If you separate the halves of your brain, they can operate relatively fine independently of each other, each controlling roughly half of the body. When one half does something, and the other half is asked why they did it, the other half will make up a plausible reason why they just did that action. There’s a theory that this is basically how your brain works all the time, just guessing why it did things, and potentially with multiple processes happening in relative isolation that aren’t consciously aware of each other.
There is a possibility that the Higgs field isn’t at it’s lowest energy state, and that a random quantum tunneling event could drag the Higgs field to that lower state. In this unsettling scenario, a bubble pops into existence somewhere in the universe. Inside the bubble, the laws of physics are wildly different than they are outside the bubble. The bubble expands at the speed of light, eventually taking over the entire universe. Galaxies drift apart, atoms can’t hold themselves together, and the ways that particles interact are fundamentally changed. Whatever form the universe takes after this event certainly wouldn’t be hospitable for humans.
Sounds like a great way to reboot the DC or Marvel universe. How probable is this bubble bursts and affects us before we fuck up our environment for good? Would we be able to know if it already happened somewhat far from us? Like, “we have 5 years, that’s all we’ve got”.
Since the bubble travels at the speed of light, no, there’s no way to know. It could be an hour away from us right now and we wouldn’t even see it hit us, we’d just evaporate from existence nearly instantaneously.
So spontaneous instant death. Not scarier than an aneurysm.
This is know as “False Vacuum (Decay)”. Kurzgesagt made a video about it.
Yeah, I can’t work up much existential dread at this prospect. Given the immensity of the universe, the odds of this happening anywhere that it will affect the human race anytime soon are pretty damn slim.
Really looking forward to the Spacetime episode on this one if it doesn’t exist yet.
As old and massive as the universe is, if it could have happened, it likely would have already.
Basically, as big and old as the universe is, it’s easy to pick an even bigger number for the expected recurrence of a vacuum decay. So, it’s still possible.
And that’s the thing:
Assuming it did, you couldn’t see it approach until it hit you because it’s moving at the speed of light! It could also have happened, but just super far away such that it will never reach us due to expansion between its origin point and us being faster than c!
Also just because the universe is frickin old doesn’t mean it is statistically bound to have happened. There are plenty of ways of making it even more astronomically unlikely but still possible…
That makes sense, I was thinking we would see it coming, but definitely not.
Gamma ray bursts from celestial events such as a supernova. One of these - GRB 221009 released 1,000 times more energy in 5 minutes than our Sun has emitted throughout its 4.5 billion year life. GRBs from different galaxies have set off detectors on earth designed to detect nuclear explosions. One of these in our galaxy, pointed directly at earth could end all life on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst
Every study performed on insect counts has concluded that overall insect populations are declining, though there is not complete global coverage of data. One study in Germany found that the flying insect population had decreased by 75% from 1990 to 2015.
A 2019 survey of 24 entomologists working on six continents found that on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the worst, all the scientists rated the severity of the insect decline crisis as being between 8–10.
Nothing scares me quite as much as the thought that I might live to see global ecological collapse.
Hell no I Wana see that … People finally taking serious actions against it when its way too late … There’s nothing better then seeing rich people trying to buy stuff that can’t be bought… And finally dying full of regrets knowing it was their and theyr families fault.
Everyone else would die too. Not worth it, there are better ways to eliminate the parasite class that are more effective and less self-harmful.
You wont see it, you’ll die first because they’re rich enough to prolong their demise.
If you think about it, when was the last time you saw a lighting bug. I’ve never seen a firefly in my entire life despite living in a country that had native species.
In new hampshire, relatively often when it’s the right season.
I have seen them twice in the last year, but it was only a single bug each time. A sad lightning bug trying to find others to mate… I didn’t see another one around it.
As a kid, I would see hundreds of them around bushes and trees. Now I see one or two per summer.
But that’s all gods plan, right?
Thankfully they are alive and doing quite well in our little forest home in Quebec, Canada. Of all the places I used to see them as a kid almost none are still vibrant and busy, but our little corner of forest here has a good population. For now…
Microbiology can be so much fun!
Streptococcus pyogenes causes a flesh-eating disease (necrotizing fasciitis). This species of bacteria releases toxins that kill living tissue, so you better make sure that paper cut doesn’t get infected.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is famous for a bunch of different pandemics over the centuries. If you thought covid was fun, imagine coughing up blood.
Clostridium botulinum is special, because it produces a very spicy toxin, so you don’t even have to ingest any living cells or spores of C. botulinum to get killed by it. If you do, you can even have your very own toxin factory inside you.
