Fact of the Day

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ROAR

Did you know.... It’s generally a good idea to keep your distance from lions, which is why it’s reassuring to know that hearing one doesn’t necessarily mean it’s nearby. A lion’s roar is so loud, in fact, that it can be heard from more than 5 miles away. Reaching 114 decibels (about 25 times louder than a gas-powered lawn mower), the sound is louder than that of any other big cat — just one reason why the lion is known as the king of the jungle. They’re able to make such an imposing call thanks to their larynx: While most animals’ vocal cords are triangular, a lion’s are square and flat. This allows air to pass through more easily and results in a loud roar that requires relatively little effort on the lion’s part. 

 

 

Lions aren’t the only animals that can be heard from long distances. Blue whales make the loudest sound of all, with males emitting a rumbling call that can reach 188 decibels and be heard by potential mates hundreds of miles away. The famous hyena “laugh,” meanwhile — actually a sound the animals make under stress — can reach a distance of 8 miles. Lions, blue whales, and hyenas would all be impressed by the mighty, tiny pistol shrimp, which shoots out bubbles to incapacitate its prey and in doing so creates a sound that can reach 218 decibels, louder than a gunshot. Fortunately for any humans that might be nearby, it lasts only a fraction of a second.

 

Lions don’t need to drink water every day, but they do need to eat often.

Lions can go for days without drinking water, and get much of their moisture from prey and plants. They aren’t as resilient when it comes to food, however. They need to eat frequently, and typically consume about 17 to 20 pounds of food each day. Males can eat close to 100 pounds of food a day, while females can eat more than 55. Though mostly known for eating medium-sized hoofed animals such as zebras, antelopes, and wildebeest, lions are opportunistic hunters who will also dine on everything from mice and hares to lizards and tortoises.

 

 

Source: A Lion’s Roar 

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ABOUT FOOD

Did you know... Most of us probably just enjoy our food without thinking too deeply about it. But the world of culinary delights holds many mysteries. What’s the secret history of the bagel? What does “continental breakfast” really mean? Which nut has been known to explode during transport, and which favored breakfast item is slightly radioactive? And finally, what’s the difference between sweet potatoes and regular potatoes? The following 25 facts will give you plenty of fodder for your next dinner party.

 

1. Green Bell Peppers Are Just Unripe Red Bell Peppers

If you’ve ever found yourself in the grocery store struggling to decide between red and green bell peppers, you may be interested to learn that they’re the very same vegetable. In fact, green bell peppers are just red bell peppers that haven’t ripened yet, while orange and yellow peppers are somewhere in between the two stages. As they ripen, bell peppers don’t just change color — they also become sweeter and drastically increase their beta-carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin C content. So while the green variety isn’t quite as nutritious as its red counterpart, the good news is that one eventually becomes the other.

 

2. Pistachios Can Spontaneously Combust

It turns out there’s a price to pay for how tasty and nutritious pistachios are: Under the right circumstances, they can spontaneously combust. Everyone’s favorite shelled nut is especially rich in fat, which is highly flammable. Thankfully, that only becomes a problem when pistachios are packed too tightly during shipping or storage. It’s important to keep the nuts dry lest they become moldy — but if they’re kept too dry and there are too many of them bunched together, they can self-heat and catch fire without an external heat source. Though exceedingly rare and easy to avoid if the proper instructions are followed, pistachio self-combustion is a real enough concern that the German Transport Information Service specifically advises that pistachios “not be stowed together with fibers/fibrous materials as oil-soaked fibers may promote self-heating/spontaneous combustion of the cargo.” Don’t worry, though: It won’t happen in your pantry with just a few bags, so you can indulge in the shelled snack without worrying about their flavor becoming unexpectedly smoky.

 

3. Philadelphia Cream Cheese Isn’t Actually From Philadelphia

The City of Brotherly Love has clear-cut claims on many food origins — cheesesteaks, stromboli, and even root beer. But despite the name, Philadelphia Cream Cheese is definitely not from Philly. The iconic dairy brand secured its misleading name (and gold-standard status) thanks to a marketing ploy that’s been working for more than 150 years … and it’s all because of Pennsylvania’s reputation for impeccable dairy. Small Pennsylvania dairies of the 18th and early 19th centuries were known for using full-fat milk and cream to make rich cheeses — in contrast to New York dairies, which mostly used skim milk — and because the perishables couldn’t be easily transported, they gained a reputation as expensive luxury foods. So when upstate New York entrepreneur William Lawrence began making his skim milk and (for richness) lard-based cream cheese in the 1870s, he needed a name that would entice customers and convey quality despite it being made in Chester, New York, and not Philadelphia. Together with cheese broker and marketing mastermind Alvah Reynolds, Lawrence branded his cheese under the Philadelphia name in 1880, which boosted sales and promoted its popularity with home cooks well into the early 1900s.

 

4. Bagels Were Once Given as Gifts to Women After Childbirth

After a woman has had a bun in the oven for nine months, presenting her with a bagel might seem like a strange choice. But some of the earliest writings on bagels relate to the idea of giving them as gifts to women after labor. Many historians believe that bagels were invented in the Jewish community of Krakow, Poland, during the early 17th century. Their circular shape echoes the round challah bread eaten on the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah. Enjoying round challahs is meant to bring good luck, expressing the hope that endless blessings — goodness without end — will arrive in the coming year. Likewise, in Krakow centuries ago, a bagel signified the circle of life and longevity for the child. In addition to the symbolism of the round shape, the bread was believed to bring a pregnant woman or midwife good fortune in a delivery by casting aside evil spirits. Some pregnant women even wore bagels on necklaces as protection, or ensured bagels were present in the room where they gave birth.

 

5. The Word for a Single Spaghetti Noodle Is “Spaghetto”

If you go into an Italian restaurant and order spaghetto, chances are you’ll leave hungry. That’s because “spaghetto” refers to just a lone pasta strand; it’s the singular form of the plural “spaghetti.” Other beloved Italian foods share this same grammatical distinction — one cannoli is actually a “cannolo,” and it’s a single cheese-filled “raviolo” or “panino” sandwich. Though this may seem strange given that these plural terms are so ingrained in the English lexicon, Italian language rules state that a word ending in -i means it’s plural, whereas an -o or -a suffix (depending on whether it’s a masculine or feminine term) denotes singularity. (Similarly, “paparazzo” is the singular form of the plural “paparazzi.”) As for the term for the beloved pasta dish itself, “spaghetti” was inspired by the Italian word “spago,” which means “twine” or “string.”

 

6. Ketchup Was Originally Made Out of Fish

If you asked for ketchup thousands of years ago in Asia, you might have been handed something that looks more like today’s soy sauce. Texts as old as 300 BCE show that southern Chinese cooks mixed together salty, fermented pastes made from fish entrails, meat byproducts, and soybeans. These easily shipped and stored concoctions — known in different dialects as “ge-thcup,” “koe-cheup,” “kêtsiap,” or “kicap” — were shared along Southeast Asian trade routes. By the early 18th century, they had become popular with British traders. Yet the recipe was tricky to recreate back in England because the country lacked soybeans. Instead, countless ketchup varieties were made by boiling down other ingredients, sometimes including anchovies or oysters, or marinating them in large quantities of salt (Jane Austen was said to be partial to mushroom ketchup). One crop that the English avoided in their ketchup experiments was tomatoes, which for centuries were thought to be poisonous.

 

Click the link below  to read more facts about food.

 

 

Source: Our Most Tantalizing Facts About Food
 

 

 

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - SHARKS

Did you know... Some species of trees that line city streets predate the dinosaurs by millions of years, but when it comes to the truly ancient, you need to look to the oceans. Sea-dwelling creatures have a many-millions-of-years head start on any terrestrial life-forms. Take, for instance, the shark: This apex predator of the sea has been stalking the world’s oceans for upwards of 450 million years. Meanwhile, the very first forests filled with Earth’s very first trees, in the genera Wattieza and Archaeopteris, likely didn’t sprout on land until the mid-Devonian period some 385 million years ago. However, it’s worth noting that the animals some scientists consider the first “sharks” likely didn’t look like the magnificent predators of today. First appearing in the Late Ordovician, these creatures sported shark-like scales, but likely didn’t yet possess the species’ most memorable trait — a terrifying set of teeth.

 

Thanks to the 1975 blockbuster Jaws, a generation of people have grown up with the mistaken belief that sharks are man-eating monsters, intent on attacking anything that moves. Scientists have worked hard to dispel such myths about the ancient creatures, which roam every ocean and vary widely in size, shape, diet, habitat, and attitude. Here are a few facts about these fascinating fish.

 

1. Sharks Are Older Than Trees

Sharks evolved more than 450 million years ago — long before trees or Tyrannosaurus rex appeared on Earth. The earliest sharks were probably toothless and, like today’s sharks, had cartilaginous skeletons; they may have resembled fish called chimeras that still live in the deep ocean. The first shark that really looked shark-like appeared around 380 million years ago in the Devonian period. Just a few million years later, a major extinction wiped out many species that competed with sharks, allowing them to evolve rapidly into numerous new shapes, sizes, and ecological niches — some of which are still around. One of the oldest species living today is the bluntnose sixgill shark, which evolved between 200 million and 175 million years ago in the early Jurassic epoch.

 

2. We Have Learned a Lot From Shark Teeth

As cartilaginous fishes, sharks don’t leave much behind when they die. Known shark fossils consist mainly of teeth and a handful of scales, vertebrae, and impressions left in rock. Even so, paleontologists have been able to identify about 2,000 species of extinct sharks just by examining differences in fossilized teeth. For example, the oldest shark teeth ever found came from an Early Devonian fish dubbed Doliodus problematicus; bits of its fossilized skeleton showed characteristics similar to bony fishes, while its teeth and jaw were more shark-like, confirming a theory that the species was an ancient ancestor of sharks.

