Interesting Tab

INTERESTING - FEBUARY

2/17/25
Strange Things About Space

Astronomers suspect that the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is the remains of a planet that either failed to form or was torn apart by the enormous gravitational pull of Jupiter.

The most distant objects in the known universe are quasars: stars that send out powerful radio waves. Because their distance makes them so ancient, quasars provide astronomers with extremely valuable information about the birth of the universe.

Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because the methane gas released while passing wind can damage spacesuit material.

February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.

It takes three minutes for the sunlight that is reflected from the moon to reach our eyes.

 

2/6/25
Just Stuff Q&A

Q: How did John Chapman transform himself into a part of American folklore?

A: Massachusetts born John Chapman (1774 to 1845) was a practical nursery man who, in the waning years of the eighteenth century, went westward. Until shortly before his death, he planted hundreds of apple orchards all over the Midwest, and distributed free seeds and religious literature everywhere he traveled. A symbol of generosity, austerity, and the American spirit, he became renowned as "Johnny Appleseed."

 

Q: Who was Parson Weems and what was his most famous lie?

A: Hoping to increase sales of his biography of George Washington, 19th-century preacher and book peddler Mason Locke Weems invented a now-ubiquitous story of the future president cutting down a cherry tree. Today, Weems is best remembered for this fib.

 

Q: Every year on November 5, England celebrates Guy Fawkes Day with bonfires and fireworks. Who was Guy Fawkes and why all the ruckus?

A: Guy Fawkes was a member of a group that plotted to blow up the British Parliament building in 1605. However, the revolutionary plan went for naught: Informed of the conspiracy, the government searched adjacent areas and Fawkes, who had fuses and kindling in his pockets, was arrested. He and other confederates were tried and executed, but every year since, on November 5, the English have celebrated not being blown sky high.

 

2/5/25
Just Stuff

St. Pantaleone was once the patron saint of Venice, Italy. He was later depicted in a play as a silly old man who wore long trousers. From the play, trousers were called pantaloons, later shortened to pants.

The Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey, in London, England, contains the remains of many great writers and poets. This includes the ashes of Thomas Hardy. But his heart is not there. It is buried in a grave at Stinsford, in Dorset.

Kulang, China, runs seven centers for recycled toothpicks. People rummage through garbage cans to find toothpicks. They wash them, check for splinters, and are paid the equivalent of thirty-five cents a pound for usable toothpicks.

When you watch the Mehter band of the Turkish army on parade, their costumes will seem strange. That's because they are styled after those worn by soldiers during the sixteenth century. The Mehter band happens to be the oldest military band in the world.

 

2/3/25
Early Medicine Egyptian Style

Ancient Egyptian physicians treated night blindness by mashing an ox liver into a paste and frying it pancake style. Ox liver is known today to be rich a rich source of vitamin A, which is important for the health of the eyes.

Some language experts believe that the word chemistry comes from the word "Kemet," the ancient name for Egypt. Maybe this is because the Egyptians were such great mixers of potions.

Some basic Egyptian medicines were made from sulfur, antimony, and zinc, which are ground into powder and used as eye and skin ointments. More than 150 kinds of plants were used, such as senna, sycamore, castor oil, acacia gum, mint, and linseed.

The Egyptians used yeast internally to treat indigestion and externally to treat leg ulcers.

 

INTERESTING - JANUARY

1/30/25
Who Knew?

Did you know vinegar can do this?

Vinegar can get rid of swimmer's ear, a bacterial infection of the ear canal. Dab a solution of one part vinegar and five parts warm water into each ear three times a day. The vinegar will defend against the bacteria that causes the infection.

If you are stung by a wasp apply cider vinegar to the area with a cotton ball and the sting will diminish.

Vinegar can remove stains in clay and plastic flower pots. Fill the kitchen sink with two-thirds water and one-third vinegar, and soak the pots. It'll take about an hour but then they’ll be as good as new. Make sure to wash them with soap and water before using.

Does your dishwasher have a soapy film coating? Run it on an empty cycle using vinegar instead of detergent.

