Fact of the Day

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - THE PRODUCE AISLE

Did you know... that most produce clerks will rotate older produce to the front. This encourages shoppers to buy up greens before they start to wilt or go mushy. If you want the freshest fruits and veg, reach toward the back. Grabbing from the back of the display also ensures you get items that have been touched the least by other shoppers’ germy hands. (Erica Young | Updated: Jul. 13, 2021)

 

Surprising Facts From the Produce Aisle

by Interesting Facts

The typical American grocery store carries 40,000–50,000 items, including hundreds of fruits and vegetables. Those photogenic displays of dew-kissed leafy greens, pyramids of shiny apples, and baskets of sun-kissed lemons are carefully organized, of course, to entice shoppers into purchasing them. Let’s investigate some secrets of the produce aisle below.

 

1. Bananas Should Be Yellow, but Not Just Any Yellow

The bananas you see at the grocery store are Cavendish bananas — a cultivar that the banana industry adopted in the 1950s after a tropical fungus wiped out an earlier variety. Growers produce more than 60.6 million tons of Cavendish bananas every year for export all over the world. The bananas are prized for their sweetness, creamy texture, and appealing bright-yellow skin. Stores buy unripe green bananas from growers so that by the time the fruit hits grocery store shelves, it has ripened to its more well-known yellow shade. Marketing expert Martin Lindstrom has written that bananas matching Pantone 12-0752 TPX Buttercup — a warm, inviting yellow — tend to sell better than bananas in Pantone 13-0858 TCX Vibrant Yellow, just one shade cooler.

 

2. Misting Produce Is a Clever Way To Make You Buy More

Many grocery stores display produce in open cases fitted with tiny jets to periodically bathe the veggies in a cool mist. (Some supermarkets even pipe in the sound of thundering rain to add to the rainy vibe.) The purpose behind misting is not to keep produce clean or extend its shelf life — it’s a clever way for grocers to make the fruits and vegetables look fresher and healthier so consumers purchase more. Water clinging to leafy greens also adds weight, which increases revenue for the store when vegetables are sold by the pound.

Ironically, misting actually shortens produce’s shelf life because water allows bacteria and mold to take hold. Misted veggies will likely not last as long in your fridge as those that weren’t misted in the produce aisle — which is another, perhaps sneakier, way to get you to buy produce more often.

3. Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli, and Kale Are All Subspecies of the Same Plant

A surprising number of veggies in the produce aisle are the same species, Brassica oleracea — but you wouldn’t know it by looking at them. Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, collard greens, purple and green cabbage, and kohlrabi are all domesticated cultivars of wild cabbage, a plant native to western and southern Europe. For the last few thousand years, farmers have selectively bred the wild plant to augment some part of its form, such as the leaves, buds, or stems. Today, each cultivar is classified as a subspecies of B. oleracea.

 

4. Some Popular Nuts Are Not Actually Nuts

Botanically speaking, a nut is a fruit with a hard shell containing a single seed. The true nuts you might encounter in the produce aisle include hazelnuts and chestnuts. Many of the products sold as “culinary nuts” belong to other botanical classifications. Cashews, almonds, and pistachios are known as “drupes,” a type of fruit with thin skin and a pit containing the seed. (Peaches, mangos, cherries, and olives are also drupes.) And the jury is still out on whether walnuts and pecans fall into the nut or drupe category since they have characteristics of both. Some botanists call them drupaceous nuts.

 

5. The Produce Industry Has a Special Lingo

Like any business, the produce industry has its own slang, describing everything from a cosmetic flaw in a tomato (“catfacing”) to the practice of hiding some less-than-ideal specimens in a box of otherwise fresh fruit (“stovepiping”). In produce slang, veggies “with legs” are those that have a longer shelf life than those that require special handling and rotation on the display. A flawless fruit, whether it’s a peach, pear, or pineapple, is a “diamond.” A quality cantaloupe will exhibit a “full slip” on the blossom end, meaning it separated easily from the vine when it was picked, indicating the best flavor.

 

 

Source: Grocery Store Secrets  |  Facts About the Produce Aisle

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - TEETH

Did you know.... that teeth are a very important part of your body. Without your teeth, you would not be able to smile, eat the food you love, or talk to people. We all know that seeing your dentist and brushing your teeth regularly will keep your teeth healthy, but do you know these fun facts? (Reno Dental Associates | May 29, 2019)

 

Interesting (and Weird) Facts About Teeth

by Interesting Facts

When it comes to teeth, there's always something new to learn. Innovations like fillings and toothbrushes had a long and rich history before they reached our mouths, and cultural norms can vary wildly — or be oddly similar — throughout place and time. Which famous author became a tooth-removal evangelist? What animals have far more teeth than you’d expect? What kinds of small creatures gather baby teeth in the night? Smile big and read on for eight facts that just might change the way you think about your pearly whites.

 

1. Tooth Enamel Is the Hardest Substance in the Human Body

Move over, bones! The outer layer protecting our teeth is the hardest thing in our bodies. The next layer down, dentin, is also stronger than bone. The trade-off is that teeth have a very limited ability to heal themselves, unlike bones. You can’t put a cast on a cavity, after all.

 

2. Snails Have Thousands of Teeth

Each unassuming snail hides a microscopic secret: between 1,000 and 12,000 tiny teeth protruding from its tongue. They use these teeth to break down parts of their food, and since the teeth are not especially durable, they need to be replaced pretty frequently. This tooth-covered tongue is called a radula, and it's not exclusive to snails. Slugs have them, too, along with some squids. Not all radula are the same, though. Some predatory snails have venomous radula, and the terrifying-looking Welsh ghost slug has razor-sharp (and teeny-tiny!) teeth for eating worms.

 

3. The Earliest Toothbrushes Came From China

Tooth-cleaning goes back thousands of years, with methods including abrasive powder, cloth, and frayed sticks. Bristle toothbrushes emerged in China during the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE); the handles were made from ivory or bamboo. These brushes didn’t catch on in Europe until the 17th century, first in France and later in England. While toothbrushes evolved in design throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the materials stayed largely the same. Plastic handles came along in the early 1900s, and nylon bristles followed in 1938.

 

4. It Took a While to Get Americans to Brush Their Teeth

It sounds gross, but it’s true: Toothbrushing didn’t become a standard, everyday part of American life until the 1940s. That doesn’t mean all people didn’t brush their teeth — it just wasn’t the standard practice it is today. The tide started to change in the decades prior, though. In the 1910s, schools started implementing dental hygiene programs like toothbrush drills, in which children practiced brushing their teeth with their teachers. Similar programs visited factories to care for workers’ teeth. This wasn’t just benevolence: Employers hoped their workers would miss fewer days of work due to tooth infections. With dental hygiene already becoming normalized, one thing set it over the edge: American soldiers during WWII were required to brush their teeth every day, and brought the habit back home with them.

 

5. The Oldest Known Dental Filling Is Made of Beeswax

In 2012, scientists used the jaw of a Neolithic man to test out some new X-ray equipment — and in the process, made an exciting discovery. The man, who lived 6,500 years ago in modern-day Slovenia, had a filling made out of beeswax. Drilling goes back even further than filling, though; archaeologists have found drill holes in teeth from more than 7,500 to 9,000 years ago in a graveyard in Pakistan.

 

6. Tooth Pulling Used to Be a Public Spectacle

Before modern dentistry existed, the task of tooth extraction in Britain fell to a strange assortment of professions, including blacksmiths, wigmakers, and a very specific kind of sideshow entertainer. Like snake-oil salesmen, charlatan tooth-drawers traveled to fairs and marketplaces wearing silly hats and sometimes even strings of teeth, eager to rip out teeth for curious spectators. They typically made a grand entrance, sometimes on horseback or with a team of assistants. Loud noises were a key part of the act, both to draw a crowd and to drown out the screams of their “patients.” This continued into the 1800s. The alternatives, for what it’s worth, weren’t great either. In the 18th and 19th centuries, you could see a “barber-surgeon” (or later, just a surgeon) to get your painful tooth removed with a tooth key, a clawed device that looks a little like a broken corkscrew. All in all, it was not a great time to have bad teeth.

 

7. Tooth Fairy? More Like Tooth Mousie

Today, the most common American version of the tooth fairy is a small, whimsical figure, typically female, who checks under our pillows at night for lost baby teeth. But the tooth fairy is an early-20th-century invention, and that particular image rose to prominence right as Disney was releasing animated films featuring kind, gentle, feminine fairies. The fairy is likely layered on top of a much longer tradition of offering baby teeth to rats and mice — the hope being that the child’s permanent teeth would grow in as strong as a rodent’s. While this practice appears throughout the world, it’s perhaps most common today in Spanish-speaking households. In fact, a specific tooth mouse named Ratoncito Perez emerged in Spanish lore in the 1800s, and spread throughout Latin America in children’s stories. A similar tooth mouse, La Petite Souris, goes back to 1600s France. In some countries, children make it more convenient for the rodent by placing their teeth in or near mouseholes. The core concept — giving children money in exchange for teeth — dates back to at least the 12th or 13th century, and appears in Norse and Northern European tradition, while other lost-tooth rituals are common throughout the world’s history.

 

8. Roald Dahl Had All His Teeth Removed — Voluntarily — at 21

Famed author Roald Dahl was strange in many ways, including his strong opinions about teeth. When he was 21 years old and working at Shell Oil, he decided having teeth was just too much trouble, so he visited a highly regarded dentist in London to have them all taken out and an artificial set created. Five years later, he treated himself to extra-fancy new teeth with the sales from Shot Down Over Libya, his first piece of paid writing. This wasn't especially unusual for British people at the time, but it gets weirder: Dahl became a teeth-removal evangelist. He convinced his mother to have all of hers removed. Then he turned to his four living siblings, none of whom actually went for it; this made him impatient and “foul-mouthed,” according to biographer Donald Sturrock. Finally, he convinced his brother-in-law to go — but to Dahl’s surprise, he never got false teeth to replace them.

 

 

Source: Fun Facts About Teeth  |  Facts About Teeth

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ANIMALS IN POLITICS

Did you know... that according to Suetonius in The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, the Roman emperor Caligula planned to make his favorite horse, Incitatus, a consul. Like the supposed depravities of Caligula himself, the appointment of Incitatus is one of many commonly held notions about Ancient Rome that is open to question, if not largely debunked by historians. But the idea of electing an animal to office didn’t end with Caligula, who was stabbed to death by conspirators in 41 CE. During the last century, dogs, goats, rhinos, mules, and more have all run for office—and some have actually won. (Tony Dunnell | Apr 30, 2020)

 

Animals Who Have Held Political Office

by Interesting Facts

Macaco Tião: His fame skyrocketed in 1988 when the anti-establishment Brazilian Banana Party entered the chimp as a candidate for mayor of Rio de Janeiro. He received 400,000 votes and came in third.

 

Politicians are often viewed as divisive figures, but over the years, there have been a few candidates who have garnered near-universal public support — and they tend to be furry. From mayorships to local council seats, a number of adorable animals have actually been elected to public government (although sometimes you may need to take that “elected” with a grain of salt). These cuddly creatures might be more concerned with napping and treats than taxes and potholes, but that doesn’t seem to deter the voters in these stories very much.

 

1. Stubbs the Cat (Mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska)

For over 18 years, the small town of Talkeetna, Alaska, was unofficially governed by Stubbs the Cat, a ginger-haired feline who first came to power in 1998. Though technically the town had no real mayor, meaning Stubbs was never officially elected, locals widely approved of his leadership, with one resident saying, “He hasn’t voted for anything I wouldn’t have voted for.” Stubbs’ “office” was located at the local general store, which was operated by the beloved cat’s owners. In 2014, Stubbs was apparently drafted to run for national office during the Alaska Senate elections, though that campaign fell short. Nonetheless, Stubbs continued his mayoral duties back home, which mainly included wandering around town and napping. He died peacefully in 2017 at the ripe old age of 20.

 

2. Clay Henry the Goat (Mayor of Lajitas, Texas)

Clay Henry was a goat who was elected mayor of the small town of Lajitas in 1986. He became immensely popular, although less for his political beliefs and more for his beer-drinking prowess, since tourists would come from far and wide to visit the goat’s pen and ply him with libations. Though Clay Henry Sr. tragically passed away in 1992, he was subsequently stuffed and put on display so visitors could pay homage to the once-great mayor. This was just the beginning of a Kennedy-like political dynasty, however, as his son Clay Henry Jr. assumed the mayorship shortly after, followed by Clay Henry III. The town is now led by current mayor Clay Henry IV, whose beer-drinking abilities are as renowned as his great-grandfather’s.

 

3. Max the Dog (Mayor of Idyllwild, California)

On July 1, 2012, a golden retriever named Maximus Mighty-Dog Mueller (or Max I) was inaugurated into office as mayor of Idyllwild, California, after winning two-thirds of the vote in an election sponsored by the Idyllwild Animal Rescue Friends organization. In the days that followed, Max could often be seen about town wearing a plaid necktie and gold medal. At Mayor Max’s side were deputy mayors Mikey and Mitzi (also both dogs); as a group, they were collectively known as “the mayor and the spares.” Though Max I passed away in 2013, Mayor Max II assumed the role in the wake of his predecessor’s demise. The current mayor can be found on weekends traveling around town in the back of his official pickup truck and meeting with his constituents.

 

4. Boston Curtis the Mule (Committeeman in Milton, Washington)

Electing animals to office isn’t just a modern phenomenon. In 1938, Democratic Mayor Kenneth Simmons nominated a “Mr. Boston Curtis” for Republican precinct committeeman in the town of Milton, Washington. With no opponents and also no additional information provided to the voters, Curtis was elected with 51 votes — and then subsequently revealed to be a mule. The mayor, a Democrat, had sponsored Boston’s candidacy as a prank, which apparently had a message — he went on to say that voters “have no idea whom they support.”

 

5. Bosco the Dog (Mayor of Sunol, California)

Now immortalized in a life-sized statue unveiled in 2008, a black Lab and Rottweiler mix named Bosco Ramos defeated two humans to become mayor of Sunol in 1981, holding the office until his death in 1994. Bosco was known as America’s first dog mayor, and became a symbol of democracy and freedom — in 1989, he participated in a 30-hour pro-democracy rally outside the Chinese consulate in San Francisco. Though Bosco ran as a “Re-pup-lican,” he was a nonpartisan force and brought the town’s residents together, often to rub his belly.

 

6. Jinx the Cat (Mayor of Hell, Michigan)

Jinx — a big-eyed black cat with a massive social media following on TikTok — became mayor of Hell, Michigan, for a single day in April 2022. The town has long offered humans the chance to become “Mayor of Hell,” but Jinx made history by becoming the first cat to hold said office. Jinx is perhaps the most popular of any of the animal candidates on this list, with over 735,000 followers on TikTok and 400,000 on Instagram at the time of writing — a support base that most politicians would love to achieve. Unfortunately, Jinx wasn’t mayor of Hell for long, as part of the agreement with the town includes being impeached at the end of the day.

 

7. Lincoln the Goat (Mayor of Fair Haven, Vermont)

Lincoln the goat’s inauguration as mayor of Fair Haven, Vermont, in 2019 was not without its problems. On the day she was to be sworn in, she refused to get in her cage to travel to town hall, and had to be coerced with dinner. Then there was the issue of paperwork, as Lincoln couldn’t sign the documents to make her mayorship official. Thankfully, the Fair Haven town clerk had an ingenious idea, and placed an ink pad and piece of paper on the ground for Lincoln to stomp on, thus making her new status official. Though Lincoln has since left office, the town’s line of animal mayors has continued. Elsa the goat was elected in 2022, winning a hard-fought election and defeating Maddie the dog (who finished second), and Colonel Kernal the chicken (who came in third).