 

3. There Are More Than 500 Species of Sharks in the World

Sharks are categorized into nine taxonomic orders. To name a few of the most recognizable types, Carcharhiniformes, the order of ground sharks, encompasses over 290 species, including the bull shark, tiger shark, blue shark, hammerhead, and more. The great white shark, basking shark, and makos, as well as the aptly named goblin shark and other species, belong to Lamniformes — also known as mackerel sharks. The carpet shark order, Orectolobiformes, includes the whale shark, nurse shark, wobbegong, and others. In all, there are more than 500 species of sharks swimming the world’s water.

 

4. There’s a Huge Size Difference Between the Largest and Smallest Sharks

With so many shark species swimming Earth’s oceans, there’s incredible variation in their sizes. The largest shark species living today is the whale shark (Rhincodon typus), a gentle, plankton-eating giant that can grow to 45 feet long or more and weigh 20 tons (the biggest accurately measured whale shark reached 61.7 feet!). They can be found in all of the world’s tropical seas. The smallest known shark species, meanwhile, was discovered in 1985 off the coast of Colombia in the Caribbean Sea: The dwarf lantern shark (Etmopterus perryi) averages a length of just under 7 inches. It dwells in the ocean’s twilight zone, about 1,000 feet below the surface, but sometimes feeds in the shallows and uses bioluminescent organs along its belly to camouflage itself against sunlit waters.

 

5. Sharks Have a Sixth Sense

Like all fishes, sharks have a sensory organ called the lateral line running down the length of their bodies. The lateral line system involves exterior pores and specialized cells that can detect vibrations in water, which helps sharks locate prey from hundreds of feet away. In addition to sensing water movements, sharks can perceive electric fields surrounding other animals (the fields are caused by the animals’ muscle contractions). This sixth sense, called electroreception, picks up electrical signals that sharks can use to home in on prey. Electroreception can also guide migrating sharks via Earth’s electromagnetic fields.

 

6. One Shark Species Can Live for Centuries

The slow-growing, Arctic-dwelling Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus) is not only the longest-lived shark, but also holds the record for the longest-lived vertebrate on Earth. Unlike other sharks, Greenland sharks don’t have cartilage that shows their growth over time, so scientists have had difficulty estimating their age accurately. In 2016, a study in the journal Science described how a team of biologists carbon-dated eye proteins, which build up continuously during the animals’ lives, in several Greenland sharks. They found the individuals were an average of 272 years old when they died, and the results suggested that the sharks’ maximum life span could be up to 500 years.

 

7. You’re More Likely To Be Killed by a Cow Than a Shark

Your risk of suffering a shark attack is practically nil. For its 2022 global summary, the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File confirmed 57 unprovoked shark bites in 2022, meaning they happened when humans were simply in the shark’s natural habitat, and 32 provoked attacks, such as when people were feeding or harassing the fish. Forty-one of the unprovoked attacks occurred in the U.S., and one was fatal. Other animals are way more likely to kill you, including cows (which kill an average of 20 Americans a year, according to CDC data), hornets, bees, and wasps, (about 48 people a year) and dogs (around 19 a year).

 

 

Source: Sharks have been on Earth longer than trees  |  Fascinating Facts About Sharks

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - RED TROLLEY

Did you know... The beloved children’s television program Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood used signals to tell its audience when to get ready to listen and learn. At the start of every episode, host Fred Rogers entered his TV home and sang “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” as he changed from a sport coat and loafers to his signature sweater and sneakers. Next, he typically introduced a topic — sometimes veering into sensitive subject matter like divorce or depression — before beckoning the anthropomorphic Trolley to transport viewers into the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. In a given year of the show, Trolley’s commutes covered 5,000 miles, according to PBS, more than the length of the world’s longest river, the 4,123-mile Nile. 

 

 

Trolley’s precise origins are somewhat mysterious, but we do know the one-of-a-kind model was hand-built from wood by a Toronto man named Bill Ferguson in 1967, the year before Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood premiered. (Rogers likely met Ferguson when he was living in Toronto and taping Misterogers, which aired on CBC-TV from 1961 until 1964.) The TV host’s love for trolleys went all the way back to his own childhood; during one 1984 episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, he visited the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum and remembered accompanying his dad on long trolley trips. Young viewers often wrote to Rogers with questions about the show’s trolley, such as why there were no people aboard, to which the host responded that the lack of passengers encouraged kids at home to visualize themselves aboard. Today, Trolley is on permanent display at the Fred Rogers Center at Saint Vincent College in Rogers’ hometown of Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Visitors to Latrobe will have no trouble spotting bumper stickers around town that read “My Other Car is a Trolley.”

 

Fred Rogers’ middle name was McFeely.

In episode one of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, audiences meet the host’s friend and neighbor Mr. McFeely (David Newell), who regularly visits bearing shipments on behalf of his employer, the Speedy Delivery Messenger Service. Mr. McFeely became a fixture on the show, appearing in nearly half the episodes. The “McFeely” moniker came from Rogers’ own life — his full name was Fred McFeely Rogers, after his maternal grandfather, Fred Brooks McFeely. When it came to naming his human and puppet characters, Rogers enjoyed taking inspiration from the people in his offscreen world. For example, although his wife went by her middle name, Joanne, her actual first name was Sara; he christened the Neighborhood of Make-Believe’s matriarch Queen Sara Saturday. Another resident of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, Lady Elaine Fairchilde, was likely named after Rogers’ younger sister, Nancy Elaine Rogers Crozier, who answered to “Laney.” The unusual last name for the Neighborhood of Make-Believe’s telephone operator, Miss Paulificate (Audrey Roth), was no accident — Rogers had a friend in Canada with children named Paul, Iffy (shorthand for “Elizabeth”), and Cate. Rogers’ tradition of naming fictional friends after real individuals may date back to his most famous puppet, Daniel Tiger. Before he became a television personality himself, Rogers worked on a series called The Children’s Corner, which ran from 1954 to 1961. The show was broadcast from WQED Pittsburgh, and the night before its premiere, station manager Dorothy Daniel gifted Rogers with a tiger puppet. Naturally, the cuddly creature’s name doubled as a salute to her generosity. 

 

 

Source: “Mister Rogers' Neighborhood” Red Trolley

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - TEA

Did you know... Besides water, no beverage is consumed by more individuals across the globe than tea. For millennia, this beloved drink has been favored by many cultures, from those in China who first cultivated tea to modern customers in quaint cafés. Here are seven refreshing facts about tea for those who want a dash of history and culture with their drink.

 

1. Tea Bags Were Popularized by Accident

Before individual tea bags came into wide use, it was more common to make an entire pot of tea at once by pouring hot water over tea leaves and then using a strainer. In 1901, Wisconsin inventors Roberta C. Lawson and Mary Molaren filed a patent for a “tea leaf holder,” a concept that resembles the tea bags we use today. It wasn’t until about seven years later, however, that another individual inadvertently helped popularize the concept of tea bags — at least according to legend. Around 1908, American tea importer Thomas Sullivan reportedly sent samples of tea inside small silken bags to his customers. His clients failed to remove the tea leaves from the bags as Sullivan assumed they would, and soon Sullivan realized that he’d stumbled onto an exciting new concept for tea brewing. He later reimagined the bags using gauze, and eventually paper. Tea bags were booming in popularity throughout the United States by the 1920s, but it took a while for residents of the United Kingdom to adopt the concept. In fact, tea bags wouldn’t make their way to the U.K. until 1952, when Lipton patented its “flo-thru” bag, but even then the British weren’t keen to change their tea-brewing ways. By 1968, only 3% of tea brewed in the U.K. was done so using tea bags, with that number rising to 12.5% in 1971. By the end of the 20th century, however, 96% of U.K. tea was brewed with bags.

 

2. The British Have Their Own Official Standard for the Perfect Cup of Tea

The British are serious about tea. So much so that British Standards — a national body that produces technical specifications for products and services — released an edict in 1980 on the official British guidelines for making the perfect cup of tea. Though some may disagree with the standard, the rules include the following: Use a porcelain pot and a ratio of two grams of tea per every 100 ml of water, brew for six minutes, maintain a temperature of 60 to 85 degrees Celsius (140 to 185 degrees Fahrenheit) when serving the tea, and add milk to the mug first if using tea that’s already been steeped.

 

3. Herbal Tea Isn’t Actually Tea

This may be a shocking revelation, but herbal “teas” like chamomile and peppermint aren’t officially teas at all. In order for a drink to be classified as tea, it must come from the Camellia sinensis plant, from which many white, green, oolong, and black teas do. Herbal teas, however, are known as tisanes, or more plainly infusions that incorporate various leaves, fruits, barks, roots, flowers, and other edible non-tea plants. So while the experience of drinking a minty tea may be indecipherable from drinking a warm cup of green tea, the two beverages fall into completely different categories from a scientific gastronomic perspective.

 

4. The World’s Largest Tea Bag Was 551 Pounds

Saudi Arabia is the site of at least two notable tea records. On September 20, 2014, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the owner of a company called Rabea Tea unveiled a record-setting tea bag weighing 551 pounds and 2.56 ounces, earning it the distinction of being world’s largest tea bag. Eight years later, also in Saudi Arabia, a company called Triple Nine Tea set the record for brewing the largest cup of hot tea — 11,604.28 gallons. When it comes to the largest cup of iced tea, however, the achievement is proudly held in the American South. On June 10, 2016, the residents of Summerville, South Carolina, banded together to create the biggest jug of sweet tea ever made (2,524 gallons), using 210 pounds of loose leaf tea, 1,700 pounds of sugar, and over 300 pounds of ice.

