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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 12-20-2003 09:37 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - How does yeast make bread rise? Yeasts are one-celled fungal organisms.One ounce of yeast contains 200 billion cells.Yeast has unique properties that mankind has been exploiting since before 4000 B.C.The ancient Egyptians used yeast to make beer, wine, and bread.The Egyptians were the first to make leavened bread. The production of both alcoholic beverages and leavened bread utilizes yeasts, such as "Saccharomyces cerevisiae".Yeasts break down or ferment sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide (CO2). Bakers take advantage of yeast's production of CO2 to make bread light and airy. Baker's yeast is grown in huge vats of molasses and other nutrients.It is then dried and packaged with starch for home use. When making dough, yeast is mixed with flour, water, and salt. The proteins in wheat flour form gluten, a tenacious elastic substance that gives the dough its cohesiveness during kneading. When the dough is kneaded, the proteins in the flour arrange themselves so that they can trap the CO2 produced by the yeast as it ferments the sugars in the flour. The trapped CO2 creates a large number of pores in the bread that make it rise.As the dough rises, the yeast cells become separated from the nutrients and the process gradually slows down.Kneading the dough again will renew the process,causing it to rise again. Where does the alcohol go that is produced by the fermentation? Actually the alcohol content of the dough just before baking can be as high as 0.5 percent, about one-sixth as much as is found in beer. Most of this alcohol is released as the bread is baked. ~source used: "Thoughts for the Throne" by Don Voorhees~ [ 12-22-2003, 07:46 AM: Message edited by: Bob Maar ]  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 12-22-2003 07:50 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - "Freelance": Does your circle of acquaintances include a freelance artist or writer? Or maybe a musician or tax preparer? Whatever his or her field of activity may be,the modern freelancer is not on a payroll.Instead,services or products are offered directly to purchasers—often without a middle man. The "lance" part of "freelance" harks back to the Middle Ages when knights fought with sword and lance.Most warriors had sworn allegiance to the king or lord of their realm.Others were roving soldiers or medieval mercenaries who operated on their own, offering their swords,lances,and services to the highest bidder. Freebooters arose a few centuries later,and these fellows outfitted their own ships in order to prowl the seas.Today,we call them pirates. The term "freelance" was popularized by the novel "Ivanhoe", published in 1819.Oddly enough,the book was written by a knight, Sir Walter Scott. "Ivanhoe" brought to us a term that is more poetic and versatile than "self-employed person." ~source used: "Why You Say It" by Webb Garrison~  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 12-28-2003 12:44 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - What's the story behind the invention of the merry-go-round? It's the oldest amusement ride around and was originally created during the Middle Ages as a device for training knights to joust. It took tragedy to popularize:When Catherine de Medicis'husband was killed during a jousting tournament in 1559, the merry-go- round began to take the place of actual knight-against-knight jousting as a safer alternative. Knights on the backs of wooden horses could spear rings or effigies of Turkish soldiers as they circled around and around. Jousting as a combat sport soon fell away entirely and the carousel's popularity grew when spectators also wanted a turn on the painted ponies. As homage to this early ride, some merry-go-round operators in Paris will still hang rings and offer riders a stick as they mount their rides to "joust" with,carrying on a centuries-old tradition. ~source used: "Just Curious, Jeeves" by Jack Mingo  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 12-30-2003 04:29 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - What's a hiccup, exactly? Why do we have them? Hiccups are muscle spasms in the diaphragm and throat.The large muscle at the bottom of the chest cavity sometimes contracts in a spasm (as do most muscles at one time or another).When this happens,air gets sucked in through the mouth.The air never actually reaches the lungs because the muscles of the throat contract at the same time.Any number of remedies have been suggested to stop hiccups—from swallowing dry sugar to standing on your head—but basically the same principle works here as with other muscle spasms:If you relax,calm down,take your mind off the spasms,and get on with your activities,your diaphragm and throat will settle down and the hiccups will stop. ~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 01-04-2004 08:14 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - Is it possible to fly into the air with a bunch of helium balloons? Yes.One Larry Walters of California flew nearly three miles into the air with 45 weather balloons rigged to his lawn chair on July 2,1982. The North Hollywood truck driver outfitted the chair with a BB gun,CB radio,giant bottle of soda,and