 

8. Cacareco the Rhinoceros (São Paolo City Council)

The only animal on this list to be elected yet never hold office, Cacareco garnered a whopping 100,000 votes (15% of the total) in the São Paolo, Brazil, city council election of 1959. Cacareco — a resident of the São Paolo zoo — was entered into the race by a group of students who, along with the town’s general population, were dissatisfied with existing politicians. One voter famously claimed, “Better to elect a rhino than an ass.” Unfortunately, local officials invalidated the results and held another election the following week, despite all of Cacareco’s votes being legitimately cast. Cacareco’s legacy lived on, however — the phrase “Voto Cacareco” became a widespread term signifying a protest vote in future Brazilian elections, and the rhino also inspired the creation of the Rhinoceros Party of Canada, a political faction once “led” by Cornelius the First.

 

 

Source: Animals Who Ran For Office  |  Facts About Animals in Political Office

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - CALENDARS

Did you know... that for thousands of years, we humans have been trying to work out the best way to keep track of our time on Earth. It turns out that it’s not as simple as you might think. (Alison Eldridge)

 

Puzzling Questions About the Calendar, Explained

by Interesting Facts

For most of recorded human history, time has been carved up into various numbers of days, months, and years. Some ancient cultures relied on the moon to note the passage of days, and this ancient tradition still impacts the way we talk about the calendar (the words “moon” and “month” are actually related). Eventually, mathematicians and astronomers encouraged counting the days using another prominent feature of Earth’s sky — the sun. Over the course of a few millennia, the calendar has been shaped and rearranged to fit fleeting political whims, religious observances, bureaucratic challenges, and bizarre superstitions. The story of the calendar is the story of humanity, and the answers to these questions show why.

 

1. Why Are There 12 Months?

At its start in the eighth century BCE, Rome used a 10-month calendar traditionally believed to be created by its legendary wolf-suckling founder, Romulus. This was a lunar calendar: The beginning of a month, or a new moon, was called the “kalends,” while a waxing half-moon around the seventh of the month was called the “nones,” and a full moon around the 15th of the month was called the “ides.” In this calendar, the year started with March, ended in December, and only added up to about 304 days. So what happened to the 60 or so days between December and March? Well, nothing — Romans just waited for the first new moon before the spring equinox to start the new year, meaning that much of the winter passed in a period without a calendar. This system, understandably, didn’t work well, and was soon reformed by Rome’s second king, Numa Pompilius, around 713 BCE. Pompilius added additional months — now called January and February — to the end of the year, creating a 12-month calendar (they eventually moved to the front of the year by 450 BCE). The months totaled 354 days, but because of a Roman superstition around even numbers, an extra day was added to January. Since 355 days is still out of sync with the solar year and thus the seasons and celestial events, the king then added extra days, called intercalation, to the latter part of February in certain years. This made the Roman calendar’s average length 366.25 days long — still off, but much better than Romulus' temporal train wreck. Pompilius’ creation was eventually undermined by Roman pontifices, or priests, who wielded intercalation like a political cudgel — extending the rule of favored politicians while curtailing the term limits of enemies. After 700 years, the Roman calendar was a mess, and the powerful general and statesman Julius Caesar decided to fix it. Following consultation with Rome’s greatest mathematicians and astronomers, he implemented the Julian calendar in 45 BCE.. Influenced by the 365-day Egyptian calendar and the mathematics of the Ancient Greeks, this calendar discarded Pompilius’ even number superstition and added extra days equaling 365. But the most notable advancement of Caesar’s calendar was that it embraced the sun as the basis of the calendar rather than the moon. Finally, after 700 long, horribly mismanaged years, the calendar was divided into our modern 12 months.

 

2. Where Do the Names of the Months Come From?

The short answer is Rome, but the long answer is much more interesting. Remember Romulus’ 10-month calendar? Well, September, October, November, and December simply mean “seventh month,” “eighth month,” “ninth month,” and “tenth month” in Latin, respectively. But these names no longer made sense after the later additions of January, named after the Roman god Janus, and February, named after the Roman purification festival Februa. As for the rest of the months, March is named for the Roman god Mars, April after the Greek goddess Aphrodite (though there’s some debate about whether it might be based on the Latin word aperio, which means “I open” in relation to spring flowers), May after the Greek deity Maia, and June in honor of the powerful Roman goddess Juno.

The names of the last two months come from a few powerful Romans who got a little full of themselves. In 44 BCE, the month Quintilis (which means “fifth” in Latin) was changed to July in honor of Julius Caesar. His heir, Augustus, received the same honor in 8 BCE, when Sextilis (you guessed it, meaning “sixth” in Latin) was changed to August.

 

3. Why Is February the Shortest Month of the Year?

February has fewer days because of the superstitions of ancient Rome. In the late eighth century BCE, Romans — including their king Numa Pompilius — held a superstition that even numbers were somehow unlucky. Although he created a version of a 12-month calendar, Pompilius realized there was no mathematical way for every month to have an odd number of days and for the total number of days in the year to also be odd. So while the other months were either 29 or 31 days long, February became the unlucky month to have only 28 days, making Pompilius’ calendar the apparently-less-scary number of 355. In 45 BCE, Caesar — disregarding Pompilius’ fear of even numbers — added days to a number of other months, but not February. Some experts believe Caesar didn’t want to disrupt the important festivals that took place in that month and so he just let it be. But with the introduction of the Julian calendar, February did receive a consolation prize in the form of an additional day every four years. Speaking of which …

 

4. Why Do We Need a Leap Day?

A year isn’t 365 days, it’s actually 365.24219 days. Because of our planet’s frustratingly imperfect solar orbit, calendars need small adjustments as the years pass to keep in alignment with equinoxes and solstices. Ancient astronomers and mathematicians figured that waiting four years and then adding a day made the most sense. In 45 BCE, Julius Caesar introduced the modern leap year, which added an extra day in February every four years (though originally that extra day was added between the 23rd and the 24th). This moved the calendar closer to solar reality at 365.25 days. Close, but not close enough — which is where the pope comes in.

 

5. Who Made the Modern Calendar?

In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII had a problem. As head of the Catholic Church, he realized that Easter — his religion’s holiest day — had drifted 10 days off in relation to the spring equinox, which is supposed to be used to calculate Easter day. That’s because Caesar’s small mathematical error had grown exponentially larger when stretched across 1,600 years. Gregory XIII needed a very slight adjustment to the calendar, just enough to nudge it closer to that magical 365.24219 number. First, Gregory XIII lopped 10 days off the calendar to set things straight, then tweaked the leap year. Now, whenever a new century began that wasn’t divisible by 400 (i.e. 1700, 1800, 1900), no extra day was added. This edged things just enough in the right direction that this new calendar, named the Gregorian calendar, was now 365.2425 days long — close enough. Catholic nations adopted this new calendar immediately, but the Protestant British Empire, along with its American colonies, didn’t sign on until 1752. Today, the Gregorian calendar is used in nearly every country.

 

6. When Did We Start Using B.C. and A.D.?

Before the invention of A.D. (“anno domini,” which means “in the year of our Lord”) and B.C. (“before Christ”), years were often tracked by the reigns of pharaohs, kings, and emperors. In a way, B.C. and A.D. still reflect this system but focus on just one moment — the birth of Jesus. It’s difficult to trace the exact origins of this system, but one of the earliest recorded uses of “anno domini” occurs in 525 with the work of Dionysius Exiguus, a monk who was trying to determine what days Easter would fall in future years. Crucially, he started his tables with the year 532, stating that this year was “from the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The conception of “B.C.” is slightly murkier. Some believe the Venerable Bede, the famous medieval English historian, was the first to use it, or at least greatly popularized it in his 731 work, Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Others point to a 1627 work by a French Jesuit who used “ante Christum” to describe the pre-Jesus years. The terminology became more widespread during the reign of the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne, who used it as a standard form of dating across Europe in the ninth century. Within the last few decades, more publications and organizations have opted to strip the years of their religious connotation, preferring BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era) over the traditional B.C./A.D. system, although the move is not without some controversy. But this subtle change in phrasing doesn’t alter the fact that the world still counts the years in accordance with the birth of Jesus.

 

7. Why Is a Week Seven Days?

The seven-day week is a timekeeping oddity. Unlike days, months, and years, the week doesn’t align with any celestial reality, and it doesn’t divide elegantly into existing periods of time. For example, there aren't 52 weeks in an average year — there are 52.1428571429. So how did this happen? Babylonians, the ancient superpower of Mesopotamia, put a lot of stock in the number seven thanks to the seven observable celestial bodies in the night sky — the sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. This formed the seven-day week, which was adopted by the Jewish people, who were captives of the Babylonians in the sixth century BCE. Eventually, it spread to ancient Greece and elsewhere thanks to the battle-happy Macedonian Alexander the Great. Efforts have been made throughout history to reform the seven-day week, but this oddball unit of time has become ingrained in many religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, rendering any sort of tweak pretty unlikely.

 

 

Source: Crazy Facts About Calendars  |  Calendar Questions Explained

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ANTARCTICA

Did you know... that with all of that fresh water held in the ice sheet, how could Antarctica be a desert? When most of us think of deserts we think of sand dunes and sizzling temperatures, but technically a desert doesn’t have to be hot or sandy, it’s more about how much precipitation the area receives as rain, snow, mist or fog. A desert is any region that receives very little annual precipitation. The average annual rainfall at the South Pole over the past 30 years was just over 10 mm (0.4 in). Although there is more precipitation towards the coast, the average across the continent is low enough to classify Antarctica as a polar desert. So while Antarctica may be covered in ice, it has taken an incredible 45 million years to grow to its current thickness, because so little rain falls there. As well as being one of the driest continents on Earth, Antarctica is also the coldest, windiest and highest. (Nina Gallo | April 2022)

 

Amazing Facts About Antarctica

by Interesting Facts

There’s more to Antarctica than cold weather and penguins, though it does have plenty of both. And while we’ve learned much about the elusive continent since it was first discovered around 200 years ago, it maintains an air of mystery unlike few places on Earth. Interesting facts abound when it comes to Antarctica — here are eight of them.

 

1. Antarctica Is the World’s Largest Desert

The word “desert” tends to evoke images of extreme heat, cacti, and vast expanses of sand. The technical definition is less fanciful: an area that receives no more than 25 centimeters (10 inches) of precipitation per year. With that in mind, it’s perhaps less surprising that Antarctica is the world’s largest desert. At 5.5 million square miles, it edges out both the Arctic (5.4 million square miles) and Sahara (3.5 million) deserts, with the Arabian and Gobi deserts rounding out the top five. Antarctica only receives about 6.5 inches of precipitation in a given year, almost all of it as snow.

 

2. Antarctica Is Also the Coldest, Windiest, Driest, and Highest Continent

Antarctica is a land of extremes, and it ranks first among the seven continents on several scales. In addition to being the coldest continent, it’s also the windiest, driest, and highest one. The coldest Antarctic temperature (and thus the coldest on Earth) was recorded at Vostok Station in July 1983 at -128.6°F. The highest wind speed recorded on the continent was at the Dumont d’Urville station in July 1972 at 199 mph. The average elevation is 8,200 feet — by comparison, the average elevation in the U.S. is a measly 2,500 feet.

 

3. There’s No Official Time Zone in Antarctica

What time is it in Antarctica right now? There are a lot of different ways to answer that question, as the world’s fifth-largest continent doesn’t have an official time zone. Instead, some research stations (there are about 50 permanent stations on the continent) are synched up to the local time in the countries they hail from, while others observe the local time of whichever country is closest (for example, the Palmer Station, an American outpost, keeps Chile Summer Time, or CLST). Daylight Saving Time complicates matters further, with stations such as Troll (from Norway) switching from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) to Central European Summer Time (CEST) when the clocks change in Europe.

 

4. At Least 11 Babies Have Been Born in Antarctica

On January 7, 1978, something happened that had never happened before: A human was born in Antarctica. His name was Emilio Marcos Palma, and his parents were part of Esperanza Base, an Argentine research station. Ten more babies came into the world there throughout the rest of the decade and into the ’80s, all of them either Argentine or Chilean, with some commentators suggesting this was a concerted effort from both countries to strengthen their respective claims to Antarctica. Because all 11 survived, Antarctica technically has the lowest infant mortality rate of any continent: 0%.

 

5. Antarctica Has a Lake So Salty It Doesn’t Freeze

Antarctica is known for its permafrost, but at least one part of it never freezes: Deep Lake, which is so salty — 10 times more than the ocean, which puts it on a similar level as the Dead Sea — that it stays liquid even at extreme temperatures. It’s considered one of the planet’s least productive ecosystems, as the cold and hypersalinity prevent almost all life from thriving there (although it is home to a collection of extremophiles — organisms that thrive in the most extreme conditions on Earth). Deep Lake is 180 feet below sea level and only gets saltier at increased depths.

 

6. Antarctica Is Bigger Than the United States

Though most map projections don’t convey it very well, Antarctica is big — really big. With an area of 5.4 million square miles, it's both the fifth-largest continent (ranking ahead of both Europe and Australia) by size and roughly one-and-a-half times the size of the United States.

 

7. No One’s Sure Who Discovered Antarctica

Long before a human set foot on Antarctica, explorers were obsessed with learning more about the Antarctic Circle. The circle was first crossed in 1773 by Captain James Cook, but it took another 47 years before Antarctica was actually seen by human eyes. The question of who can actually lay claim to that achievement remains disputed more than 200 years later, with Russian explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen reporting having seen “an ice shore of extreme height” on January 27, 1820 and Edward Bransfield of the Royal Navy describing “high mountains covered with snow” on January 30 of the same year. What’s known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration wouldn’t begin until the end of the 19th century, with Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team first reaching the South Pole on December 14, 1911 — a feat matched just five weeks later by Brit Robert Falcon Scott.

 

8. Antarctica Is Officially Dedicated to Peaceful Purposes

Though some countries have tried to claim it for their own, Antarctica doesn’t belong to any nation, government, or other entity. That was made official when 12 countries — Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States — signed the Antarctic Treaty on December 1, 1959. That this happened during the Cold War is no coincidence — the treaty was, among other things, an arms-control agreement setting aside the entire continent as a scientific preserve where no military activity is allowed. A total of 54 countries now abide by the agreement, which has three key provisions: “Antarctica shall be used for peaceful purposes only,” “freedom of scientific investigation in Antarctica and cooperation toward that end … shall continue,” and “scientific observations and results from Antarctica shall be exchanged and made freely available.” All signatories have abided by the treatment, and Antarctica remains a hub of important research today.

 

Source: Fun Facts About Antarctica  |  Antarctica Facts

Edited June 6, 2022 by DarkRavie

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - WEDDING TRADITIONS

Did you know.... that you have likely attended a wedding or two and have seen all of the traditions, but have you ever wondered where they came from? Why is the bride requiring something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue? Why does the groom toss the garter into a crowd of men, and why is a wedding cake so important? Nearly every aspect of a wedding has some sort of significance behind it, and we have been busy finding the origins behind some of the most popular wedding traditions to help give you a little perspective. (Roberts Centre | 2017)

 

The Origins of Wedding Traditions

by Interesting Facts

Whether you’re planning a wedding now or have many years of marriage under your belt, some things about weddings don’t seem to change — someone wears white, the couple spends the night before apart, and there’s almost always cake. But how did that come to be? Here’s the backstory on a few of these surprisingly ancient (and some fairly modern) wedding traditions.

