Tell me a little-known fact.

In a little town in southern Alabama, named Enterprise, there is a monument celebrating the Boll Weevil. It is the only monument for an insect in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boll_Weevil_Monument

NO, Saturn does not have that shape. But there is a weather system in the part of Saturn's atmosphere around the planet's north pole which does have that shape. There is carbon compound known as the benzine ring. It is composed of 6 carbon atoms in a hexagon formation, joined to hydrogen atoms facing inwards. Chemists like to draw this molecule as a simple hexagon with a circle inside of it, because the electrons in carbon atoms are shared equally between the atoms. Benzine has a strong aroma and its derivatives are sometimes called aromatic compounds. It's a carcinogen. My chemistry teacher told me this at school.


As regards hexagonal cells in a hive, that shape is structurally very stable. The same is true of triangles, but here my knowledge runs out.

Amateur chemists and those still in high school.

Once you get to your first semester of chemistry at uni, drawing benzene with a ring in the middle will get you a big fat zero.

This is because benzene, as you said, is an aromatic compound and is incredibly stable. One main reason for this stability is that benzene has an alternating sequence of C-C and C=C bonds. The electrons don't stay put and are constantly moving around the ring, thereby causing the C-C and C=C positions to shift back and forth by one position (hence the ring + circle).

As shown below:



As a chemist either at uni or post uni, you are expected to draw benzene showing its single and double bonds, so you can work out its reaction mechanism and demonstrate the movement of electrons and changes in bonds/polarity. In such cases, you only need to draw one version of the molecule.

By 2nd year they get more flexible on how things are drawn.

7 facts on health in the sea of outrageous controversy and muddied perceptions:

1. "Vitamin D" is actually like a hormone, but was miscategorized;

2. Vitamin B12 is stored in the liver for years (about 2-6 years supply), and is by no means a daily, weekly or monthly requirement;

3. Table salt (sodium chloride) is not needed by the body and that form actually harms the functions of several organs and the circulatory system (yes, your body needs some form of sodium: eat your onions!);

4. Peppers are fruit; coffee "beans" are not beans; peanuts are not nuts; bananas are not a great source of potassium;

5. The human body makes all the protein it needs as long as it gets the essential amino acids (we, like horses, gorillas and elephants, don't need to eat any protein whatsoever!);

6. It's better to suntan for minutes at high noon than it is to get the equivalent beneficial UV rays over a longer period of time in the early mornings and late afternoons (because the ratio of healthy to unhealthy UV ray types is greater when the sun is most intensely beating down on us);

7. Fluoride used to be in rat poison and was an industrial byproduct classified as hazardous waste; the U.S. treasury secretary of the 1920's lobbied to turn an expensive effluent of production into a profitable product by getting cities in Michigan and Wisconsin to put it in the water supply.

As regards hexagonal cells in a hive, that shape is structurally very stable.

  Mentioning that bees deliberately create honey cells hardly equates to a 32000km-wide cloud formation with its own matching jet stream formation.

There is carbon compound known as the benzine ring. It is composed of 6 carbon atoms in a hexagon formation, joined to hydrogen atoms facing inwards.

So? A vague comment about benzine is totally unrelated to a massive and constant weather formation that is unheard of on any other planet or body in the universe. 

As regards hexagonal cells in a hive, that shape is structurally very stable.

  Mentioning that bees deliberately create honey cells hardly equates to a 32000km-wide cloud formation with its own matching jet stream formation.

There is carbon compound known as the benzine ring. It is composed of 6 carbon atoms in a hexagon formation, joined to hydrogen atoms facing inwards.

So? A vague comment about benzine is totally unrelated to a massive and constant weather formation that is unheard of on any other planet or body in the universe. 

Yet they all fit the “little known fact” theme of this thread.

As regards hexagonal cells in a hive, that shape is structurally very stable.

  Mentioning that bees deliberately create honey cells hardly equates to a 32000km-wide cloud formation with its own matching jet stream formation.

There is carbon compound known as the benzine ring. It is composed of 6 carbon atoms in a hexagon formation, joined to hydrogen atoms facing inwards.

So? A vague comment about benzine is totally unrelated to a massive and constant weather formation that is unheard of on any other planet or body in the universe. 

Yet they all fit the “little known fact” theme of this thread.

 

would appear that cyanea misunderstood the thread title...

 

All numbers are interesting; and this can be proven with a negative example: if there were even a single number that had no interesting properties, that fact in itself would make it unique and interesting.

All numbers are interesting; and this can be proven with a negative example: if there were even a single number that had no interesting properties, that fact in itself would make it unique and interesting.

Well, as long as you don't make the distinction between "mathematically interesting" and "culturally interesting".

Hank Snow left home when he was 12 years old with a battered old guitar. He made it to the top of the top of the heap in Nashville. A superstar in a room full of superstars.

Koalas have one of the smallest brain to body ratio in the animal kingdom, partly due to the lack of nutrition they get from eucalyptus, which is a reason why they sleep a lot. 

(I didn't know this, until I read the text today on next week's test paper)

Koalas have one of the smallest brain to body ratio in the animal kingdom, partly due to the lack of nutrition they get from eucalyptus, which is a reason why they sleep a lot. 

(I didn't know this, until I read the text today on next week's test paper)

That ratio only applies to mammals though.
Reptiles and all the other lower orders cheat by not bothering to develop a number of the brain lobal stuff that mammals are forced to.

Koalas have one of the smallest brain to body ratio in the animal kingdom, partly due to the lack of nutrition they get from eucalyptus, which is a reason why they sleep a lot. 

(I didn't know this, until I read the text today on next week's test paper)

That ratio only applies to mammals though.
Reptiles and all the other lower orders cheat by not bothering to develop a number of the brain lobal stuff that mammals are forced to.

okay Dr Dolittle!! 

okay Dr Dolittle!! 

I rather Dolittle than Knowlittle. 

okay Dr Dolittle!! 

I rather Dolittle than Knowlittle. 

aw, I got owned by a Level 1 moderator.   I'll never live this down...



don't tell my dog friends about this...

From the time Pluto was first discovered until the time it was reclassified as a dwarf planet (73 years) it still hadn't completed a single orbit of the sun (orbital period = 248 years).

From the time Pluto was first discovered until the time it was reclassified as a dwarf planet (73 years) it still hadn't completed a single orbit of the sun (orbital period = 248 years).

Ha!  That's what you get for being slow Pluto.  All the other planets did it in time, while the Sun football coach watched on with his whistle ready.  'Get a move on Uranus or no shower for you!'  'Pick those legs up Mars!'  'Hey Saturn, my mum can orbit faster than you and she's only a Quasar.  Don't tell her or else she'll go supernovae on me!' 

Those puns were astronomically bad. They should be cast into the black hole of oblivion and the punner kicked where the sun don't shine. 

From the time Pluto was first discovered until the time it was reclassified as a dwarf planet (73 years) it still hadn't completed a single orbit of the sun (orbital period = 248 years).

That fact is far out.

Ha!  That's what you get for being slow Pluto.  All the other planets did it in time, while the Sun football coach watched on with his whistle ready.  'Get a move on Uranus or no shower for you!'  'Pick those legs up Mars!'  'Hey Saturn, my mum can orbit faster than you and she's only a Quasar.  Don't tell her or else she'll go supernovae on me!' 

Guessing they were playing on astroturf? 

The elephant is the only 4-legged animal with 4 knees.