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Author
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Topic: Useless Fact's
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 11-21-2003 01:28 AM
Rated G ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Useless fact - What can I do with the small slivers of
soap left over in the shower?
Tere are at least four methods for saving those slivers of
leftover soap.
The first is to simply moisten the sliver, then moisten a new bar of soap.Place the sliver on the new bar and press firmly around its edges to attach it.After a few uses it will become part of the new bar.
A second method is to drop the slivers into a jar with some water and let them sit for a period of time.Eventually the water will melt the soap and you can use the mixture as a liquid soap or shampoo.(For faster results,mix the water and soap slivers in a blender.)
Another method is to put all of the leftover soap slivers into a
mesh bag.When you think you've collected enough,tie the ends of
the bag and slip the top of the bag over an outdoor water faucet
handle.It can help at cleanup time after you've been gardening
or doing some other outdoor chore.It's also handy for taking on
camping trips.
Soap has a long and interesting history.Although soap making was
recorded as long ago as 2800 B.C.,soap was not commonly used for
cleaning until thousands of years later.Ancient Greeks and Romans
rubbed their bodies with olive oil and sand and scraped off the
mixture with a wooden scraper called a "strigil." Although Romans
bathed,they added oils and other ingredients to the water,not
soap.
Around 2000 B.C. soap was used as a medication for wounds,but
not for cleansing.
Prior to the eighteenth century soap was used primarily to do
laundry because personal cleanliness was not a social custom up
until then. In the eighteenth century water was thought to be
a "magical" fluid and bathing became popular as a medical
treatment. As bathing became more acceptable, so did soap.
The B. J.Johnson Company made a soap consisting of only palm oil
and olive oil. The soap, called "Palmolive," was so popular that
the company was renamed after it.
William Procter and James Gamble made candles and soap and sold
their products house to house out of a wheelbarrow.Their
company,Procter & Gamble,introduced Ivory soap to the public in 1879.
~source used: "Do Fish Drink Water?" By Bill McLain~
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 11-22-2003 03:41 PM
Rated G
Useless fact - Do scarecrows really work?
Not very well,and not for very long."Birds aren't stupid," says
Cornell ornithologist Kevin J. McGowan."If the same object
doesn't move for weeks,they'll eventually figure out that it's
not dangerous." For a scarecrow to work,it needs three things:
fairly constant motion,realism,and daily variety of placement -
which perhaps explains why you'll sometimes see starlings
roosting on those stationary (and patently fake) plastic horned
owls.Today you rarely spot scarecrows of the old-fashioned
variety, because people finally got wise to the fact that they
just don't work.Instead,farmers have adopted more radical methods,such as periodically blasting carbide cannons,setting
up high-frequency electronic signals, and rigging their fields
with inflatable mannequins that suddenly pop up like gunslingers
in an arcade game.In Japan,farmers have been experimenting with enormous "scary eye" balloons that scowl ominously over rice paddies.All of these techniques have been only marginally
successful,however.But there is one technique that seems to be
gaining increasing interest: In recent years farmers have been
erecting large stereo speakers in their fields and orchards and
playing continuous loop tapes of the distress calls of the target bird—a blackbird,say,or a starling.The flock,hearing what
sounds like one of their own being killed and eaten, stays away.
The real breakthrough, McGowan argues, will occur when we enter
the age of the Robocrow."The only perfect scarecrow is going to
be an android," he says, noting that his proposal for an
animatronic owl has yet to be picked up by scarecrow R&D.
"It'll take a while."
~source used:"Why Moths Hate Thomas Edison"~by Hampton Sides
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 11-24-2003 09:36 AM
Rated G
Useless fact - "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion":
Caesar had three wives,but only one of them - Pompeia,the second wife - was responsible for this particular saying.Here's how it came about.At two seasons of the year,in May and December the leading women of Rome gathered for sacred services in honor of their favorite goddess,Bona Dea - "the good goddess."
