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.