 

5. Besides Boston, Several Other U.S. Cities Held “Tea Parties”

While most Americans are familiar with the Boston Tea Party — in which colonists dumped chests of British East India Company tea into Boston Harbor as a protest against “taxation without representation” — fewer are aware that many similar events took place along the Eastern Seaboard in the months that followed. Just nine days after the protest in Boston, the Philadelphia Tea Party occurred on December 25, 1773. Although no tea was destroyed as in the Boston protest, a ship carrying a large cargo of tea was refused on its way to Philadelphia, and the captain — under the threat of being tarred and feathered — returned both ship and cargo to England. The following year saw even more “tea parties,” including the Charleston Tea Party in November 1774, in which the captain of a tea-toting ship feigned ignorance about his cargo but was ultimately forced to dump the ship’s contents into the harbor. Additional protests took place in New York; Annapolis, Maryland; Wilmington, North Carolina; Greenwich, New Jersey; and other American cities. Though none went down in history to the degree of the Boston Tea Party, they were all critical acts of rebellion — against taxation and ultimately British rule — that contributed to the start of the American Revolutionary War.

 

6. Turkey Consumes the Most Tea per Capita of Any Country

Though no country consumes more tea than China overall – 1.6 billion pounds each year — there are several other nations whose tea-drinking numbers are even more staggering when broken down per capita. At the top of that list is Turkey, as each tea-loving Turk consumes around seven pounds of tea annually, compared to just 1.25 pounds per Chinese citizen (as of 2014). Turkish individuals are particularly fond of black tea, and they average three to five cups per day, which comes out to a staggering 1,300 cups per year, give or take. Though they’ve already set the record, tea drinking was also on the rise in Turkey during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Turks are so proud of tea as a foundation of their culture that in 2020, the country petitioned UNESCO to add Turkish tea to the organization’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List. After Turkey, Ireland finishes second on the list of tea-drinking countries per capita, with the United Kingdom coming in third.

 

7. Cheese-Topped Tea Is Popular in Asia

Though the combination of cheese and tea may sound somewhat incompatible, it’s a beloved and delicious beverage that has grown in popularity throughout Asia over the last decade or so. Cheese tea is made as a cold beverage using green or black tea, and is topped with a layer of milk and cheese that’s then sprinkled with salt. The drink is a relatively new invention, having originated around 2010 at nighttime drink stalls on the streets of Taiwan, though it’s since boomed in popularity throughout Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, and China. Asia isn’t alone, however, when it comes to incorporating cheese into their caffeinated beverages. Though it’s not tea, a Scandinavian coffee drink called Kaffeost features cubes of dried cheese soaking up the liquid inside a mug of hot coffee. And in Colombia, locals add savory globs of melted cheese to a regional hot chocolate known as chocolate santafereño.

 

 

Source: Sip On These Facts About Tea

Edited August 24, 2023 by DarkRavie

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - KANGAROO

Did you know.... A baby red kangaroo (Macropus rufus) is about the size of a jelly bean. Born after about 34 days of gestation, it’s less than an inch long — or 100,000 times smaller than its adult height (roughly 4 feet). This newborn kangaroo, called a joey, isn’t quite ready for prime time, however. Unlike most mammals, joeys are born while they’re still embryos, which means they lack sight, hearing, and hair. They spend the next six months in their mother’s pouch, or marsupium, where they suckle from a teat and continue to develop before finally taking their first steps into the world. If the word “marsupium” sounds familiar, it’s probably because that’s where the term “marsupial” comes from. Marsupials are a mammalian class that includes kangaroos, wombats, koalas, possums, and more — about 330 species altogether.

 

 

Kangaroos are some of the supermoms of the animal kingdom. Not only do they have a special pouch for their babies, but they can create two distinct types of milk to care for both the developing embryo and the more mature joey. They can even suspend their ability to conceive during times of drought, and then regain that ability when conditions are more favorable. With their remarkable adaptability, it’s no wonder kangaroos outnumber Australians nearly two to one. 

 

Most kangaroos are left-handed.

Turns out, a kangaroo paw is also a southpaw. A 2015 study of wild eastern gray kangaroos, red kangaroos, and red-necked wallabies found that they preferred their left hand for grooming, eating, and performing other tasks about 95% of the time. This stunning discovery goes against the long-standing theory that only humans (and some apes) have a strong preference for one hand over the other; 90% of humans are right-handed. Scientists think this is likely a case of “parallel evolution,” in which animals in different branches of the evolutionary tree develop similar traits through separate processes.

 

 

Source: Fact About the Red Kangaroo

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - EVENT ETIQUETTE TIPS

Did you know.... Emily Post’s Etiquette, first published in 1922, is perhaps the best-known book about social graces — and for many, it brings to mind stuffy rules like not wearing white after Labor Day or sticking your pinkie out for tea. (For what it’s worth: Post was staunchly anti-pinkie.) But really good etiquette tips are there for a reason: to help an event run smoothly. Post’s descendants remain etiquette experts through their work at the Emily Post Institute, and according to Emily’s great-great-granddaughter Lizzie Post, elitist and divisive rules are “useless.” Instead, etiquette should be a tool for “self-reflection and awareness of others,” she told The Oregonian in 2022. In fact, while some of these six etiquette tips are easy pointers for surviving formal dinners, many of them are simple gestures of courtesy that will be helpful in a variety of places.

 

1. Don’t Show Up Early

You know the adage “early is on time and on time is late”? That’s for work meetings, doctor’s appointments, and dates, not for most parties. You’ll want to show up within 15 minutes after the listed start time if possible, but showing up early can leave a busy host scrambling to accommodate you. If you arrive more quickly than anticipated, go for a walk, grab a coffee, or just play around on your phone until the event begins.

 

2. Bring Easy Gifts for the Hosts

Host(ess) gifts are a classic token of appreciation for an event-thrower, and they’re still appreciated today. Flowers are one of the most common host gifts, but they can create some extra work for the recipient if they have to scramble to find a vase. If you do bring a bouquet, arrive with a vase — that way it’s all ready to go. If your host drinks alcohol, wine is another great gift to bring, but don’t expect it to be opened that night. If you bring food, go for something shelf-stable so the host doesn’t need to make room in their fridge. Gifts are optional for many gatherings, but considered customary for housewarmings and gatherings with a guest of honor, unless otherwise specified.

 

3. Stand When You’re Being Introduced

When you’re introduced to someone, whether by someone else or the person themselves, it’s customary to stand up. It’s just a small gesture, but it goes a long way toward signaling to others that they have your full attention — and that you welcome them to the table or the conversation. If you’re the one doing the introducing, look at the person you’re speaking to first, then turn to the other person at the end. It’s helpful to mention something the two people have in common if you can think of anything in the moment, too.

 

4. Start With the Utensils on the Outside

If your event is formal and includes a sit-down dinner, you may notice more forks, spoons, and knives than you’re used to. It can be intimidating, but the rule here is pretty simple: Start on the outside and work your way in. (You may already know this tip from the movie Titanic.) Why so much silverware, and why use it in a specific order? If planned correctly — that’s on the host, not you — each course then gets the ideal tool for the job, and diners can get a little preview of what courses they might be enjoying.

 

5. B and D for Bread and Drink

There’s a lot more than utensils in a place setting. How do you make sense of the rest? Another tip for navigating the table involves using your hands to find your drink and your bread plate (a little plate near your big plate). With each hand, make a circle by touching your thumb to your index finger, then putting the rest of your fingers up. One hand should make a lowercase “b” and the other should make a lowercase “d.” The bread plate is on your left, or the “b” side. Your drink is on your right, or the “d” side. This helps guests to avoid taking other people’s stuff so they don’t accidentally sip a stranger’s water or force a fellow diner to butter their bread on a dinner plate (quelle horreur!).

 

6. The Host Gives the First Toast

Toasting-time is typically as soon as beverages are poured, either at the beginning of a meal or just before dessert. The host has first dibs to toast — it is their event, after all, and they might have something planned. If the host stays silent, guests can jump in. Stand and ask for everyone’s attention (don’t clear your throat or tap on your glass) and acknowledge the hosts. Keep it short and sweet unless you’ve prepared something. In the event that you are the honoree of the toast, don’t drink! Just smile, nod, and enjoy the moment.

 

7. Write a Few Thank-You Notes at a Time

Written thank-you notes are still customary for events like weddings and baby showers, and while some say you have a year to write and send them, the Emily Post Institute gives a three-month timeline. To help hit that benchmark, the institute recommends writing a few thank-you cards at a time every day or two to make it seem like less work. It will free up some time to write more personalized messages, too.

 

 

Source: Event Etiquette Tips You May Not Know (and the Reasons Behind Them)

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - OCTOPUS

Did you know.... The most distinguishing feature about an octopus is its set of eight appendages — after all, they’re right there in the name. But don’t confuse that tangle of limbs for tentacles, because octopuses don’t have those — they have arms. For us armchair biologists, the two words seem interchangeable, but there’s an important difference. On animals such as squids, tentacles are usually longer and only have suckers on their clubbed ends; they’re primarily used for hunting. By contrast, a cephalopod's arms have suckers that smell, taste, and feel all the way down. Squids, for example, have both eight arms and two tentacles.

 

Squid

 

Of course, an octopus’s “arms” are nothing like the two appendages dangling from your torso. For one, octopus arms are entirely soft tissue, and that absence of bone makes octopuses incredibly flexible. But the most striking difference between octopus arms and our own is that all eight arms contain more than half of an octopus’s total neurons, cells that are usually concentrated in a central brain. This has led some scientists to theorize that octopuses essentially have nine brains — a centralized one and eight mini ones located in each arm. Recent research suggests that there might be more connection between these “brains” than previously imagined, and that an octopus’s arms are, at the very least, “clever” (a very peculiar adjective to describe an arm). Whatever the IQ of an octopus’s arms, it’s clear that they’re just as strange, and incredible, as the creatures themselves.

 

Octopuses can fit into an inch-wide hole.

