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Re: Never Ending General Knowledge

Postby HappyCamper

Might be a coincidence, but a story popped up on my news feed the other day about these.

Something about synthetic organisms that are able to replicate.

Re: Never Ending General Knowledge

Postby chengdufan

HappyCamper wrote:Might be a coincidence, but a story popped up on my news feed the other day about these.

Something about synthetic organisms that are able to replicate.

Correct! Likely not a coincidence, I was just reading about them on the Guardian.
Apparently you get some frog cells and they start reproducing by themselves, creating living blobs called xenobots which in turn can start reproducing.

Re: Never Ending General Knowledge

Postby HappyCamper

there is speculation they could be designed to gather up mircoplastic pollution into harvestable sizes to be removed by humans. then when they die off they are just normal cells so don't degrade into new pollution. pretty nifty.

Re: Never Ending General Knowledge

Postby HappyCamper

First used to refer to a machine capable of being programmed to perform manual tasks in the play R.U.R. by Karel Čapek in the 1920s, the world robot is derived from a word meaning forced labour in which Indo-European language?

Re: Never Ending General Knowledge

Postby HappyCamper

James Bentley wrote:I think Čapek was Czech, so...Czech. Might be wrong though.


aye, he was. he actually credits his brother josef with coining the world. robota was the czech name for the type of feudal serfs in the region.

Re: Never Ending General Knowledge

Postby Iranu

Which Disney film is based on a fairytale by 18th century writer Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve?

Re: Never Ending General Knowledge

Postby James Bentley

Iranu wrote:Which Disney film is based on a fairytale by 18th century writer Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve?

Given that there's no obvious connection to the last answer in the question, then the answer must be connected. So: Beauty and the Beast.

Re: Never Ending General Knowledge

Postby Iranu

Indeed! Thought someone might work that out pretty quickly if they didn’t know it.

Re: Never Ending General Knowledge

Postby James Bentley

In the terrible late 1980s TV series "Beauty And The Beast", who played Vincent (the titular Beast)?

Edit for clue: He is best known for starring in two well-regarded superhero films (an original and its sequel).

Re: Never Ending General Knowledge

Postby HappyCamper

In Greek mythology the Titan Rhea was the daughter of the earth goddess Gaia and which other god?


   

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