 

1. Keeping the Couple Apart Until the Ceremony

While not seeing your spouse-to-be until the ceremony starts is now a romanticized tradition, it once was considered a way to ensure marrying off a daughter happened as planned. Marrying for love is a relatively new concept; prior to the 18th century, marriage was primarily a means to improve a family’s social standing. Brides and grooms were often paired off without giving much of their own input, thanks to their families’ arrangements. Consequently, arranged marriages had a high risk for cold feet — which is why keeping the intendeds apart until they said their vows reduced the chances of one party backing out before they made it to the altar.

 

2. “Something Old, Something New”

Most modern brides who follow the “something old” tradition will borrow a family member’s wedding dress or jewelry, but brides of past centuries had no problem wearing someone else’s underwear for good luck. The English rhyme, which reads “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a silver sixpence in her shoe,” originated around the mid-19th century and first appeared in print in 1871. These objects were thought to bring a bride luck for not only her wedding day, but also her chances of becoming pregnant. While “something old” could be almost anything, “something borrowed” was often a pair of bloomers on loan from a woman who had already become a mother.

 

3. Wearing a White Wedding Dress

Walk through any bridal shop and it’s obvious that white wedding dresses are the norm, but it wasn’t always so. Historically, brides often repurposed their best dress as their wedding gown, and most were not white — because white was exceptionally difficult to keep clean prior to the advent of modern washing machines and stain removers. Queen Victoria, who wore a lacy white gown at her 1840 wedding in place of the then-popular red, is often credited for popularizing bridal white (though Mary, Queen of Scots wore white during her 1558 Notre Dame wedding, and many lesser-known royals did before Victoria’s reign, too). Within a decade of Victoria’s wedding, dressmakers and etiquette books had run with the idea that white was virginal and pure, with the popular Godey’s Lady’s Book writing that a white dress was “an emblem of the innocence and purity of girlhood, and the unsullied heart which she now yields to the keeping of the chosen one.”

 

4. Exchanging Wedding Bands

The act of both parties exchanging a wedding ring is fairly modern; historically, men didn’t wear wedding rings. While women have worn engagement and wedding rings for centuries, they were often gifted as a gesture of betrothal (or in the Romans’ case, as a sign that a woman had entered into a marriage contract). During the 1920s, jewelers made an attempt to popularize the men’s engagement ring, which would be picked out and gifted by women, but the cultural norms about masculinity and marriage led to the ad campaign’s demise. It wasn’t until the 1940s that men’s wedding rings became socially acceptable — rings became seen as a romantic link between married couples who were separated during World War II, and post-Depression, couples could more often afford the cost of two rings.

 

5. The Art of Bridal Mehandi

Many Indian, Asian, and African brides spend the days before their weddings having bridal mehandi applied — swirling, floral designs made with henna that cover the hands and feet. While it’s unclear exactly when mehandi first started as a pre-wedding tradition, historians know that henna has been used to create temporary body tattoos for at least 5,000 years, and they believe that early mehandi was likely less ornate than it is today. Because intricate mehandi designs can take hours to complete, the practice is traditionally done the night before the wedding in an effort to signify that a bride was kept safely at home with family members.

 

6. The Purpose of Bridesmaids and Groomsmen

Asking your nearest and dearest to be in your bridal party is one way of honoring friends and family members, though the task once came with a lot more work than just throwing a couple of showers and a bachelor/bachelorette party. For Ancient Romans, having a bridal party was a legal means to an end — Roman law required 10 male witnesses to vouch for the couple, while a bride’s female companions would prepare and escort her to the ceremony. In many cultures, bridesmaids acted as incognito bodyguards for a bride; dressing similarly prevented kidnappers and thieves from making off with a bride’s dowry or the bride herself. As for groomsmen? Beyond helping the groom get ready, some of their historical roles included safeguarding the bride, preventing others from intervening in the wedding, or, in the darkest scenarios, kidnapping an unwilling or unwitting woman and forcibly bringing her to the groom.

 

7. Objections to a Marriage

While many couples now skip the infamous “speak now or forever hold your peace” line, it was once a standard question to prevent bigamy. During the Middle Ages, Christian churches required upcoming weddings to be announced three Sundays in a row, allowing time for the news to spread. If the bride or groom were already married to someone else, word could get back to the priest — who would ask one last time during the ceremony — to determine if the marriage could proceed.

 

8. Crushing Glass

Jewish weddings often end with the cheer of “Mazel tov!” after a couple steps on and crushes a well-wrapped piece of glass. The practice is first described in the Talmud, a religious text that contains extensive commentary on Jewish law, folklore, and more, and dates back to at least the 4th century. The breaking of glass is used to signify the destruction of the first and second temples in Jerusalem, and the story is used as a reminder of sacrifice and loss, even during happy times. The ceremonial glass crushing also refers to a covenant; in Judaism, these religious agreements only become official with breaking something. Grooms traditionally were responsible for the glass stomping, but many modern couples now opt to both smash glasses in an act of marital equality.

 

9. Jumping the Broom

Jumping the broom is now a happier wedding ceremony element, but the tradition in Black communities has a somber history. During American slavery, Black enslaved people were sometimes permitted to exchange vows and wed in small ceremonies, but their marriages were not legally recognized because the law considered the bride and groom to be property, not people. Jumping the broom — literally jumping over a simple broom that was sometimes placed along the threshold of a couple's cabin — was an act that enslaved people sometimes performed to signify their union, especially in cases where a slaveowner did not recognize or approve of the marriage. However, historical accounts suggest that not all couples were eager to be wed that way for fear their marriages would be perceived as less meaningful than couples who had formal ceremonies. Now, many Black couples pay homage to their ancestors by choosing to jump the broom into a new life together.

 

10. Tossing Celebratory Rice

Showering newlywed couples with grains has its roots in many cultures, with the kinds used differing by region. Ancient Romans thought wheat was the best signifier of fertility, with rice taking up its role throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. Lentils, oats, peas, and other grains are also popular alternatives throughout the world. As for the theory that wedding rice is dangerous because it can explode a bird’s stomach at altitude? That’s an urban legend that became popular in the mid-1980s. Even if birds do consume a hefty amount of dried rice, the grains are broken up in their gizzards, making it impossible for their stomachs to expand unnaturally.

 

 

Source: Where Did That Come From?  |  Facts About Wedding Tradition History

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - LANDMARK NICKNAMES

China Central Television (CCTV) Headquarters, Beijing 

Nickname: Big Pants Building

Did you know.... that each of these extraordinary architectural landmarks has been bestowed at some point in its history — either before, during or after its design and construction — with a colorful nickname. Clues to most of the nicknames lie in the resemblance of the building to a common household object — but not in every case (Glossophilia | April 4, 2013)

 

Nicknames for Famous Landmarks You May Not Know

by Interesting Facts

The Millennium Bridge (London)

Nickname: The Wobbly Bridge
 

It’s only natural that the world's most memorable landmarks should inspire some affectionate nicknames. Some of these monikers can teach us about the history, politics, and culture of the region the landmarks are found in, while other names are inspired purely by wild imaginations or public reaction to a bold new piece of architecture. Here are seven nicknames of famous landmarks you may not have heard before.

 

1. The Iron Lady: The Eiffel Tower (Paris, France)

Originally known as “The 300-Meter Iron Tower,” Paris’ (and possibly the world’s) best-known landmark was the masterpiece of civil engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the wrought iron tower for the 1889 World’s Fair. Although the Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889, its characterization as a woman came in the century to follow. By the 1930s, the media had begun coining nicknames for the Eiffel Tower, including the “Tall Lady,” the “Tall Beautiful Lady,” the “Tall Iron Lady,” and even the “Old Iron Lady.”

Today, Parisiennes affectionately know the tower as La Dame de Fer, which translates to “The Iron Lady.” It’s not hard to imagine that the tower’s base, where the four pillars begin, is covered with an intricate mesh skirt, and it certainly helps that tour, meaning “tower,” is a feminine word in the French language.

 

2. The Mother Road: Route 66, Illinois to California

When it opened in 1926, U.S. Route 66 stretched from Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California, passing through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri (and a tiny corner of Kansas) along the way. This made it an ideal travel route for those escaping the Dust Bowl in the 1930s and migrating west in search of agricultural work in the fields of California. It makes sense, then, that, in his 1939 book The Grapes of Wrath, American author John Steinbeck called Route 66 the “Mother Road,” describing it as the main path the migrants followed out of the Midwest. The name stuck, and it’s the highway’s most prevailing nickname today. But there have been other attempts at nicknaming this historic highway. Soon after Route 66 was commissioned, it was christened the “Great Diagonal Way” thanks to the northeast-to-southwest stretch between Illinois and Oklahoma. In 1952, U.S. Route 66 was unofficially named the “Will Rogers Highway" by the U.S. Highway 66 Association, perhaps because of the route’s significant stretch through the actor’s home state of Oklahoma. Some also know it as the “Main Street of America.”

 

3. The Niagara of the West: Shoshone Falls (Idaho)

 

Before it was the backdrop for Evel Knievel’s 1974 stunt to cross the Snake River by rocket-powered Skycycle, southern Idaho’s Shoshone Falls already had its own claim to fame. At a height of 212 feet, it’s 45 feet taller than the show-stealing Niagara Falls. (However, it’s only about 1,000 feet wide and can’t hold a candle to Niagara’s 3,950-foot span.) As such, folks started calling Shoshone Falls the “Niagara of the West” in the mid-19th century, when travelers along the Oregon Trail often stopped to see it, and the nickname stuck. In an 1866 article for a Salt Lake City newspaper, the author described Shoshone Falls as being in league with Victoria Falls in Zambia and Zimbabwe and Staubbach Falls in the Swiss Alps — truly deserving of its nickname.

 

4. Nuns in a Scrum: Sydney Opera House (Sydney, Australia)

Another of the world’s most recognizable landmarks, the Sydney Opera House is considered a masterwork of modern architecture. Designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon and opened in 1973 to great fanfare, the project took 15 years to complete, thanks to many delays relating to cost, significant changes from Utzon’s original design, and Utzon’s eventual withdrawal as chief architect. Today, it’s a symbol of Sydney and, as such, has received an affectionate nickname from the rugby-loving Sydneysiders. Although the architect’s design was meant to evoke the sails of a boat, the Sydney Opera House is often called “Nuns in a Scrum” by locals. This nickname refers to the huddle that rugby players assume, also called a scrummage — and the white coiffes (or perhaps cornettes) that Catholic nuns wear, which some see in the building’s distinctive “sails.”

 

5. The Quarry: Casa Milà (Barcelona, Spain)

Today, it’s revered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but when architect Antoni Gaudí finished building Casa Milà, it was ridiculed. Gaudi already had a reputation around Barcelona for his unusual building designs, most notably his grand basilica, La Sagrada Familia, which was controversial from day one for its eye-catching architectural style and criticized by clerics and civic leaders alike. Casa Milà, an apartment building commissioned by Roser Segimón and her husband Pere Milà, flaunted Gaudí’s same earthy, unconventional flair. When the building was completed in 1906, adversaries called it La Pedrera (“The Quarry”), a name that initially was meant to describe the building’s alleged ugliness. It is now used lovingly to describe what’s regarded as a Gaudí masterpiece.

 

6. The Chaps: Delicate Arch (Utah)

You may not know the official name of this natural sandstone formation in Utah’s Arches National Park, but you’ve probably seen it before. Named by Frank Beckwith, the leader of the Arches National Monument Scientific Expedition, which explored the area in the winter of 1933 to 1934, Delicate Arch is considered the de facto symbol of the park and possibly the whole state. It’s even featured on Utah’s license plates. But before 1934, when Beckwith deemed it "the most delicately chiseled arch in the entire area," some Utahns had a rougher name for it. Due to its shape, the arch was known as the “Chaps,” as some thought it looked like the leather coverings that cowboys wear over their pants to protect their legs. Another similar but less-popular nickname that the locals used prior to Beckwith’s expedition was the “Schoolmarm’s Bloomers.”

 

7. The Cheesegrater: Leadenhall Building (London, England)

Opened in July 2014, the 50-story skyscraper at 122 Leadenhall Street in London’s financial district was built to replace the old P&O (Peninsular & Oriental) Steam Navigation building from 1969, which had been extensively damaged from an IRA bomb in the ‘90s and had fallen into disrepair. The demolition of the old building took over two years to complete. Construction started in 2007 on the new building, designed by famed architect Richard Rogers, whose other work includes the Lloyd’s of London building just across the street, as well as the Centre Pompidou in Paris. It didn’t take long after its unveiling for the Leadenhall Building to pick up a quirky nickname. Londoners started calling it the “Cheesegrater,” thanks to the wedge shape of the building when viewed along Fleet Street. Angled at 10 degrees on one side, the building appears to lean away from the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral from this viewpoint, allowing the old church more room to breathe in the busy London skyline. Happily, the building staff has embraced the nickname name in its official Instagram username.

 

Source: Landmark Nicknames  |  Facts About Landmark Nicknames

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - FOOD TRIVIA

Whether you consider food solely as fuel or you eat to taste every flavor and texture, everyone needs food to survive and carry out their daily tasks. In fact, every American eats about 1,996 pounds of food per year. How wild is that? Whether you crave Hershey's kisses or reach for a plate of carrots, here are 100 fun facts about food that might surprise you. (Eat This, Not That! | Updated: July 15, 2021)

 

Your Top Food Questions, Answered

by Interesting Facts

For some, cooking is an art. For others, a hobby. But for a considerable number of people, cooking is a daily obstacle that must be overcome in order to satiate hunger. But whether you’re new to the kitchen or know a stovetop like the back of your hand, there are some food questions that just have to be asked. From understanding chemical reactions to testing food myths, here are a few things that every cook in the kitchen should know.

 

1. Is the “Five-Second Rule” Real?

Most people know the “five-second rule”: the idea that if food that’s fallen on the floor has been there less than five seconds, it’s still acceptable to eat. No one knows the origins of this questionable rule — and plenty of people think it’s kind of gross — but that hasn't stopped anyone from picking up a dropped Oreo and shouting "five-second rule!" before. Though its origins may be murky, actual scientists have devoted time and resources to testing the five-second rule. And surprisingly, it’s not an entirely bogus theory — depending on the cleanliness of the floor. To be clear, no scientist has gone on record recommending that you eat dropped food. However, a science experiment conducted at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign proved that as long as the food was picked up within the five-second time limit, the presence of microorganisms on the dropped food was minimal. However, the experiment was conducted after first sanitizing the flooring, and it only applied to hard flooring like tile and wood, which are less likely to serve as an incubator for pathogens. No testing was conducted on carpeting and other soft surfaces, which can hold moisture and become breeding grounds for bacteria. Let’s cut to the chase: It’s definitely not recommended to blindly follow the five-second rule. You have no way of knowing which pathogens are on your floor, so unless you regularly disinfect, it’s best to play it safe. According to the experts, dry foods are slightly safer than wet ones because moisture is a great medium for pathogens to attach themselves. So, a potato chip or cracker might acquire a minimal pathogen transfer whereas an apple or slice of banana might test positive for a higher pathogen count. But we recommend a new rule: When in doubt, throw it out.

