The Backstories of Everyday Ideas, Items, & Terms
Daily facts on weekly themes. Enjoy!
- Week of October 1, 2023
The Gourds’ Greatest Hit
Sunday
The tradition of putting a light in a carved pumpkin actually started with doing the same to turnips. This began in Ireland and Scotland with the folk tale of “Stingy Jack,” a man who twice tricked the devil and was denied entry into both heaven and hell when he died. He was doomed to wander the earth at night with only a coal ember to light his way, and scary faces carved for “Jack of the Lantern” were to keep him and other evil spirits away.
Monday
In the US, no state grows or processes more pumpkins than Illinois. Over 40% of all pumpkins grown in the US come from Illinois, as do fully 90% of the nation’s canned pumpkin. (On the topic of Illinois and pumpkin time, the horror classic film “Halloween” was set in fictional Haddonfield, Illinois, but not actually filmed in the state at all, as anyone noticing mountains in some scenes might suspect. It was wholly filmed in California.)
Tuesday
When Smashing Pumpkins band founder Billy Corgan first heard someone mention smashing pumpkins, he thought it would be a good band name. He was thinking “smashing” in the British sense, an adjective meaning “fantastic and amazing,” and later clarified that “it could have been any vegetable.”
Wednesday
The now-ubiquitous pumpkin spice flavoring began in the 1930s as the all-in-one combination of spices long used in pumpkin pie. The exact combination varies, but ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves or allspice are basically universal. Starbucks first started selling pumpkin spice lattes in 2003, and now the flavor / scent seems to be in everything.
Thursday
There are many pumpkin colors besides orange, including red, white, blue, green, yellow, purple, pink, black and tan.
Friday
It turns out that all parts of a pumpkin are edible, with the right preparation, and pumpkin seeds are quite nutritious.
Saturday
Pumpkins are simultaneously a gourd, a fruit, and a squash, and likely the heaviest in all of these categories. The world’s heaviest pumpkin, as of time of writing, is 2,749 lbs., grown by a Minnesota horticulture teacher in his backyard.
- Week of September 24, 2023
Facts for Those with Heads in the Clouds
Sunday
Clouds are made of water evaporated from the Earth’s surface suspended in the air as droplets or tiny ice crystals, since the water has condensed (or also frozen) at higher altitudes where it is cooler. These droplets form by water first adhering to a particle such as dust, dirt, smoke, pollen, or sea salt, which are known as “nuclei.”
Monday
These nuclei can be put in the sky artificially to encourage precipitation by a process called “cloud seeding.” Silver iodide, which has a structure similar to ice, is typically used, and tiny ice crystals tend to form around this seeding particle. According to several studies, this has increased snowpack in mountainous areas by 10-15%.
Tuesday
Fog is really just a cloud that’s very near the ground and, by definition, reduces visibility to one kilometer or less.
Wednesday
There are four main types of clouds, and in addition to different shapes, they’re typically found at different heights in the sky. They are cirrus (thin and wispy), cumulus (puffy), stratus (layered like a blanket), and nimbus (rain clouds).
Thursday
Floating fluffy clouds seem nearly weightless, but they are not, since water is heavy. A modest-sized cumulus cloud measuring one km on each side, for example, weighs about 551 tons, or about the weight of 42 school buses.
Friday
Other planets have clouds, but they are scary. These clouds can be made of, among other things, ammonia, sand, and metal.
Saturday
Concert organizers once paid $55,000 to make the rain clouds go away before a 2004 Paul McCartney concert in St. Petersburg Palace Square. Three jets sprayed the heavy clouds with frozen carbon dioxide, which theoretically should make the clouds disperse, though this is difficult to prove. In any event, the clouds disappeared, and Sir Paul could play “Good Day Sunshine” under a clear sky.
- Week of September 17, 2023
Wonder Week, All-Natural Version
The Seven Natural Wonders of the World, a list compiled by the news network CNN, are:
Sunday
The Grand Canyon, over one mile deep, seventeen miles wide, and two billion years old, is aptly named. Eons of Earth’s life are visible in the geology and erosion of rock layers visible to any visitor. President Teddy Roosevelt declared that it was a sight which could not be improved on, and now five million visitors come to the enjoy it annually.
Monday
The huge Harbor at Rio de Janiero, also known as Guanabara Bay, is surrounded a picturesque granite mountain range that also includes the site of Christ the Redeemer (one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World, see previous week) and dotted with over 130 islands. This busy bay is now both a natural gem and an important economic port.
Tuesday
The Paricutín Volcano, found in Michoacán, Mexico, is strikingly smooth and conical, but also very young, having only first appeared in a cornfield in 1943, burying the town of Paricutín as it continued to grow over the next 9 years. This eruption not only created an intriguing tourist attraction, but gave the scientific opportunity to study a volcano since its birth.
Wednesday
Fittingly named “the smoke that thunders” in the native Lozi language, Victoria Falls, on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, empties a mind-boggling 165,000,000 gallons of water per minute to produce the single largest sheet of water in the world. The spray from the massive falls is visible over 30 miles away and the nearby rain forest is wet from the spray at all times.
Thursday
Mount Everest, rising nearly 5.5 miles above the Nepal-Tibet border, is the highest peak and tallest point on Earth. Shaped roughly like a 3-sided pyramid, Everest attracts many ambitious climbers every year, though many do not survive the brutal weather and low oxygen at the extreme altitudes.
Friday
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, composed of over 2,900 individual reef systems and 900 islands across an area as large as 70 million football fields. This remarkable aquatic treasure is home to fully 25% of all known marine species in the world, including 134 species of sharks alone.
Saturday
Aurora Borealis, AKA The Northern Lights, may be the least predictable spectacle on this list, but they wow nonetheless. Caused by energized particles from the sun being pushed to Earth’s poles by our planet’s magnetic field, these dramatic lights in the sky can appear green, pink, red, blue, purple, and white.
- Week of September 10, 2023
Wonder Week, Modern Version
In 2000, over 2 millennia since the first list was compiled, a Swiss foundation collected 100 million votes for the New Seven Wonders of the World. The results were:
Sunday
The Colosseum, built about 70 AD, was a marvel of size, engineering, and gruesome spectacle. Besides the gladiator battles and human-animal combat, the Colosseum was sometimes flooded for mock naval battles, with an estimated 1/2 million people meeting their death there. After some centuries of earthquakes and neglect, the building was restored in recent times and now draws about 7 million tourists annually.
Monday
Chichén Itzá, on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, is a city first started by the Mayans in the 5th century AD. Among the remarkable temples is El Castillo, a stepped pyramid where natural shadows combine with carved stone snake heads to give the appearance of serpents slithering down one side on the two annual equinoxes.
Tuesday
Machu Picchu, high in the Andes Mountains of Peru, is another rare well-preserved pre-Columbian site in the Americas, this one built by the Incas. Dating from the 15th or 16th centuries, this extensive and elaborate complex of over 350 structures is surrounded by terraces and aqueducts and was likely home of a palace.
Wednesday
Petra, in modern Jordan, is also called the “Rose Red City” for the color of the rock that the many elaborate buildings are carved out of. Though the surrounding area has been used by humans for at least 10,000 years, this capital of the ancient Nabatean Arabs has been around since about the 3rd century BC, and thrived until an earthquake and a later change in trade routes left it all but abandoned until a more recent “rediscovery” about 200 years ago.
Thursday
The Christ the Redeemer statue, rising 125 above the peak of Mt. Corcovado in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, was originally inspired by fears of “an advancing tide of godlessness.” Built in the 1920s during the heyday of Art Deco architecture, it is the largest statute of that style in the world, is covered by over six million tiles, and is hit by (and damaged by) lightning surprisingly often.
Friday
The Great Wall of China, easily one of the largest-scale construction projects undertaken by humans, was built along the country’s northern border to protect against invaders. The Great Wall is actually a series of walls and fortifications, many parallel to each other and in varying states of maintenance, making a definitive length measurement tricky. A conservative estimate might be 5,500 miles for the best-preserved stretch up to 13,170 total miles, with construction beginning in the 7th century BC and with repairs going on as late at the 11th century AD before modern renovations.
Saturday
The Taj Mahal is an enormous and elaborate marble masoleum built by Shah Jahan in memory of his beloved wife, who died in 1631 while giving birth to their 14th child. The shah was later overthrown by one of his sons and imprisoned nearby. The Taj Mahal is easily the best recognized building in India and attracts about 3 millions people a year.
- Week of September 3, 2023
Wonder Week, Ancient Version
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, as described by 2nd Century BC Greeks, are:
Sunday
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, in what is now southern Iraq, were supposedly built about 600 BC and described in many narratives, but the nature of these gardens, and even their exact location, has been debated for decades.
Monday
The Lighthouse of Alexandria, built over the course of 33 years starting in 280 BC, was for centuries the tallest man-made structure after the pyramid at Giza. Ships entering the harbor at Alexandria, Egypt were guided by the fire atop and a reflective bronze mirror until 15 centuries and multiple earthquakes finally took their toll on the lighthouse.
Tuesday
The Colossus of Rhodes, a 110 foot tall statue of the sun god Helios, was built about 280 BC to celebrate the city’s survival of a extended siege. Though a earthquake broke it off at the knees about 60 years later, even the fallen statue continued to be an attraction to visitors for the next 800 years.
Wednesday
The Statue of Zeus at Olympia, 40 feet tall seated and made of gold and ivory by the same sculptor who oversaw the Parthenon and Acropolis’ construction, amazed onlookers for nearly 1,000 years.
Thursday
The massive and opulent Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was named for Mausolus, the ambitious 4th century governor in what is now Turkey, who started its construction during his life. About 140 feet in height, the building lasted 17 centuries, with parts of it still to be found in exhibits.
Friday
The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was described as twice the size of the Parthenon and both longer and wider than a modern football field, not to mention made entirely of marble. This enormous temple to the Greek fertility goddess took 120 years (or by one account, 200 years) to complete.
Saturday
At forty-five centuries old, weighing in at 5.75 million tons and made of 2.3 million massive blocks of limestone and granite, the Great Pyramid at Giza is the only wonder of the ancient world still largely intact. Built for the pharaoh Khufu over 20 years by between 20,000 and 100,000 workers, it sits in a complex that includes smaller pyramids and with sides that align with the cardinal directions and was called “perhaps the most colossal single building ever erected on the planet.”
- Week of August 27th, 2023
Rats! (and other Rodentia)
Sunday
Although we often think of rats and mice when hearing about rodents, this is actually the single largest group of mammals and includes beavers, porcupines, capybaras, squirrels, hamsters, gerbils, and chinchillas.
Monday
Think that subway rat you saw was a big rodent? Capybaras have an average weight of 108 lbs and stand about 2 feet tall at the shoulder. They are easily the world’s larges rodent, and even have webbed feet for swimming.
Tuesday
Gamblers used to bet on actual rat races, with colored ribbons tied to the rodents to tell them apart. Later this term was applied to a fighter plane training exercise, but the term now means career competition, often in an unsatisfying job, but with the hope of future reward, such as promotion or status.
Wednesday
“Rodent” is from the Latin “to gnaw,” and for good reason. A defining trait of the rodent order is that their incisors never stop growing, so rodents must chew frequently or grind teeth together to keep their teeth worn down enough to function. Because of the unique tooth anatomy, however, rodent teeth are actually harder than many metals, including iron, and rats have been known to gnaw through metal pipes.
Thursday
Rats might be unfairly blamed for spreading bubonic plague in the Middle Ages. New research suggests the deadly bacteria spread too fast to be carried by rats, nor do there seem to be enough rat remains from the time. It was more likely carried by fleas and lice which rode on humans, not rodents.
Friday
Rodents have many gifts, but predicting the seasons is not one of them. Beloved groundhog Punxsutawney Phil, supposedly the knowing forecaster of springtime’s approach, is accurate less than half of the time.
