Fact of the Day

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - SHOWER IDEAS

Did you know.... The shower creates the perfect conditions to bring out your inner genius.

 

You’re in the shower, mindlessly scrubbing your toes, when—bam!—a prophetic thought pops into your head. Maybe you finally solve that glitch bugging you at work. Or maybe you learn something more important. The meaning of life, perhaps. Or what the 23 flavors in Dr. Pepper are.

 

Those aha! moments aren’t locked inside a bottle of Irish-scented shampoo. Soaking yourself in suds, though, does have a lot to do with it. The shower creates the perfect conditions for a creative flash, coaxing out your inner genius. Oh, and it makes you clean, too. 

 

Mind Your Mindless Tasks ...
Research shows you’re more likely to have a creative epiphany when you’re doing something monotonous, like fishing, exercising, or showering. Since these routines don’t require much thought, you flip to autopilot. This frees up your unconscious to work on something else. Your mind goes wandering, leaving your brain to quietly play a no-holds-barred game of free association.

 

This kind of daydreaming relaxes the prefrontal cortex—the brain’s command center for decisions, goals, and behavior. It also switches on the rest of your brain’s “default mode network” (DMN), clearing the pathways that connect different regions of your noggin. With your cortex loosened up and your DMN switched on, you can make new, creative connections that your conscious mind would have dismissed.

 

That’s why the ideas you have in the shower are so different from the ideas you have at work—you’re a pinch more close-minded at the office. Thinking hard about a problem deactivates your default network. It boosts your prefrontal cortex’s control. This isn’t a bad thing—it tightens your focus and gives you the power to stop gawking at cat pictures and hit that deadline. But it can also dig you into a creative rut. Because when you’re deeply focused on a task, your brain is more likely to censor unconventional—and creative—solutions.

 

Strange as it sounds, your brain is not most active when you’re focused on a task. Rather, research shows it’s more active when you let go of the leash and allow it to wander. Shelley Carson at Harvard found that highly creative people share one amazing trait—they’re easily distracted. And that’s the beauty of a warm shower. It distracts you. It makes you defocus. It lets your brain roam. It activates your DMN and encourages wacky ideas to bounce around. So when the lather rinses off, your light bulb switches on. 

 

... And Relax
But what makes the shower different from a boring board meeting? Doesn’t your mind wander there, too?

 

 

Well, yeah. You probably have the doodles to prove it. But a shower is relaxing. It’s a small, safe, enclosed space. You feel comfortable there. (Comfortable enough to be in the buff!) On top of that, you’re probably alone. It may be the only alone time you get all day. It’s your chance to get away from any stresses outside.

 

When you’re that relaxed, your brain may release everyone’s favorite happy-go-lucky neurotransmitter, dopamine. A flush of dopamine can boost your creative juices. More alpha waves will also ripple through your brain—the same waves that appear when you’re meditating or happily spacing out. Alphas accompany your brain’s daydreamy default setting and may encourage the creative fireworks. 

Timing Is Everything
Wait! There’s more! The time you shower also plays into the equation. Most of us wash up either in the morning or at night—when we’re most tired. According to the journal Thinking and Reasoning, that’s our creative peak. The groggy morning fog weakens your brain’s censors, keeping you from blocking the irrelevant, distracting thoughts that make great ideas possible. It’s likely that your shower gushes during your creative sweet spot.

 

There you have it. You’re distracted, relaxed, and tired. Your prefrontal cortex slackens its power as your default network switches on, your dopamine supplies surge, and your alpha waves roll. The shower creates the perfect storm for the perfect idea.

 

Source: The Reason Why Our Best Ideas Come to Us in the Shower

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - BROWNIE POINTS

Did you know..... In a Los Angeles Times column published on March 15, 1951, writer Marvin Miles observed a peculiar phrase spreading throughout his circle of friends and the social scene at large. While standing in an elevator, he overheard the man next to him lamenting “lost brownie points.” Later, in a bar, a friend of Miles's who had stayed out too late said he would never “catch up” on his brownie points.

Miles was perplexed. “What esoteric cult was this that immersed men in pixie mathematics?” he wrote. It was, his colleagues explained, a way of keeping “score” with their spouses, of tallying the goodwill they had accrued with the “little woman.”

