The Origin of Everyday

Many animal species living among us now are remarkably ancient. Among them:

Sunday

With a half-billion year history, jellyfish are far more ancient than the dinosaurs. Despite having no brains, blood, bones, or heart, they’ve outlasted about 99% of all Earth’s other species and survived five mass extinctions events. Today, there are over 2,000 jellyfish species with a remarkable range of size and shapes, and some even glow in the dark.

Monday

Crocodilians have a quarter-billion year history on Earth, and ancestors of modern crocodiles walked amongst the dinosaurs in the Late Triassic period. In our time, the American and Orinoco crocodiles are the largest species at about 20-25 feet in length, but some ancient varieties were twice as long.

Tuesday

Sturgeon have been called “living fossils” for good reason, since their bodies have hardly changed 120 million years. They are the oldest of the bony fish, which first appeared about 419 million years ago and predate the cartilaginous fish which dominate modern waterways. These ancient fish live only in the Northern hemisphere, and the largest sturgeon ever caught was a mammoth 16 feet long and 800 lbs.

Wednesday

Another “living fossil” of the seas, the bizarre frilled shark looks the same as it did 80 million years ago. Growing to nearly 7 feet after a lengthy 3-year gestation period, this unusual shark swims in an eel-like serpentine motion. However, fairly little is known about this shark on account of it living at great depths, with only 40 specimens ever documented.

Thursday

Not many birds stand 6 feet tall, but the ancient cassowary, with a body structure 60 million years old, is one of them. Related to ostriches and emus, this big bird cannot fly but should not be trifled with, since it can swim, run 30 mph, jump 7 feet in the air, and has massive talons.

Friday

Sea turtles, which includes seven species of marine turtles, have been swimming Earth’s waters and clumsily walking its beaches for about 110 million years, well into the time of the dinosaurs. Nowadays, they can be found in all but the polar seas, but still face significant threats to their survival.

Saturday

After first appearing about 170 million years before the dinosaurs, coelacanths were believed to have gone extinct with those big lizards before humans first saw one in 1938. A rare “lobe-finned” fish, its unusually-shaped fins are believed to be evolutionary precursors of the limbs of Earth’s first land vertebrates. If this doesn’t impress you, this fish can grow to be 7 feet long, lives over half a mile below the surface, may live to be a century old, doesn’t sexually mature until about 55, and even inspired the horror classic “Creature From the Black Lagoon.”

About 6% of the world population is indigenous people with long historic connections to their land, despite often being a numerical minority in their countries. Among them, and listed by continent:

Sunday

In northern North America, native groups like Inuit, Aleut, Yupik, and others abound, making Alaska the state with the highest native population at about 20% and the Canadian province Nunavut fully 80% native. Greenland boasts a nearly 90% Greenlandic Inuit population. Further south, the largest native groups are the Cherokee, Navajo, Choctaw, and Blackfeet, though the US Government recognizes nearly 600 individual tribes. In Mexico, about 21% of the population identifies as indigenous, primarily descendants of the powerful Aztec and Mayan civilizations.

Monday

Western South America was once home to the vast Inca empire, the largest pre-Colombian civilization in all of the Americas, so many modern natives are now descendants of this empire. There are now 748 indigenous groups recognized in South America and the Caribbean, and the majority of Bolivians (62%) consider themselves members of an indigenous group. The most prominent theory for how the Americas were first peopled is the Bering Land Bridge Theory, which proposes Asians crossed to modern-day Alaska over a land bridge from modern-day Russia when sea levels were much lower during the last ice age, with many continuing south. If true, native Americans of North and South America are descendants of these Asian travelers.

Tuesday

Site of the earliest known fossils of human ancestors and home to modern humans for at least 300,000 years, Africa contains a vast variety of people from long before settlors and immigrants of more recent history. There are now at least 3,000 individual tribes and 50 million indigenous people on the world’s second-largest continent, including the ancient San (Bushmen) people, the oldest indigenous group in Africa and likely the world. Other well-known groups include the Pygmies, Maasai, and Berbers, and some African tribes remain wholly nomadic hunter-gatherers, building no permanent structures, just as they’ve lived for at least ten millenia.

Wednesday

If we consider continent-straddling Russia as Asian, Europe remains comparatively light on groups now considered indigenous. The most prominent is the Saami, native reindeer herders who occupy the Arctic regions of Sweden, Norway, and Finland and number 50,000-100,000.