Saturday
No rodents can truly fly, but flying squirrels can fake it pretty well with long glides on the skin between their legs. One giant flying squirrel set a record of 450 meters (1,475 feet) for “farthest glide by a mammal.”
- Week of August 20, 2023
Facts Down Under
Sunday
Australia is home to the oldest civilization on Earth. Recent genetic studies indicate modern Aboriginal Australians have origins going back about 75,000 years.
Monday
Speaking of Australian ancients, specimens of the earliest known life on earth, stromatolites, appear on the continent in both living and fossilized forms. Dating back 3.5 billion years, these organisms gave Earth’s atmosphere the oxygen which allowed modern life to thrive.
Tuesday
After lots of camel importing between the late 19th and early 20th century to help settle the vast interior, Australia has more non-native Arabian (Dromedary) camels than anywhere on Earth.
Wednesday
Australia’s long history of geographic separation, along with its unique environment, have led to the evolution of many fascinating animals unique to the continent, such as dingoes, cassowaries, Tasmanian devils, bilbies, brolgas, wallabies, wombats, platypus, koalas, and of course, kangaroos.
Thursday
The term “kangaroo court” – implying a sham court which operates without the usual procedural safeguards of justice – actually has American, not Australian origins.
Friday
Australia is the world’s smallest continent, but the only continent which is a single country.
Saturday
The European first colony in Australia’s Botany Bay was famously a British penal colony, but the convicts included women and weren’t the most hardened type of criminals, since British prisons were overcrowded at the time and a faraway sentence didn’t reflect the crime committed. Many had been sentenced to seven years “transportation”, the then-legal lingo for being taken to a distant colony.
- Week of August 13, 2023
Not for That Kind of Poetry
No one word fully rhymes with these English words.
Sunday
Ninth
Monday
Warmth
Tuesday
Wounds
Wednesday
Bilge
Thursday
Depth
Friday
Fifth, sixth
Saturday
Wolf
- Week of August 6, 2023
Don’t Be An Alarmist
Sunday
The first siren, consisting of air forced through a disc with evenly-spaced holes spun to produce the noise, was developed in the late 18th Century by philosopher and physicist John Robison. The device was further modified for steam-powered use in lighthouses.
Monday
Despite being bombed by German zeppelins in WWI, British government officials debated the deployment of an air raid siren system, but finally had one developed and in frequent use during the nightly German bombings of WWII.
Tuesday
The ancient Greeks and Egyptians developed alarm functions on water clocks, and ancient Chinese had candle clocks performing the same function.
Wednesday
Early mechanical alarm clocks were developed as early as the 15th and possibly even 13th centuries. In the more modern era, American inventor Levi Hutchins developed a smaller household alarm clock in 1787 which could only ring at 4am, following Levi’s firm rule to always rise before the sun and pray. Sixty years later, Frenchman Antoine Redier patented the first adjustable alarm clock.
Thursday
The first fire alarm which wasn’t simply people relaying fire information was a telegraph-based electric system developed for Boston in 1852. It was successful, though it depended on people staying in or near burning buildings long enough to operate the crank and alert the local fire department.
Friday
The United States and Canada use the multiple alarm fire (two-alarm fire, three-alarm fire, etc.) to indicate how many firefighting units and how much equipment should be sent to fight the blaze. The higher the number, the more people and equipment needed.
Saturday
The original sirens belonged to Greek myth. These half-bird, half-woman creatures sang a song so beautiful that sailors were lured near, only to have their ships destroyed and lives lost.
- Week of July 30, 2023
A Most En-Titled Individual
Among the many books named for Shakespeare lines:
Sunday
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” –Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 1
Monday
Band of Brothers by Steven E. Ambrose
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.” –Henry V, Act IV, Scene III
Tuesday
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.” –Hamlet, Act V, Scene I
Wednesday
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
“Oh, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in ’t!” –Tempest, Act V, Scene I
Thursday
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
“When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, and with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste.” – Sonnet 30
Friday
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” –Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene II
Saturday
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.” –Macbeth, Act V, Scene V - Week of July 23, 2023
Let the Facts Flow
Sunday
Every continent except Antarctica has a “continental divide,” often a mountain range, which separates the direction water flows by rivers and streams into larger water bodies. From this divide, additional hydrological divides often further distribute the water into lakes, seas, and oceans.
Monday
While most of the world’s rivers flow southward, there are some very notable exceptions, including the mighty Nile, the world’s longest.
Tuesday
Certain river crossings are famously irrevocable. In mythology, the recently dead are carried across Hell’s River Styx by the ferryman Charon. Julius Caesar, crossing the Rubicon River toward Rome with his army in a forbidden act which he knew would spark a civil war, declared “the die is cast” as he crossed.
Wednesday
As long, defined lines, rivers are a natural choice for political borders. One 2020 study found that rivers constitute 23% of all national borders, 17% of state and provincial borders and 12% of county borders.
Thursday
The original poem “Over the River and Through the Woods” involved a trip to grandfather’s house, not grandmother’s, and came from an author working to rebuild her career after she was shunned for writing a 1833 book strongly condemning American slavery.
Friday
Some rivers run underground naturally, but a surprising number are intentionally buried, typically because they are in the way of urban development. Some of these rivers, buried decades or centuries ago, are now being brought back to the surface.
Saturday
The first European to discover the Amazon River in 1541 named it for the female warriors of Greek myth because the indigenous groups which confronted and battled him along the river included women.
- Week of July 16, 2023
Use Your Noodle
Sunday
The term “noodles” is not quite the same as “pasta.” Noodles can be made from a variety of grains and are generally long and thin, but only pasta comes from durum wheat and can be many shapes.
Monday
Although you may only know a handful of pasta shapes, the dough which pasta comes from is so versatile that there are at least 600.
Tuesday
Noodle dishes have traced back to ancient China, but these were rice or millet-based, and hence unlikely to be the predecessor of durum-based pasta known throughout the Mediterranean.
Wednesday
“Pasta” translates to “paste” or “dough,” which is what the individual shapes are cut from.
Thursday
Thomas Jefferson fell in love with pasta, all of which he called “macaroni,” during a trip to Naples, and thereafter imported much of it to the US for himself and friends. He did much to popularize it in the US, and the country’s first pasta factory later opened in his hometown of Philadelphia.
Friday
Italy is both the world’s largest pasta exporter and per capita consumer.
Saturday
Spaghetti was the topic of the most famous April Fool’s Day Joke in broadcast history. The 2.5-minute hoax BBC broadcast showed a Swiss family plucking spaghetti off the family “spaghetti tree” and reported that it was a good harvest after a mild winter and with the “spaghetti weevil” gone. An uncommon dish in England at the time, many viewers believed this was indeed how spaghetti was produced.
- Week of July 9, 2023
Military Acronyms, pt. I
Sunday
DEFCON = Defense readiness condition
Monday
SPAWAR = Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command
Tuesday
CONUS COLA = Cost of Living Adjustment in the Continental United States
Wednesday
DEERS = Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System
Thursday
ARSOF = Army Special Operations Forces
Friday
HUDWAC = Head Up Display Weapon Aiming Computer
Saturday
Jeep, derived from “GP,” was a WWII-era abbreviation for a Ford-government contract vehicle (“G”) with a 80-inch wheelbase (“P”). The word jeep already existed in military parlance for an untested new vehicle or recruit, and later was applied to this particular vehicle.
- Week of July 2, 2023
The Cold, Hard Facts
Sunday
Temperature is a measurement of how fast the atoms in something are moving, so an object with slower-moving atoms is perceived as colder relative to other nearby items. At “absolute zero,” however, all atomic motion in an object stops, and hence it cannot get any colder. That temperature is recorded at -273.15 degrees Celsius.
Monday
Glaciers appear blue on the inside because the interior ice has often been compressed under other layers of ice and snow for a very long time. This squeezes the air bubbles and empty spaces out, which normally scatter white light to make snow and regular ice look white. Without these light-scattering bubbles, the denser ice absorbs longer-wavelength colors but reflects blue back, giving the turquoise appearance.
Tuesday
The “common cold” is a mild upper respiratory tract infection that could come from over 200 viruses known to cause those symptoms. The name comes from the idea that you can “catch” cold by being out in cold weather.
Wednesday
At least part of the old health advice to “feed a cold and starve a fever” goes back 450 years, and is still repeated today. But whether your have cold symptoms and/or a fever, eating much more or less is unnecessary. Your body still needs enough nutrition to function and fight the disease, and fluids are especially important.
Thursday
George Orwell himself coined the term “Cold War,” and it came to refer to the geopolitical rivalry between the United States and U.S.S.R., both nuclear powers, between 1947 and 1991. Rather than being fought directly on the battlefield, this rivalry instead manifested in proxy wars, espionage, ideology, propaganda, and economic and political alliances.
Friday
“Cold calling,” or making a sales call to a person you have no previous relationship with, is effectively the successor to door-to-door salesmanship for the telephone age, and the earliest reference of the term appears not long after the average household could afford to have a telephone.
Saturday
Satellite data taken from East Antarctica has recorded temperatures as low as -98 Celsius (-144F), the lowest observed temperature on Earth, and the same study suggested that it may not be possible to get any colder than this on our planet’s surface.
- Week of June 25, 2023
These Facts Are Just Nuts
Sunday
Nuts are old. Archaeologists have found evidence that people were eating nuts up to 780,000 years ago.
Monday
Botanically speaking, nuts are fruits with a hard shell, a single seed, and a protective husk. Accordingly, chestnuts, hazelnuts, and pecans are “true nuts,” while pistachios, almonds, and peanuts are not.
Tuesday
Chemist and former slave Dr. George Washington Carver famously created about 300 products from the versatile peanut, including foods, beverages, medicines, soaps, cosmetics, paints, fuels, and animal feeds.
Wednesday
Over half of the US honeybee population is used to pollinate California’s $11 billion annual almond harvest, though this job turns out to be very rough on the bees’ health and survival.
Thursday
Despite the name, Brazil only produces 2% of the world’s Brazil nuts. 78% of them are grown in Bolivia.
Friday
The humble peanut is the most-consumed nut in the US and world. The almond is a distant second.
Saturday
The pine nut is aptly named; it comes from the pine cones of several pine tree species.
- Week of June 18, 2023
Facts By Any Other Name
Sunday
The rose is the national symbol of the United States, and six US presidents have at least one rose variety named after them (Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy, Hoover, Eisenhower, and Reagan). The first US president, George Washington, was also a rose breeder, and named a variety for his mother Mary.
Monday
The world’s oldest living rose bush is thought to have been planted in the year 800 AD, at the same time the cathedral it climbs (Germany’s Hildesheim Cathedral) was built. Nearly obliterated by Allied bombs in WWII, it recovered and now the “Thousand Year Rose” can still be admired by visitors.
Tuesday
Rose aficionados and breeders recognize three broad categories of roses. Wild roses have fewer petals and are less fragrant. Old garden, AKA antique roses, are hardier and more fragrant, but only bloom once per season. Modern roses, those bred after 1867, have a larger and more continuous bloom, but tend to be less hardy and fragrant.
Wednesday
Roses have gone to war, symbolically. The English Civil War of 1455-1485 was called the “War of the Roses” because it was fought between the House of York, whose symbol was a white rose, and the House of Lancaster, whose symbol was a red rose.
Thursday
Though usually made of beads for durability, the rosary that devout Catholics pray on is named for a garland of roses, since the rose is a symbol of the Virgin Mary.
Friday
Both rose petals and rose hips, the fruit, can be eaten (ideally when grown without chemicals) and made into jams, jellies, and flavorings for many dishes.
Saturday
The late famed English rose breeder David Austin spent 15 years and about $3M developing the Juliet rose, but then sold if for $5M, making it the most expensive flower ever sold.