 

Over the decades, the phrase brownie points has become synonymous with currying favor, often with authority figures such as teachers or employers. So where exactly did the term come from, and what happens when you “earn” them?

 

On the Origins of Brownie Points
The most pervasive explanation is that the phrase originated with the Brownies, a subsect of the Girl Scouts who were encouraged to perform good deeds in their communities. The Brownies were often too young to be official Girl Scouts and were sometimes the siblings of older members. Originally called “Rosebuds” in the UK, they were renamed Brownies when the first troops were being organized in 1916. Sir Robert Baden-Powell, who had formed the Boy Scouts and was asked to name this new Girl Scout division, dubbed them Brownies after the magical creatures of Scottish folklore that materialized to selflessly help with household chores.

 

 

But the Brownies aren’t the only potential source of brownie points. In the 1930s, kids who signed up to deliver magazines like The Saturday Evening Post and Ladies’ Home Journal from Curtis Publishing were eligible for vouchers labeled “greenies” and “brownies” that they could redeem for merchandise. They were not explicitly called “brownie points,” but it’s not hard to imagine kids applying a points system to the brownies they earned.

 

The term could also have been the result of wartime rationing in the 1940s, where red and brown ration points could be redeemed for meats.

 

Brownie Points Gets Popular
The phrase didn’t really seem to pick up steam until Miles’s column was published. In this context, the married men speaking to Miles believed brownie points could be collected by husbands who remembered birthdays and anniversaries, stopped to pick up the dry cleaning, mailed letters, and didn’t spend long nights in pubs speaking to newspaper columnists. The goal, these husbands explained, was never to get ahead; they merely wanted to be considered somewhat respectable in the eyes of their wives.

 

Later, possibly as a result of its usage in print, grade school students took the phrase to mean an unnecessary devotion to teachers in order to win them over. At a family and faculty meeting at Leon High in Tallahassee, Florida, in 1956, earning brownie points was said to be a serious problem. The practice, also called “apple polishing,” prompted other students in class to shame their peers for being friendly to teachers. As a result, some were “reluctant to be civil” for fear they would be harassed for sucking up.

 

In the decades since that time, the idiom has become attached to any act where goodwill can be expected in return, particularly if it’s from someone in a position to reward the act with good grades or a promotion. As for Miles: The columnist declared his understanding of brownie points came only after a long night of investigation. Arriving home late, he said, rendered him “pointless.”

Source: Where Did the Term ‘Brownie Points’ Come From?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - CREAM SODA FLAVOR

Did you know... The answer lies in the way our brains and taste buds respond to vanilla.

 

There is no shortage of drinks and dishes with misleading names. Welsh rabbit is melted cheese on toasted bread, served with Worcestershire sauce and mustard, a dish in which no long-eared creatures are harmed. Bombay duck is a species of lizardfish, not a bird; prairie oysters are deep fried bull testicles, and you would be hard-pressed to find a bar that serves Long Island iced tea with actual tea in it.  

 

The same goes for cream soda, which contains zero actual cream. The soft drink tends to be prepared using the same non-dairy ingredients: carbonated water, natural or artificial sweeteners, and some form of vanilla flavoring. There are a few regional variations, like Crush Cream Soda, a pink bubble gum-flavored brand in Canada, and Bickford’s Creamy Soda from Australia has notes of raspberry. 

 

Nor was cream part of cream soda’s ingredient list in the past, the way cocaine used to be a part of Coca-Cola. Two of the earliest published recipes, uncovered by writer Dan Nosowitz in Bon Appétit, leave no room for cream. Michigan Farmer magazine’s recipe from 1852 calls for only water, cream of tartar, Epsom salts, sugar, tartaric acid, milk, and egg. 

 

One possibility, then, is that cream soda derives its name from cream of tartar, an acidic powder that can be used to stabilize whipped egg whites and stave off crystallization of sugar syrups.

 

“That Real Smooth Finish”
Alternatively, cream soda may owe its name to another longtime ingredient, vanilla. Originally a luxury essence produced by orchids, its rich flavor profile became widely available following the invention of synthetic vanillin in the 1930s. Vanillin, in turn, became a staple flavoring in cream soda brands around the world.