Thursday

Three-quarters of the world’s indigenous people live in Asia, with far too many groups to cover here. Despite 92% of Chinese being the Han ethnic majority, this nation still contains the greatest total number of indigenous people at 125.3 million. India comes in second with most of the 700+ recognized indigenous groups in the country’s northeast. Similarly, Russia’s indigenous populations are concentrated in the colder regions of the north and east, with some smaller groups numbering as few as 350 people. Hundreds of distinct indigenous groups live in Indonesia, representing 1/4 of the population, while Japan has just two indigenous groups.

Friday

Australian Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders make up the two main aboriginal groups of Australia. Like indigenous Africans, Aboriginals have a particularly long history on their land, occupying it for at least 65,000 years now. The Maori are indigenous to New Zealand, and ancient Polynesians, with remarkable navigation skills, spread across the vast South Pacific to populate Samoa, Tonga, Hawaii, Fiji, Tahiti, and many other islands.

Saturday

The only continent without indigenous people is Antarctica, since this forbidding land still has no permanent human habitation, just settlements of rotating scientists. Notably, however, new evidence suggests the indigenous people of New Zealand, the Maori, were the first people to discover the continent, and over 1,000 years before Europeans.

Among history’s most famous (and infamous) mistranslations:

Sunday

At a 1956 reception in Poland, Soviet premier Nikita Krushchev allegedly told Western ambassadors “We will bury you.” Understandably, this widely-reported comment didn’t help Cold War tensions of the day. What he meant was that Communism would outlast other political systems, that is, see them buried. Years later Krushchev extrapolated “Of course we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you.”

Monday

Late in WWII, Allied leaders gathered and sent the Japanese government an ultimatum and terms for surrender to avoid “prompt and total destruction” of the island nation. Asked by reporters how he would respond, Premier Suzuki replied “Mokusatsu.” He meant “no comment” to the reporter’s question, but the word’s alternate meaning of “not worthy of comment” was reported in the West, suggesting that the Japanese government felt the ultimatum itself was unworthy of comment. Concluding that Japan would never surrender, the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima was made ten days later.

Tuesday

HSBC Bank promoted itself with the slogan “assume nothing” before realizing that it had been translated in many parts of the world as “do nothing.” The bank then spent $10 million to rebrand with the straightforward motto “The World’s Private Bank.”

Wednesday

Nineteenth century Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli used his telescope to meticulously map the “canali,” or natural channels of Mars. However, “canali” was mistranslated as “canals,” implying alien civil engineering projects. This led many to believe in Martians and supposedly inspired H.G. Wells to write “War of the Worlds.”

Thursday

Bizarre mistranslations made US President Jimmy Carter’s 1977 visit to Poland quite interesting. When addressing a crowd and saying he’d just left the US that morning, it was translated as “I’ve left the US, never to return.” When the president said that he’d like to better understand the desires of the Polish people, it was translated that he desired Polish people sexually, or alternatively translated that he would happily grasp at their private parts.

Friday

Coca-Cola wanted to impress native Maoris of New Zealand with an advertising campaign which said “Kia ora, mate.” “Kia ora” is a friendly greeting which means “hello” or “good health” in the Maori language, but “mate” means “death.” Hence Coke ads showed images of their drinks with a slogan which said “Hello, death.”

Saturday

When Ford wanted to promote their cars in Belgium, their motto of “Every car has a high-quality body” translated into Dutch as “Every car has a high-quality corpse.”

Sunday

Urine is yellow because of urobilin, an enzyme which derives from old blood cells that your body has broken down to be flushed out as waste.

Monday

Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology discovered a “new golden rule”; that all mammals over 3 kilograms in weight take about 21 seconds to empty their bladder. Larger mammals like elephants certainly hold more urine, but also have larger urethras to drain it faster, with the same final pee time.

Tuesday

For years it was believed that healthy urine was a sterile liquid, but this myth was busted by research in 2014 by researchers finding bacteria in the urine of otherwise healthy women. Earlier tests may have simply not been sensitive enough to detect urinary bacteria.

Wednesday

The unique urine smell many people detect after eating asparagus comes from aspargusic acid, which is found nowhere else in the food world. The body breaks this unique acid down into sulfur compounds, which quickly evaporate when excreted, hence the unique smell.

Thursday

Even if you’re really thirsty, drinking urine is a bad idea. Though it is 95% water, pee also contains toxins and metabolic products your body wants to flush out. Worse, because of the salt content, it can make you more dehydrated than when you started, as with drinking seawater.

Friday

The average human bladder holds about 2 cups of urine, but you’ll feel the need to pee when it’s about half full. Holding it is not an instinct, but a learned skill, which babies and toddlers haven’t acquired yet.