- Week of June 11, 2023
Neato Namesakes, part 2
Sunday
Jules Leotard, French acrobatic performer and creator of the flying trapeze routine, also created the flexible, skintight one-piece garment that we call a leotard.
Monday
Working with physically challenged detainees at a WWI British internment camp, Joseph Pilates developed the low-impact techniques for strength and flexibility which bear his name.
Tuesday
James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, was a flashy dresser before he led the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War in 1854. Despite his dubious command performance in that battle, the knitted waistcoats he wore became popular and are still known as cardigans.
Wednesday
Generations of indigenous Australians enjoyed the native macadamia nuts before they bore that name, but after a friend of chemist, doctor, and politician John Macadam had the nuts studied (and confirmed they didn’t poison a bold soul who tried the unfamiliar food), he named the food for his friend. Ironically, John Macadam died young at sea and never himself bit into one of the tasty morsels.
Thursday
In 1846, Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax was seeking a “robust lower voice” to join existing wind instruments, so he created and patented the saxophone.
Friday
After the Eiffel Tower was unveiled for the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris, George Ferris Jr. created the original enormous Ferris Wheel for the Columbian Exposition World’s Fair in Chicago to amaze crowds with a huge metal structure they could even ride on.
Saturday
Candido Jacuzzi, whose son Kenneth suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, developed a water pump to give him pain relief through hydrotherapy. Eventually he began developing and selling the larger units which now bear his name.
- Week of June 4, 2023
The, Like, REALLY Big Cycles
Sunday
Rocks on Earth’s surface eventually erode into sediments, which often get transported to water bodies. At the bottom of these water bodies they get compacted and pushed deeper underground where they are buried with greater heat and pressure. The rock material then returns to the surface either when melted into magma which flows from volcanoes as lava, or when the rocks it has joined return to the surface with tectonic activity. This is the rock cycle.
Monday
Liquid water from earth’s surface evaporates when heated by the sun, and condenses into clouds in the atmosphere. It then falls back down to earth as snow or rain, which evaporates directly or flows into other water bodies to evaporate and begin the cycle again. This is the water cycle.
Tuesday
Nitrogen gas, which comprises about 78% of Earth’s atmosphere, is “fixed,” or converted into a form usable to plants largely by bacteria and blue-green algae. When those plants die and decompose or are eaten by animals which later die, the remains are broken down by microorganisms into ammonia and ammonium. Nitrifying microorganisms then convert ammonia into nitrates, which can be converted into plant tissue or used by denitrifying bacteria, which produce atmospheric nitrogen gas. This is the nitrogen cycle.
Wednesday
Oxygen is used by humans and animals which breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, (which is also produced by the burning of fossil fuels). Carbon dioxide is then taken in by green plants on land and algae and made into carbohydrates, the byproduct of which is oxygen. This is the oxygen cycle.
Thursday
The angle of Earth’s tilt relative to its plane of orbit around the sun is called obliquity, and varies between 22.1 degrees and 24.5 degrees, with the current tilt at 23.4 degrees. More glaciers are associated with smaller tilt angles and fewer glaciers with larger tilt angles. The period of these tilt cycles are about 41,000 years.
Friday
The shape of earth’s orbit around the sun changes from a near-perfect circle to a slight ellipse, a measurement known as eccentricity. This change comes from the gravitational pull of our massive planetary neighbors Saturn and Jupiter, and the cycle of most circular to most elliptical is about 100,000 years long.
Saturday
Gravitational pulls on the tides from the sun and moon cause the Earth to wobble slightly on its own axis, which affects the extremes of each season in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. This wobble is called axial precession, and a cycle lasts around 25,771.5 years.
These last 3 cycles are called Milankovitch cycles, after Milutin Milankovitch, the Serbian scientist who proposed them.
- Week of May 28, 2023
Digital Acronym Week (DAM!) #7
Sunday
BIOS = Basic Input Output Server
Monday
DNS = Domain Name Server
Tuesday
FTP = File Transfer Protocol
Wednesday
PPP = Point-to-Point Protocol
Thursday
VRML = Virtual Reality Markup Language
Friday
GCI = Common Gateway Interface
Saturday
MODEM = Modultator / Demodulator
- Week of May 21, 2023
Immovable Facts
Sunday
Earth’s tallest mountain, Mt. Everest, doesn’t even make the top 10 among tall mountains in our solar system. That pack is led by Mars’ Olympus Mons, which is over 4 times higher than Everest and takes up an area about the size of Arizona.
Monday
On Earth, mountains can form in one of three ways: Volcanoes, fault-block mountains, in which one tectonic plate is being pushed under another, or fold mountains, where two tectonic plates are pushed up as they collide.
Tuesday
As mountains go, the oldest are often relatively small after eons of natural erosion. The oldest known mountains on Earth, the Makhonjwa Mountains in South Africa, reach only 1,800 meters above sea level (compared to Everest’s 8,850), but are 3.6 billion years old.
Wednesday
Because so many mountains are in the ocean, measuring mountains requires a distinction of tallest vs. highest. Mt. Everest may reach closest to the sky, but it is not the tallest. Hawai’i’s Mauna Kea is nearly a kilometer taller when measured from its base, which is far under the Pacific Ocean.
Thursday
Because they can act as ramps for air masses, moisture, and snow, mountains can create their own weather. This is one reason you often see clouds at the tops of mountains, but nowhere else around.
Friday
Unsurprisingly, mountains play a big role in mythology and religion, and there are currently at least 66 “sacred” mountains in the world.
Saturday
The longest terrestrial mountain range on earth is the Andes mountains, but under the sea lies most of the longest range on the planet. At over 40,000 miles long, the mid-ocean ridge runs around most of the globe.
- Week of May 14, 2023
Flushed
Sunday
The “Cloaca Maxima” or “Greatest Sewer,” built in 6th century BC Rome to drain marsh and rain water and later to channel waste, is still in use today.
Monday
Before modern sewer systems, many cities had toilets that simply emptied into cesspools, which themselves had to be emptied occasionally. In London, this job was legally required to be done at night by “night men” or “night soil men,” who then sold the waste to nearby farmers as fertilizer.
Tuesday
Human waste in the form of sewage is still used as crop fertilizer to this day, and works safely after toxins are removed.
Wednesday
Arguably the most ambitious project to accommodate sewage was the reversing the flow of the Chicago River, completed in 1900. Before that, the river flowed into Lake Michigan, contaminating the city’s drinking water with its own residents’ sewage and slaughterhouse waste. The reversal of the river’s flow sent these unpleasant ingredients downriver, away from the city.
Thursday
Storm drains and wastewater sewers are not the same, also known as “storm sewers” and “sanitary sewers.” One is intended for rain and melting snow that can be discharged into waterways untreated, the other for human waste that should be treated. Some cities combine these waste types into a “combined system.”
Friday
Many early efforts at urban sewer systems were abandoned during the Middle Ages, with some interesting etiquette born as a result. The gentlemanly rule that the man walk on the street side of a lady down the sidewalk comes from the fact that animal dung would collect near the street and people would empty dirty chamberpots into the street from windows above, offenses that a gentleman should endure rather than his female companion.
Saturday
Though wastewater treatment is more common than in times past, only about 48% is treated at all before being discharged into global waterways.
- Week of May 7, 2023
Bearly Interesting
Sunday
They may not look it, but bears are fast. With top speeds over 35 mph, bears can easily outrun even Usain Bolt and match horse running speeds.
Monday
The sleepy state many bears enter through the winter is technically torpor, a state similar to true hibernation but different in that the bear can still wake up quickly to respond to danger. In either case, it is a very deep sleep, and the bear lives off fat reserves and does not eat, drink, or pass waste while sleeping for months at a time.
Tuesday
The teddy bear was named for President Theodore Roosevelt following a 1902 Mississippi hunting trip when the president refused to shoot a black bear that other members of his hunting party had stunned and tied to a tree, believing such a kill would be utterly unsportsmanlike. The episode was featured in a cartoon showing the adult bear as a cub, and a Brooklyn couple sewed and started selling “Teddy’s bear” plush dolls in their penny shop after getting Roosevelt’s permission. After growing interest, they soon made a fortune selling the bears exclusively.
Tuesday
With males weighting an average of about 1,000 lbs., polar bears are the largest bear and largest land carnivore in the modern world. However, they would have been dwarfed by their extinct Ice Age ancestor the giant short-faced bear, which stood 12 feet tall, weighted over 1500 lbs, and (amazingly) ran 40 mph.
Thursday
One female polar bear was observed to swim for 9.67 days straight in the Beaufort Sea, covering over 400 miles.
Friday
Panda bears are usually a big draw for zoos, but at a steep cost. The Chinese government retains ownership of the pandas and typically charges one million US dollars annual “panda rent” to the institutions exhibiting and researching them.
Saturday
Although red pandas and koalas seem quite bear-like, they aren’t true bears. The unique red panda is the only member of its animal family, and koalas are actually marsupials, like kangaroos.
- Week of April 30, 2023
Facts are Forever
Sunday
Diamonds originated about 100 miles underground, formed from carbon hundreds of millions of years ago under the phenomenal heat and pressure of the earth’s mantle. The natural channels of volcanic pipes bring the diamonds closer to the surface for mining.
Monday
Though we often see clear diamonds on jewelry, natural diamonds come in almost all colors. The color comes from “impurities” within the carbon structure (trapped nitrogen makes yellow diamonds, for example), and in some cases the diamonds are even colored by radiation exposure.
Tuesday
The regular and uniform seeds of the carob tree were used for centuries as the standard for weighing gems before a 1908 international standardization. The Greek name for this tree is keration, which is where we get carat, the measurement of diamond weight. Diamonds smaller than one carat are measured in points, and there are 100 points to a carat.
Wednesday
The largest diamond ever found was discovered by a mine superintendent in 1905 in Pretoria, South Africa. It weighed 1.33 lbs., or 3,106 carats, and was dubbed the Cullinan after the mine’s owner. Cut into over 100 smaller diamonds, the three largest are now among the British royal stones, and the “Cullinan I” AKA “Star of Africa I” is the largest cut fine-quality diamond in the world.
Thursday
Only about 30% of diamonds mined are gem quality, so the remaining diamonds often find industrial uses because of their exceptional hardness, including cutting, sanding, boring, and coring.
Friday
Most diamond mines are obviously privately-owned, but Murfeesboro, Arkansas, hosts Crater of Diamonds State Park, the world’s only public diamond digging facility. Visitors may search a 37-acre field for diamonds they can keep. For inspiration, consider that the Uncle Sam Diamond, the largest diamond ever found in the US at 40+ carats, was found here.
Saturday
Money may not grown on trees, but diamonds might rain on other planets, research indicates. 1000 tonnes of diamonds a year may be created on Saturn alone.
- Week of April 23, 2023
Fasten-ating Facts
Sunday
Buttons were used for decoration since at least 5000 years ago, but only began being used for fastening clothing during the Middle Ages after the development of the button hole.
Monday
Snaps for clothing were first patented in Germany in 1885 and are known as “snaps” or “poppers” thanks to the sound they make when fastened.
Monday
A basic zipper design was patented in 1851 by the inventor of the sewing machine, but the zipper as we know it wasn’t patented until 1917. Though the US Army used them in gear and uniforms in WWI, zippers didn’t start to achieve their widespread status on clothing until mid-century. And if you’ve ever wondered what the seemingly-ubiquitous “YKK” on zippers stands for, it is Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikikaisha, or Yoshida Company, Ltd.
Tuesday
Velcro’s invention was inspired by a Swiss engineer’s 1941 walk in the woods, during which his dog got some burrs in his fur. Studying the burrs under a microscope, Georges de Mestral saw the tiny seed pods held strong thanks to hooks in their tips, and after many years he perfected the hook-and-loop design for clothing and shoe fasteners. “Velcro” derives from the French words for “velvet” and “hook.”
