52 things I learnt in 2019

When I spoke at my mother’s funeral last year I mentioned the old African proverb ‘when an old person dies, a library burns to the ground.’ Like many of our elderly, she took a multitude of skills and knowledge with her when she left this world. As a prolific reader and conference attendee I started thinking about the knowledge I pick up each year. So I started capturing those moments when I was struck with awe, shock or amazement about the world we live in. I hope you enjoy the 52 things I learnt.

1. We have two senses of smell – an external sense of smell (orthonasal olfaction) and an internal sense (retronasal olfaction) produced by exhaling to detect the quality of what we have just eaten (Barry C. Smith - TEDx).

2. Taste is an amalgam of taste, touch, and smell. The only difference between potato chips that ‘taste’ fresh or stale is their difference in texture (Barry C. Smith - TEDx).

3. The smell of vanilla can make a liquid we sip ‘taste’ sweeter or less sour (Barry C. Smith - TEDx).

4. We only see one ten-trillionth of the electromagnetic spectrum as visible light (David Eagleman – Business Insider).

5. There are 10 to the power of 9 seconds in a lifetime, 10 to the power of 15 synapses in a human brain and the sun will shine for 10 to the power of 17 seconds (Terrence Sejnowski - Edge).

6. The Flynn effect demonstrates an average rise in intelligence as much as 3 IQ points per decade since the early 20th century (James Flynn - TED).

7. The Pareto principle was first described over 100 years ago by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto who discovered that no matter what the country, the richest quintile of the population controlled most of the wealth (Kevin Kruse - Forbes).

8. In 2010 it was estimated that 388 individuals possessed as much household wealth as the lower half of the population (3.5 billion people). In 2019 it is estimated to be just 26 individuals (Bruce M Boghosian).

9. We should really know both the PDF and DALY of our consumables. PDF is the ‘partially diminished fraction’ of an ecosystem and DALY is the ‘disability-adjusted life years’. For example, with a shampoo, these numbers tell us how much impact the product has had on the environment and how dangerous a lifetimes cumulative exposure is likely to have on us (Daniel Goleman - Edge).

10. Smallpox remains the only disease we have completely eradicated. It killed an estimated 300 million people in the 20th century alone (The roots of progress).

11. Microbes run the world making up 80% of the biomass on the planet. In one-fifth of a teaspoon of seawater there are 1 million bacteria and 10 million viruses (Stewart Brand - Microbes Run the World).

12. Pharmacomicrobiomics is demonstrating that our particular gut microbes may hinder or help the effects of medicines (Claudia Wallis – Scientific American).

13. Barbara McClintock was ignored and ridiculed by the scientific community for 32 years before winning the 1983 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for discovering ‘jumping genes’ (Famous Scientists).

14. Foot rails in pubs and bars are designed to reduce stress on the lower back thus extending the time people can stand and drink. They gained popularity in the 1800s and are now present in almost every pub (Wayne Curtis – imbibe).

15. The country with the worst health outcomes today is better off than the best country a century ago (Bill Gates – blog).

16. The largest area of improvement for mortality has been with kids under 5 years of age. Deaths have dropped from 12 million in 1990 to 6 million in 2017 (Bill Gates – blog).

17. Self-cleaning concrete has been created by adding titanium dioxide particles. The particles absorb UV light to create free radial ions which break down organic dirt (Mark Miodownik – Stuff matters).

18. The clear crystal of aluminum oxide becomes blue (sapphire) when iron is added and red (ruby) when chromium is added (Mark Miodownik – Stuff matters).

19. There are about 5.3 billion people on earth over the age of 15 and about 4 billion own a smartphone (Benedict Evans – blog). 

20. It’s a phone not a walkie-talkie. They’ve done the research and shown that holding the phone up to your ear and talking into it like a normal person won’t kill you (Kitty Flanagan – 488 Rules for life).

21. Modern dentistry is not fully grounded in current research (Ferris Jabr – The Atlantic).

22. JPEG is a group of people (Joint Photographic Experts Group) that created the standard for digital image compression in 1992 (Omar Shehata – Parametric Press).

