Fact of the Day

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - MEASURING TAPES

Did you know..... If you take a close look at your tape measure, perhaps after you’ve failed to convince yourself you’ve measured something correctly, you might notice the hook at its end is loose. But don’t worry—you don’t need to run to the nearest hardware store to buy a new tool. The little hook at the end of your measuring tape is supposed to be a bit wiggly. Here’s why.  

 

The measuring tape’s metal end is designed to be slightly loose, as the movement allows for accurate interior and exterior measurements. Neither the metal piece nor its intended wiggle will give you a false measurement. The tool’s design incorporates the hook’s thickness: Take a good look at the start of your tape measure, and you’ll realize it’s actually 1/16th of an inch short. That 1/16th of an inch accounts for the width of the metal hook.

 

The thickness of the hook won’t affect how accurate your numbers are, whether it’s inside or outside the object being measured. When you’re measuring the outside of an object, the hook slides out so its length won’t be included in your calculations. Then, when measuring the interior of a space, like the inside of a window frame or doorframe, the hook is pushed in, making sure the measurement starts from the end of the tape.

 

A Brief History of the Tape Measure
The version of the tape measure people are most familiar with can be traced back to Alvin J. Fellows of New Haven, Connecticut; he’s the one who came up with the design for a spring-loaded, locking tool. 

 

Though Fellows may have perfected the design, he wasn’t the first to create it. The tools were initially used as a way to make the best of leftover scrap metal made for hoop skirts. When the skirts left the fashion scene in the 1800s, British metalworker James Chesterman took that flat metal and decided to use it as a way to mark measurements. 

 

Various people came up with their own versions of the tool over the following decades, but Fellows was the first to make significant improvements and create a model similar to the one professional contractors and DIY enthusiasts use today.

 

 

Source: Why Are the Ends of Measuring Tapes So Loose?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ROAD SIGNS

Did you know... When you’re driving in a new country, the road is going to feel a little different. Maybe you find yourself driving on the left side of the street when you’re used to the right. There could be a new speed limit to adjust to. In extreme circumstances, you could find yourself on more perilous terrain than back home. Thankfully, there are often road signs to guide you, whether you’re dealing with unique geography, a different set of wildlife, or just culture shock. These six road signs might make you do a double-take if you drive past one — but try to keep your eyes on the road!

 

1. Greenland: Sled Crossing

Dog sledding is part of everyday life in icy Greenland, where you can’t even travel one town over by car. Because the topography of the land includes a high concentration of mountains and fjords, it’s impossible to build a full road system. The Indigenous Inuit people have been traveling by dog sled for centuries, and even have a specific breed of dog (appropriately, Greenland dogs) bred for the job. So it’s no wonder there’s a sign for when dog sleds are likely to be present. It’s a triangle with a bold red outline and a silhouette of a sled on it. There’s a similar sign for snowmobiles, which you’ll need if you don’t have access to a dog sled.

 

2. India: PEEP PEEP DON’T SLEEP

Border Roads Organisation (BRO) is an Indian government entity that maintains roads along the country’s border areas. BRO’s project Himank builds and maintains roads in the Ladakh region high up in the Himalayas, including the highest-altitude road in the world. But it’s not just the height that sets those roads apart — it’s the bright yellow stone signs with notoriously wacky safety slogans warning travelers against falling asleep at the wheel, driving drunk, and distracted driving. Examples include “AFTER WHISKY DRIVING RISKY,” “DRIVE ON HORSEPOWER, NOT RUM POWER,” “SAFETY ON THE ROAD, ‘SAFE TEA’ AT HOME,” and “PEEP PEEP DON’T SLEEP.” Slogans like “IF YOU SLEEP YOUR FAMILY WILL WEEP” are especially ominous. Not all of the signs are about safety; some just offer general encouragement (“WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, THE TOUGH GET GOING”) or dubiously attributed celebrity quotes (“WITHOUT GEOGRAPHY YOU’RE NOWHERE” — JIMMY BUFFETT).

 

3. Australia: Kangaroo Crossing

In Australia, kangaroos are involved in a significant number of animal-related accidents. In the state of New South Wales (NSW), where kangaroos roam even in urban areas, collisions are especially common — sometimes because a car hits a kangaroo, other times because a car swerves to miss a kangaroo. In a telephone survey of residents of Canberra — the capital of Australia, located in NSW — 17% of car owners reported some kind of kangaroo collision. Usually kangaroo crossing signs look like wildlife warning signs familiar in the United States and other countries, with a silhouette of a kangaroo on a yellow diamond. In some areas that see a lot of kangaroo collisions, the signs get bigger and brighter, and include a number to call in case of injured wildlife. While kangaroo signs have never officially popped up in the United States, one prankster in North Carolina mounted an unofficial one in such a convincing way that it made the local news.

4. Iceland: Public Hot Tub Ahead

Iceland is world-renowned for its weird, cute, and one-of-a-kind road signs, like a pretzel indicating the way to a bakery. (One northern town also has heart-shaped stop lights.) Even the country’s most logistical signage is a major target of theft because of the nation’s unique geography and the graphic design that warns of it — images of cars driving into water or bouncing on rough terrain are common. Iceland’s roadside service markers are incredibly thorough, with little icons indicating everything from crossing divers (a person wearing a snorkel and flippers in a crosswalk) to dog hotels (a dog with a roof over its head). One particularly useful sign in Iceland’s cold climate lets drivers know of a nearby hot tub: It features a head emerging from water with a thermometer next to it. Sans thermometer, it means there’s a public pool nearby, which is still nice.

 

5. Newfoundland: Moose With Car Wreck

Moose crossing signs are present wherever moose are common, but they typically just have a silhouette of a moose, like other wildlife crossing signs. A national park in Newfoundland, Canada, has a different design — one that adds a sense of urgency. Moose are not native to Newfoundland, and the first ones arrived relatively recently, in 1904. These giant creatures throw a wrench in the natural ecosystem, and the natural forests are having trouble regenerating as a result of excessive moose-snacking. Meanwhile, with abundant food and few predators, the moose are having a great time. As a result, there are way too many of them, and drivers run into them pretty frequently. Most of Newfoundland has a simple sign of a single moose, but in Gros Morne National Park, the moose is joined by a wrecked car. That helps drive home the point that striking a moose is extremely dangerous for both the animal and the driver.

 

6. Germany: Entering Autobahn

The Autobahn is a uniquely German freeway, best known for not having a speed limit. That’s not strictly true (some segments do have limits), but there are long stretches where lead-footed drivers can test their top speeds… assuming they follow the other rules of the road. The blue “entering Autobahn” sign means that drivers have to follow all the rules of the Autobahn. Some of these rules are similar to those on American interstates, like a minimum speed limit that keeps out slower, more vulnerable travelers such as cyclists and equestrians. Other rules may be less familiar: By law, tires need to be rated to a vehicle’s top speed, and you need a special sticker to get an exemption. Left-lane passing is strictly enforced, and both passing on the right and refusing to let a vehicle pass on the left are fineable offenses. (In the United States, left-lane laws vary by state.) Emergency lanes are restricted to actual emergencies, so you can’t pull over for just anything — and, because it’s avoidable, running out of gas is not considered an emergency.

 

 

Source: Road Signs From Around the World You Won’t See in the U.S.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - TRAINED PIGEONS

Did you know... Enlisting animals into military service isn’t entirely unusual — dolphins have been used for underwater surveillance and even camels have helped haul supplies. Those successes could be why a Coast Guard program meant to train pigeons for search and rescue missions was able to get off the ground in the late 1970s. Project Sea Hunt’s goal was to more easily (and quickly) find people lost at sea using trained pigeons to act as real-time spotters. Despite their reputation as nuisance fowl, pigeons are easily trainable creatures with outstanding eyesight; they (like many birds) may even have better vision than humans, thanks to their ability to see UV light.

