› added 2 years ago

131

TIL The Hale telescope features a 200 inch (5.08m) diameter mirror. The mirror took 10 months anneal and was delivered to Caltech in 1936. The telescope was completed in 1948 as it took years of grinding and polishing to make the mirror accurate to 2/1,000,000ths of an inch of a perfect paraboloid.

Read more sites.astro.caltech.edu

via reddit.com

8a6Na TIL Japanese scientists have transplanted hair follicle germs (HFG) on mice which were grown on a substrate of dimethylpolysiloxane, (a silicone added to McDonald's fries to stop cooking oil from frothing). The technique created 5,000 HFGs at once and started new hair growth on mice.
wlYo TIL The brother of China’s last emperor visited Japanese emperor Akhito in 1992 and wished to have his ashes buried in urns in both China and Japan as a hope for peace between the two nations
wBxE TIL: When bottle feeding a kitten, you should NEVER put the kitten on their back. Doing so can cause the kitten to drown.
8alP4 TIL the Ozma problem is an old problem asks if we could communicate the concept of left and right to an alien over the radio. In the 1950's physicists found a way when they observed that certain radioactive decays actually "care" about if the atom is spinning clockwise or anti-clockwise.
d8bE TIL the quietest room in the world registers -9 decibels (yes, negative decibels)