 

 

Octopuses are master contortionists with the ability to fit into incredibly small spaces — in fact, they can fit inside holes only an inch wide. A majority of an octopus’s body is soft tissue that can lengthen, contract, and contort in any way necessary. The only hard part on their body is the beak, which gets its name because these mouth parts resemble the beaks of parrots. The octopus uses its beak, made up of a fibrous substance called chitin (which also forms the exoskeletons of arthropods), to eat crunchy prey like crabs and clams. Because the beak is the only octopus part that can’t contort, it essentially sets the minimum size of the hole an octopus can squeeze into. To capture this amazing ability on camera, in 2010 National Geographic filmed an octopus as it passed through a plexiglass hole. The 600-pound creature squeezed itself through an opening the size of a quarter.

 

Source: Not Tentacles; Arms

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - WHITE PAINT

Did you know... In April 2021, scientists from Purdue University revealed a new shade of white paint. At first glance, it may look like any other plain white hue found at the local paint store. But unlike those other pigments, Purdue’s white paint reflects 98.1% of the sun’s rays. (Most white paints, by contrast, reflect only about 80% to 90%.)

 

According to Guinness World Records, that reflective ability makes the paint the whitest white that’s ever been created. And what Purdue’s hue lacks in chromatic sophistication, it more than makes up for in utility. According to The New York Times, if between 1% to 2% of the world’s surface (about half the size of the Sahara) could be coated with this ultra-white paint, “the planet would no longer absorb more heat than it was emitting.” Although painting half the Sahara is not in the cards, painting the many, many rooftops that dot the world could help fight our current planetary fever while also cutting A/C costs. At midday, for example, the new paint makes surfaces 8 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the surrounding ambient air temperature. 

 

On the other end of the visual spectrum, of course, there’s Vantablack — a color that absorbs 99% of ultraviolet light and is considered one of the darkest materials ever made. And like the white yang to its black yin, Vantablack (made of carbon nanotubes) also has its distinct advantages, specifically in improving high-end optics for cameras and telescopes, in part by reducing glare. Perhaps that means that when it comes to color engineering, it helps to think in extremes. 

 

Did you know... White noise is called “white” because it contains all audible sound frequencies.
We’re all familiar with the visual aspects of color, but what about the audible ones? Sound is also said to have shades of color, including pink, red, blue, green, and gray. The most common sound that’s associated with a color is white, or that jumble of noise you hear when tuned to an unused radio frequency. Similar to how white contains all colors in the visual spectrum, white noise contains all frequencies in the audible spectrum, from about 20 hertz to 20,000 hertz. With pink noise (or what some might call “ambient noise”), energy decreases as the frequency increases, which sounds more pleasant to our ears as a result. Similarly, other audio “hues” contain different sound properties — brown noise sounds more bass-heavy, while blue noise is more shrill compared to pink noise. 

 

 

Source: The World’s Whitest Paint

Edited August 28, 2023 by DarkRavie

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - MASSACHUSETTS 

Did you know.... Seven million people call the state of Massachusetts home, and almost 30 million visit the Bay State each year. (The nickname is a reference to the original settlements along Cape Cod Bay.) Tourists and residents alike love the spectacular fall foliage, the wildly scenic coastal shoreline, and the abundance of picturesque villages. Boston, the capital, boasts world-class cultural and sporting institutions and — before the Big Dig, the nation’s largest highway project — some truly legendary traffic jams. Here are six “wicked smaht” facts about the nation’s sixth state.

 

1. Massachusetts Is a State of Firsts

Although not the first European settlement in North America (that honor goes to the Spaniards) nor even the first British settlement (Jamestown beat them by 13 years), the state of Massachusetts is nonetheless home to an astounding number of “firsts,” both in the nation and the world. Puritans aboard the Mayflower arrived in Provincetown in 1620, and promptly began making milestones. The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621, and the development of the country’s first public park (Boston Common) and first public school (Boston Latin) followed shortly afterward. Later developments in Massachusetts include the invention of the typewriter, and (by some accounts) the computer.

 

2. The Name of One Massachusetts Lake Is a Mouthful

The name “Massachusetts,” meaning “at or about the great hill,” comes from the Massachusett tribe of Native Americans. (The Great Blue Hill region is just south of what is now Boston.) Naturally, many of the state’s places bear names from the languages of the first peoples to inhabit the area. No name is more tongue-twisting than that of Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, but according to the Curator of Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution, the origin of that impossible-to-pronounce name is the result of a newspaperman’s joke. Today, the lake is formally known as Chaubunagungamaug, and usually referred to as “Webster Lake,” from the city in which it’s located.

 

3. There’s a Rocking Horse Retirement Home

Every state has its own odd roadside attractions, and Massachusetts is no exception. Pull off the highway near the town of Lincoln to experience “Ponyhenge,” an eerie assortment of dilapidated rocking horses. In Rockport, don’t miss the Paper House, which is exactly what you think it might be. There’s also Sunderland’s historic Buttonball Tree: An exceptionally large sycamore standing more than 100 feet tall, it has a girth of 24 feet, 7 inches, said to make it the “widest tree east of the Mississippi River.”

 

4. Massachusetts Has Been Home to Plenty of Famous Folks

From colonial times to the modern day, Massachusetts has plenty of household names. Four U.S. Presidents hail from the Bay State, along with a ton of Revolutionary War-era heroes, including Paul Revere, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock. And while everyone recognizes actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as proud Bostonians, Bette Davis, Geena Davis, Steve Carell, Leonard Nimoy, and Jack Lemmon are also native sons and daughters. Some staples of literature class originated here as well, including Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, Emily Dickinson, Beat legend Jack Kerouac, and Theodor Geisel — better known as “Dr. Seuss.”

 

5. Massachusetts Is a Health and Education Hot Spot

There’s no shortage of medical and educational institutions in the brainy Bay State. The first American university, Harvard, was founded in Newtowne (now Cambridge) in 1636. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has been at the forefront of scientific innovation for more than 150 years, and many of the country’s other oldest and most prestigious educational institutions are located here as well. Massachusetts is also one of the world’s top medical centers, especially for specialty research. In 1947, Dr. Sidney Farber pioneered chemotherapy as a treatment for cancer, and today the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute remains a leader in cancer research and treatment.

 

6. Massachusetts Is Home to Sports and Snacks

Dunkin’ Donuts, anyone? Founded in 1950 in Quincy, Massachusetts, the chain now has more than 10,000 locations around the world. Meanwhile, Fig Newtons were created in Cambridge in 1891, and the official state dessert, Boston cream pie, debuted at the Boston hotel Parker House in 1856. There are also plenty of activities in Massachusetts to counteract those sweet treats: Basketball was invented in Springfield in 1891, volleyball in Holyoke in 1895, and the nation’s first marathon was run in Boston in 1897.

 

 

Source: Interesting Facts About Massachusetts

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - THE COLOR ORANGE

Did you know... The artist Wassily Kandinsky described orange as “red brought closer to humanity” in his 1912 book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art. While the color has had some famous champions — Vincent Van Gogh made liberal use of it, as did Paul Gauguin — it’s also pretty controversial. For some, it symbolizes joy and happiness, while others find it overwhelming. Whether you’re pro-orange, anti-orange, or orange-neutral, we see it every day. It’s the color of traffic cones, autumn leaves, the fruit of the same name, and so much more. You know that nothing rhymes with the word (supposedly), but what else do you know about the shade itself? These six facts may deepen your understanding of the hue.

 

1. The Color Is Named After the Fruit

The word “orange” refers to both a citrus fruit and the color of said fruit, so which usage came first? The color isn’t exclusive to the fruit, of course, but the term did come from it. The first use of “orange” as a color in English dates back to the 15th century, and was derived from pomme d’orenge, the French word for the citrus. “Orange” started appearing in written English works as a color around the 16th century. Before that, English speakers just described it as “yellow-red.” Renowned 14th-century author Geoffrey Chaucer didn’t even have a singular word to describe a fox in his famous work The Canterbury Tales: “His colour was bitwixe yelow and reed [sic].”

 

2. There’s Science Behind “Safety Orange”

You probably see safety orange, also known as OSHA orange, hunter orange, or blaze orange, every day on traffic cones, high-visibility clothing, and road signs. The color first started appearing in technical manuals in the 1950s, but it gained some extra scientific rigor in 1959 when the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Game, along with the U.S. military, studied it as a color for high-visibility gear. More than 500 study participants viewed various bright colors under different lighting conditions. Reds tended to disappear under dark lights. Yellow paled to an off-white at certain hours. Orange was the most readily visible to the highest number of people in the majority of lighting conditions — and the least likely to be mistaken for a natural phenomenon, like a tree or an animal. Most states (starting with Massachusetts) now mandate that hunters wear this color, or sometimes hunter pink, and it’s the standard color for anything you want to be hyper-visible.

 

3. Plants Get Their Orange Hue From Carotene

Bright-orange carrots lend their name to the substance carotene, which gives the vegetable its vibrant hue. While carrots are especially rich in carotene, the substance is found in all sorts of orange plants, like yams — and even plants that aren’t always orange. Green trees are green because of chlorophyll, a green pigment that helps plants process energy. But when leaves start to die in autumn, the chlorophyll degrades, letting other pigments like carotene and related compounds shine through. It’s also why oranges start out green but turn, well, orange.

 

4. There Are Multiple Reasons for Orange Fire

The color of the glow from a fire depends on the temperature of the flame. Red fire is cooler in temperature, followed by orange, and then white, which is why the colors on the edge of a fire change as it hits the air. This applies to all hot things, not just fire — like red lava. But there’s another reason the fire in your hearth or campsite might be a certain color. When wood burns, it releases sodium, which burns orange. If you see little blue streaks, that’s from carbon and hydrogen.

 

5. Tigers’ Orange Fur Provides Unlikely Camouflage

Like people, tigers hunt in orange — they just have less of a choice in the matter. The good news (for them) is that they hunt a lot of colorblind prey, like deer and other ungulates, for whom the tigers actually appear to be the same color as the foliage around them. Their stripes, which dissolve into a woodland background, are uniquely suited to movements like stalking prey. A tiger’s target will sense its movement, but won’t actually clock the outline of a tiger, allowing the hunter to follow its prey undetected.

