Fact of the Day

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ACT vs. SAT

Did you know... Explore the distinctions between the SAT and ACT, from scoring methods to question types.

 

The SAT and ACT are standardized tests that can help students get into colleges and earn scholarships. Although they have similar content, they’re ultimately different in other aspects. Most colleges will accept either, so what’s the difference between them? According to KD College Prep, the tests vary in some key ways, from their format to the lengths of each section.

 

Scoring
One of the most prominent differences between the ACT and SAT is their scoring scales. The final score of the latter ranges from 400–1600 points; the overall score is determined after combining the two section scores, which range from 200–800. The lowest final score of an ACT is 1 point, while the highest is 36. To calculate the overall score, ACT, Inc. averages the scores of the exam’s four sections, which also range from 1–36.

 

Test Sections
The ACT is more diverse when it comes to subject matter. The test includes mandatory English, math, and reading sections but also has optional science and writing sections. Test takers aren’t expected to be science experts to score well in the section. Scott Simons, the Vice President, Math & Science at KD Innovation, told KD College Prep that “little prior science knowledge {is} required.” The section is more about interpreting information and making accurate conclusions based on given data. Some test takers may want to skip the optional essay section, as there’s been a significant decrease in the number of colleges that review this section. 

 

The SAT only has two sections: reading and writing and math. Those taking the SAT in 2025 just missed the “no calculator” math section, which was terminated in early 2024. Some testers have complained about the more complicated wording of SAT questions compared to those on the ACT.

 

Formatting and Duration
As far as formatting, the SAT has been available in digital form since spring 2024. Testers can take the ACT online starting in April 2025 but still have the option to complete the test in person if they prefer.

 

The SAT is a little longer than the ACT, with the former lasting up to 134 minutes and the latter for 125. However, there are 98 questions on the SAT and 135 on the ACT, meaning ACT takers might have to work at a faster pace. 

 

The SAT reading and writing section gives students about a minute and 11 seconds per question, while the math section needs about one minute per question. The English part of the ACT typically takes approximately 42, and the math section is about 1 minute and 7 seconds. The test allows about 1 minute per question in the reading section.  

 

SAT vs. ACT: Which Is Easier to Take?
This isn’t a straightforward question. Everyone has certain strengths and weaknesses, so test difficulty varies from person to person. If you’re picking between the two standardized tests, consider a few things, such as how long you take to answer questions. If you realize you may need a bit more time per question, then the ACT may not be ideal—you may end up cramming since you’ll have less time to complete each section. But if you excel at science, the ACT might be up your alley since it has a dedicated section.

 

People should consider taking a full-length practice exam of the ACT (Pre-ACT) and SAT (PSAT) before choosing one or the other, as doing so will help test takers better understand which is best for them.

 

Source: ACT vs. SAT: What’s the Difference?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - PET FOOD...YUMMMM?

Did you know... Like sanitation workers, human pet-food testers have a job that inspires a certain degree of stomach-churning but nevertheless provides a valuable service. Think about it: Some 87 million U.S. households own at least one pet, which means there's a bustling industry for nutritional products that keep our animal companions happy and healthy. And since Fido isn't likely to elaborate on how his breakfast tastes (satisfying crunch, but a little too much salmon?), the onus is on the two-legged testers to deliver more insightful evaluations.    

 

As such, pet-food testing is a multifaceted role that requires attention to particulars and strong communication skills. Obviously, the products need to be taken into the mouth for tasting, and while some testers claim to actually enjoy eating the food, most simply spit it out after chewing for several seconds. From there, the tester provides detailed reports on the nuances of aroma, flavoring, and texture. They also may be involved in the development of new food formulas and production methodology. It’s a job that requires a distinct set of skills rather than a set education: While a degree in a culinary-related discipline such as nutrition science may help, it’s more important for a would-be employee to demonstrate a passion for the process and a clear ability to differentiate between mouthfuls of gravy chicken chunks from plates A and B.

 

The pros of this career choice include apparently high levels of job satisfaction: "No two days are ever the same," noted one longtime taster, who added that he derived joy from helping pets "become happier and healthier." And the pay isn't too shabby, either, with reports of a salary that can soar to over $100K for experienced testers. The cons? Quality ingredients or not, you're still required to dig into food you probably wouldn't touch otherwise. But if you're looking for a new source of income, and figure you can better tolerate a steady diet of cold meats compared to cold calls, then this may be the job for you.

 

Yes, pet food is also tested by actual pets.
For all the hoopla over human testers digging into bowls of pet chow, animals continue to hold down a vital place in the food-testing chain for many companies. Although these participants lack the means for detailed analysis, there are tried-and-true methods for determining how well a particular meal might fare on the marketplace using data they provide. Most common are the one-bowl method, which measures how much food is eaten from identical portions of different products over multiple days, and the two-bowl method, in which animals choose between the competing options presented. More complex systems are also used, including one in which dogs are permitted to smell food-filled toys and then indicate their preference when the toys are placed in a random order before them. As with all products that involve animal testing, there are ethical concerns about the treatment of creatures that essentially spend their lives inside pet-food facilities, although this issue is at least partially offset by companies that offer test-at-home programs for owners and their pets.

 

 

Source: Pet food companies employ human taste testers.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - TOYS IN CEREAL BOXES

Did you know... Honey Comb Monster Mitts. Urkel for President campaign buttons. Sugar Smacks Star Trek badges. If you ate cereal between the 1950s and 1990s, you were likely to encounter a cereal box prize—an inexpensive trinket lurking inside the bag that may have made the difference between a kid choosing Fruit Loops over Lucky Charms.

 

Browse the cereal aisle today, though, and you won’t find much in the way of in-box toy incentives. So what happened?

 

The Origin of Cereal Box Toys
Dry breakfast cereal has always been marketing-driven. In the 1930s, Mickey Mouse was recruited to endorse Post products; Cap’n Crunch was created to appeal to kids who hated soggy cereal. But prizes weren’t always relegated to children. In 1905, Quaker Oats awarded consumers free bowls of fine China in exchange for box tokens.

 

Obviously, Quaker wasn’t stuffing fragile dinnerware into boxes of oatmeal: You had to send away for the bowls. But before long, prizes were included in the package itself. In the 1930s, General Mills began enticing kids with paper airplanes and trading cards packed inside cereal boxes. In the 1940s, Army buttons could be dug out of Pep cereal. In the 1950s, Kellogg’s began inserting tiny submarines and scuba-diving frogmen into their products. (The submarines could be filled with baking soda that allowed them to plunge and resurface in bathwater.)

 

Some companies used the limitations of the giveaways to get creative. In 1955, Quaker Puffed Rice offered a deed that entitled the consumer to a 1-inch plot of land in the Yukon; Nabisco’s Wheat Honeys promised a launching plastic rocket; Alpha Bits included terrariums where kids could grow basil.

