Possibly untrue science news

5 Likes

In old world monkeys, the fabella can act as a kneecap, increasing the mechanical advantage of the muscle.

But when the ancestors of great apes and humans evolved, it seemed to disappear.

Now that it has returned, it is just causing us problems, according to experts.

People with osteoarthritis of the knee are twice as likely to have the little bone, but there is no evidence it is actually causing the problem, or how.

The fabella can also get in the way of knee replacement surgery and cause pain and discomfort on its own.

5 Likes

Humans are great apes, great apes are apes, and apes are catarrhini, so depending how you define monkey, apes are old world monkeys.

4 Likes
1 Like

ive always loved the just so stories of archaeology. “man the hunter, staring out over the savannah.” – oops, ecological record says it was a riparian environment. sorry dr. leakey.

add to which there’s never anyway to do a-b tests, so people just seem to make stuff up to write an interesting paper.

it’d be so so much cooler to list a brainstorm of a person’s top five theories and then the methods to test for each one.

6 Likes

i thought the point of the holocene was environmental stability. ( well, in reverse. i think originally? it was defined because of human migration, and then that was traced to the end of the ice ages? )

i thought the argument now was that we ended the holocene. ( which is creepy scary. )

definitely over precise especially given that every other epoch is measured in millions(?) of years. but maybe you have to choose some date?

[edit]

also, i hate my knee.

6 Likes
3 Likes

That warm brown color was still apparent when she was dedicated to the United States in 1868 but after many centuries of New York Harborweather, oxidation set in, which caused her copper base to develop a protective bluish-green patina

Wow, I didn’t know Lady Liberty was that old.

9 Likes

TIL: a-century-and-a-half counts as “many centuries”.

10 Likes

Maybe a slip, and they meant decades?

6 Likes
2 Likes

Nineteenth century, twentieth century, and twenty-first century – three centuries!

SEE ALSO: the “three days” jesus was supposedly dead for

11 Likes

Well, Friday is the first day, Saturday is the second day and on the third day, He rose again.

3 Likes

But adding plasma from ME/CFS patients caused oxygen levels to fall, indicating that the mitochondria were working harder

Darn it, all the focus on mitochondria and energy levels makes my childhood memories scream “It’s the Echthroi!!!”

5 Likes

this has got to go in possibly untrue. america had the least level of mansplaining? i pity the rest of the world

[edit: oh no. no one box? what’d i break? ]

[ edit edit: and… now it’s there. just… ignore me. ]

10 Likes

Mansplaining isn’t necessarily bullshitting. In the original example, the man said true things… which he’d got from a book, whose author was the one he was explaining things to.

Even so:

And if there were a world championship, as a true devotee might appreciate, the title would go to Canada, data show.

I wonder how much this has to do with our oligarchic structures.

6 Likes

Interestingly, the gender gap for this trait in the United States is the smallest among the countries studied, about half the size of the gap in England.

Great. One place the US has more gender equality is ability to BS.

8 Likes

It’s a valuble skill for creativity. Everyone should be comfortable bullshitting. I write about in my self-help book Ninety-Nine Ways to Spin Gold From Flax and Other Substances.

10 Likes

https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/17586

2 Likes
6 Likes