 

6. The Golden Gate Bridge’s Orange Color Wasn’t Planned

San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, completed in 1937, has a bright earthy tone dubbed “international orange” — but when construction began in 1933, it was on track to be a boring, standard bridge color like black or silver (although the Navy also suggested yellow and black stripes so that it would be highly visible for ships). Consulting architect Irving Morrow noticed that some of the beams were primed in a reddish-orange color, and made it his personal mission to bring a similar shade to the finished product. The warm color, he argued, was uniquely suited to San Francisco. It would stand out even on foggy days, and when the sun was out, the hue would pop against the blue sky and water. Such a distinct look would highlight the massive scale and stunning architecture of the bridge. Morrow made his case to the Department of War, the permitting agency for the bridge, in 1935, and successfully convinced them. Today, the color gets touched up in small segments, since repainting the whole bridge would be a massive undertaking. Want to replicate the bridge’s tone in your own home? The exact mix is on the bridge’s website.

 

 

Source: Outstanding Facts About the Color Orange

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - NOUNS FOR ANIMALS

Did you know... Collective nouns are nouns that refer to groups of people, objects, or — our fun for today — animals. We’re all familiar with “a herd of sheep” and “a flock of birds,” but here are six fun and unexpected collective nouns for other animals. Many of these terms originated (or at least were first recorded) in a book from 1486 called The Book of Hawking, Hunting and Blasing of Arms, by Julia Berners — thought to be the first woman published in the English language.

 

1. A Flamboyance of Flamingos

These outrageously pink birds basically define “flamboyance,” with their gracefully curved necks, dramatic habit of perching on one long leg, and their Barbie-pink or scarlet plumage. So it should come as no surprise that both their collective noun (“flamboyance”) and their name (“flamingo”) derive from French and Spanish (respectively) forms of the Latin word flamma, which means “flame.” Other fun bird words: A group of owls is known as a “parliament” or a “looming” (eerie!), and a gathering of peacocks is an “ostentation.”

2. A Sloth of Bears

 

The proper term for a group of bears is a “sleuth” or a “sloth.” Though bears aren’t related to the lethargic South American mammal, the words for the collective noun and the permanently smiling creature do share the same root. “Sloth” is derived from the Middle English word for “slow.” (There’s also an ursine species known as the “sloth bear.”) For no reason except fun, a group of pandas is known as an “embarrassment,” and a party of polar bears is called a “celebration.”

 

3. An Obstinacy of Bison

Americans call them “buffalo,” but the shaggy species that once covered the Great Plains is properly known as “bison.” And sure, we could just refer to a group of these large and stubborn creatures as a “herd,” but it’s much more fun to address them by their other collective noun — an “obstinacy.” Why an obstinacy? Ask anyone who has ever had their car blocked by them at Yellowstone, and you’ll have your answer.

 

4. A Zeal of Zebras

There’s not a fancy scientific explanation as to how a herd of these black-and-white striped safari favorites came to be known as a “zeal.” (They’re also sometimes referred to as a “dazzle.”) But the term is, like many collective nouns, simply fun. The name even made it into the title of the book A Compendium of Collective Nouns: From an Armory of Aardvarks to a Zeal of Zebras. And speaking of safaris, anyone who’s witnessed the chaos of East Africa’s great migration will understand why a group of wildebeest is referred to as a “confusion.”

 

5. A Bloat of Hippo

They’re big and they seem to float, so let’s call a group of hippos a “bloat”! Although they may look rather comical, Hippopotamus amphibius (which don’t actually float but can nap underwater) are extremely aggressive. These rotund natives of sub-Saharan Africa are one of the largest — and deadliest — mammals on the planet.

 

6. A Kindle of Kittens, A Clowder of Cats

While a group of kittens born to the same mother is most commonly referred to as a “litter,” an assemblage of unrelated puffballs is called a “kindle” or, more rarely, an “intrigue.” Intriguing! Children will love the 1979 illustrated book A Kindle of Kittens by Rumer Godden and Lynne Byrnes, while language enthusiasts may enjoy the origin of “clowder,” which originated as a variant of the word “clutter.”

 

 

Source: A “Flamboyance of Flamingos” and Other Collective Nouns for Animals

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - PUZZLES

Did you know... What’s your favorite way to puzzle? Maybe you like assembling giant jigsaws with your family, filling out the daily crossword in pen, or playing brain-teaser apps on your phone. Between real-life escape rooms and video game dungeons, today’s puzzle options are nearly infinite. But how much do you really know about them? From the origins of Sudoku to the distracting power of Minesweeper, these seven facts about puzzles will make you think about your favorite pastimes in a whole new way.

 

1. An “Enigmatologist” Is Someone Who Studies Puzzles

You probably already know the word “enigma,” meaning something that’s mysterious, hard to understand, or, well, puzzling. Combine that with “ology,” indicating a field of study, and it makes sense that “enigmatologist” would mean one who studies puzzles. The word is a relative newcomer to the lexicon, and is typically attributed to New York Times puzzle editor Will Shortz, who graduated from Indiana University with a self-designed Enigmatology degree in 1974. While the term hasn’t made it into all the major dictionaries, Merriam Webster does list “enigmatology” alongside the more generic definition of “the investigation or analysis of enigmas.” Crossword enthusiasts get their own word, “cruciverbalist,” coined in the early 1980s. Speaking of which…

 

2. The First Modern Crossword Puzzle Was Published in 1913

The first modern crossword puzzle was published in the New York World’s “Fun” section on December 21, 1913, although simpler ancestors appeared in kids’ puzzle books in 19th-century Britain. Unlike the format we’re used to in today’s papers, the puzzle’s clues weren’t organized into “across” and “down”; instead, two numbers indicated a start and end point within the diamond-shaped grid. Just a decade later, crossword puzzles were a standard offering in major U.S. papers, and serious cruciverbalists still observe December 21 as Crossword Puzzle Day. But while the New York Times puzzle is among the most iconic crosswords today, the Gray Lady was notoriously slow to adopt the practice. The paper finally relented soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor: “We ought to proceed with the puzzle, especially in view of the fact it is possible there will now be bleak blackout hours,” wrote the Sunday editor at the time in a memo to the publisher, “or if not that then certainly a need for relaxation of some kind or other.” Their first puzzle finally appeared on February 15, 1942 and, despite its stated goal of helping to calm nerves during wartime, includes several clues about the then-current events of World War II.

 

3. There Are 43 Quintillion Possible Rubik’s Cube Arrangements

 

Each Rubik’s Cube shows nine different colorful squares on each face; to solve it, you need to twist rows of smaller cubes both horizontally and vertically until each face of the cube is the same color. Some people are really, really good at solving it, regularly finishing expertly-scrambled cubes in less than five seconds. This is a pretty incredible feat, considering that there are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different configurations, but solving it is less complicated than it might appear. A team of scientists borrowed Google’s computers to find the quickest solution to each configuration, and it turns out each can be solved in 20 moves or less. Since people are not computers, this knowledge doesn’t exactly spell out each solution for a human being, but “speedcubers,” as they’re called, memorize hundreds of algorithms to help them attack each new configuration.

 

4. The First Jigsaw Puzzles Were Geography-Learning Tools

The first commercial jigsaw puzzles originated in 18th-century England, when cartographer John Spilsbury started pasting maps to thin wood and slicing out individual countries with a scroll saw. He called them “dissected maps,” and while they were originally teaching aids, their popularity spread throughout Britain in the mid-1700s. By the mid-1800s, these puzzles featured other popular images from things like zoology and fairy tales. Interlocking puzzles — the kind you’re likely used to today — started with Parker Brothers in the early 20th century. Homemade versions took off during the Great Depression as both a low-cost way to entertain yourself and, for anybody with a jigsaw, a way to make some extra cash by selling them or renting them out.

 

5. “Tetris” Is a Blend of “Tetra” and “Tennis”

“Tetris” is so ubiquitous now that it’s entered everyday speech outside of the game. (Maybe you used it the last time you packed a moving truck!) But the game has only been around for 40 years or so, and the etymology of its name is a little surprising. One part is obvious: “Tetra” is a Greek numeral prefix, meaning “four.” Each Tetris piece is made up of four smaller squares. The “is” on the end isn’t just for style, but it’s not particularly relevant to the gameplay, either: Creator Alexey Pajitnov just really, really liked tennis, and included the suffix in the name.

 

6. Bill Gates Himself Was Addicted to Minesweeper

Those who were around to experience the early years of Windows probably know two games a little too well: Solitaire and the much more stressful Minesweeper. Solitaire was standard on Windows 3.0 as a friendly, familiar feature to help users feel less intimidated by the operating system, and as a handy exercise in using a computer mouse. Minesweeper, which used to be an add-on with the Microsoft Entertainment Pack, came standard in 3.1. The reasoning? It was the staff favorite, and many in the Microsoft offices — especially founder Bill Gates — couldn’t keep their hands off it. In 1994, the Washington Post reported that Gates had become so distracted that he took it off his personal machine. This did not prevent him from playing it, however: He’d just hop over to then-Microsoft-president Mike Hallman’s office to play instead. (Supposedly, his solving record was five seconds.)

 

7. Sudoku Dates Back at Least to 1700s Switzerland

Contrary to popular belief, Sudoku did not originate in Japan, although it did come of age there. One of its earliest forms — although it’s possible that its origins go back even earlier, to 8th or 9th century China — was a variation on magic squares developed by Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, who called it “Latin Squares.” It was a slightly simpler version of the game we know today: In modern Sudoku, solvers need to place a series of numbers so they only appear once in their corresponding row, column, and sub-grid, while Latin Squares used only rows and columns. A more complicated version popped up in French newspapers in the late 19th century, with both the smaller grids and a couple of diagonals thrown in. The modern Sudoku puzzle emerged in the 1970s as “Number Place,” published in Dell Puzzle Magazines and sometimes credited to a retired architect in Indiana. A Japanese puzzle enthusiast named Maki Kaji “fell in love” with the game, renamed it Sudoku, and started printing puzzles through his game publishing company Nikoli. (The name is short for sūji wa dokushin ni kagiru, which means "the numerals must remain single" — that is, the digits must occur only once.) The idea spread quickly in Japan; unlike a crossword, you don’t need an alphabet to solve it, which is ideal when your written language doesn’t have an equivalent to the ABCs. Sudoku started spreading back out to Hong Kong, Britain, and eventually the United States in the late 1990s through the mid-2000s.

