The goal of this blog is to create a long list of facts that are important, not trivia, and that are known to be true yet are either disputed by large segments of the public or highly surprising or misunderstood by many.
Author: thomasstigwikman
My name is Thomas Wikman. I am a software/robotics engineer with a background in physics. I am currently retired. I took early retirement. I am a dog lover, and especially a Leonberger lover, a home brewer, craft beer enthusiast, I’m learning French, and I am an avid reader. I live in Dallas, Texas, but I am originally from Sweden. I am married to Claudia, and we have three children. I have two blogs. The first feature the crazy adventures of our Leonberger Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle as well as information on Leonbergers. The second blog, superfactful, feature information and facts I think are very interesting. With this blog I would like to create a list of facts that are accepted as true among the experts of the field and yet disputed amongst the public or highly surprising. These facts are special and in lieu of a better word I call them super-facts.
The matter in our bodies and our planet was formed by fusion in the cores of distant stars and then spread across the Universe by supernova explosions. This matter was later incorporated in second and third generation stars like our sun and its planets.
What do I mean by “We are Star Dust”? Let me explain. The first stars in the Universe were made of 75% hydrogen and 25% helium and trace amounts of Lithium, just like the entire Universe at the time. There were no heavier elements that could form planets or other solid celestial bodies. These early stars tended to be large and heavier elements like carbon, oxygen, and iron were formed by fusion in the cores of these stars.
Many of the first stars, called first generation stars, ended their lives in massive supernova explosions and the dusty remains of these explosions, including the metals formed in their cores, became the building blocks of the stars we see today. These second and third generation stars have planets and other smaller solid objects orbiting them, formed from the gas and dust (star dust) left over from the supernova explosions. So, we are star dust. The atoms formed inside the first-generation stars are now within us.
The first-generation stars consisted of 75% hydrogen and 25% helium and trace amounts of Lithium. A second or third generation star like our sun is still mostly hydrogen and helium but also many other elements. The rocky planets circling the sun are mainly elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. Image credit NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI.Remnants of a recent supernova W49B, 26,000 light years away. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/L.Lopez et al.; Infrared: Palomar; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA.
For those who know astronomy this may be basic information, but I’ve met many people who are unfamiliar with this information, and they are quite often surprised and astonished. That is why I consider this information a super fact. I can add that this process, the birth and death of first-generation stars, the supernova explosions, the disbursal of the matter, which later clump together to form new stars and rocky planets as well, takes many millions of years.
This is an Illustration of a supernova. Stock Vector ID: 2109918599 by Varunyuuu.
A Refresher
For those who need a refresher of things like stars and planets and galaxies. Our sun is a star, a third-generation star. It is much bigger than our Earth. If Earth is the size of a small pea or a caper, then the sun would be the size of a beach ball. However, our sun is not a big star, and it is only one star among between 100 and 400 billion stars in our galaxy the Milky Way.
Many galaxies including our own are disc shaped or look like spirals. If you imagine a dust storm cloud in which there are a thousand dust particles per cubic foot, each representing a star. Then this dust cloud would be 100 to 400 feet thick, and a thousand feet wide and long. I can add that there are between 100 billion to 2 trillion galaxies in the visible Universe. Also, the Universe is much bigger than the visible Universe and might be infinitely large.
A glimpse of our milky way galaxy. Photo by Stefan Stefancik on Pexels.com
As mentioned, orbiting around our sun there are planets, dwarf planets, moons, planet rings, asteroids, comets, meteoroids, interplanetary dust, etc. The star closest to the sun is Proxima Centauri, which is 4.24 light-years away, but it is too small to be seen. The stars that are visible in the night sky tend to be large stars that are not too far away.
Here in Dallas where I live you can typically see 15 stars with the naked eye, and you cannot see the Milky Way. That’s because of the light pollution. In northern Sweden where I grew up you could see 3,000 stars, our galaxy the Milky Way, as well as the Andromeda Galaxy on a clear night with the naked eye.
In 1885 a supernova explosion was recorded in the Andromeda Galaxy. Below is a constructed photo showing how it might have looked like if we had had better equipment back then. Notice that the supernova explosion is essentially outshining the entire galaxy. We are the result of the gases and dust spread by such explosions. You can also read more here.
