If you know anything about basic genetics, you know that for a certain triplet of DNA (like GTA or CAG or ATT), the little enzymes in your body know to go get an amino acid (a little piece of protein) and put it together to make a big protein.
I oversimplified, but that in itself is mind-blowing.
BUT it gets better…for two reasons: There is no biochemical reason for each triplet to equal a particular amino acid, AND This genetic code is the same for every living thing.
And the best part is that nobody actually came up with this brilliant idea. Either a Creator planned things very well, or there’s some sort of reverse entropy, where things were actually amde to be in order instead of the opposite.
Evolution. I watch every documentary on television that I can find, read every book I can find, read the threads in GD, and no matter how much I learn, it still absolutely blows me away. It’s so…eloquent…and exciting!
That’s not really true; my understanding is that scientific order doesn’t mean what people seem to think it does.
I agree with ya, pepperlandgirl - and speaking of Pepper Land, the Beatles’ movie Yellow Submarine blows my mind big-time. Ditto for 2001: A Space Odyssey.
oh, and:
the fact that we know that the blowfish is ok to eat if cut properly and the variations in cutting them by gender. I mean, I’m sure alot of people died figuring that one out, and yet people hung in there and figured it out. I mean, did the ocean run out of Bass at some point that they had to go eating the puffy thing with spines and poison?
That i can type on my own keyboard in some remote part of the world, and anyone on the net could read this, right now, in beijing, toyoko, NY, Greenland etc. Mental!!. and it goes so fast they are probably reading in real time, not having to wait while my message connects (on MSN this is)
If i am travelling in a plane at 500mph and a fly is inside flying at no more than 2mph, why isn’t it trapped up against the wall? it doesn’t make sense, inside its 0mph, but outside its 500? Weird
and of course the ‘whats out side the universe’ - sometimes when the world is getting too much, i sorta visualise tracking out from my home out into space, away from the coast, england, the world, moon, and realise how insignificant it is. - and that we are just pieces of elements, spinning and flying through space, for no reason. - I really don’t think life has a meaning, i just think its here - or - THERE MUST BE SOMETHING OTHER THAN US!, there has to be, how else could it come about - im not christian or anything, i just cant believe we are alone, spinning ever on towards nothing.
That I keep a couple of small animals in my house. I feed them and they are allowed to wander at will. They sleep on my bed and pretend to enjoy my company. I even train them for my own amusement.
Who the hell thought of bringing cats in the house? (actually I know it was the egyptians blah blah blah but it blows my mind when the cats curl up next to me at night. There are animals on my bed!)
If you’re wearing pants with a zippered fly, look down at your crotch. The tab for opening/closing the zipper most likely has letters] on it. Somewhere there is a machine whose only purpose is stamping those letters on little pieces of brass.
Sometime, somewhere, someone became the first person to eat an oyster.
Every atom in your body more complicated than hydrogen was created in a fusion furnace more than 5 billion years ago. Any element more massive than (I think) Iron was created during a nova or supernova explosion.
Photons created on the surface of the sun, can bounce off the moon onto the page of a book I’m holding. They then can bounce off the white space on the page through the lens of my eye to be focussed onto my retina. The retina absorbs the photons and creates electric charges that are separated and processed in many different ways. The results of these processes allow me to read the words written by another many years ago.
I think the idea of taking a picture of someone is amazing, how does that image get imprinted on the film? Or video tape? And fax machines, how can I put something in a fax machine here and they can receive it in a whole different country? Oh and that anyone chose Carrot Top as a spokesperson…
Margo
I’m the 13,523rd person to join the SDMB. Since I joined more then 20,000 other people have signed up. My first action was to start the 63,940th thread with the 1,199,940th post. Since then we’ve had more then 110,000 new threads and 2 million more posts.
Holy crap I’ve been here a long time, nearly 10% of my life. AND there are people who have been here twice as long as me. It’s always shocking when you realize how all these little things can add up very quickly.
That all of us (except clones, no wait, even clones) are results of an orgasm. (ugh, mom and dad)
That Jay Leno gets higher ratings than David Letterman.
That that shiny thing up in the sky is FLOATING. (stare at the full moon some night. don’t howl, just stare)
That no one on this board has ever tracked down another member and…boom.
That stars cool off ,expand and then explode sending matter throughout space which becomes life somewhere else. (I hope I got that right)
That people believe Phil Hendrie’s characters are real and call and argue with “them.” (just like that “blinking” thread that someone linked to earlier)
And last but not least, that I am going to die someday. Damn.
Music and musical instruments. Somewhere along the line people managed to combine strings and wood to make harps, fiddles, pianos, etc. And then they figured out how to tune and play them. And after that they managed to convert what they knew about music into mathematically based theory.
Consciousness. Why did nature decide that I should be self aware? Why do I appreciate things like music and laughter and love? And why do I have to lose all that when my body dies?
Many of the things that blow my mind have already been mentioned, so here’s something new: cooking.
I mean, someone came up with all these tasty recipes, and learned how to make pie, etc, purely by trial and error over the years. And the result now is that to make practically anything I can think of, all I need to do is look it up in a book! Whoah!
And speaking of cooking, cheese in general kinda blows my mind. The idea that, thousands of years ago, some caveman left the milk outside the cave and came out in the morning to find this yellowish, evil-smelling curd, and THEN proceeded to shrug and eat it anyway, and THEN proceeded to start coming up with more and more ways to encourage bacteria to eat the milk and make cheese over the years… just, wow.
I hate to keep echoing others’ sentiments but this is another thing that I think about sometimes. I love my cat like I do anyone else in my family but it’s just amazing to me sometimes that I have this otherwise wild animal in my house and that we like each other and get along. If this were forty thousand years ago and I did some of the things to his ancestors that I do to him now, I’d be lunch.
I’m amazed that the whole cigarette doesn’t catch on fire when you light it.
That there are better and faster ways to fasten shoes but shoelaces are still popular.
Same with a clock. There are digital clocks but we insist that our children learn to tell time on our obsolete clocks but don’t bother to show them how a sun-dial works.
I’m amazed at how I can sometimes remember a trivial detail years after I have no use for it anymore but I have to look really hard to find the keys that are in my hand.
On the same line…how a smell or odor can return a memory as if it happened yesterday.
I still stand by my theory that my mother had three immaculate conceptions. And the noises from their bedroom next to mine when I was growing up was just some really enthusiastic prayer. :eek:
Getting back to the OP:
The hardware sitting next to my desk right now could’ve been used to send the Apollo flights to the moon in the 70’s.
Women can find me attractive. (Ok, maybe not mind blowing, but still a source of amusement and amazement).
My brother has two children. And he lets me have contact with them, which is only mind blowing considering I’m the the kind of uncle who teaches children fart jokes.
That I have been on my own and independent for a third of my life come friday. Holy crap, I’m almost 30! Well, growing old is bearable considering the alternative, but growing up is optional.
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My mother is a virgin, and I won’t hear different.
[/offtopic]
I find the cellphone amazing. I carry a small (3.5" x 1.5") device that enables me to speak to nearly anyone in the world, at any time, at an extremely low cost. Think of the difficulties in contacting people across the country even 150 years ago. Now, I can call Singapore at 2 in the morning from the middle of a wheat field.