 

 

Source: Captivating Facts About Puzzles

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - SCIENCE FICTION PREDICTIONS

Did you know... Science fiction is meant to be fantastic. And while it's a good thing all those evil robots and planet-destroying space stations aren’t real, that doesn’t mean many of us aren’t still waiting for our jetpacks, flying cars, and teleportation. While you anticipate those life-altering developments (and let’s face it, it might be a while, even if Tesla did send a car to space), read about these five sci-fi predictions that did come true.

 

1. The Internet

Mark Twain isn’t well known for his brief foray into science fiction, but one aspect of his 1898 story From the ‘London Times’ in 1904 proved prescient: the telelectroscope, quite possibly the first conceived vision of the internet. Twain imagined that the device would be connected to phone lines (accurate) and that when the “improved ‘limitless-distance’ telephone was presently introduced,” the “daily doings of the globe” would be “made visible to everybody, and audibly discussable too” by people all over the world. The main character in Twain’s story is an army officer awaiting execution. Like many of us today, he spends a lot of his time on the internet: “… day by day, and night by night, he called up one corner of the globe after another, and looked upon its life, and studied its strange sights, and spoke with its people, and realized that by grace of this marvelous instrument he was almost as free as the birds of the air, although a prisoner under locks and bars.”

 

2. The Moon Landing

In 1865, Jules Verne wrote From the Earth to the Moon: A Direct Route in 97 Hours, 20 Minutes. A century later, Neil Armstrong took one giant leap for mankind. Verne wasn’t the first person to dream of landing on the moon, of course, but the detail with which the French writer imagined his lunar scenario makes From the Earth to the Moon (and its sequel Around the Moon) unique in the annals of sci-fi history. Not that he got every detail right. Apollo 11 took only 75 hours to reach the moon, and Verne’s Columbiad space gun — essentially a gigantic cannon — didn’t propel the American spacecraft (though Apollo 11’s command module was named Columbia, in part as a tribute). Verne’s novel was right on one major point, however: A trio of spacefarers made the initial lunar journey. Long before John F. Kennedy declared that “we choose to go to the moon,” other artists picked up where Verne left off. Both his novel and H.G. Wells’ 1901 The First Men in the Moon were key influences on Georges Méliès’ 1902 movie A Trip to the Moon, the first proper science-fiction film and still one of the most important. Verne’s vision was so influential, in fact, that Neil Armstrong himself referred to it during Apollo 11’s return journey: “A hundred years ago, Jules Verne wrote a book about a voyage to the moon. His spaceship, Columbia, took off from Florida and landed in the Pacific Ocean after completing a trip to the moon,” he said. “It seems appropriate to us to share with you some of the reflections of the crew as the modern-day Columbia completes its rendezvous with the planet Earth and the same Pacific Ocean tomorrow.”

 

3. Tablet Computers

We haven’t yet seen the monolith or star child, but at least one element of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey eventually made its way into the world: tablet computers, with iPads currently being the most popular. One scene from the mind-bending 1968 classic shows the two main astronauts (played by Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood) multitasking by eating meals while watching TV shows on their own flatscreen computers. The devices were never mentioned by name in the movie itself, but they were called newspads. Here’s how Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote 2001, described them: “The postage-stamp-size rectangle would expand until it neatly filled the screen and [the astronaut] could read it with comfort. When he had finished, he would flash back to the complete page and select a new subject for detailed examination.” Sound familiar? Kubrick even thought up a number of New York Times headlines for the newspad, ranging from “Language Barrier Now Nil for 75% of Earth's Peoples” to “Move Gains Momentum in Western States for Return to 4-Party System.”

 

4. Cell Phones

Anyone looking for evidence of how far ahead of its time Star Trek was need only watch its first episode. The communicator was first seen in 1964's “The Cage,” the long-running show's pilot, and has been a key feature of the franchise ever since. The futuristic (and, it must be said, awesome-looking) device is, for all intents and purposes, an early forerunner of the cell phone: It allows communication between the Enterprise and whichever alien planet Captain Kirk and his compatriots have landed on. There are no apps, as one thing Star Trek didn’t predict was how much time we would all spend looking at our phones rather than simply using them to communicate with one another. Others imagined the idea of a mobile phone prior to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, of course. Inventor Eric Tigerstedt, the “Thomas Edison of Finland,” successfully filed a patent for a “pocket-size folding telephone with a very thin carbon microphone” in 1917, though the technology simply didn't exist to make his idea a reality until closer to the end of the century.

 

5. Holograms

Long before Tupac appeared at 2012’s Coachella in hologram form, Princess Leia told Obi-Wan Kenobi that he was the Rebel Alliance’s only hope. Holograms are similar to mobile phones insofar as they were imagined by many different people before they became real (to the extent that holograms are real, that is), but Star Wars introduced them to the popular imagination in a new way. This goes all the way back to the original 1977 film, when Carrie Fisher’s Leia first appeared onscreen as a holographic recording delivered by R2-D2. Australian company Euclideon Holographics has done its best to bring this particular type of table-projected hologram into the 21st century, but it comes with quite a price tag — it’s said that one of their devices can cost up to $100,000.

 

 

Source: Science Fiction Predictions That Came True

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI

Did you know... At first glance, Jackson, Mississippi, is like any other state capital, with its domed capitol building standing squarely in the heart of the city. However, 2,900 feet below the surface lies a surprising secret — an ancient volcano. Although the West Coast and Hawaii are the U.S.’s biggest volcanic hot spots, millions of years ago active volcanoes also dotted the northern Gulf of Mexico region. One of these volcanoes was the Jackson Volcano, and the city’s Mississippi Coliseum now sits above its ancient crater. Thankfully for the city’s residents, the volcano is extinct and hasn’t erupted since around the age of the dinosaurs.

 

The Jackson Dome formed in what’s known as the Mississippi Embayment, a sedimentary basin that was an extension of the Gulf of Mexico coastal plain, around 70 million years ago. Despite being buried by layers of rock due to various geographic transformations over millions of years, the volcano’s presence is still felt in surprising ways. Because of the dense igneous rock of the volcano, gravity is slightly stronger in the area, making Jacksonians heavier than their fellow Mississippians. And while Jackson is the only capital city set atop a volcano, volcanic formations can also be seen within the limits of other U.S. cities, including Portland, Oregon, and Honolulu, Hawaii.

 

THE JACKSON VOLCANO

In the Late Cretaceous Period, shallow seas covered central Mississippi. About 75 million years ago, a volcano erupted through the seafloor creating an island surrounded by a reef. Today, these structures are located 2,900 feet beneath the city. Uplift created the Jackson Dome and the heights of LeFleur's Bluff and Belhaven. These heights influenced Thomas Hinds to select this area as a suitable place to locate the new capital city in 1821.

 

Volcanoes caused the most severe extinction event in Earth’s history.

Some 252 million years ago, an event known as the end-Permian extinction, or “the Great Dying,” killed nine out of every 10 living species on Earth. The change to the planet was profound: The event spelled the end of the 47 million-year-long Permian geologic period, cleaned the terrestrial slate, and allowed reptiles to evolutionarily outpace protomammals to become the new dominant lifeform on Earth — dinosaurs. Although a variety of things likely coalesced to kick-start the Great Dying, one key culprit took place in an area known today as the Siberian Traps, a hilly region in northern Russia. Beginning around 252 million years ago, this region erupted continuously for 2 million years and covered 2.7 million square miles in lava. The volcanoes also pumped a massive amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing a runaway greenhouse effect that led to hotter temperatures and increased ocean acidification. Scientists estimated that at one point during this extinction event, ocean water near the equator reached hot-tub-level temperatures of about 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Today, the dramatic activity that took place in the Siberian Traps is the largest known volcanic event of the past 500 million years.

 

 

Source: Jackson, Mississippi, lies atop a dormant volcano

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - REIGNS IN POLITICAL HISTORY

Did you know... Election season may feel like it never ends in the U.S., but at least we have elections. The same can’t be said for much of the world throughout history, with many kings and queens lording over their subjects for decades on end — a practice that shaped countless countries and produced no shortage of fascinating records. Here are five of the longest, shortest, and strangest reigns in political history, from Queen Elizabeth II’s 70 years on the throne to the head of state who only served for 45 minutes.

 

1. Queen of Superlatives: Queen Elizabeth II

No list would be complete without her. When she died at age 96 on September 8, 2022, after ruling for 70 years, Queen Elizabeth II was the longest-reigning queen ever, and the second-longest-reigning monarch in world history (behind French King Louis XIV, who ruled for 72 years). She was also Britain’s longest-lived monarch, and the first British monarch to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee (70 years on the throne) and Sapphire Jubilee (65th anniversary). She previously had Diamond (60 years), Golden (50 years), Ruby (40 years), and Silver (25 years) Jubilees. She’s also the only monarch to not only be the subject of an award-winning Netflix series about herself but to also watch it.

 

2. Shortest Reign: Louis XIX

King Louis XIX of France holds an unfortunate Guinness World Record: shortest reign of a monarch in history. He reigned over France for a mere 20 minutes in 1830 following the abdication of his father, Charles X, before he himself stepped down as part of the July Revolution. (Legitimists — supporters of the Bourbon dynasty — didn't accept this, however, and considered him the rightful king for the rest of his life.) Some consider Louis XIX's record to be a shared one, however. Luís Filipe, Prince Royal of Portugal, was fatally wounded in the same attack that killed his father, King Carlos I, on February 1, 1908, and survived 20 minutes longer. The 20-year-old was technically king for those few minutes, but never formally declared ruler, and his younger brother Manuel II became the last King of Portugal on that fateful day instead. His reign wasn’t especially long, either: Portugal became a republic as a result of the October 5, 1910 revolution and Manuel spent the remainder of his life exiled in England.