23. The neurons in the frontal cortex are not fully wired till around age 25. Teenage excess risk is the downside and development of inventiveness, optimism and empathy are the upsides (Robert Sapolsky – Nautilus).

24. Microbes on earth can withstand millions of rads of ionizing radiation, acids and bases strong enough to dissolve our skin. They can grow in ice or thrive at temperatures greater than 100° Celcius (J. Craig Venter – This will make you smarter).

25. The aluminum walls of Apollo lunar module are so thin they could not be stamped into shape and had to be hand crafted (Oliver Morton – Wired). 

26. The spacesuits worn by the Apollo astronauts consisted of 21 layers of handsewn materials (Oliver Morton – Wired).

27. Our corporate careers are shorter than most of us believe with a sharp decline occurring after age 50 (Arthur C Brooks – The Atlantic).

28. Tens of thousands of lobotomies were performed in the United States from 1936 to the mid 1950’s. In 1949 the Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for the developing the procedure (Andrew Scull – Literary Hub). 

29. There is a worldwide shortage of sand and gravel required for building construction (Mette Bendixen et al – Nature).

30. Prior to the launch of the first credit card in 1958, by Bank of America, customers had to visit the bank and apply for a loan for individual purchases (Mine Safety Disclosures blog).

31. An estimated 60% of the meat eaten by 2040 will be alternative meat (Rowan Jacobsen – Outside).

32. Luxury hotel bathrooms lack toothpaste simply because it can’t be conceived as a luxury item (Daniel Engber – Slate).

33. From year 1 and 1700 the human population grew from about 200 million to about 600 million (Zachary Karabell – Foreign Affairs).

34. Currently the world is rapidly heading towards a shrinking global population (Zachary Karabell – Foreign Affairs).

35. Caviar was once a free bar snack like peanuts (Mark Kurlansky – Salt).

36. Starbucks has around $1.6 billion in stored value on their pre-paid customer cards (JP Koning – blog).

37. Each year Starbucks banks about 10% of the stored value on their pre-paid cards due to customer loss, etc, where the card value is never redeemed (JP Koning – blog).

38. Scientists observing neural events in the brain can indicate a person’s decision begins a few seconds before the person is aware of their choice (Yuval Noah Harari – Homo Deus).

39. Committee meetings dominated by one or two members have been shown to lower the collective IQ of the group and lead to poor performance (David Robson – New Scientist).

40. Satellite images of Australian bush fire smoke show it has reached as far as South America (Adam Vaughan – New Scientist).

41. Partially revived pig brains following decapitation may lead to a redefinition of death (Christof Koch – Scientific American). 

42. 2019 Australian bush fires have led to the death of an estimated 500 million animals (Nerilie Abram – Scientific American).

43. In the southwest of Australia rainfall has declined by about 20% since the 1970’s and in the southeast about 11% since the 1990’s (Nerilie Abram – Scientific American). 

44. The machine that makes common paper clip was patented in 1899. The Gem clip was trademarked in 1904 and has remained unchanged since (Sara Goldsmith – Slate).

45. 1960 in Germany there were 110,000 religious nuns, in 1999 there were 38,348, now there are about 17,900 remaining (Felix Bohr – Spiegel).

46. Crisis negotiators are taught to avoid using the word ‘talk’ as it carries much less weight than the word ‘speak’ (William Park – BBC).

47. Waze was originally created in Israel by Ehud Shabtai who crowd sourced people to help build the product. It still relies on tens of thousands of unpaid Waze Map Editors (Jonathan Littman – LAMAG).

48. Starlink/Space X plans to have as many as 30,000 satellites circling the globe providing internet to all corners of the earth (Casey Handmer – blog).

49. Shackleton’s 1907 medical kit used on the Nimrod Expedition had contents that sounded more like a magic book of spells than emergency medical supplies (Gavin Francis – Granta).

50. Up until 1905 you were much better off staying away from the doctor if you were sick (John Tooby – Edge). 

51. Nominal fallacy is the mistake of believing you understand something just by naming it. Gravity, for example (Stuart Firestein – Edge).

52. We have two visual systems – one for how things look and the other for controlling action – and they operate independently of each other. (Mel Goodale & David Milner – the psychologist).