Wednesday
Shoelaces are old. A leather cord lacing system has been found on moccasin-style shoes dating back 5,500 years.
Thursday
In the men’s shirt market, cufflinks were somewhat of a transitional fastener between strings, which tied together men’s ruffled cuffs in the early 1500s, and buttons, which replaced cufflink holes on most mass-market dress shirts in the late 20th century. In they heyday of their popularity, they could be very ornate and show wealth and prestige, and are still found on tuxedo and other high-end dress shirts today.
Friday
The buckle was known to ancient Greece and Rome and used for fastening armor, but for much of its life was also an device to ornament or show wealth. Because of the fastener’s reliability, medieval Europe saw more than just the wealthy and elite adopt buckles as new manufacturing techniques made them more available.
Saturday
While the stretchy usefulness of natural rubber has been known for centuries, chemical experiments in the early 1800s improved rubber’s stability and durability. Soon after, elastic strips in clothing began growing in popularity. In 1959, DuPont chemists developed a product created from synthetic material, and spandex and the availability of stretchy clothing expanded (pun intended).
- Week of April 16, 2022
Everyday-us Latinus pt. 7
Sunday
“Sub rosa” means “under the rose” and means in confidence or secret. It relates to a story in Greek mythology where Harpcrates, the god of silence, was given a rose by Cupid so that he would not reveal certain indiscretions committed by Venus.
Monday
“R.I.P.” is “Requiescat In Pace”, which roughly translates to “May he/she begin to rest in peace.” It is originally more of a request to a higher power for the care of the deceased’s soul than a declaration that the body is at rest.
Tuesday
“Sui generis” means “of its own class” and means something unique.
Wednesday
“Tabula rasa” means “scraped tablet” or “clean slate” and often describes the human mind before being shaped by experience, learning, and influence. It can also refer to a project which can go in any direction, being unfettered to preconceived notions.
Thursday
“In loco parentis” means in “in place of the parents” and refers to someone assuming duties usually reserved for a parent, typically regarding supervision or care.
Friday
“In vitro” means “in glass” and refers to anything in laboratory conditions (such as in glass test tubes) rather than in a human, animal, or natural setting.
Saturday
“Subpoena” means “under penalty” and refers to things you must produce in a legal matter with a penalty if you don’t. “Subpoena duces tecum” is typically for documents and tangible items, while “subpoena ad testificandium” is for your own testimony in a matter.
- Week of April 9, 2023
Facts That Really Measure Up
This week’s facts cover several fun, specialized, older, and lesser-used units of measurement.
Sunday
The British and Irish sometimes give human body weights in “stones.” One stone = 14 lbs., or 6.35 kg.
Monday
The length of a “league” varied widely in Europe, but was generally a distance of 3 miles in English-speaking nations. This unit famously appears in the title of the Jules Verne adventure novel “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” but the deepest known point anywhere in the world’s oceans (in the Mariana Trench) is “only” about 2.27 leagues down.
Tuesday
Horse heights are traditionally measured in “hands”, a unit based on the average width of the human hand and equal to 4 inches.
Wednesday
“Fathom” is a traditional unit for water depth, and is equal to 6 feet, or 1.83 meters.
Thursday
A “jiffy” is quick, but how quick depends on your field. For physicists, it is how long light takes to travel a millionth of a millionth of a millimeter. In 1 second, there are about 300 thousand billion billion jiffies. In electrical terms, it is one cycle of an alternating current. The US uses 60Hz, where a jiffy would be 1/60 of a second, or 1/50 in other parts of the world. In the computer world, a jiffy is 1/10 of a second. But in any event, if you’ve ever said you’ll be “back in a jiffy,” you were probably lying.
Friday
“Morgen” is German and Dutch for “morning”, so equaled the amount of land that one man behind one ox could till in the morning. This approximate unit was used in early New England and was an official unit in South Africa until the 1970s.
Saturday
A “bushel” is a unit of dry capacity equal to 32 dry quarts. Want more? There are four pecks in a bushel, and two bushels is called a “strike.”
- Week of April 2, 2023
These Facts Toot Their Own Horn
Sunday
Anatomically speaking, horns aren’t antlers and vice versa. Antlers fall off each year and regrow the next, but horns stay put (with the exception of the pronghorn) and grow throughout the animal’s life.
Monday
Before musical horns were metal, they were made of animal horns, hence the name.
Tuesday
Powder horns, where gunpowder was stored and kept dry for Colonial-era weapons, also came from animals, typically cattle.
Wednesday
Before they were more often metal or plastic, shoehorns were made from – you guessed it – animal horn.
Thursday
The term “horny” derived from “having the horn,” a slang term for an erection. Though it previously applied to just men, it now describes arousal in any gender.
Friday
“Greenhorn” is an inexperienced (and often naive) person, since the new horns of young oxen (and by another possible source, the color when an inexperienced jeweler used the wrong temperature to process a piece of horn jewelry).
Saturday
The familiar horned appearance of the Christian devil is largely influenced by the appearance of the Greek god Pan, which itself is informed by the Egyptian god Bes.
- Week of March 26, 2023
The Fairest Facts of Them All
Sunday
Reflective “mirrors” of polished obsidian go back about 8,000 years to Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), but the now-familiar mirror, first made of glass with a layer of silver applied to it, was first developed by German chemist Justus von Liebig in 1835.
Monday
The term “smoke and mirrors” to refer to illusion and manipulated appearances only goes back to the 1970s, when political reporter and author Jimmy Breslin described “blue smoke and mirrors” in the perception of political power when writing on the Watergate affair.
Tuesday
Centuries before they were a carnival staple, the original “hall of mirrors” was built in France’s Palace of Versailles. At a time when mirrors were extremely expensive, the 357 mirrors placed in that room were one way King Louis XIV showed off his wealth and opulence.
Wednesday
Race car driver Ray Harroun was the first to put a rear view mirror on his car in 1911, but he claimed that he got the idea from seeing one on a horse-drawn buggy years before. His adaptation spurred this addition on other vehicles, which was marketed as a “cop-spotter” decades before the invention of the radar detector.
Thursday
In Lewis Carroll’s time, a mirror was also called a “looking glass,” hence the title “Through the Looking Glass,” his sequel book to “Alice in Wonderland.”
Friday
There always seems to be a one-way mirror in Hollywood portrayals of a crime suspect being questioned by police (often while a “good cop, bad cop” routine is also playing out). One-way mirrors are like regular mirrors, but with an especially thin layer of reflective surface, and are also known as “half-silvered mirrors.” These mirrors would be far less effective at being “one way” if not for big differences in lighting between the sides. The room intended to be reflected is kept bright, the room intended to stay hidden is more dark, so that most of the light reflected in the first place only comes from one side, where the suspect is usually being grilled.
Saturday
Mirrors aren’t just for light. Acoustic mirrors, usually in the shape of a bowl or parabola, were used in the 20th century to focus and transmit the sound of approaching enemy aircraft before the development of radar. Similar sound-focusing devices, sometimes called “whispering dishes” can still be found at museums, playgrounds, and sporting events.
- Week of March 19, 2023
It’s Always Greener
Sunday
All grass is definitely not the same. There are over 10,000 different varieties in the grass family Poaceae, and other plant families with very grasslike members.
Monday
Though most people put grass and flowers in different mental categories, both are angiosperms and hence flowering plants. The tiny inflorescence lawn grass flowers likely won’t make in into your wedding bouquet, though.
Tuesday
Along with watching paint dry, watching grass grow makes the list of very slow-moving things your can watch. So how fast does grass actually grow? In typical conditions, about 1/10 of an inch per day.
Wednesday
Not surprisingly, grass is the major component of lawns, which are somewhat of a national preoccupation in the US. In fact, lawns are the biggest irrigated “crop” in the US, covering an area about the size of Texas at about 63,000 sq. miles.
Thursday
“GIGS” is short for grass is greener syndrome, or the feeling of dissatisfaction when comparing yourself to a circumstance or lifestyle your believe is better than your own. This is based on the old saying “The grass is always greener on the other side.”
Friday
Grassroots political and social movements start from the “ground up” at the community level instead of being “top down” from some existing hierarchy. The first known use of the term came from an Indiana senator in 1912 in describing President Roosevelt’s Progressive Party: “This party has come from the grassroots. It has grown from the soil of people’s hard necessities.”
Saturday
Bluegrass, a unique type of southern music originally employing the mandolin, banjo, fiddle, guitar, and standup bass, was named such after Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, the first (and very popular) band to pioneer this sound.
- Week of March 12, 2023
Random Acronym Week (RAW) #9
Sunday
NASDAQ = National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations
Monday
FLOTUS = First Lady of the United States
Tuesday
DARE = Drug Abuse Resistance Education
Wednesday
PIN = personal (or property) identification number
Thursday
ASAP = as soon as possible
Friday
MADD = Mothers Against Drunk Driving
Saturday
SUV = sports utility vehicle
- Week of March 5, 2023
These Facts Give You Wings
Sunday
The specialized wing structure that allows modern birds to fly is believed to have evolved from early theropods, the same dinosaur line that included T-Rex and velociraptor.
Monday
Those little wings pictured on angels and cherubs may be cute, but just wouldn’t be functional. A prehistoric bird similar in size to a modern human male needed a wingspan over 20 feet wide to fly, and even then likely just glided. Humans would need chest muscles far larger than a pro bodybuilder just to work those wings, not to mention lighter bones and other major anatomical adaptations.
Tuesday
The term “winging it” for improvising with little preparation comes from live theater. It referred to an unrehearsed actor who delivered his lines as prompted by an assistant in the sides or “wings” of the theater, unseen by the audience, or an actor who had just recently learned the lines while in the wings himself.
Wednesday
Likewise, the term “waiting in the wings” has theatrical origins. Someone waiting on these sides of the stage, just behind the curtain, is waiting for their opportune moment to enter.
Thursday
The term “wingman” for a supportive or protective person originates with combat airplane formations, where a wingman flies outside and just behind the lead plane for support and protection.
Friday
A mother hen famously shelters her chicks under her wing for protection, hence the very old idiom “to take under my/your/his/her wing” for protective tutelage.
Saturday
A bird cannot fly with certain feathers of it’s wings trimmed, so the allusion to restricting someone’s freedom by “clipping their wings” has been around since ancient Roman times.
- Week of February 26, 2023
Chew on These Facts
Sunday
Gum is old. In what is now Sweden, chewed gum made from birch bark has been discovered which dates to nearly 10,000 years ago.
Monday
Until the 1940s, nearly all chewing gum was made from the sap of a handful of South American tree species. This natural gum base, called chicle, was eventually replaced by synthetic gum base, which makes up the majority of modern gums.
Tuesday
Being so soft and pliable, gum can take a lot of different shapes when you buy it. Among them: gum in the shape of a ball (gumballs), sticks, ribbons, tabs, chunks, cubes, cylinders, and dragée gum, which are the familiar pillow-shaped coated pellets.
Wednesday
While swallowing gum is not ideal, you can forget that old myth about gum living in your intestines for seven years. The bulk of it simply gets pooped out in a day or two like any other indigestible.
Thursday
In the world of chewing gum flavors, mint is king. Spearmint and peppermint lead the pack (no pun intended) as the most popular flavors, and mint varieties have reigned for several generations, too.
Friday
The ideal recipe for bubble gum was discovered by an accountant for the Fleer gum company who liked to experiment with gum ingredients. Walter Diemer’s version not only had the best texture for bubble gum, but set the color standard for decades, since pink was the only food coloring his gum factory had when he hit upon the right recipe.
Saturday
After cigarette butts, used chewing gum is the most littered item in the world, and because most modern gum has synthetic gum base, is largely non-biodegradable. So dispose of your gum properly!
- Week of February 19, 2023
Grandad’s Maladies
This week we translate old-time names of medical conditions into modern ones.