 

3. Shortest U.S. Presidency: William Henry Harrison

At the time he was elected in 1841, William Henry Harrison was the oldest person to assume the presidency — a distinction he held for 140 years. The fact that he was 68 may partially explain why it was a bad idea for him to deliver the longest inaugural address in American history on a cold, wet day without a hat or overcoat after arriving to the ceremony on horseback. His nearly 8,445-word speech took him nearly two hours to deliver, but his day didn’t end there: Harrison then spent three hours in the White House receiving line, continued his horseback journey as part of the inaugural parade, and attended three balls that night. He fell ill a few weeks later and died (reportedly of pneumonia, though there’s some debate) on April 4, exactly one month after taking office. His last words were “Sir, I wish you to understand the true principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more.” That he was succeeded by Vice President John Tyler seems obvious today, but at the time the precise wording of the Constitution was considered unclear; it wasn’t until the 25th Amendment was ratified in 1967 that this practice was made official despite several other Vice Presidents becoming President under similar circumstances in the intervening century. At only 32 days, Harrison’s term was (and is) the shortest of any U.S. President.

 

4. 45-Minute Head of State: Pedro Lascuráin

A month-long presidency is short, but it's nothing compared to the tenure of Pedro Lascuráin. Mexico’s 38th president set an unfortunate record of his own by being in office for a mere 45 minutes on February 19, 1913 following a coup that overthrew his predecessor, Francisco I. Madero. As foreign secretary, Lascuráin was third in the line of succession following the vice president and attorney general; because both of those men had likewise been ousted, Lascuráin was appointed president for just enough time to make General Victoriano Huerta — the architect of the coup — interior secretary and then immediately resign so that Huerta could replace him. This odd maneuvering was also Huerta’s idea, as he believed it would make his rise to power look more legitimate in the eyes of Mexican citizens.

 

5. Longest U.S. Presidency: Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Only one President of the United States has served more than two terms: Franklin D. Roosevelt, who eschewed the tradition established by none other than George Washington of stepping down after eight years. It wasn't until shortly before the 1940 Democratic Convention in Chicago that FDR decided the third time was the charm, reasoning that the outbreak of World War II in Europe presented unprecedented challenges for an incoming President. He won reelection in his third consecutive landslide later that year (449 electoral votes to challenger Wendell Willikie's 82). Roosevelt faced even less internal opposition from fellow Democrats four years later, and won a fourth term just as easily; after years of declining health, however, he died in office just months after beginning that term. It wasn’t until the 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951 that a President serving two terms became law rather than tradition, but breaking with the norm has hardly hurt FDR’s legacy: He’s consistently ranked alongside Washington and Abraham Lincoln as being one of the greatest Presidents in American history.

 

Source: Record-Breaking Reigns From Political History

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - LABOR DAY

Did you know.... The struggle for workers’ rights in the U.S. is a fight that’s existed since the nation’s founding. The first Monday in September is a celebration of and memorial to the many workers, unions, and activists past and present who’ve secured hard-earned wins to help make America a prosperous nation for all its citizens. At the same time, the holiday is also often a nationwide end-of-summer bash. These six facts explore the history, meaning, and myths behind one of the most-loved holidays on the calendar.

 

1. Labor Day Started as a New York City Parade

On the morning of September 5, 1882, some 20,000 union workers marched through lower Manhattan. According to one newspaper report, the crowd was filled with “men on horseback, men wearing regalia, men with society aprons, and men with flags, musical instruments, badges, and all the other paraphernalia of a procession.” The parade celebrated the labor of the city’s union workers, who actually had to sacrifice a day’s pay in order to attend the celebration — but what a celebration it was. After the parade, 25,000 union members and their families filled Wendel's Elm Park at 92nd Street and Ninth Avenue for a post-parade party, where beer kegs were “mounted in every conceivable place.” On September 5 the next year, New York’s Central Labor Union celebrated its second Labor Day parade, and the late summer holiday became a tradition.

 

2. The Holiday Was First Recognized by Oregon in 1887

Although New York held the first parades and even introduced the first legislation recognizing Labor Day, Oregon was actually the first to officially recognize the holiday, on February 21, 1887 (though the state reserved the first Saturday in June for Labor Day, rather than early September). Within the same year, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York followed suit. It wasn’t until 1894 that Congress solidified Labor Day as a national holiday — the legislation was signed into law by then-President Grover Cleveland.

 

3. Most Countries Don’t Celebrate Workers in September

While reserving the first Monday in September for Labor Day hearkens back to the holiday’s New York origins, the decision was also designed to distract from a more unsavory moment in the history of U.S. labor relations. Most countries around the world actually celebrate unions and workers on May 1, otherwise known as International Workers’ Day. This international holiday actually has its origins in the U.S., when a clash between Chicago police and workers in 1886 left several dead and dozens injured. Known as the Haymarket Riot, the event went on to inspire International Workers’ Day in 1889. Uneasy honoring such a bloody moment in U.S. history — especially one that inspired widespread vitriol against labor unions — Congress and President Cleveland opted for a different date entirely.

 

4. There Was a Labor Day Before There Was a U.S. Department of Labor

Although the 19th century gave birth to what eventually became Labor Day — along with many other important historical moments that defined the worker’s struggle in both America and the world — the U.S. Labor Department wasn’t established until more than three decades after that first parade down New York City’s streets. Although the U.S. did establish the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1884 and the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903, the modern U.S. Department of Labor wasn’t created until 1913, when lame duck President William Howard Taft reluctantly signed it into law. Taft had such strong concerns about the bill (he thought it would hinder efficient administration) that he only signed it into law mere hours before his successor, Woodrow Wilson, took office. Today, the Department of Labor oversees labor laws, guarantees workers’ rights, and ensures safe working conditions. In 1933 — two decades after its creation — the department also became the first to be led by a woman, Secretary Frances Perkins (who was later recognized as a saint in the Episcopal Church).

 

5. 137 Million Americans Traveled for Labor Day in 2022

According to a survey conducted by The Vacationer, 53% of Americans traveled on Labor Day weekend in 2022, which equates to some 137 million people. This figure narrowly surpassed both Memorial Day and the Fourth of July as the busiest travel weekend in the U.S. Although most of that travel (about 36%) occurred via car, airports also tend to see a serious uptick of Americans traveling to popular domestic locations, such as New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco, or even catching international flights to London, Rome, or Tokyo. In 2022, the Transportation Security Administration screened 8.76 million travelers — exceeding pre-pandemic numbers — with Friday marking the busiest day of the weekend.

 

6. Yes, You Can Definitely Wear White After Labor Day

The color white has its advantages during the summer, as it’s the best hue (or combination of all hues) to reflect the sun’s rays, but why is there an informal rule forbidding the color after summer is over? The roots of the rule date back to the 19th century as a means for upper-class women to distinguish themselves. The idea was that white clothes were only appropriate for weddings and resort wear, and because Labor Day stood in as the unofficial end of summer (though the astronomical end occurs weeks later), white shouldn’t be worn after Labor Day. If you’re looking for logic, there isn’t any — it was just an arbitrary rule meant to exclude those who didn’t have well-established fortunes and were less in the know. Somehow, this arbitrary rule survived more than a century, though it isn’t really recognized today — even if that doesn’t stop some people from still mentioning this pernicious piece of class warfare.

 

 

Source: Honest Facts About Labor Day

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - CLASSIC CELEBRITIES

Did you know.... Whether it’s Marilyn Monroe or Katharine Hepburn, Paul Newman or Humphrey Bogart, the classic faces of the silver screen are familiar and beloved — but how much do you really know about them? For example, which starlet’s first job involved building drones? What famously raven-haired performer was really a blond? Which leading man apologized for his first film role? Read on for some of our favorite facts about the sparkling stars of yesteryear.

 

1. Elvis Never Performed Outside of the U.S. and Canada

Despite being beloved around the world, Elvis Presley never performed outside of the United States and Canada. The prevailing (though never officially confirmed) belief is that the King of Rock ’n’ Roll had to turn down every offer he received to play abroad because his controversial manager, Colonel Tom Parker, was an undocumented immigrant from the Netherlands who didn’t have a passport and feared he would be denied reentry to the U.S. if he left. (If Elvis ever had a fear of flying, he evidently got over it, as he purchased and customized several planes over the years.) Other than three 1957 shows in Canada (in Toronto, Ottawa, and Vancouver, B.C.), Elvis only ever performed stateside.

 

 

2. Humphrey Bogart Never Says “Play It Again, Sam” in “Casablanca

Despite being one of the film’s most oft-quoted lines, the words “Play it again, Sam” are never said in Casablanca. It’s been called “probably the most misquoted line in cinema history,” not least because it’s usually attributed to the wrong character. The 1942 film’s protagonist, conflicted Morocco nightclub owner Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), is often imagined as the one saying the line, even though the closest equivalent — “Play it, Sam” — is actually said by Rick’s endangered ex, Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman). (Rick does later instruct Sam, the piano player in question, to “play it,” however.) For all that, Casablanca, a noir classic set in WWII, still has many other memorable lines, including six on the American Film Institute’s 100 Years… 100 Movie Quotes list, the most of any film. (That includes “Here’s looking at you, kid” and “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”)

 

3. Paul Newman Publicly Apologized for His First Film Role

While many actors dream of landing their first featured film role, the experience was a nightmare for Paul Newman. Tapped to star in The Silver Chalice (1954) as a Greek silversmith who fashions a cup to commemorate Jesus Christ at the Last Supper, the Hollywood newcomer butted heads with director Victor Saville and never found a comfort zone in matters ranging from delivering dialogue to riding a camel. He later called it “the worst film to be made in the entirety of the 1950s.” While Newman eventually overcame this early career hurdle, the rising star was aghast to learn that a Los Angeles television station was airing The Silver Chalice in 1963. As a result, according to Shawn Levy's Paul Newman: A Life, Newman took out ads in two local papers begging people not to watch the movie. (The ads backfired, as curious viewers tuned in to see what all the fuss was about.)