 

As plastic injection molding made toymaking easier, companies began outsourcing creative toy ideas to marketing companies, who would then try to bid for cereal contracts. The toys had to meet exacting specifications for size and weight. The item couldn’t have any loose parts, because a tiny figure’s broken arm or head could become a choking hazard. (That problem was never fully resolved: In 1988, Kellogg’s recalled 30 million tiny flutes and binoculars that were included in boxes of Corn Pops and Rice Krispies that could break into smaller, airway-obstructing pieces.)

 

Some toys didn’t take much brainstorming: They were marketing tie-ins. A new Star Wars movie could mean a lightsaber spoon stuffed into boxes of Apple Jacks; others were mascot-driven, with Tony the Tiger license plates awaiting kids in boxes of Frosted Flakes.

 

Come the 2000s, though, cereal toys seemed to be growing scarce.

 

 

Why Cereal Box Toys Disappeared
Cereal companies never made any formal announcements about their shifting marketing strategies. Still, it’s easy enough to identify some contributing factors to the decline in cereal toys.

 

The most significant change to the industry was the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, a voluntary pledge announced in 2005 that curbs advertising less-nutritious food to kids. Cereal makers like Post, General Mills, and Kellogg’s (under the company name Kellanova) are all participants. Since toys are certainly going to catch a kid’s eye, there may have been some reluctance to stuff them into sugary cereals. Instead, companies began including pedometers in boxes to encourage physical activity.

 

A more health-conscious market wasn’t the only issue. Environmental concerns were also in play, with companies recognizing that the mass production of plastic items likely to be discarded isn’t exactly a public relations win.

 

Cereal incentives still exist. Tiny toy mascots dubbed Bowl Buddies were included in Kellogg’s boxes in 2021. Other boxes feature QR codes so consumers can play games online. But the days of garnering a deed to a 1-inch plot of land in the Yukon or firing off a plastic rocket over the breakfast table are likely over.

 

Source: Why Did Toys Disappear From Cereal Boxes?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - SHOOTING A GUN IN SPACE

Did you know... Firing a gun in space isn’t advisable, but it is possible.

 

Space programs have spent decades figuring out how terrestrial activities would work outside of Earth’s atmosphere. Will plants grow? Do muscles atrophy? Will astronauts ever be able to do laundry?

 

A less-researched but no less important question: Could you fire a gun in space? And has anyone ever tried?

 

Technically, it should work just fine. According to BBC Science Focus, guns don’t require oxygen to fire. That’s because they already have an oxidizing agent in the sealed ammunition cartridge that can ignite the gunpowder. Nor is gravity needed to chamber a bullet: a spring forces that.

 

It’s not a lack of gravity that poses the biggest problem. Instead, environmental factors might prevent a space shooting. Extreme temperatures could cause the weapon to overheat and malfunction. If the weapon gets too cold, the firing cap primer might not go off; metal gun parts could lose their structural integrity, leading to jamming.

 

 

Shooting on Earth

• Gun will likely function in average temperatures
• Bullet will travel until gravity overtakes it, typically 1.5 miles depending on caliber
• Recoil can be absorbed by body

 

Shooting in Space

• Gun could malfunction when exposed to extreme hot or cold temperatures
• Bullet could travel indefinitely until striking a solid object
• Recoil could propel body backward

 

Suppose those problems are resolved. If a gun can successfully fire, what would happen to the bullet? If it’s not hitting a target, the shooter may never find out. On Earth, a bullet that doesn't strike a target will eventually be pushed down by gravity. Depending on the caliber and environmental factors, it could travel for well over 1 mile. Because space lacks gravity and its drag, however, there’s nothing stopping the bullet from traveling indefinitely, or at least until it makes contact with a surface.

 

The shooter would also have to contend with recoil. On the ground, gravity and planted feet help absorb kickback. In space, the astronaut-slash-gunslinger would be propelled backward after firing. This wouldn’t be rapid—probably less than walking speed—but it would put the shooter in motion, and they would need a counteracting force (like thrusters) or the wall of their spacecraft to halt their movement.

 

So has NASA ever tried experimenting with galactic gunplay? No—but the Soviets did. Kind of. In the 1970s, amid the Cold War, Russia was concerned their satellites might be targeted by foreign adversaries. In 1975, they equipped their Salyut-3 space station with a R-23M rapid-fire cannon and scheduled a test shoot as the station was de-orbiting and after departure of the crew. Reportedly, the weapon fired 20 shells in total that burned up in the atmosphere.

 

It remains the only known weapon discharged in space, thought not the only weapon brought into space. Soviet cosmonauts once carried triple-barrel shotguns as part of an emergency kit in the event they ever touched down in hostile terrain and had to fight off wild animals.

 

Source: What Happens If You Shoot a Gun in Space?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - PINK LEMONADE

Did you know... The circus brought death-defying performers and exotic animals across the American landscape in the 1800s, but it also introduced something a little sweeter: pink lemonade. There are two origin stories for the rose-tinted drink, both involving the big top. One version, revealed in a 1912 obituary, credits the invention to Chicago saloonkeeper, theatrical promoter, gambler, and circus vendor Henry E. Allott. After running off to join the circus at age 15, Allott accidentally dropped some red cinnamon candies into a tub of traditional lemonade, only to find that the new mixture was a hit with concession-stand customers.

 

The alternate and more colorful version of the drink’s dawn comes courtesy of an innovative clown named Pete Conklin circa 1857. Fed up with his wages, Conklin renounced the bells and sequins, and instead followed the circus as a lemonade vendor while his former co-workers wound their way through Texas. During one hot day, Conklin was dismayed to find he had run out of water as his parched customers demanded something to drink. Scouring the lot for replenishment, he dashed into the changing tent of bareback horse rider Fannie Jamieson, who was washing her red tights in a bin of water. Conklin grabbed the bin, its contents colored pink by the garment's aniline dye, and after dumping in the usual sugar and soggy lemon, he unveiled his new “strawberry lemonade” to an appreciative crowd. This story was later confirmed by Conklin’s lion-tamer brother George, and while it may be a tall tale regardless, it’s the type that goes down well when accompanied by a tall glass of our favorite pink beverage.

 

Circus peanuts were used to create a famous breakfast cereal.

Circus peanuts likely didn’t originate at the circus, and their murky origins are just one of the many mysteries surrounding the banana-flavored marshmallow treat that ostensibly has something to do with peanuts. Fortunately, there is one thing we know for certain about this holdover from 19th-century penny candy bins. According to General Mills, a product developer named John Holahan decided to mix chopped-up circus peanuts with Cheerios while experimenting with new cereal ideas in the early 1960s. The result was the marshmallow-oat mix that became Lucky Charms, another food product with a name that offers no clue to its content, but nevertheless has endured as a staple of American culture.

