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Author Topic: Useless Fact's Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 03-13-2003 06:07 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Who was Kellogg of the cereal company? There were two of them, brothers Harvey and William. By 1886, Dr. Harvey Kellogg had become director of a religious health spa in Battle Creek, Michigan. A crusader for healthy food and total sexual abstinence, he believed eating whole-grain cereals would reduce sexual urges. He and his brother, William, developed a process of rolling whole grains to make them into flakes. William was the spa's bookkeeper and a good businessman who believed he could make a good profit from the Corn Flakes cereal the two invented...but only if he added malt and sugar for flavor. Harvey was horrified at that perversion of a good thing, believing sugar to be an aphrodisiac. Lawsuits flew, William eventually won control of the Kellogg company,and the two brothers remained estranged for the rest of their lives. ~source used: "Just Curious, Jeeves" by Erin Barrett & Jack Mingo  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 03-14-2003 06:24 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Are you supposed to open the windows of your house during a tornado? Each year,almost eight hundred tornadoes touch down in the United States and claim around 190 lives.One mid-western tornado claimed 689 lives in three hours'time,on March 18,1925. Folks in the Midwest get more than their share of tornadoes.Most occur in a wide swath of land known as "Tornado Alley," which runs from the Texas panhandle, northeast through Oklahoma, Kansas,Missouri,Nebraska,and parts of Illinois and Iowa. People in the Midwest have been taught since childhood to open the windows,and run into the basement during tornadoes.The rationale was that during a tornado a sudden drop in air pressure would cause the house to explode if it was shut up tight.Recently,however,meterologists have realized that opening the windows does not do that much to equalize the pressure,as most houses are fairly well ventilated anyway. Houses do not really explode during a tornado as was thought. They are blown apart by its one-hundred-plus-mile-per-hour winds.Opening the windows actually can do more damage to your home than good.If a tornado just misses your house,the open windows can contribute to your home's destruction. The strong winds of a tornado blowing on a house can cause a pocket of low pressure on the opposite side,which tugs outward on the leeward wall.If the windows on the windward wall are open,it allows the winds to blow through the house and push out on the leeward wall,helping to topple the house. While the advice to open the windows may have been wrong,the part about going to the basement is still valid.It is the safest place to seek shelter from a tornado.Tornado season lasts from spring to early summer. ~source used: "The Thoughts For the Throne" by Don Voorhees~  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 03-14-2003 12:22 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - Why is the sky usually cloudless in the morning? Clouds are formed when moist air is carried aloft by warm air currents rising from the earth's surface during the day. When this air reaches high altitudes where the temperature and barometric pressure are lower than at the earth's surface,the moisture comes out of the rising air and forms the water droplets we see as clouds. These clouds are very short-lived, though,and they usually disappear within minutes after they are formed as their water droplets mix with drier air and evaporate. Thus,during the daytime,clouds are continually being formed and then evaporated. At night,when the surface of the earth cools,the cloud-producing process cuts off. The existing clouds continue to evaporate,but they are not replaced by new ones. The result:cloudless skies in the morning. ~source used: "Ever Wonder Why?" by Douglass B. Smith~  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 03-17-2003 12:31 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - Why does the Dutch homeland have two names, Holland and the Netherlands? Since the sixteenth century, the official name of the Dutch homeland has been the Netherlands. It is often incorrectly referred to by foreigners as Holland. This is because the people of the Netherlands call themselves Hollanders or Nederlanders. Again, the English-speaking world insists on calling them Dutch, much to their consternation. Holland is actually only one small region of the Netherlands.This province, which comprises 16 percent of the national land area, was the center of the nation's wealth and home to many of the early Dutch explorers who traveled the world's oceans during the sixteenth century. Because these sailors called themselves Hollanders, foreigners inferred that they must have come from a country called Holland. The Dutch people became so offended by the invasion of the English language over the last three centuries that, in 1934, their government officially banned the use of the word Dutch, mandating the use of the word Netherlands whenever possible. The use of the word "Dutch," in the English language, to represent something inferior, is one example of what the Dutch resent. For instance, "Dutch treat" means a meal where everyone pays their own way, and "in Dutch" means in trouble. Early Americans also slighted the Dutch, mistakenly calling the German settlers of Pennsylvania "Dutch," instead of the German word "Deutsch," meaning German. All this friction between the Dutch and the English goes back to 1624 when Dutch soldiers attacked the English at Amboina, East Indies. Not content to beat the English, the Dutch went on to massacre the survivors. England was furious but was in no position to retaliate. The Dutch attacked the English again in 1653 and sailed through the English Channel, arrogantly savoring their victory. Another war broke out in 1665. These and other incidents made the English hate everything Dutch. They ridiculed their enemy by calling anything spurious "Dutch."Happily, William of Holland married Princess Mary of England in 1677, and the two countries patched things up. However, the ethnic slurs lived on.Another interesting thing about the Netherlands is that it has two capital cities, The Hague and Amsterdam. In 1795, invading French troops captured Amsterdam and made it the Capital. They renamed the country the Batavian Republic. In 1806, Napoleon I changed it to the Kingdom of Holland. The Dutch drove the French out in 1813 and restored their government in The Hague in 1814. However, the capital stayed in Amsterdam, where it remains today. ~source used: "The Thoughts For the Throne" by Don Voorhees~  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 03-18-2003 07:44 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Why did the Egyptians worship cats? If you're an avid cat person, the answer of course is self- evident: Because cats are divine. Egyptians literally believed that to be true, to the point that if a household cat died, its owners would shave their eyebrows in mourning and lovingly transport the cat carcass to one of the cities devoted to mummifying cats for their journey to the next world. (They apparently didn't make it. In 1888, about 300,000 cat mummies were discovered still lounging around this world in the ancient city of Beni Hassan. We guess it illustrates once again how hard it is to get cats to go where you want them to.) There were practical reasons for worshipping cats, though. The Egyptians were very dependent on grains for their main staples of bread and beer, and they knew how much the cats contributed to their lives and economy by keeping rats and mice in check. Unfortunately, this worship of the cat had its downside, too. In 525 B.C., the Persians went to war with the Egyptians. Mindful of the Egyptians' religion, the Persians lined up a row of cats in front of their warriors. Egyptian soldiers were put into a crisis of faith-they quickly discovered that they couldn't swing a sword or fire an arrow for fear of hurting a cat and "hissing off the cat goddess Pascht. The wily Persians quickly defeated the Egyptians. It was a cat-aclysm and a cat-astrophe. ~source used: "Just Curious Jeeves"by Erin Barrett & Jack Mingo  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 03-18-2003 09:05 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Why do beavers build dams? A beaver's home, called a lodge, is built on an island of mud, stone, and twigs, and to keep out unwanted visitors,it is built with an underwater entrance. If this structure were built in a regular pond, the lodge might be flooded in the rainy season when the water rises and might have its entrance exposed during the dry seasons when the water recedes. To prevent this from happening, beavers build dams downstream of their lodges to keep the water at a constant level. ~source used: "Ever Wonder Why?" by Douglas B. Smith  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 03-19-2003 07:00 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Why do we call physically attached twins "Siamese twins"? The first attached twins who gained notoriety were actually from Siam (Thailand). Chang and Eng Bunker were born attached at the chest in 1811. They were discovered sixteen years later and subsequently brought to the United States by master promoter P. T. Barnum. He billed them as the world-renowned "Chinese Double-Boys." The two argued often with Barnum and between themselves, only doing exhibits when they needed money. They married English sisters, Adelaide and Sarah Yates, in 1864. Between them they had twenty-two children: Chang ten and Eng twelve. It is not known what their sleeping arrangements were, but the situation must have been interesting,if not a bit tricky. The two families settled down in New Hampshire,where the twins died in 1874, within hours of each other. Since they had a shared circulatory system, the death of one spelled doom for the other. Chang and Eng were so well known that all attached twins, or even inseparable friends, became known as Siamese twins. ~source used: "The Thoughts for the Throne" by Don Voorhees  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 03-19-2003 02:31 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - "The Wizard of Oz": During his