 

Pigeons selected for the program underwent six months of training to spot yellow, orange, and red objects in the ocean (the most common colors for flotation devices and rafts), and were then placed in special pigeon chambers underneath helicopters that had a view of the water below. When the trained birds spotted a bright color, they could signal to Coast Guard pilots above by pecking a special pedal that flashed a signal in the cockpit. Test runs found that the pigeons were able to spot targets 90% of the time, compared to the human success rate of just 38%. The pigeons were also faster than their human counterparts, spotting potential victims before humans did 84% of the time.

 

Despite these successes, Project Sea Hunt was shuttered due to federal budget cuts in the early 1980s. In the years since, the Coast Guard has combined flyovers, ocean-tracking software, and other methods to quickly and safely rescue those lost at sea.

 

A pigeon saved the lives of nearly 200 American soldiers during World War I.
Pigeons are known for their supreme navigation skills (and for being easily trainable), which is why the U.S. Army relied on them to deliver crucial information during World War I when communication lines were down. The best-known winged warrior, Cher Ami, completed 12 message relays, one of which saved 194 American soldiers in October 1918. The famous flight delivered a message from the 77th Division, a battalion of American soldiers isolated in France’s Argonne Forest behind German lines and suffering from a heavy bombardment of friendly fire. Sending Cher Ami into the sky was risky, since the unit’s other pigeons had been shot down; miraculously, Cher Ami sustained injuries to his chest and leg but returned to the sky, traveling 25 miles in under 30 minutes to deliver information about the battalion’s position that stopped the bombardment. Army medics were able to save Cher Ami, who was retired from service and honored with a Croix de Guerre medal from the French government for his efforts. More than 100 years later, the preserved messenger pigeon is kept on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

 

 

Source: The U.S. Coast Guard once trained pigeons to spot people lost at sea.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - LANGUAGE OF HAND FANS

Did you know.... Some hand fans were marketed as covert flirtation tools during the Victorian Era, but the extent to which they were used that way is unknown.

 

Long relegated to Victorian-themed parties and period dramas, hand fans are making a comeback. The accessories, which can measure upwards of 16 inches long and are often adorned with a variety of patterns and designs, were an especially common sight at the turn of the 20th century. In movies, they can be an easy shorthand for a character's coyness—the fan held just below the eyes. Or, in the case of Kirsten Dunst in Marie Antoinette (2006), a mean streak. But this portrayal undersells their utility as a communication device. During the Victorian Era, an entire language developed around the fans as a means of courting lovers in full view of conservative chaperones. At least they were marketed that way.

 

The History of Hand Fans
A lightweight fan for personalized cooling is probably as old as civilization itself. According to the National Park Service, which maintains a collection of vintage hand fans at Gateway Arch National Park in Missouri, the fans date as far back as ancient Egypt and were originally made from ostrich or peacock feathers. The collapsible folding hand fan first appeared in Japan circa 637 CE. While the fan (or leaf) was later made of paper, older hand fans were crafted from animal skins. Their handles (or montures) and sticks (ribs) could be ivory, metal, or wood.

 

In Venice, Italy, trade with the East meant the fans became well-traveled. In some cases, they designated social status. The more affluent could order custom hand fans with ornate designs by known artists [PDF]. By the mid-1500s, a kind of sign language was already developing around them. Come the 1800s, hand fans were as common a sight as umbrellas, though far more versatile when it came to covert communications.

 

The Hidden Language of Hand Fans
The Victorians were a rather chaste group (at least outwardly). Overt flirting or salacious talk was frowned upon; would-be partners often had to dance around their true desires by sending letters, flowers, or offering acquaintance cards. (Think a business card, only with more carnal intentions.) Often, a chaperone discouraged sexual chemistry by their presence alone. Fashion accessories like hand fans made for low-key flirting in mixed company.

 

Decoding the difference between organic hand fan movements and those that were orchestrated for sneaky purposes can be difficult, however. Certainly, some women used sweeping gestures that were probably well understood. A hand fan brushed across the face, for example, could mean I love you. A left-handed twirl might mean a flirtatious pair was being watched by critical eyes and decorum should be maintained.

 

 

But the more complex language of hand fans was more of a sales tactic than anything else. Charles Francis Badini designed a version he dubbed Fanology in 1797. The fan was essentially its own instructional manual, with gestures and their meanings printed right on the paper that became viewable when fully extended.

 

Another design, this one from Robert Rowe, took a different tact. Named The Ladies Telegraph, the fan folded out so each flap had its own letter. The user could point to a letter to spell out a word, then point to the 27th flap—which was blank—to signify they’d come to the end.

 

Both were attempts to boost flagging sales of the fans following the French Revolution. Then, in 1827, a fan manufacturer named Duvelleroy published a glossary of hand fan movements and their meanings. A sampling:

 

Carrying in the right hand in front of face … Follow me

Placing it on left ear … I wish to get rid of you

Twirling in the right hand … I love another

Drawing across the eyes … I am sorry

Letting it rest on right check … Yes

Letting it rest on left cheek … No

 

Another treatise, The Dime-Lover’s Casket (1870) by Lambouillet Rossi, covered “codes” in everything from hand fans to handkerchiefs. Rossi summarized the appeal of such signals thusly: “The fan is a pretty toy, and in a pretty woman’s hand is capable of much pretty manipulation.”

 

But how often these more elaborate signals were actually used outside of parlor games is open to debate. It’s possible some thirsty Victorians took their cues from such guides, but to what extent is not known.

 

The Decline of Hand Fans
Hand fans as a fashion statement were disappearing by the early 20th century, but that wasn’t the end of their life as a communication tool. Companies like Coca-Cola and Pan Am used the fans to advertise. They’re still used in marketing today; in 2023, singer Beyoncé promoted her Renaissance tour with hand fans. Even Duvelleroy is still in the fan business. And yes, they can still be used for covert flirting—provided both parties understand the signs.

 

 

 

Source: The Secret Language of Victorian-Era Hand Fans

Edited August 13 by DarkRavie

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - COLD, HARD CASH

Did you know... Doing business? Cash is king. But why is it also considered ‘cold’ and ‘hard’?

 

Sometimes, making money costs businesses money. Thanks to credit card merchant fees and surcharges, some storefronts institute a policy of accepting only cold, hard cash. And while most everyone understands what that means—it’s time to break out paper currency—the idiom itself is a little mysterious. What makes cold, hard cash a colloquialism for paying with real money?

 

The Meaning of Cold, Hard Cash
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the phrase hard cash or hard money can be traced back to the 1600s, when merchants demanded tangible money in exchange for goods and services. Consumers, in turn, made an offer of hard money to stress their level of interest and possibly gain an advantage over others who might seek to pay on credit or in trade.

 

“I'll give thee fifty Guineas hard money in hand,” one might say. In other words: Here’s cash, right now, not to be paid later.

 

In 1882, the Counting-House Dictionary defined hard cash as “popularly used to denote bank notes, and other documents of undoubted value, in contradistinction to mere book debts, or commercial rights.”

 

The hard in hard cash is easy enough to figure. Coins and other metal currencies were firm, whereas bank notes or letters of credit were flimsy paper.

 

But some materials, like silver or gold, are actually slightly soft. When coin production incorporated firmer and more durable alloys to strengthen them, cold, hard cash became an oft-used idiom to indicate cash that was firm and cool to the touch.

