Ha Ha Ha

Whoever said "laughter is the best medicine" was onto something. Laughter is good for the blood vessels, the heart, and the immune system. It can lower blood sugar in diabetics. Laughter can reduce pain. It also works out the muscles of the torso and face. It is estimated that 100 laughs equals 10 minutes on a rowing machine.

Humans are not the only animals that laugh. Chimps, gorillas, orangatans, and bonobos have all been known to laugh. Rats laugh at a pitch higher than the human ear can hear. The hyena is well known for its laughing noises, and it's cousin the dog laughs, too. A dog's laugh sounds a lot like panting.

Space Cadet

For astronauts, space travel can be demanding both mentally and physically. The human body undergoes several changes in zero gravity. As you can imagine, a person's sense of balance would be the first thing to go. This combined with the lack of pressure on any of the muscles is disorienting. Because the muscles are not needed as much, the body atrophies. The bones get weaker, too. The legs in particular get thinner. The heart usually relies on gravity to help pump blood into the legs, and without gravity, the legs get less blood flow. The upper body and head get extra blood, making the face puffy and the veins bulge. Some astronauts get sinus congestion, or they get headaches. The spine lengthens since there is no weight to compress it. This decompression sometimes causes backaches.

Still, it would have to be pretty cool to go into outer space.

Continents

Every continent on Earth is wider to the north and narrower to the south (Antarctica might be excluded from this). Nobody is sure why.

The Butterfly Effect

In 1961, Edward Lorenz was trying to prove that a relatively new invention called the computer could be used to predict the weather. He set up a program with a very simplified representation of the atmosphere. This consisted of a few heat exchange equations that were iterative--input one number, get an output, the output is then input, and so on.

After a the program had been running for a little while, Edward actually started to see a pattern in numbers. This was really exciting news! It meant that it was perhaps not impossible, as people had so far thought, to accurately predict the weather even a long time in advance! Imagine never getting rained out of a ball game ever again, or imagine knowing when a hurricane would strike New Orleans.

Then the computer crashed one day. Once it was back up and running, Edward took the last number from the paper readout of his program and input it back into the program. The mock weather patterns in the computer should have behaved just as predictably as they had before, but they went seemingly haywire after a few iterations and behaved entirely differently.

What happened? Surely with the input of the last output of numbers, the program should have resumed its familiar patterns. Actually, Edward soon realized that the paper output only printed the numbers to three decimal spaces in order to save space. The computer program itself recorded the numbers to six decimal spaces. Would a miniscule millionth of a unit really have an effect? Yes. Over time, that tiny fraction would multiply and make a bigger and bigger difference.

Thus, Edward Lorenz concluded that it would be impossible to accurately predict the weather in the real world because nobody could ever account for all of the tiny variations in air currents that would multiply to affect weather patterns. Put more eloquently, a butterfly flapping it's wings in Brazil could cause a tornado in Texas a month later.

This idea of little variations that make big differences came to be known as the Butterfly Effect.

Deus Ex Machina

The Ancient Greeks were famous for theater. One of the more famous tragedy writers, Euripides, had a knack for writing his characters into hopeless situations. Then one of the gods would sweep down from Mount Olympus and save the day. On stage, an actor playing the god would be lowered into the scene by a crane. This plot device came to be known by the Latin "deus ex machina"--literally, "god from a machine".

If you look, you can still find a deus ex machina or two in modern storylines. The term still applies when it is a person, thing, or nature that saves the day. When Fawkes the phoenix flew in to save Harry Potter in The Chamber of Secrets, that would be a deus ex machina. Another example is in War of the Worlds when the aliens that have been killing everybody die from a common virus.

Bless You

The ancient Greeks believed that sneezes were signs from the gods.

In Indian culture, sneezing right before the start of some type of work is a bad omen that the job will have some negative interruption. It is advised to wait a little while and then start the work without sneezes.

In Japan, a sneeze without an obvious cause means someone is talking about you behind your back. One sneeze means something good is being said about you, and two sneezes in a row mean something bad is being said about you.

In Medieval times, Europeans believed that a person's heart stops when they sneezed. Saying "God bless you" would make it start beating again.

I dub thee Sir Loin...

Legend has it that King Charles II loved a certain cut of steak so much that he dubbed it "Sir Loin", and that's how sirloin steaks got the name. Actually, sirloin comes from the Middle French word for the steak, surlong. Eventually surlong evolved into surloin, and in the eighteenth century emerged as sirloin.

Happy Black Friday

Today is the day after Thanksgiving, and that means it's the official first day of the Christmas shopping season. Black Friday is notorious as the biggest shopping day of the year, although the Saturday before Christmas is usually actually busier.

