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Cerebral doping 2, forging a sword with the blood of your enemies

Surprising facts about history, astronomy, nature and macabre blacksmithing. Ten shots and ten pills
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Cerebral doping 2, forging a sword with the blood of your enemies

Second installment in the cerebral doping series; 10 surprising facts about history, astronomy, nature and macabre blacksmithing, plus 10 pills.

Without further ado, we begin with the first pill; Mexico is not called Mexico. The official name of the country is United Mexican States. This name was adopted 3 years after independence from Spain in 1821.

The origin of the name Mexico lies in the fact that long before the Spanish conquerors arrived, the Aztecs called themselves Mexica, although this is not a consensual theory. The official name has been the subject of several unsuccessful attempts to rename the country simply as “Mexico”.

10 The intelligence of the crow

There is wisdom from a faraway land that says; “raise crows and they will peck out your eyes”. Corvids are not only the most intelligent birds; they are probably the most intelligent animal species after humans and primates. Their brain-to-body weight ratio matches large cetaceans and apes, and is only slightly lower than humans.

Known for stealing objects, they are capable of solving relatively complex problems, using and manufacturing tools, as well as anticipating future events.

crow
The intelligence of the crow.

Crows understand causality; they can reason, count up to 5 and remember human faces, even recognizing moods to their own advantage. They also have excellent long-term memory. When they hold a grudge against a human, they keep it for life and pass it on to their peers.

Among other observed skills, they have been seen using small branches to pick up food, throwing bread crumbs to attract fish and catch them, or pulling fishing nets to seize hooked fish.

Experiments have also been conducted in which they exchanged food for stolen objects. If crows could talk…

9 The speed of the Earth

By the time you finish reading this sentence, you will have traveled about 3500km (2175 miles) through space. Our planet has numerous movements; rotation, precession, translation, it moves along with the solar system through the Milky Way and our galaxy travels through the universe toward “the Great Attractor”.

The rotational movement around itself takes 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.09053 seconds to complete, making a full turn at the equator of 40075km (24900 miles). The rotational speed is therefore about 1656km/h (1029 mph).

Tierra earth
The Earth travels at full speed through space. We would only notice if it suddenly stopped.

The translational movement around the sun during 365 days is completed at a speed of 108000km/h (67100 mph).

The solar system revolves around the Milky Way near the center, Sagittarius A, in gravitational equilibrium, at a speed of 792000km/h (492000 mph). Since its birth, the sun has completed only 20 revolutions around Sagittarius A, so one could say it has 20 galactic years.

The Milky Way travels through intergalactic space toward a gravitational anomaly called “the Great Attractor”, located 150 million light years away, at a speed of 3,600,000km/h (2,237,000 mph).

8 Welcome to Lactomeda

Speaking of the Great Attractor, the Milky Way does not travel alone toward this gravitational anomaly, which is 100 quadrillion times larger than our sun, with an extension of 500 million light years.

We move along with the neighboring Andromeda galaxy… on a collision course. This means that before reaching the Great Attractor, both galaxies will have merged into a new one, called Milkdromeda.

The beginning of the collision was expected in 4-5 billion years. The latest news is that the Milky Way and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy have already begun to merge through their halos, according to a study conducted by the Amiga Project using the Hubble telescope. Galactic halos are clouds of gas, particles and stray stars that envelop galaxies.

Milkdromeda
Andromeda seen through the Hubble telescope.

Although Andromeda contains 1 trillion stars and the Milky Way 300 billion, a chaotic fusion process with violent collisions is not expected due to the enormous amount of empty space and gas between the objects that make up the galaxies.

It is possible that during the fusion process celestial objects may collide but it is a lottery with negligible statistical probabilities.

The union will be completed in 5.8 billion years. By then, Earth will not exist because the sun will become a supernova engulfing our planet in 5.5 billion years. If humanity does not manage to develop intergalactic travel before then, it will become extinct, assuming it has not self-extinguished earlier.