Vibrio cholerae is another classic responsible for numerous pandemics. This one is a bit different, because it involves lethal amounts of diarrhea.
Oh, and the scary bit? There are people who don’t believe bacteria or viruses exist. They actively oppose taking measures against these things. Humans can be truly horrifying at times.
“Lethal amounts of diarrhea” has now entered second place on my Worst Nightmares list. Thanks for that…
Another “fun” fact: it’s one of the biggest killers in the third world, especially of small children, and at some point there was a diarrhea magazine as a result.
I can’t believe tetanus got left out here. It’s a common soil bacteria like botulism, but has the opposite effect if it gets in you. It makes all your muscles forcibly contract and cramp up until you die.
Botulism is really easy to get if you can food wrong, because it’s the one abundant bacteria that will survive limitless time at 100C. (To can vulnerable things properly, you use high pressures to make the water get hotter before it begins to boil, and cool down as a result)
You can’t leave us hanging, what’s 1st place on your list?
Reincarnation, which has now been reinforced by no. 2 (pun not intended, but welcomed).
Viruses are sneaky! Their whole goal is to trick you into helping them survive and reproduce.
Some species of snails are infected with a parasitic flatworm called Leucochloridium paradoxum, which has a life cycle that involves manipulating the snail’s behavior and appearance to increase its own chances of survival. The parasite causes the snail’s eyes to turn into worm-like protrusions, which are actually just the parasite’s own larvae.
To birds, these worm-like eyes look like tasty little morsels, and they’ll often peck at them to eat them. But in doing so, they’re actually ingesting the parasite’s larvae, which then complete their life cycle inside the bird’s digestive system.
That’s rough, oof!
they are then pooped out onto other snails? How does this life cycle work
The larvae (possibly not quite the right word) eaten by the birds lodge in the intestinal tract near the cloaca. The eggs they produce are passed out, and snails eat the eggs.
~This comment is best read with Hans Zimmer’s “The Circle of Life” playing in the background.~
Snails eat eggs???
Aww
That’s not creepy or weird, that’s horrifying.
Read the Wikipedia article on Radon. That should do the trick.
There’s worse. Ever heared of FOOF? https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-work-dioxygen-difluoride
Aww but it sounds so fluffy
Eh, FOOF is so unstable that it’s very hard to make enough of it to do any real damage. It’s also just very hard to make. It’s only remotely stable at cryogenic temperatures, and is so reactive that without an inert atmosphere it will rapidly decay into something more stable. Granted, it will do so by oxidizing the molecular oxygen in the air (which is as insane as it sounds) and release a ton of energy in the process but assuming you don’t already have a bunch of it, you won’t be able to create enough of it fast enough to do any meaningful damage without a specialized laboratory and associated equipment.
Chlorine Triflouride however, can be made in your kitchen, and is just stable enough that, assuming you’ve taken some precautions, it’s possible to accumulate enough of it to immolate yourself in one of the worst possible ways.
Chlorine trifluoride, go on
It’s rated 4/4 in everything but flammability.
“Very toxic, very corrosive, powerful oxidizer, violent hydrolysis”
Pretty spicy, but we can do better than that.
I’m only just barely smart enough to occasionally realize that when the smart people start quietly losing their shit over something I can’t possibly understand, I should have long since been gone by the time they start losing their shit over whatever magic has now prematurely doomed the universe to its inevitable heat death.
Or I could just drink my face off. That works, too.
OMG explosions and fire just did an episode on this. He went to a lab in Germany and they made some…
Release 9 days ago.
What about the PLOOF?!?
Spicy!
Ok here we go. Will be back with an update, but just in case, I don’t consider myself particularly tough
I think they’re dead.
Nah still alive but haven’t finished the article… It’s really long
When I was a kid my parents wanted to open up an existing cavity under our house to build a basement, and that never happened because it (E: was discovered during the building inspection that it) was full of Radon. I guess I’m desensitised (but possibly slowly decaying a little faster than I should be…).
But why did your parents have an underground Radon cavern?
Spirals
@
Why is that?
I’d guess Uzumaki, a horror manga that recently got an anime adaptation. I haven’t read it, but it’s supposed to be amazing.
It’s also not a creepy fact.
Junji Ito makes easily the creepiest fiction out there. It’s just a matter of time until every individual work gets it’s 15 minutes of fame.
Yes, horror manga. I read it every year around this time.
It’s not really a fact, but some people might have the opinion that the manga made spirals creepy.