Sunday
Consumption = tuberculosis
Monday
Saint Vitus Dance = Sydenham chorea
Tuesday
Lockjaw = tetanus
Wednesday
Dropsy = edema
Thursday
Grippe = influenza
Friday
Camp fever = typhus
Saturday
Dipsomania = alcoholism
- Week of February 12, 2023
Facts of Grave Importance
Sunday
Originally, “graveyard” and “cemetery” were not interchangeable terms. For centuries, the deceased members of congregations were buried in crypts under their church or plots around the church in areas known as graveyards. However, as these filled up and populations grew, separate tracts of burial land unconnected with any particular church known as cemeteries became common.
Monday
A gravely ill person may seem closer to the grave, but notably, “grave” the adjective comes from the Latin “gravis” meaning heavy, weighty, and important, while “grave” the noun derives from Germanic with its current meaning: holes dug for the deceased.
Tuesday
East-facing graves are common around the world, so that the dead can face the rising sun or for various religious reasons both ancient and more modern.
Wednesday
The Egyptian pyramids are among the worlds most enduring grave markers. They stand above tombs of pharaohs, but also included supplies for the afterlife and the journey to it, as well as pictures and information about life at the time of the pyramids’ building.
Thursday
Increasingly, burial plots are not full of bodies, but ashes. In the US, the 63.3% of people are expected to choose cremation by 2025, up from a mere 3.6% in 1960. The location of burial spots for ashes (if they are buried at all) is less regulated, and thus far more flexible.
Friday
In some places, traditional burials are simply impractical. New Orleans, for example, is located below sea level where the Mississippi River meets the Gulf of Mexico, and hence floods frequently. Since coffins contain both bodies and air, they would often rise to the top of saturated soil, sometimes even floating around on floodwaters, creating an obvious (and gruesome) health hazard. Accordingly, New Orleans began to require either cremation or above-ground tombs for the deceased.
Saturday
The first use of the term “graveyard shift,” a work shift which typically begins at midnight, did not come from graveyards at all, but references to overnight shifts in mines. Besides both places being dark and spooky, there is no obvious connection.
- Week of February 5, 2023
Truly Ear-Relevant Facts
Sunday
The term “earworm” is about 1,000 years old in English, but originally referred to the earwig, which people inaccurately believed crawled into human ears. Later the term applied to a moth larvae that damaged ears of corn and other crops, but in the late 1950s Germans began describing catchy “ohrvurm” tunes instead of agricultural pests, and the term has been popular in English since the 1980s.
Monday
To “keep an ear to the ground” means to be keenly scouting for something. This practice is often associated with listening for approaching horses, but in fact has been used for centuries by cultures all around the world to detect all variety of animals, people and things.
Tuesday
Earrings go way back. They weren’t just worn by pirates and Shakespeare, but Otzi the Iceman, the oldest known mummy ever discovered, who was sporting them about 5,300 years ago.
Wednesday
Some of the most famous ears in all of Hollywood (and the 22nd century), those of Star Trek’s Mr. Spock, were donated for permanent exhibit to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum by the actor’s family.
Thursday
Between the time hearing aids were invented in the 17th Century and electrified in the 20th, they were essentially just “ear trumpets,” designed to channel sound into the ear instead of amplifying it electrically. These large devices were sometimes made to be worn within hats, hairstyles, collars, beards, and in the case of royalty, inside of thrones.
Friday
Imagine if you could hear a friend calling to you from 2.5 miles away or more. An elephant could, but they don’t just listen with those massive ears. Packed with blood vessels, elephant ears also manage body heat and can cool by fanning, as well as asserting position when elephants spread their ears to show dominance. Notably, elephants also have very sensitive feet, and can talk with “seismic communication,” hearing other elephant noises and triangulating their location through ground vibrations.
Saturday
You don’t just hear the world thanks to your ears, you balance your way through it. The inner ear contains the fluid-filled semicircular canals, and as this fluid moves around, hair-like sensors send signals to the brain which help with orienting and balancing the body.
- Week of January 29, 2023
The Coolest Facts Around
Sunday
For this week’s first fact, let’s break the ice. This term for a conversation starter comes from special ships – ice breakers – that broke ice and permitted passage and progress, just like conversational ice breakers do for acquaintanceships.
Monday
For about the last 100 years, an unlikely thing has been described as happening “when hell freezes over.” Notably, however, one of literature’s most graphic descriptions of hell, Dante’s Inferno, has Satan himself encased in ice up to the waist.
Tuesday
The larger part of icebergs floating at sea can be found under the water, with only the small top sticking out. Hence referring to “the tip of the iceberg” to represent the much smaller part of the issue or story.
Wednesday
The saying “it doesn’t cut any ice” regarding someone or something which has little effect is surprisingly literal. Blunt ice skate blades leave little impression on the ice, but sharpened ones permit better skating and leave a cut.
Thursday
Because off the unique bonds between water molecules, water actually expands when it freezes into ice, making ice only 90% as dense as the same volume of water. For this reason, ice floats on water, and natural water bodies freeze from the top down, allowing aquatic life to continue to live near the liquid bottom.
Friday
The notion of putting ice in a specialized building to keep the food and drink inside cool may go back to 1780 BC, but immediately before mechanical refrigerators were used in most 20th century houses, blocks of ice were delivered to homes to place in ice boxes, which kept contents cool until that ice melted. Ice harvesters, collecting ice from frozen ponds and lakes with specialized tools, could be well paid for the heavy blocks, although the work was difficult and dangerous.
Saturday
We owe much of the shape of the modern earth to the last Ice Age, which ended about 11,700 years ago. During this chilly era, glaciers covered about 1/4 of the land, humans migrated far across the earth to populate new places, and retreating glaciers reshaped the land and carved out current fresh water bodies large and small, including the North America’s Great Lakes.
- Week of January 15, 2023
Train Your Mind Well
Sunday
Need to “let off (or blow off) some steam”? So did early locomotives when their boilers built up dangerous pressure, hence the safety valve and origin of this term.
Monday
Sidetracks are where trains get diverted off the main line for whatever reason, and also the origin of the term for a diversion from the goal among humans.
Tuesday
The term “Hell on Wheels” has railroad origins, and referred to the transient, moving towns that traveled with the westbound construction of the US railroad, attracting the business of the young railroad workers with saloons, gambling, and brothels.
Wednesday
While we now think of a “double header” as two consecutive baseball games, it previously referred to a two-engine train. That was not its first usage, though, since before that a double header was a type of firework.
Thursday
To be “railroaded” is to hastily forced into an agreement or pushed through a process. This may refer to the speed of this new form of travel, the way early railroads were hurriedly and doggedly completed, or how they were sometimes completed with minimum concern for private claims to the land they were built on.
“The Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins” by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).
Friday
Before bumpers were ever on cars, they were on trains, and “bumper to bumper” was not a traffic jam of cars but the recommended way to efficiently store train cars.
Saturday
About 150 years before modern DJs spun and scratched on record turntables, trains spun on the original turntables. These huge devices moved trains onto the right track, and are still in use today.
- Week of January 15, 2023
Loosen Yours and Consume More Facts
Sunday
Belts are old. The earliest known belt worn on a person was used in the Bronze Age, which was from about 1200-3300 BC.
Monday
In the US, the “Rust Belt” is an area which includes parts of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wisconsin, and by some accounts Iowa, Kentucky, and Massachusetts. The abundance of iron ore, coal, and natural waterways for transport once made this region a powerful manufacturing center. However, beginning in the 1950s, foreign competition, increased mechanization that replaced workers, increased labor costs, and other causes led to a decline in the region’s industries and population. The name began when presidential candidate Walter Mondale claimed his opponent Ronald Reagan’s trade policies would turn this area into a “rust bowl” (a reference to the “Dust Bowl” of Great Depression times), but “Rust Belt” ended up sticking instead. The US has many other belts, after all, including the Corn Belt, Sun Belt, and Bible Belt.
Tuesday
Though the colors between them and symbolism vary among traditions, each martial art which uses a belt ranking system starts with white and ends with black (although there are degrees of black belt).
Wednesday
On a much larger scale, an asteroid belt circles our sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Although comprised of millions of space rocks of various sizes, the mass of all these combined would still be only 3% that of Earth’s moon.
Thursday
US federal government activities and politicking in the Washington DC metro area are often described as “Inside the Beltway” because this region is surrounded by interstate highways I-495 and I-95, which form a loop known as “The Capital Beltway.”
Friday
While lap-only seat belts were first invented for horse-drawn vehicles, it would be 51 years after the first Ford Model T arrived that the modern 3-point lap/body seat belt appeared in Volvos. By the time inventor Nils Bohlin died in 2002, his concept was estimated to have saved one million lives.
Saturday
Normally one method of keeping one’s pants up is sufficient, so taking a “belt and suspenders” approach to anything indicates extreme safety and caution.
- Week of January 8, 2023
This Week is the Site’s Blue Period
Sunday
The term “blue blood” has some unfortunate racist baggage. It is derived literally from “sangre azul,” a term previously used for the old aristocratic families of Castile whose veins were visible under pale skin because they had not mixed with the Moors, Jews, or other darker-complexion groups of middle-ages Spain.
Monday
A steadfastly loyal or dedicated person is “true blue” because the 17th-century fabric dyers of Coventry, England were known for using blue dye which didn’t fade with washing, staying “true” or “fast.” Over time, the saying “True as Coventry blue” was shortened to just “true blue.”
Tuesday
“Blue Monday,” which is the third Monday in January, is supposedly the saddest day of the year, since it is in the middle of the dark, cold winter, the holiday fun is over, but the holiday bills are starting to arrive.
Wednesday
All blue-eyed people are descended from a single individual who experienced a mutation that caused his or her descendants to have less melanin in their eyes, making them appear lighter. This person lived in Europe between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago.
Thursday
The blue whale is not just the largest creature to live on Earth now, but the largest ever known to have lived on Earth.
Friday
The phrase “between the devil and the deep blue sea” derives from translations from other phrases which also indicate choosing between two awful options, including “between damnation and drowning,” “between the devil and the Dead Sea,” “between the sledgehammer and the anvil,” and “a precipice in front, wolves behind.” By some accounts, “the devil” describes a the area “between the deck planking and the topmost plank of the ship’s side,” or a deck’s edge, still a dangerous place.
Saturday
99 years ago, the “Feather River Bulletin” of Quincy, California, declared “If we may call professions and office positions white collar jobs, we may call the trades blue collar jobs.” Blue denim, dungarees, and lighter gingham fabric had long been preferred among manual laborers for their durability, not to mention that darker colors didn’t show stains as readily and thus needed less washing.
- Week of January 1, 2022
Facts That Are Fit to Be Tied
Sunday
The convention of categorizing athletic players as “first string, second string, etc.” goes back to the medieval archer’s practice of carrying backup strings for their bow in case the first string broke.
Monday
Purse strings tighten or loosen the opening of a traditional pouch purse, so one who “controls the purse strings” has authority to dictate finances as they see fit.
Tuesday
Fabric merchants of old times marked flaws in their material for sale by tying a string to the imperfect spot. Hence to get something without condition is to receive it “no strings attached.”
Wednesday
A person who “pulls the strings” controls people or events, often unbeknownst to others. This term originates with marionette puppetry, where characters were controlled by hidden puppeteers holding the strings.
Thursday
Stringed instruments go back to at least 2,550BC, the date of the first known lyre found in 1929 in modern day Iraq.
Friday
String theory, in a very simplified sense, suggests that the various forces among subatomic particles could interact in a more theoretically cohesive way if the particles were conceptualized as vibrating strings instead of individual points.
Saturday
Unsurprisingly, strings are old. Man-made strings found in a cave in southeast France date back 90,000 years.
- Week of December 25, 2022
Everydayus Latin, pt. 6
Sunday
“Prima facia” means “at first appearance / view.”
Monday
“In absentia” means “while absent.”
