January 2010
31 posts
9 tags
sExtinct (1/31/10)
This is true. There is an organization called VHEMT (the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement) that wants, well, the voluntary extinction of humans. VHEMT’s motto is “May we live long and die out.” To paraphrase their objective, their website states that they will have succeeded when every human chooses to stop breeding, and Earth’s biosphere returns to its former glory. ...
10 tags
Idiotic Idiom (1/30/10)
We’ve all heard the idiom “to let the cat out of the bag” after someone spills the beans (another idiom for another time). But how does letting a cat out of this said bag somehow symbolize the telling of a secret? Well, in the Medieval days, pigs were sold and traded at markets. To keep the piglets secure, they were sold in tightly tied bags. Sketchy pig traders would...
9 tags
Italian Stallion (1/29/10)
Lisa Gherardini has one of the most recognizable faces in the world. In the 16th century, her husband hired some schmo named Leonardo da Vinci to paint a portrait of her (he better have got some good Renaissance-style lovin’ for this romantic gift). Not much is known about Lisa Gherardini (also known as Lisa del Giocondo), but most history indicates she lived a pretty normal, middle-class...
7 tags
Three-Inch Disk (1/28/10)
Within in the next century, more than half of the world’s spoken languages will disappear. To preserve the languages and to provide comparative linguistic research of the lost languages in the future, the Long Now Foundation has created the Rosetta Disk (named after the Rosetta Stone, which, created over 2000 years ago, helped linguists decipher hieroglyphics). The Rosetta Disk is a 3-inch...
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Pee Wee German (1/27/10)
Today I learned that every noun is capitalized in the German language. German spelling reforms even occurred in 1996 that made the capitalization system more consistent; it ensured that every noun was capitalized, even nouns in expressions (to ride a Bike). Unlike English, the first-person-singular pronoun (‘I’ in English) is lower case (ich), unless it starts a sentence. Thanks to...
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Pucker Up (1/26/10)
One way to try to beat a polygraph machine (lie detector, for the layman) is to flex your anal sphincter muscles. If you pucker your brown eye during the control questions you can throw off the consistency of the readings by creating blood pressure changes. You should note, however, that now some lie detectors come equipped with a pressure sensitive seat that will detect these anal...
6 tags
Loser Bowl (1/25/10)
From 1960 to 1969, the NFL had an additional game at the end of the season. The Playoff Bowl, officially named the Bert Bell Benefit Bowl, featured teams playing for 3rd place. The game is named after Bert Bell, who was the NFL Commissioner from 1946 until his death at a Eagles-Steelers game in 1959. Why did they feel fit to name the 3rd place game after him? I can imagine the eulogy. We will...
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Jump Around (1/24/10)
The average NBA player has a vertical jump of 28 inches, slightly smaller than the rims on the average NBA player’s Escalade.
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88 mph (1/23/10)
On September 1, 1985, after 9 days of sweeping the monotonous ocean floor, Bob Ballard and his crew discovered the RMS Titanic, with the help of the deep-sea rover Argo. Incredibly, Ballard’s discovery was overshadowed by another scientist’s even more astonishing discovery the same year. Yes, also in 1985, Dr. Emmett “Doc” Brown invented the flux capacitor and with it,...
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Putting the "Fun" in Fundamentalism (1/22/10)
The four fundamental forces that enable life in our universe are the strong nuclear force (which helps quarks bind together to form protons and neutrons and thus atomic nuclei), the electromagnetic force (without it we wouldn’t have light among other things), gravity (without it there would be no force to coalesce matter into planets and galaxies), and the weak nuclear force (which enables...
4 tags
They're melting...MELTING! (1/21/10)
I always hear people telling me that the melting of the polar ice caps will cause the oceans to rise. This is false. In order to float, an iceberg displaces a volume of water which weighs the same as the iceberg. When an ice cube melts in your glass of water does it overflow? No. The melting of ice caps and the rising ocean levels are both results of the heating planet, however. Water is the...
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More Quarantine, Please! (1/20/10)
We’ve all been quarantined at least once in our lives…(that’s a lie)…but have you ever wondered where the word quarantine comes from? Well, it comes from the Italian word quaranta meaning “forty.” In the 1660s, it was Venitian custom to keep ships arriving from diseased countries waiting off its port for 40 days. In the 1500s, the word had a different...
4 tags
The Worst Alarm Clock (1/19/10)
Since 1947, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists of the University of Chicago have maintained and controlled the Doomsday Clock. This symbolic clock tracks earth’s proximity to total destruction— the closer to midnight, the closer to annihilation. Originally, this clock represented the threat of global nuclear war, but since 2007, the Doomsday Clock has considered climate issues and...
3 tags
Time to reconsider? (1/18/10)
Did you know that the percentage of people who felt religion was an important part of daily life in Mississippi (85%) is higher than the people of Iran (83%)? Based on information gathered in 2007, 2008, and 2009 Gallup polls, a list was compiled of the most and least religious countries. The poll asked the question, “Is religion an important part of your daily life?” A handful of...
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The Podium Of Countries (1/17/10)
I always hear about First World Countries and Third World Countries, but I never really hear about the Second World Countries. I wanted to find out more about the Silver-medal countries. The placement of countries into different “worlds” started after World War II when the world split into two large geopolitical blocs. The first bloc refers to the First World, which includes...
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A Legacy Of Incompetence (1/16/10)
The Mendoza Line. It’s not a political border between the United States and Mexico. It’s the threshold of batting incompetence in baseball. Batters who hit below the Mendoza Line (.200) are smacked with the label of being inept at the plate. The player unfortunate enough to symbolize crappiness is Mario Mendoza, a now retired shortstop. To his credit, he actually averaged above...