 

The result is a soda with a distinctly smooth and sweet finish, one connoisseur told Nosowitz: “They all have a cream finish on them, no matter what the flavor profile is. You can get a raspberry or a bubble gum or whatever it is, but it just has that real smooth finish on it. You know it when you taste it.” 

 

That creamy mouthfeel isn’t a just a result of food science. It’s also due to human physiology. Our brains and taste buds associate vanilla flavor with creaminess, and this association is so strong that, in one study, adding a little bit of vanilla to low-fat milk greatly altered participants’ perception of its cream content. Cream soda, whether colored bubble-gum pink or golden brown, taps into this same sensory shortcut.

 

Source: Why Is It Called “Cream Soda” If There’s No Cream In It?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - HORSEPOWERED HORSE

Did you know.... Horsepower, a common unit of power typically referring to the sustained output of an engine,  was developed in the late 18th century by Scottish engineer James Watt (after whom the watt is named) as a way to demonstrate the power of steam engines. Watt calculated that in an average day’s work, a horse could turn a 24-foot mill wheel roughly 2.5 times per minute. This amount of energy worked out to 33,000 foot-pounds (approximately 746 watts) per minute, which Watt deemed a new unit of measurement called horsepower. 

 

Logic would suggest the power of a solitary horse should equal one horsepower, but the measurement is meant to represent a horse’s continuous output over a full workday, not what horses are capable of in short bursts of extreme effort. In 1993, biologists R.D. Stevenson and R.J. Wassersug used data from the 1925 Iowa State Fair horse-pulling contest to calculate the maximum output of a horse over a short period of time, ultimately finding that one horse can exert up to 14.9 horsepower. Humans, by comparison, have a maximum output of slightly more than a single horsepower. 

 

The earliest ancestor of the horse is estimated to have lived 55 million years ago.
Around 55 million years ago, the first members of the horse family were scurrying through the forests that covered much of North America. These hoofed mammals were called Hyracotherium, one of which was about as big as a medium-sized dog.

 

With its arched back, raised hindquarters, four functional hooves on each front foot, and three on each hind foot — unlike the unpadded, single-hoofed feet of modern equines — this early ancestor was quite unlike modern horses as we know them. Paleontologists initially thought the species entirely unrelated to equines, until fossils were found that showed a link between Hyracotherium and later extinct horses.

 

For more than half their history, the majority of horse species were small, forest browsers, eating leaves and twigs from trees and shrubs. Then, about 20 million years ago, new horse species began rapidly evolving when changing climate conditions allowed grasslands to expand. Some of these new grazers grew to much larger sizes, becoming more like the horses we’re familiar with today.

 

 

Source: One horse can have up to 15 horsepower.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - 20% COVERED

Did you know.... It’s easy to think of major cities such as London and New York as sprawling grids of concrete, brick, and metal — but it may surprise you to learn that both cities also maintain roughly 20% tree canopy cover. That’s an urban forest of more than 8.4 million trees across Greater London and approximately 7 million trees in New York City. While other major cities have even higher tree canopy coverage — including Oslo at ~72%, Atlanta at ~50%, and Singapore at ~29% — what sets London and New York apart is the amount of greenery they contain given their massive size, population density, and global urban footprint. 

 

The London plane, a hybrid tree that received its name from its ability to withstand the city’s air pollution during the Industrial Revolution, is the most common street tree in both London and New York City. Other widely planted species include sycamore, oak, and silver birch in London and littleleaf linden, Norway maple, and green ash in NYC.

 

These urban trees aren’t just decorative. They reduce air pollution, lower urban temperatures, and absorb stormwater that would otherwise flood drains. In New York alone, trees remove around 1,100 tons of air pollution each year and intercept more than 890 million gallons of stormwater, easing pressure on the city’s infrastructure.

 

Greater London’s trees provide around £132.7 million worth of ecosystem services annually, which include air purification, temperature regulation, building energy savings, and rainwater interception. And of course, tree cover also supports and shelters city wildlife. So while their skylines may steal the spotlight, it’s the tree canopy that quietly keeps these cities cooler, cleaner, and more inviting.

