# Tell us an interesting random fact you stumbled across (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 13, 2020, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674 "2020-04-13T03:19:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 351
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2023, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7011 "2023-07-20T18:01:32Z")
_Suck_ was a pro-sexuality feminist magazine, founded in Britain in 1969. It’s mission was to rescue sex from the tits ‘n’ ass male perspective. Although hardcore, in prose and pictures, it was not intended as specifically masturbatory material like _Screw_ magazine. Greer’s picture was deliberately unsexy, basically performance art. She thought all the editors were to contribute such photos but if they did _Suck_ ran only hers, leading her to quit it, sinking the magazine. Here’s a good article on the fascinating history of _Suck_, spoilered because it’s most definitely NSFW. [Revisiting Suck magazine's experiment in radical feminist pornography](https://www.documentjournal.com/2018/11/revisiting-suck-magazines-experiment-in-radical-feminist-pornography/) I doubt five people in America saw the picture at the time. Issues go for ridiculous prices today - if you can find any at all. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2023, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7012 "2023-07-20T18:06:59Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > How is it not a physical object? The light is a physical object. The dot is not. Let’s try a different take that was mentioned before. You’re at the movies and someone in the movie throws a football from one side of the screen to the other. No physical object moved from one side of the screen to the other side of the screen, it was simply a series of static photos projected onto the screen that gives the illusion of something moving. A laser dot is the same, the dot is a projected image, then we see similar images projected in different places at different points in time, giving the illusion of motion. That illusion of motion is not bound by relativity. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2023, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7013 "2023-07-20T18:15:50Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > The light is a physical object. The dot is not. I disagree, but I feel like this exchange is un-derailing the thread, which is about constant derailment, so I shall drop it. ---
**Author:** ![JohnnyEcks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnnyecks/32/18197_2.png) [@JohnnyEcks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnnyEcks)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2023, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7014 "2023-07-20T18:59:40Z")
When I first had the concept explained to me, the example used was a gigantic pair of scissors, light years long. When the scissors are closed, the spot where the blades meet moves forward faster than the speed of light, even though no part of the scissors do. That spot, like the dot of a laser pointer, is conceptual, not physical. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2023, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7015 "2023-07-21T00:06:06Z")
Each instance of the dot can be considered a physical object, but a _separate and ephemeral_ one - created by a different bunch of photons. None of the physical dots travel at all, let alone at speed. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2023, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7016 "2023-07-21T04:18:35Z")
Yesterday i watched the 1961 movie “The Hustler”. Today I’m getting Facebook ads for pool cues. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2023, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7017 "2023-07-21T13:48:52Z")
**Moderator Note** > [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > This is starting to feel like planes on treadmills, again. Yes, it is. If anyone wishes to discuss this further, please open a new thread in FQ. This thread has been hijacked enough already. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2023, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7018 "2023-07-21T18:43:46Z")
YIL (yesterday I learned) that, 30 years before the [US Surgeon General’s 1964 report](https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/spotlight/nn/feature/smoking) on the dangers of smoking, scientists in Nazi Germany had begun amassing evidence that smoking caused many health risks. And that the German government had a fairly extensive, if not very effective, official campaign against smoking from 1933 to 1945. > **[Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tobacco_movement_in_Nazi_Germany)** > > In the early 20th century, German researchers found additional evidence linking smoking to health harms, which strengthened the anti-tobacco movement in the Weimar Republic and led to a state-supported anti-smoking campaign. Early anti-tobacco movements grew in many nations from the middle of the 20th century. The 1933–1945 anti-tobacco campaigns in Nazi Germany have been widely publicized, although stronger laws than those passed in Germany were passed in some Amer The German movement was the ... ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2023, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7019 "2023-07-21T18:52:22Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > the German government had a fairly extensive, if not very effective, official campaign against smoking from 1933 to 1945. It’s interesting that they discouraged the German citizens from smoking, but they fed the soldiers crystal meth. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2023, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7020 "2023-07-21T19:26:44Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > It’s interesting that they discouraged the German citizens from smoking, but they fed the soldiers crystal meth. The general tendency for anything new that gives us capabilities we didn’t have before is to overdo it. There has often been a considerable lag time between the discovery of a drug and the realization of its drawbacks and problems. This was the case for opium, morphine and heroin, psychedelics, tranquilizers, cocaine, the use of strychnine(!) as a stimulant, and yes methamphetamine as well. Meth was generally regarded as a harmless energy booster; it wasn’t until the 1960s generation began to widely abuse it as a recreational drug that the insidiousness of meth became more apparent. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2023, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7021 "2023-07-21T19:46:26Z")