 

2. Why Do You Cry When You Cut Onions?

There’s no need to cry over spilled milk, but what about chopped onions? You can thank a chemical combination of enzymes and sulfur for the tears that well up while you make dinner. Onions use sulfur to make a mixture of amino acids and enzymes during the growing process. The acids and enzymes are separated and stored in different regions of the onion’s cells, which are called vacuoles. While the onion remains whole, the amino acids and enzymes in the onion’s cells remain separated. Once you cut into the onion, however, everything mixes together. When the two substances are combined, they form a chemical known as syn-Propanethial-S-oxide, or lachrymatory factor (LF). LF is an irritant that’s easily vaporized when it reacts with the air. LF isn’t strong enough to affect tougher parts of your body such as your skin, but it can irritate more sensitive regions. As the vapors waft up toward your face, your eyes will begin to sting. Your body — sensing the irritant — will release a torrent of tears in an attempt to wash the chemicals from your eyes. Luckily, LF can’t do any serious damage, even in high quantities. Producing LF is the onion’s way of defending against anything that may want to eat it. As soon as an animal bites into the root, its eyes start to burn and it’s reminded to stay away from onions. Unfortunately for onions, humans are persistent.

 

3. How Do Taste Buds Work?

Taste buds are the reason we pucker our lips when we suck on a lemon wedge or smile when savor a piece of chocolate. They're how we can identify our favorite foods. In fact, without taste buds we wouldn’t be able to sense the five basic tastes: salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami. But what exactly are taste buds and how do they work? Every tongue is covered in visible bumps known as papillae that fall into four categories: filiform, fungiform, circumvallate, and foliate. Each papillae type except for filiform carries a number of taste buds that are continuously being replaced. In total, every tongue has an average of 10,000 taste buds, which are replaced about every two weeks. Despite what some may believe, there are no specific areas of the tongue responsible for a particular taste. Instead, it’s the taste receptors scattered across your tongue that pinpoint the proper flavor. The taste buds in your different papillae are simply a combination of basal cells, columnar (structural) cells, and receptor cells. Different types of receptor cells are coated with proteins intended to attract specific chemicals that are linked to one of the five basic tastes. When the receptor cell identifies the chemical it binds with, it will send a signal through a neural network to the brain via microvilli, or microscopic hairs on every taste bud. There is more to taste than just the tongue, however. Lining the uppermost part of the human nose are olfactory receptors that are responsible for smell, and they send messages that further hone in on specific tastes. When you chew food, a chemical is released that travels to the upper part of your nose and activates the olfactory receptor. These receptors work in conjunction with the receptors on taste buds to help the brain recognize the taste. This helps explain why a cold or allergies can hinder one’s sense of taste, making everything taste bland.

 

4. Does Tryptophan Really Make You Tired?

Anyone who's passed out after indulging in a Thanksgiving feast knows the theory: tryptophan, an amino acid found in turkey, makes you sleepy. But is this conventional wisdom actually true? The short answer is … not exactly. L-tryptophan, as it's officially known, can also be found in everything from chicken and yogurt to fish and cheese, none of which are typically associated with sleepiness. Once ingested, tryptophan is converted into the B-vitamin niacin, which helps create the neurotransmitter serotonin. Serotonin plays a key role in melatonin levels and sleep itself, hence the apparent causal link between turkey and fatigue. Plenty of other amino acids are present in turkey, however, and most of them are found in greater abundance — meaning that, when all those chemicals are rushing to your brain after your second helping, tryptophan rarely wins the race. If, however, the tryptophan gets a little assistance in the form of carbohydrates, it gets a better shot at dominating your system. Eating carbs — which abound in Thanksgiving dishes like mashed potatoes and stuffing — produces insulin, which flushes every amino acid except tryptophan from your bloodstream. Thus, your post-Thanksgiving sleepiness is actually the result of a perfect storm composed of tryptophan, carbs, and the large portions typically associated with the holiday.

 

5. What Are Superfoods?

While many nutritionists and physicians recommend healthy eating over fad diets, some foods offer more nutritional benefits than others. That’s why, in recent years, you might have heard about “superfoods” and why you should incorporate them into your diet. The term “superfood” doesn’t come from medical science. Instead, it was designed by marketers at food companies to help boost sales. But in general, the term applies to particular foods that are nutrient-rich and provide significant health benefits when consumed regularly. One example of a superfood are eggs, which feature two powerful antioxidants: lutein and zeaxanthin. They are also low in calories, averaging 77 calories per egg. And most importantly, they’re full of nutrients such as iron, phosphorous, selenium, and a myriad of vitamins including A, B2, B5, and B12. There are also a variety of fruits and vegetables that qualify as superfoods, including berries. Berries are rich in antioxidants, high in fiber, and contain a wide array of vitamins, particularly Vitamins C and K1, manganese, copper, and folate. But nutrient levels can vary widely between berries. For example, strawberries have the highest vitamin C levels of the superfood berries. This heart-healthy food can also help lower inflammation and improve blood sugar and insulin response. While the phrase “superfoods” might not have a hard definition, there’s plenty of evidence to show that certain foods can improve your health and reduce your risk of serious conditions such as cancer, high blood pressure, and heart disease.

 

 

Source: The Most Mind-Blowing Food Facts You Never Knew  |  Facts About Food

Edited June 10, 2022 by DarkRavie

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - AIRCRAFT CABINS

Did you know... that airplanes have changed a lot since the time Wright brothers invented it. Those bulky wood and cloth aircrafts have transformed into sleek Boeing Dreamliners, thanks to modern technology. Airplanes today are designed in a very unique way and everything you see inside has a specific purpose. To help you understand the inner workings of air travel,  click the link below for a few interesting facts about airplanes that you must know. (AIRWHIZZ | AVIATION INSIDER | JUL 16, 2018) 

 

Things You Might Not Know About Airplane Cabins

by Interesting Facts

Most features in an airplane cabin are designed for a very specific purpose. However, due to the cabin’s complex design, the flight attendants don’t usually take the time to explain every detail to their passengers. (They're more concerned with making sure everyone is safe and comfortable.) However, if you're a curious person who likes to know how things work, we've got you covered. Here are six things you never knew about airplane cabins.

 

1. Cabin Lighting Has a Purpose

Have you noticed that the cabin lights dim during takeoff and landing? It turns out that there are two very good reasons for this. According to Reader's Digest, the first reason is safety. If the lights stayed on and were to suddenly switch from bright to dark in an emergency, it would take precious seconds for passengers' eyes to adjust. With dim lighting during takeoff and landing, our eyes are already adjusted — making it easier to find an exit. The second reason is the mood. Dim lights are more relaxing than bright lights and might calm a passenger who struggles with flight anxiety. Some airlines such as Virgin Atlantic take this a step further by adding colored lights. Virgin Atlantic uses different shades of their brand color for various situations, like a rosy pink color for boarding and a hot magenta color for drinks.

 

2. The Temperature Is Cold for a Reason

Passengers often complain about the cold temperature in airplane cabins. Flight staff will provide passengers with a blanket, but they don't ever increase the heat. That's because the temperature on an aircraft has been set in a very intentional way — and it's for your safety. A study by ATSM International found that people were more likely to faint on an aircraft than on the ground due to a condition called hypoxia. The pressurized environment of an airplane cabin can prevent our body from getting enough oxygen, which causes fainting. The warmer the temperature onboard the aircraft, the more likely this is to happen. To prevent passengers from passing out, airlines intentionally lower the cabin temperature. While this might be slightly uncomfortable, it's much safer for your body.

 

3. The Air Is Cleaner Than You Think

A common myth about air travel is that you're sharing air — along with germs and food particles — with all the other passengers on board. Gross, right? In reality, airlines do a great job of maintaining clean air quality onboard the aircraft. They actually use a HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filter system. According to the International Air Transportation Association (IATA), this is the same type of filter used to clean the air in hospital operating rooms. The next time you fly, don’t worry: Cabin air is cleaner than you think.

 

4. Bathrooms Can Be Unlocked From the Outside

While there is a lock inside cabin bathrooms for passengers to use, flight attendants also have the ability to quickly unlock the door from the outside as well. According to Aerotime Hub, this is for passenger safety. In the event of an emergency, flight attendants need to be able to access the bathroom without picking the lock or taking the door off its hinges. This is necessary if a passenger has a health scare or needs assistance while in the bathroom. It can also be used for children who are unable to unlock the door themselves. Don't worry, though: A flight attendant would never just open the door for no reason. They respect passenger privacy and would only use the unlock option in an emergency.

 

5. Window Blinds Must Remain Open

During takeoff and landing, most flight attendants will ask that passengers lift their window blinds. Like so many other things on an airplane, there's a real reason for this. Open blinds allow the flight staff to see any issues on the ground or on the airplane itself. Passengers might also report unusual circumstances they observe from their windows. Lifting the blinds also allows our eyes to adjust to the conditions outside quickly in case of an emergency. Cabin windows also sometimes have triangle stickers on them to mark certain seats. According to Captain Joe, these stickers indicate which windows provide the best view of the wings. Flight attendants can easily look for the triangle when they need to see the wings for safety reasons. According to Captain Joe, these aisles are also great for passengers prone to motion sickness due to the extra stability provided by the wings.

 

6. There's a Secret Handrail

Walking down the aisle of a moving airplane can be a wobbly experience — especially when there's turbulence. Most passengers end up grabbing the seats as they walk, which can disturb the people in those seats, but there's actually a better way. If you watch the flight attendants, you'll notice that they repeatedly reach up to the ceiling when they walk down the aisle. That's because there's a built-in handle rail along the bottom edge of the storage compartment, which can be used to steady yourself. Next time, copy the flight attendants, avoid aggravating fellow passengers, and use this secret rail instead!

 

 

Source: Interesting Facts About Airplanes That You Probably Didn’t Know  |  Facts About Airplane Cabins

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ANCIENT PYRAMIDS

Did you know... that the site of the most well-known Egyptian pyramids, known as the Giza Pyramid Complex, has been the subject of continuous investigation for more than a century. The area is home to the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Pyramid of Khafre, the Pyramid of Menkaure, and the Great Sphinx of Giza. Over time, and through archeological research, the pyramids have divulged secrets once only known to their architects. And these are just a handful of the pyramids in Egypt.  From hidden shafts to sapphire-toothed saws, these are the most fascinating facts about these engineering marvels. ( Christopher McFadden | Apr 22, 2021)

 

Interesting Facts About Ancient Pyramids

by Interesting Facts

Few monuments capture the public imagination quite like pyramids. These feats of engineering teach us about cultures that lived long before us — not just their art and innovations, but their everyday lives. Just how old is the earliest pyramid? How did Egyptians start building their iconic smooth-sided pyramids? What are we still discovering within them? From the towering Great Pyramids of Giza to the complex stepped pyramids of Mesoamerica, these seven facts reveal just how mind-blowing pyramids really are.

 

1. Egyptian Pyramids Were Rarely Just Pyramids

In Egypt, these triumphs of architecture — reserved for royal tombs — were the main buildings of larger complexes. Typically, the complex also included an attached mortuary temple with shrines, an open courtyard, and chapels, staffed in perpetuity, with an offering table. Ancient Egyptians also buried pits full of boats around these monuments to help ensure smooth sailing into the afterlife. One of the more impressive boats was uncovered in 1954 next to the Great Pyramid of Khufu — sometimes referred to as just the Great Pyramid. The 144-foot-long, 4,600-year-old ship was buried in more than 1,200 pieces stashed underneath stone blocks.

 

2. The Great Pyramids of Giza Created Whole Cities Around Them

Building pyramids as large as the Great Pyramids of Giza was a major undertaking, and required a lot of labor — especially the Great Pyramid of Khufu which, at 481 feet high, was the tallest building in the world for thousands of years. (The date of its construction is debated, but may have begun around 2550 BCE.) Archaeologists have uncovered two "towns" around the Great Pyramids that not only housed pyramid-builders, but bakers, carpenters, weavers, stoneworkers, and others that supported day-to-day life. Some lived in family dwellings with their own courtyards and kitchens, while others, likely itinerant workers, slept in something more like a barracks. There is so much we don’t know about these areas, but one thing’s for sure: Based on animal bones and pottery found around the site, everyone there was very well-fed… and had plenty of beer to drink.

 

3. The First Known Pyramid Is 4,700 Years Old

Djoser’s Step Pyramid, built sometime between 2667 and 2648 BCE, is considered the oldest pyramid, although it doesn’t have the smooth sides we associate with Egyptian pyramids today. Previously, pharaohs had been buried underneath mastabas — structures that look like single plateaus. The Step Pyramid stacked multiple mastabas on top of one another, creating the tapered effect. It’s located Saqqara, a necropolis about 15 miles south of Cairo.

 

4. Pyramids in Egypt Used to be Bright and Shiny

We picture pyramids now as immense buildings of sandy-colored stone, but when they were originally constructed, they were adorned in polished limestone. These casing stones needed to be individually cut to a specific angle and sanded until they shone. Many of these outer layers were knocked loose by an earthquake or dismantled for building other things.

 

5. Sudan Has More Than 200 Pyramids

Egypt has around 140 pyramids that we know about, but to the south, present-day Sudan has more than 200 of them. Until the mid-20th century, many archaeologists viewed these sites as extensions of Egypt, rather than part of a unique cultural heritage. But Sudan’s pyramids, most of them located in Meroe, are much smaller and steeper, surrounded by their own collections of chapels and monuments, and are unique to Nubian culture. For what it’s worth, Egyptian-style pyramids are all over the place, including Italy and Greece. Pyramids more broadly, however, take many different forms.

 

6. The Americas Contain More Pyramids Than the Rest of the World Combined — Including the Biggest One of All

In ancient Mesoamerica, a region spanning from much of modern-day Mexico through most of Central America, peoples such as the Inca, Aztec, Maya, and Olmec had their own style of pyramid dating back to about 1000 BCE — and they built a lot of them. Unlike Egypt, they weren’t used exclusively for tombs. The most well-known Mesoamerican pyramids are the ones in Teotihuacan, an Aztec city near present-day Mexico City. The Pyramid of the Sun, the largest of the structures, and nearby Pyramid of the Moon were both constructed by putting rubble inside a set of retaining walls, building adobe brick around it, then casing in limestone. The Pyramid of the Sun hides an extra secret: another pyramid, accessible through a cave underneath. These pyramids were built between 1 and 200 CE, although the pyramid inside the cave is even older. The Great Pyramid in La Venta, an ancient Olmec civilization by present-day Tabasco, Mexico, is much different: It’s essentially a mountain made of clay. Later Olmec pyramids were also earth mounds, only faced with stone in a stepped structure. The largest pyramid on the planet by volume, not height, is the Great Pyramid of Cholula, or Tlachihualtepetl, in Mexico. It dates back to around 200 BCE, and is essentially six pyramids on top of one another. Later civilizations expanded on previous construction, taking care to preserve the original work. It’s made of adobe bricks and, whether accidentally or through a deliberate effort from the locals, eventually became covered in foliage and was later abandoned. When Spanish invaders, led by Hernán Cortés, came through, murdered 3,000 people, and destroyed more visible structures, they thought Tlachihualtepetl was part of the natural topography and let it be.

 

7. We’re Still Finding New Stuff Inside Pyramids

The Great Pyramid of Khufu, the tallest of the Great Pyramids, has been the topic of rigorous study for more than a thousand years — but we’re still finding out what’s inside, including whole new chambers. The Scan Pyramids project, a collaboration between Egyptian, French, and Japanese research institutions that started in 2015, uses updated cosmic ray technology for a noninvasive peek inside. So far, they’ve found two previously unidentified areas: a corridor on the north face of the pyramid and a “big void” above the Grand Gallery. The void is at least 100 feet long and has a similar cross-section as the Grand Gallery, which connects various areas of the pyramid, including the burial chamber. A team of American researchers hopes to use even more advanced technology to try to get a full three-dimensional image of the big void. Whether it’s a structural element or a whole new chamber, it could provide a wealth of information on how the pyramids were built.