 

Cold, hard cash almost always refers to immediacy. For example, a bond or promissory note cannot be readily exchanged for money or other goods; a check could theoretically be worthless if the payee doesn’t have the funds to cover it.

 

The Psychological Effects of Cold, Hard Cash
Cold, hard cash is more than just an idiom or bargaining tool—it might actually have some psychological effect. Numerous studies over the years have found that handling hard currency tends to make subjects more socially insensitive. In one study, subjects who had just visited an ATM to withdraw cash appeared to be less likely to help a passerby in need than those who hadn’t. (In this case, it alerted a stranger that they had dropped a bus pass.) Cold cash might induce a sense of superiority or social separation that manifests in chilly behavior.

 

Cash can also make people more aware of their spending habits, either through the physical act of handing it over or by having a set amount of cash to represent a budget. Using credit, debit, or contactless cards often separates the consumer from their spending—invariably, they spend more. Cash creates a kind of separation anxiety. In physically paying with it, we’re more aware of losing it. In this context, cold, hard cash can undercut the seriousness of parting with your money.

 

The Origin of Dollars to Doughnuts
Countless idioms involve money, from one red cent to top dollar to a dime a dozen. But dollars to doughnuts is probably among the more cryptic.

 

According to Grammarist, dollars to doughnuts (and its close relative, dollars to buttons) dates back to the 1800s and is meant to convey confidence in one’s opinion. Because doughnuts (or buttons) were relatively cheap to acquire, a person betting their dollars against fried dough meant they were certain they were right about something. Dollars to dimes would carry a similar meaning, though it’s not as jovial.

 

 

Source: Why Do We Say ‘Cold, Hard Cash’?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - JELLY BEAN

Did you know... The next time you pop some jelly beans into your mouth, you may want to take a moment to appreciate just how much effort goes into producing these bite-sized delights. As explained by industry giant Jelly Belly, the process begins by heating a sugar, cornstarch, corn syrup, and water mixture, known as a slurry, and adding fruit purée, juice concentrate, or other ingredients for flavoring. From there, the mixture is squirted into cornstarch-coated molding trays, and left to solidify into the chewy jelly bean centers.

 

The following day, the bean centers are sent through a steam bath and a sugar shower to keep them from sticking. They are then loaded into a spinning machine for a process known as "panning," in which sugar and syrup are manually applied over the course of two hours to slowly build each bean's candied shell. Following another settling period, the candies receive an additional syrup coating, before being polished with confectioner's glaze and beeswax. Upon earning a final thumbs-up by way of visual inspection and spot taste-testing, the beans are stamped with the Jelly Belly logo and shipped out into the world.

 

It's a lot of shower, rinse, rest, and repeat for a process that takes seven to 14 days to complete. And while that might seem like an outsized increment of time for such a tiny edible, the Americans who gobble down an average of 16 billion jelly beans every Easter seem to think it's worth it.

 

Jelly beans first appeared in the United States during the 19th century.
Nobody knows for sure where jelly beans came from, but they’re said to have descended from a pair of European predecessors: jellied Turkish delights, which became the pride of Istanbul in the late 18th century, and Jordan almonds, which began receiving their candy shells in the 15th century. Allegedly mentioned early on in a Civil War-era advertisement from Boston candymaker William Schrafft, jelly beans were considered a Yuletide specialty by the end of the 19th century, before becoming more closely associated with Easter within a few decades. But perhaps the biggest step in jelly bean history came in 1965, when the Herman Goelitz Candy Company found a way to flavor both the chewy center and the crunchy shell of their Mini Jelly Beans, creating the modern marvel enjoyed by candy connoisseurs everywhere.

 

 

Source: It can take two weeks to make one jelly bean.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - PRUNES OR CHEESE?

Did you know... Photographers have relied on the magic of cheese for decades — just mentioning the word is enough to turn up the corners of our mouths into a picture-perfect grin. But the earliest photographers utilized a different food to help purse their subjects’ puckers: prunes. According to Christina Kotchemidova, a communications professor and researcher, British photography studios of the past encouraged people to say “prunes” in an effort to tighten their lips, a look that was more socially preferable than a wide smile. 

 

Most 19th- and early 20th-century photos show subjects with a solemn expression, a look that’s often attributed to the long exposure times of early cameras; holding a neutral expression for several minutes was easier than maintaining a smile. But social norms also played a big role — stern faces remained popular even after photo technology had improved well enough to easily capture smiles by the late 1800s, and some historians say that smiling was once considered improper. Beauty standards of the time called for mouths to have a subdued appearance; Kotchemidova’s research suggests people were expected to have “carefully controlled” mouths with small pouts. 

 

According to one study of nearly 38,000 high school yearbook photos from the 1900s to the 2010s, smiling in photos became more popular by the mid-20th century. Some historians believe the switch was influenced by two factors: dental care and home photography. Without widespread access to dental care, missing or rotten teeth were common, a detail many wouldn’t have wanted featured in their portrait. Dentistry became a more established field in the early 1900s, the same time period when Kodak was marketing its amateur cameras as a way to capture life’s happier, spontaneous moments — smiles included.

 

Cameras from the Apollo space missions are still on the moon.
Documenting humankind’s voyage into space has required astronauts to cart cameras outside Earth’s atmosphere, but they haven’t always returned. Cameras used during many of the Apollo missions are still on the moon five decades later, including one used by Neil Armstrong during the first moonwalk. Between 1961 and 1972, NASA crews prepared and sent into space bare-bones cameras, stripped down for efficiency and to reduce user error, but weight requirements for returning to Earth meant astronauts kept only the film, ditching the cameras to make room for moon rocks and other space samples. In 1969, NASA announced that its moon garbage heaps — which would eventually include 12 cameras — totaled about $1 million in abandoned equipment (about $8.1 million today). However, the film brought back to Earth from the Apollo missions captured 18,000 of our first glimpses into space.

 

 

Source: People used to say “prunes” instead of “cheese” while taking a photo.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - DOGS SNIFFING ON WALKS

Did you know.... If you want your dog to be calm and happy, let them sniff to their heart’s content.

 

Though it’s nice to stop and smell the roses while walking your dog, some owners don’t like it when their dogs try to sniff everything. It might be tempting to cut your pet’s sniffing sprees short, especially when you’re in a hurry. However, dogs miss out on important information when they don’t get to smell their surroundings.   

 

According to the American Kennel Club, allowing your dog to sniff around on walks is essential for their wellbeing. Smelling is a dog’s key to understanding what goes on around them, whether they’re meeting a new person or learning about their canine neighbors. Preventing your dog from sniffing also limits the mental stimulation they get from walks.

 

Dogs and humans process the world in different ways. According to Pet MD, dogs generally have better night vision and motion sensitivity, but humans tend to have greater binocular vision, more color visibility, and sharper visual acuity. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense for dogs to rely solely on their eyesight for navigation the same way most humans do.

 

On the other hand, there’s no competition between a dog’s snout and a human’s nose. While humans have roughly 6 million olfactory receptors, dogs can have up to 300 million, making the canine sense of smell extraordinary. The section of their brains that’s designated for analyzing smells is also 40 times larger than the same part in humans. It’s no wonder why dogs want to take advantage of this superpower every chance they get.

 

To increase the quality of your pet’s next walk, consider allowing them to bask in the aromas of the outside world—no matter how long it takes. This is especially beneficial if you live in a city or have an anxious dog. Dogs that can’t run freely in large, open spaces need regular walks outside for exercise and mental stimulation. Additionally, a leisurely sniffari can destress anxious pets—just as long as they’re in peaceful spaces where they can lower their guard. 