Tuesday
“Que sera, sera” means “whatever will be, will be.”
Wednesday
“Post mortem” means “after death.”
Thursday
“Rigor mortis” means “the stiffness of death.”
Friday
“Sine qua non” means “that without, not,” but can be better understood as “the essential thing.”
Saturday
“In vino veritas” means “in wine there is truth.”
- Week of December 18, 2022
Going with the Grain
Sunday
The original breakfast cereal, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, came from an accidental discovery at a sanitarium. When brothers John Harvey Kellogg and Will Keith Kellogg found some wheat they’d cooked had gone stale, they nonetheless put the wheat through rollers hoping to make dough sheets. When they got flakes instead, they decided to toast them. This cereal was very popular at the Battle Creek, Michigan sanitarium they were managing at the time, and since it was neither spicy nor sweet, it did not risk arousing any “passions” which their Seventh Day Adventist religion attributed to such food. Various grains were experimented with, and eventually their corn cereal was mass produced starting in 1906. The green rooster mascot, still on the box today, is named Cornelius (“Corny”) and came about because a Welsh-speaking friend noted that her language’s word for rooster was “ceiliog,” which sounded like “Kellogg.”
Monday
Charles W. Post, previously a patient of the Battle Creek Sanitarium which the Kellogg brothers oversaw, started a competing cereal company, The Postum Cereal Company, Ltd., and produced a rival corn flake cereal called “Post Toasties.” Grape Nuts Cereal (still around today) soon followed, and through aggressive marketing and somewhat dubious health claims regarding his products, this other Battle Creek food company was a major industry player.
Tuesday
Tony the Tiger has been around since long before the cereal changed its name from “Sugar Frosted Flakes” as sugar content began to concern more consumers. It was previously revealed that Tony is Italian-American, has a mom Mama Tony, a wife Mrs. Tony, a son Tony Jr., and a young daughter Antoinette.
Wednesday
Grape Nuts cereal is made from wheat, barley, yeast, salt, and some added vitamins. The cereal never contained grapes nor nuts at any point in its 125-year history, so that now the product’s own website only has speculation as to why it was named so.
Thursday
The first face to appear on a Wheaties box was fictional “all-American boy” Jack Armstrong in 1934, who was replaced later that year by real-life baseball legend Lou Gehrig. Prior to focusing on athletes, The Lone Ranger, pioneer female pilot Elinor Smith, and other non-athletes appeared on Wheaties boxes, though it was not until the 1950s that individuals appeared on the front of the box instead of the back. Notably, Wheaties was also the first product promoted with a musical jingle in its radio commercial.
Friday
The first appearance of iconic cereal mascots Snap, Crackle, and Pop was a solo appearance by Snap in 1933. The other brothers soon joined him, all first appearing as elderly gnomes rather than the youthful elves of later makeovers. A brief appearance of a taller, brawnier, fourth elf named Pow (short for “Power”), appeared dressed in spacesuits during the space race of the 1950s, but was soon retired.
Saturday
We call it “cereal” after Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture and grain.
- Week of December 11, 2022
Facts That Really Have Teeth
Sunday
The term “to cut your teeth on ___” derives from the old description of when a baby first “cut his teeth,” or had them emerge through the gums.
Monday
Horse teeth grow their whole lives, and a trained eye can age the animal accordingly, hence the reference to older folks being “long in the tooth.”
Tuesday
To “lie through your teeth” means to lie unabashedly, often, and by some accounts, even while smiling kindly and showing your teeth.
Wednesday
Not everyone develops wisdom teeth, or “third molars,” but those that do often find they crowd other teeth or become impacted and fail to fully emerge or “erupt” into the jaw. One reason for this is that modern humans have smaller jaws than our distant ancestors, so there is less space for these somewhat vestigial teeth than there used to be.
Thursday
Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury was famously self-conscious of his prominent front teeth, but refused orthodontic treatment, believing they played a role in his remarkable vocal range and projection. In 2016, European scientists (and admitted fans) studied this question and found that Mercury’s singing voice likely came from not only his outstanding control of his vocal chords, but use of his vestibular folds, membranes found above the vocal chords and not usually used in voice at all.
Friday
A snake’s teeth will tell you just how it kills prey. Venomous snakes have long fangs which inject poison into prey, while the more common constrictors have smaller even teeth to latch onto prey while the rest of the muscular snake wraps around it to suffocate it.
Saturday
Cavities aren’t new, and neither are fillings. Archaeologists have found human remains from about 6,500 years ago with beeswax fillings and remains from 13,000 years ago with tar fillings.
- Week of December 4, 2022
Random Acronym Week (RAW!) #8
Sunday
IMAX = Image MAXimum
Monday
NORAD = North American Aerospace Defense Command
Tuesday
HUD = Housing and Urban Development
Wednesday
IRC = International Rescue Committee
Thursday
COP = Conference Of the Parties (to treaties, typically international ones like those relating to climate change
Friday
COLA = Cost of Living Adjustment
Saturday
SAG = Screen Actors Guild
- Week of November 26, 2022
A Metal for Medals
Sunday
Silver’s chemical symbol on the periodic table is not “Si” (which is silicon), but “Ag” after the Latin “argentum,” meaning “shiny” or “white.”
Monday
“Quicksilver” actually describes mercury, which is both silvery in color and the only metal which is liquid at room temperature, making it seem alive, or “quick.”
Tuesday
Silver gets the gold medal for being the most malleable and ductile metal, able to be drawn into a wire one atom (yes, atom) wide.
Wednesday
Since silver platters were traditionally serving dishes used in formal, wealthy settings, to have things “handed to you on a silver platter,” means to receive something without necessarily deserving or earning it in the first place.
Thursday
However, if that thing brought on a silver platter is a severed human head, this is refers to a harsh punishment based on a grisly Biblical story. In it, King Herod grants his stepdaughter Salome her wish of receiving the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter. John, Jesus’ cousin, had been speaking ill of the queen and was already imprisoned out of concern that he might spark rebellion.
Friday
There’s not much actual silver in the sky, but a “silver lining” refers to the light seen around the edge of dark clouds, and is a metaphor for a positive outcome born of a negative one.
Saturday
“Silver Surfer” is both a Marvel Comics character first introduced in 1966 and an amusing term for senior citizens who are proficient “surfing” the Internet.
- Week of November 20, 2022
Prey for Them
Among the many everyday terms originating from the ancient practice of falconry:
Sunday
The leash by which a falconer holds onto his bird is called a “jess,” and when the handler’s thumb pins down the jess to hold it secure, the bird is “under his thumb.”
Monday
Likewise, the jess can be wrapped around a little finger to secure the bird, the origin of this other term for full control.
Tuesday
“Haggard” describes a mature wild-caught hawk, which are also often thin and scruffy when caught at the end of a migration.
Wednesday
When a falconing bird is tethered and restrained, it is “bated,” so “waiting with bated breath” refers to holding your breath in anticipation.
Thursday
A leather “hat” or hood is sometimes put over the eyes of the bird to calm them. From this we get “hoodwinked,” since wink means to close the eyes quickly, for deceiving or tricking someone.
Friday
“Ruser,” from the Old French, describes when a hawk shakes its tail feathers. From this comes “rouse,” which means to awaken yourself or someone else.
Saturday
References to a “hawkeye” as having sharp vision are not kidding. Hawks can see five times better than people, spot small prey miles away, have a visual range of 280 degrees (people only have 200 degrees), and can see sharper colors and even ultraviolet light.
- Week of November 12, 2022
Through the Hourglass
Sunday
Around the world, sand is different colors because that is the color of the rock or other material the sand eroded from. For example, black sand beaches are often made from eroded basalt from lava, and white sand beaches are often pulverized coral.
Monday
Ostriches don’t really stick their heads in the sand to hide from danger or problems, but they do put their heads down to dig holes for their eggs and eat plants.
Tuesday
By one prominent soil classification system, sand, by definition, must have grains between 0.074 mm and 4.75 mm. Smaller particles are silt, larger grains are gravel.
Wednesday
Sand is an essential ingredient in construction, with about 50 billion tons of it used in building yearly. At least seven different types of sand are categorized for various building purposes, including concrete sand, fill sand, and manufactured sand.
Thursday
As plentiful as desert sand is, several factors make it undesirable for use in construction.
Friday
While there is spotty evidence that the world’s first sand-filled hourglasses were used by the ancient Romans and Greeks, it was more likely developed in Europe by the 8th century AD and certainly in widespread use on the continent six centuries later.
Saturday
Think you’ve made some impressive sand castles? The world record largest sand castle was made in Denmark in 2021, measured just under 70 feet tall and was made of 6,400 tons of sand.
- Week of November 6, 2022
In Good Company
Sunday
“Inc.” means incorporated, and “corp.” means corporation. A corporation is one type of business entity that is legally distinct from those who own it or work there.
Monday
“LLC” stands for “limited liability company,” which does not issue stock like a corporation, but is still separate from the people owning / running / working for it.
Tuesday
“DBA” stands for “doing business as.”
Wednesday
“LP” is a limited partnership…
Thursday
…and “LLP” is a limited liability partnership.
Friday
“PC” stands for professional corporation, and is a corporation which can be started by members of particular professions.
Saturday
“Co-op” is a cooperative, which is individuals, producers, or businesses working together for a common purpose, usually agreeing to certain principles of autonomy and democracy.
- Week of October 30, 2022
Continental Break-facts
Sunday
Asia’s name comes from ancient Greek, where the term was applied to what is now Anatolia after first just describing the east bank of the Aegean Sea. The term was later applied to lands further and further east, and Anatolia was differentiated by calling it “Asia Minor.”
Monday
The Romans called modern-day Tunisia, the part of Africa closest to them, “Africa terra”, or “land of the Afris,” after a tribe from northern Africa, near Carthage. As with Asia, the name applied to a small part of the continent was progressively applied to the whole, sped by middle-ages exploration of Africa.
Tuesday
America, both North and South, were most likely named for Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who himself was named for Hungary’s Saint Emeric. Vespucci’s explorations of the coasts of modern-day Venezuela and Brazil led him to propose these unknown lands were actually part of a new continent, which proved to be quite correct.
Wednesday
Antarctica, from the Greek “antarktike” means the opposite to the Arctic, with this continent being on the other side of the globe as the Arctic. “Arctic” comes from “Arktos,” or “bear” in Greek, since the bear constellations, Ursa Minor and Major, are seen in the Northern Hemisphere and point to the North Star.
Thursday
When English explorer Matthew Flinders first sailed around Australia, the maps printed after his journey called it “Terra Australis” (“Southern Land”), although “Australia,” which the navigator himself preferred, eventually won out as the common name.
Friday
Three prominent theories about Europe’s name:
-That it came from “erebu” an Akkadian word meaning “sunset,” since Europe was west, toward the sunset, from Mesopotamia where the word originated.
-That is is named for the Greek goddess Europa.
-That it comes from the Greek words for “wide” and “eye,” or “wide gazing” since Europe’s shoreline would have looked comparatively very wide to Greek mariners.
Saturday
Thousands of islands in the Pacific Ocean are part of what is called Oceania, a term which often includes Australia and the submerged continent of Zealandia. “Okeanos” was the name of the great water body which ancient Greeks believed surrounded the Earth.
- Week of October 23, 2022
Paint it Fact
Sunday
Curiously, the first known paint mixture predates any known paintings by thousands of years. Several seashells containing a painting mixture of ochre, charcoal, crushed bone and stone flakes were found in South Africa’s Blombos Cave, and may be up to 100,000 years old. Any paintings made from this stash likely washed or wore away since then.
Monday
The oldest known preserved paintings are in limestone caves in Indonesia and date back at least 40,000 years. The better-known European cave art appears to be several thousand years younger.
Tuesday
Ancient paint was made with a remarkable variety of pigments to get the various colors needed. The origin of these colors included fruits, flowers, blood, charcoal, insects, sap, plants, roots, and many types of natural minerals.