some water-filled milk cartons as ballast.He had hoped to slowly waft into the sky,but instead shot up to 16,000 feet,where he quickly began to go numb from the cold and thin air. After 45 minutes,he began shooting at the balloons in order to pop them and bring himself down.In the process he ended up dropping the gun,but hit enough balloons to start a slow descent.After about two hours,his balloons tangled in power lines,blacking out a Long Beach neighborhood for 20 minutes but allowing him to dismount from his dangling lawn chair. For his stunt,he appeared on David Letterman's show and was fined $1,500 by the FAA. ~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 01-04-2004 08:26 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - Is it true that eagles mate in midair and sometimes die when they fall to the ground during the act? It is true that eagles will occasionally lock talons and plummet earthward, and some books on the subject have described this as part of their courtship dance. But love's got nothing to do with it. Says Montana State University eagle authority Al Harmata: "When one eagle swoops down a thousand feet, grabs another's talons, and then they try to knock each other out of the sky, that's not courting.That's fighting." In fact, eagles can't mate on the wing, because the male,like the male of most bird species, doesn't have a penis. Instead, both male and female eagles come outfitted with more discreet forms of reproductive plumbing known as "cloacae", which make avian mating more like a carefully aligned kiss. It's tough enough for impassioned eagles to get all their ducts in a row without lift,yaw,and air turbulence. ~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 01-05-2004 11:22 AM                        Rated G Useless fact: Where did the term "You've been 86'ed" come from? Many years ago,Chumley's Restaurant,at 86 Bedford Street in New York City,had a custom of throwing rowdy customers out the back door.Eventually, restaurant workers started using "86'ed" as a synonym for something being thrown out. The term soon became part of the colorful "hash house" or "lunch house" jargon adopted by the brash and often sassy waitresses and countermen who worked in diners in the 1930s, 1940s,and early 1950s. In those years it was a common practice for a waitress to call out the order to the cook.For more efficient ordering,the waitresses created a shorthand method of giving orders.The jargon they developed used just a few very descriptive words to make sure the cook understood the order. For example, if you ordered two poached eggs on toast and a glass of milk, the waitress would yell out to the cook,"Adam and Eve on a raft and moo juice." If you ordered a toasted English muffin with coffee,the waitress might yell,"Burn the British and Joe." Although the colorful language of the diners died out many years ago, a few words have remained in use today,such as, O.J. (orange juice),stack (pancakes),BLT (bacon,lettuce, of cooking eggs such as over easy or sunny side up. Years back it was fun to eat at the lunch counter and try to figure out what the waitress was saying.It's rare to hear this colorful slang today but you may still hear it in some of the old lunch counters in the smaller,older cities of the United States. There are also a few diners that use nostalgia as their theme and thus use the old hash house lingo. Here are just a few examples of hash house lingo: Axle grease: butter Blowout patches: pancakes Bowwow, barks, or groundhog: hot dog Baled hay: shredded wheat Bessie: roast beef Bessie in a bowl: stew Cackleberries: eggs Rabbit food: salad Sinkers: dougnuts Sweep the kitchen: hash Whiskey: rye bread (derived from rye whiskey) Yummy: sugar ~source used: "What Makes Flamingos Pink?" by Bill McLain  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-05-2004 05:04 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - Why do some paints, stickers, and toys glow in the dark? A material that glows in the dark after being exposed to light contains molecules that absorb energy for long periods of time, then later release that energy as light. The phenomenon is called "phosphorescence" and the materials are said to be "phosphorescent." Electrons in a molecule are normally arranged in a state of the least possible energy. However, when a molecule is exposed to light it may absorb a particle of light, called a "photon." The photon rearranges the electrons to a highly energetic state. If the material is phosphorescent, the extra energy from the photon becomes trapped in the molecule. Eventually, the electrons shift to a lower energy state and the extra energy that had been trapped is released as a photon of light. Electrons escape randomly rather than all at the same time. As these higher-energy electrons release light to return to their original states, fewer and fewer are left to escape. That is why the glow continually diminishes until it fades into nothing. Three types of substances can glow in the dark. The first is the phosphorescent material that absorbs light and then gradually releases it, like the phosphorescent material we just described. The second type can emit light without any outside help. For example, the firefly has the rare chemical luciferin and the enzyme luciferase in its abdomen. These interact with oxygen to produce the glow. Radioactive