Perhaps Black Friday seems like the busiest day because people line up outside of stores or elbow their way through shops to snatch and grab at the best deals. PS3s are supposed to be the hottest item this year. The term "Black Friday" surfaced in the 1970s because retail and transportation workers hate to deal with all of the stressed-out shoppers the day brings out.

As for me, the deals certainly are not good enough to fight the crowds. Good luck if you go shopping this weekend!

Happy Thanksgiving!

In 1789, President George Washington declared November 26th to be Thanksgiving Day and issued a national Thanksgiving Proclamation for the country's having "been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed...." However, the holiday didn't really catch on at first. Over the next 30 years, only 6 Thanksgiving Proclamations were issued.

In a few years, though, a woman named Sarah Josepha Hale began lobbying for a national holiday of Thanksgiving on the last Thursday in November. She wrote editorials in the popular Godey's Lady's Book until President Abraham Lincoln made her wish come true. Since the establishment of the holiday in 1863, the Presidency has issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation every year.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Sunday Bloody Sunday is more than a U2 song. Bloody Sunday was an actual event that happened on November 21, 1920, in Dublin, Ireland. On that morning, 14 British agents in the Irish War for Independence were killed by the Irish Republican Army. That afternoon, British soldiers opened fire at a Gaelic football game, killing 15 civilians. There were other random shootings that day as well.

The British and Irish are pretty peaceful today, even in Northern Ireland where there has been conflict up until recent years. Bloody Sunday is being commemorated this year by Dublin and Tipperary in Clonmel with a Gaelic football rematch.

Somewhere Over the....

Perhaps the most famous legend about rainbows is that Leprechauns hide their gold at the end of the rainbow. This is impossible, of course, as rainbows are only an optical illusion and move with the viewer.

The Greeks believed that rainbows were streaks made by the messenger Iris as she traveled between heaven and earth. In fact, the Spanish word for rainbow is arcoiris.

Chinese mythology states that rainbows happen when the goddess Nüwa seals up a rip in the sky using five different colored stones. For Hindus, lightning is the thunder god's bow. In Christian lore, the rainbow was God's promise to Noah that he wouldn't need the ark anymore.

Wake Up!

Here's the caffeine content per serving of various drinks:

coffee 115 to 175 mg caffeine (per 7 oz.)
decaf coffee 5 mg (6 oz.)
espresso 100 mg (1.5-2 oz.)
black tea 70 mg (6 oz.)
green tea 35 mg (6 oz.)
Coca-Cola Classic 34 mg (12 oz.)
Diet Coke 45 mg (12 oz.)
Mountain Dew 55 mg (12 oz.)
Dr Pepper 41 mg (12 oz.)
Pepsi 38 mg (12 oz.)
Red Bull 80 mg (8.3 oz.)
Powershot 100 mg (1 oz.)

Something with a little bite...

I love spicy food. The chemical that causes your mouth to burn so is called capsaicin, and it is only found in chili peppers. Originally used to help preserve meat, capsaicin has other uses besides livening up your tacos. Capsaicin is the active ingredient in pepper spray, some arthritis medicines, and some garden pest sprays. Research suggests that capsaicin may also fight cancer.

Polly wanna cracker?

Possibly the smartest bird in the world is the African Grey Parrot. While many parrots can mimic human speech, African Greys can learn what the words mean. A woman named Aimee Morgana has an African Grey Parrot named N'kisi that speaks in sentences and knows around a thousand words. These birds' potential for language may be due to their behavior of feeding on the ground cooperatively in the wild of Central Africa. African Greys make incredibly cool but high-maintenance pets. They bond only with one person and require several hours outside the cage each day.

Pink Flamingos

There are more plastic flamingos in the United States than real flamingos. Plastic pink flamingos were first introduced as lawn ornaments by Union Products in the late 1950's. The original flamingos were designed by Don Featherstone. They had his signature on their bottoms, beaks of yellow and black, and were sold only in pairs. Because hot pink was in style in the 1950's, pink flamingos were fairly popular with the suburban crowd. Since then, pink flamingos have fluctuated in popularity while still retaining their nice, tacky kitsch.

In my not-so-humble opinion, pink flamingos will never be nearly as tacky as the 2-D "Granny Fanny" lawn ornaments.