life L. Frank Baum wrote fourteen books about Oz. According to Baum family legend,it all began when L. Frank Baum was telling neighborhood children a fairytale full of wonderful characters he had created.One little girl said,"Oh, please, Mr. Baum,where did they live?" While thinking,Baum glanced around the room and saw a filing cabinet.The top drawer was labeled A-N, the bottom drawer was labeled O-Z.He turned to the little girl and said,"They all lived in the land of Oz." "The Wizard of Oz" was a Broadway musical 37 years before the MGM film version was made. It had 293 performances and then went on a tour that lasted 9 years. L. Frank Baum's most famous book had four different titles ("The Emerald City", "From Kansas to Fairyland", "The Fairyland of Oz", and "The Land of Oz") before it became"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". Australians refer to their country as Oz.They abbreviate Australia as "Aus," which is pronounced "ahs" or "oz." Hence the nickname.Five pairs of Dorothy's ruby slippers were made for the film.Over 5 million people a year view a pair on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Another pair sold for $165,000 at an auction in 1988. Although written almost a century ago,"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" is still being published and can be purchased today in most bookstores. ~source used "Do Fish Drink Water?" by Bill McLain~  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 03-20-2003 10:55 AM                        Rated G Useless fact: Why are lizards always doing push-ups? It's a form of communication.Lizards use the push-up display, as it's called,to announce their presence to the world,to attract mates,and to warn competitors off their turf—basically to say "Yo!" "Yo, baby!" or "Yo! mama!" The precise message depends on the number of push-ups,the position of the tail and legs,and whether the lizard puffs up his throat.("His" throat because males appear to do push-ups with greater frequency than females.) According to University of Oregon biology professor Emilia Martins,whose dissertation involved 150 hours in the field watching some 1,600 calisthenic incidents performed by sagebrush lizards (seriously!),a push-up that means one thing when no one's around can acquire a different significance when,say,an eligible female is sunning herself on the next rock.It's a shame people never picked up on this form of language.Not only would we be more dynamic conversationalists,but,like Jack LaLanne,we'd all be in terrific shape. ~source used: "Why Moths Hate Thomas Edison" by Hampton Sides  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 03-21-2003 11:59 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - What makes stars twinkle? You know that when you dip a stick in the water,it looks strangely bent.That's "refraction",the tendency of light to change direction when it moves from one medium (such as air) to another (such as water).The same principle makes stars do the magical thing they do. As light travels from the star toward your eye,it passes through the turbulent upper atmosphere.Up there,rivers of air flow in all directions, constantly changing in temperature and density and therefore refracting light differently.Starlight gets jiggled through all this chaos.Your eye registers the motion as twinkling.At the same time, interference patterns make the light grow rapidly brighter and darker,and the changes of refraction that cause twinkling also cause a steady stream of variations in the star's color.If there were no atmosphere, the stars would burn bright and steady: pretty, but not especially poetic. But why,you might ask,don't "planets" twinkle?Stars are so far away that to us they're mere point sources of light;that is, there's just one path for the light to follow from, say,Alpha Centauri to your eye,so the slightest distortion will make it appear to twinkle.Not so the visible planets,which, even though they send us only reflected light,are much closer and occupy more space in the sky.Light from East Venus will follow a slightly different path to your eyeball than light from West Venus. There might be some twinkle on each separate path, but when you put them all together, your eye averages things out and you get a nice sober glow. ~source used: "Why Moths Hate Thomas Edison" by Hampton Sides  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 03-22-2003 10:26 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - How do nutritionists determine how many calories a food has? Do they feed them to people and see how much weight they gain? Can you imagine the volunteers they'd get to test the chocolates? But no, that's not how they do it. Although we associate calories with weight gain, a scientist hears "calories" and knows it refers to how much heat a food will generate if burned. In fact, the word "calorie" comes from a Latin word that means "heat" and is defined as the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one Celsius degree. Your digestion process is,in a sense,a slow-motion fire. As in a real fire,the energy of the food you eat is released by digestion. The released energy can be used to move muscles or generate heat;or if