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A scientific fact/tidbit you recently learned that you thought was interesting

Mayonnaise is a preservative. All those people freaking out about leaving the potato salad out during the picnic need to calm down.
 
Seismic data reveal a tectonic plate breaking apart beneath the Atlantic near Portugal. This marks the first direct observation of oceanic plate delamination.

www.nature.com

Seismic evidence for oceanic plate delamination offshore Southwest Iberia - Nature Geoscience

The lithospheric mantle may be delaminating from the crust in an oceanic plate segment offshore Southwest Iberia, which could be the ultimate cause of the 1755 Great Lisbon Earthquake, according to seismic imaging and numerical simulations.
www.nature.com www.nature.com
 
jadebox said:
Mayonnaise is a preservative. All those people freaking out about leaving the potato salad out during the picnic need to calm down.
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How does that work?

Mayo will go rancid fairly quickly. It's just oil and egg.
 
Andy_Ross said:
How does that work?

Mayo will go rancid fairly quickly. It's just oil and egg.
Click to expand...
Mayonnaise also has vinegar or lemon in it which makes it acidic and a good preservative.

Yes, you shouldn't leave any foods outside in the heat for more than a couple of hours. But, things with mayonnaise will probably be safe longer than other foods. The belief that foods with mayonnaise will go bad in the heat quicker than other foods is a myth.

Along the same lines, pasteurized milk is safe to drink even after it has "gone bad." Even when stinky and globby (yum!) pasteurized milk is safe. I'm not recommending drinking "bad" milk, though it is much safer than drinking fresh raw milk.
 
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jadebox said:
Mayonnaise also has vinegar or lemon in it which makes it acidic and a good preservative.

Yes, you shouldn't leave any foods outside in the heat for more than a couple of hours. But, things with mayonnaise will probably be safe longer than other foods. The belief that foods with mayonnaise will go bad in the heat quicker than other foods is a myth.

Along the same lines, pasteurized milk is safe to drink even after it has "gone bad." Even when stinky and globby (yum!) pasteurized milk is safe. I'm not recommending drinking "bad" milk, though it is much safer than drinking fresh raw milk.
Click to expand...
Next time Mrs. Shemp does some canning, I'll tell her not to bother with the hot water bath, just throw some Hellman's in with those tomatoes, it won't go bad.
 
That reminds me of a joke letter to a newspaper therapist I saw ins some book or magazine many years ago.

"Is it wrong that I sometimes strip naked, slather myself with mayonnaise, and run down the street yelling "I'm a french fry!!"?"
"Yes, that's disgusting. You should use catsup."
 
500px-The_sky_around_Alpha_Centauri_and_Proxima_Centauri_%28annotated%29_%28eso1629f%29.jpg


Alpha Centauri A and B are actually two stars in a binary pair. One is slightly bigger than our sun, and the other slightly smaller. They orbit each other in an eccentric orbit that takes 79 years to complete, at closest approach they are roughly as far away from each other as Saturn is to the sun, and at farthest roughly equal to Pluto's distance from the sun. From our distance, you cannot see that there are actually two stars there rather than one, without special equipment. Proxima Centauri, although closer, is clearly much smaller than the others as you can see from this image. It takes about 550,000 years to orbit the other two stars. This means that Proxima Centauri is not always closer to us than the other two. Its orbit also takes it to the far side (from our perspective) of the binary pair. Current astronomical surveys suggest that about 75-85% of stars exist in multiple-star systems. Our sun is in the minority in not being part of a multiple-star system. It's likely that this is not a coincidence, as there are reasons to think that multiple-star systems may be less hospitable to life being present for billions of years which seems to be what it takes to produce a technological civilization (yes, I'm making certain assumptions: that the amount of time it took here is typical, based on the Copernican principle).
This video is about a possible exoplanet candidate being discovered at Alpha Centauri A. If you want to skip the intro and an ad read, go to 4:04.
 
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That is interesting. I knew the Centauri system was binary; I assumed Alpha was one, and Proxima was the other. I thought Proxima's long period was what gave us the idea for its name -- if it's closer for half a million years, future generations can argue about the naming.

Thanks for putting the E back in ISF!
 
When you're outside the event horizon of a black hole, the singularity is a point in space, but if you cross over the event horizon, the singularity is then a point in time that you're inevitably heading toward. I think I got that right anyway... it's way above my pay grade.
 
Armitage72 said:
That reminds me of a joke letter to a newspaper therapist I saw ins some book or magazine many years ago.

"Is it wrong that I sometimes strip naked, slather myself with mayonnaise, and run down the street yelling "I'm a french fry!!"?"
"Yes, that's disgusting. You should use catsup."
Click to expand...
curry sauce surely?
 
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