 

 

Source: Explore Interesting Facts about the Ancient Egyptian Pyramids  |  Ancient Pyramids, the Facts

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - GREAT BARRIER REEF

Did you know... that the Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 2,300 kilometres over an area of approximately 344,400 square kilometres. The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia, separated from the coast by a channel 100 miles wide in places and over 200 feet deep.[6] The Great Barrier Reef can be seen from outer space and is the world's biggest single structure made by living organisms. This reef structure is composed of and built by billions of tiny organisms, known as coral polyps. It supports a wide diversity of life and was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981. CNN labelled it one of the seven natural wonders of the world in 1997. Australian World Heritage places included it in its list in 2007. The Queensland National Trust named it a state icon of Queensland in 2006. (Wikipedia)

 

Fascinating Facts About the Great Barrier Reef

by Interesting Facts

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef more than lives up to its name: It’s one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the largest coral reef ecosystem on the planet, covering an area of approximately 135,000 square miles. That equates to nearly the entire size of Germany, or the land area of the states of Washington and North Dakota combined. But although most of us have heard of it, how much do you really know about this remarkable place? Here are seven things you might not know about the Great Barrier Reef.

 

1. The Great Barrier Reef Isn’t a Single Reef

The Great Barrier Reef extends for 1,429 miles along the coast of Queensland, Australia, and according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), it's the largest living structure on Earth. But that figure disguises the fact that the Great Barrier Reef comprises about 2,500 to 3,000 separate but interconnected smaller reefs, as well as over 900 coral or sand islands known as cays. There are also different types of reef. The term “barrier reef” refers to a type of reef that forms on the outer edges of the continental shelf, separated from land by a deep lagoon. Fringing reefs are closer to the shoreline and tend to form near islands. Platform and patch reefs are small and isolated, while ribbon reefs are long and narrow and lack a lagoon.

 

2. It’s Home to 600 Species of Coral

The Great Barrier Reef isn’t just home to coral — it’s made of it. Approximately three-quarters of the world’s coral species can be found here. There are two main types, hard coral and soft coral. It is the hard or stony corals (scleractinians) that are responsible for creating the reef itself. Made up of tiny polyps, each stony coral measures around one-tenth of an inch, but they band together to form colonies that consist of millions of individual polyps. The coral secretes calcium carbonate, which grows over the limestone remains of previous colonies. This slow and steady growth — less than two inches per year if conditions are ideal — eventually formed the structure of the Great Barrier Reef. The coral is precious, which is why visitors should never be tempted to break off a piece as a souvenir, no matter how small and insignificant it might seem.    

 

3. The Reef Is the Most Biodiverse UNESCO World Heritage Site on Earth

Aside from the coral itself, the Great Barrier Reef is home to more than 1,500 species of fish. Perhaps the most curious is a scorpion fish called the Rhinopias agriloba. Occasionally found in the northern part of the reef, it appears to walk along the seafloor balancing on its fins. Approximately 4,000 species of mollusks and about 240 species of birds also live in the reef’s ecosystem. On top of this extraordinary roll call, you’ll find migrating whales, dolphins, dugongs, sea turtles, crustaceans, sponges, anemones, and other marine life, making the reef the most biodiverse UNESCO World Heritage Site in the world. Humans, too, are intrinsically linked to the reef: The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have forged a strong connection with the reef during their 60,000-year history, as evidenced by shell deposits, fish traps, and marine totems.

 

4. Some Reef Dwellers Should Be Feared More Than Others

Snorkelers and divers at the Great Barrier Reef should familiarize themselves with some of its more dangerous inhabitants. The reef is home to 14 species of sea snakes, and some are more poisonous than any found on land. The venomous blue-ringed octopus should also be avoided. The octopus tucks itself into shells and won’t attack unless provoked, but a bite is usually fatal. Some types of jellyfish are another potential hazard. Species like the Carukia barnesi are known to cause Irukandji syndrome, which can result in severe lower back pain and muscle cramps. Meanwhile, the crown-of-thorns starfish can devastate the coral itself. It feeds on the coral, stripping a thin layer of tissue off its skeleton and irreparably damaging the fragile polyps.

 

5. Coral Spawning Season Is a Spectacle Like No Other

One of the most breathtaking sights visitors can witness along the Great Barrier Reef is mass coral spawning. This annual event takes place once a year after a full moon and when the water reaches a particular temperature. Corals are hermaphrodites, meaning they’re neither male nor female, but both. Spawning occurs as they release eggs and sperm into the water at the same time, increasing the chance of fertilization. For up to a weeklong period, the water takes on the appearance of a subterranean blizzard each night, though the “snow” is red, orange, and yellow in addition to white. The fertilized eggs rise to the surface and float around for a while before sinking to the ocean floor. There, they start to bud and the coral begins to develop.

 

6. The Reef Is So Large, You Can See It From Space

It’s not just the immense scale of the reef that makes the Great Barrier Reef visible to astronauts in space. The contrast between the dark blue of the deeper parts of the ocean and the light turquoise of the lagoons on the other side of the reef makes it relatively straightforward to identify with the naked eye. But the pictures taken from space are valued for more than their aesthetic appeal. The MERIS sensor used on the Envisat satellite mission was a useful tool in mapping the extent of coral bleaching, the term given to stressed coral which has rid itself of algae.

 

7. In 2020, Scientists Discovered a Reef Taller Than the Empire State Building

Scientists are continually studying the Great Barrier Reef, but the discovery of a 1,640-foot-tall reef off the North Queensland coast was an exceptional find, the largest discovery in more than a century. By comparison, the Empire State Building measures 1,454 feet from sidewalk to tip. Researchers from the Schmidt Ocean Institute in California were using an underwater robot to create a 3D map of the seafloor when they made the discovery. The submarine landform, which is about a mile wide, is right off the northern tip of the Great Barrier Reef.

 

 

Source: Wikipedia - Great Barrier Reef  |  Great Barrier Reef Facts
 

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - HOUSEPLANTS YOU CAN'T KILL

Did you know... that if you’re a beginner gardener, have a brown thumb, or seem to always forget to water your plants, you should consider one of these hard to kill houseplants. These plants are not only beautiful and interesting, but are easy to care for, hardy, and will tolerant a bit of neglect. (ANDREW COURTNEY)

 

Drought-Tolerant Houseplants You Can't Kill

by Andrea Beck  |  Updated May 31, 2022

Skip the guilt of forgetting to water by growing these drought-resistant indoor plants. All of these easy-care species tolerate a little neglect (and many of them even prefer to be kept on the dry side), so you can enjoy their green good looks without the stress of keeping them watered all the time.

 

1. Snake Plant

The sword-like, dark green leaves of snake plants (Sansevieria trifasciata) give them a bold look, often enhanced by silver, cream, white, or yellow variegation. Even better, these low-water houseplants can go for weeks without so much as a drizzle of moisture, making them perfect for forgetful gardeners. Snake plants tolerate low to bright light and can grow up to four feet tall.

 

2. Ponytail Palm

Thanks to its thick, trunk-like stem, ponytail palm (Beaucarnea recurvata) can store moisture long-term, so it can easily survive a missed watering or two. It gets its name from the long, narrow leaves that grow from the end of its single stem, making it look like a peppy, cascading ponytail. This drought-tolerant indoor plant may need a drink every couple of weeks during the warmer months, but during the winter, you can stretch it to only watering every three or four weeks. Ponytail palms tolerate low to bright light, and can eventually reach 10 feet tall (but you can limit their growth by keeping them in a smaller pot).

 

3. Aloe

A spiky succulent with toothed leaves, gray-green aloe (Aloe vera) is famous for its ability to help burns heal. It's also an easy-care indoor plant that doesn't need much water so you can let the soil dry out between watering'. Aloe grows slowly, like most succulents, but with patience, it can reach three feet tall and wide. Keep it in bright light, but don't place it in direct sunlight, or this soothing plant could end up with its own sunburn.

 

4. Burro's tail

With one look at burro's tail (Sedum morganianum), you can easily see how this gray-green succulent got its name. A member of the sedum genus, burro's tail has lush, almost jelly bean-shape leaves that overlap on trailing stems. The tiny leaves easily drop off, and if you want, you can pot them to start new plants. Water this houseplant like you would any other succulent (let the soil dry before giving it more water), and keep it in bright light. With the right care, burro's tail can eventually reach a couple of feet long.

 

5. Sago Palm

Slow-growing sago palm (Cycas revoluta) is a popular, durable houseplant that's easy to care for and adds a touch of the tropics to any room. On a mature plant, the leathery, dark green fronds can stretch up to three feet long. Sago palms like well-drained soil, so while forgetting to water this plant won't kill it, overwatering will. Give your palm a drink when it's just on the verge of drying out, and keep it in medium to bright light—eventually, it can grow up to five feet tall.

 

6. Pothos

A popular choice for households and offices, pothos (Epipremnum aureum) is a tough, drought-resistant houseplant with attractive, glossy foliage. Its vines can spread up to eight feet or more, and you can find varieties with variegated (look for 'Marble Queen') and bright green leaves (like 'Neon'). Pothos earned its popularity by being practically indestructible—it tolerates low to bright light and drying out between waterings. It's also super easy to start new plants from cuttings.

 

 

7. Haworthia

Commonly known as zebra plant because of its white-striped foliage, Haworthia fasciata is great for dressing up a windowsill. An indoor plant that thrives with minimal care, it tends to stay less than a foot tall and wide, and it's usually even more compact than that. Like most succulents, zebra plant does best in bright light and it prefers when the soil in its pot dries out a bit between waterings. Because of its unique spikes and striped coloring, it's a favorite for modern décor.

 

 

Source: Hard To Kill Houseplants That Will Thrive In Your Home  |  Houseplants For the Forgetful Gardener

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the day - BUMBLEBEE BAT

Did you know.... that Kitti's hog-nosed bat, also known as the bumblebee bat, is a near-threatened species of bat and the only extant member of the family Craseonycteridae. It occurs in western Thailand and southeast Myanmar, where it occupies limestone caves along rivers. Kitti's hog-nosed bat is the smallest species of bat and arguably the world's smallest mammal. It has a reddish-brown or grey coat, with a distinctive pig-like snout. Colonies range greatly in size, with an average of 100 individuals per cave. The bat feeds during short activity periods in the evening and dawn, foraging around nearby forest areas for insects. Females give birth annually to a single offspring. Although the bat's status in Myanmar is not well known, the Thai population is restricted to a single province and may be at risk of extinction. Its potential threats are primarily anthropogenic, and include habitat degradation and the disturbance of roosting sites (Wikipedia)

 

 

Bumblebee Bat Facts
by Sunny | Modified: 08 Jun 2022

Crowned as the smallest mammal in the world by size, a bumblebee bat can actually rest comfortably on your finger. Apart from its resemblance to the bumblebees in size, these little bats are less scary than you’d expect. Learn more about them in these bumblebee bat facts and you might just like them a little more.

 

1. The bumblebee bat is also known as Kitti’s hog-nosed bat.

Definitely an adorable name for the world’s smallest mammal. The binomial name of the bumblebee bat is Craseonycteris thonglongyai. This species is named after its discoverer, Kitti Thonglongya, a Thai zoologist, who founded them in 1973. It was his colleague, John E. Hill who named the species in his honor after Kitti Thonglongya passed away from a heart attack.

 

2. The lifespan of bumblebee bats is 5 to 10 years. 

Researchers do not have their exact lifespan. However, based on studies of other similar bat species, the average lifespan is estimated to be between 5 and 10 years.

 

3. Bumblebee bats live in limestone caves near rivers.

These bats live near the tops of the caves for warmth. Bumblebee bats are mostly found in limestone caves in western Thailand. More specifically, they are under legal protection in Sai Yok National Park. They are also found in the southeastern part of Myanmar, near the shared borders with Thailand.

 

4. Bumblebee bats have a short activity period.

Every day, they only leave their caves for 30 minutes in the evening, and 20 minutes at dawn for foraging. They normally fly along the top of bamboo trees and they catch their prey in flight. They do not fly more than 1 kilometer away from their caves.

 

5. Their main sources of food are insects and spiders.

As bumblebee bats are insectivores, they can contribute towards pest control. However, the impact is not substantial due to their small population size.

 

6. Human activities are endangering the habitats of the bumblebee bats.

Ever since the discovery of bumblebee bats, tourists have been flocking to these sites just to have a look at these bats. Furthermore, locals even captured them for sale as souvenirs. Other human activities include limestone extractions and deforestations. These result in loss of natural habitat and a decrease in prey hunting activities for the bumblebee bats.

 

7. There are mixed reactions towards the monks meditating at these caves.

Many are against the monks meditating at these caves as the smoke given off can potentially harm the bats. However, the good news is, monks in Myanmar have become the cave protectors instead. They occupy the entrances, in turn preventing hunters and drug addicts from entering the caves and destroying the natural habitats.

 

8. A conservation program was launched to protect the bumblebee bats. 

In 2007, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) launched the Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) project. Bumblebee bats were one of the first 10 focal species to be protected under this project. Currently, the bumblebee bat falls under the Vulnerable category, with an EDGE score of 4.73.

 

9. The latest wild sighting of the bumblebee bats was at Krabi, Thailand.

About twenty bumblebee bats were found clinging against the 10-meter high ceiling in Phra Phutthabat Cave in Krabi. These bats have the same reddish-brown color with black wings. However, they are not confirmed to be bumblebee bats yet. Experts are still verifying the identity of these bats, and if they turn out to be bumblebee bats, this would be the second place in Thailand the bats can call home.

 

 

Source: Wikipedia - Kitti's hog-nosed bat  |  Brief Facts About Bumblebee Bats

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ODD FOOD NAMES

Did you know... that there are a lot of weird foods out there — foods we’d never, ever eat even if we were offered money to chow down on them. What the French think of as a delectable treat — hello, snails in a sizzling garlic sauce (aka escargot) — may very well be another culture’s nightmare. But what happens when a potentially-delicious food is given an awful name? From blood pudding to spotted dick, there’s a chance the names themselves would keep even the most adventurous foodies at bay. For one, most of us aren’t keen on eating blood, while anything “spotted” seems downright dangerous. You know, in the medical sense. Spam? Bangers and mash? We’ll pass. I mean, what is going on here? Why not just use words like “sausage” or “mystery meat”? Well, because it just wouldn’t be as fun — that’s why. So, let’s take a look at some of the weirdest food names out there — some of which are accompanied by even weirder ingredients. (LISA MARIE BASILE | August 12, 2019)

 

The History of Oddly Named Foods

by Interesting Facts

Ladyfingers

Whether you’re venturing out to a new restaurant or sharing a home-cooked meal with friends, chances are most of the foods you encounter are pretty self-explanatory. Mashed potatoes, scrambled eggs, or chocolate cake — even without much of a description, it’s usually easy to discern what will be gracing your plate. But even some of the culinary delights that have become standard American fare carry unusual monikers that may have you wondering about their mysterious origins. Let the backstory on these seven oddly named foods give your brain a mental palate refresher.

 

1. Hot Dogs

Despite originating in Germany, hot dogs are an essential American food — an estimated 7 billion hot dogs are served up each summer in the U.S. alone. And with that many sausages on the grill, the name for a food that doesn’t involve any actual dogs has become completely mainstream. But where did it come from? Some food historians believe that early songs and jokes gave the wieners their name, suggesting that sausage meat came from dogs. But a more likely story is that German butchers named early American frankfurters “dachshund sausages” after the long and skinny dogs they resembled, which was eventually shortened to “hot dogs.”