7 Not even a year has passed since Pluto was discovered

We’re talking about a Plutonian year here. Since its discovery in 1930, Pluto has not completed a full orbit around the sun. The next Plutonian year will not begin until 2178 when the current orbit ends, a cycle that occurs every 247.6 Earth years.

In 1930 Pluto was declared the 9th official planet of the solar system, only to be demoted to a dwarf planet in 2006 because it shares its orbit with other Kuiper Belt objects known as “plutinos”.

pluto New Horizons
Pluto photographed by the New Horizons space probe on July 14, 2015. We want it reinstated as a planet now!

The demotion sparked worldwide protest, along with a movement demanding its reinstatement as a planet.

Pluto is accompanied by at least two other dwarf planets, Sedna and 2012 VP113, which may have been pushed away from the sun by the gravitational pull of a hypothetical Planet X.

6 The gaze of the owl

Associated with wisdom, emissaries from beyond, the most striking feature of owls is their large eyes, which give them a penetrating gaze. When observing, these birds move their heads inquisitively, fixing their eyes on anything that captures their attention.

snow owl
If we review a few dozen images of owls, we will notice that their eyes are always centered in their sockets because they cannot move them.

This behavior has a physiological explanation. Owls’ eyes are not round balls. They are cylindrical in shape and fixed by bones called sclerotic rings. This means they cannot move their eyes.

To compensate for this limitation, owls developed an evolutionary adaptation that allows them to rotate their heads 270 degrees to the right and left and 90 degrees up and down. For this reason, it seems as if they stare so intently while moving their heads.

5 Small pills

  • Humans are a species closer to Tyrannosaurus Rex than the T Rex is to Stegosaurus, although in dinosaur films these two animals often appear as if they lived in the same period.
  • The lighter was invented before matches.
  • The smell of freshly cut grass is a defense mechanism of the plant. It impregnates herbivores that feed on it with the aroma to attract their predators. Carnivores kill their prey and once dead, herbivores stop eating the grass.
  • The placebo effect is real. It has been documented in hundreds of medical cases. This means the brain is capable of curing serious diseases on its own.
  • The color purple does not exist, it is not a real light frequency. It is the way the human brain mistakenly interprets mixed blue and red frequencies.
  • Bats did not inspire vampires. Vampire bats were discovered in South America in the 16th century, while the earliest European vampire stories date back to the 12th century.
  • The atavistic power of fire; watching a campfire or flames in a fireplace lowers blood pressure.
  • The formal attire of Roman citizens was the toga. In Roman elections, candidates for political office rubbed their white togas with chalk so they appeared whiter and purer. These togas were called “toga candida” – pure white – and from this comes the term “candidate”.
  • Polar bears spend their entire lives wandering on sea ice, which is why they are classified as marine mammals, like whales or seals.
  • The most powerful radio in history, WLW of Cincinnati, broadcast in the 1930s at a power of 500kW. It was possible to tune in across half the planet and neighbors living near the antenna, claimed they could hear the broadcasts reverberating in metal utensils such as pots, pans or mattresses (because of the springs).

4 Tree matters

Matter 1 An effective form of reforestation is releasing squirrels. These rodents plant millions of trees every year due to a paradoxical evolutionary behavior. They continuously collect fruits such as acorns and nuts but forget where they have buried some of their caches. The buried seeds give rise to new trees that provide them with more food, thanks to having forgotten them.

Matter 2; Two Israeli scientists managed to plant a date tree with seeds found by archaeologists that were 2000 years old. With these seeds, they cultivated a male and a female date palm, extinct for hundreds of years in the Judean deserts. In 2021, they began to bear fruit, the same dates consumed in biblical times.

ardilla squirrel
Squirrels are a vector of natural reforestation.

Matter 3; Certain oak populations are capable of synchronizing across multiple specimens to stop producing acorns for an entire year. The following year, by contrast, they carry out a massive production known as the oak’s “mast year”. It is believed that the year of scarcity is intended to starve the mammals that eat acorns, since these fruits are the seeds that give life to oak saplings.

Matter 4; Caffeine is a natural defense mechanism of plants that produce this substance. When the leaves of trees such as coffee plants or tea plants fall to the ground, they decompose releasing caffeine that is toxic to other plant species, preventing them from growing nearby and competing for soil nutrients and sunlight.