 

1/29/25
Let's Talk Planets Facts about Jupiter

Because Jupiter is the most massive planet in the solar system, it also has the strongest gravity.

The strong gravity has helped Jupiter earn the "most moons of the solar system" title. Many a stray asteroid has passed too close to this gas giant and been captured by its gravity.

Strong gravity also means that you would weigh more on Jupiter. On Earth, your weight is determined by the amount of mass in your body and the amount of gravity Earth is exerting on that mass.

If you were to travel to Jupiter, your body mass wouldn't change, but you would feel a great deal heavier because Jupiter's gravity is more than twice as strong as Earth's.

Just how much would you weigh? A 100 pound (43.3 kg) person would weigh 253 pounds (114.7 kg). To find your Jupiter weight, multiply your Earth weight by 2.53.

1/27/25
Stuff About ~ Military/War

During the American war of Independence, which country contributed the most soldiers to fight alongside the British?

The country that contributed the most soldiers to fight with the British against Washington was America itself. By 1779, there were more Americans fighting alongside the British then with the colonists. Washington had about thirty-five hundred troops, but because one third of the American population opposed the revolution, up to eight thousand loyalists either moved to Canada or joined the British Army.

 

What exactly is a "last-ditch stand"?

In the sixteenth century, when an army attacked a walled city or fortress, they would advance by digging a series of trenches for protection until they were close enough to storm the walls. If there was a successful counterattack, the invaders would retreat by attempting to hold each trench in the reverse order from which they had advanced until they might find themselves fighting from the "last ditch." If they failed to hold that one, the battle was lost.

 

Where did the expression "the whole nine yards" come from?

During the South Pacific action of the Second World War, American fighter planes’ machine guns were armed on the ground with .50 caliber ammunition belts that measured exactly 27 feet, or 9 yards, in length before being loaded into the fuselage. If, during mortal combat, a pilot gave everything he had by firing all his ammunition at a single target, it was said he'd given it "the whole nine yards."

 

What is the origin of the twenty-one-gun salute?

All salutes are signals of voluntary submission. Early warriors simply placed their weapons on the ground, but when guns came along, the ritual of firing off or emptying cannons was done to illustrate to approaching foreign dignitaries that they had nothing to fear. In 1688, the Royal Navy regulated the number of guns to be used in saluting different ranks. For a Prime Minister, nineteen guns should be used, but for royalty or heads of state, the salute should be done with twenty-one guns.

1/23/25
Mountains

K2, the second highest mountain on earth after Mount Everest, was named by Thomas Montgomeie in a geological survey he did in 1856. He called this K2 because it was the second peak he charted in the Karakoram mountain range of Pakistan, India, and China. ("K" for "Karakoram"; "2" representing the second peak.) When it was discovered that the local people had no particular name for the enormous yet remote mountain, the name K2 stuck.

Although K2 is not as high as Mount Everest, it's more treacherous. As of June 2008, Everest had 3684 ascents and 210 fatalities in its history. K2 had 284 ascents and 66 fatalities.

Annapurna 1 is the most dangerous of the mountains known as "8000ers" (so named because they are higher than 8000 meters or 26,246.72 feet). As of June 2008, 153 people had tried ascents and 58 had perished in the attempt. Annapurna 1, which is located in Nepal, is the tenth highest mountain on earth.

 

1/22/25
Just Stuff Q & A

Q: What was Fred Astaire's real name?

A: Frederick Austerlitz. The agile dancer/film star was born in Omaha, Nebraska on May 10, 1899.

 

Q: Who was Andre Celsius?

A: Andre Celsius (1701 – 1744) was a Swedish astronomer, physicist, and mathematician who is best remembered today for his development of the centigrade temperature scale. According to this convenient scale, zero represents the freezing point of water and 100° marks the boiling point of water. The phrase "degrees Celsius" still pays tribute to this short-lived genius.

 

Q: Who was Jethro Tull?

A: Jethro Tull (1674 – 1741) was an English inventor and agricultural writer. He authored the popular Horse-Hoeing Husbandry (1733) and, in 1701, reinvented seed drill. (The ancient Babylonians had preceded his discovery by about two millennia with a primitive version of a seed drill.) Before Tull’s invention, most seed was still planted by throwing the seed by hand.