 

2. Sweetbreads

Beware the common confusion about sweetbreads: They’re neither sugary nor baked. That’s because sweetbreads aren’t at all a pastry, but instead a type of offal (organ meats). These small cutlets are actually the thymus and pancreas glands from calves or lambs. While sweetbreads may seem off-putting to some diners, they’re known by many chefs to be exceptionally tender with a mild flavor — which could explain their misleading name. The first recorded mention of the British dish dates to the 1500s, a time when “bread” (also written “brede”) was the word for roasted or grilled meats. In conjunction with being more delicate and flavorful than tougher cuts, the name “sweetbread” likely took hold.

 

3. Head Cheese

There’s no dairy involved in making head cheese. In fact, the dish more closely resembles a meatloaf than a slice or wedge of spreadable cheese. That’s because head cheese is actually an aspic — a savory gelatin packed with scraps of meat and molded into a sliceable block. As for the name, head cheese gets its label in part from the remnants of meat collected from butchered hog heads. And while not a cheese, it’s likely the dish is named such because early recipes called for pressing the boiled meats together in a cheese mold. Head cheese is popular throughout the world, especially in Europe, where it's known by less-confusing names. In the U.K. butchers call the dish “brawn,” and meat-eaters in Germany refer to it as “souse.”

 

4. Pumpernickel Bread

Most bread names are self-explanatory: cinnamon-raisin, sandwich wheat, potato bread. So what exactly is a “pumpernickel”? Originating in Germany, this dark and hefty bread combines rye flour, molasses, and sourdough starter for a dough that bakes at low heat for a whole day. Many American pumpernickel bakers speed up the process by using yeast and wheat flour, which makes for a lighter loaf that reduces (or altogether removes) pumpernickel’s namesake side effect: flatulence. German bakers of old acknowledged the bread’s gas-inducing ability with an unsavory nickname: pumpern meaning “to break wind,” and nickel for “goblin or devil.” Put together, the translation reads as “devil’s fart” — a reference to how difficult pumpernickel could be on the digestive tract.

 

5. Jerusalem Artichokes

If there’s any vegetable that suffers from bad branding, it may just be the Jerusalem artichoke — a bumpy root crop that’s not actually an artichoke and doesn’t have any link to Israel. Unlike their real counterparts, Jerusalem artichokes are actually the edible tuber roots of a sunflower species, similar in appearance to ginger root (real artichokes produce purple, thistle-like flowers that turn into above-ground edible bulbs). Jerusalem artichokes were first called “sunroots” by Indigenous Americans, who shared the tubers with French explorers in the early 1600s. Upon arriving back in France, the vegetables were called topinambours. Italian cooks renamed them girasole, aka “sunflower,” in reference to their above-ground buds. As sunroots spread throughout Europe, the girasole morphed into “Jerusalem” thanks to mispronunciation, with the addition of “artichoke” in reference to the vegetable’s flavor.

 

6. Dutch Baby Pancakes

Few foods are universal, but pancakes may be the exception. While they may be made with culture or region-specific ingredients, nearly every country has some variation of the pancake. Queue the Dutch baby, a baked treat with a name that misidentifies both its origin and size. Also known as a German pancake or pfannkuchen, Dutch babies are a blend of popovers and crepes baked in a large skillet or cast-iron pan, topped with fruit, syrup, or powdered sugar. So how did these dinner-plate-sized pancakes get their most popular moniker? Culinary legend attributes the misnomer to the daughter of a Seattle restaurant owner, who mistakenly subbed “Dutch” for “Deutsch” (meaning German). The eatery downsized its versions into miniature servings and deemed the pancakes “Dutch babies.”

 

7. Grasshopper Pie

Insects are protein-packed main courses in many countries, but the idea of chomping down on bugs isn’t appealing to all stomachs. Luckily, this bug-branded dessert is entirely free of its namesake insect. Grasshopper pie features a cookie crust and fluffy filling made from whipped cream, mint and chocolate liqueurs, and green food coloring. Fittingly, grasshopper pie often makes its appearance at springtime celebrations just as the leaping bugs are emerging from their winter slumber, but that’s not where the name comes from. While hitting peak popularity during the 1950s and ‘60s, grasshopper pie is actually a dessert version of the grasshopper cocktail, which first debuted some four decades prior. Philibert Guichet, a New Orleans restaurateur, invented the drink as part of a cocktail competition in 1919, naming his creation for its bright green hue.

 

 

Source: The Weirdest Food Names Out There  |  Facts About Oddly Named Foods

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - MAGICIANS

Shin Lim

Did you know... that the art of magic has long dazzled fans. At first thought to be actual paranormal powers, in recent decades magic has been revealed as mere deception, yet we still love the performances and clever ways with with magicians fool us. But with hundreds of mystifying performers alive today, how are we to christen the ten best currently living sorcerers, yet alone of those of all time? I've researched and reviewed many entertainers and hope to present some of the top artists in all magic fields (illusions, sleight of hand, escape, and so on). Thus, factoring in skills, legacy, and perhaps a pinch of personal bias, here are the top ten magicians of all time! (JEREMY GILL  |  JUL 28, 2020)

 

the Most Influential Magicians Who Ever Lived

by Interesting Facts

Harry Houdini and David Blaine may be household names, but their success has been built on the shoulders of magicians who haven’t received much recognition. The “celebrity magician,” after all, is a recent phenomenon: For centuries, illusionists and escape artists were impugned as low-lifes (at best) and criminals (at worst). But none of that would stop these magic-makers, who helped pave the way for our modern superstars. From mythical sorcerers to skeptical writers, here are some of the most influential magicians in history.

 

1. Djedi: History’s Most Captivating Decapitator

An Egyptian magician who purportedly lived 4,700 years ago, Djedi may have been history’s first illusionist. According to the Westcar Papyrus, an ancient Egyptian text, Djedi could magically remove — and reattach! — the heads of living animals: Geese, waterfowl, and even bulls. (Centuries later, David Blaine would re-enact the stunt with a chicken.) Historians, however, caution that the magician’s greatest trick was fooling us to believe he existed: Dejdi might be a work of fiction.

 

2. Belshazzar’s Incompetent Magicians: The Reason There’s Writing on the Wall

The Bible contains dozens of references to sorcerers, necromancers, and conjurers. In the First Book of Samuel, the Witch of Endor summons the spirit of a prophet. In the apocrypha, Simon Magus is able to levitate and even fly. But one of the most famous references to magicians appears in the tale of King Belshazzar’s Feast. As the story goes, the King was enjoying an opulent meal when a hand mystically appeared and began to write a cryptic message on a nearby wall, spelling out his doom. A panicked Belshazzar asked his magicians to interpret the message — but the magicians failed, and Belshazzar soon died. The scene is now immortalized in the idiom: “To see the writing on the wall.”

 

3. Luca Pacioli: The Accountant Who Could Breathe Fire

An Italian mathematician and friar who lived in the 15th century, Luca Pacioli is widely considered the “Father of Accounting.” But his skills expanded beyond bookkeeping: He’s also one of the earliest writers on the art of magic. His unpublished 1508 book De Viribus Quantitatis discusses an array of magic tricks: how to make an “egg walk over a table,” how to make a “cooked chicken jump on the table,” and how to “make a snow torch that burns.” He’s also the first to discuss various card tricks, coin tricks, and fire-eating techniques.

 

4. Ching Ling Foo: America’s First Chinese Superstar

The first Chinese performer to hit it big in the U.S., Ching Ling Foo’s performances in 1899 routinely packed the house and made him a superstar. An expert in traditional Chinese illusions, Foo could throw a shawl into the air and — as it settled to the ground — conjure large objects out of thin air. Unfortunately, Foo would be the victim of a racist scam. An American magician named William Robinson stole Foo’s act, dressed in yellowface, called himself “Chung Ling Soo,” and billed himself as Foo’s competitor: “The Original Chinese Conjurer.” The two magicians would feud for the rest of their lives.

 

5. Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin: The Clockmaker With Magic Hands

A French clockmaker, Robert-Houdin developed fine-motor skills fixing cogs and gears in his family’s shop — and then began using them to learn sleight-of-hand tricks. He used this know-how to build androids and other mechanical wonders, which helped him build audiences in the mid-19th century. It wasn’t long before Robert-Houdin was performing conjuring acts for mass audiences. Today, Robert-Houdin is widely recognized as the father of modern magic, having transformed it from a low-class artform to something the theater-going wealthy could enjoy. He’d also inspire a young Ehrich Weiss, a Hungarian-American escapologist who you might know by a different name: Harry Houdini.

 

6. Alexander and Adelaide Herrmann: Magicians with a Funny Bone

Few people have shaped our definition of a magician more than Alexander Herrmann. Called “Herrmann the Great,” the Victorian-era Frenchman was one of the first people to pull a live rabbit out of a hat. But Hermman’s most important contribution to modern magic was his performing style: He was one of the first magicians to make a comedy routine central to his performance. His wife, Adelaide, was no slouch, either. Called the “Queen of Magic,” she’s believed to be the first woman to ever perform the dreaded “bullet catch trick,” and she continued to tour internationally for another 25 years after Alexander’s death.  

 

7. Jasper Maskelyne: The Illusionist Who Deceived the Nazis

Every magician, at their core, is a master of deception. But when Jasper Maskelyne moved his act from the stage to the theater of war, his deception skills were used to save lives. During World War II, Maskelyne joined the British military and used his knowledge as an illusionist to trick the Nazis. His team took camouflage to a new level, creating deceptive decoys to trick enemy fighter pilots: fake harbors filled with phony boats and dazzling light-displays that, from above, looked like cities. The illusions reportedly caused the enemy to waste tons of ammunition.

 

 

Source: Famous Magicians Throughout History  |  Facts About Influential Magicians

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - AMUSEMENT PARKS

Did you know... that the best theme parks create a sense of magic. You feel transported to another world, with crazy rides and costumed characters (and no lack of overpriced snacks). But since so many work so hard to create thrilling fantasy escapes, it can be easy to forget that there are real facts behind the make believe—astonishing histories, jaw-dropping stats, totally odd quirks. All in all, it's yet another a reminder that life—real life—is the greatest magic. (ALEX DANIEL | JANUARY 10, 2019)

 

Amazing Facts About Amusement Parks

by Interesting Facts

Pleasure gardens walked so Six Flags could run. While many people visit amusement parks for a fun break from everyday life, things get much more interesting behind the scenes. What role did public transportation play in your favorite parks? What’s the fastest coaster? Which famous family attraction had a disastrous opening day? From the humble beginnings of carousels to record-breaking roller coasters, there’s a lot to learn about amusement parks.

 

1. The Oldest Amusement Park Dates Back to the 16th Century

Amusement parks as we know them today are a fairly modern concept, but they started evolving from traveling fairs and pleasure gardens in Europe centuries ago. The Danish park Dyrehavsbakken, more commonly known as Bakken, opened to the public in 1583 as a pleasure garden known for its natural spring waters. Not long after, vendors started setting up booths for selling their wares and providing entertainment alike. Over the years, the park transitioned from a pleasure garden to a fair to an amusement park, and is now considered the world’s oldest amusement park. You won’t find much, if any, 1500s nostalgia there today, but Bakken has maintained one tradition over at least 200 years: Pjerrot the white-faced clown, a character who visits the park every day. Its oldest ride is a wooden roller coaster from 1932. Bakken also avoids many modern amusement park archetypes: The vendors are small, independent businesses, and the aesthetic is more simple than flashy.

 

2. American Amusement Parks Started as Trolley Marketing

The electric trolley industry was booming in the 1890s, and while they became popular among commuters, evening and weekend traffic was pretty low. Electric companies often charged trolley operators a flat rate regardless of how much power they actually used, so trolley companies started trying to drum up business during the slow times. Enter the trolley park, a fun and relaxing destination at the end of the tracks. Attractions at these parks included dance halls, coin-operated machines, boat rides, and live entertainment. Because electric trolleys were much more pleasant to ride than their coal or steam predecessors, it was easy to pitch the ride as a tourist attraction in and of itself. The trolley park concept spread quickly across the country, and attractions started to resemble what you’d find in a modern amusement park. A 1902 issue of Cosmopolitan, then a family magazine, describes an early river-floating ride called an “aquarama,” a roller coaster called “Railway to the Moon,” and “the latest in the up-and-down railroad… the ‘loop the loop,’ as it is properly termed.” Lake Compounce in central Connecticut, the longest-operating amusement park in the United States, was founded in 1846, far before the trolleys came in — but it can still be counted as a trolley park. The park started with people flocking to the site to see scientific experiments. It operated as a “picnic park” that held frequent public barbecues until 1895, when Bristol and Plainville Tramway Company began service and the park got its own permanent structure, with a restaurant and ballroom.

 

3. The Fastest Roller Coaster Goes Almost 150 Miles an Hour

The highest-speed coaster in the world is, fittingly, at Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Called Formula Rossa, the ride reaches its top speed of 240 kilometers per hour (about 149 mph) in less than five seconds. The ride is so fast, passengers need to wear goggles to protect their eyes from any impacts with flying insects or sand. Ferrari’s other theme park, Ferrari Land in Tarragona, Spain, has the fastest coaster in Europe, at a comparably measly 112 miles per hour. Because no record can exist without somebody trying to break it, Formula Rossa may be dethroned soon by Falcon’s Flight at Six Flags Qiddiya in Saudi Arabia, scheduled to open in 2023. Park owners promise a top speed of at least 155 miles per hour.

 

4. Disneyland’s Opening Day Was a Disaster

Today, Disneyland is one of the most well-known and most-visited theme parks in the world, welcoming 18.7 million visitors in 2019 alone. But its opening day on July 17, 1955, went so badly that some staff members called it “Black Sunday.” Many rides hadn’t opened yet, including the entirety of Tomorrowland, and crews had to build attractions at such a breakneck pace that they weren’t able to weed around the canal boat ride, instead placing signs pretending they were exotic plant species. But that was the least of the trouble. In the day’s 100-degree weather, the asphalt was so hot that high heels became stuck in it, and the availability of drinking fountains was severely impacted by a plumbers’ strike. This was before widespread use of car air conditioning, and families stuck in the seven miles of heavy traffic leading into the park had to endure extreme heat. When they finally got in, not only did they have insufficient access to water, but the restaurants and refreshment stands eventually ran out of food — due in part to the more than 10,000 people who had entered the park via a tall ladder instead of the front gate. Things continued to go badly for the next few weeks. Children managed to wreck 30 out of 36 cars in an attraction meant to teach them the rules of the road. Stagecoaches in Frontierland got the axe after they kept tipping over, both through faulty design and skittish, unpredictable ponies. Walt Disney’s dream of live circuses was dashed by a loose herd of llamas, and it just got worse from there.

Regardless, people kept coming, and it only took seven weeks to amass 1 million visitors.

 

5. Epcot’s Original Concept Was a Whole City

Epcot Center, a theme park within Walt Disney World, opened in 1982 with exhibits exploring human life and world culture in the past, present, and future. But Walt Disney’s original vision was significantly more ambitious: He imagined it as an entire city. Initially imagined by Disney as the “heart of everything” in the Disney World project, EPCOT, then an acronym for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, was an urban planning experiment in a completely closed-in, climate-controlled environment led by Disney and other major corporations. In addition to building a whole planned community, including a radial transportation grid, from scratch, the Community of Tomorrow was meant to be a sandbox for new innovation and technology. Residents would either work in the city center or travel by people mover and monorail to a similarly experimental industrial park between it and the Disney World theme park. For better or for worse, Disney never realized this ambitious vision, since he died the same year (1966) that he presented his plan to the public. Disney did, however, keep the name, so the next time you’re visiting that giant golf ball, you can imagine what might have been.