Saturday

Public urination is a crime in every US state, and in many countries carries heavy maximum fines and even possible jail time.

Sunday

Like much of the southwestern US, modern Los Angeles was formerly part of Mexico. “Los Angeles” just means “the angels,” greatly shortened from the original name “El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula,” or “The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Porziuncola.”

Monday

Take all the pictures you want, but if you want that famous “Hollywood” sign or the “Walk of Fame” in your movie or commercial, then pay up. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce collects licensing fees for this, which in turn help pay for upkeep and maintenance of the iconic sign and walkway. That sign originally said “Hollywoodland,” promoting a housing development by that name.

Tuesday

Los Angeles is famously smoggy, and geography plays a big role. The city sits in a basin surrounded by mountain ranges while the California sun heats the big town’s trapped exhaust into an often-brown haze. For this reason, L.A. has a long-standing exemption from the air quality requirements under the US Clean Air Act.

Wednesday

There are about 11 miles of abandoned tunnels beneath LA consisting of former electric streetcar lines, horse tunnels, and passages between government buildings. They were used for the transport of bootleg liquor and other crime during Prohibition and also proved a quick escape route if the speakeasies were raided.

Thursday

Chicago was home to the most filmmakers and production companies in the early 20th century, but the industry moved to Los Angeles to take advantage of its reliably good weather and to get further from Thomas Edison, who exerted unusual (and often litigious) control over film production in the eastern US.

Friday

No major US city has a higher proportion of Hispanics than Los Angeles, an ethnic majority there.

Saturday

Los Angeles holds distinctions in the intellectual and athletic realms. It has the most museums per capita of any city, and as of 2028 it will tie with Paris and London for most summer Olympics hosted at three.

Sunday

For much of wheeled vehicles’ history, they were stopped by simply stopping whatever was moving them, such as by halting the horse pulling your carriage. However, the 19th century brought greater use of simple mechanical brakes, such as wooden blocks pushed against wheels to slow them, to better control carriages on downhills or keep them stopped when they’re meant to be.

Monday

The adoption of improved brake designs followed the increasing speed and weight of cars and trucks. The disc brakes on cars today which replaced the less effective drum brakes of the pre-WWII era were actually invented in 1898, but made of poor materials and so not largely adopted. Disc brakes are now common on bikes too.

Tuesday

Stopping a vehicle used to be a lot more exercise, when all the power to engage the brakes came from the driver’s leg. Now, modern power brakes cleverly use vacuum pressure to multiply your push on the brake pedal and stop a car with far less work than your granddad had to use.

Wednesday

Airplanes can slow by a few methods. Spoilers are flaps on the wings designed to produce drag, which you may have seen extend upward when an airplane lands. Reverse thrusters do just what you’d expect, slowing the craft by pushing it backward instead of forward. Once landed, disc brakes on the wheels complete the braking triad that stops a plane under normal conditions.

Thursday

Ships usually stop by utilizing the natural resistance of water to slow them steadily, though a powered ship can put the propeller in full reverse to “crash stop.” Anchors are not generally dropped for routine stopping, just stabilizing while the ship is not underway.

Friday

Parachutes help skydivers fall to Earth at safe speeds, but also slow other things. Drag chutes, aka drogue chutes or braking parachutes, have been used to slow and stabilize jets, landing spacecraft, racecars, and other speedy vehicles.

Saturday

Almost all modern cars come with anti-lock brakes. These prevent brakes from locking once engaged, causing the car to skid and/or become unsteerable. These have proven to be a safety success story, with studies indicating anti-lock brakes reduce fatal accidents by 12-22%, depending on the vehicle.

These are just some of the metals your body needs for good health and what they do in there.

Sunday

Copper is involved in your body’s energy production, neurotransmitter synthesis, bone, organ, and connective tissue maintenance, iron metabolism and red blood cell production, and immune system function, among other things.

Monday

Chromium assists in both regulating blood sugar and helping your body get energy from that blood sugar.

Tuesday

Zinc is needed for wound healing, fetal development, bone growth, fighting germs, insulin, testosterone, and sperm production, as well as tasting and smelling.

Wednesday

Manganese plays a role in blood clotting, bone formation, reproduction, immunity, metabolism, blood sugar regulation, brain and nerve function.

Thursday

Molybdenum, as a part of helpful enzymes, helps your body metabolize protein and break down potentially harmful substances.

Friday

Potassium is important for nerve and muscle function, nutrient and waste transport into and out of cells, and sodium regulation.