 

Source: Pink lemonade was invented at the circus.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - SOAP OPERAS

Did you know...  Though soap operas often get a bad rap, they represent an important part of entertainment history. Smithsonian has described them as “[shaping] American culture” over the past 70 years, and they have certainly had their glory days, especially in the 1980s.

 

Now, we use the term soap operas to describe overly dramatic, long-running television shows. But the genre actually predates television altogether. They began as serialized dramas for radio in the 1930s, targeted mainly at homemakers whose husbands would be at work and whose children would be in school during the day, so they had free afternoons to themselves. Advertisements were par for the course on these radio dramas, and there’s one thing that every homemaker was supposed to need during this era: soap

 

Constant advertisements for soap, detergent, and other everyday products during these daytime dramas led to the tongue-in-cheek nickname soap operas. However, companies found the medium so fruitful that they not only advertised within popular shows but later actually produced their own as well.

 

Proctor & Gamble, for example, sponsored radio serials like Ma Perkins (1933) and Guiding Light (1952), which had been hits for the medium, as well as TV shows like As the World Turns (1956). Robert E. Short, former production executive at Proctor & Gamble, described the early days of the soap opera experiment:

 

“Most of the shows were sponsored by just one brand. There were no other advertisers. The shows were created for the company to advertise the company’s products, and they were very successful. Procter & Gamble was the biggest programmer in the field. General Foods and General Mills also had programs of their own. The shows grew out of the creative departments of the advertising agencies. Some of the directors and producers were agency staff people, and they just created a production staff.”

 

Thanks to the efforts of pioneers like Irna Phillips, scriptwriter and radio actor behind hits like These Are My Children (1949) and Another World (1964), soap operas made their way from the radio to daytime television. These shows offered women a chance to enter the television industry as performers, which—with notable exceptions like Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy—was a field dominated by men at that time. They also brought the allegedly feminine realm of domestic drama to the fore, with lurid tales featuring affairs, secret children, death, and family squabbling of all kinds. 

 

The “opera” part of the phrase soap opera refers to these over-the-top plot lines, channeling the similar melodrama of traditional theatre-based operas. The word opera, however, doesn’t originate from any reference to drama at all. Instead, it comes from the Italian word opera, meaning any type of work or composition—serious or not. 

 

Daytime soap operas remain on the air, though usually without all the soap advertisements. Millions of people, and not just homemakers, still tune into the four that have been running for decades now—General Hospital (which debuted in 1963), Days of Our Lives (1965), The Bold and the Beautiful (1987), and The Young and the Restless (1973)—for their daily dose of cliffhangers and theatrics, making them a reliable staple in the television world.

 

Source: Why Is It Called a “Soap Opera”?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - CHAMELEON TONGUES

Did you know... Although many people tend to focus on the chameleon’s ability to change its color (both for camouflage and to attract — or warn — potential mates), this amazing lizard’s tongue is an often-overlooked wonder. First, it’s the fastest “gun” in the animal kingdom: It can go from zero to 60 mph in one-hundredth of a second, something that the world’s fastest cars could never dream of achieving. But another surprising attribute of this incredible muscle is that it’s twice as long as a chameleon’s body on average — a handy feature when sneaking up on unsuspecting prey. Translated into human biological terms, that’s the same as a person having a 10- to 12-foot-long tongue. 

 

So how do chameleons, which are not particularly large lizards, keep this long tongue in such a small mouth? Well, scientists have discovered that a chameleon’s tongue contains elastic tissue that allows them to effectively store this secret weapon “folded up like an accordion,” in the words of National Geographic. When hunting prey, muscles contract in the mouth, similar to pulling back the string of a bow, and once that tension is released, simple physics takes over. The chameleon’s tongue propels forward with blink-and-you’ll-miss-it speed in a process scientists call “elastic recoil.” Then, a super-sticky, viscous fluid at the tongue’s tip ensnares the whiplashed insect, and the recoil returns the freshly caught meal to the chameleon’s mouth. Yum.

 

Chameleons have 360-degree vision.
While their pincer-like feet, super-long tongues, and color-changing camouflage already make them pretty otherworldly, a chameleon’s vision is also something special. Chameleons can independently move each of their eyeballs, giving them a 360-degree view of their environment. Chameleon eyes also work like a telephoto lens, giving them the ability to zoom in on potential prey. This highly unusual visual system aids these fascinating lizards in catching food, avoiding predators, and mating. In other words, a chameleon’s eyes are perhaps the ultimate evolutionary superpower.

 

Source: Chameleon tongues are about twice the length of their bodies.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - REVERSE WARTERFALL

Did you know.... Next time you feel like defying gravity, consider a trip to Hawaii — specifically the island of Oahu, which is home to a reverse waterfall. Also known as the Upside Down Waterfall, Waipuhia Falls sprays up Mount Konahuanui and can be seen from Route 61 (the Pali Highway). The striking effect, visible only during the wet season between November and March, is a result of the island’s strong trade winds. They blow in a northeasterly direction, and catch the water before it can reach the bottom, making it look as though the waterfall flows in reverse.

 

Though rare, reverse waterfalls do occur elsewhere. Perhaps the most famous is Naneghat, a waterfall in Maharashtra, India, some three hours from Mumbai. It’s at its strongest during monsoon season, from June to September. Similar phenomena have also been observed in places as varied as Utah and Sydney, though most of these are one-off events caused by extreme conditions — not that that makes them any less fascinating to watch.

 

The native language of Hawaii has only 13 letters.
ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, the Indigenous language of Hawaii, includes 13 letters — five vowel sounds and eight consonants. Today, it is an official language of Hawaii, along with English. However, the language was once banned — first in 1896, three years after Americans overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy in a coup. That ban was eventually reversed, but ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi is still considered an endangered language. Today, however, it is experiencing something of a resurgence, in part thanks to the creation of Hawaiian language immersion schools in the 1980s.

 

Source: Hawaii has a reverse waterfall.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - 'INSIDE BASEBALL'

Did you know... Before it became a cliché, inside baseball was a buzzy new baseball strategy that took big swings—just not of the home-run variety.

 

These days, inside baseball is anything “known or understood only by a small group of people,” per Merriam-Webster. It’s not always that outsiders aren’t smart enough to grasp the information—often, the implication is more that it’s too detailed or jargon-heavy for them to follow or find interesting. To the casual Netflix viewer, for example, an examination of how Netflix tracks and reports streaming statistics is inside baseball.

 

And to the casual user of the phrase inside baseball, a deep dive into its origins might also be inside baseball. But we’ll try to keep the jargon to a minimum.

 

Not Your Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather’s Baseball

Toward the end of the 19th century, baseball players began to challenge established notions of how the game should be played. Maybe, they thought, the simple approach of swinging hard at every pitch and hoping for a home run wasn’t the only—or even the best—way to win.