In 62 B.C. Caesar's home was chosen for the ceremony,which was
to be attended only by women.Shortly after the rites began there were sudden shouts of alarm and several of the celebrants fell upon one of the group - veiled and clad like the others -stripped off part of her costume,and revealed a man in their
presence.And not just any man,but Publius Clodius,a notorious
rake whose name had been linked with that of Pompeia.There is no clear evidence that there actually had been any hanky-panky
between the two and it is a fact that Caesar never claimed that
there was.Nevertheless,the devotions to the goddess had been
profaned and Caesar's wife was in charge at the time the
profanation took place.So a shadow of suspicion had been cast on
her and Julius,with a political career at stake,uttered the Latin equivalent of "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion" -
and divorced her.
~source used: "Morris Doctionary of Word and Phrase Origins"
by William and Mary Morris~
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 12-05-2003 07:46 AM
Rated G
Useless fact - What poisonous plants do we grow in our garden and eat every day?
Some of our gardens fruits and vegetables are poisonous to varying degrees.We don't necessarily eat the poisonous parts of these plants but it is interesting to note what they are:
Apricot pits,for example, can be fatal if ingested.The pit
contains cyanogenetic glycosides, which are converted into
cyanide upon digestion.Some hours after ingestion the following
symptoms may develop:abdominal pain,vomiting,lethargy,and
sweating.In severe cases the victim may become comatose or
develop tetanic convulsions.
Potatoes belong to the deadly nightshade family.The toxic parts
of a potato are the uncooked sprout and the sun-green skin. There is little toxicity for adults,but some fatalities have been reported in young children.
The stems and leaves of tomato plants are covered with stinging
hair,which consists of long,needlelike spines that break off
when touched and inject poisons (histamines and acetylcholine)
into the skin.This can produce a stinging or burning sensation.
Rhubarb, which is commonly grown for its edible leaf stalks,has
leaves that are toxic when eaten in large quantities. They are
very corrosive to the stomach lining.
Everyone's favorite poisonous plant, tobacco, is a well
documented chronic (long-term) toxin when smoked or chewed.When
eaten, as in a salad, tobacco leaves are immediately toxic.
Ingestion of nicotine can cause salivation, nausea, sweating, and convulsions.Failure of the muscles that control breathing (a
curarelike action) can suddenly appear. So the next time you tell someone to quit smoking tobacco, just be glad they are not
eating it!
~source used: "Thoughts for the Throne" by Don Voorhees~
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 12-08-2003 02:28 PM
Rated G
Useless fact - fingerprints:
One of the most fascinating features of our fingers is our
fingerprints.Every person in the world has a unique set of
fingerprints,unlike any other. However, most experts believe
that identical twins have identical fingerprints 95 percent of
the time.The use of fingerprint identification has become a
major tool in apprehending criminals.
Latent fingerprints (the prints left at a crime scene as opposed
to those on a fingerprint card) can be left on any surface,
including paper and human skin.Some techniques used to make
latent fingerprints visible include lasers,powders,alternate
light sources,and subjecting them to glue fumes.
In ancient Babylon,fingerprints on clay tablets were used for
business transactions;in fourteenth-century Persia, many
government papers had fingerprints on them; and in Nova Scotia, a prehistoric picture shows a hand with ridge patterns.
Wearing latex gloves does not necessarily keep a criminal from
being apprehended if the criminal leaves the gloves at the crime
scene. When tight-fitting, nonporous gloves are removed,
fingerprints remain on the insides of the gloves and can be
detected by a number of different methods.
The first mention of fingerprints occurred in 1686 when a
professor of anatomy,Marcello Malpighi, described the ridges,
loops, and spirals of fingerprints.In 1823,another professor of anatomy, John Evangelist Purkinji,described 9 basic fingerprint patterns.However,neither man considered using fingerprints to identify individuals.
Prior to using fingerprints to identify individuals, a system of
measuring bony parts of the body was used.This system was
devised in the late 1800s by Alphonse Bertillon, a French
anthropologist. Bertillon measured certain bony body parts and
then used a formula to come up with a value that would apply to
only one person in the world and would not change during that
person's lifetime.This technique, named the Bertillon system
after its inventor,was accepted as valid for 30 years.
In 1903,a bizarre event triggered the end of the Bertillon
system.A man by the name of Will West was sent to the federal
penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas.The problem was that the
penitentiary already had an inmate named William West. When
photographs of the two men were compared, they were identical.