 

6. A German Amusement Park Was Built in an Unfinished Nuclear Power Plan

The SNR-300 nuclear reactor was ready to go in 1985, but with mounting public and political pressure against it, especially after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the project never moved forward. The plant was officially abandoned, and in 1991 a Dutch investor scooped up the property for 2.5 million euros, left the cooling tower and reactor building in place, and turned it into a hotel and theme park that opened in 1996. Wunderland Kalkar now has more than 40 attractions, a few specifically planned around the cooling tower. Climbing walls, plus a mountain mural, line the exterior. The base of the interior of the cooling tower is called “Echoland,” and, for the more adventurous, the “Vertical Swing” spins you all the way up to the top.

 

7. Carousels Started Out as a War Gam

The carousel, now the most quaint of carnival rides, started its life in 12th-century Arabia and Turkey as a serious game called Little War, in which horsemen tossed perfumed clay balls at one another; whoever failed to catch the ball would have to live with the strong perfume smell until their next bath. Italian and Spanish crusaders brought the game to Europe, but once it got to France, things got really extravagant. Carosella meant “Little War” in Italian, and once the French got a hold of it, they named it carrousel. At first, French nobility played war games on their own horses, including the scented-ball game and a ring-lancing game, with both them and their horses dressed to the nines. Then they created mechanical models in the 17th century, with wooden horses attached to spokes extending from a central post, to practice the games. These models evolved into elaborately designed luxury diversions for the wealthy, typically powered by a horse, mule, or overworked human. These merry-go-rounds, a term first coined in 1729 by a British poet, spread throughout Europe. When the steam engine came along around 1870, it allowed for more elaborate carousel decorations and made them easier to manufacture — and before long they were the carnival staples they are today.

 

 

Source: Amazing Facts About Theme Parks  |  Amusement Park Facts

[DarkRavie]

 

Fact of the Day - MANDELA EFFECT

Did you know... What in the world is the Mandela Effect? In a nutshell, it’s having memories that don’t match with current reality and history. Fiona Broome, one of the people who coined the term, launched a website in 2009 to document the phenomenon, explains that the Mandela Effect “is what happens when someone has a clear memory of something that never happened in this reality.” But why is it called the Mandela Effect? (Kelly Bryant)

 

Mind-Bending Examples of the Mandela Effect

by Interesting Facts

Nostalgia is a powerful feeling. Reminiscing about the past can be a bonding experience, whether it’s sharing memories of eating Jiffy peanut butter as a kid or hearing Darth Vader say, “Luke, I am your father,” for the first time. But sometimes reality isn’t quite how we remember it. Jiffy peanut butter never actually existed, for one, and Darth Vader never said those exact words. These are both examples of what has come to be known as the Mandela Effect, in which collective groups share a highly specific — yet completely false — memory. This phenomenon can pop up in the most unexpected of places, so prepare your brain for the unbelievable examples that lie ahead.

 

1. Nelson Mandela Did Not Die in the 1980s

The term “Mandela Effect” was coined in 2009 by paranormal researcher Fiona Broome, who recounted her vivid memories of the coverage of Nelson Mandela’s death in the 1980s. From news clips to an emotional speech from Mandela’s widow, Broome was convinced that she accurately remembered the tragedy of Mandela dying in prison. In reality, Mandela was released from prison in 1990, went on to become South Africa’s first Black president, and died in 2013. Despite being completely off the mark, Broome wasn’t alone in her conviction. On her website, she went on to share the stories of over 500 other people who mysteriously and inexplicably held this same belief.

 

2. Jif vs. Jiffy Peanut Butter

As confirmed by a representative from the J.M. Smucker Company, Jiffy brand peanut butter has never existed. That doesn’t stop people from claiming that they loved eating Jiffy as a kid. These peanut butter aficionados are likely confusing this fictitious brand with the similarly-sounding Jif or Skippy. And it’s not just peanut butter — the Mandela Effect is widely prevalent among the foods we know (or think we know) and love. “Fruit Loops” are actually named “Froot Loops,” there’s no hyphen in KitKat, and it’s “Cup Noodles,” not “Cup O’ Noodles.”

 

3. Berenstain Bears or Berenstein Bears?

One visit to the Berenstain Bears’ official website and you can see that it’s clearly spelled “Berenstain.” The beloved children’s books about a family of bears were named after authors Stan and Jan Berenstain, who — like their creations — had an “a” in their last name. Yet many people who’ve read the books continue to insist (erroneously) that the name was once somehow spelled differently. In their possible defense, some early merchandise mistakenly featured both spellings, which may have led to some of the confusion. On top of that, audio tapes pronounced the name as “-steen,” which could have had a lasting influence on our collective psyche. Despite these arguments, the title is and always has been written as “The Berenstain Bears.”

 

4. Darth Vader Never Said “Luke, I Am Your Father”

“Luke, I am your father” may be one of the most misquoted movie phrases of all time. Every Star Wars fan can remember the pivotal scene from Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back, in which Darth Vader reveals that he’s Luke Skywalker’s, well, father. But the phrasing most people know is incorrect — watch it back and you’ll find that Vader actually says, “No, I am your father.” This is just one of many examples of the Mandela Effect in film. The queen in Disney’s 1937 animated film Snow White never says, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall,” referring to it instead as “Magic mirror.” And at no point in Silence of the Lambs does Hannibal Lecter ever say, “Hello, Clarice.” However, after years of fans misquoting the movie, the line “Hello, Clarice” was finally written into the film’s 2001 sequel.

 

5. The Monopoly Man Never Wore a Monocle

The Monopoly Man is known for his top hat, mustache, and monocle, right? Well, that popular image is at least partly wrong. While the top hat and mustache have been part of Rich Uncle Pennybags’ appearance since he was first introduced in 1936, he’s never worn a monocle. Some psychologists believe that our collective subconscious could have been influenced by the advertising mascot Mr. Peanut (the mascot for Planters Peanuts), who’s just as well known and wears both a top hat and monocle. Gene Brewer, an associate professor in cognitive psychology at Arizona State University, explains that our brains can combine subjects with similar traits — “In studies, when you show participants word pairs and ask them to remember ‘blackmail’ and ‘jailbird,’ half of them will later say they remember learning the word ‘blackbird.’”

 

6. Fruit of the Loom’s “Vanishing” Cornucopia

Take a look at the tag on a piece of Fruit of the Loom apparel. Now take a look again, just to be sure. Even though every fiber of your being may have thought otherwise, there’s no cornucopia to be found in the logo. As far back as 1893, when the logo was introduced — long before anyone on the internet claimed differently — it’s just been a simple combination of an apple and different varieties of grapes, with leaves on the side. It’s not clear why so many people remember a cornucopia being present.

 

7. It’s Just “Smokey Bear”

For over 75 years, the U.S. Forest Service has featured an ursine mascot warning about forest fires. After all this time, you’d think we’d know his name. Commonly and mistakenly referred to as “Smokey the Bear,” this long-tenured advertising icon is actually just Smokey Bear. Some attribute this mistake to a 1952 song about Smokey, in which songwriters Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins added a “the” to his name in order to retain the song’s rhythm. While some may continue to argue over Smokey’s name, there’s much less ambiguity when it comes to who can prevent forest fires. That’s just “you.”

 

 

Source: Mandela Effect Examples That are Seriously Mind-Bending  |  Facts About the Mandela Effect

Edited June 18, 2022 by DarkRavie

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - TOURIST ATTRACTIONS

Lost City of Petra, Jordan

Did you know... that travelers are always looking for inspiration to guide their adventures. Coming up with a list of places to visit can be challenging when you're staring at a globe. What are the top tourist attractions in the world? The most iconic sites that all travelers have on their bucket-list of things to see around the globe? Some destinations just stand out above the rest. Many are the type of places where you can take a photo, and it requires no explanation to identify the location: the Eiffel Tower or the Colosseum. But some places are less well known to new travelers or those who have not yet ventured out to the more exotic destinations. These can often be the most rewarding to visit. For many of these attractions, it's what they symbolize and the destinations they represent that make them so significant. In other cases, it is the site itself that makes it worth visiting the country. Some of these are the more popular UNESCO World Heritage sites.

( Lana Law | Updated Feb 15, 2022)

 

Fascinating Facts About Some of the World's Most-Visited Tourist Sites

by Interesting Facts

Fallingwater, Mill Run, Pennsylvania

Think you know all there is to know about the world's most-visited sites? One lesson that savvy travelers learn is that even the most well-known landmarks — the ones that clutter our Instagram feeds and continue to attract millions of tourists each year — can still surprise you. If you're curious about what purpose Times Square originally served, what other famous landmark Gustave Eiffel helped design, or what color the pyramids of Giza once were, read on to discover 15 things you never knew about 15 of the top tourist attractions on the planet.

 

1. New York City's Times Square Wasn't Always Called That

For the most-visited tourist site in the U.S., New York City's Times Square had humble beginnings. Once an area surrounded by countryside and used for farming by American Revolution-era statesman John Morin Scott, the area now known as Times Square fell into the hands of real estate mogul John Jacob Astor in the 1800s. By the second half of the 19th century, it had become the center of the city’s horse carriage manufacturing industry and home to William H. Vanderbilt’s American Horse Exchange. City authorities named it Long Acre Square, a reference to London’s historic carriage and coach-making district. This name remained until 1904, when The New York Times moved its headquarters to a lavish new skyscraper called One Times Square. Just eight years later, the newspaper relocated again to a nearby building, but the name Times Square stuck.

 

2. Las Vegas Is the Brightest City on Earth
About 80% of the world’s population lives in a place lit up by artificial light at night. And according to NASA, nowhere do those lights shine brighter than in Las Vegas. A city that loves its neon signs and bright marquees, Las Vegas offers an around-the-clock dose of sensory overload — even New York City, “the city that never sleeps,” and Paris, “the city of lights” can’t match the over-the-top light show of Las Vegas when viewed from outer space. And in a city with so much artificial light, one manages to stand out: the Sky Beam atop the Luxor Hotel pyramid. It's powered by 39 ultra-bright xenon lamps (each 7,000 watts) and curved mirrors that collect their light and focus them into the world’s strongest beam of light. Not only can it be seen from space, but the Sky Beam provides enough illumination to read a book from 10 miles out in space.

 

3. The Great Wall of China Isn't a Continuous Structure

Built from the third century BCE to the 17th century CE in order to keep out northern invaders, the Great Wall of China is considered the world's longest wall, extending a total 13,170 miles. Although our mental image of the Great Wall is probably one of a continuous structure winding its way across China, the reality is different. The Great Wall is actually composed of various stretches of wall and watchtowers — often with gaps between. There are even areas where the wall is non-existent. The original builders also made use of natural barriers to keep invaders out. As much as a quarter of the wall's length relied on features like rivers and mountainous ridges to keep the marauding hordes back. Today, much of the wall is in ruins, but sections that date from the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) can still be seen.

 

4. The Great Barrier Reef Is So Large You Can See It From Space
Australia's Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef ecosystem on the planet, covering an area of approximately 135,000 square miles. It’s not just the immense scale of the reef that makes it visible to astronauts in space, though. The contrast between the dark blue of the deeper parts of the ocean and the light turquoise of the lagoons on the other side of the reef makes it relatively straightforward to identify with the naked eye. But the pictures taken from space are valued for more than their aesthetic appeal. The MERIS sensor used on the Envisat satellite mission was a useful tool in mapping the extent of coral bleaching, the term for when stressed coral has rid itself of algae.

 

5. Gustave Eiffel Helped Designed the Statue of Liberty

Even prior to the building of his namesake tower in Paris, Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel was already one of France's leading structural engineers in the 19th century. Thus, he was a natural choice for New York Harbor's Statue of Liberty, especially after the statue's original designer died unexpectedly. Thanks to Eiffel, the statue's interior boasts a more contemporary design. Eiffel came up with the idea of a central spine in the statue, which functions as a connector for the various asymmetrical metal girders that give the statue its shape. This innovative technique not only provides the framework for the statue but also creates a kind of suspension system that allows the monument to withstand winds and other harsh weather conditions.

 

6. We Know of the "Lost" City of Petra, Jordan, Thanks to a Swiss Explorer
Once a thriving cultural and economic hub, Petra (believed to have been established around 312 BCE) was later abandoned and left to ruin. For centuries, all except the local Bedouin people forgot Petra — its tombs and temples carved directly into the sandstone cliffs were abandoned and buildings fell into ruin, hidden by the surrounding canyons. But in 1812, a Swiss explorer named Johann Ludwig Burckhardt set off on an expedition in search of the source of the River Niger. On his way to Cairo, he heard rumors from locals of secret ruins of a grand city in the desert, so he hired guides and disguised himself as an Arab to gain access to what was considered a sacred place, forbidden to Westerners. They brought him to Petra. However, wary of pushing his luck too far, he didn’t stop to excavate. Five years later, Burckhardt died of dysentery in the Egyptian capital, but his “discovery” paved the way for future exploration of the site.

 

7. The Grand Canyon Isn't the Deepest Canyon in the U.S.

Given its name, it’s a common misconception that the Grand Canyon is the deepest canyon in the United States. The Grand Canyon is very deep — 4,000 feet deep, in fact, with the deepest point reaching 6,000 feet. This gives it an average depth of about a mile. But Hells Canyon, running along the border of Oregon and Idaho, exceeds the depth of the Grand Canyon by plunging nearly 8,000 feet in some places. While not the country's deepest canyon, the Arizona landmark has other impressive stats: It extends for 277 miles and measures 18 miles wide. Totaling 1,904 square miles, this canyon is roughly the size of Rhode Island. And the national park there is visited by around 6 million people each year.

 

8. Machu Picchu's Buildings Were Designed to Be Earthquake-Proof
The Inca people certainly knew how to build to accommodate their environment. That’s evident not only in Machu Picchu’s epic surroundings, but also in the foundation of the Lost City itself. Peru is located in a seismic zone, and the Incas were familiar with potential earthquakes. To protect against them, they made the buildings of the citadel seismic-resistant by using precisely fit stones held together by gravity alone. Nothing so thin as a credit card could be inserted in the cracks, allowing the mortar-free stones to “dance” during an earthquake, only to resettle back into place once it ends. Additionally, the Incas cornered structures with L-shaped blocks, built terrace buttresses into steep mountain slopes, rounded the corners in some buildings, and tilted the trapezoidal doors and windows inward. All of these small but ingenious details ensured that their structures were earthquake-ready.

 

9. The Golden Gate Bridge's Color Was Supposed to Be Temporary

San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge features a distinctive reddish-orange paint color — but it came about by accident. Architect Irving Morrow noticed that some of the steel that arrived for construction of the bridge was coated in a dark red primer, which inspired him to write a 29-page report in 1935 advocating for a similar color to be used in the bridge’s final design. Although most bridges at the time were painted gray, silver, or black, he suggested using paint in a shade like orange vermillion or burnt sienna, as these luminous tones would emphasize the grand scale of the bridge and provide a contrast to the grey and blue color of the water beneath. Not everyone agreed, but in the end, Morrow won over his critics. The bridge was painted a shade unimaginatively called “International Orange,” and it’s been the same ever since.