Now, That's Service

When an engineer determines the size of the beams he's putting into a building, the deciding factor is not always the amount of weight put on the beam. A beam may be more than strong enough to carry the weight put on it, yet still bend a quite a bit with that weight. This bending, called deflection, is especially apparent in wood beams. Deflections of even an inch are very noticeable to humans. Furthermore, when people walk across a floor that deflects and bounces a bit with their footsteps, they tend to get a little freaked out, even if the floor is perfectly safe and in no danger of failing. Thus, engineers usually make their beams bigger than they need to be in order to decrease deflection and make the inhabitants of the building feel more comfortable. They call this serviceability.

"Milk's Favorite Cookie"

My favorite dunkin' cookie is undoubtedly the Oreo. Oreos have been in production for nearly a century, long enough for the origins of the name to be lost to time. There are, however, theories. "Oreos" means beautiful in Greek. Or perhaps the name was based on "Oros", the Greek word for mountain. The first Oreos were mound-shaped. Maybe "Or" was taken from the French word for gold, since Oreos were originally sold in gold tins with glass tops. Some think the name is some chopped up, sandwiched mishmash of the words "cream" and "chocolate". Still others think "Oreo" was chosen just because the word sounds cool.

See Appendix

The vermiform appendix is a wormy-looking structure tacked on to the large intestine where it meets the small intestine. Doctor's still aren't sure what the appendix is for. Many people have had appendectomies without any noticeable health complications, and a few people are even born without an appendix. The appendix is likely a vestigial organ, which means that whatever species we evolved from needed an appendix for something, and humans just haven't evolved past having one yet. Our evidence for this is that Old World Monkeys have a more developed appendix than we do. Some think that our primate ancestors used the appendix as an extra intestinal structure for digesting leaves.

Some doctors believe that the appendix still has some uses for humans. Endocrine cells have been found in fetal appendices, suggesting that the appendix is useful for development of biological control mechanisms. Adult appendices are usually full of lymphatic cells, and the appendix may help the immune system in some way. Duke University researchers have found that the appendix can be a hideout for useful bacteria when illness strikes the intestines. At the very least, an appendix can be transplanted to reconstruct an unhealthy bladder or sphincter muscle.

The Mad Hatter's Tale

The character of the Mad Hatter has been popularized by Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, but people were familiar with the Mad Hatter idea before Lewis ever put pen to paper. The phrase "mad as a hatter" likely had origins in the mercury that hatters used to use for softening whalebone for hat brims. Over time, exposure to the mercury would cause brain damage, slurred speech, and distorted eyesight. Advanced mercury poisoning causes psychotic symptoms and hallucinations. Since the process was so gradual, it was a while before people realized why their local hatters were going mad.

Eggs-actly

What may be the most crucial part of your morning eggs? The yolk? The whites? No, the air. All chicken eggs have a little pocket of air between the shell and the goo. This air pocket forms as the contents of the egg cool and contract right after the egg is laid. Eggs are graded based on the amount of air in them. A bright light is shined on one side of the egg, and the size of the air pocket is measured by the shadow on the other side of the egg. The smallest pockets earn the egg a Grade AA.

As an egg ages, the contents contract even more, and air seeps into the pocket through pores in the shell. When the egg goes bad, the pocket is big enough to make the egg float in plain water. Thus if you're worried that you have a spoiled egg, drop it into a glass of water. If the egg sinks, you can eat it.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today I'm turning 24 years old, so I'm sort of taking the day off.

Objects in Looking Glass are Larger than they Appear

Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (a.k.a. micropsia) is a disorder that causes the sufferer to perceive objects as smaller than they really are. These perceptions are sometimes called Lilliputian hallucinations after the little people in Gulliver's Travels.

Alice in Wonderland Syndrome may be caused by migraines, epilepsy, psychoactive drugs, or schizophrenia. The condition affects the brain, not the eyes or any other sense organ. In fact, an object that looks smaller to a person suffering from the syndrome feels smaller, too, even with eyes closed.

The Ultimate Eccentric

Arguably the older generation's Paris Hilton was the eccentric and intriguing Howard Hughes. This aviating record-setter, engineer, film producer and director, and businessman from Texas was one of the wealthiest people in the world. And of course, he had a dark side. Hughes suffered from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (he obsessed about such things as cleanliness, all things Texan, and finagling out of taxes), and he was addicted to codeine, valium, and a few other prescription drugs. The drug abuse left Hughes 's so ravaged that he was a scant 90 lbs. when he died from kidney failure at 70 years old.

Sawing Logs

Men really do snore more than women. Men tend to gain fat around their faces and necks, constricting the airway a bit and causing the structures in there to flap in the breeze. Women are more likely to deposit that fat on their hips and bellies. Furthermore, women tend to have a wider airway anyway.

