One Of My Favorite Things About Our History – That Is, Humanity’s History – Is Fireworks. Over
One of my favorite things about our history – that is, humanity’s history – is fireworks. Over a thousand years ago, some Chinese alchemists discovered that they could combine charcoal, sulfur, and potassium nitrate to create explosions.
And the first thing they did with that knowledge was use it to create something spectacular and celebratory – fireworks. It wasn’t immediately used as weaponry. That seems very special to me. So much of our history has been about creating new ways to destroy one another. And yet, one of the most arguably innovative and effective of those weapons, the substance that would later come to be known as gunpowder, was not originally used for that destructive purpose at all.
It rather gives me hope, that we as humanity can create things for the purpose of beauty instead of destruction.
@space-australians
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Traces of coca and nicotine found in Egyptian mummies - WTF fun facts
Something I find incredibly cool is that they’ve found neandertal bone tools made from polished rib bones, and they couldn’t figure out what they were for for the life of them.
Until, of course, they showed it to a traditional leatherworker and she took one look at it and said “Oh yeah sure that’s a leather burnisher, you use it to close the pores of leather and work oil into the hide to make it waterproof. Mine looks just the same.”
“Wait you’re still using the exact same fucking thing 50,000 years later???”
“Well, yeah. We’ve tried other things. Metal scratches up and damages the hide. Wood splinters and wears out. Bone lasts forever and gives the best polish. There are new, cheaper plastic ones, but they crack and break after a couple years. A bone polisher is nearly indestructible, and only gets better with age. The more you use a bone polisher the better it works.”
It’s just.
50,000 years. 50,000. And over that huge arc of time, we’ve been quietly using the exact same thing, unchanged, because we simply haven’t found anything better to do the job.
I hope im not just a blog you follow but also the only person with 100% correct opinions about the little mermaid
🐯 🐯 🐯
So,,, at work today I was chatting with this customer, a lady who had her two young daughters with her (8 months and 4 years), and partway into our conversation I realized she was talking to me like I was a fellow mom. Saying like, ‘you know how they are at that age when so and so’. She legit somehow assumed I was old enough to have children of my own, and seemed kind of surprised when it became clear that I did not, in fact, have kids.
I couldn’t figure out how to tell her that I am a Teenager.
this is cool and I’m definitely going to look into it more
Cool Tip
If you are like me and always need to be working on something to keep your anxiety under control, during this quarentine why not helping scientists by looking at pictures of some neat penguins? or even galaxies? There’s this site call Zooniverse, where you can help on scientific projects by analyzing pictures and data! Right now my favorite project has returned, called Penguin Watch (where yeah, you get to watch penguins, it’s amazing)
you basically have to analyse photos looking for penguins, their chicks, eggs or even predators and human interaction But there are lots of interesting projects you can help in areas such as biology, physics, history or even art:
Oh and the best part, some institutions even accept it as volunteering/service hour requirements for graduation and scholarships!! It’s helping me a lot during this time, so I thought it was worth sharing
“Your bruises and your scars
Tell a story on your skin.
They tell us who you are
And they map out where you’ve been.”
- me.
Well-behaved women seldom make history.
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
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princess-of-lions reblogged this · 6 years ago