When the authorities used Bertillon measurements, they indicated
that both men were the same person. Finally, their fingerprints
were compared, proving they were indeed two different individuals.
When authorities reviewed prison records and correspondence from
the men's families, they discovered that Will West and William
West were identical twins.
In that same year, the New York state prison system began using
fingerprints to identify criminals, and a year later fingerprint
identification was started at the Leavenworth penitentiary.
Thanks to the West brothers, today we only have to put an inked
thumbprint on a piece of paper rather than have all of our bony
body parts measured.
~Do Fish Drink Water? by Bill McLain~
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 12-09-2003 07:10 AM
Rated G
Useless fact - How do ducks float?
Waterfowl have all sorts of nifty adaptations that help them stay afloat. To wit: Their bones and quills are hollow,they have buoyancy sacs inside their bodies, and their thick down traps air pockets all around them.But the real key to duck flotation is oil. Ducks and other waterfowl come equipped with little onboard
grease factories called "uropygial glands",located on the tops of their tails,which produce an oily substance composed of wax and fat.When you see a duck preening in the water,it's actually engaged in a maintenance session critical to its survival.The duck reaches back to scoop up a bill-full of uropygial oil and
then liberally coats its feathers with the gunk,thus waterproofing itself.
But if oil is the duck's big secret, why is petroleum oil just about the worst thing a duck can run into? "Petroleum breaks down the natural oils,"explains Scott Stephens,a waterfowl biologist with Ducks Unlimited."It's too heavy and viscous.
It mats the feathers together so they can't hold air."And when that happens,the oil-slicked bird sinks like a stone.
~source used: "Why Moths Hate Thomas Edison" by Hampton Sides
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 12-10-2003 07:10 AM
Rated G
Useless fact - Why Is the Skin Around Our Finger Knuckles Wrinkled When the Skin Covering Our Knees Is Not?
Dr. Harry Arnold, Jr., a distinguished dermatologist, says:
"Pin extension, the knuckles need enough skin to permit flexing
the joint roughly through 100 degrees, so there is excess skin
when the joint is fully extended.
The knees require much less skin but there is wrinkling there
too, over a much larger area, so it is less obvious.Even with
the extra skin,we get 'white-knuckled' when the joints in the
knee are fully flexed."
Dermatologist Samuel T. Selden has a speculative but fascinating
anthropological theory to explain the knee-finger disparity:
"I had to take off my shoes and socks to check, but interestingly,the skin over the knuckles of our toes is not very wrinkled either.The skin over our elbows is corrugated, but not to the degree that the skin over the finger knuckles is wrinkled.
My theory for the wrinkling is that our ancestors, the apes,
walked on their fingers, as we probably did prior to becoming
upright beasts.The wrinkles are most apparent over the middle
knuckles,the proximal interphalangeal joints, where apes place
most of their weight when walking. Some individuals,through
heredity, have thickened skin in this area known as knuckle
pads and they are probably even more of a throwback to their
ape ancestors."
We're sure they'll be thrilled to hear that.
~source used: "Do Pengiuns Have Knees?" by David Feldman~
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 12-11-2003 04:34 AM
Rated G
Useless fact - What toilets were used in medieval Europe?
An early Middle Ages anecdote notes that etiquette suggested a nobleman go "an arrow's flight" distance into the gardens before relieving himself. Unfortunately, records indicate that not all royalty felt the need to abide by such social rules. One shocked English nobleman's story tells of a visiting king who appallingly defecated wherever he wished throughout the castle. This same noble recounts a chat with a young noblewoman who was visiting his home. He was surprised to hear in midconversation a tinkling noise and then see an ever-growing puddle form beneath her dress.
