Things you don't need to know…
 

… maybe even don't want to know, but which pibbur still insists on telling you, replacing the pretty much extinct "Today is… " thread.

There are 4 elements named after a small swedish town in the periodic system of elements. The town is Ytterby. The elements are the rare earth elements (which actuallyt isn't that rare) Yttrium (Y), Erbium (Er), Terbium (Tb) and Ytterbium (Yb). In addition, one of the guys involved in the detection of those is the finnish 19th century chemist (and physicist, and mineralogist - who knows if he didn't play the piano as well) Johan Gadolin, after which Gadolinium is named. Gadolinium is used in MRI contrast media.

In order to not insult Dart (not Vader), the element Hafnium (Hf) is named after Copenhagen. No Bergenium as far as I know. And I know that.

I may have posted this earlier, so I'll give you another one for free: The chinese (of the people's republic fame) bought 74 million cars. In 2010. Exactly one of them was a Toyota Prius.

Says pibbur who insists on calling Aluminium "Aluminium".

Seems like I managed to create two threads out of this, which most of you definitely don't need. I leave it to the powers that be to delete one of them.

The other one, preferrably.

The value of this thread is paradoxical in its uselessness.

Despite the great effort to please me I'm still insulted, by nature, as a superior specimen of the Watch - and yet I can't help but also be paradoxically pleased.

So a mild punishment is in order, and Pibbur will need to move his desk to the middle of the room and sit still for a few minutes.

Mission accomplished!
Favourite Malkavian response: Ha!HA!hahA!HA!

In minerals from the mine outside of Ytterby (which is located in Vaxholm's municipality, in the archipelago outside of Stockholm)) a grand total of 8 new elements have been discovered. Not only Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium & Erbium, but also Holmium, Skandium, Tulium & Gadolinium. These are named after the latin name for Stockholm (Holmia (Holmium)), Scandinavia (Skandium), the latin name for Scandinavia (Thule (Thulium)) and Johan Gadolin (Gadolinium).

Who is Darth Nothevader ?

Some Danish fellow.

Someone I don't need to know, right ? :biggrin:

I know nooothing!

So move along folks, nothing to see here!! :)

Hey! I was saving those for later!

Ok, here's a list of some other elements named after places:

• Gallium (Ga)
• Germanium (Ge)
• Strontium (Sr)
• Tellurium (Te)
• Cerium (Ce)
• Palladium (Pa)
• Europium (Eu)
• Lutetium (Lu)
• Rhenium (Re)
• Polonium (Po)
• Francium (Fr)
• Uranium (U)
• Neptunium (Np)
• Plutonium (Pu)
• Americium (Am)
• Berkelium (Bk)
• Californium (Cf)
• Dubnium (Db)
• Hassium (Hs)
• Darmstadtium (Ds)

So we have several elements named after Swedish places and one after some Danish city. NO elements are named after places in Norway (Scandium and Europium don't count)!!!! Can't have that! I hereby claim ownership of the following elements:

• Ununtrium (Uut)
• Ununquadium (Uuq)
• Ununpentium (Uup)
• Ununhexium (Uuh)
• Ununseptium (Uus)
• Ununoctium (Uuo)

Says PhosphorusIodineBoronBoronUraniumSetOfRealNumbers

Hassium is named after Hessen, a German Fedral State, and Darmstadtium is named after Darmstadt, a German town … I think it lies in Hessen as well, but anyway, it's a University town.

For your fun : "Darmstadt" would literally translated be "Guttown".
There funny named here, you know. ;)

Hessen, by the way, has connections to the aristocrat house of Oranienburg-Nassau - Oranje -> het Nederlande and Nassau -> yes, you have already guessed it : Nassau in the U.S.A. …

All these three things are related to one another, although I don't quite remember how.

But you don't need to know that anyway. ;)

Sorry, wanted to shine as well. After all, I'm a soon to be chemist who live just outside of Stockholm, so this is my field ;)

Anyway, what happened to pibbur?

Sorry, but that's one of the things you don't need to know!! :)

You're welcome.
It's a bit embarassing. I sort of deleted him. I sometimes do things like that, it's stupid, and I always regret afterwards. (I've actually done it once before, then Myrthos helped me revive him). This time, I chose to recreate him in stead.

BTW: The Armenian word for "uninformed" is "անտեղյակ". I mention this because in addition to the Rumenian word ("neinformat"), this is the only translation en.wiktionary.org is informed about.

43, nice. ;)

This may scare you, but who cares?

Every second approximately 2.5 million red blood cells are destroyed in your body. Which means that each year 300% of your total red blood cell populiation is annihilated.

Tomorrow I may reveal how many are produced.

Yes. This may come as a surprise to you, but normally the production rate is, with small fluctuations, the same as the rate of destruction. Kind of handy. Average lifetime of red blood cells is 120 days, so you replace your blood every 4th month.

Several other tissues are dynamic in the sense that they are continuously destroyed and replaced. The average renewal rate of:

.. bones: 10 years
.. skin (outer layers): 1 month

And if you spend the weekend partying, you've got new and fresh intestines (the inner layers) on monday. Which probably is a good thing.

The liver have remarkable recovery potential. You can remove half of it, and it will regrow. This makes liver transplantations from live donors possible.

Other tissues are not so flexible. Especially the nervous system. Normally, you lose nerve cells every day, some say around 1000, and with a few (possible) exceptions they are not replaced. No worries, normally, we've got billions of'em.

Says pibbur who realizes he has changed a lot since birth.

How about my brain cells? Can I be rebrained?

Sorry to disappoint you, but brain cells, meaning the nerve cells, usually don't proliferate (there are about 10 times as many supporting cells (glia cells) in the brain, but unlike the nerve cells, they don''t process information)

However, nerve cell projections can regrow if damaged. The result depends on whether the sheaths in which they run are intact or not. If they too are damaged the nerve endings may loose track and go places they're not supposed to. Problem is: Your brain don't know this happened. One example: Damage to your facial nerve, which among other functions controls secretion of saliva and tears, may result in "crying" whenever you see or smell a well prepared steak. Or other things you'd like to eat.

says pibbur who thinks most people don't need to know this.