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The Darwin Effect

Posted By: vonBaur

The Darwin Effect - 07/15/19 04:02 PM

Watching the local morning news show. A piece came on about this pond somewhere (they didn't say where) with beautiful turquoise water. People are flocking there to post Instagram shots of themselves wading, swimming, playing, and even getting wedding photos in it to get 'likes' and 'follows'. One guy even admitted to drinking some. He said it tasted sour and chalky.

There's a problem, though. It's a toxic waste site. And it's posted as such. These morons are deliberately risking their health...maybe their lives...to be Instagram heroes. Of course I'm sure none of them thinks anything bad will happen to THEM, so it's ok. And the guy who drank some also said that his feet and ankles were red and itchy for days afterward.

I drove the Alaska Highway forty years ago. There were several streams whose waters were a brilliant blue. The guidebook said the color was due to high levels of cobalt and it was very poisonous.

Apparently these idiots don't know that water is CLEAR! And if the water you're currently looking at isn't there's something wrong...maybe terribly wrong...with it.
Posted By: LB4LB

Re: The Darwin Effect - 07/15/19 04:08 PM

Some people are just mindlessly attracted to "bright shiny objects", I guess.
Posted By: JohnnyChemo

Re: The Darwin Effect - 07/15/19 04:41 PM

Sounds like a potentially self-correcting problem.
Posted By: David Kennard

Re: The Darwin Effect - 07/15/19 06:02 PM

In Russia it seems . . . . thought it was going to be Florida smile

Posted By: vonBaur

Re: The Darwin Effect - 07/15/19 06:21 PM

Russia, huh? Too bad. We could use a "thinning of the herd" here in the USA.
Posted By: Zamzow

Re: The Darwin Effect - 07/18/19 05:28 AM

Originally Posted by vonBaur


Apparently these idiots don't know that water is CLEAR!


Water is actually blue. The reflection of the sky can contribute to that, but just think of an indoor pool (the picture in the Wiki of the bucket of water in the indoor pool is really illustrative...).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_of_water
Posted By: DM

Re: The Darwin Effect - 07/18/19 10:59 AM

I don't think it's the case that water is blue, it's more like blue is the last colour to be filtered out or something like that. Similar to how atmosphere haze makes distant objects look bluer, the haze filters the light starting at the red end & filters the blue last.
Posted By: KraziKanuK

Re: The Darwin Effect - 07/18/19 11:16 AM

The colour comes from the water molecules themselves. The molecules tend to absorb the red, orange, yellow and green wavelengths within the full spectrum of white sunlight striking them, while they reflect the shorter blue wavelengths back to your eyes. This is called Rayleigh scattering, more on this mechanism in a moment.
https://sciexplorer.blogspot.com/2016/01/why-are-lakes-and-rivers-in-canadian.html
Posted By: Blade_Meister

Re: The Darwin Effect - 07/18/19 12:12 PM

Originally Posted by LB4LB
Some people are just mindlessly attracted to "bright shiny objects", I guess.


This is because their evolution is from crows, actually they are descendants of dinosaurs some 4 billion years ago and.................feel free to fill in the rest yourself biggrin

S!Blade<><
Posted By: Alicatt

Re: The Darwin Effect - 07/18/19 01:18 PM

The turquoise pond is in Spain

Edit:
Quote
Monte Neme, in the northwestern coastal region of Carballo, is the remains of a Second World War-era tungsten mine and the azure hue of the water is the result of chemical contamination.
Dubbed the 'Galician Chernobyl', it has proved hazardous to those who have swum in it, with one Instagram 'influencer' telling Spanish news outlet Publico that she had suffered vomiting and a rash that persisted for two weeks after she took a dip.
Posted By: vonBaur

Re: The Darwin Effect - 07/18/19 02:11 PM

I admit that the intent of my using the word 'clear' in my first post was to indicate a lack of color. However, if we're splitting hairs here, 'clear' does NOT mean 'colorless', it means free from obscurity or cloudiness. That is, something that can be seen through without loss of definition. And this water clearly (pun intended) does NOT fit that description. A tinted piece of glass can be clear, while a translucent or opaque lens could have no color and is still not clear.
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