Meanwhile, our government was putting free cigarettes in military rations. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2023, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7022 "2023-07-21T20:48:43Z")
Der Fuhrer was a well known anti-tobacco … nazi. It was apparently forbidden to smoke in his presence. I think it was probably the Speer book, someone anyway mentioned they knew the end was getting REALLY near, when the close inner circle was like “Fuck it” and smoked anywhere they wanted, the hell with that lunatic. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2023, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7023 "2023-07-21T23:45:02Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > There has often been a considerable lag time between the discovery of a drug and the realization of its drawbacks and problems. I was reading an article in Sci-Am many years ago that was examining the relationship between maize and teosinte, primarily from an evolutionary perspective. About maize, the noted “After its discovery in the New World, within a generation, it had spread throughout Europe, within a century, the world. The only other New World discoveries that spread as quickly were tobacco and syphilis.” Tobacco has been around a long time. It was fairly popular in the 19th century. Granted, health care was less sophishicated back then, and people just hoped to live as long as they could, so tobacco’s health effects were less obvious.        On the other hand, back then we did not have large corporations manipulating the tobacco to optimize its addictiveness. And adding shit like menthol to make it easier to smoke. I suspect that, handled reasonably, tobacco could well be far less damaging than the contemporary product is. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2023, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7024 "2023-07-22T16:01:46Z")
When the couldn’t find gold, the Jamestown colony was washed by [tobacco as a cash crop](https://www.morningagclips.com/planting-profits-how-tobacco-saved-the-jamestown-colony/). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2023, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7025 "2023-07-22T16:08:00Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > I was reading an article in Sci-Am many years ago that was examining the relationship between maize and teosinte, primarily from an evolutionary perspective. About maize, the noted “After its discovery in the New World, within a generation, it had spread throughout Europe, within a century, the world. The only other New World discoveries that spread as quickly were tobacco and syphilis.” I’d have thought that potatoes would have spread even faster. Today, they’re considered an integral part of “traditional” cuisines across Europe and Asia, while maize is, even if used, still considered distinctively American. ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2023, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7026 "2023-07-22T16:16:56Z")
I have a theory that corn didn’t work as a staple in Europe because they weren’t [nixtamalizing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellagra#Epidemiology) it, which gives rise to a disease called pellagra, so it was used more for feeding livestock than humans. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2023, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7027 "2023-07-22T16:17:07Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’d have thought that potatoes would have spread even faster. Today, they’re considered an integral part of “traditional” cuisines across Europe and Asia, while maize is, even if used, still considered distinctively American. Maize travels much more easily (seeds) than potatoes (tubers) on lengthy sea voyages. Also, maize is not part of a family of plants that includes toxic berries – I mean, not that the early explorers were sophisticated taxonimists, but parts of the potato plant are poisonous. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2023, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7028 "2023-07-22T16:36:13Z")
Maize did find a niche in Italy as polenta, which originally was made from any number of different grains. As for tobacco although the specific connection to lung disease was a 20th century discovery, it had long been considered a “vice”- generally if not specifically unhealthy ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2023, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7029 "2023-07-22T16:49:20Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Maize did find a niche in Italy… In plenty of countries. In northern Spain, they make thick tortillas called _[talos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talo_(food))_ in the Basque Country and savory empanadas in Galicia. In the latter region and parts of Portugal, they mix it with other grains to make bread. As far as I know, it’s unnixtamalized. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2023, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/7030 "2023-07-22T23:42:59Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#): > > I think it was probably the Speer book, someone anyway mentioned they knew the end was getting REALLY near, when the close inner circle was like “Fuck it” and smoked anywhere they wanted, the hell with that lunatic. This sounds like the end of the 1973 movie **Hitler: The Last Ten Days** (which starred Alec Guinness as the dictator, four years before he was Obi-Wan). (the system won’t let me link to the You Tube – you’ll have to join the two halves) [https://www.youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com) /watch?v=rdDKaqUCTdA At first you’re lead to think the other people are pulling out suicide pills to join Hitler, who had just suicided. But then you realize that, now that he’s gone, they can finally smoke again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674.md?page=350) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674.md?page=352)