Supernova explosion in the center of the Andromeda galaxy “Elements of this image furnished by NASA” It is essentially an enhanced photo of a supernova explosion in a neighboring galaxy. Stock Photo ID: 2495486227 by muratart.
Superfact 9 : We are living in relatively peaceful times
Despite all the wars going on, the world was filled with a lot more war and violence in the past. Despite the grim news reports we are living in relatively peaceful times.
If I asked you, what are the two biggest wars going on the world today (as of September 2024), you would probably say that it is the Russia / Ukraine war and the Israel / Gaza war. Well, unless you are really well informed, it would come as a surprise that there are more devastating wars going on in the world. For example, there is currently a big civil war going on in Sudan that began in April 2023.
According to the latest issue of the Economist perhaps 150,000 people have been slaughtered in this civil war, and 10 million people have fled their homes, and a famine is emerging that could kill 2.5 million people by the end of the year. This war is likely to destabilize neighboring countries and is sponsored by Russia and Middle Eastern states. It’s likely the biggest crisis in the world but most likely you’ve never heard of it.
In the recent Tigray war in Ethiopia between 162,000 and 600,000 people were killed according to Wikipedia. The Tigray war is mostly over, but the point I am trying to make is that you probably have never heard of it. You cannot use the impressions given by the amount of media attention a conflict gets to decide on how severe it is. You’ve got to check the statistics and compare, and the statistics might be quite unintuitive if you have relied on media attention as a metric.
What was the most devastating war in the 19th century?
So, to the next question. What was the most devastating war in the 19th century? If you say the American civil war, you are not correct (estimated 650,000+ deaths). A somewhat better answer is the Napoleonic wars (and estimated 4 million deaths). But none of the answers are correct. The Taiping rebellion in China was the worst. Estimates of the conflict’s death toll range between 20 and 30 million people. Some estimates say 100 million, which would make it the most devastating war in human history.
But did you hear about it? Again, you’ve got to check the statistics, and not rely on your impressions. I am saying this because the claim that deaths from wars and violence have declined over the last few decades is a quite unintuitive claim and yet it is true. That’s why it is a super fact.
Taiping Rebels at Shanghai China in 1853-54. ‘Small Swords’ refers to daggers used by warriors or martial artists in close combat. 19th century print. Stock Illustration ID: 237232531 by Everett Collection.
As this article in the Our World In Data states “While every war is a tragedy, the data suggests that fewer people died in conflicts in recent decades than in most of the 20th century. Countries have also built more peaceful relations between and within them.”. It should be noted that even though killing has never been as efficient as it is in the present, in the past a lot of civilians died from famine and disease resulting from the wars.
For example, the Spanish flu following World War I killed between 25 to 50 million people. I should say those numbers are typically not included in the deaths from World War I. The number of deaths from World War I are estimated at 20 million. 10 million combatants and 10 million civilians.
Death rate from wars since 1946. The uptick in 2022 is largely due to the Ethiopian Tigray war with 162,000–600,000 killed and the invasion of Ukraine, which US and BBC estimates at more than 200,000 deaths (but estimates from most other sources are less).
One problem with this kind of statistics is that the estimates vary, especially with respect to civilian causalities. In addition, very big wars lasting a few years create very bumpy graphs with large spikes making it harder to identify trends.
However, by listing estimated war deaths of the biggest wars, genocides and democides since the 1800’s you can see that deaths from this type of violence have overall been reduced over the last few decades. A note, democides are mass killings of civilians but are not necessarily directed at an ethnic group (democide include genocide).
The links below are mostly from Encyclopedia Britannica, but also from Wikipedia, the Census bureau, and a couple of other sources.
As I said, the numbers are estimates and not hard data, especially with respect to civilian casualties. However, you can see a trend going from several conflicts with numbers in the tens of millions before 1950, then numbers in millions until 2000/2007 and then during the last couple of decades the numbers have been less than a million. This does not cover homicide rates but even in that case we can see a reduction even though it is less distinct.
In this graph we can see that homicide rate worldwide has been reduced somewhat since the mid 1990’s. This graph is also taken from the Our World in Data website and they in turn used various databases from UN, WHO, etc.
Also remember that in the past there were a lot less people on earth, so relatively speaking a million deaths was a lot bigger number back then. In summary, despite all the wars going on, our world is less violent than it used to be.
