I learned about snail teeth in The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, by Elisabeth Tova Bailey! It's a lovely, shortish nonfiction book about a woman with a rare infection that affects her nervous system and has her mostly in bed for years, during which time she observes a snail on her nightstand (that a well-meaning friend brought in from the woods) and then does a deep-dive into mollusks thanks to public-library books. I read this to my child and was inspired to lie down in a field and listen to a slug chewing on plants, tchk-tchk-tchk.
Snails' teeth beats spider silk as nature's strongest material (2015)
171–179 of 179 posts
Re: Snails' teeth beats spider silk as nature's strongest material (2015)
#172Re: Snails' teeth beats spider silk as nature's strongest material (2015)
#173> 3,300 one-pound bags of sugar Ah, but how many one pound bags of concrete could it hold?? Why bags of anything? This is a poor way of communicating weight. Just say "a modern passenger car".
Yeah, a modern passenger car is such a good weight measure. So much more accurate than 3300 pounds. Are you for real?
Re: Snails' teeth beats spider silk as nature's strongest material (2015)
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry I only understand football field based units of measurement
A football field is by far a better measurement than 3300 one pound bags of sugar.
Only if you don’t understand that 3300 one pound bags of sugar is 3300 pounds. What an enlightening conversation here. Crème de la crème of modern thinkers.
Re: Snails' teeth beats spider silk as nature's strongest material (2015)
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I am totally with you on the bags of sugar, I am also unsure of the significance of a single thread of spaghetti! Is that by weight? By volume? Are we comparing uncooked (brittle) or cooked (flexible)? Even so, spaghetti strand is not known for strength or tension resistance even when considering the weight/size/volume. I can't at all understand what this comparison is meant to visualize for me, so it is obviou…
> Is that by weight? By volume? It's holding up 3300 pounds . Pounds is a unit of weight. > Even so, spaghetti strand is not known for strength or tension resistance even when considering the weight/size/volume. That's...kinda the point? We have something we don't give two thoughts about (slug tooth) comparable in scale to something not known for strength or tension resistance (spaghetti) holding up to something gino…
But why a spaghetti? Why not your watch band? Or a shopping bag? Or your wedding ring? Or a spoon? Or kevlar strand?
I am talking about characteristics of a spaghetti strand all along, and wondering why was it chosen — does it compare in some way to a snail's tooth, like volume, weight or size?
It sounds like it is very arbitrary. Why would I even imagine it holding 1500kg in relation to a tooth.
Re: Snails' teeth beats spider silk as nature's strongest material (2015)
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I am totally with you on the bags of sugar, I am also unsure of the significance of a single thread of spaghetti! Is that by weight? By volume? Are we comparing uncooked (brittle) or cooked (flexible)? Even so, spaghetti strand is not known for strength or tension resistance even when considering the weight/size/volume. I can't at all understand what this comparison is meant to visualize for me, so it is obviou…
You’re meant to visualize a strand as thin as spaghetti holding up an entire car. It’s an impressive visual. The properties of spaghetti (aside from its thickness) has nothing to do with anything here.
Ok, so you are saying that a strand the size of the spaghetti made of snail's tooth would be able to hold a car without breaking — got it, so we are using the volume of a spaghetti but made of this strong material instead.
This makes sense but it was totally not clear from the quote (in the article and posted here).
Re: Snails' teeth beats spider silk as nature's strongest material (2015)
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
ok but what color is the yak hair?
Not from Unitzikstan I see White, of course; that way the statisticians can dye them any color they want. But for ultra high precision I do recommend the Boeing system. But be sure to use the older models, before private equity firms replaced all the metal parts with zipties. If you can't find a quality Boeing (plausible), consider 1.1 Blue Whales (tricky). fnordpiglet was being deliberately humble with the decimals.…
White is so outdated.
I wish we'd stop ignoring Councilman Blatt's proposal to triple-dye the yak hair Imperial Blue, to minimize the color variation and therefore the effects of mass loss due to black body radation.
We are, after all, trying to be accurate here.
Pickups of Imperial Blue Yak Hair (or PIBYHs) is the clear road to the future and it's dismaying to see any other response from a fellow Unitsman.
Re: Snails' teeth beats spider silk as nature's strongest material (2015)
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm from Europe, I never buy sugar, why would I? I don't want more sugar in my diet.
It looks like a bag of flour. So you know what it looks like, don’t play dumb.
I'm a guy who never cooks, I have no incentive to play dumb. I don't buy flour or sugar or other random raw ingredients in bulk. The closest I get is maybe a jar of coffee.
Re: Snails' teeth beats spider silk as nature's strongest material (2015)
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
It looks like a bag of flour. So you know what it looks like, don’t play dumb.
I'm a guy who never cooks, I have no incentive to play dumb. I don't buy flour or sugar or other random raw ingredients in bulk. The closest I get is maybe a jar of coffee.
There you go, it looks like a jar with roughly 380 grams of coffee. Since you mention a jar, I assume you mean instant coffee. Your jar will be a bit taller than the packet of sugar with a similar surface area. A pound is a pound. It doesn’t matter if it’s 3300 pounds of feathers, or coffee, or sugar.