 

 

Source: Why You Shouldn't Stop Your Dog From Sniffing on Walks

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - CHEWABLE CHEESE?

Did you know... It’s frustrating when you buy a block of cheese at the supermarket and it grows mold before you can enjoy the whole thing. But that’s rarely an issue with chhurpi, the world’s hardest cheese that can last for up to 20 years. Chhurpi originated in the Eastern Himalayas region of Nepal and China, and it comes in both a softer variety produced from cow’s milk and a hard variety made from yak’s milk. Soft chhurpi lasts for only a week or two and is often pickled or enjoyed in curries. But the version made from yak’s milk is a special culinary treat you won’t find anywhere else in the world.

 

Hard chhurpi is produced by curing fresh cheese curds at room temperature for several days. The curds are then sliced into blocks and left to dry either outside or in a low-heat oven, which gives it a smoky flavor and a dense consistency. While chhurpi is best enjoyed within six months, it’s said to last for up to two decades if properly stored in yak skin. Part of chhurpi’s everlasting freshness is due to its extreme lack of moisture. While this helps preserve the cheese, the low moisture content also makes it quite difficult to chew. The most effective way to eat it is to hold it in one’s mouth until it becomes moist and softens slightly, then begin chewing it like a gum. Consuming chhurpi in this way can make one block of the stuff last for up to two hours. That’s what makes chhurpi so popular in this isolated region of the world, as people can rely on it for continual sustenance during long journeys through mountainous terrain.

 

A French town produces electricity using cheese.
Albertville, France, is a small commune that’s most famous for hosting the 1992 Winter Olympics. It’s also known for being the site of an untraditional power station that uses cheese to produce electricity. This unusual process relies on whey, a yellowish liquid byproduct that comes from the Beaufort cheesemaking process. Experts realized they could ferment the whey to create methane gas, which could then be used to heat water and produce electricity. In October 2015, a new cheese-based power plant opened with the ability to produce 2.8 million kilowatt-hours each year — enough to power a community of 1,500 people. It is the largest power plant of its kind, though it’s actually not the first. That distinction goes to a small prototype plant that was built in the mid-2000s near a French abbey that’s been producing cheese since the 12th century. Today, there are more than 20 of these small cheese-fueled power plants located throughout Europe and Canada.

 

 

Source: The world’s hardest cheese can be chewed like gum for hours.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - CHICXULUB ASTEROID 

Did you know... Chemical signatures from the Chicxulub asteroid’s impact—which caused a mass extinction on Earth 66 million years ago—match those of carbonaceous meteorites formed beyond Jupiter.

 

Some 66 million years ago, an asteroid with a diameter of about six miles crashed off the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The Chicxulub asteroid—named for the shoreside town near the underwater impact site—unleashed mega-tsunamis across the ocean and earthquakes throughout the North American continent [PDF].

 

Over 27 trillion tons of material was launched into the air, much of it hot dust and ash. Some debris briefly escaped the planet and then burned upon reentry, creating searing fireballs from the sky. Scientists think the resulting wildfires destroyed about 70 percent of Earth’s forests. Sulfur released into the air caused worldwide temperatures to plummet. Dust from the impact lingered in the air for a long period of time [PDF], blocking out sunlight, mass-killing plants, and cutting off food chains at their start.

 

Sixty percent of species on Earth, including all non-avian dinosaurs, went extinct. The Mesozoic Era was over.

 

Now, using isotope samples from geological sites thought to have been bathed in this atmospheric impact, researchers suggest that the Chicxulub asteroid came from the outer solar system.

 

Primordial Ingredients
Scientists think that the impact of the Chicxulub asteroid was so great that geological formations, in the process of being shaped when it struck, have a distinct chemical signature: a singular band of rock unusually thick with iridium, a chemical element common in asteroids that the impact spread across the atmosphere. These Cretaceous–Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary sites include Steven’s Klint, a group of white cliffs on a Danish island; and a cave near Caravaca, Spain.

 

For the recent research, published in the journal Science, geochemist Mario Fischer-Gödde led a team that found isotope signatures from these two K-Pg boundary sites matched those of two carbonaceous meteorites, a type that rarely falls to Earth. Some of the oldest objects in the solar system, these meteorites are made of primordial materials with a composite that indicates they were formed far from the sun, past the orbit of Jupiter. Only 3 percent of the meteorites that ever reach our planet are carbonaceous.

 

The group did not find the same match when they compared the K-Pg site isotope signatures to those of other asteroid impact sites or to samples of spherule layers (spherical particles that form after an impact) from within the Earth. 

 

Blowing Up a Volcanic Hypothesis
The first comparison is significant because these other impact sites were probably from siliceous asteroids, a kind found in the inner asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Chemically, these are more pedestrian and not dissimilar from Earth rocks. 

 

The second comparison is significant because an alternative hypothesis for the mass extinction event that killed dinosaurs and caused K-Pg boundaries points to volcanic eruptions in what is now Deccan Trap, India, as the source. If this was the case, the researchers theorize, the isotope signatures of the K-Pg boundaries would match that of spherule layers of Earth, which were shot up by the volcano. (The eruptions could have been a contributing factor to the extinction.)

 

Also, the signatures do not resemble those of comets, icy objects whose unique trajectories are caused when they passes close to a sun, releasing gases.

 

Asteroids, like planets, usually follow predictable orbits around the sun, but the gravitational pull of another object, like a planet, can cause them to go off course—which apparently happened with world-changing impact 66 million years ago.

 

 

Source: Asteroid That Wiped Out Dinosaurs Likely Came From the Outer Solar System

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - BOG BODIES

Did you know... The bodies of Iron Age Europeans are so well preserved in peat bogs that they’re sometimes mistaken for modern murder victims.

 

In America, bogs have a pleasant association with New England’s cranberry harvest and traditional Thanksgiving dishes. In Northern Europe, bogs offer more sinister produce, from wads of ancient butter to leathery chunks of human bodies—which give archaeologists a view of life and death as it was centuries ago.

 

For the Love of Peat
Most bog objects have been discovered during the process of harvesting peat, an organic soil composed of vegetation like sphagnum moss that has decayed over time. When dried, it can be burned and used as a fuel. But peat in a cold wetland environment also creates anoxic (oxygen-free) conditions that slow the decomposition of organic remains in the bog. The combination of cool climate and anoxic water in these northern bogs makes conditions just right for long-term preservation.

 

Numerous examples of “bog butter” have emerged in Scotland and Ireland. These stinky, yellowish globs can weigh up to 50 kilograms (110 pounds) and are generally found in wooden containers or animal skins for protection. Dating to 3000 BCE, some of the butter is made out of dairy fat, and some of it is made from lard or tallow, according to isotope testing. Butter was ubiquitous in many past eras, acting not only as a food but as a salve for wounds and a substitute for cash in paying taxes, so it’s also possible it was buried to protect a family’s wealth from thieves.

 

 

As weird as it must be to find a barrel of rancid butter the size of a small child in a bog, imagine finding ropy hunks of a human body instead.

 

The bog-preserved people are technically natural mummies, but their bodies aren’t like the desiccated mummies from Egypt or freeze-dried mummies from the high Andes. Many peat bogs have highly acidic water, which actually dissolves skeletons by leaching out the calcium phosphate in the bones. But the skin and organs are preserved thanks to the lack of oxygen. Tannins, a chemical compound in the peat, turn the skin brown and leather-like, and the result is a human-shaped skin bag that retains astonishing detail—fingerprints, whiskers, wrinkles.