I created a Facebook page for my super facts or Superfactful blog. The purpose of this post is partially to test if my posts here are showing up on my super fact Facebook page, but it is also to invite you all to follow my Superfactful Facebook page if you wish, or my Leonberger book Facebook page, or send me a friend request to my personal Facebook. I am putting the links to all three below.
Cover photo for my new Facebook page. Click on the photo to visit my new Facebook page.
This is not one of my super facts posts but I think it is interesting information about a quite frightening insect that I had never heard of before I encountered it- a tarantula hawk encounter.
When my daughter was 5-7 years old, she was part of what you can perhaps call a pre-girl-scout organization. It was called Indian Princesses. It later changed its name to Adventure Princesses. They had meetings where they learned things, and they went camping as a group with their dads or moms. There were bonfires, grilling, nature, fishing, adventures, jumping in mud, riding horses, and staying up late at night.
My daughter Rachel camping at Camp Classen in Oklahoma. We are standing around a bonfire at night.
One time the Indian Princesses went camping in Camp Classen in Oklahoma. Since we live in North Texas it was not far away. One morning, as we were standing there talking and preparing breakfast, we saw a big black insect landing on the ground.
As we looked closer, we saw that it had landed on a Tarantula. It stung the tarantula, which stopped moving. Then it dragged the Tarantula through the grass about 100-150 feet and then under the girls’ bathroom. As we stood around the Tarantula and the big black insect, we saw that the insect had reddish wings and the body shape of a wasp or an ant. We did not know what it was. This was the year 2005 or possibly 2006 and cellphones with internet were not common.
This is a photo of the Tarantula Hawk that we saw. It is dragging a Tarantula that it had just stung. It is our photo and maybe not a great photo.
My daughter ran to get her jewelry box from her cabin. When she came back, she handed it to me and said, “Dad put them in here”. Another dad standing nearby started laughing and said, “yes Thomas I want to see you put them in the box.” It was quite lucky that I didn’t because the big black insect with reddish wings was what is called a Tarantula Hawk, a type of wasp, which allegedly has the most painful sting of any insect in the northern hemisphere. There is an insect with a worse sting in South America.
A Tarantula Hawk Wasp feeding on some flowers. Stock Photo ID: 2018945009 by Rix Pix Photography
The Tarantula Hawk is a wasp that feeds on nectar but the female Tarantula Hawk stings and kills Tarantulas to feed its larvae. It stings the Tarantula between the legs, paralyzing it, and then drags the prey to a specially prepared burrow, where a single egg is laid on the spider’s abdomen, and the burrow entrance is covered.
According to this article one researcher described the tarantula hawk’s sting this way: “To me, the pain is like an electric wand that hits you, inducing an immediate, excruciating pain that simply shuts down one’s ability to do anything, except, perhaps, scream.
Below is a youTube video about the Tarantula Hawk.
Have you ever encountered a Tarantula Hawk or another scary wasp or insect?
This is not one of the super fact posts. It is just a post related to an interest of mine that is informational. I volunteer for an organization called Citizens Climate Lobby, or CCL. CCL is a bipartisan organization that works with both Democrats and Republicans to create the political will for climate solutions. During the month of August CCL is promoting what is called electrification. Clean energy is taking the world with storm, but energy / electric power is not the only source of carbon emissions / greenhouse gases.
Take for example, transportation. Most cars still use gasoline and to move towards a fossil fuel free future we must move towards using transportation that uses less fossil fuels such as EV cars. We need to electrify transportation. Another aspect of electrification is replacing gas stoves with induction stoves, installing solar panels, as well as lowering the energy use of your house.
Lowering the energy consumption of your house lowers your emissions. Photo by Frans van Heerden on Pexels.com
EV Cars
At least here in Texas it is quite common to believe that EV cars do not reduce emissions. After all EV cars use electricity from the dirty grid, right? Often this is said to environmentalists and people who care about fossil fuels emissions as if they don’t understand that the electricity for EV cars typically comes from the dirty grid. However, they do know that. In fact, they know a little bit more. EV cars are much more efficient than Internal Combustion Engine cars , or ICE, and therefore the emissions caused by EVs via the electrical grid, even a coal powered grid, is significantly less per mile. In fact, replacing gasoline-powered cars with EVs saves energy, regardless of the energy source used to recharge the EVs. For an ICE 16-25% of the original energy goes to the wheels whereas for an EV 87-91% of the original energy goes to the wheels.