            The Jethro Tull most of us know best is an English rock band led by flutist Ian Anderson. When the group formed in 1968, it whimsically borrowed Tull’s name.

 

Q: Which U.S. president was born with the name Leslie Lynch King?

A: Gerald R. Ford. After his parents divorced and his mother remarried, he was adopted and renamed after his stepfather, Gerald R. Ford Sr..

 

Interesting 1/20/25
Customs

In general, there are no family surnames in Iceland. The country uses a patriarchal naming system, which means that children's surnames are formed from the Christian name of their father and the addition of –son for boys and –dottir for girls. Suppose that Jon Einarsson has a son named Stefan and daughter named Helga. Stefan becomes Stefan Jonson and Helga becomes Helga Jonsdottir. When Miss Jonsdottir marries she does not take her husband's surname, but it is styled Mrs. Jonsdottir. While this is not confusing to Icelandic families, it does cause wonder when Icelanders travel abroad and all members of the family register at a hotel under different names.

 

What is so special about the fourth finger on the left hand? Why does that finger get to wear the wedding ring?

            In ancient times according to some experts, the right-hand was the symbol of power and authority, the left-hand of subjugation. That would explain the ring being placed on the left hand – a token of subordination to the other party.

            But why the fourth finger of the left hand? The ancient Greeks had a superstition that a certain vein passed directly from the finger to the heart, which may have started the custom.

            But there really may be a simpler reason: It is the least used of all fingers – so it's not inconvenient to wear an ornament on it.

 

1/16/25
Some Animal Facts

A cricket must be full grown before it can chirp. Only then are its wings large enough and thick enough to produce a chirping sound when rubbed together.

Two of the spiders that are most poisonous to humans are the black widow and the brown recluse. You can recognize the black widow by the red hourglass marking on its side. The brown recluse spider is somewhat smaller (it's body and legs cover the size of a large coin), and it has a fiddle or violin marking on its back.

The poison of a female black widow spider is more potent than that of a rattlesnake.

The daddy longlegs spider releases a foul-smelling chemical from the front of its body as a defense against predators. This chemical can cause serious allergic reactions in susceptible individuals.

1/15/20
Let's Talk Planets Facts about Jupiter

Astronomers think there might be an Earth-size solid core in the center of Jupiter.

So how can there be a solid core the size of our own planet and no surface for a spacecraft to land on? Easy.

For one thing, if Jupiter were hollow, it could hold 1,400 Earths. So, one Earth sized object inside the gigantic planet really isn't such a big deal.

For another thing, any spacecraft trying to reach this solid core would have to plunge through more than 40,000 miles (65,000 km) of super dense gas to get to it.

The Galileo probe, which plunged into Jupiter on December 7, 1995, made it only 120 miles (200 km) into the clouds before it was destroyed by the incredible pressure. If it were to continue on to the core, the probe would have had to travel another 39,880 miles (64,800 km).

    Note: just because this core is Earth size doesn't mean it is anything like our planet.

Located in the center of Jupiter, where the pressure is millions of times greater than what we find on earth and the temperature is several thousand degrees, this core would be a super dense, superhot mass.

 

1/13/25
Why An Animal?

Why do we call a predictable trial a "kangaroo court"?

The expression "kangaroo court" came out of Texas in the 1850s. It meant that the accused’s guilt was predetermined and that the trial was a mere formality before punishment. Kangaroo was a Texas reference to Australia, a former British penal colony where everyone had been guilty of something, and so if a convict were accused of a new crime, there would be no doubt of his guilt.

 

When a person is upset why do we say someone's "got his goat"?

When someone "gets your goat," it usually means you've lost your temper or become angry enough to be distracted. It's a term that came from a horse trainer's practice of putting a goat in a stall with a skittish racehorse to keep him calm before a big race. An opponent or gambler might arrange for the goat to be removed by a stable boy, which would upset the horse and its owner and so reduce their chances of winning.

 

Why is something useless and expensive called a "white elephant"?