But still, there were facilities of sorts, and the specifics of these were different, depending on where and when one lived in medieval Europe. For instance, castle homes were fortunate enough to have large concrete blocks tucked away in special and private locations. These blocks had a hole and chute called garde robes that led to the mote below. Peasants had to use either a bowl inside, which would then be emptied, or go directly outside to empty their bowels into a community cesspit, or hole. In the larger cities in the late Middle Ages, it became common to simply toss your excrement out the window into the street with a call
of "Garde L'eau!" or "Gardy Loo!" as a warning to passersby below. During times of greater civic organization, city cleanup crews collected this waste, along with food waste, from the streets and sold it to farmers as fertilizer. However, the
practice of tossing waste out on the streets was finally outlawed in 1372, when most realized it wasn't just an annoyance to be on a walk and suddenly be splattered with urine and excrement. It was a health hazard as well. Between the people and the horses, the smell of the larger European cities like London was
unimaginable.
~source used: "Just Curious About History, Jeeves"by Erin Barrett & Jack Mingo~
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 12-14-2003 09:54 AM
Rated G
Useless fact - What was a vassal?
A vassal was a knight who came from the bottom of the nobilily
and was bound in military service to his king.In exchange,his
lord swore protection to him and gave him land to farm either for himself or commercially.Above him in social ranking were dukes, barons, earls, and counts.
The training of a vassal or knight began very early, at about the age of 7.He would go off to a knight school,of sorts,usually to the manor of a local knight who was sometimes his own father
or uncle,where he would begin his apprenticeship by learning to
handle small weaponry.Until he was about 15 or 16,he would
learn etiquette,as well as how to hunt,ride,and use weapons.He would then advance to the position of squire,where he became
a knight's aid.Over the next several years he'd take his lessons
directly from his knight,learning the finer points of the job,
including how to battle.At the end of this apprenticeship,the
knight would then "knight" the squire.This new knight was then
responsible for obtaining his own horse, armor, and weapons. He
was then ready to serve his king.
~source used: "Just Curious About History, Jeeves" by Erin Barrett & Jack Mingo~
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 12-14-2003 09:57 PM
Rated G
Useless fact - Don Juan:
Your high school graduation class is unusual if it does not
include at least one Don Juan. Surveys suggest that one young
male in eight seeks renown as a lover—and gains it almost half
the time.
Tall or short, dark or fair, the typical American loverboy can't
be compared with Don Juan Ternorio. This legendary Spanish
nobleman, said to have flourished in the 14th century, caught the attention of Mozart,among others.
No one knows where the composer got his data, but notes made for
his"Don Giovanni",say that the man whose name was given to the
opera had 2,594 mistresses. He didn't make it to 2,595 because
he was lured to a monastery. Monks who were furious that he gave
the region such a bad reputation reputedly killed him -not in
bed, but fully clothed and wearing even his boots.
~source used: "Why You Say It" by Webb Garrison~
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 12-20-2003 09:34 PM
Rated G
Useless fact - water:
It takes about 1,500 gallons of water to produce a typical fast-
food lunch of a hamburger, french fries, and a soft drink. This
includes the water required to raise the potatoes and the grain
used to make the bun and feed the cattle.
Your body requires about 9 glasses of water a day. You can be
dehydrated by 5 percent before you even feel thirsty.
The volume of water on earth today is the same as it was 3
billion years ago.
Two thirds of your body and three fourths of your brain are water.
Of all the water on the earth, only 1 percent is available for
human consumption.
On average, you use about 2 gallons of water just to brush your
teeth and from 4 to 6 gallons every time you flush the toilet.
About 39,000 gallons of water are needed to manufacture a
domestic automobile.
When we think of water, we usually think of a liquid. However,
when water is solid, it's ice. The largest and most impressive
ice is in the form of gigantic icebergs that float in the North
Atlantic Ocean.
The tallest known iceberg was sighted in 1967 near Greenland.It
was 550 feet tall, or taller than a 50-story skyscraper. Another
iceberg was approximately the size of the entire state of Rhode Island.
Most icebergs come from glaciers on the western side of Greenland.Between 10,000 and 15,000 icebergs shear off from these glaciers every year.
Icebergs have always been dangerous to ships because about 90
percent of the iceberg is hidden below the waterline, making it
difficult to see how large it is. However, modern devices such as radar and satellites minimize the danger.
Nevertheless, to be safe, if you decide to take an ocean cruise
in the near future, you should do so in the summer, and go south
rather than north. A cruise in the South Pacific Ocean would be
even better.
~source used: "Do Fish Drink Water?" by Bill Mclain~
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