totay's fascinating fact (yes I did mean TODAY'S)

[Bunnylump]

Do you ever hear something and find it absolutely fascinating / shocking?

I found out today that
lilies are poisonous to cats.

Apparently even eating half a leaf or licking lily pollen off the fur can cause a cat to have kidney failure!!

I've just thrown away a lily from some flowers just in case!

[tricia]

Ive heard that Poinsettias are also poisonous to cats. I'll not buy one as O;lly is daft - he would try to eat it - .................


He eats plastic!

Stupid cat

[Biscuit]

i thought they were poisonous for humans too.

Also - can anyone confirm whether the water runs anti clockwise in australia (drains backwards out of the bath) - someone told me it did but thought they might be pulling my leg:)

[Bunnylump]

Yes, apparently it does, but I haven't ever been to the southern hemisphere so I can't say I've seen it personally. I may be wrong but I think it's something to do with the coriolis effect.

OK here's another thing. Did you know that cheetahs are one of the few members of the cat family which find it really difficult to climb trees? Their shapes and muscles are designed purely for sprinting. And they can go from 0-64mph in 3 seconds. That's faster than a Porsche 918 Spyder or a F1 Mclaren.

[giraffe]

So which is the fastest feline vertically?

[Bunnylump]

Depends how much nitroglycerine they have up their bums...

[LAT]

I did know about lilies and cats. In fact when we got out kittens last year the Cats Protection League made us sign something to say that we didn't have lilies. So we dug up the ones we had in the garden. I didn't know poinsettias were also poisonous though.

And I had also heard that about bathwater in Australia but the only time I went south of the equator (in Indonesia many years ago) I forgot to check.

[Scurra]

You can make the water swirl either way in either hemisphere - the "coriolis effect" is so slight that it won't really influence anything at a small scale. It does make very big things like cyclones spin the opposite way - but not something as trivial as your bathwater or the toilet. </spoilsport>

[Bunnylump]

Aw. That's upsetting. But I seem to remember watching a Michael Palin programme where as soon as he crossed the equator that did happen?

[MBH]

So which is the fastest feline vertically?

Travelling upwards or downwards??

....Their shapes and muscles are designed purely for sprinting.

That's a similar story I heard about people from the African countries that can be amazing runners but don't excel at swimming. [NO! I'm not saying they can't swim - just that they are weaker at it]

[clvrlad]

You can make the water swirl either way in either hemisphere - the "coriolis effect" is so slight that it won't really influence anything at a small scale. It does make very big things like cyclones spin the opposite way - but not something as trivial as your bathwater or the toilet. </spoilsport>

In 1908, the Austrian physicist Otto Tumlirz described careful and effective experiments which demonstrated the effect of the rotation of the Earth on the outflow of water through a central aperture.[26] The subject was later popularized in a famous article in the journal Nature, which described an experiment in which all other forces to the system were removed by filling a 6-foot (1.8 m) tank with 300 US gallons (1,100 l) of water and allowing it to settle for 24 hours (to remove any internal velocity), in a room where the temperature had stabilized. The drain plug was then very slowly removed, and tiny pieces of floating wood were used to observe rotation. During the first 12 to 15 minutes, no rotation was observed. Then, a vortex appeared and consistently began to rotate in a counter-clockwise direction (the experiment was performed in the Northern hemisphere, in Boston, MA). This was repeated and the results averaged to make sure the effect is real. The report noted that the vortex rotated, "about 30,000 times faster than the effective rotation of the earth in 42° North (the experiment's location)". Thus, the Coriolis effect can indeed play a role in vortex rotation for liquids that have come to rest and drain slowly from a large, symmetrical container and may be observed under carefully controlled laboratory conditions.[27][28]

/spoilsport2

[Scurra]

I see you can quote from Wikipedia with the best of us, clrvlad.
Under controlled conditions, it can be shown that the effect is real. No-one is disputing that. But to get your bathwater to swirl depends more on circumstance than on the coriolis effect (e.g. it would require your bath to perfectly flat, there to be no atmospheric effects and the volume to be large enough to be significant, which is pretty much what that passage says.)

[Bunnylump]

Well, I'm off to purchase my perfectly flat bath right now to check... Actually, I just asked my friend (who happened to have a NZ friend staying to ask her. She says that yes, indeed her bathwater does seem to go in the opposite direction. So maybe she has a perfectly flat bath and no atmospheric effects...well, either that or she can't remember which way is goes here because she hasn't had a bath since she's been staying...)

I did have to laugh though. The same girl from NZ was being lectured by one of our other friends who can be a monumental bore about kayaking. This is her latest obsession, and she lives and breathes it. (Mid life crisis OR WHAT??) So much so that she tried to make me go "it really helps sort out your "bingo wings" - you should come!" (thanks for that, I quite like my bingo wings ). Anyway, she had sat with Frances for about an hour, having her cornered in the pub, telling her in minute detail all about some new kayaking safety roll she had just learned. Frances listened patiently and then said:

"Yes, I do know all about that. You do realise that my husband and I run a watersports business and are both qualified instructors, don't you?"

That shut her up. It does SOMETIMES pay to ask about other people methinks...

[clvrlad]

I see you can quote from Wikipedia with the best of us, clrvlad.
Under controlled conditions, it can be shown that the effect is real. No-one is disputing that. But to get your bathwater to swirl depends more on circumstance than on the coriolis effect (e.g. it would require your bath to perfectly flat, there to be no atmospheric effects and the volume to be large enough to be significant, which is pretty much what that passage says.)

well i take those to show hes eliminating them to make a controlled enviroment
and only the forces he wishes to study are present (basically good science)
the last phrase

Thus, the Coriolis effect can indeed play a role in vortex rotation for liquids that have come to rest and drain slowly from a large, symmetrical container and may be observed under carefully controlled laboratory conditions.

large symmetrical container??
hmmmm... sound like a bath at all???

[Bunnylump]

Yes, it sounds just like my new flat bath I bought this afternoon especially for the experiment.

[clvrlad]

Yes, it sounds just like my new flat bath I bought this afternoon especially for the experiment.

putting it in your brothers shed?

[Bunnylump]

No, it isn't made of brass. Only brass and real ale is allowed in Small Timbers. Yes, really. I think that's why Small Timbers needed to have Tiny Timbers (its own shed) built next to it, so the microwave ("because you never know when you'll need to heat a pie") and the hoover (for Small Timbers' carpet) could go in there instead.

He's built a verandah for one of his wife's sheds now, and a belltower for another one...and they STILL have the full sized Captain Kirk pinball machine in their dining room. Oh, and a dolls' house which is a complete scale model of their house in the sitting room. I might add that their daughter is 27 and left home last year...

[clvrlad]

you mean he hasnt made a brass hoover yet?
hmmmmm or a brass micro wave.......

[Bunnylump]

Just don't give him any ideas. He has a phone in Small Timbers which has a recorded message on it. It states "We are sorry but Small Timbers is presently closed. It is usually manned between 6-9pm. Please leave a message or visit www.smalltimbers.com.

And before you check it out, there isn't one...YET. Although there is an information point.

[MBH]

I'm so glad I'm your NORMAL brother - he saounds..... unique? The dolls house sounds creepy - are you sure the CSI team aren't looking for him?