 

4. Frank Sinatra Was a Member of Two Rat Pack

The Rat Pack is best known as a group of entertainers including Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford. They frequently teamed up both on- and off-screen, most famously in the 1960 heist film Ocean’s 11 and as regulars on the Las Vegas circuit. But the Rat Pack most of us know was actually the second iteration of the group. The first Rat Pack formed in the 1950s around actor Humphrey Bogart, whose wife, actress Lauren Bacall, came up with the name after a wild weekend in Vegas with friends including Sinatra, Judy Garland, and David Niven. The story goes that Bacall took one look at the disheveled and sleep-deprived crew and told them they looked like a “rat pack.” The sobriquet stuck, and a Hollywood legend was born. After Bogie’s death in 1957, Sinatra took over the group and added some of his close friends as members, though they reportedly referred to themselves as “the Clan” or “the Summit.”

 

5. Shirley Temple Was a U.S. Ambassador

If you’re ever looking for a counterexample to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous claim that “there are no second acts in American lives,” look no further than Shirley Temple. The beloved child star, who was Hollywood’s No. 1 box-office draw from 1935 to 1938, announced her retirement from film at the age of 22 in 1950. It was anyone’s guess what Temple would do next, but it’s unlikely that many predicted her eventual diplomatic career. After she ran (unsuccessfully) for Congress in 1967, President Nixon appointed her as a delegate to the 24th United Nations General Assembly in 1969, and President Ford named her the ambassador to Ghana in 1974. MTemple’s foreign service didn’t end there. In 1989, just before the Velvet Revolution, President George H.W. Bush made her ambassador to the former Czechoslovakia, a post she held until 1992, as the country became a parliamentary democracy. According to Norman Eisen, who held the same role from 2011 to 2014, the “sunny confidence and optimism” that made Temple a movie star also helped her “really infuse the United States’ role — as our representative here, in the Velvet Revolution — with that good cheer and that hope.”

 

6. Lucille Ball Was One of the First Women to Appear Pregnant on Network TV

Pregnant characters are commonplace now, but in the 1950s, Lucy’s television pregnancy was groundbreaking. Both CBS and the show’s sponsor, Philip Morris, were so concerned about airing this seemingly suggestive idea that they had the production studio work with various religious organizations to determine how to most sensitively express this supposedly controversial plot point. Ultimately, the producers agreed to avoid the word “pregnant,” going with the euphemism “expecting” (and similar terms) instead. The then-radical six-episode pregnancy arc paid off, as over 44 million people tuned in on January 19, 1953, to see Lucy welcome her son Little Ricky. The episode, titled “Lucy Goes to the Hospital,” aired the same day Ball actually gave birth by planned cesarean section to Desi Arnaz Jr.

 

 

Source: Our Favorite Facts About Classic Celebrities

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - THE SUN

Did you know... There’s nothing small about the sun, even if it’s often categorized as a yellow dwarf. Heat and light from the sun travel 93 million miles to Earth to make all life possible, a capacity that no other star in the universe is known to have. Humankind wouldn’t have been able to grow crops, navigate the seas, or design Stonehenge without it. Read on for more about the glowing ball of gas at the center of our solar system.

 

1. The Sun Formed About 4.6 Billion Years Ago

Before the sun was the sun, it was a swirling cloud of dust and gases known as the solar nebula. As this cloud spun around in space, the material in its center condensed under the force of its own gravity and formed an incredibly massive disk of stellar debris — in other words, a baby sun. The nebula’s remaining dust spun off to form the planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, comets, and other bodies that populate our solar system.

 

2. The Sun’s Core Is a Nuclear Reactor

The sun is not a solid sphere like Earth. It’s a dense ball of gases organized into layers. At its center, the core’s density of 150 grams per cubic centimeter is about 13 times denser than lead, and its temperature can reach 15,000,000 degrees Celsius (about 27,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit). The extreme heat causes nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium, creating enormous amounts of energy that radiate outward through the sun’s other layers. Eventually, the energy reaches the photosphere, which we view as the sun’s fiery “surface” (though it’s not actually on fire). This energy is finally released from the corona, the sun’s outermost layer, as light, heat, charged particles known as solar wind, and other forms. It takes more than 170,000 years for energy to travel from the sun’s core to Earth, but only 8.5 minutes for it to travel from the corona to Earth.

 

3. The Sun Is 330,000 Times More Massive Than Earth

There’s no denying it — the sun is ginormous. The star is about 10 times bigger than Jupiter, the largest planet. Its diameter of 865,370 miles dwarfs Earth’s diameter of 7,926 miles; in fact, you could theoretically fit more than 1 million Earths into the sun. In addition to being the largest body in our entire solar system, the sun contains more than 98% of all the mass in the solar system, exerting enough gravitational pull to keep all of the planets, asteroids, and other celestial bodies in orbit.

 

4. The Sun Creates Space Weather

Energy can erupt from the sun’s corona as big bursts of radiation called solar flares, or as streams of plasma known as coronal mass ejections. This magnetically charged activity — called space weather — can reach Earth’s magnetic field and ionosphere (where the Earth’s atmosphere meets space), affecting the performance of technology. Electromagnetic storms can cause electrical surges and blackouts, disrupt telecommunications, and damage global positioning systems and satellites. Yet space weather also gives us the northern and southern lights: When electrons emitted from the sun bump into the upper layers of our atmosphere, they collide with oxygen and nitrogen and transfer their energy to those atoms. The atoms then release that energy as light, often visible in the polar regions where Earth’s magnetic field is strongest.

 

5. The Carrington Event Was the Most Intense Electromagnetic Storm Ever Recorded

Sunspots are areas of extreme magnetic activity in the sun’s photosphere, and for centuries, scientists have associated their presence with electrical anomalies on Earth. In September 1859, British astronomer Richard Carrington was surprised to look through his telescope and see a group of sunspots rapidly change, flash, and disappear. The following morning, Earth’s atmosphere blazed with purple, green, and red aurorae even in the tropics, while electricity surged through the world’s telegraph wires and lit the telegrams on fire. Carrington had made the first observation of a solar flare, and it just happened to be the most powerful one of the last 500 years, according to NASA. It was determined to be a white-light solar flare, an exceedingly powerful type in which the sun somehow causes electrons to move faster than half the speed of light. The flare is believed to have signaled a huge coronal mass ejection, which led to the dazzling aurorae.

 

6. Yes, the Sun Will Probably Engulf Our Planet

Like all stars, the sun will eventually fizzle out. In a couple of billion years, it will run out of hydrogen in its core, leaving behind helium as the product of nuclear fusion. The core isn’t hot enough to “burn” helium, so gravity will begin to collapse the core into itself, forcing the fusion of the few remaining atoms of hydrogen around the core. At the same time, the core’s contraction will allow the sun’s outer layers to expand. The hydrogen fusion will increase the sun’s brightness, while the expansion cools the surface temperatures of the photosphere and corona. At this stage, the sun will transform from a yellow dwarf to a red giant. Astrophysicists predict that the sun’s surface will expand as far as the vicinity of Mars. Earth will be pulled into the center of the red giant and disintegrate. But let’s look on the bright side — by that time, the sun’s brightness will have increased and the resulting heat will have evaporated Earth’s oceans and made our planet uninhabitable. Finally, at the end of its life cycle about 5 billion years from now, our sun will spend all of its energy and cast off its outer layers, becoming a white dwarf — a dim shell of its former glory.

 

 

Source: Bright Facts About the Sun

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - BLIMPS

Did you know...  At the start of the 20th century, before the Wright Brothers finally got their famous Flyer off the ground in 1903, airships were seen as the future of human flight. The category includes a variety of dirigibles, such as zeppelins (which have a rigid structure) and blimps (which completely collapse when deflated). German zeppelins performed bombing runs in World War I, but the 1937 Hindenburg disaster — in which the Hindenburg zeppelin caught fire in New Jersey while attempting to moor, killing 36 — spelled the end of airships as commercial vehicles. While blimps found limited use during World War II, after the war, airships mostly transformed into floating advertisements.

 

 

Today, only about 25 blimps exist, and about half of them are used for advertising — including the famous Goodyear Blimp (which is now technically a zeppelin). Airships are expensive to construct and to run, in part because they require as much as $100,000 worth of helium per trip, and helium gas is the subject of frequent worldwide shortages. There’s also a dearth of people trained to fly them. Yet efforts have been made to resurrect the airship, chief among them the U.S. Army’s Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle, which was designed to float above the battlefield, providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance for ground forces (the project was scrapped in 2013). Today, some experts call for a return to airships, but for now they remain part of a lighter-than-air future that never was.

 

Airships could make a comeback because of climate change.

 

In terms of speed and safety, airplanes have largely outpaced airships, but there is one metric where airships still reign — efficiency. Scientists have dreamed up many ways to slowly wean ourselves off fossil fuels (think solar panels, wind turbines, and electric cars), but airplanes remain a conundrum. Some estimates project that by 2050, 27% of the world’s carbon budget (under targets developed to keep the global temperature rise below a 1.5 degree Celsius increase from pre-industrial levels) could come from aviation. That’s why some researchers have begun reexamining the airship. Because of its buoyancy and ability to ride the global jetstreams, airships use significantly less fuel. One ambitious airship company says its dirigibles could run at only 8% of the fuel cost of a typical jet airliner. Because of safety issues and long travel times, airships would only be practical for short-distance commercial flights or for hauling cargo, but they could still have a significant place in a greener future.

 

 

Source: There are Only About 25 Blimps Left in the World