16-25% of original energy goes to the wheels. Data from FuelEconomy.gov, Image by Karin Kirk for Yale Connections.87-91% of original energy goes to the wheels. Data from FuelEconomy.gov, Image by Karin Kirk for Yale Connections.
On the other hand, it takes more energy to manufacture an EV battery for an EV car than it does to produce a combustion engine. So, the production of an electric vehicle does emit more carbon than a petrol car. However, the lower emissions resulting from driving an EV means that an electric car quickly pays back its debt, so to speak. It is typically paid back within two years.
According to Hannah Richie at Our World in Data the statistics show that switching from an average ICE to an equally sized EV will save 1.2 tons of carbon emissions per person and year. That is a lot considering that the average carbon footprint per year is 4 tons worldwide and 14.4 tons per year for an American. Hannah Richie at Our World in Data also states that other environmental damages related to EVs such as mining for minerals are less than mining and extraction for fossil fuel cars, and she claims that the price of lithium-ion batteries has fallen by 98% over the last three decades.
EVs are becoming increasingly common. According to Our World in Data in 2022, 88% of all cars sold in Norway were EVs and 54% of all cars in Sweden were EVs. The United States is lagging a bit at 7.5% but there is a tax credit $7,000.00 for new EVs and a $4,000.00 tax credit for buying used EVs. I should add that we have not yet bought an EV because after I took early retirement, I did not need a car. We just share my wife’s hybrid, which we hardly ever drive.
Induction Stoves
We bought an electric stove, an induction stove, a couple of years ago when our previous stove stopped working. They come with an $840.00 rebate. I’ve read that professional chefs prefer gas stoves. However, our induction stove provides everything we need for our cooking needs and my beer brewing needs and it is easier to clean. If you are a professional chef you may want to be able switch the high heat on and off quicker, but we are not professional chefs even though the food we cook is delicious.
Another downside of an induction stove is that if the power goes out you can’t cook, but that has not been a problem for us. Considering that we get our electricity from a power company, Green Mountain Energy, that utilizes renewable energy, wind and solar, you can claim that our stove is 100% fossil fuel free.
Our induction stove with the lights in the kitchen turned off.
Heat Pumps
Air source heat pumps, which are the most common type of heat pumps, are a great, energy efficient choice for heating your home and water and as well as being low maintenance, they can help to cut your heating costs and lower your carbon footprint. An air source heat pump absorbs heat from the air outside a building and releases it inside. It uses the same vapor-compression refrigeration process and much the same equipment as an air conditioner, but in the opposite direction.
Air-to-air heat pumps provide hot or cold air directly to rooms. Heat pumps are the main way to phase furnaces but are also typically more efficient than other types of heaters and air conditioners and thus they reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There is an up to $8,000.00 upfront discount for heat pumps and a 30% tax credit up to $2,000.00. I should say we do not have a heat pump.
Air heat pump installed on the exterior facade of the old house. Sustainable heating solutions for old construction. Stock Photo ID: 2349325553 by Snapshot freddy.
Rooftop solar
Another great thing that we have been thinking about but do not have yet is rooftop solar. Rooftop solar power system, or rooftop photo voltaic systems, consist of electricity-generating solar panels mounted on the rooftop of a residential or commercial building or structure. Residential rooftop solar power systems typically feature a capacity of about 5–20 kilowatts.
The average American household uses 1.2 kilowatts on average. Most rooftop solar systems are connected to the grid and can feed the extra power into the grid for compensation. I should add this is not entirely without difficulty. There are also hybrid systems which include any combination of wind turbines, diesel generators, and batteries for electricity on demand. There is a 30% tax credit for rooftop solar.
Saving energy is not exactly the same thing as electrification but it is a related topic. If you electrify your home and also reduce your energy needs, you are reducing emissions.
A few years ago, we changed the insulation in our house to reduce our energy needs and our electric bill. It made a difference. We also did weatherstripping, installed three pane windows and high security doors, that were well-insulated and reduced heat-loss. We received significant tax credits for doing this. I don’t remember how much, but it was several thousand dollars. I can add that you get a $150 tax credit for a home energy audit.
What do you think about electrification and energy savings?
Do you have additional ideas for electrification and energy savings?
Super Facts 