you're taking in more fuel than you can use immediately,your body stores it for later. That's fat — energy waiting to be used.For millions of years, fat was the equivalent of an emergency fuel tank to draw on in hard times.Then it became "ugly." So how do scientists measure the calories in food? They burn it, using something called a bomb calorimeter, which measures how much extra energy comes out compared to how much went in. Now here comes the confusing part: what is commonly called a "calorie" is actually a kilocalorie — a thousand of the scientists' calories. So that glazed doughnut doesn't have just 235 calories; it's *really* got 235 kilocalories, or 235,000 calories. And you wonder why you're having trouble keeping the weight off! ~source used: "Just Curious, Jeeves"by Erin Barrett & Jack Mingo  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 03-23-2003 05:21 PM                        Rated G Useless Fact - Why are you never supposed to touch a halogen light bulb with your fingers? Conventional light bulbs use soda-lime glass, which is perfectly functional. But tungsten-halogen bulbs are made of much more durable quartz glass because they must withstand much higher temperatures, a minimum of 250 degrees Centigrade. Quartz halogen lamps must not be touched with the fingers because the natural oils from the skin, in combination with the high temperatures reached by the bulbs when illuminated, will cause the crystalline structure of the bulb glass to change. Caden Zollo, product manager of The Specialty Bulb Co., adds that contact with human oils can cause the glass to crack and leak. Air can then get into the filament and,in extreme conditions, can cause the bulb not only to leak but to explode. To avoid this "explosive" situation, some halogen lamps come with a separate outer bulb so that the lamps can be touched. If your hands have come in contact with the bulb, or you need to clean the bulb, wiping it with denatured alcohol will reverse the effect of your greasy hands. ~source used: "Do Penguins Have Knees?" by Bill McLain~  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 03-24-2003 11:18 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Is Pluto really a planet? After assiduous campaigning by its discoverers at Arizona's Lowell Observatory,distant Pluto was hastily declared a planet in 1930,and ever since then school children have been taught with great conviction that there are nine large bodies,or "major planets," revolving around our Sun. Yet if it were discovered today, Pluto would certainly not make the grade in the majors. For starters, it's too small—less than half the size of Mercury and smaller than our own Moon—and it has no gravitational influence on the orbits of the other eight planets. Brutal as it might seem, Pluto has been demoted, though since the early nineties scientists have been haggling over what diminutive name it deserves: asteroid, minor body, dwarf planet, or perhaps the ultimate slap, planetesimal. Whatever Pluto is, it's one of the true oddities of our solar system, a ball of frozen methane that has an elliptical orbit and behaves rather like a comet. "It's a fascinating minorm body," concedes astronomer Daniel Green of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "But no one seriously calls Pluto a major planet anymore, except for a couple of whiners who're stuck in the 1930s." ~source used: "Why Moths Hate Thomas Edison" by Hampton Sides  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 03-25-2003 06:45 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Why do car doors open rear to front? In the days when car door latches weren't as secure as they are today, it was found that doors that swing open front to rear were more likely to be pulled open by air pressure that builds up around a fast-moving car. With doors that open rear to front, the air pressure actually helps prevent the door from coming open. ~source used: "Ever Wonder Why?"by Douglas B. Smith ~  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 03-25-2003 12:26 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - Is dry cleaning really dry? It is dry in the sense that the solvents used have no water. Although they are liquid, they have the ability to remove soil without affecting fabric as water would. They also evaporate quickly and leave dry clothes behind. About 95 percent of what is used for general cleaning is perchloroethylene, or C2CI4, a compound that is 14.46 percent carbon and 65.52 percent chlorine, it is also used to decrease metals. It is very volatile, and is used in closed cleaning machines so that the evaporated solvent does not escape. In addition to general cleaning, In which clothes are gently agitated in the solvent until soil and some oily stains are released, what is called dry cleaning can involve spot removal using solvents to dissolve stains; lubrication to penetrate and lift stains; chemical action to change stains into other substances that are invisible or soluble; and digestion by an enzyme to make stains form a soluble sugar. ~source used "The Book Of Science Questions and Answers"by C. Claiborne Ray  |  IP: Logged

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