 

So a new approach emerged that focused more on teamwork and strategy. Since the point was to score runs, players and coaches drew from all the tactical tools at their disposal to help each runner cross home plate. Steals assumed a much greater significance. Take the standard hit and run, in which the runner on first starts to steal second, causing either the shortstop or second baseman to move to cover that base. The batter then aims a hit right into the gap created by that shift—leaving defense to scramble for the ball as the batter safely reaches first base and the stealer makes it to second (or even third). Bunt plays gained popularity, too—like the sacrifice bunt, wherein a batter bunts to give a runner or runners time to advance around the bases while he himself likely gets out. 

 

 

The man widely credited as the pioneer of this style of play was Ned Hanlon, a former pro baseballer who became the manager of the Baltimore Orioles in 1892. Hanlon’s Orioles were almost immediately legendary, clinching three National League pennants that decade and, in doing so, encouraging other teams to take a page out of their playbook. (It was also these Orioles who gave us the Baltimore chop, in which a batter aims a hit almost straight down. The resulting bounce is ideally high enough for the batter to safely reach first and for any other runners to advance before the ball is fielded.)

 

Mind Games
By the early 20th century, so-called “inside baseball” (or “scientific baseball”) was an integral part of the sport, and teams built on Hanlon’s foundation in every direction. The Chicago Cubs were key in developing its defensive potential, which centered on good communication between fielders and pitchers: If fielders knew what kind of pitch to expect, they could better predict each hit and adjust position accordingly.

 

As the bounds of inside baseball expanded, the meaning of the phrase itself lost clarity. “The development of inside baseball in the first decade of the 20th century has been great or little, according to what that widely discussed, flexible, and, to the average patron of the game, mysterious term is made to apply,” the Chicago Tribune’s Sy Sanborn wrote in 1911. “Definitions are many and their limits vague.” Brooklyn pitcher Don “Pat” Ragan had illustrated as much with his own definition just a few months earlier: “something which occurs during a ball game that can be explained no other way.” Inside ball, he said, was “a phrase used to make baseball psychological.”

 

 

Ragan’s explanation, ambiguous as it was, identified the unifying germ within most conceptions of inside baseball: It was mental, not physical. Fake-outs, signals, anything mapped out beforehand, and even improvised plays that looked intricate—they all required an acumen that was practically invisible to most baseball viewers. Plenty of people pointed out that inside baseball couldn’t work without outside baseball; i.e., if players couldn’t hit, pitch, and field balls with precision and strength, they wouldn’t be able to execute any clever plan.

 

But even when the two functioned together, crowds cheered for what they could see. To “the average man who played baseball in his youth,” one reporter wrote in 1907, “it is a case of sheer, unthinking, superior curve or speed in the pitcher, preponderant ability of hand and eye in the batter, greater genius in the acquisitive hands of the fielder.” Everything else was inside baseball.

 

Inside Baseball Gets Political
Inside baseball in the literal sense is now a relic referring to the more cerebral kind of game ushered in by Hanlon and his acolytes. It helped form the fundamentals of modern baseball, and its rationale echoes through any discussion on the merits of small ball—batting tactics that inch runners toward home rather than clearing them with home runs. You could even argue that there’s an inside-baseball sensibility to sabermetrics: the success-through-statistics strategy that Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill simplified for laypeople in Moneyball (2011), based on Michael Lewis’s eponymous book. Inside baseball has also been used more broadly in reference to any insider intel about baseball.

 

 

 

But the phrase’s most active sense by far is metaphorical. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, political journalist Thomas L. Stokes was the first person to recognize (or at least publish an article about) a version of inside baseball in politics.

 

“There is such a thing as ‘inside politics’ which the folks in the grandstands and bleachers seldom see and rarely understand, just as crowds watching our great national pastime miss the fine points of what is called ‘inside baseball,’ ” he wrote in 1951. “ ‘Inside politics is played in congress by clever operators—sometimes called lobbyists—who often get what they want out of a confused and complex situation in which there is a different and larger over-all objective as the public sees it.” The following year, David Lawrence harked back to traditional inside baseball when he wrote that “There is a right way and a wrong way to play ball on a team, and the evidence thus far indicates that the Eisenhower staff is going to have to learn its ‘inside baseball’ the hard way.”

 

 

As the 20th century progressed, political journalists stopped overexplaining the connection and started using inside baseball as actual shorthand. But what exactly it’s shorthand for—in politics and beyond—varies by context. There could be an intentional lack of transparency involved, as there was with Stokes’s wheeling and dealing lobbyists; or it could be a straightforward reference to dull technical minutiae. Unless you’re talking to a baseball historian, in which case the phrase might not be figurative at all.

 

 

Source: Inside ‘Inside Baseball’: How America’s Pastime Invented a Handy Metaphor

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - MUSIC AND PAIN

Did you know.... Legendary reggae musician Bob Marley once said, “One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” Turns out, science backs him up. According to a 2023 study by scientists at McGill University in Montreal, listening to your favorite music reduces pain by one point on a 10-point scale. Scientists asked a series of questions after 63 participants experienced pain while listening to either their favorite songs, relaxing songs picked for them, scrambled music, or silence. Once each seven-minute round was over, subjects rated the music’s pleasantness and how many “chills” — that goosebump feeling you get when listening to moving music — they experienced. Listening to preferred music, especially moving music, far outranked other scenarios, and participants ranked the pain as less intense and less unpleasant. 

 

Although this particular study focuses on music’s impact on physical health, the medical world has long known the healing powers of music when it comes to the mind. Music’s ability to reduce stress and anxiety while improving cognitive ability and memory inspired a field of medicine known as music therapy, which has existed in some form since the late 18th century. So while listening to your favorite Beatles track or kicking back with some Beethoven won’t be enough to curtail serious pain, music can help mellow out the aches of everyday life.

 

In 1865, a single chord changed Western music forever.
On June 10, 1865, at the National Theatre in Munich, Germany, audiences heard for the first time one of the most innovative moments in music history. Within the opening seconds of the opera Tristan und Isolde, Richard Wagner delivered a strange augmented sixth chord that’s known today simply as the “Tristan chord” — and it’s arguably the most analyzed chord ever. With this one chord and the dissonance that followed, Wagner upset the conventional rules of tonality and inspired future composers’ exploration of atonality. The chord, in itself, wasn’t an innovation — previous composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and Chopin had used it — but the genius was in the way it was used. Traditionally, in Wagner’s time, tonal dissonance resolved quickly to consonant harmony. However, in Tristan und Isolde, which is based on a Celtic legend about two doomed lovers, Wagner uses dissonance and atonality to emphasize the pain of longing and unrequited love. Only at the opera’s conclusion — some four hours later — do audiences finally hear the chord’s resolution.

 

 

Source: Music can reduce pain.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - CAR NAMES

Did you know... A name can make or break a car.