 

Tree Preservation Orders have been protecting U.K. trees since 1947.
Introduced under the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, Tree Preservation Orders (TPOs) give local authorities in the U.K. the power to legally protect specific trees, groups of trees, or woodlands if their removal would negatively impact the local environment or public enjoyment.

 

TPOs make it an offense to cut down, top, lop, uproot, or willfully damage a protected tree without permission. Today, thousands of trees across London are safeguarded by TPOs, ensuring the city’s urban forest continues to thrive for generations to come.

 

 

Source: London and New York are each around 20% covered by trees.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - DOGS ON THE 4TH OF JULY

Did you know.... Fourth of July fireworks and parties can be distressing for dogs—and their pet parents. Here are tips to make it easier.

 

The Fourth of July can be rough for dogs. Fireworks displays light up their senses with unfamiliar noises, flashes, and smells, and parties flood their homes with strange guests who may invade the rooms they usually have as private retreats. And when distressed dogs escape, howl, or thrash around the house, Independence Day can quickly become a nightmare for their owners, too. To minimize Fido’s stress this holiday, we spoke to some dog experts to discover the best ways to keep your canine calm on the Fourth of July.

 

Exercise Your Dog

Anthony Newman, the dog whisperer and canine behavior expert who runs New York City’s Calm Energy Dog Training, says exercise is a great way to help your dog let off some nervous energy. “Whenever Fido is going to be neglected for an extended period of time, or around any stressful stimuli, it always helps to tire him out just before—and even during the night if you can,” Newman told Mental Floss in 2017. “As the saying goes, a tired dog is a good dog! He’ll be calmer, happier, and more peaceful.”

 

Keep Your Dog Indoors

Dr. Stephanie Liff, head veterinarian and co-owner of Pure Paws Veterinary Care in New York City, says the best place to keep your pet during a fireworks show is inside and away from the windows. “If the pet is very scared, an escape-proof crate or a sound-insulated room, such as an internal bathroom, may help the pet to feel more secure,” Liff told Mental Floss in 2017. “If you cannot keep your pet inside, make sure that the pet is prevented from escape (monitor all exits and tell guests to monitor your pet).”

 

Socialize Your Dog

While your dog may feel more secure in a room away from all the noise, Newman points out that keeping your dog isolated in another room for too long can be stressful for your pet. “Release his curiosity and let him in on the fun, to run around and play with two-legged as well as four-legged guests,” Newman said. “Then back to his obedient room, bed, car, crate, or spot. Rinse and repeat as needed throughout the night.”

 

Take Control of Your Dog

According to Newman, the best way to keep your dog calm during the chaos of July 4th is to stay in charge. “If your dog winces, shivers, and runs away at loud noises, the last thing he wants is to feel like nobody else is looking out for him,” Newman said. Don’t let your dog run rampant around the house or follow him around trying to soothe him. Instead, Newman says it’s important to “take control by attaching a super-light leash that you can grab and lead him whenever you need.”

 

Consider Medication for Your Dog

For extreme cases of nervousness, Liff said that you should talk to your vet about medication to sedate your dog. Just make sure you contact your vet well in advance of the Fourth of July festivities so you have time to pick up any medication they prescribe.

 

 

Source: Ways to Keep Your Dog Calm This Fourth of July, According to Experts

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - TOMATOES

Did you know... We humans have somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 genes — a sizable number to be sure, but still considerably fewer than the 31,760 in everyone’s favorite nightshade. Though scientists still aren’t sure why tomatoes have such a complex genome, an emerging theory relates to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Around the time those giant creatures disappeared from Earth, the nightshade family (solanaceae) tripled its number of genes. Eventually the superfluous copies of genes that served no biological purpose disappeared, but that still left a lot of functional ones; some believe the extra DNA helped tomatoes survive during an especially perilous time on the planet, when it was likely still recovering from the aftereffects of a devastating asteroid.

 

Humans, meanwhile, have two copies of every gene: one from their mother and one from their father. The number of genes doesn’t necessarily imply biological sophistication, but rather how an organism “manages its cells’ affairs” — simply put, humans make more efficient use of the genes they have. The Human Genome Project, which launched in 1990 and took 13 years to complete, successfully mapped and sequenced every single gene found in Homo sapiens. With thousands of scientists involved, it remains the largest international collaboration ever undertaken in the field of biology — until the Tomato Genome Project is launched, that is.