Smoking and drinking can make people snore more. Also pregnance can swell the lining around the nose and throat, which would cause a woman to snore.

"war began in my dining room and ended in my parlor"

Consider the case of one Wilmer McLean. Wilmer was a simple grocer when the first shots of the American Civil War were fired in his back yard. The First Battle of Bull Run ensued. As you can imagine, Wilmer was uncomfortable, to say the least, with cannonballs taking out his dining room fireplace, so he moved to Appomattox Court House.

Fast forward to 1865, and we get the Battle of Appomattox Court House. The Civil War followed Wilmer McLean right into his parlor, where General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ullyses S. Grant.

In fact, when the surrender document was signed, the Union soldiers started pocketing all of Wilmer's belongings as souvenirs. George Custer got the table upon which the surrender was signed. Wilmer protested this theivery of course, but the soldiers merely gave him cash as they walked out his door.

Hear Me Roar...

Why do classic lion tamers carry a chair around with them in the ring?

Lions' brains work so that they can really only focus their attention on one thing at a time. If a lion starts getting a little too interested in a tamer, the tamer will put a chair between himself and the lion, legs pointed out toward the lion's face. The legs of the chair present to the lion four points of interest. This move confuses the lion a little bit as he is faced with the choice of which leg to focus on, and more importantly, it diverts the lion's attention away from the tamer.

Daylight Saving Time

Daylight Saving Time (not Daylight Savings Time, officially) is when our clocks are shifted one hour later for the summer months in order to have more sunlight in the summer evening hours. The time springs forward one hour in the Spring and falls back into place in the Fall. This hour difference in the summer and winter allows for similar dawn hours for the whole year. Studies show that the practice saves an average of 1% annual energy. Other studies have shown that Daylight Saving Time reduces traffic accidents because the streets are better lit for longer into the evening.

Daylight Saving Time is practiced variably around the world. In the U.S., Daylight Saving Time starts at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday in March and ends at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday in November. The entire European Union changes at 1:00 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time on the last Sunday in March and the last Sunday in October. Areas near the equator do not observe Daylight Saving Time because the daylight hours don't shift as much or even at all during the year. Some nations and a couple of U.S. states choose not to practice Daylight Saving Time. While some people enjoy the extra evening light, others think it unwise to toy with time.

qwertyuiop

The first typewriters had keys laid out in alphabetical order. Unfortunately, fast typists would get adjacent keys tangled when typing them in rapid succession. Seeking to separate common adjacent letters, Christopher Sholes devised the modern QWERTY layout.

Some people think that the QWERTY layout slows typists down, further ensuring that the keys won't get stuck. Arguably the arrangement would help in the two-fingered typing technique.

Midnight Ride and Subsequent Walk

Most American children hear of Paul Revere's midnight ride on April 18, 1775, to warn colonists of the British invasion. Few hear that Revere never actually completed his ride.

The Sons of Liberty had been watching the movements of the British army. When a battle seemed eminent, Dr. Joseph Warren instructed both Revere and William Dawes to ride to Lexington, Massachusets, to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams. Then they were supposed to ride on to Concord where the militia's weapons were stored.

Revere successfully made it to Lexington, making sure two lanterns were placed in the tower of the Old North Church, warning the revolutionaries that the army was advancing "by sea" across the nearby Charles River. At Lexington, Revere met back up with Dawes, who had come by a different route. The two headed to Concord along with Samuel Prescott, but were stopped on the way by British soldiers. Paul Revere was captured, his horse was confiscated, and he was forced to walk back toward Lexington at gunpoint. Dawes escaped, but soon fell off his horse and never made it to Concord. Samuel Prescott got away by jumping his horse over a wall and successfully reached Concord before the battle began.

Some forty years after Paul Revere's death, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned his highly famous yet highly romanticized version of Revere's ride:

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere....

I guess it's too hard to rhyme with "Prescott".

The World's Largest Flower

The world's largest flower is called rafflesia arnoldi. The flower was named after Sir Stamford Raffles, a naturalist who founded the British colony of Singapore. Its petals can be a yard in diameter, and it can weigh up to 15 pounds! The flower only exists in the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra. The flower is much like a fungi, in that it has no stems, leaves, or roots. Rafflesia arnoldi is a parasite that attaches itself directly to Tetrastigma vines.

The common name for the world's largest flower is "corpse flower". The plant is pollinated by flies, so the flower emits the pungent aroma of rotting flesh in order to attract them. Corpse flowers are rare, and extinction may be eminent for these beauties as their natural habitiat continues to be destroyed.