 

In 1927, popular carmaker Studebaker introduced its newest model: the Dictator. The company advertised it as a “fine car” that would “dictate the standards” for other automobiles. Given the course of world history in the proceeding decade, it might be the worst name for a car ever selected. That ignominious position was later challenged by vehicles like the Mitsubishi Carisma, the Dodge Dart Swinger, and the much-maligned AMC Gremlin. Such choices can invite a question: How do carmakers settle on car names?

 

The Art of Branding
The issue was recently tackled by Kristin Shaw of Popular Science, who spoke with a number of auto industry experts within the U.S. arms of Honda and Hyundai. Naming often comes down to a few things: availability, theme, and messaging. The Honda Prologue, for example, was so named because it represents a new beginning for the company in terms of electric vehicle options. Its Passport is marketed as a rugged off-road vehicle, with the name giving it the needed travel connotations.

 

Names can also carry subtext. When Honda released its Civic in 1972, it was referencing the car’s purpose in cities and among citizens. The Accord, which debuted in 1976, was named because Honda wanted to broadcast a desire for accord between people, society, and cars through technology.

 

Hyundai draws on an emotional connection drivers may have with regional locations: The company markets cars with names like Santa Fe, Palisade, Tucson, and Kona. Companies may also opt for acronyms: Toyota’s RAV4 stands for Recreational Active Vehicle with four-wheel drive. And others avoid the name game altogether by offering model series, like BMW.

 

Toyota, meanwhile, seems to prefer words that can evoke a transformative driving experience. Camry comes from the Japanese word kanmuri, or crown; Corolla is the word for the petals around a flower; Celica is Spanish for celestial.

 

The Customer Knows Best
Sometimes, companies simply rely on common consumer product branding strategies like consulting with marketing firms or conducting focus group surveys. A sprawling list is later narrowed based on trademark and legal clearances. These names can materialize based on gut marketing instincts: Toyota’s Lexus was named because it has connotations of luxury and technology. It’s not a word you’ll locate in the dictionary. (Though you can find lexis, a language vocabulary.)

 

All of this is actually quite harder than it seems. With a century of car production behind automakers, coming up with a name that hasn’t been used is tricky—so is choosing a name that can translate into different markets. Audi’s TT Coupe may sound classy to the American ear, but to the French, it sounds a lot like tête est coupé—or a decapitated car.

 

Occasionally, companies can sabotage themselves in search of a distinctive brand identity. The Chevy Volt was a 2011 hybrid; the Chevy Bolt was an all-electric released a few years later. Consumers were understandably confused.

 

Meanwhile, with the Studebaker Dictator, common sense eventually prevailed. It was renamed the Studebaker Commander in 1937.

 

Source: How Do Cars Get Their Names?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - AMBIDEXTROUS

Did you know... True ambidexterity is the ability to use one’s left and right hands equally well when it comes to tasks such as writing or throwing a ball. This rare trait naturally occurs in roughly 1% of the global population (around 82 million people). In a 2019 study, 1.7% of respondents said they could use both hands interchangeably, far fewer than the 89% who were right-handed and the 9.3% who were lefties. 

 

The study also found a higher predisposition for ambidexterity among males than females (2.1% and 1.4%, respectively), which some theorize may have to do with the effect higher testosterone levels have on brain development (though this has yet to be conclusively proved). This is just one of several studies on handedness — the tendency to use one hand over another — and while the exact percentages of right-handed, left-handed, and ambidextrous people vary, the results are largely consistent across the board.

 

The root cause of ambidexterity — or any handedness, for that matter — remains tough to pin down. One 2009 study suggests it may be determined by a combination of genetics and environmental influences (for instance, being taught to write with a certain hand in school). It’s also believed that ambidextrous people possess atypical brain laterality compared to right-handed individuals, which forms during development.

 

This cerebral asymmetry is arguably why ambidextrous people have a higher propensity toward conditions including ADHD, and also why they generally are less proficient than right-handed people in topics such as arithmetic and logical reasoning. Ambidextrous people also possess a unique versatility when it comes to sports, playing music, or performing everyday physical activities.

 

Leonardo da Vinci wrote from right to left.
Italian, like most languages, is traditionally written from left to right, yet the famed Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci wrote his notes from right to left — a unique style known as mirror writing. Not only was the direction reversed, but each letter was also flipped horizontally as if viewed through a mirror. 

 

Some theorize that Leonardo practiced mirror writing to make it more difficult for people to read his notes and steal his ideas. Interestingly, he only used mirror writing when composing personal notes; if the text was intended to be read by anyone else, he wrote in the standard direction. 

 

Others believe that Leonardo used mirror writing to avoid ink smudges on his left hand, which he used to write. The Renaissance man was a lefty (though some argue he was actually ambidextrous) and was known among his contemporaries as “mancino” — Italian slang for a left-handed person.

 

Source: Only about 1% of the world’s population is ambidextrous.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ALLIGATORS AND CROCODILES

Did you know... Alligators and crocodiles have a lot in common. They’re both beefy reptiles with a serious set of teeth and strong Triassic vibes. However, there are some big differences between them: Alligators usually have a more U-shaped snout, whereas crocodiles sport a more V-shaped schnoz; alligators stick to fresh water, while crocodiles live in salty environments; alligators are blacker, while crocs prefer earth tones like brown. However, the biggest difference is usually in the locations these two gargantuan reptiles call home. American crocodiles (Crocodylus acutus) can be found in Cuba, Jamaica, southern Mexico, Central America, Ecuador, and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) mostly sticks to the southeastern U.S. You’ll likely never be tasked with differentiating the two creatures in the wild — that is, unless you find yourself in south Florida. 

 

On the tip of the Florida peninsula lies the U.S.’s third-largest national park — the Everglades. It’s here that the southern extreme of the American alligator’s range overlaps with the northern extreme of the American crocodile’s range. The 7,800-square-mile expanse of wetlands has both brackish and saltwater environments that create a perfect home for crocs, while fresh water supplied by lakes, rivers, and rainfall provides the preferred habitat for alligators. Alligators vastly outnumber crocodiles in the U.S., with about 200,000 alligators in the park alone. And while crocodiles are considered more aggressive, the two rarely fight with each other or with humans. Still, it’s probably a good idea to keep a minimum safe distance between you and their frighteningly numerous teeth.

 

The crocodile is the closest living relative of birds.
Although your typical croc and warbler appear to have nothing in common, the duo share a common ancestor that roamed the Earth some 240 million years ago. Both birds and crocodiles (as well as alligators and gharials) descend from a group of reptiles known as “archosaurs,” which literally means “ruling reptiles.” From this group came dinosaurs — the ancestors of birds — and crocodilians. While the common ancestor of these two disparate animals existed a long time ago, birds underwent a drastic evolution, whereas crocodiles remained relatively similar over time. In fact, in 2014 scientists discovered that crocodiles have the slowest molecular change of any known vertebrate genome, meaning crocodiles have remained the same — more or less — for millions of years.