 

10. The Taj Mahal's Four Minarets Look Perpendicular — But They're Not
In the 1600s, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan built India's Taj Mahal to honor the memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Four 130-foot-tall minarets surround the Taj Mahal’s central tomb, where Shah Jahan and his wife are both buried, and showcase the emperor’s passion for symmetrical design. At first glance, they seem to stand perfectly perpendicular to the ground; however, on closer inspection you’ll notice they are tilted slightly outwards. This wasn’t a design fault, but rather a way to protect the tomb in the event of a natural disaster — should the minarets fall, then the material would land away from the building. The four towers were built to be used by a muezzin, the person who calls daily prayers, and each features two balconies and an elevated dome-shaped pavilion, called a chhatri.

 

11. There's a Secret Suite Inside Disney World's Cinderella Castle

Cinderella’s castle at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, holds a few secrets. For starters, the bricks used to build the tops of the tall towers are smaller than the bricks used for the lower part of the structure — an engineering trick used by the designers in many buildings here to make them appear even taller than they truly are. Perhaps even more surprising, there’s a hidden suite inside this castle that was originally designed to be an office for Walt Disney himself, but he died before the castle was completed. Cinderella’s castle isn’t the only one hiding a surprise: Sleeping Beauty’s resting place (at Disneyland in California) boasts an actual working drawbridge. Reportedly, it has been used just twice, once for the opening ceremony in 1955 and again in the 1980s when Fantasyland opened.

 

12. Some of the Stones at Stonehenge Came From Nearly 200 Miles Away
Located in Wiltshire, England, Stonehenge — roughly 5,000 years old — is one of the world’s most enigmatic monuments. It consists of roughly 100 bluestones and sarsens positioned upright and arranged in a circle. While the larger sarsens (a type of sandstone boulder) were hewn from the Marlborough Downs, which is relatively close to the site, the smaller bluestones have been traced to the Preseli Hills in southwest Wales, over 180 miles away. It’s hard to believe that its Neolithic builders — who lacked sophisticated tools or engineering — floated and dragged many of these giant lumps of rock over such a great distance, which only adds to the mystery of the original purpose of the stone circle.

 

13. Beijing's Forbidden City Is the World's Largest Imperial Palace

Occupying some 7.7 million square feet, the Forbidden City is the largest imperial palace on the planet. The most-visited UNESCO World Heritage Site in the world, it features 980 individual buildings, which are home to almost 9,000 rooms. There are two distinct areas: The Inner Court served as the emperor’s residence, while the Outer Court was for ceremonial events. A 32-feet-high defensive wall protects the entire complex, around which is a 171-foot-wide moat. What's inside is even more impressive: The palace is home to a reputed 1.9 million artifacts — everything from calligraphy, ceramics, and paintings to gold and silverware, literary works, and religious icons.

 

14. The Great Pyramid of Giza Was Once Fully Covered in White Limestone
The only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing, the Egyptian Pyramid of Giza was constructed around 2550 BCE. At 454 feet tall, it was the world’s tallest building at the time — a title it held until the 14th century. In contrast to the weathered sand-colored blocks you see today, the pyramids were once completely covered in polished limestone. This higher-quality stone was quarried at a place called Tura, which was about nine miles south of Giza. Its smooth, white surface would have gleamed in the sunshine, creating a dazzling effect. Today, most of the casing is gone except for a cap on the peak of the Pyramid of Khafre (Chephren), which has dulled over time.

 

15. Cambodia's Angkor Wat Temple Is the World's Largest Religious Structure

Sprawling across more than 400 acres in northern Cambodia, the Angkor Wat temple complex is the world’s largest religious structure. Erected by the Khmer Empire in the 12th century, this awe-inspiring monument began as a Hindu temple and was later converted into a Buddhist place of worship. The temple design is an architectural portrayal of Mount Meru, which is the center of the Hindu universe. The five towers represent the five peaks of the mountain, and the surrounding moat and defensive wall symbolize the oceans and mountain ranges. How colossal is Angkor Wat? It's so large that many of its features are visible from space — just like the Sky Beam in Las Vegas and the Great Barrier Reef.

 

 

Source: Tourist Attractions in the World  |  Facts About Tourist Sites

 

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - PREDIDENTIAL MYTHS, LIES?

William Howard Taft, 27th President

Did you know... that history classes haven't done a great job of ridding popular presidential myths from the American consciousness. Everything from our presidents' most famous speeches to their most embarrassing moments has inspired legendary stories that aren't supported by facts. Some falsehoods are the products of centuries-old misunderstandings, while others started as deliberate hoaxes. Here are some famous stories you may have heard about six U.S. presidents that aren't true. (Michele Debczak | 
Feb 4, 2022)

 

Presidential Myths, Debunked

by Interesting Facts

One thing’s for sure: U.S. Presidents are the stuff of legends. However, just because personal tales about the leaders are passed down from generation to generation doesn't mean the stories are rooted in truth. In fact, many of the stories are so outlandish that it’s amazing people believed them in the first place. From flammable teeth to ridiculous bathtub debacles, we take a look at the eight of the oddest presidential myths out there — and set the record straight.

 

1. Myth: George Washington Had Wooden Teeth

Cherry tree aside, one of the most chewable facts is that the nation’s first President had a mouth full of wooden teeth. While it seems like an odd story to be linked to the founding father, a deeper dig gets to the root of the issue. Washington did indeed have terrible teeth, so much so that he had multiple dentures made. Those mouthpieces were made out of ivory, gold, lead, and even human teeth, but never any wood. Wood was not used by dentists at the time, because not only could wooden dentures cause splinters, but wood is also susceptible to expanding and contracting due to moisture — not ideal for something that lives in your mouth.

 

2. Myth: Thomas Jefferson Signed the Constitution

It seems incomprehensible that a big-name founding father like Thomas Jefferson missed out on signing the U.S. Constitution, but he never inked the deal. He was actually absent during the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention in 1787, as he was across the Atlantic Ocean in Paris, France, as the U.S.’s envoy.

 

3. Myth: Abraham Lincoln Wrote the Gettysburg Address on an Envelope

There’s no doubt that the 16th President was a brilliant orator. But the idea that he haphazardly scribbled one of the most important speeches in American history on the back of an envelope during a train ride sounds a little far-fetched. In reality, Abraham Lincoln toiled away at different versions of the Gettysburg Address, which he gave on November 19, 1863. Not just that, it was anything but a solo project. He collaborated with several associates on it — and there are even five original copies of the speech, not one of them on an envelope.

 

4. Myth: William Howard Taft Got Stuck in a Bathtub

One of the stranger presidential myths might be chalked up to potty humor. Somehow, 27th President William Howard Taft became associated with an embarrassing incident around getting stuck in a bathtub. While it’s true that he was larger in stature, weighing in at 350 pounds, he never had to be rescued from a tub. That said, there is a reason he’s associated with baths. During his presidency, a super-sized porcelain tub that was 7 feet long, 41 inches wide, and a ton in weight was installed in the White House. It was so massive that four grown men could fit inside. In another bath incident after his presidency, he filled a tub at a hotel in Cape May, New Jersey, a little too high and when he stepped into it, it overflowed to the point that the guests in the dining room below got a bit of a shower.

 

5. Myth: The Teddy Bear Got Its Name After Theodore Roosevelt Saved a Real Bear

Theodore Roosevelt had long been a hunter, but didn’t exactly show off his best skills on a bear hunt in November 1902. Everyone else in the group had had a fruitful hunt, so to help Roosevelt, the guide tracked a 235-pound bear to a watering hole, clubbed it, and tied it to a tree so the President could claim it. As the story goes, Roosevelt refused to shoot the bear. The incident made its way to the Washington Post, which published a satirical cartoon about the President sparing the bear. New York City store owners Morris and Rose Mitchom saw the cartoon, were inspired by the President's act of heroism, and created stuffed animals in his honor, appropriately naming them “Teddy’s bear.” The problem? Roosevelt didn’t shoot the bear, but he didn’t save it either. He saw that it had been mauled by dogs so savagely already that he asked for the bear to be killed with a hunting knife. Given the dark nature of this true tale, it makes sense that the details are often ignored when talking about this beloved childhood toy.

 

6. Myth: John F. Kennedy Won the Election Because of the TV Debates Against Richard Nixon

The televised broadcast of a 1960 presidential debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon is often said to have clinched the victory for JFK, who many found to be more photogenic and charismatic. But when you truly look at the election numbers, it didn’t really have that big of an effect on the results. The candidates were pretty much neck-and-neck throughout the campaign, even appearing to be tied in the polls before and after the four debates. Kennedy seemed to have a slight boost after the first one on September 26, but then Nixon hit it out of the park on the others, especially with his foreign policy take during the final one. In the end, Kennedy won the election by a mere 119,000 votes. Kennedy and Nixon’s September 1960 debate is often credited as the first televised presidential debate, but that is also a myth. In 1956, a televised debate aired during the run-off between Republican President Dwight Eisenhower and Democrat Adlai Stevenson. However, neither of them attended, and sent surrogates in their place. Eisenhower sent Maine senior senator Margaret Chase Smith, while Democrats went with Eleanor Roosevelt, and it aired on CBS’ Face the Nation.

 

7. Myth: Zachary Taylor Was Poisoned

Just over a year and four months into his term, 12th President Zachary Taylor fell ill and died while in office. For years, many thought that he may have been the first President to be assassinated, since it was rumored that he was poisoned. Despite his death in July 1850, it wasn’t until 1991 that Kentucky scientists definitively concluded there was no arsenic in his blood. Another story, that he died of eating cherries in iced milk, unfortunately may have more truth to it. After leaving the Washington Monument dedication in 1850, he had that combo as a snack and likely came down with severe gastroenteritis — an inflammation of the digestive system — dying five days later.

 

8. Myth: Gerald Ford Was a Total Klutz

Throughout Gerald Ford’s presidency, many joked that his Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller, was only a banana peel away from the presidency, since the 38th President was so often caught being clumsy. He tumbled down ski slopes, slipped in the rain, and fell coming out of Air Force One, so much so that he was spoofed by Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live. But in actuality, Ford was quite an athlete in his younger days. He was a football star at the University of Michigan, where he earned his letter for three years. He even tackled future Heisman Trophy winner Jay Berwanger in 1934. During his White House years, he also swam and skied regularly, and played tennis and golf, so perhaps all that falling was just to add to his relatability.

 

 

Source: False President Myths  |  Facts About Presidential Myths, Debunked

Edited June 20, 2022 by DarkRavie

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - HOUSEHOLD ITEMS

Did you know... that the color of the tag on your store-bought bread tells grocers what day of the week the bread was shipped. Bread is usually delivered fresh to stores five days a week—Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday—and each day has its own colored tag or twist tie. Though some companies use their own system, this common code is easy to remember: Just as the days of the week proceed in order from Monday to Saturday, their corresponding colors proceed in alphabetical order—blue, green, red, white, yellow. (Nick Gerhardt | Updated: Dec. 17, 2021)

 

Fascinating Facts About Household Items

by Interesting Facts

The world is full of wonders, and some of them are closer than you think. For many of the everyday items in your household, there’s an interesting backstory or long-forgotten purpose — and since it’s always a good time to appreciate the small things, read on for a few of them.

 

1. The QWERTY Keyboard Was Designed to Prevent Typewriter Jams

Before accidentally deleting a document was the worst thing that could happen to a piece of writing, typewriter jams were feared above all else. A number of brilliant minds did their utmost to alleviate this problem, but it was a newspaper editor in Kenosha, Wisconsin, who had perhaps the most positive impact on how we type today. Christopher Latham Sholes worked on several typewriter models, beginning in 1867, and eventually settled on the “QWERTY” design that is still in use today. (If the name has you confused, look at the first six letters on the top row of your keyboard, left to right.) If that arrangement seems counterintuitive, it’s quite literally by design. This particular array of letters was meant to slow writers down, since one of the many causes of typewriter jams was typing too fast; for instance, the letters “s” and “t” were separated because “st” is among the most common combinations of letters. Seasoned typists eventually got used to the layout and continued to punch out dozens of words per minute anyway, but other advances in typewriter design eventually helped make jams far less common. By the time the modern computer keyboard overtook the typewriter, keyboards were far more durable (though you still wouldn’t want to spill a drink on one!).  

 

2. Pen Caps Have Holes for Safety Reasons

If you’ve ever gotten bored enough to study the cap of your ballpoint pen, you may have noticed that it has a hole in it. This wasn’t done to save on plastic or to regulate air pressure. The design was added to prevent people — namely small children — from choking should they ever swallow one. This was first done by BIC, whose popular Cristal pen had a cap that proved more desirable amongst undiscerning children than safety-conscious parents would have liked. So while the conspiracy-minded among us tend to think that the holes are there to dry out the ink and ensure that consumers will have to continue buying pens in mass quantities, this particular design choice was actually made with public health in mind.

 

3. The Color of Your Bread Tag Has an Important Meaning

Ever wonder why the tags used to seal loaves of bread come in different colors? Far from arbitrary, the color-coded system indicates which day of the week the bread was baked. The color system is even alphabetical: Monday is blue, Tuesday is green, Thursday is red, Friday is white, and Saturday is yellow. (Traditionally, bread wasn’t delivered on Wednesday or Sunday.) Because bread rarely remains on the shelf for more than a few days, this system is more for internal use among employees than it is for customers looking to get the freshest sourdough possible. But, if you favor a local bakery and get to know their system, you could either snag the best deals or the fluffiest dinner rolls in town.

 

4. Couches and Sofas Aren’t the Same Thing

Though usually used interchangeably, these are technically two different pieces of furniture — and the distinction lies in the words themselves. “Couch” comes to us from French, namely coucher — “to lie down” — whereas we have the Arabic word suffah to thank for “sofa.” In the most traditional sense, a sofa would be a wooden bench that comes complete with blankets and cushions and is intended for sitting. eBay's selling guide used to distinguish between the two by defining a couch as “a piece of furniture with no arms used for lying.” Though it may be a distinction without a difference these days, purists tend to think of sofas as a bit more formal and couches as something you’d take a nap on and let your pets hang out on.

 

5. The Computer Mouse Also Had a Different Animal Name

Whether you think the plural should be mice or mouses — some dictionaries accept both! — there’s no denying which animal the ubiquitous device is named after. Or is there? It turns out that early versions were named turtles, as the gadget’s hard, protective shell covers the important parts within. (You can even buy ones intentionally shaped like a turtle.) That said, the current name is so well known that it’s the same in several languages — many don’t even translate it into their own word for “mouse.”

 

6. High Heels Were Originally for Men

High heels have long been a symbol of femininity, but that wasn’t always the case. The shoes, which are thought to date all the way back to the 10th century, were invented for a practical rather than sartorial reason: horseback riding. Anyone who’s placed their feet in stirrups while sitting atop a noble steed knows that it can be difficult to actually keep your feet inside them, and some enterprising equine enthusiast eventually realized that an extended heel allowed for a more secure fit. In addition to leisure, horseback riding was a crucial element of warfare, meaning that there was a time when entire armies rode into battle wearing high heels. Eventually people realized that this kind of footwear was pleasing to the eye, and in the 17th century high heels became a gender-neutral fashion statement — especially among those who wanted to show off their upper-class credentials (heels were associated with horses, and only the wealthy tended to own them). As for how heels became linked to women, it wasn’t haute couture but rather pin-up photography that brought them back en vogue.

 

 

Source: Amazing Facts About Boring Objects in Your Home  |  Household Items Facts