 

Some of these mummies date back to 8000 BCE, and others have been transformed as recently as World War I, in the case of Russian and German soldiers who died fighting in a lake district in Poland. Today, researchers count only about four dozen bog bodies that are intact and have appropriate archaeological context, with the majority from Europe’s Iron Age, a period from around 900 BCE to Roman contact in the 1st century CE. This time period coincided with an increase in weaponry and violence throughout the region.  Interestingly enough, bogs can also contain iron, and many objects from this period were smelted from bog iron.

 

Violent Ends
Many bog bodies share similarities in the manner of death and circumstances of burial. Take three of the most famous specimens: Tollund Man (4th century BCE), Grauballe Man (3rd century BCE), and Lindow Man (1st century CE). All were found mostly or completely naked with evidence of having met violent ends.

 

The best studied of all the bog bodies, Tollund Man (named for the town in Denmark near where he was discovered) was initially thought to have been a modern murder victim when he was found in 1950. His lack of clothing (save for a felt hat and a belt) was odd—but not as strange as the remains of a noose around his neck. Forensic scientists who examined the body in 2002 found that Tollund Man’s tongue was distended—an indication he had been hanged. The stubble on his face suggests Tollund Man didn’t shave for at least a day prior, and analysis of his gut contents revealed a meal of barley and flax porridge eaten 12 to 24 hours before death.

 

A couple years later, a peat cutter discovered Grauballe Man in a bog about 18 kilometers (11 miles) from Tollund. Unlike Tollund Man, Grauballe Man was completely naked. His shock of red hair looks almost like a wig, the result of discoloration from the bog. No noose was found with this body; rather, his neck had been slit open so violently that his trachea and esophagus were severed. Grauballe Man’s remains actually include bones. He was likely an older adult, based on the degeneration of his spine, and his teeth suggested his childhood involved periods of poor health.

 

 

Lindow Man, discovered in 1984 in a peat bog near Manchester, is the most complete bog body found in the UK. He wore a fox-fur armband, but otherwise was completely naked. And his death was perhaps the most violent of all known bog bodies. First, he was clocked on the head with a blunt object; he may have fallen unconscious but didn’t die from the injury; there is evidence of slight healing in the wound. He was stabbed in the chest but also strangled with a sinew cord that was recovered with his body. Other wounds include a broken rib and broken neck vertebrae, but with archaeo-forensic cases, it is not always possible to tell which injuries happened when. For his last meal, Lindow Man appears to have had toast.

 

Other examples of murdered men thrown into ancient bogs include Dätgen Man from Germany, who had been beaten, stabbed, and decapitated; the Nieuw-Weerdingen Men from the Netherlands, one of whom had been disemboweled; and Old Croghan Man from Ireland, whose nipples had been cut out, possibly as a way of torturing him before death.

 

They weren’t all men, either. One of the Borremose Women from Denmark was discovered with a belt around her neck and an infant in her arms. “Moora” from Germany is mostly skeletonized, but she was malnourished and had suffered two skull fractures before her death. And Kayhausen Boy from Germany was around 7 to 10 years old when he was stabbed repeatedly in the throat and arm. Especially poignant was his infected hip socket, which would have disabled him and caused him pain at the end of his short life.

 

 

The real question that’s been haunting archaeologists since the bog bodies started to be uncovered in the 19th century is, why were all these people murdered? There aren’t yet any definitive answers, in particular because bog bodies span nearly 10 millennia and much of a continent. Any explanation for violence and burial in the past has to be based in large part on culture, and culture changes dramatically over time and place.

 

For the most part, archaeologists have advanced two general theories for the murders of the bog bodies. The much earlier Bronze Age bodies are thought to have been human sacrifices, particularly because many of the people were adolescents and young adults when they were killed.

 

The second theory concerns the Iron Age bodies, which may have been those of criminals or other people considered socially deviant. Artifact evidence suggests that bogs may have held ritual significance since they are an interesting geographical feature: neither solid land nor open water. During a tumultuous time just prior to prolonged contact with the Romans, where northern European groups began to see the start of hierarchy and social class differentiation, perhaps ignominious burial in a bog was Iron Age people’s way of separating “us” from “them.”

 

Digging for DNA
Since 2000, about half-a-dozen bog bodies have been discovered in Ireland, and new studies of bog bodies found decades ago are giving us new insight into life in northern Europe in the 1st millennium BCE.

 

Contemporary techniques to analyze the bodies include 3D CT scanning, which doesn’t destroy the skin the way that traditional autopsy would. The diet of the bog people is being reconstructed through carefully extracted gut contents and chemical analysis, revealing varied diets with a lot of grain and local seeds. The bodies are also revealing their parasites. Every single bog body that has been directly examined with modern techniques has had a parasitic infection, usually roundworm or whipworm.

 

One thing that archaeologists are still lacking, however, is high-quality DNA from the remains. Though Grauballe Man was tested for ancient DNA, his body did not produce any, probably because the acidic conditions in the bog damaged the proteins on which ancient DNA testing is typically done. As this technology progresses, bog bodies’ DNA may soon give us deeper insights into their lives.

 

But all of this information is still coming from individual remains. Unlike with bioarchaeological research, which uses hundreds of skeletons from one cemetery to understand whole populations of past people, bog bodies are still found in isolated contexts, purely by chance. The recent finds in Ireland, however, suggest that more bog bodies will come to the surface. When they do, archaeologists and forensic specialists armed with the latest techniques will be on hand to coax new clues from the depths of the bog.

 

 

Source: A Brief History of Bog Bodies

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - OCEANS

Did you know... The Earth’s oceans are just as dynamic a landscape as the bits of rock that peek above its surface. Our seas are home to the world’s longest mountain chain, its deepest trenches, and other impressive natural structures that boggle the mind. The ocean is even home to its own underwater lakes and rivers. When seawater seeps up from the seafloor, it mixes with the salt layers above and creates a depression in the seabed, where this heavy, dense, and briny mixture rests. Some of these depressions can be more like puddles than proper lakes, stretching only a few feet across, but others can be many miles wide or long, and even feature their own underwater waves. And like lakes and rivers on land, these underwater features also have coastlines and animals that rely on these salty seas within seas to survive. 

 

These aren’t the only types of “rivers” found in the world’s oceans. Where some of the world’s major rivers (including the Amazon and Congo) meet the sea, an underwater current of silt and sand can create massive channels that move more sediment in a few weeks than all the world’s regular rivers combined can move in a year. Although these are massive undersea structures, scientists discovered them only 40 years ago with the advent of sonar mapping, and many mysteries still surround them. In fact, some oceanographers have said that we know more about the surface of Mars than the depths of the Earth’s oceans, and less than 19% of the ocean floor has been mapped in detail. Which raises the question: What other amazing aquatic wonders have yet to be discovered?

 

An estimated 80% of all volcanic eruptions occur underwater.
Volcanic eruptions are some of the most dramatic geologic events that humans can witness, but a large majority of them actually happen without us noticing. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates that 80% of all volcanic eruptions occur underwater — but these explosive Earth burps don’t work the same way as their land-based relatives. Because the weight of the water above these volcanoes creates such high pressure, submarine volcanoes rarely truly explode. Instead they create what’s called “passive lava flows” along the seafloor, which over the course of millions of years can form volcanic island chains such as Hawaii. These submarine volcanoes that never peak above sea level are known as seamounts, and their lava-churning drama occurs out of sight and (for most of us) out of mind.

 

 

Source: Oceans have lakes and rivers.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - APPLE JUICE OR APPLE CIDER

Did you know... Fall is almost here. Time to finally figure this out.