The term white elephant comes from ancient Siam, where no one but the king could own a rare and sacred albino, or white, elephant without royal consent. The cost of keeping any elephant, white or otherwise, was tremendous, and so when the king found displeasure with someone, he would make him a gift of a white elephant, and because the animal was sacred and couldn't be put to work, the cost of its upkeep would ruin its new owner.

 

Why do we call a leg injury a "charley horse"?

The phrase charley horse has its roots in baseball. At the beginning of the twentieth century, groundskeepers often used old and lame horses to pull the equipment used to keep the playing field in top condition. The Baltimore Orioles had a player named Charlie Esper, who, after years of injuries, walked with pain. Because his limp reminded his teammates of the groundskeeper’s lame horse, they called Esper "Charley Horse."

 

1/9/25
More Stuff

In Superman comics, one of the few things that can defeat our hero is a strange metal called kryptonite that comes from the planet Krypton. Although the gas krypton exists, kryptonite does not.

 Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who created, wrote, and drew the original Superman, sold the rights to the character to DC Comics for $130 in 1938. Several years later, after the company had reaped millions from the Superman franchise, Siegel and Shuster tried to claim a share of the profits. Instead they were fired.

            It took until 2009 for the Siegel and Shuster families to win a court case allowing them to reclaim the rights to Superman.

1/8/25
Just Stuff Q&A

Q: Where did the MoonPie first see the light of day?

A: The original marshmallow sandwich was first served in 1917 at a bakery in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It is said that the inventor, Earl Mitchell, Sr., named the MoonPie because of a conversation with miners: When asked about how big this lunch-pail treat should be, the workers pointed at the huge, full moon.

 

Q: Which candy bar is the oldest: Snickers, Oh Henry!, Mr. Goodbar, or Three Musketeers?

A: Oh Henry!, Which first hit candy stands in1921, is the oldest of these three candy bars. Mr. Goodbar (1925), Snickers (1930), and Three Musketeers (1932) all came later.

 

Q: When did Mickey Mouse club first appear on TV?

A: The Mickey Mouse Club TV series premiered on October 3, 1955, but the Mouseketeers made their first television appearance a few months earlier; on July 17, 1955, on the ABC broadcast special celebrating the opening of Disneyland.

 

Q: The following public figures have one thing in common: Fred Astaire, Dick Cheney, Warren Buffet, Sandy Dennis, and Malcolm X. What is it?

A: All five celebrities were born in Nebraska.

1/6/25
Interesting/Odd Facts About the Human Body

Your brain weighs about three times as much as your heart.

The pupil of the eye only appears to be black; it is actually a hole in the middle of the iris. The pupil looks black because the retina, which lies behind it, is dark in color, and because the amount of light inside the eye is small compared to the amount of light outside.

For the first forty days of the growth of a fetus within the womb, it has no fingers or toes – only flippers. The fingers separate around the fiftieth day, and the toes form a week later.

Did you know that your brain has two halves, called hemispheres? The right one controls the left side of your body, and the left one controls the right side of your body.

 

1/2/25
Some Animal Facts

When you disturb an ant, it secretes a chemical signal called a pheromone that rapidly defuses through the air. Within a certain radius of the ant, the pheromone conveys the message "Flee!" to other ants. Outside the radius, the message changes to "Close in and attack!"

An ordinary black ant can lift fifty times its own weight and pull thirty times its own weight.

An ant always falls over on its right side when poisoned with an insecticide.

Ants never sleep.

 

1/1/25
Let's Talk Planets Facts about Jupiter

Jupiter is made up almost entirely of gas – hydrogen and helium gases, that is. Not the kind we use in our cars. :-)

Hydrogen makes up about 86% of Jupiter, while helium makes up another 13% of the giant planet – which leaves little room for anything solid.

A spacecraft trying to land on the planet would simply plunge deeper and deeper into the clouds.

The deeper it fell, the thicker the clouds and the greater the pressure. Eventually, the pressure from all that gas pushing in on it would completely destroy the spacecraft. The crushed wreckage would remain floating within Jupiter's clouds, which is exactly what happened to the Galileo probe in 1995.