 

Source: South Florida is the only region where both alligators and crocodiles coexist in the wild.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - NINTENDO

Did you know.... The Ottoman Empire feels like an entity of a time long past, while the name Nintendo conjures up images of modernity — electronics, video games, arcades, and mustachioed plumbers. However, Nintendo was actually founded before the Ottoman Empire ended, and this period of overlap isn’t measured in a matter of months or even a few years. When the Ottoman sultanate was eliminated in 1922 after the widespread geographic shuffle that followed World War I, Nintendo had already been in business for 33 years. 

 

Of course, this wasn’t the Nintendo that many of us know today — Nintendo didn’t make its first electronic video game until 1975. Founded on September 23, 1889, Nintendo began with a humble mission: selling playing cards, specifically Japanese-style cards called Hanafuda. The company did pretty well, but decided to expand further in later decades. Nintendo struck a deal with Disney in 1959 to create playing cards with Disney characters on them, and in the 1960s, Nintendo sold a series of successful children’s toys, including Ultra Hand and Home Bowling, before becoming the official Japanese distributor of the Magnavox Odyssey — the first commercial home video console. Seeing the promise of such a machine, Nintendo threw its weight behind this emerging entertainment category. The rest, as they say, is history.

 

If Mario were a real person, his jump would be 25 feet high.
On February 7, 2021, an American man named Christopher Spell jumped 1.70 meters (roughly 5.5 feet) when standing still, clinching the title of highest standing jump in Guinness World Records. Although an impressive feat, it’s nothing compared to Mario’s jumping prowess. According to physics calculations conducted by the website TechRadar, Nintendo’s overalled mascot could miraculously jump 25 feet into the air if he were a real person — that’s five times his overall height (at 5 feet, 1 inch). However, Mario’s impressive strength isn’t just in his legs. In the original Super Mario Bros., the titular character can rip through a brick block, which is about four bricks high, with ease. It would take an estimated 16,681 newtons of force to achieve such a feat, but when martial artists break through a single brick, they produce roughly 3,000 newtons of force. These calculations prove that Mario isn’t just a plumber — he’s a superhuman.

 

Source: Nintendo was founded before the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - DID THEY ROAR?

Did you know - If asked what a dinosaur sounded like, many people would likely recall the roaring T. rex of Jurassic Park. However, that earth-shaking bellow seems to be a case of Hollywood exercising some creative liberty. While we don't know what these reptiles really sounded like, since they mostly died out some 66 million years ago, scientists at least have some reasonable ideas based on the anatomical structures of well-preserved fossils, combined with studies of the dinosaurs and their close relatives that exist today.

 

Yes, dinosaurs do still exist, in the form of birds, which branched off from non-avian dinosaurs around 160 million years ago. Although birds mainly produce noises via a soft-tissue organ called the syrinx, which has yet to be uncovered from a non-avian dinosaur fossil, many of our feathered friends also engage in closed-mouth vocalization, in which sounds are pushed out from a pouch in the neck area. Another modern animal that utilizes closed-mouth vocalization is the crocodile, which just so happens to share a common ancestor with dinosaurs. Given the family ties, it's logical to conclude that some dinosaurs emitted something resembling the cooing of a dove, the booming of an ostrich, or the rumbling of a croc. Since larger animals with longer vocal cords produce lower-frequency sounds, it's also likely that enormous sauropods like Brachiosaurus delivered noises that, to our ears, would dip into an octave of infrasound — felt and not heard. On the other hand, the ear structures of the dinosaur-crocodile predecessor indicate a sensitivity to high-pitched noises, possibly the chirping of babies.

 

The field continues to evolve as new information comes to light; the recent discovery of the first known fossilized dinosaur larynx, from an ankylosaur, suggests these creatures were able to modify noises in a birdlike way despite the lack of a syrinx. And none of this even touches on the sound capabilities of hadrosaurs like Parasaurolophus, which almost certainly delivered a distinct call from the air passages that funneled through a conspicuous head crest. All in all, while a roar from a Jurassic-bred beast may have been the work of a Hollywood studio, there’s no movie magic needed to recognize that Earth’s prehistoric hills were alive with all sorts of reptilian sounds of music.

 

Some musicians are using dinosaur skull replicas as instruments.
Given the ever-increasing understanding of dinosaur sounds, it’s appropriate that a few experimental musicians have found ways to make music out of these potentially noisy monsters from yesteryear. One such artist is Southern Methodist University assistant professor Courtney Brown, who initially attached a mouthpiece and a synthetic larynx to the replica of a hadrosaur skull for an interactive exhibit, before recording the sounds produced by this creation alongside other instruments and vocals for her Dinosaur Choir project. Similarly, composers Anže Rozman and Kara Talve devised replica skull-based instruments as part of their assignment to score the Apple TV+ series Prehistoric Planet. Thanks to their atmospheric arrangements on innovations including the Triceratone, which fuses an electric double bass with a triceratops skull, and the Fat Rex, a combined frame drum and cello fingerboard topped with a 3D-printed T. rex skull, the Rozman-Talve-led team claimed Best Original Score for a Documentary Series honors at the 2023 Hollywood Music in Media Awards.

 

 

Source: Dinosaurs probably didn’t roar.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - BEDROOM COMMUNITIES

Did you know... These planned communities became popular in the U.S. after World War II.

 

In 2009, Ed Verner, a resident and business owner in Plant City, Florida, wrote to The Tampa Tribune to complain about a label that was frequently becoming associated with his town. “More often than I’d like, I hear Plant City being referred to as a ‘bedroom community,’ ” he said. “We are much more than this tag would imply.” But what is a bedroom community—and where did the term come from?

 

What’s a Bedroom Community?
According to Merriam-Webster, a bedroom community is a community of people—often based in a small satellite town or suburb of a larger city, and with little to no industrial areas of its own—that serves as a residential base for workers who are employed elsewhere.

 

Where Did the Phrase Come From?
Bedroom community has been in recorded use since the 20th century. The term alludes to the fact that although the workers who live in these communities call them home, they do little when they’re there except sleep before heading off to work again the following morning. (They’re also sometimes called “commuter towns,” “bedroom towns,” or, if you’re in the UK, “dormitory towns.”)

 

Bedroom communities emerged at the tail end of the industrial era, when large residential areas and suburbs began to be specially built far away from the crime and grime of the city to provide housing for the local workforce. According to Karen Christensen and David Levinson in their book Encyclopedia of Community, these communities took off in the U.S. after World War II, and the workforce was more white collar than blue: “As parts of the industrial economy grew and many cities became increasingly dense and polluted, the middle- and upper-income classes sought to separate their work lives from their home lives.”

 

 

These outlying communities were easily reachable and commutable from city centers and industrial areas, and they became a clean and welcome choice of living space for workers looking to lay down roots or start a family. (And, as Levinson and Christensen note, “bedroom communities supported the societal ideal of further segregating gender roles. The wife stayed home and kept house while her husband traveled a significant distance away from home to earn the household income.”) But with so many workers installed into a single area—all of whom left first thing in the morning, and only returned home in the evening—these outlying commuter areas soon became little more than suburban “bedrooms,” hence their name.

