Jennifer asks: Why do people seem to get more colds in the winter? Well Jennifer, this does seem to be the societal perception, no doubt promoted by every overprotective mom telling their kids to put a coat on when going outside, because they might catch a cold. There are two aspects to this question. The first is temperature. Numerous studies […]
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Carmen asks: What do the numbers in a blood pressure test mean? Also, what types of things do these numbers tell doctors? Well Carmen, blood pressure is really just that- the pressure at which blood moves around the body in your arteries. The easiest and least invasive way to test what that pressure is at any given moment is to […]
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Brenda asks: Did one of the Bond girls really used to be a man? That depends on how you define “man” and “Bond girl”. If you define “man” as a person who was born with a penis and “Bond girl” as any eye candy female that appeared in a Bond movie at any point, then yes- one of the Bond […]
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Today I found out the Christmas song Silver Bells was originally called Tinkle Bells. To make matters slightly more humorous, Silver Bells originally appeared in the The Lemon Drop Kid, a 1951 film starring Bob Hope. Needless to say, these two things would have surely resulted in the song getting a few chuckles, had composer Jay Livingston’s wife, Lynne Gordon, […]
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Despite how it sounds, “Tulipmania” does not refer to just a general love of tulips; it was actually one the world’s first recorded major financial bubbles. Long before the dot com frenzy or the real estate bubbles of recent decades, there was Tulipmania in the Netherlands beginning around 1624 and reaching its peak from 1636 to 1637. While the extent […]
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Rob asks: What is eggnog actually made of? Does it really have raw eggs in it? Traditionally, yes, eggnog included raw eggs. However, some countries today, such as the United States, severely restrict the use of raw egg in products, due to health concerns; thus, most commercial eggnog does not include raw eggs. (The FDA actually limits the egg yolk […]
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This is a guest post by Shoshana Davis Brushing your teeth after every meal, visiting the dentist for cleanings, and having a relatively painless mouth is not just desired but expected in the year 2012. However, that was not always the case. Dentistry has come a long way since its inception and is often overlooked for other scientific advancements. The […]
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“Murderous” Mary was a 5 ton Asian Elephant in the Sparks World Famous Shows Circus. Her downfall began with the hiring of an assistant elephant trainer who had no experience working with elephants and possibly no professional experience even working with animals. This worker was Red Eldridge, who before getting the gig generally was a drifter and most immediately before […]
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It seems only appropriate that the single most controversial quote from the Beatles, by any Beatle, was uttered by John Lennon, the group’s unspoken leader and most colorful member. On March 4, 1966, the following was said by Lennon: Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that. I’m right and I will be proved right. […]
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Brenda Mae Tarpley (a.k.a. Brenda Lee and “Little Miss Dynamite”) was born to an extremely poor family in December of 1944. Things took a turn for the worse when her father, a onetime semi-pro baseball player and carpenter, died in a construction accident in May of 1953 when she was 8 years old. Within two years of this happening, the […]
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Chris Klick asks: Why is someone who murders a prominent person called an “assassin”. Where did this word “assassin” come from? The word “assassin” derives from a secretive murder cult in the 11th and 12th centuries called the “Hashishin”, meaning “hashish eaters”. While much of the origin of this cult has been lost, the original leader was Hasan Ben Sabah, […]
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It’s been called a voluntary tax on the poor and under educated, with people spending a whopping $60 billion a year in the United States alone on lottery tickets, most of which are purchased by low income individuals. (All total, about 20% of Americans play the lotto). Despite the high number of lotto tickets purchased annually, when playing the lottery […]
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In 1960, the first ever prime-time animated TV series took to the air. The Flintstones was, pretty obviously, a blatant, albeit animated, take-off (read rip-off) of the legendary TV series The Honeymooners. The similarities of the main characters were all-too-easy to spot. Fred Flintstone, the show’s central character, was a blustery, quick-tempered, loud-mouthed, blowhard. But he somehow had a fun […]
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Lina asks: How do shellfish have sex? Shellfishly? *crickets* They don’t have any trendy, happening nightclubs. They don’t have flowers, jewelry, or boxes of chocolates. They have no Viagra, stiff drinks, or cheesy pickup lines. But that doesn’t mean shellfish aren’t getting lucky. Oysters, mussels, crabs, lobsters, shrimp, and thousands of other varieties of shellfish have their own unique mating […]
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What do a thimble, a sack of money, a battleship, and a top hat have in common? Not much, other than that they are among the eleven playing tokens you receive in a standard Monopoly set. And don’t forget the wheelbarrow, which you’ll need to carry all that cash you are going to appropriate from your hapless opponents. The history […]
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In November of 1966, The Monkees‘ first single, “Last Train to Clarksville”, went to number one on the charts two months (to the day) after The Monkees TV series premiered. The Partridge Family (a series about a fictional singing family/rock group) actually beat that mark. The Partridge Family premiered on ABC on September 25, 1970. The Partridge Family single, “I Think I Love […]
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Humans have invented a variety of amazingly cruel and unusual ways to kill or maim one another (often for shockingly arbitrary reasons). And, of course, wars tend to bring out the worst in people; so it’s not surprising that war-time executions can occasionally be among the most bizarre and cruel. On that note, I was recently reading the first volume […]
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It was to be one of the strangest chapters in the storied history of the Beatles. In most Beatle controversies, John Lennon, the most outspoken and controversial Beatle, was usually at the bottom of it, but not this time. George Harrison “The Quiet Beatle” brought on the 1963-64 Jelly Bean controversy that was to drive the Beatles batty. In a […]
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