In a time before pumpkin spice went overboard with its marketing, people associated fall with fresh apples. Crisp and juicy, they practically beg to be crushed and pulped into liquid. But what’s the difference between apple juice and apple cider?

 

Both apple juice and apple cider are fruit beverages. But apple cider is raw, unfiltered juice—the pulp and sediment are intact. To make cider, the apples are ground into an applesauce-like consistency, then wrapped in cloth. A machine squeezes the layers and strains out the juice into cold tanks. That’s the cider that ends up on store shelves.

Apple juice, on the other hand, takes things a step further—removing solids and pasteurizing the liquid to lengthen its shelf life. It’s typically sweeter, possibly with added sugar, and may lack the stronger flavor of its relatively unprocessed counterpart. It’s also often lighter in color, since the remaining sediment of cider can give it a cloudy appearance.

 

Each state allows for a slight variation in what companies are allowed to call apple cider versus apple juice. The cider may be pasteurized, or the cider and juice may actually be more or less identical. One company, Martinelli’s, states in its company FAQ that their two drinks are the same in every way except the label: "Both are 100 percent pure juice from U.S. grown fresh apples. We continue to offer the cider label since some consumers simply prefer the traditional name for apple juice."

 

The U.S. Apple Association, a nonprofit trade organization that represents growers nationwide, indicates that apple juice can be made from concentrate, which is why you might see water as the first ingredient on the label. Generally, cider is the pure stuff: Crushed apples with minimal processing. Because it can ferment, it's usually found refrigerated. Apple juice can often be found elsewhere in stores, where it can remain stable.

 

Which you should buy comes down to personal preference. Typically, though, recipes calling for apple cider should use apple cider. Processed juice may be too sweet an ingredient. And you can always try making a pumpkin spice hot apple cider, although we may stop talking to you if you do.

 

 

Source: What's the Difference Between Apple Juice and Apple Cider?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - POLITICAL MASCOTS

Did you know... We can thank the same political cartoonist who gave us the modern version of Santa Claus.

 

It all started with an insult. During Andrew Jackson’s 1828 presidential campaign, his political opponents labeled him a “jackass.” Stubborn as he was, Jackson co-opted the insult and began putting a donkey on his election posters. For the rest of his career and even into his retirement, newspapers and cartoonists continued to represent Jackson either as a stubborn ass or struggling to control one.

 

Almost 40 years later, the donkey was used to represent not just Jackson, but a larger group of Democrats. In 1870, Thomas Nast, the German-born political cartoonist who gave us the versions of Santa Claus and Uncle Sam we know today, drew a cartoon for Harper’s Weekly titled “A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion.” The donkey was a stand-in for “Copperhead Democrats” (the Northern Democrats that opposed the Civil War); the lion represented Edwin M. Stanton, Abraham Lincoln’s recently deceased Secretary of War. Nast thought of the Copperheads as anti-Union and believed the Democratic press’ treatment of Stanton was disrespectful.

 

In 1874, the New York Herald loudly opposed the possibility of Ulysses S. Grant running for a third presidential term and cried Caesarism. Nast, a life-long Republican who’d become frustrated with his party, thought Republicans might fall for the scare tactic. He drew another cartoon for Harper’s, again using a donkey to represent Democrats and adding an animal to symbolize Republicans.

 

The cartoon, titled “The Third Term Panic,” showed a donkey (representing the Herald and the Democratic press) wearing a lion’s skin (labeled “Caesarism") to frighten a group of animals. Among those animals are an elephant (labeled “Republican Vote” and awkwardly fleeing toward a pit labeled “Inflation” and "Chaos”) and a fox (labeled “Democrats” and backing away from the pit that the elephant is about to fall into).

 

The Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives that November, and Nast bemoaned the defeat in another cartoon. It showed an elephant caught in a trap set by a donkey, and the lumbering confused behemoth of the Republican Party undone by the Herald’s scare tactics.

 

Nast continued to use the elephant and the donkey in his cartoons, eventually having them represent the whole of his party and the opposition. In March of 1877, after Republican Rutherford B. Hayes’ controversial victory, a Nast cartoon showed an injured elephant (“Republican Party”) kneeling at a tombstone labeled “Democratic Party.” An 1879 cartoon (pictured) showed a politician grabbing a donkey labeled “Democratic Party” by the tail to keep it from falling into a pit of “financial chaos.” The Republican elephant (“the sluggish animal”) is lying on and blocking the road to an election victory.

 

By 1880, other cartoonists had picked up the symbols and spread them across the country. Over a century later, their continued use in cartoons, party literature, campaign buttons, and all sorts of political merchandise and propaganda has cemented the association between the parties and their beasts.

 

Source: How Did the Donkey and Elephant Become Political Mascots?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - SHIRLEY TEMPLE

Did you know.... During her brief yet storied acting career, Shirley Temple, one of the most famous and successful child stars in cinematic history, left an indelible mark on the world of film and paved the way for many young actors to follow. But there was much more to her life than just being a performer, including her later ventures into the world of politics and serving as the namesake of one of the world’s most popular mocktails, an honor few have achieved. Let’s take a look at five fascinating facts about Shirley Temple.

 

She Began Acting at 3 Years Old

In 1931, at just 3 years old, Temple earned her first acting contract with Educational Pictures. The studio signed her to appear in a series of low-budget shorts titled Baby Burlesks, which Temple later criticized for being “a cynical exploitation of our childish innocence.” While this project may have been problematic, it nonetheless helped jettison Temple into the limelight. She received her first speaking role in 1932’s War Babies, and later earned her first leading role in the 1934 film Little Miss Marker.  By 1940, at just 11 years old, Temple had already appeared in 43 films. However, she found it difficult to book new roles as she continued to grow older, and she appeared in her final films in 1949, thus ending her Hollywood career less than two decades after it began. Temple went on to make several sporadic appearances on various TV shows throughout the 1950s and 1960s, though she stopped performing altogether after that.

 

She’s the Youngest-Ever Oscar Recipient

The young Shirley Temple experienced a breakout year in 1934, as she appeared in a plethora of films that included such hits as Bright Eyes and Baby Take a Bow. Her impressive rise to fame was undeniable, which is why the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to create a new Academy Juvenile Award to honor her at the 1935 Oscars. This honorary trophy was around 7 inches high, about half the size of a standard Oscar statuette. Upon earning this accolade, the then-6-year-old Temple became the youngest-ever Oscar recipient — a record she’s continued to hold for nine decades. (The  youngest winner of a competitive Oscar is 10-year-old Tatum O’Neal, who won Best Supporting Actress for her work in the 1973 film Paper Moon.)

 

She Received 135,000 Presents on Her Ninth Birthday

According to biographer Robert Windeler, Temple had quite the memorable birthday in 1937. That year marked Temple’s ninth birthday, though not if you asked 20th Century Fox, her movie studio, who lied that it was her eighth birthday to keep her young in the eyes of the public. Temple’s immense stardom at the time meant that her birthday attracted the attention of fans around the globe. Those fans collectively sent Temple a whopping 135,000 presents, ranging from a baby kangaroo sent by an Australian fan to a prize calf gifted to her by a group of students in Oregon. This global outpouring of admiration just goes to show how popular Temple was at the peak of her fame.

