---------------------------- #RTAnswers - #500 - Gavin or Google #14 https://roosterteeth.com/episode/rooster-teeth-podcast-2018-rooster-teeth-podcast-500 ---------------------------- Are there any animals with only one orifice? Unfortunately, this is one of the few in which Gavin was NOT correct. As you can see from the diagram, a starfish does not actually have a single orifice but rather a mouth on the underside (fittingly referred to as the oral side) of its body and an anus directly opposite, on the spiny top. Keep that in mind the next time you pet the starfish at your local aquarium touch tank. https://78.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lsns6qDee51qdkx7p.jpg Interestingly, and all too commonly, Gavin was not actually far off with the starfish. While a sea star does not have a single orifice, they are part of the scientific classification of Echinoderms, along with sea urchins, sand dollars, and sea cucumbers. While all of these creatures also live a very normal life with both a mouth and an anus, the sea cucumber AND the sea urchin have both, at times, been suspected of also using their anus for the occasional consumption of food. Providing radioactive algae as food, scientists would then investigate the outer tissues of the echinoderms. Both cucumbers and urchins displayed a smaller concentration of the radioactive particles around their anus suggesting this secondary eating option. In case you are curious, this is apparently referred to as "bipolar feeding"... so there's that. Another interesting bit which I stumbled across while investigating this is that humans share a strange commonality with Echinoderms in that we, like the common sea star are part of the deuterostome monophyletic group of bilaterally symmetrical, coelomate animals. Or we, like the sand dollar, are animals descended from a common evolutionary ancestor, have a head, tail, belly, back, left and right side which, like Geoff playing a horror game, came in ass first. This, apparently is an unusual thing in the animal world as the overwhelming majority of animals develop as protostomes, meaning that their first orifice is a gaping mouth. ---------------------------- Restaurant dessert portions? There is, apparently, a science to this and a rationale behind the insane dessert portions that can be found at many restaurants these days. In order to understand the logic here there are three, somewhat related, things we need to understand about the restaurant business. Desserts are expensive, drinks are high margin, and people like to share. ---------------------------- Is Australia upside down? Here is the obligatory repost from the RT Podcast #420 Answers post. P.S. The bit about the moon's orientation at the end is still one of the most fascinating things I've learned doing these: https://roosterteeth.com/post/51301334 Yep. As in, "I am right side up, Australia is directly beneath me (on the other side of the planet of course), therefore, they are upside down... in relation to me of course." It is that last bit which frustrates the "Flat-Earthers" of the world. But this question isn't about the idiocy of a Flat-Earth theory, it is about antipodes and their relation to you. An antipode is the "direct opposite of something else." In this case, your antipode is the point directly opposite you on the Earth. Here is a handy website that lets you find the antipode for any point on the globe. Let's take Austin, TX as an example. http://i.imgur.com/G0TVgEb.jpg The site tells us that the antipode of Austin is actually pretty much right in the middle of the Indian Ocean. This means that if @burnie sent a friend (or @bgibbles) to that exact GPS coordinate to float in the ocean for a bit, Blaine would be floating directly "beneath" Burnie, relative to his position in Austin. By comparison, if @Gavino were to be hanging out in the UK during this time, both Burnie and Blaine would be perpendicular, or "lying on their sides," relative to him. Roughly, the UK isn't an exact 90-degree perpendicular to Austin and the Indian Ocean, but hopefully you get the point. If you are still having issues, think about three ants standing on a basketball. Two are sitting at the line intersections along the ball's "equator," directly opposite each other. These two ants are antipodes and are Burnie and Blaine. To Gavin, sitting on top of the ball at its "North Pole," so to speak, both Burnie and Blaine are hanging out on the ball sideways while Gavin is "right side up." Now imagine you are Burnie the ant, Blaine is directly beneath you, upside-down, and Gavin is the sideways one. Blaine the Ant has nearly the same observation but with Burnie as the "gravity-defying-one." Perhaps the easiest way to recognize this very real observation, while simultaneously adding to the necessary complexity of the Flat-Earthers flat Earth explanation, is that antipodes that are different north/south hemispheres, which most would be, will also see a "reversed" image of the moon. This concept may be a bit more difficult to comprehend without a graphic, so I've found, and added, on below. Honestly, for some reason, this never even occurred to me but it makes total sense. Since your concept of "right-side-up" is completely relative to you, your concept of what the moon's appearance would also be relative to your vantage point. Additionally, the closer you live to the Tropics of Capricorn or Cancer, the more you and your compatriots also living in those areas would agree on the appearance of the moon. This is because these points match the axis tilt of the Earth and essentially cause your position on Earth, relative to the moon's orbit, to be relatively parallel. As for the age-old question of "Why don't Australians just fall off if they are upside down?" I would reply, “Why aren't you falling off? You aren't on ‘top’ of the world right now. How can ships sail through the Panama Canal without listing terribly to one side? Why hasn't the ocean's water in the southern hemisphere fallen from the Earth and floated into space yet?” I think the idea that this question is for some reason only ever applied to humans in the southern hemisphere is testament to the arrogance of humanity. Let's forget about the MILLIONS of other things that would be affected if gravity just didn't apply below the equator. The point is, they, and everything else "down" there, stays put because the gravity affecting it is from our planet, and while it may seem to constantly pull you "down," this is only relative to you. To the Australian, gravity is actually pulling you "up." Right? LOL. http://guanolad.com/stuff/moon_orientation.jpg Perhaps the most mind-boggling observation, for me, that came from researching this is the realization that as you travel south from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere, the orientation of the phases of the moon have to change as well. Since the moon itself appears “upside-down” relative to my current position, a person standing on the equator would, naturally, have to see the mid-point observations. This causes the moon’s phases to appear perpendicular to the horizon. Additionally, best I can tell, while the moon phase names have been transferred to the southern hemisphere, they are reversed, appearing right-to-left. Literally blown away by all of this. Am I alone in this? http://ryanmarciniak.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Moon-observer.jpg ---------------------------- Did Gavin say headlight fluid? http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/rtpodcast/DrunkTank-DrunkTank30916.mp3 56:13 Fine... we'll take away the headlight fluid... We always have "wiper juice" ---------------------------- The iPhone 4s only had one model? Was Gus right? This is correct. Gus was right because aside from storage settings, there was only one 4s model. The confusion over this discussion stems from the use of the title "iphone 5" in the discussion. However, this is because the 4s, name, had not yet been announced so the crew was assuming that the next iphone after the iPhone 4 would be the iPhone 5. This podcast in question #111 aired on 4/27/11 and the 4s was announced on 10/3/11.