The Infodumping Thread

[Mia]

Native American's first invented 'sign language' as a way to communicate between various tribes. Believed to have originated in the Rio Grande region, sign language allowed many tribes to converse. Great Plains Indians whose diverse language made communications difficult, developed an elaborate system of hand gestures to establish trade and diplomacy. Some tribes such as the Kiowa used it as a way to embellish their own speech when speaking in their own language among their tribes.

Of the 400 or so native languages spoken in the Americas before european contact, 46 are still being taught to children.

 

[tree]

 

[tree]

"Water is transported from the blood into the brain via an ion transporter, a new study on mice conducted at the University of Copenhagen reveals. If the mechanism can be targeted with medicine, it may prove relevant to all disorders involving increased intracranial pressure, including brain oedema in connection with stroke as well as hydrocephalus, also called ‘water in the head’."

New discovery about the brain’s water system may prove beneficial in stroke – University of Copenhagen

 

[DCA]

Small infodump. I really dislike the British way of naming cannons.

The British name their gun for instance "Royal Ordnance QF 20 pounder" with this they mean a Quick Firing (QF) 84mm gun (3.307 inch) which means that it fires a shell that's 84mm wide but the only thing the name actually says is that it fires a 20 pound (9.07 kilo) shell.
So if you were to change the type of shell, it would still be called a 20-pdr gun, but the shell wouldn't weigh 20 pounds anymore...

On the other hand I love the German way.
They name a gun for instance 8.8 cm KwK 36 L/56.
Here 8.8 cm means the width of the fired shell (you can't fire anything bigger or smaller because the gun won't work, you may change the weight)
Kwk or kampfwagenkanone (tank canon) 36 is just what the thing is and what type.
And last but not least L/56 means that the length of the barrel is 56 times the diameter of the fired shell, 56 x 88 mm = 4,928 (around 16 ft).
This makes it so much clearer as to what exactly a gun is, just by it's name... I'm a bit of a fan of the old German efficiency (although they made quite a few inefficient choices in ww2)


Random funfact to go with it. Many people believe the 88mm gun in the tiger is a flak 88 mounted in a tank. They are actually designed separately for reasons of functional use in tight spaces.

Enough tank stuff for now, might throw in some more random facts some other time xD

A post after my own heart! Yes I find the cannon designation the British used to use confusing & not very accurate at all. So is that 20pder based on an AP shell or HE? If the former is that APDS, APCBC, or APCR? All will have slightly different weights!

 

[tree]

“Orders Conceived and Published by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London, Concerning the Infection of the Plague”—was that “all the graves shall be at least six feet deep.”

"Modern American burial laws vary from state to state, though many states simply require a minimum of 18 inches of soil on top of the casket or burial vault (or two feet of soil if the body is not enclosed in anything)."

How Did 6 Feet Become the Standard Grave Depth?

 

[Ylva]

I had forgotten about this thread!

Jean Grey is a shell of a character, which makes sense when you recall that she was originally made to be a token female in a story about male characters with superpowers.

Basque may have started as a conlang.

Solresol sounds fun because of the music, but is hardest to learn that way.