Trump's religiosity is a problem, particularly if it's genuine. However, religiosity is widespread in the U.S., and the damage it does is limited, so you can't conclude that it always leads to bad results.

The bleach claims have long been established as a hoax created by selective editing and malicious promotion. Neither believing that hoax, nor promoting it regardless of belief, is wise behavior.

A six pound meteorite might sell for thousands or possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars. Multiple millions is very unlikely, even if it is fresh, highly publicized, and well documented.

In theory, it's universal theft. In practice, it's dictatorship and widespread poverty.

There appears to be no investigation...

https://med.stanford.edu/news/...
and many others.

There is continuing work in discovering/developing chemicals that promote the creation and development of new neurons. Such new materials help; using your brain is of course essential.

Most scientific discoveries benefit humanity, even if it's discovering "this doesn't work." Most modern scientific discoveries are made by professional scientists. They are making the world better for almost everybody, and they deserve to be rewarded for their accomplishments. They earn their privileges.

The Dark Ages were caused by Christians being more interested in their god than in retaining and advancing scientific and technical knowledge. The consequent human suffering is a matter of historical record. If the incentives (including privileges) to advance science are removed, science will atrophy again and humans will suffer again.

We are not living in a feudal time. By and large, the "class" we end up in is the one we earn. In most places, a fixed "class" (excepting those 0.01% at the top) is a fiction.

It's astonishing and delightful that films on this unstable base are still recoverable. Many old films have been destroyed because they were too dangerous to keep around and too degraded for commercial recovery to be worthwhile.

From your citation, the slightly sweeter Pepsi tastes better with just one sip, but Coke tastes better if a whole can is consumed.

For me, the results are different for diet colas. They all taste terrible, but Tab and Diet Coke are the worst. Diet Pepsi and Diet RC taste about the same and are almost tolerable.

High mileage tires have been available for decades. As always, there are tradeoffs. Lower wear means poorer traction, and probably a harsher ride.

The ability to see flicker at rates faster than the eye's optical response time may be due to saccades. You're sensing a bunch of discrete dots due to the eye's micro-motions.

I use a 42" 4k monitor and it's a delight for computers. More resolution and size might be useful.

For real-life video, more than 4k runs into problems because of the limitations of optics. Except for scenes at infinity focus, or other very flat images, only a small portion of the scene will be in sharp focus and that focus will be difficult for the camera/cinematographer to maintain. Only very good optics even has the capability much beyond 4k. The effort is wasted.

Lead pipe is somewhat of a historical legacy. I think is was used because it was more malleable than other options, more resistant to corrosion than iron pipes, and cheaper than copper. Today the best option for indoor plumbing is probably plastic because of price and some tolerance of freezing, although copper and stainless steel have their places.

The wikipedia page on catalytic converters gives an approximate timeline, and states that lead "poisons" catalytic converters. For many years in the U.S. gas pump nozzles for unleaded gas were (still are?) smaller than leaded gas nozzles, and the car gasoline inlets were sized accordingly. A leaded gasoline pump nozzle couldn't be inserted into a car meant to take only unleaded gas.

The push for unleaded gas was partly due to environmental pressures on lead emissions and partly due to the requirements of cat converters. At the time there was considerable political noise about these issues, particularly in environmental groups and car enthusiast groups.

When the air-gasoline mixture burns normally, the flame front proceeds at a certain rate, and there is no knock. With high enough temperature and pressure, a shock wave is produced and the flame front is on that shock wave: knock. It's the difference between fire and explosion.

Delaying (retarding) the spark allows ignition to occur later than the compression-caused peak temperature and pressure, potentially preventing or reducing the shock wave. That's the physics.

Granted, Diesel engines have no spark plugs and effectively run in a knock condition at all times; that's why they have to be built to be more sturdy.

There are a number of types of fuel injection. Direct injection is used mostly by Diesels; the fuel is squirted into the cylinder long after the intake valve closes. Throttle-body injection and port injection (known by many names) vaporize fuel into the air before the intake valve closes. Stratified charge injection usually utilizes direct injection.

The opposite of selfish is self-destructive.