 

She Disliked Her Namesake Drink

A Shirley Temple is a popular mocktail made using ginger ale, grenadine, and a maraschino cherry. There’s some debate over the drink’s exact origins, but one popular story is it was originally concocted to satisfy a “whining” Shirley Temple at dinner. During the meal, Temple supposedly lamented the fact that her parents were drinking Old Fashioneds — a cocktail featuring a maraschino cherry — and so the bartender cleverly whipped up a nonalcoholic version to placate the young star. Despite the beverage’s enduring popularity, Temple was never a big fan of the drink. During a 1986 interview with NPR, she commented, “I hate them. Too sweet.” Despite her aversion to the sugary mocktail, however, she fought hard to protect the drink’s name. In 1988, Temple sued several soft drink manufacturers who attempted to trademark and mass-produce “Shirley T” sodas, a bottled version of the mocktail, promoting it as “The Shirley Temple SoftDrink” without the former actress’ permission. She pushed back against the attempt, saying, “All a celebrity has is their name.”

She Served as U.S. Ambassador to Two Different Countries

Long after her acting career came to an end, Shirley Temple Black — as she was known after marrying Charles Black in 1950 — carved out a new career as a political diplomat. Her active involvement in politics began in 1967, when she ran for Congress to represent California’s 11th district, albeit unsuccessfully. Two years later, President Richard Nixon appointed her as the U.S. delegate to the United Nations, and she went on to deliver an impassioned speech to the U.N. General Assembly about environmental issues. During the subsequent administration of Gerald Ford, Black was appointed as the U.S. Ambassador to Ghana, a role she held from 1974 to 1976. She later became the first woman to serve as chief of protocol at the U.S. State Department, a post she held until Ford left office in 1977. From 1989 to 1992, Black played a pivotal diplomatic role once again, serving as the U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia (now Czechia and Slovakia) under President George H.W. Bush. During her time in this role, she helped establish diplomatic relations with the newly elected Czech government in the wake of 1989’s Velvet Revolution.

 

 

Source: Facts About Shirley Temple, “America’s Little Darling”

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - APPLE PIE 

Did you know... The phrase ‘American as apple pie’ leaves out the dish’s complicated history as an English dessert made of fruit that originated in Asia.

 

Many staples of American cuisine originated outside the United States. German immigrants brought over the modern hamburger, and Italians were the first to combine cheese with macaroni. Apple pie—a dish that commonly follows the words American as—has a reputation for being one of the rare dishes the country can fully claim. But as it turns out, the history of the iconic American dessert isn’t so simple.

 

The earliest known recipe for apple pie comes not from America, but from England. It dates from the late 1300s and lists multiple fruits as the ingredients, including figs, raisins, and pears, as well as apples. Unlike a modern pie, there was no added sugar, and it was baked in a “coffin” pastry crust meant to contain the filling rather than serve as an edible part of the dish. Though the first concoction resembling apple pie may have come from England, the recipe itself wasn’t wholly English. Its influences can be traced back to France, the Netherlands, and the Ottoman Empire.

 

 

Apple trees had only been cultivated in Britain for several centuries by this point. An early ancestor of the fruit originally sprouted up in the Tien Shan mountains of Kazakhstan millions of years ago and was later cultivated in Central Asia before spreading across the globe. Before apple pie could take over America, though, someone first had to plant the right apple trees on the land. The only apples native to North America prior to British colonialism were crab apples. When colonists arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in the 17th century, they brought with them the Old World seeds and cuttings they needed to make cider, creating new varieties of American apples.

 

U.S. residents enjoyed apple pie throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, but it didn’t gain its all-American status right away. The dessert’s transition from British import to American classic may have started during the Civil War. In his book Apple Pie: An American Story, author John T. Edge describes Union and Confederate soldiers scavenging for apples and raiding the hearths and flour bins on farms to make pies. The memory of the sweet treat during a time of national turmoil may have “fixed the taste of apple pie on the palate of generations to come,” Edge writes.

 

The patriotic symbolism surrounding apple pie was fully established in the early 20th century. A 1902 New York Times article kicked off a new era for the dish, dubbing it “the American synonym for prosperity.” The Times may also be responsible for creating the myth that apple pie is an American invention. A 1926 headline from the paper read: “The Tourist Apple Pie Hunt Is Ended: American Army Abroad Has Failed Again to Find in Europe ‘the Kind They Make at Home.’ ”

 

 

The dish’s patriotic popularity continued to rise. A 1928 New York Times article called First Lady Lou Henry Hoover’s homemaking skills “as American as apple pie.” Several years later, fighting “for mom and apple pie” became a common slogan among World War II soldiers. During the World War II, apple pie was linked to a certain image of domesticity and the perfect American housewife.

 

Apple pie may not be 100 percent American in origin, but very few foods are. Many of the most iconic American dishes include contributions from various cultures and parts of the world. Apple pie—with its Asian apples, Middle Eastern wheat, and European recipe—is no exception.

 

 

Source: How Did Apple Pie Become an Iconic American Dessert?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - MOST EXPENSIVE COFFEE

Did you know.... A highly coveted blend of coffee fetched a record price of $10,013 per kilogram at auction. That’s no hill of beans.

 

Caffeine afficionados know there is no shortage of ultra-expensive coffee on today’s market. An Indonesian blend called Kopi Luwak, produced from coffee cherries that have been eaten, partially digested, and excreted by Asian palm civets, often sells for around $600 per pound. 

 

Black Ivory from northern Thailand is more expensive still, selling for $2500 per kilogram ($1136 per pound). It’s produced with the help of Asian elephants, whose digestive enzymes break down the proteins of Arabica coffee beans, yielding a complex flavor of cacao, tobacco, red cherry, and grass which surely tastes much better than it sounds. 

 

Now, a Panamanian blend has both of these beat. The most expensive coffee in the world is currently Elida Geisha Natural Torre, a blend manufactured by the Lamastus Family Estate. It recently took first place in the Best of Panamá 2024 auction, a yearly coffee competition founded in 1996, where it sold for a whopping $10,013 per kilogram ($4551 per pound).

 

 

The batch was sold to multiple buyers as opposed to one individual. In an Instagram post, the inventors of Elida Geisha announced that their product would be shipped to a selection of award-winning coffee companies around the world, including Saza Coffee (Japan), Grand Cru Coffee (Australia), Paradise Coffee Roasters (Hawaii), and Ruliweb (China).

 

Lamastus Family Estate, which also won first prize in Best of Panamá competitions in 2018 and 2019, was founded in 1918 by Kentucky native Robert Lamastus. Today, the estate is made up of three farms located on the slopes of Mount Baru, an active stratovolcano and Panama’s tallest mountain. The farms sit between 5500 and 8200 feet above sea level, providing the ideal climate for growing coffee. 

 

Unlike Kopi Luwak and Black Ivory, the production of Elida Geisha does not involve the use of animal digestive tracts. According to the company’s website, Elida Geisha is made from Geisha beans, which are picked from their trees and immediately stored in airtight containers, where they remain for five days. 

 

The estate employs an anaerobic slow dry (ASD) process, meaning the beans are dried for a longer period than they are on most coffee farms. While the estate’s other coffee beans are dried at a lower altitude, Elida Geisha is dried on the upper edges of the farm, where they remain for up to 40 days to bring out their intense cherry, lemongrass, and peach notes.

 

Like Thailand and Indonesia, Panama is known for producing some of the highest quality coffee on the planet. According to data from the International Trade Administration, the country exports more than 50,000 60-kilogram bags of coffee each year, and its tourism industry offers guided coffee farm tours that take participants deep into the countryside.

Source: The World's Most Expensive Coffee Costs $284 Per Ounce

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - BOOKS TURNING 50

Did you know... Whether they’re iconic horror novels or classic kids’ lit, these books still resonate five decades after they first hit shelves.

 

Although literature might not be the first thing that springs to mind when thinking of the 1970s—that honor goes to bell bottoms, roller disco, and shag pile rugs—plenty of extremely popular books that have stood the test of time were published in the ’70s. Here are 10 iconic books that first hit shelves in 1974 and so are celebrating their 50th birthday this year.

