Tim C]

This isn't "100 things no-one knew last year", it's "100 things we didn't know last year". The "we" doesn't refer to the human race, it refers at the very most to "the average person in the street", and quite possibly only to the person(s) who pick the things that go in the articles.

This isn't meant to be a list of 100 new discoveries, so can everyone stop commenting on it as though it is?

Re:Urban birds and 'rap style'

[GrumpySimon]

Are rap songs shorter with an upshift in frequency? I doubt it.

Sure, I may be being a little bit uh, anal here, but a glib report along the lines of "it's like a rap song" just trivialises and dumbs down the research which is actually quite neat: these birds have adjusted their songs to compete with the other noises in their environment, showing a high level of behavioral plasticity.

Re:Not quite

[Randolpho]

There is no "debate" between Creationism and the theory of evolution. And to bring that into the scope of the article discussed does it an injustice.

You're kidding, right? Chicken vs egg *is* creationism vs evolution. I did not bring it into the scope of the article, it's inherent.

The article, by the way, did no treat the "chicken or egg" question as a philosophical/rhetorical one, but as a scientific one.

Ignoring the fact that one of the major proponents was a philosopher, I saw only one bit of science in that article -- the fact that genetic material does not change during the lifetime of an organism -- but it had no relation to the egg/chicken debate. The argument was fallacial. It was essentially: because the DNA of a chicken in the egg is the same as the DNA of the chicken when it hatched, the egg came first. This is an entirely irrelevant conclusion, *and* begs the question. Where did the egg come from? It assumes that the egg already existed, ignoring the divine half of the chicken/egg debate.

The egg was shown to come first, via evolution, long ago -- the chicken-like pre-chicken laid a mutated and/or cross-bred egg that hatched into a chicken. Arguments like this one just end up looking exactly like arguments for creationism.

Re:Urban birds and 'rap style'

[dangitman]

Are rap songs shorter with an upshift in frequency? I doubt it.

Pretty much, yes. It has a "sharp" style, and words are pronounced much more quickly than in rock, folk, opera - in fact, it is sung more quickly than just about any genre I can think of. And while rap is known for deep basslines, the vocals are higher pitched than other genres, both to distinguish them from the bass, and as a side-effect of the quicker pace. Of course, rap varies, and some rappers use a deep voice, but the majority of it is higher-pitched than equivalent songs in other genres like rock.

Sure, I may be being a little bit uh, anal here, but a glib report along the lines of "it's like a rap song" just trivialises and dumbs down the research which is actually quite neat: these birds have adjusted their songs to compete with the other noises in their environment, showing a high level of behavioral plasticity.

I don't think anybody would have read the article and assumed that the birds were imitating rappers. It's just a catchy hook - and that kind of thing actually gets readers interested, which can mean that more people read the research than otherwise.

Anyway, you said in your previous post that it has nothing to do with urbanisation. The article makes it pretty clear that it actually has plenty to do with urbanisation. They are doing this to compete with traffic and industrial noise. What causes the increased traffic and industrial noise? Urbanisation.

Re:New Facts

[PatPending]

Reducing the risk would attract more climbers, in spite of the fact that Everest is over-crowded now as it is. (Example: there have been instances of twenty or more climbers in a queue, waiting to summit!) It's "bad enough" that climbers use oxygen, modern gear, and an over reliance on porters, etc. to summit.

Our so-called modern society is overwrought with OSHA-, FDA-, EPA-, NTSB- (and etc.) mandated warning labels and devices, intended to protect us from ourselves.

Some places, Nature does not want us to go. Everest is one of them. Let's keep it that way.

 

Re:Sure

[WhiplashII]

What's sad is that what he is saying is true, and is a very important part of dealing with the world effectively.

But nobody gets it, so they think it is funny. Please don't attempt anything important until you understand the statements you just ridiculed...

Re:Sure

[JayBlalock]

Um... I don't know about anyone else, but I got it completely.

*I* find it funny\ironic\interesting because, when Rummy was just rooting around trying to find a way to dodge a reporter's question, he accidentally made a profoundly poetic, even zen, philosophical statement. When properly spaced out like parent did, I truly believe that could stand alongside the great insights of the great writers of the world. In terms of form, composition, and truth, it is nearly perfect.

Which means just about the LAST place you'd expect it to come from is the mouth of the man whose job otherwise was to blow up as much of the known world as he could.

And that's what makes it funny.

And just for the record, the A.C. parent posted no commentary. Just the moment of zen. And others modded it as funny (and insightful!). Why did you automatically assume he was ridiculing it?