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Rolling in Fun: 8 Fascinating Facts About Cylindrical Wonders You Never Knew!

illustration of cylinders
Get ready to dive into a whirlwind of well-rounded knowledge, as we share some truly captivating and entertaining tidbits about the fascinating world of cylinders!

1. Propane Cylinder Recycling Woes

If you thought recycling was a total gas, think again: Empty propane cylinders shouldn't be placed in recycling bins, as they can wreak havoc for recycling facilities. Instead, return them to the point of purchase or seek out a household hazardous waste recycling program in your community, which may even sport biannual drop-off events for such items.
Source => greenblue.org

2. Giant Barrel Sponge: Ocean's Vacuum Cleaner

Move over, super vacuums, and make way for the ocean's own Dyson: the Giant Barrel Sponge is a filter feeder with a monstrous appetite, sucking up and filtering a whopping 50,000 times its own volume in water daily, effectively ensuring the coral reefs remain squeaky clean.
Source => americanoceans.org

3. Cylinders' Spicy Automotive Life

Cylinders have a spicy dating life, always experimenting with different positions: inline, V, or flat – just to keep things interesting in the automotive world! The serious reveal: Different cylinder configurations, like inline, V-shaped, and flat, optimize the performance, handling, and manufacturing cost of cars – from smooth rides with inline engines to maximum power with V-8s and improved handling from flat ones.
Source => kia.com

4. O'Neill Cylinder: Outer-space Living

Who needs Earth when you can live in an outer-space cylinder that's out of this world? It's like the International Space Station, but five thousand times cooler, and with room for a veggie garden: Enter the O'Neill cylinder, a proposed rotating space habitat with a 5-mile diameter and 20-mile length, boasting artificial gravity, climate control, and alternating land-windshield-window segments. This far-out abode, conjured by physicist Gerard K. O'Neill, would primarily use materials from the Moon or asteroids to offset building costs, potentially making it a comfortable, self-sustaining human living colony in the great cosmic beyond.
Source => en.wikipedia.org

Majestic Columns: Architecture's Bodybuilders

5. Majestic Columns: Architecture's Bodybuilders

Who needs six-pack abs when you can have majestic columns? Feast your eyes on the OG bodybuilders of architecture: Saskatoon's early buildings were adorned with Greek and Roman-inspired columns, featuring five distinct designs – Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, and Composite. Made mostly from Mediterranean marble, these bad boys held up more than just their fair share of admiration. But don't confuse them with their cylindrical cousins: Columns lend their strength to buildings, while the smooth-talking cylinders woo their way into a variety of roles, leaving them far from the architectural limelight.
Source => artsandscience.usask.ca

6. Carbon Nanotubes' Goldilocks Molecules

Feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place? Good news! Turns out that molecules in carbon nanotubes have found their own Goldilocks sweet spot when it comes to size: Research by MIT, Seoul University, and Ursinus College discovered that molecules of a precise size can zip through these tubes five times faster than their slightly smaller or larger brethren, with potential applications in fuel cells and DNA-sequencing devices!
Source => news.mit.edu

7. Cylinder at the Geometry Party

Did you hear about the cylinder at the geometry party? It didn't have an edge but sure knew how to roll with the punches: Cylinders may not have vertices, but they're key players in everyday objects like cans and pipes, as well as pivotal in mathematical calculations for surface area and volume.
Source => cuemath.com

8. Trachea: Commitment to C-shaped Relationships

Your windpipe isn't afraid of commitment - it's fully invested in C-shaped relationships: The trachea isn't really a complete cylinder, but rather a collection of C-shaped cartilages held together by connective tissue, smooth muscle, and glandular tissue, forming a sturdy conduit for air to journey into our lungs.
Source => sciencedirect.com

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