Saturday

Magnesium helps keep your heartbeat steady, bones strong, muscles contracting, blood sugar regulated, and about 300 other important functions in your body.

Sunday

Agafia Lykov has lived mostly alone in a cabin in Siberia, 150 miles from the closest settlement, since her father died in 1988. She was the last survivor of her family of six who originally fled to the remote spot in 1936 to escape Soviet religious persecution. When the cabin was spotted by chance by a survey team in 1978, none of the children had seen other humans before, and the family was unaware of World War II, the moon landing, or any other world events of the last 40 years.

Monday

North Korea was called “The Hermit Kingdom” before the current era, but the extremely tight restrictions that the Communist government keeps on all information from and about the outside world, and also visitors from it, keep the moniker apt.

Tuesday

Japan was the first nation to recognize and name a significant portion of the population who did not want to leave their homes (or even bedrooms) and attend school or interact with the outside world at all, often for years on end. “Hikikomori” means “pulling inward.”

Wednesday

In 2013, after decades of mysterious thefts of food and supplies, several dedicated Maine State Police officers finally captured Christopher Knight, dubbed “The North Pond Hermit” by local legend. Then 47, he had been living alone in the woods since age 20. He was wearing the same glasses as in his 1984 yearbook photo, and his last recalled exchange with another human was a “Hi” to a passing hiker sometime in the 1990s. He had not left civilization for any particular legal, philosophical, or creative reason, and when one interviewer prodded him for any hermit wisdom gleaned from his decades of solitude, he recommended getting enough sleep.

Thursday

Many “uncontacted” indigenous tribes live in the Amazon rainforest near the Peru/Brazil border. Advocates say the tribes are aware of “the outside world,” but largely want to be left alone. Unfortunately, many have suffered at the hands of illegal loggers and other criminal groups in the area.

Friday

Hermit crabs are neither. Far from solitary creatures, they live in large colonies of 100 or more in the wild. Also, as discussed in Week of 1/7/2024, they are not “true crabs,” since they lack their own natural shell (hence their borrowing of seashells) and have 3 pair of walking legs, not four.

Saturday

Imagine if your concrete garden gnome were instead a human fake hermit under a long-term contract. Among wealthy 18th century estate owners in the British Isles, a bizarre trend arose of hiring men to act and live as “ornamental hermits” in shacks or caves within the estate’s vast gardens. These men were often discouraged from washing and encouraged to be melancholy and introspective, among other duties.

Sunday

“Affidavit” means “he has stated on oath.”

Monday

“Ad infinitum” means “to infinity” or “forever.”

Tuesday

“In utero” means “in the womb / uterus.”

Wednesday

“Fac simile” means “make similar.”

Thursday

“Modus operandi” means “way of operating.”

Friday

“Excelsior” means “ever upward” and was also the personal motto of comic art legend Stan Lee.

Saturday

“Nolo contende” means “no contest” or “I don’t wish to contend.” A criminal defendant can plea this to accept the penalty, but without admitting guilt.

Sunday

Bottles are old. The first ceramic bottles go back 5,500 years to ancient Mesopotamia, but the first glass bottles started about 1500 BC in the same general area. About 1,000 years later, glass blowing began there too.

Monday

The oldest message in a bottle found was at sea for 131 years, 233 days old when discovered in January 2018 in Australia. It was one of many bottles dropped by German ships between 1864 and 1933 as part of research into currents and shipping lanes, and the note asked the finder to return it to the German Sea Observatory or closest German embassy with info on where it was found.

Tuesday

Unfortunately, not all bottles in the ocean are quite as historic and desirable, since plastic bottles are the third most common form of trash found in the ocean.

Wednesday

The idea of a genie (“jinn”) in a lamp or bottle goes back thousands of years to “Arabian Nights,” but the saying “the genie is out of the bottle,” referring to a thing which cannot be undone, only became common in the 1960s.

Thursday

The dent in the bottom of wine bottles is called a “punt” and goes back to when the bottles were made by glassblowers rather than modern machines. Bottoms were pushed in to keep the bottles upright and may have added strength, but today remain as a vestige of the old tradition.

Friday

These days, when a bottle is recycled, it is typically melted down and made into a new bottle. However, thorough cleaning, relabeling, and reuse of the same bottle used to be the norm, and still is in many countries.

Saturday

In the decades between widespread use of the wine bottle cork and an effective corkscrew, the cork had to stick out of the bottle to be grasped for removal. Before the cork, bottles were sealed with oily rags, among other things.