 

As for Verner—who was also chairman of the Chamber of Commerce—he objected to the label for Plant City because it had a hospital and a library, a municipal government and city hall, and a university and an airport, among other things. “Does a bedroom community have character and a soul?” he mused. “Plant City offers all these amenities and more.”

 

Source: Why Are Some Towns Called “Bedroom Communities”?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - APRIL FISH

Did you know.... What do you call someone who’s fallen for a prank? There’s no punchline here — in most English-speaking places, you’d probably just call them gullible. But in France, you might use the term poisson d’avril, meaning “April fish.” The centuries-old name is linked to a 1508 poem by Renaissance composer and writer Eloy d’Amerval, who used the phrase to describe the springtime spawn of fish as the easiest to catch; young and hungry April fish were considered more susceptible to hooks than older fish swimming around at other times of year. Today, celebrating “April fish” in France — as well as Belgium, Canada, and Italy — is akin to April Fools’ Day elsewhere, complete with pranks; one popular form of foolery includes taping paper fish on the backs of the unsuspecting.

 

While the first reference to poisson d’avril comes from d’Amerval’s poem, historians aren’t sure just how old the April Fools’ holiday is. It’s often linked to Hilaria, a festival celebrated by the ancient Romans and held at the end of March to commemorate the resurrection of the god Attis. However, many historians believe that while Hilaria participants would disguise themselves and imitate others, there’s little evidence that it’s the predecessor of April Fools’. Other theories suggest that April 1 trickery stems from switching to the Gregorian calendar. One such explanation dates to 1564, the year French King Charles IX moved to standardize January 1 as the start of the new year, which had often been celebrated on Christmas, Easter, or during Holy Week (the seven days before Easter). Despite the royal edict, some French people kept with the Holy Week tradition and celebrated the new year in late March to early April, becoming the first “April fools.”

 

The BBC once claimed spaghetti noodles grew on trees.
The most convincing April Fools’ pranks often come from the most unexpected sources, which could be why the BBC has a history of successful hoaxes. This includes a 1957 joke, considered to be one of the first April Fools’ TV pranks, wherein the British broadcaster aired a two-and-a-half-minute segment claiming spaghetti noodles grew on trees in Switzerland. Footage showed Swiss noodle harvesters on ladders collecting noodles and drying them in the sun before dining on a large pasta dinner. While the prank likely would have fallen flat today, spaghetti wasn’t commonly eaten in the U.K. during the 1950s, which meant the dish was entirely unfamiliar to most viewers. But the hoax didn’t just prank viewers. Many BBC staffers were also fooled after being purposefully kept in the dark about the fictitious story — the production brainchild of cameraman Charles de Jaeger and a small crew — and were taken aback by a deluge of callers looking to acquire their own spaghetti trees.

 

Source: On April Fools’ Day, France celebrates “April fish.”

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - BLUBBER BATH

Did you know... TikTok would have been all over this.

Whales are some of the largest known creatures to exist (or, in the case of the blue whale, to have ever existed) on Earth, with some species weighing up to 200 tons—and while many find the mammals awe-inspiring and majestic, that hefty body composition can be a problem when death arrives. A rotting whale carcass that washes ashore can produce a smell so noxious that not even seagulls or flies will go near it; locals encountering a whale corpse have described the odor as something that seems to permeate their entire body, leaving them retching. Some have even reported being able to smell a dead whale nearly four miles away.

 

This repulsion was apparently far less discouraging in the 1890s, when some Australians briefly took to sitting in a whale carcass as a natural remedy for chronic pain.

 

Whaling While Intoxicated
According to a story that appeared in an 1896 issue of the London newspaper The Pall Mall Gazette, a rheumatic man was walking along the whaling station of Twofold Bay in New South Wales, Australia, in the early 1890s with a group of friends when they spotted a dead whale. The man noticed the whale had already been sliced open and so decided to jump in, possibly owing to the fact he had been drinking. He stayed within the decaying blubber for more than two hours and emerged refreshed: “He was quite sober,” the newspaper article noted with credulity, “and ... the rheumatism from which he had been suffering for years had entirely disappeared.”

 

It’s possible this fanciful story was apocryphal, but the whale carcass cottage industry that soon emerged was not. While whales had long been hunted for their valuable oil—it powered lamps and was used in soap, among other things—the creature’s curative properties were suddenly in demand. Newspapers regularly reported on people visiting Eden, a town on Twofold Bay, to seek the unusual cure. “In the town of Eden ... is [a] hotel where the rheumatic patients congregate,” the Gazette continued. “Upon news of a whale being taken, they are rowed over to the works on a boat. The whalers dig a sort of narrow grave in the body, and in this, the patient lies for two hours, as in a Turkish bath, the decomposing blubber of the whale closing round his body and acting as a huge poultice.”

 

According to an 1895 story in the Australian newspaper Snowy River Mail, three visitors crawled inside the whale and remained there for 90 minutes despite temperatures inside the massive mammal reaching 105 degrees. One, identified as Mr. Anderson, claimed he no longer needed crutches after experiencing the sauna-like environment of the whale. Another insisted there was notable pain relief in his upper body. All three expressed a desire to return to the blubbery womb in the future.

 

“No one seems to know for certain what is in the whale that gives such relief,” the Mail wrote, “but the general opinion is that the virtue is contained, not in the oil, but in certain gases which accumulate in the whale’s carcass as decomposition sets in.”

 

Writer George Lewis Beck observed the practice in greater detail, writing that “a hole is put through one side of the body sufficiently large to admit the patient, the lower part of whose body from the feet to the waist should sink in the whale’s intestines, leaving the head, of course, outside the aperture,” which was then closed—“otherwise the patient would not be able to breathe through the volume of ammoniacal gases which would escape from every opening left uncovered.” Men typically climbed in nude; women wore a wool gown that they hiked up as they burrowed further inside the corpse.

 

Many, Beck wrote, could not last long, either fainting or needing a break before returning for further exposure. One optimal treatment plan called for a 30-hour stint inside the whale, which might provide as much as 12 months of pain relief. A ripe carcass was preferred over a fresher one. The exact species—humpback, sperm, or other—didn’t appear to matter, so long as it stunk.

 

The Dead Whale Tourism Board
While the whalers didn’t charge for the spa treatment, Eden hoteliers apparently made a good profit boarding afflicted tourists; perhaps they perpetuated the quackery for the revenue. Some patients even believed it could be scheduled in a manner similar to a physician appointment: One wired Eden, hoping a dead whale could be prepared for his arrival on a specified day.