Wednesday
A big revolution in the history of paint was the use of oil-based paint, which could give paintings more vibrant color, luster, and depth, among other advantages. The first known oil painting was from 650 A.D. by Buddhist artists in what is now Afghanistan. Historically popular paining oils were linseed, walnut, poppy seed and safflower.
Thursday
The largest known painting in the world, completed in 2020, is over 17,000 square feet in size, and was sold to benefit charities.
Friday
In 1949, paint salesman Ed Seymour wanted a way to showcase an aluminum coating for radiators. His wife proposed a spray gun, like the kind used for deodorizers, and the spray paint can was born.
Saturday
The Mona Lisa is likely the most famous paining ever, and is considered priceless. It is insured for over $900 million in inflation-adjusted dollars, the most of any painting in history, and French law prevents its sale.
- Week of October 16, 2022
How Every Day Originates
Sunday
By one count, there are well over 100 different sun gods and goddesses from religions all over the world.
Monday
The Earth is actually farthest from the sun in the summer and closest the winter, but the summer sun rays hit at a steeper angle. Hence these summer rays reach us with more focused intensity, as well as longer days to experience the light and heat.
Tuesday
The casual observer may think the sun is fixed and unchanging, but periodic energy outbursts in the form of solar flares and coronal mass ejections can cause huge problems to Earth’s electrical and electronics infrastructure. Events like this make up part of what is known as “space weather.”
Wednesday
Thanks to Earth’s axial tilt, several cities in the farther latitudes don’t see the sun go down for about 2.5 months straight, while during the opposite time of year, it doesn’t come up for that long. Travel to the North or South Poles, “polar day” and “polar night” last for six months at a time.
Thursday
Humanity has about 5 billion years to find and colonize one or more other livable planets before our own sun consumes all its hydrogen fuel and burns out.
Friday
The massive asteroid that hit Earth 66 million years ago sent so much dust and debris into the atmosphere that the sun was largely blotted out for years. Fewer plants grew, which played a huge role in the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Saturday
If Earth was closer to the sun, it would likely be too hot for life to evolve, as on Mercury or Venus, where water boils away. If it were further, it would be to cold and water would freeze, like on the outer planets. For this reason, scientists coined the term “Goldilocks Zone” for the distance from a sun hospitable to liquid water and therefore life.
- Week of October 9, 2022
Heady Tales
Sunday
A “coin of the realm” means something valued within a given locale, but the term originally meant actual currency issued by the British monarch.
Monday
In the US, “two bits” means 25¢, though the US Mint has never produced a 12.5 cent coin. However, Brits have long called a low-value coin a “bit,” and in the US the term was applied to some early Mexican and Spanish coins in circulation which were valued at 1/8 peso, or about 12.5¢ at the time.
Tuesday
“A penny saved is a penny earned” is one of many wise maxims often credited to Benjamin Franklin, though he never actually said it. He came close with “A penny saved is two pence clear,” and “a penny saved is a penny got,” but these frugal notions weren’t original to Franklin; similar wisdom had been printed over a century before.
Wednesday
In both diameter and thickness, a dime is the smallest circulating American coin. Hence, people say that a very quick-maneuvering vehicle can “turn on a dime,” as can a person who changes their own position on a subject quickly. The same idea is invoked by the expression “stop on a dime.”
Thursday
The coin toss at the beginning of every NFL game (and overtime, if any) uses a special coin made just for the purpose, with particular coins made just for the Super Bowl.
Friday
Shortly after dimes were first minted in the US in 1796, “a dime a dozen” was often used as a sale price for everyday products and indicated a good bargain. By 1930, inflation had rendered a dime far less valuable, and this term was first used with a negative connotation of something so common it is nearly useless.
Saturday
Though now applied to many manufactured items, “mint condition” originally referred to a brand new coin fresh from the mint that made it.
- Week of October 2, 2022
Facts That Are Your Cup of Tea
Sunday
The origin story and Chinese name for tea are related. According to legend, 5,000 years ago Emperor Shen Nung was boiling water when a nearby wild tree leaf blew into it. Intrigued by the scent, he drank, and reported that it warmed every part of his body, as if the tea were investigating his insides. Hence he gave tea the name “ch’a”, which meant to check or investigate.
Monday
“Not for all the tea in China,” meaning not for any price, was a term first seen in the early 20th century term which recognized that China produced enormous quantities of tea, a fact still true today with the country leading global production by a large margin.
Tuesday
While China, with its billion-plus population, also consumes the most total tea, the biggest average per-person tea drinking nation is easily Turkey, consuming nearly 7 lbs. / person / year, far more than even tea-loving England.
Wednesday
A wonderful tea-related term largely unknown to Americans (at least this one), is “More tea, Vicar?” This is used in the UK as a humorous distraction after passing gas or belching.
Thursday
“Herbal tea” is not made from tea leaves, but instead fruit, flowers, nuts and/or seeds, so is really a different beverage properly called tisane. Like tea, this drink has ancient origins.
Friday
Tea leaf reading, also known as “tasseography.” among other names, was the popular art of reading fortunes from the pattern of loose tea leaves remaining in one’s cup after drinking. The decline of the art began in 1903 with the rise of the teabag, since this contained the leaves that were otherwise left on the bottom for reading.
Saturday
Despite coffee’s popularity in the Americas, three cups of tea are consumed for every one cup of coffee worldwide.
- Week of September 25, 2022
Sew Interesting
Sunday
Pins and needles all start out as long spools of wire which are then cut to size and processed, largely by machine, into the finished product. The process can take several days.
Monday
Sewing needles are a very essential, and very old, human invention. A 50,000 year old needle made of bird bone was found in one Siberian cave, likely made by a now-extinct species of humans.
Tuesday
Tattoos, and the needles which produce them, also go pretty far back. Iceman Otzi, found under a melting European glacier in 1991, had 61 tattoos on his body and was carbon-14 dated at 5,300 years old.
Wednesday
The common pin has the distinction of being the item which Adam Smith uses as an example of the efficiency of division of labor in manufacture.
Thursday
“Pins and needles” describes unrelated mental and physical sensations. It describes both nervous anticipation and the feeling of blood returning to a limb which had “fallen asleep.” The term has been in use since at least the 19th century.
Friday
The modern safety pin was invented by Walter Hunt as he toyed with some wire, pondering how he might pay off a debt of fifteen dollars to a friend. He sold the patent to that friend after receiving one in 1849.
Saturday
A “needler” is both one who makes needles or deals in and also one who annoys and antagonizes.
- Week of September 18, 2022
Batty About Factoids
Sunday
Bats are the only mammal on Earth which can sustain flight (though others can glide).
Monday
With over 1,000 known bat species, bats are the second largest taxonomic order after rodents, comprising about 20% of all classified mammal species globally.
Tuesday
Bats find insects prey by echolocation, the emitting of high-pitched sounds and listening to the echoes to spot nearby bugs it bounced off of. With this tactic, some bats can consume about 20 mosquitoes per minute.
Wednesday
Bat poop (guano) contains saltpeter, which is used to make gunpowder, and a Confederate kiln at one Texas bat cave churned out 100 lbs / day during the American Civil War.
Thursday
Vampire bats are the only mammals which can live on blood alone, which they lick from tiny cuts they make on mostly unfazed livestock. Contrary to the Dracula myth, however, all known species live in Central and South America, far from Transylvania.
Friday
Eating the weight of 7 garbage trucks worth of insects might seem like a tall order, but it is done every night by the 15 million bats living in Texas’ Bracken Bat Cave, the world’s largest concentration of the animal.
Saturday
The range in size of bats remarkable. The smallest species, Kitti’s Hog-Nosed Bat, have an adult weight of 2 grams and a length of about 1.2 inches, while the largest bat, the Giant Golden-Crowned Flying Fox, might be 11 inches long and weight 3 lbs. This would be comparable to adult humans in one part of the world being about 6 feet tall and 200 lbs, and people elsewhere being 55 feet tall and 1.36 million lbs.
- Week of September 11, 2022
Digital Acronym Week (DAM!) #6
Sunday
CAD = Computer Aided Drafting / Design
Monday
CGI = Computer Generated Imagery
Tuesday
TLD = Top Level Domain
Wednesday
ISP = Internet Service Provider
Thursday
DDoS = Distributed Denial of Service
Friday
MMORPG = Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game
Saturday
PVP = Player vs. Player
- Week of September 4, 2022
Focused on Facts
Sunday
The first eyeglasses are generally thought to have been created in 1285 and were made of quartz, since glass at that time was too flawed to be good for glasses.
Monday
Eyeglasses work by taking on some of the light ray management that the eye would do in a person with perfect vision. If you’re nearsighted, your glasses focus incoming light rays onto the retina of your eye so that faraway objects you see aren’t blurry. If you’re farsighted, eyeglasses spread the light over a wider area of the eye’s retina, bringing nearby objects into focus.
Tuesday
Sunglasses in the form of slits cut into walrus ivory have been used to reduce snow glare by Inuit people for 2,000 years.
Wednesday
The idea may seem obvious now, but eyeglasses went about 450 years before the development of frames with hooks that go behind the ears.
Thursday
In addition to accomplishments in science, writing, politics, diplomacy, and more, Benjamin Franklin was also the inventor of bifocals, which allow wearers to focus on objects both near and far.
Friday
Most modern “glasses” lenses are plastic, which tend not to shatter and are hence safer for the wearer.
Saturday
About 75% of adults need some form of vision correction.
- Week of August 28, 2022
Let’s Sleep On It
Sunday
The regular use of pillows goes back about 9,000 years, but the notion that they should be soft only goes back about 2,000. Before that pillows were made of stone, wood, ceramic, metal, and other hard materials. Among the reasons for the rigid pillows was a fear that such softness would steal bodily energy or appear as weakness.
Monday
You might not think the purpose of your pillow is to keep your head off the ground so that insects don’t crawl into your ears, nose, or mouth, but this was a reason early pillow adopters used them.
Tuesday
Between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Industrial Revolution, pillow use and evolution was greatly slowed in the Middle Ages. Henry VIII even banned the use of pillows for all but pregnant women.
Wednesday
One modern pillow and mattress staple material, memory foam, was actually developed by NASA to keep test pilots better cushioned during flight.
Thursday
The oldest discovered burial in all of Africa is that of a young child with its head on a pillow. It was about 80,000 years old, and researchers named him “Mtoto.”
Friday
There are well over a dozen types of stuffing options for the modern pillow shopper, including natural and synthetically-sourced material.
Saturday
Competitive pillow fighting is a real sport, involving two competitors trading blows with 2 lb. specialized pillows for 90 second rounds.
- Week of August 21, 2022
Drawing Factual Conclusions
Sunday
Pencils don’t contain lead and never have, but write with graphite, a pure carbon isotope (diamonds being another form of pure carbon). Graphite deposits have been mistaken for lead, however, and pre-pencil writing styluses were made of lead, perhaps explaining the misnomer.
Monday
Pencils work because the graphite’s carbon atoms are arranged in sheets, bonded strongly to other atoms to the side of each other, but only weakly to those sheets above and below. Accordingly, they “rub off” easily, such that pencil marks are sheets of carbon atoms.
Tuesday
Pencil-ready graphite is so delicate it must be encased in something to be usable, and before hollowed-out wooden tubes, early pencils were graphite wrapped in paper or string.
Wednesday
The uses of the pencil informed its naming. Pencil comes from “pencillum” or “fine brush” in Latin, and graphite comes from “graphien” or “to write” in Greek.
Thursday
The graphite pencil went about 200 years before it got that pink eraser attached. Before that, bread crumbs did the trick.
Friday
Famous natural philosopher and writer Henry David Thoreau was also part of the very successful John Thoreau & Company family pencil business, and himself developed many major innovations to pencil quality and manufacture.