 

People used to think tomatoes were poisonous.
The humble tomato used to have a far more sinister moniker: “poison apple.” In the 18th century, many believed that European aristocrats were falling ill and even dying after eating tomatoes — a misconception stemming from the use of pewter plates, which contained high lead content. Tomatoes, which are highly acidic, would leach that lead and then poison the unlucky eater. The fear of tomatoes was just as prevalent across the pond, where some American farmers believed that the green tomato worm was “poisonous as a rattlesnake.” An entomologist eventually set the record straight, and by the late 1800s more people began to appreciate tomatoes for the nutritious treat they are.

 

 

Source: Tomatoes have more genes than humans.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - CACTUS

Did you know..... There are nearly 2,000 known species of cacti, all of which are native to the Americas alone — except for one. That would be Rhipsalis baccifera, also known as the spaghetti cactus or the mistletoe cactus, which grows wild in India, Sri Lanka, and Africa as well as parts of the Americas. Even stranger than the idea of a single cactus species thousands of miles away from its prickly relatives is the fact that scientists aren’t exactly sure how R. baccifera ended up in the Eastern Hemisphere to begin with. The epiphytes (also called air plants) are remarkably resilient, able to survive without soil by drawing moisture from the air, and the many theories attempting to explain their broad distribution fit their strange nature.

 

One explanation is that birds snacked on the white berries containing R. baccifera’s seeds somewhere in South America before flying all the way to Africa, where they passed those seeds and essentially planted the cactus on the other side of the world. Problem is, scientists don’t know of any berry-snacking birds that could have actually made that journey. Another theory suggests that sailors used the cactus, with its fetching long green branches, to decorate their living quarters while journeying across the Atlantic from Brazil, then left them behind upon arriving in Africa. Yet another theory posits that the plant could have existed way back when Africa and the Americas were part of one supercontinent called Gondwana — which then broke up around 184 million years ago, leaving a little cactus on both sides. However, it’s unlikely the plant existed all those years ago. The truth is, we’ll probably just have to embrace the mystery of it all.

 

Prickly pears are a common ingredient in Mexican cuisine.
Known as the prickly pear in English, these species of Opuntia cactus are more commonly called nopales in Spanish. Rich in antioxidants and fiber, the cactus paddles — with needles removed, of course — are a key ingredient in a number of Mexican dishes. Nopales con huevos, or scrambled eggs with nopales, are a favorite, as are salads and tacos featuring them; sometimes nopales are simply eaten as a side vegetable. With a taste that’s been described as a cross between green beans and asparagus (pears and watermelons have also been mentioned as points of reference), they’re enjoyed for their versatility and nutritional value alike. They can even be added to margaritas.

 

 

Source: There’s only one species of cactus found wild outside the Americas.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ICEBERG LETTUCE

Did you know..... Theories abound as to why we named our most reliably bland greens after icy formations.

 

Film director John Waters once dubbed iceberg lettuce “the polyester of greens.” It’s not difficult to understand why: Crisp but bland and lacking the same nutritional profile as other vegetables, iceberg lettuce is often regarded as a last resort for salads. It’s probably better tolerated in hamburgers or BLTs. Only a wedge salad, where the head is left partially intact, seems to be welcome in fine dining establishments.

 

But let’s table the debate over its merits for a moment. Why is it known as iceberg lettuce?

 

Tip of the Iceberg
According to the culinary magazine Saveur, the modern branding of iceberg lettuce was the work of W. Atlee Burpee & Co., a Philadelphia-based seed distributor, in the 1890s. The vegetable belongs to a family of lettuces known as “crisphead,” derived from Batavia lettuce, which was a similarly bulbous and leafy variety. But iceberg was crispier, had more leaves, and sported a durable outer “shell.”

 

A sturdy ball of lettuce was surprisingly valuable. Most lettuce grown in the United States originated in California, and from there it was shipped via railroad to other parts of the country. Taste wasn't necessarily a priority: A lettuce head that could simply survive the trip was paramount. Iceberg had tough leaves that refused to wilt easily, especially when compared to other soggy, frail greens that went bad more quickly. It was also available year-round.

