Today I found out if you eat an excessive amount of carrots, your skin will turn an orangish/yellow shade. Take notes those of you from New Jersey, you don’t need to get a fake tan to turn orange, you can simply eat large amounts of orange plants, such as orange carrots. The resulting condition is known as carotenemia and isn’t […]
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At its core, a microwave oven is a pretty simple device. It’s basically just a magnetron hooked up to a high voltage source. This magnetron directs microwaves into a metal box. These generated microwaves then bounce around inside the microwave until they are absorbed via dielectric loss in various molecules, resulting in the molecules heating up. Matter that works well […]
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Today I found out what grog was originally made from. Although today the word “grog” has more or less turned into a slang term to refer to just about any alcoholic beverage in many parts of the world, particularly in Australia and New Zealand, grog was originally just a mixture of rum with water, sometimes with a bit of lemon […]
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This Day In History: February 9, 1895 On this day in history, 1895, the first volleyball game, originally called “Mintonette” (referencing its similarity to badminton), was played in Holyoke Massachusetts at a YMCA. The inventor of the game was the YMCA athletic director there, William G. Morgan. Morgan had become intrigued by the recently invented game of basketball, which had […]
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Today I found out former MLB player Moe Berg was once a secret agent in the predecessor to the CIA. Morris “Moe” Berg was originally recruited to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor to the CIA, in August of 1943 when he was 41 years old and had been retired from baseball for about four years. At the […]
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The nickname “Slowhand” was not, as is commonly thought, given to Clapton due to playing the guitar slowly. Rather, it was given to him because of audiences giving him a slow hand clap when he would replace guitar strings on stage. When most guitar players break a string on stage, a roady will typically bring them another guitar and fix […]
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Today I found out why anvils are shaped the way they are and why blacksmith/farriers/etc. sometimes tap the anvil after a few strikes on the object they’re working on. Anvil shape has evolved greatly since the earliest anvil-like objects. These primitive objects used for anvils were typically made of stone, often just a slab of rock. The first metal anvils […]
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This Day In History: February 8, 1983 On this day in history, 1983, Mickey Mantle was threatened by the commissioner of baseball, Bowie Kuhn, that if he didn’t stop working for the Claridge Casino in Atlantic City, he’d be put on baseball’s permanently ineligible list, which meant he’d be banned from any Major or Minor League Baseball related activities including […]
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Michael Keaton was once a stagehand on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Keaton also appeared in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood as an acrobat in The Flying Zookeenie Brothers troupe that performed for the birthday of King Friday in 1975. He eventually quit his job there to pursue acting full time. Another interesting “Keaton” factoid is that his name isn’t actually Michael Keaton. In […]
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In Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring, when Arwen defeats the Ringwraiths after crossing the river, the words she speaks in that scene translate into English thus: “Waters of the Misty Mountains, hear the word of power, rush, waters of Bruinen (Loudwater), against the Ringwraiths!” (Nîn o Chithaeglir lasto beth daer; rimmo nín Bruinen dan in Ulaer!) […]
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The name “taxi” is obviously shortened from “taxicab”, which is derived from the two words: “taximeter” and “cabriolet”. The taximeter was invented in 1891 and is used to record distances and calculate the fare. Cabriolet refers to a horse drawn carriage where the driver stands in the back of the carriage. The name “taximeter” itself is derived from the Mid-Latin […]
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Today I found out the Cincinnati Reds were once renamed the “Redlegs” due to the second “Red Scare”. The Cincinnati Reds name was originally inspired by a previously existing team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, which was the first fully professional baseball team. This former team had ten men on salary for eight months to play baseball for the Red Stockings. […]
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This Day In History: February 4, 2004 On this day in history, 2004, Mark Zuckerberg launched a site called TheFacebook, that eventually became just “Facebook” after the company acquired the domain rights to facebook.com for $200,000 in 2005. The site was originally inspired by a project done by one of Mark Zuckerberg’s high school friends, Adam D’Angelo. D’Angelo had developed […]
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Today I found out how a firefly glows. The glow from a firefly comes from the lower part of their abdomen. This “lantern” portion has an evolutionary gift in the form of bioluminescence. The light produced by a small layer of cells called photocytes is reflected off several layers of reflective cells and emits a greenish-yellow glow. Specifically, inside the […]
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Myth: the term “scot free” has its origins from the Dred Scott v. Sandford U.S. Supreme Court Case. “Scot free”, also sometimes written “scotfree”, “scot-free” or, incorrectly, as “Scott free” actually pre-dates the Dred Scott Supreme Court ruling in 1857 by a very large margin (having been around since at least the 11th century). Another common misconception is that the […]
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This Day In History: February 1, 1709 On this day in history, 1709, Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk was finally rescued from a deserted island he inhabited for over four years. The island he found himself on was Más a Tierra, the largest island of the Juan Fernández group of islands, around 400 miles west of South America. Today the island […]
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Today I found out how porcupines have sex….very carefully! Porcupines mate in a very bizarre way. They first begin their ludicrous lovemaking with some nose rubbing. If the female accepts the nose rubbing and, after the initial nose rubbing test, the female is still keen on the male, the male will then stand on its hind legs and the female […]
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Today I found out how the Americas got their name. Like most, I’ve known that the Americas were named after Amerigo Vespucci since my early education. However, the story behind why this is the case is somewhat more interesting and quite a bit less well known. Vespucci was a navigator that traveled to “the new world” in 1499 and 1502. […]
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