3 Penguin sanctuary in minefields of the Falklands

During the Falklands War in 1982, numerous minefields were planted on the islands that were never cleared after the conflict ended.

Some of these dangerous mined areas have become a sanctuary for local Magellanic penguins, since their light weight cannot trigger the detonators of the explosives, while humans or larger predators can.

Malvinas falklands
Penguins enjoying themselves in a beach minefield of the Falklands.

By the way, the Falklands are the Malvinas, too. The islands were named Îles Malouines by the French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, founder of the first settlement in 1764. However, the British explorer John Strong had surveyed the San Carlos Strait in 1690, calling it Falkland Sound, from which the English name of the islands originates.

Both the name of the islands and many local toponyms differ in English and Spanish. After the 1982 war, the UN decided that the official name of the islands was Falklands, except in Spanish, where they are still the Malvinas.

The inhabitants use exclusively the term Falklands. The Magellanic penguins do not care.

2 Viking men looked like Viking ladies and vice versa

A fact long known to archaeologists, this is another Viking myth that falls, surpassed by reality.

Viking women were the females with the most acquired rights in medieval Europe and could choose to become skjaldmæ – shieldmaidens or warrior women.

Represented in film and television through the distorted vision of Vikings promoted in modern society, shieldmaidens are portrayed as dazzling catwalk models dressed as if they were Nordic heavy metal singers.

vikinga
In the television series Vikings, actress Katheryn Winnick played Lagertha, a legendary shieldmaiden of the Viking sagas, dressed as if she were the singer-model of a Nordic heavy metal band. A real shieldmaiden would have been heavier, with extra body fat to protect vital organs in combat and displayed bruises and scars everywhere.

“Sexual dimorphism” is the scientific term used to describe physical differences between males and females in animal species, including humans.

What is the issue with the Vikings? In archaeological sites, the skeletons of men and women are practically identical. Before DNA analysis was available, it was impossible to discern whether the remains belonged to a Viking man or woman.

This implies that women and men looked very similar physically. All skeletons are of similar stature, tending toward short and the jaws along with the male brow ridge were less prominent, so men’s faces appeared more feminine or vice versa. Men also wore garish makeup similar to women, and some even dyed their hair a blondish white (Viking suicide blond).

vikinga
Porunn, another unrealistic shieldmaiden from the series Vikings.

In real life, a warrior woman would look very different from the catwalk models. When fighting with bladed weapons protected by light armor such as leather coats, warriors tried to accumulate body fat to prevent cuts from reaching vital organs.

A Viking shieldmaiden would have been a woman of much greater weight, with an appearance similar to her male companions and her skin covered with scars, bruises and blows everywhere. Someday it may be discovered that the myth of Viking women having beards was true.

1 It is possible to forge a sword with the blood of your enemies

All the blood running through your veins comes from a supernova that exploded billions of years ago. With that iron, technically, it would be possible to forge a sword with the blood of your fallen enemies.

First, one would need to kill and drain the blood of 300 adults. Then the iron would have to be extracted and smelted into an ingot suitable for forging the sword.

Forjando una espada con la sangre de tus enemigos
Forging a sword with the blood of your dead enemies.

Here are the numbers;

An average adult male has approximately 4 grams (0.14 oz) of iron running through his veins. Adult women have about 3.5 grams (0.12 oz).

A medieval longsword weighs between 1.1kg (2.4 lbs) – 1.8kg (4.0 lbs) = 1100gr (38.4 oz) – 1800gr (64 oz).

The smallest sword would be obtained with the blood of 1100gr (38.4 oz) / 4gr (0.14 oz) = 275 adults. The largest, with the blood of 1800gr (64 oz) / 4gr (0.14 oz) = 450 adults.

This is the AK-47 assault rifle, the preferred weapon of your enemy. It makes a distinctive sound when fired at you, so remember it and support col2.com in the name of peace.

Est.1875 

Nolumus credere, velimus scire

 Column II

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