[astrocat]

holy units batman

> Bursting from their enormous lungs at over 300mph (483km/h), a humpback whale's blow can rise up to 7m (23ft) into the air.

Pick a lane BBC.

But this is great news. Also the fact that whales "transport huge amounts of nutrients across the globe" (linking to [1]) is fascinating. The role of whales in sucking up critters in one place and pooping them out elsewhere being a fundamental dynamic that drives global ocean ecosystems... just chefs kiss

[1] https://www.nature.com/research-intelligence/nri-topic-summa...)

[AlecSchueler]

It's not just the BBC, it's the UK as a whole. Miles per hour or deeply entrenched for speeds but for measurements we use meters. The same for weight, we weigh people in stone but we weigh everything else with grams.

[Oarch]

We even weigh different kinds of drugs differently. So I'm told.

[AlecSchueler]

Always found it funny that cannabis in small amounts was sold in grams but later quantities in ounces.

[cyberax]

Apparently they also measurably affect the vertical water mixing. Fish need dissolved oxygen to breathe, so they don't normally venture past the thermocline. And their fins are also vertical, so they don't cause a lot of vertical water movement.

But whales routinely dive deep, and their tail fin is _horizontal_ and it creates powerful updrafts.

Another organism that affects mixing is apparently jellyfish.

[tom_]

I think the BBC policy is to provide every measurement in both types of unit.

[gamerslexus]

Ordering is inconsistent.

[CarVac]

They use MPH in the UK.

[aaronbrethorst]

Their hours are pegged to the hogshead, and are about 3 seconds shorter than American hours.

[lostlogin]

The US use of units is worse than the UK.

Said from a proudly metric country, New Zealand, where everyone knows their weight in kilograms and height in feet and inches.

[NooneAtAll3]

at least it's not stones

[The_Blade]

The metric system is the tool of the Devil! My Tesla gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!

[aaronbrethorst]

Gimme five bees for a quarter you’d say!

[redsocksfan45]

Is it also their policy to botch the significant digits? 300 mph is obviously a crude estimate. Converting to 483 km/h implies an unreasonable degree of precision.

[frereubu]

I remember reading about whales returning to an area they hadn't been in for decades and people were worried about them eating all the local fish, but in fact their faeces enriched the local ecosystem from the ground up, leading to more fish. It's a bit like the counter-arguments to the lump of labour fallacy.

[phatfish]

How we measure things in the UK has been dragged into political debates (Boris floated the idea of forcing supermarkets to list weights in pounds and ounces "again"). So critical thinking or sane decisions are out the window on this front.

Although there is some logic to keeping miles per hour for road speed limits as there is a big cost associated with updating all the signs and associated "documentation".

An organisation like the BBC have to make sure to use imperial measures (as well the one most people actually interact with), otherwise Reform voters have a meltdown.

[mr_toad]

It’s not cost, it’s culture. Nearly every other country, including the vast majority of the commonwealth has managed to convert to metric distance. The UK and the US look like geriatric reactionaries, who refuse to change, not because they can’t, but because they won’t.

[xhkkffbf]

Animals do these things. Bears eat berries and then poop out the seeds, complete with fertilizer. It happens up and down the food chain.