 

The result? A seemingly exotic vegetable. “California iceberg lettuce,” one 1891 newspaper ad that ran in Wisconsin read. It cost 12 cents per head.

 

 

Traveling well is where the origins of the name iceberg may have come from, though that’s somewhat in dispute. One theory has it that iceberg was so named because it was shipped on mounds of ice, a necessary cooling procedure before refrigerated transport became commonplace.

 

But that may be apocryphal. Helen Rosner, a New Yorker contributor and iceberg apologist, bluntly assessed this as “pure American horsesh*t,” a tall tale spun for publicity purposes by Depression-era farmers.

 

In speaking with Saveur, Burpee CEO George Ball offered another explanation: Iceberg refers to the white(ish) color of the outer leaves and its crunchy texture, not the ice it was packed in. That’s bolstered by some of the early descriptions of the lettuce. In an 1895 ad for iceberg lettuce seeds, Cole’s Seed Store of Pella, Iowa, wrote:

 

“ … [the leaves] have small indents, which are constantly filled with dew-drops. They are thus kept fresh, and show a remarkably crystalline appearance, which well warrants the name of iceberg.”

 

Further refinements to the lettuce were made, and by the 1940s, lettuce science had improved to the point where one type of crisphead was cross-bred with another variety, dubbed brittle-ice, to create the super-crisp iceberg we’re familiar with. Because it was easy to ship and slow to wilt, iceberg became the predominant type of lettuce consumed by Americans for decades.

 

Breaking the Ice

 

Trouble came in the form of the growing influence of celebrity chefs like Julia Child in the 1960s, who shirked iceberg for more flavorful greens like romaine and arugula. Later, the emergence of pre-bagged salad mixes that kept fresher for longer made room for other types of lettuce to get a seat at the table. Coupled with an increasingly health-conscious society, iceberg was unseated as the only lettuce game in town.

 

Does iceberg deserve the bad rap? By some estimates, it does have a lower nutritional profile—perhaps as little as 5 percent of what other greens pack in. But for people who want to add some crunch to a salad or sandwich, that may not matter. Some even choose to grill or pickle the leaves, though that may defeat iceberg’s true purpose: to remain reliably bland, the polyester of greens.

 

Source: Why Is It Called “Iceberg” Lettuce?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - GREAT WHITE SHARK

Did you know... The white belly of a great white shark serves a surprisingly useful purpose.

 

Even if you’ve never had the dangerous experience of encountering a great white up close, you likely recognize the shark from movies like Jaws (1975) and Finding Nemo (2003). The predator is known for its menacing dorsal fin, rows of serrated teeth, and glassy black eyes. Their namesake white bellies are also part of their iconic look. Besides being distinctive, what purpose does the shading serve?

 

The evolutionary advantage of the great white shark’s pale underside come down to camouflage. If you were to look up from beneath the fish—a terrifying image that’s necessary for this explanation—you’d notice that it blends in with the sunlight on the water’s surface. Similarly, a great white sports a dark gray upper body because it matches the darkness of the sea when viewed from above. This coloring is called countershading, and it allows the shark to blend in with its surroundings, hiding in plain sight from both prey and predators. Other marine animals with such coloring include penguins, whales, dolphins, and many fish.

 

While great whites occupy the top of the food chain, they’re not totally without predators. There have been reports of orcas hunting the fish. One weakness of great whites is their tendency to enter a state of tonic immobility, characterized by inertness and semi-consciousness, when flipped upside down. Some killer whales are apparently aware of this and use it to their advantage when hunting great whites. One onlooker even caught the hunting tactic on camera in 1997, when an orca dragged a stunned shark around before eating just its liver. Great white shark livers are rich in fat and nutrients, making them a tasty treat and high-value food source for orcas. 

 

Smaller great whites also have to worry about becoming food for their larger counterparts. However, the number-one predator of these fish is humans. Shark fishing, accidental ship crashes, and getting caught as bycatch in fishing nets are some of the greatest threats facing the species.

 

Here’s another big question concerning great whites: Why aren’t they usually found in aquariums? It turns out that they just aren’t suited for living within glass walls. You can read more about it here. 

 

Source: Why Do Great White Sharks Have White Bellies?