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Wingman (1/15/10)
Have you ever wondered why planes don’t fall out of the air? You probably had a basic understanding of how speed combined with wings led to flight. Well, that’s it. The key to flight is the shape of the wing. The bottom of the wing is flat, while the top of the wing is curved (like half a water droplet on its side and made out of metal). When the air goes over the curved top of...
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Fun with Hypochondriacs (1/14/10)
Hypochondria refers to an unwarranted, excessive worry about having a serious illness. Hypochondriacs often focus on one specific symptom such as stomach problems or muscle weakness. They typically discredit the doctor’s healthy diagnosis, and resort to self-diagnosis, which often points them to serious, morbid illnesses. The term hypochondria comes from the Greek hypo- below, and...
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The Nile Denial (1/13/10)
Contrary to popular belief, the well-known Egyptian Pyramids, such as the Great Pyramid of Giza, were not built using slave labor. In fact, the Great Pyramid was constructed by tens of thousands of skilled workers who worked for a fixed salary. Typically, slaves were prisoners of war. Egypt was not engaged in many wars during the construction of the Pyramid, thus there wouldn’t be any...
3 tags
Hitler sucked (1/12/10)
The Nobel Prize was created in 1885 by Swedish inventor Alfred Bernhard Nobel (invented dynamite). Awards are given in the following categories: Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. The winner earns a laureate, a gold medal, a diploma, and money. In 2009, 10 Million SEK (Swedish Krona) was given to each winner. This is about 1.5 million US dollars. The amount of...
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President Vilsack? (1/11/10)
Tom Vilsack. You may know him as the Secretary of Agriculture. Or you may have never heard of him. But what if I told you that he was 9th in line to become President of the United States if 8 very important people croak or resign. As we know, if the President dies or resigns, the Vice-President takes over (as stated in the 25th Amendment). But if the Veep bites it too, we have to start...
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Geocentric Universe (1/10/10)
We are so lucky. I mean, just think about it. There are around 100 billion stars in our galaxy and 100 billion galaxies in the universe. It can be assumed that a great majority of the stars have orbiting planets. This means that there are around a billion billion planets in the universe (and that’s a conservative estimate). I just think it’s so fortunate that out of a billion...
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I want to go CSI on this room (1/9/10)
Currently, I am on vacation in Florida. The place where I am staying considers itself a “resort.” I thought resorts were supposed to be nice. This place is the opposite of nice. I wanted to really learn what separates resorts, hotels, motels, and inns so I hit up the dictionary. According to dictionary.com, a resort is a place where people stay for relaxation and recreation. A...
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A Little Intersection For You (1/8/10)
When I think trivia, I think game show. I should be thinking MapQuest. Trivia is the plural for the Latin trivium, which means “the place where three roads meet” (tri- three/ via- road). Roman Emperor Augustus set up a messenger network throughout the Roman Empire. Couriers would travel from province to province spreading news. At crossroads, the couriers would post signs carrying...
3 tags
Newfound Responsibility (1/7/10)
You have a 100% chance(?) of dying. So that’s comforting… According to the National Safety Council, your chances of dying in an accident are 1 in 36. Auto accident 1 in 81. Death by firearm 1 in 202. Death by poisoning 1 in 344. Death from a falling object 1 in 4,873. Death from drowning while you bathe 1 in 10,455. Death from suffocation due to a plastic bag 1 in 130,498. ...
3 tags
Urophagia (1/6/10)
The US Army strongly advises against drinking your own urine as a means of hydration. According to them, you shouldn’t drink your own pee even when you feel the most dehydrated. At this point you’re going to die anyway. Don’t die knowing you just peed into your own mouth. That’s no way to go out.
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USA! USA! (1/5/10)
Because our orbit around the Sun is elliptical, Earth is closest to the Sun in January (the perihelion) and farthest away in June (the aphelion). This may seem weird, but it’s because of our northern-hemisphere cockiness. January is American for winter. January is Australian for summer. Foster’s is Australian for beer.
3 tags
Coach, my polio is actin' up again (1/4/10)
Poliomyelitis comes from the Greek polios, meaning “gray,” myelos referring to the spinal cord, and the suffix -itis means inflammation. But on the streets, we just call it “polio.” 90% of people who contract the polio virus show absolutely no symptoms at all. An unfortunate 1% will have their central nervous system affected and their motor neurons destroyed. These...
4 tags
Got Milk? Got Diarrhea? (1/3/10)
The prevalence of lactose intolerance is extremely interesting…not extremely…but notable, anyhow. Lactose intolerance is way more common in people of African descent that in people of European descent. As babies, we all have the enzyme lactase that breaks down the lactose in breast milk. But once we reach the age when our moms’ boobs don’t look so appetizing, our bodies...
2 tags
The King Of Mnemonic Devices (1/2/10)
The main English royal dynasties were, in this order, the houses of Norman, Plantagenet, Lancaster, York, Tudor, Stuart, Hanover, and Windsor. There is a very simple way to remember this. NORMAN is the 3rd largest city in Oklahoma, which is on the PLANtagenET Earth. The most elitist snob on Earth is a man named LANCASTER YORK and instead of sending his snooty children to a normal high school,...
3 tags
Hypothermia, The Great Icebreaker (1/1/10)
Today, I used a hatchet to clear a hole in the ice of my frozen lake. I lowered myself in, then immediately sprung back out of the icy water. I think the pure force of my testicles instantaneously retracting into my body helped propel me out of the water. According to the Mayo Clinic Online, hypothermia occurs when your body temperature drops below 95 degrees (F). It is often accompanied by...