 

Time spent sewn up in a whale wasn’t the only curious historical treatment for rheumatism. Elixirs of dubious origin promised relief; a doctor in Paris declared 20 small needles and a proprietary oil would cure it; one man insisted his pain went away after being kicked by his mule, though he stopped short of recommending it to anyone else.

How long the whale persisted as a remedy in Eden is unclear. It was still being referenced as late as 1911, though as one newspaper observed, “it is questionable whether some persons might not prefer rheumatism to the whale cure.”

 

Source: Blubber Bath: When Dead Whale Carcasses Were Used as Health Cures

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - MUSCLE FACTS

Did you know.... The human body is a complex network of bones, sinews, tendons, organs, and muscles all working together to propel us through our daily lives, but it’s the latter member of this biological lineup that literally does much of the heavy lifting. More than 600 muscles spread across three muscle groups — skeletal, smooth (found in the walls of some organs), and cardiac — make up the human body, and this intricate system accounts for up to 40% of your total body mass. 

 

With such a complicated system keeping you moving (it takes the coordination of more than 200 muscles just to walk, for example), the human muscular system is a treasure trove of head-scratching and awe-inspiring facts. Here are five facts that will make you better appreciate what your hundreds of muscles do for you every day. 

 

They Provide Humans With a “Sixth Sense”

You’re familiar with the body’s five senses (taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing) but there’s a little-known sixth sense provided by receptors in your muscles, tendons, and skin known as “proprioception.” The information sent by those receptors, once processed by the cerebellum, allows your brain to interpret the position of your body in space.

 

Impairment of this sense can affect even the most physically fit among us. During the 2020 Olympics (held in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic), U.S. gymnast Simone Biles famously experienced a condition known as the “twisties,” which is essentially a temporary impairment of a type of proprioception known as “air awareness” — basically your brain and body have a slight communication breakdown that results in the body no longer accurately sensing its position while airborne. Luckily, most of us don’t require gymnast-level attunement to our proprioceptors in our daily lives, but it goes to show how our muscles do much more than just physically move us from place to place.

 

Your Strongest Muscle Is the Masseter 

People often say the tongue is the strongest muscle in the human body, but that’s actually incorrect in more ways than one. First off, the tongue isn’t one muscle but a collection of eight muscles, each with an important role for talking, eating, and anchoring to the skeleton. And while it’s true a healthy tongue rarely shows signs of fatigue, its strength by volume is dwarfed by that of the masseter, known more commonly as the jaw muscle. 

 

Working in coordination with other muscles located in the jaw, the masseter can deliver up to 200 pounds of force on the molars. While the gluteus maximus (aka your butt) is the largest muscle and the heart is by far the hardest working, no muscle singlehandedly delivers as much power as the masseter.

 

Your Muscles Shiver To Warm Your Body

Although mammals are often referred to as “warm-blooded,” muscles actually provide up to 85% of the warmth in your body, because every time a muscle contracts, it produces heat. When your body gets cold, the brain’s hypothalamus first reduces blood flow to the skin while blood returning from your limbs enters deep veins. This helps entrap heat in the body for longer. But when this doesn’t quite do the trick, the brain then sends random signals to your skeletal muscles, causing them to contract and produce more heat to help warm your body — what we experience as shivering.  

 

Human Eye Muscles Make 100,000 Movements a Day

When you think of muscles, you may picture the elegant pulley system that is the bicep/tricep duo or maybe your heart, the primary muscle that makes life possible. However, there are many other hard-working muscles that fly more under the radar, and chief among them are the six muscles (per eye) required for human vision. These muscles make approximately three coordinated movements per second, which comes to about 100,000 such movements total per day. 

 

So why isn’t our vision blurred due to all that constant movement? Well, it turns out our brains anticipate where we’re going to look and ignore the blurry movement it takes to move our eyes in those directions. People have long marveled at the ingenuity of the human eye, but it’s the surrounding muscles that truly enable us to take in the world around us.

 

Your Body Contains a Few Muscles That Don’t Do Anything

Human bodies are still an evolutionary work in progress, and this can be seen in the many vestigial (aka nonfunctional) muscles left over from our primate past. One example, the pyramidalis muscle in the abdomen, is believed to contract the thin band of connective tissue that runs down the front of your abdomen (known as the linea alba), but it’s no longer needed for that function — in fact, some people don’t have this muscle at all.

 

Another vestigial muscle is the palmaris longus, which stretches from the wrist to the elbow and is suspected to have aided our ancestors in their grip strength. Around 10% of people don’t have this muscle in either arm. And then there are the auricular muscles, which theoretically aid in the physical movement of our ears by changing the shape of the pinna, the ear’s visible outer portion. Our ancestors stopped using these muscles for that function millions of years ago, although 2025 research shows these muscles may still be handy when trying to distinguish competing sounds.

 

 

Source: These Muscle Facts Are a Serious Flex

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - Flies

Did you know... How gross does it get once that fly takes a swan dive into your bowl of soup? You probably don’t want to know the answer.

 

When it comes to food, it’s easy to be picky. But the question of whether to dig in and devour a meal gets even more complicated when you think about bugs—and specifically, flies—ending up within that otherwise delicious-looking grub. Say you’re eating a bowl of soup when one takes a swan dive right into it—is the soup still safe to eat? If you really want to know, gird yourself and read on.

 

What Really Happens When Flies Land in Food?
The common house fly (Musca domestica) has no venom, no stinger, and no fangs. It finds its food in a peaceful way—by rolling around in the waste and garbage of other animals. With no teeth, the fly requires a liquid diet.

 

This would be a problem, since a lot of food is solid, but flies have a disgusting workaround: Each one spits and pukes on its meal. Compounds in its saliva and bile break down the food, making it as slurpable as a smoothie.

 

As the fly eats, it’s usually also pooping—and if it’s female, possibly laying eggs as well. Flies really are an absolute bonanza of disgustingness.

 

What Are the Potential Risks?
All of this would be gross, but ultimately harmless, if flies only ate soup. But they’re opportunists. They eat rotting garbage and they eat animal feces, and in doing so they consume loads of pathogens.

 

“House flies are the movers of any disgusting pathogenic microorganism you can think of,” Jeff Scott, an entomologist at Cornell University, told the Daily Mail. “Anything that comes out of an animal, such as bacteria and viruses, house flies can take from that waste and deposit on your sandwich.”

 

Experts estimate that adult houseflies can transmit more than 100 different diseases and parasites, from Salmonella and tuberculosis to tapeworms.

 

So, Should You Toss Your Food Out?
Does this mean we should immediately throw out any food a fly has touched? Probably. According to recent research, houseflies tend to harbor pathogens on their legs, meaning even a brief touchdown on your tuna melt could conceivably transmit any number of worrisome bacteria in an instant.

 

It’s better to keep picnic foods sealed until they’re needed or to ask for a new dish if your local restaurant has any unsolicited, winged guests lurking around. 

 

 

Source: What Happens When a Fly Lands on Your Food?