• GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    had this happened 2000 years ago a local village would be absolutely losing their SHIT.

    1. look at all that fucking MEAT
    2. god has blessed us with a bountiful harvest
    3. did you see all that fucking MEAT?!
    • Smee@poeng.link
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      10 hours ago

      Way back there weren’t any settlements, only nomadic tribes. They’d loose their shit alright. “Oh no, our transport and future food resources!”

      • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        15 hours ago

        Hard to know.

        Could go either way.

        I can certainly imagine people avoiding it because of implied danger.

        … but I can also imagine people evaluating it and concluding that “they don’t look sick, and they taste fine”.

        I guess the decision depends on how hungry you are.

        I think it’s important to point out that anyone making this decision was probably using the herd as a primary source of food…it’s pretty clearly a sign that you should hit the road.

  • BigBenis@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    Lightning is one of those things that makes it easy to see why people invented Gods to explain the phenomena.

  • TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    how does lightning work? I’ve seen videos of people being struck like 5 times and they are fine with some scars and minor nerve trauma. What causes that person to be ok, but 300 reindeer just die?

    • AlsaValderaan@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      24 hours ago

      You get a circular voltage gradient away from the strike spot. A human with their two legs doesn’t spread along that as far as a deer’s four legs do, so they catch more voltage drop across that, which also runs through their body (along their heart etc). It just depends a lot on how and where a body is affected by electricity.

        • Dasus@lemmy.world
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          19 hours ago

          Also, when the lighting struck, it was probably not from a clear sky. And reindeer can huddle. So if they’re all pretty much already touching each other…

          Or even if they’re not huddled, they have a sort of defense mechanism where they just running in circles when threatened.

          https://www.livescience.com/64778-vikings-reindeer-cyclone.html

          So I imagine a thunderstorm might elicit that response. It’s just a guess though.

          • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
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            17 hours ago

            I just keep watching this. It’s fascinating to see how the “eye” of the herd forms, strengthens, and moves. The individual actions of dozens, if not hundreds, of reindeer coalesce into the same pattern as a hurricane… Fucking beautiful. Thank you for sharing this.

  • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
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    2 days ago

    Electrocuted, basically:

    “Lightning does not strike a point, it strikes an area,” said John Jensenius, a lightning safety specialist with the National Weather Service. “The physical flash you see strikes a point, but that lightning is radiating out as ground current and it’s very deadly.”

    • AugustWest@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      That’s interesting. I have seen lightning split a tree and then follow wires into a house blowing out the wall all long the path of the wires. I have also seen it lift up decking when following underground wires.

      But if lightning hits with no lightning rod and ground is equally everywhere I guess I could imagine this result.

      • dickalan@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        Here’s a question with a non-intuitive answer, do you think lightning rods attract lightning or ….

      • pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip
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        1 day ago

        I read somewhere that the induced electical field shift near a lightning strike is - while orders of magnitude calmer than the strike itself - still powerful enough to burn, maim and kill.

        I think it’s what Wikipedia calls “side splash” in the article on lightning injury?

      • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
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        2 days ago

        and ground is equally everywhere

        You make an interesting point; Lapland is known for being relatively flat, often stony and pretty much treeless. I’m sure that contributed to an increased radius.

        • virku@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Lapland is in Finland. Hardangervidda is in Norway. It is flat as well though.

            • virku@lemmy.world
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              15 hours ago

              In Norway we don’t use the lappland term for that area. That is just the area the sapmi originates for us. I knew that lappland was an official region in Finland, but didn’t know until now that it was an official region in Sweden as well. In Norway however the outlined area roughly consists of Finnmark, Troms, Nordland and Trøndelag.

              I guess we didn’t learn Sweden and Finlands regions in elementary school here in Norway in the 90s. I didn’t at least.

              • Dasus@lemmy.world
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                15 hours ago

                Its just a different name for the same region.

                Lapland (Sápmi in Northern Sami, Sää’mjânnam in Koltan Sami, Säämi in Inari Sami, Norwegian and Swedish Lappland, Russian Лапландия, Laplandija) is a historical region in the northern part of Fennoscandia in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Russia. [1] The Sámi are the indigenous people of the region.

                Lapland does not form a unified administrative region

                It’s just that collectively there’s a change trying to stop using any terms with “lapp” in the due to its connotations, but since our language is very different, the connotation didn’t ever transfer and people have no idea it’s offensive in origin. So se do talk about the Sami people, when talking about the indigenous people, but anyone living in that area would be reasonably called “a lapplander”.

                Or idk, at least some people I’ve seen online have said it’s been used as an ethnic slur against the indigenous peoples at times, but I can’t find anything of that in Finnish. Which would explain why you call it Sapmi, because that’s the indigenous name for the people and the area and there may have been historical connotations with “lapp”, which we don’t have.

                I thought you we’re Finnish from the username sounding a tad Finnish and being on sopuli. And I thought Finns ought to know that despite it being also an administrative region in Finland, it also refers to the whole area.

                My mistake.

                • virku@lemmy.world
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                  12 hours ago

                  No worries!

                  Lapp is a slur in Norwegian and not much used but I don’t know if it is used as an insult.

                  What does sopuli mean?

          • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
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            1 day ago

            Oh, sorry I just assumed Lapland when I saw reindeer.

            Lapland - or Sápmi to be precise, but that’s an even larger area - is in the North of Finland, Sweden and Norway.

      • knightly the Sneptaur@pawb.social
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        2 days ago

        Part of the problem is that we have two feet. When lightning strikes the ground nearby, it creates a difference in electric potential between the foot that’s closest to the impact point and the more distant one. If that potential is great enough, then an electric currect can jump through one’s shoe, go up into the body then down the other leg and back to ground.

        Laying down only increases the surface area in contact with the ground, so the best thing to do is get inside.

          • knightly the Sneptaur@pawb.social
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            2 days ago

            Feet have non-zero surface area so there’s still room for an electric potential between the near and far side of the foot. It’d be smaller so that isn’t an entirely terrible idea, but it is by no means foolproof.

              • Soggy@lemmy.world
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                21 hours ago

                “Fine”. Burns are very serious injuries prone to infection. Internal injuries are way harder to diagnose and treat. That’s a rough combination.