 

1. Carrie // Stephen King

Stephen King’s prolific writing career kicked off with Carrie, a part-epistolary novel about a bullied and abused teenage girl with telekinetic powers. The successful novel spawned an equally successful film adaptation in 1976, as well as a few not-so-successful films in later years, and even a failed Broadway musical. Carrie would never have made it into the hands of readers if not for the aspiring author’s wife, Tabitha. King wasn’t happy with the first few pages of the story because, in his own words, he “didn’t know jack-shit about high school girls.” He decided to literally bin the idea, but Tabby rescued the pages from the trash. She told her husband he was onto something and offered to help him with writing about a teenage girl.

 

2. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders // Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry

Helter Skelter, the best-selling true crime book of all time, details the horrific murders of pregnant actress Sharon Tate, her friends, and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca by members of Charles Manson’s cult in 1969. It was co-authored by attorney Vincent Bugliosi, who prosecuted the murderers. In addition to providing the basis for films about the murders, Helter Skelter also inspired the 2008 horror film The Strangers. Writer and director Bryan Bertino read the book as a kid, but it wasn’t the cult that captured his attention. “I got really fascinated with telling the victims’ tale,” he said, because “none of the victims knew about the Manson family or why it was happening to them.”

 

3. Jaws // Peter Benchley

Although Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film adaptation of Peter Benchley’s Jaws is better-known these days, the novel about the shark with a taste for human flesh made quite the splash in 1974. Not only were the film rights acquired before the book was even published, but it remained on the bestseller list for 45 weeks. Benchley would come to learn that the rare cases of sharks attacking humans are usually not because they’re looking for a meal. The author became dedicated to shark conservation in his later career, stating that “if I were to try to write Jaws today, I couldn’t do it.” This is because the shark “could not be the villain; it would have to be written as the victim, for, worldwide, sharks are much more the oppressed than the oppressors.”

 

4. All the President’s Men // Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward

The Watergate scandal—which led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation—was largely exposed by investigative reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of The Washington Post. When it came to writing the book about the scandal, Bernstein and Woodward planned to lay out the facts with clinical detachment, but that all changed thanks to a call from Robert Redford (who later starred as Woodward in the 1976 film adaptation, alongside Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein). Redford told Woodward that the real story wasn’t the cold hard facts themselves, but his and Bernstein’s discovery of those facts. He convinced them that they should be a part of the story, with Woodward later saying that the actor “laid the seed for that in that first phone call.”

 

5. Where the Sidewalk Ends // Shel Silverstein

Despite being best-remembered for his children’s books, Shel Silverstein wasn’t a fan of the genre: He believed that most literature aimed at kids was condescending. “I never planned to write or draw for kids,” he told Publishers Weekly. It was ultimately editor Ursula Nordstrom—to whom his poetry collection Where the Sidewalk Ends is dedicated—who convinced him otherwise. (As Silverstein recalled, his friend Tomi Ungerer—himself a children’s author—“practically dragged” him to see Nordstrom.) Silverstein’s willingness to discuss serious topics, often through the filter of his smart and satiric humor, led to his children’s books becoming staples of the genre. The 1983 audio edition of Where the Sidewalk Ends even won a Grammy. (Fun fact: “A Boy Named Sue,” the song he wrote for Johnny Cash, won Best Country Song at the 12th annual Grammys.)

 

Click the link below  to find out which other books are turning 50.

 

 

Source: 10 Books Turning 50 in 2024

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - DIAMONDS

Did you know... A Canadian diamond mining company recently made history when it discovered the world’s second-largest diamond in Botswana.

 

The Cullinan Diamond, also known as the world’s largest diamond, weighed a whopping 3106 carats in its unrefined state. After it was unearthed in 1905 at the Premier mine in what is now South Africa, the gigantic blue-white gem was cut into over 100 stones, with the largest of them ending up in the English Crown Jewels. Now, nearly 120 years later, miners have discovered a gem that gives the Cullinan Diamond a run for its money.

 

Lucara Diamond Corp., a Canadian mining company, found the diamond in Botswana, a landlocked country in Southern Africa that’s also the second-largest producer of the jewel. More specifically, it was uncovered from the Karowe Mine in the country’s center. This gemstone comes in at 2492 carats, making it the second-largest diamond found since 1905. 

 

Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi presented the gem to the world on August 23, 2024. The newly discovered treasure doesn’t have a name or a value at the moment. You can get an idea of the diamond’s impressive size in the video below.

 

 

 

South Africa is famous for producing the world’s largest and most incredible gems, such as the Excelsior and the Golden Jubilee diamonds. Countries throughout Central and Southern Africa are rich in this resource as well. The reason lies in the continent’s tectonic plates—when they collide, they create the ideal environment for gem creation. 

 

A perfect cocktail of high temperatures and pressure causes carbon to crystallize and diamonds to form. While the rocks are made deep within the Earth’s mantle, carrot-shaped structures known as kimberlite pipes bring them to the surface during volcanic eruptions. As the magma explodes upward, it breaks off parts of rocks with diamond fragments and sends them to the surface. Only 1 percent of kimberlite deposits have quality diamonds.

 

Technological advancements have also allowed companies to find large diamonds. They use X-rays to identify the jewels in ore and grinding mechanisms to remove the gems without damaging them. 

 

 

Source: World’s Second-Largest Diamond Uncovered in Botswana

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - DUCK DUCK JEEP

Did you know.... If you saw a Jeep with a rubber duck on its dashboard, you probably wouldn’t think anything of it — until you saw several other Jeeps with ducks on their dashboards, too. This quirky, quacky tradition, known as “Jeep ducking” or “Duck Duck Jeep,” started with one friendly Jeep owner placing a rubber duck on another Jeep. Like the “Jeep wave,” in which Jeep owners acknowledge one another on the road by waving with two or four fingers, the “Jeep ducking” tradition quickly caught on among Jeep fans.

 

The tradition was started in July 2020 by a Canadian Jeep owner named Allison Parliament. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Parliament wanted to leave a note for the fellow owner of a Jeep Wrangler, but she didn’t have any paper on hand. She did, however, have a rubber duck. So she wrote a cheerful note — “Nice Jeep, have a great day” — on the duck, and placed it on the Jeep. When the Jeep’s owner caught her leaving the duck, he suggested they take a picture and post it on social media. The hashtag #DuckDuckJeep soon went viral as media outlets reached out to interview the woman behind the kind gesture, and the publicity spurred other Jeep owners to start exchanging ducks. Parliament’s spontaneous act of kindness started a trend that quickly spread throughout Canada and the United States, as well as dozens of other countries, including Australia, China, and India. Parliament passed away on June 22, 2024, but her joyful and spontaneous tradition lives on, continuing to connect Jeep enthusiasts worldwide.

 

Rubber ducks were originally chew toys.
In the mid-19th century, Charles Goodyear’s innovative process of vulcanization made it possible to strengthen and waterproof rubber, transforming not only the automotive industry, but the toy industry as well. Toy manufacturers began producing a variety of rubber toys in different shapes, including the original rubber duck. But the first rubber ducks didn’t float, because they were made of solid rubber and intended as children’s chew toys. It wasn’t until the 1940s that Russian American sculptor Peter Ganine patented a design for an “uncapsizable duck,” which sold in the millions. His design evolved into the vinyl version of the classic yellow duckie we know today.

 

 

Source: Jeep owners spread kindness by exchanging rubber ducks.

Edited August 28 by DarkRavie