Saturday
The letters and numbers on pencils, including that testing favorite yellow “No. 2”, indicate the formulation of that pencil’s graphite for blackness, hardness, and ability to sharpen to a fine point.
- Week of August 14, 2022
Everydayus Latin, pt. 5
Sunday
“Alias” means “otherwise called.”
Monday
“Cogito, ergo sum,” famously declared by Descartes, means “I think, therefore I am.”
Tuesday
“Antebellum” means “before the war.”
Wednesday
“Consensus” means “agreement / accord.”
Thursday
“Veto” means “I forbid.”
Friday
“Et al” means “and others.”
Saturday
“Innuendo” means “giving a nod to.”
- Week of August 7, 2022
The Corniest Facts Ever
Sunday
Globally, corn is among the most essential crops, with well over a billion tons grown annually. Corn currently supplies over 6% of human calories.
Monday
Baseball fans might have heard a routine fly ball hit to an outfielder called a “can of corn.” This refers to the old practice of grocery clerks pulling cans off high shelves with long hooks, then catching the falling item in their apron. This term applies to other simple routine actions as well.
Tuesday
The distribution of the US’s largest-acreage crop goes roughly 1/3 to people, beverage, and industrial markets, 1/3 to ethanol production, and 1/3 to livestock.
Wednesday
Corn’s ancestor is a plant called teosinte, which was methodically bred with other plants in southwestern Mexico to get modern corn. However, with just 5-10 kernels per ear and a taste like dried potato, you probably wouldn’t recognize this plant as an ancestor of modern corn.
Thursday
Corn, squash, and pole beans were often grown together and called the “three sisters” by native American tribes for centuries. These plants they had a remarkably complimentary relationship: Corn stalks supply the support for the beans to wrap around and grow up, the beans convert nitrogen in the air to a form usable to all plants, and squash’s big prickly leaves deter pests, keep the ground moist and provide mulch, for the group.
Friday
As a global staple crop, corn grows on every continent on Earth except Antarctica.
Saturday
In the US, the overwhelming majority of corn comes from the “Corn Belt”, which produces nearly 40% of the world’s supply and includes parts of the Midwest, Great Plains, and South. Iowa and Illinois tend to lead production annually, with nearly 1/3 of the land in those states dedicated to the crop.
- Week of July 31, 2022
The Air That We Breathe
Sunday
At about 78%, Nitrogen is easily the largest component of Earth’s atmosphere, colorless and odorless to people. Essential nitrogen-containing compounds, however, come from the food we eat.
Monday
Fortunately for most living things, oxygen in the form of O2 is the next most abundant gas in the atmosphere at about 21%. It is also colorless and odorless to us, but quite essential.
Tuesday
The next most abundant gas in the atmosphere is Argon at 0.93%. Compared to its gassy friends, Argon is quite aloof as one of the “noble gasses”, doing very little bonding or reacting as it floats around.
Wednesday
Among the most variable components of the atmosphere is water vapor, the amount of which in the air can vary widely with temperature and location. Warm air holds more moisture, so water vapor can compose 4-5% of the air in the tropics, but 0.2% in the Arctic.
Thursday
Carbon dioxide currently makes up about 0.4% of the atmosphere. This molecule is breathed in by plants and is essential in the carbon cycle, but is also produced by burning fossil fuels, and its heat-trapping nature now makes it a major cause of climate change.
Friday
What’s left after these bigger components are minute amounts of the trace gasses, among them helium, neon, methane, hydrogen, ozone, nitrous oxide, and krypton. Some trace gasses actually come from human activity.
Saturday
Most atmospheric gasses are at greatest concentrations closer to the ground, which explains why the air seems so “thin” at great altitudes. Helium and hydrogen, being so light, can reach great heights, however.
- Week of July 24, 2022
Thick, Shiny, Stylish Factoids
Sunday
To “let your hair down” means to be more uninhibited and honest, and traces back to the days when women kept their hair up except in the privacy of their own home or among intimate company.
Monday
Regardless of where it is bought, the vast majority of real human hair used in wigs and extensions comes from the East, especially India, China, and Eastern Europe.
Tuesday
A “hairpin turn” gets that name for its resemblance to a metal hairpin, so usually involves a very sharp 180 degree (or nearly so) turn.
Wednesday
The care of hair (and scalps) is huge business. Despite Covid, this global market was $80.81 billion USD in 2020, and does not include the sale of actual hair products, such as wigs, weaves, and extensions.
Thursday
“Bigwig” indicates importance because men of influence and rank used to wear large wigs.
Friday
Cats cough up hairballs because they clean themselves by licking their fur, and typically swallow some of that fur which is later vomited up.
Saturday
People with naturally blond hair tend to have the most total hairs on their head at about 150,000, redheads have the fewest at about 90,000, and folks with naturally brown or black hair are somewhere in between.
- Week of July 17, 2022
Remember Your Reductions
Sunday
abs = abdominal muscles
Monday
typo = typographical error
Tuesday
polio = poliomyelitis
Wednesday
fan = fanatic
Thursday
con = convict (as in “Ex-con”), confidence (as in “con-man” or “con game.”)
Friday
chaps = chapjaros
Saturday
recap = recapitulation
- Week of July 10. 2022
Facts That are Shells of Their Former Selves
Sunday
Seashells are the hard exoskeletons of otherwise soft invertebrate sea creatures.
Monday
A “shell game” involves putting an object under something that conceals it, like a cup or shell, then moving that and similar empty cups around, hoping the betting party will lose track of where the object is and thereby lose the game and wager. There is frequently deceit involved, and in the financial sense, this term often refers to asset-hiding schemes.
Tuesday
The idiom “to come out of his/her shell” means to become more outgoing social, and is a reference to a shelled animal like a snail or turtle who remains alone in there for protection.
Wednesday
A shell company, as the name implies, is typically a legally-created business entity, but one that does not do any sustained business operations or own significant assets long term. These are often created for tax purposes, concealing the identity of stakeholders or assets, fundraising or merger purposes, and sometimes illegal business.
Thursday
“She sells sea shells by the sea shore”is both a classic English tongue twister-turned-song and a training tool for those learning English and practicing the “s” sound.
Friday
Hermit crabs are among nature’s great shell recyclers. Vulnerable to predators and the baking sun without them, hermit crabs have elaborate methods of moving into new, size-appropriate shells as they grow, with smaller crabs moving into the old shells sometimes simultaneously.
Saturday
The shell in “shell shock” is military artillery shells, and the term refers to types of battle fatigue, with physical and mental conditions now more commonly described as PTSD. The term was first coined in World War I to describe the shape of many soldiers returning from battle.
- Week of July 3, 2022
Free At Last
Sunday
They used to say “The sun never sets on the British Empire,” and it shows in modern Independence Day celebrations, where over 50 counties annually celebrate gaining independence from the UK.
Monday
The most popular date to celebrate independence is January 1st. Brunei, Cameroon, Cuba, Czech Republic, Haiti, Samoa, and Sudan all celebrate their independence on this day.
Tuesday
However, the most common month for celebrations of independence is August, with 26 countries celebrating in this month.
Wednesday
Several nations celebrate several independence days during the year, since they gained autonomy from more than one country in their histories.
Thursday
Only two countries in the world do not celebrate a national day or independence day: Denmark and England.
Friday
The year 1991 was a big one for first independence days due to the breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, although countries beyond Eastern Europe marked independence this year too.
Saturday
The most recent independence day is South Sudan, which became a country in 2011, and the oldest is Japan, which has a “Foundation Day” when the country united from the defeat of rival clans in 660 BCE.
- Week of June 26, 2022
Random Acronym Week (RAW!) #7
Sunday
PFD = personal flotation device, or, if you live in Alaska, permanent fund dividend, which residents get yearly from state oil revenues.
Monday
GOAT = Greatest of All Time
Tuesday
PPE = personal protective equipment
Wednesday
RV = recreational vehicle
Thursday
LCD = liquid crystal display, or lowest common denominator
Friday
RPG = role playing game, or rocket propelled grenade
Saturday
MIT = Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Week of June 19, 2022
Ashes to Ashes…
Sunday
Common dust is made up of many different components, including ash, smoke, dirt, sand, salt, pollen, bacteria, bits of textiles and paper, human and animal hair and skin particles, and even meteorite particles.
Monday
A surprising amount of dust rains down from space in the form of “micrometeorites,” on the scale of 14-50 tons per day. This is roughly 1-3 garbage trucks worth of space dust daily.
Tuesday
The massive Sahara Desert is the largest source of mineral dust in the world, with airborne Saharan dust regularly reaching Europe, the Amazon, Asia, the Caribbean and the Americas.
Wednesday
The old myth about household dust being mostly dead skin is not true. Most studies on indoor dust composition show that the largest part of household dust came from sources outside the house.
Thursday
You are, however, still a major source of dust. Your endlessly-regenerating skin layer sheds nearly a million dead cells daily.
Friday
Dust makes up that gross layer on top of your fan blades…and some of the largest structures in the universe. Nebulae, those clouds of gas and dust which often came from exploding stars and can eventually congeal into new ones, can be millions of light years in diameter.
Saturday
Unfortunately, dust can be bad news for those in certain occupations. Pneumococcus, the umbrella term for extensive dust-caused scarring in the lungs, affects people working in mining (“black lung”), drilling, textiles, agriculture, shipworking, sandblasting, and other dust-intensive jobs.
- Week of June 12, 2022
Let’s Ride
Sunday
The first bicycle had no pedals or chain. The “hobby horse” was propelled by pushing against the street with your shoes, like a skateboard.
Monday
To take back or soften what you already said is called “backpedaling.” However, only on a fixed gear bike would you go backward by pedaling so, since the modern freewheel only drives the wheel one direction: forward while pedaling forward.
Tuesday
There’s intriguing brain science in the fact that people almost never forget how to ride a bike. The coordination of movements involved becomes a “procedural memory,” which, it turns out, is a more permanent and deeper kind of memory than a factual “declarative memory” (and unfortunately for creators of fun fact websites).
Wednesday
The Tour de France is the most watched sporting event in the world, garnering over 3.5 billion viewers.
Thursday
Worldwide, the Netherlands has the most impressive bicycling resume. Seven out of every eight people age 15 or older own a bike, and an impressive 30% of all trips made in the country are on a bicycle.
Friday
The famous feminist quote “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” was itself inspired by an earlier quote about religion.
Saturday
A “peloton” is the name for a group of bicyclists riding in a pack to conserve energy.
- Week of June 5, 2022
Fine Feathered Facts
Sunday
Before it was a common term for accomplishment, a “feather in your cap” was a mark of achievement in several cultures. Among them, native Americans who wore a feather for each enemy slain, medieval knights given plumes for bravery, Hungarians marking a killed enemy Turk, or hunters showing game bird feathers.
Monday
Bird feathers are hollow so as to be very light for their strength, allowing (most) birds to fly…
Tuesday
…and this hollowness made feathers great writing instruments in the quill / feather pen days, and still among quill pen enthusiasts. That hollow center was a natural reservoir for ink.
Wednesday
Tarring and feathering has been a humiliating and painful punishment since at least 1189 when Richard the Lionheart decreed it for thieves caught aboard his ships. Old fashioned tar, however, was made with pine tree sap, and was not the petroleum-based tar of the modern era. When the traditional ingredients were in short supply, syrup and cattails have also been used.
Thursday
To “make feathers fly,” as in arguing, is a reference to birds (and especially chickens) losing feathers while fighting with each other. “Make/watch the fur fly” conveys the same meaning.
Friday
The term “horsefeathers” was coined just a few years before the famous Marx Brothers’ movie of that name, and means nonsense (and by some accounts refers to horse poop.)
Saturday
Just as showy plumage feathers are not used for flight, a bird might have seven different types of feathers on its body, each with a different function.
- Week of May 29, 2022
Wolf Down These Facts
Sunday