materials are the third type. These emit high-energy rays that react with surrounding materials to produce light. Radium is a good example of a radioactive material that gives off light. Around 1852 the term "fluorescence" was coined. Phospho-rescence refers to a material that absorbs light and releases it over a period of time. Fluorescence refers to a material that absorbs light in one spectral color and immediately emits light in a different spectral color. If you've ever seen a mineral glow under an ultraviolet light (black light) then you've seen fluorescence. Some female fireflies do not have wings and look very much like flat larvae. These are called "glowworms." Most glowworms give off a greenish light, but the "railroad worm" also has a red headlight. Some frogs eat so many fireflies that they also glow. ~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 01-06-2004 06:14 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - How many geese are in a gaggle? The word "gaggle" simply means a group of something.It does not denote any specific amount."Herd" is a good example of a similar type of word.We say a herd of cows.The herd could be 20 cows or 2,000 cows.Either way,it's still a herd of cows. It seems that almost every bird and animal has a word to denote a "group" of them. Here are a few examples: Army of frogs Bale of turtles Band of coyotes Bevy of quail Bouquet of pheasants Cast of hawks Charm of finches Clowder of cats Colony of penguins Company of plovers Crash of rhinos Descent of woodpeckers Dole of doves Down of hares Dray of squirrels Drift of hogs Float of crocodiles Gang of elks Kettle of hawks (no, not a "kettle of fish") Kine of cows Labor of moles Leap of leopards Murder of crows Peep of chickens Shrewdness of apes Sleuth of bears Wedge of swans If a goose gets sick or wounded while in flight,two other geese drop out of the flying formation and escort the stricken goose to protect it.They stay with it until it either dies or is able to fly again. Although geese are very social animals among their own kind, they have a tendency to bite people. When migrating,a snow goose flies at speeds up to 50 mph and will travel almost 3,000 miles at an altitude of almost 3,000 feet. Geese mate for life and grieve at the loss of a mate. The most widespread goose in North America is the Canadian goose. Unlike most birds, the family stays together after the breeding season. Small birds sometimes hitchhike on the backs of flying Canadian geese. ~source used: "What Makes Flamingos Pink?" by Bill McLain  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-07-2004 08:57 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - How did knights move in heavy armor? Walking wasn't an easy task,particularly once armor went from chain mail to plate mail,at which point knights (and their horses) were covered in huge chunks of metal all over their bodies.A knight's plate mail armor weighed upwards of 50 pounds for the full suit and got as heavy as 100 pounds,depending on the model.You can imagine that if he toppled over or slipped on a serf,he'd loll around on his back like an upturned beetle.This is no exaggeration. Each battling knight had a squire to help him maintain uprightwardness.His squire assisted him in donning his armor and mounting his horse. When a knight was knocked off his steed,his squire would be at his side to help him get back on his feet again (quite literally).Knights also had a difficult time seeing; the helmet was so awkward,a page might have to inform his knight what was in front of him,or at the very least aim him in the right direction before the onset of battle. So you can see how full plate armor quickly became an impractical uniform for war.For tournament jousting? Sure, because the battlers simply had to charge in one direction and see clearly enough to point.At the same time,their squires could rush out and attend to them once they were knocked on their breastplates or cruppers.However,if a squire were to help scoop his fallen knight out of the mud in battle he surely would be vulnerable—probably killed on the spot by the enemy.Most squires found it safer to simply ran for the hills than stick around to rescue their fallen knights,and so plate mail fell out of favor. Besides,it became more and more difficult to produce usable armor that was also thick enough to keep those newfangled gun bullets from penetrating. ~source used: "Just Curious About History, 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 01-07-2004 02:43 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - Why do only female mosquitoes eat human blood? What do male mosquitoes eat? No,the mosquito menfolk aren't out eating steak and potatoes. Actually,the main food of both male and female mosquitoes is nectar from flowers.The nectar is converted to glycogen,a fuel potent enough to provide their muscles with energy to fly within minutes of consuming the nectar.Mosquitoes also possess an organ, known as the fat-body,that is capable of storing sugar for conversion to flight fuel. Male mosquitoes can exist quite happily on a diet of only nectar,and nature makes certain that they are content—males don't have a biting mouth part capable of piercing the skin of a human.But females have been anatomically equipped to bite because they have an important job to do:lay eggs.In some species,female mosquitoes are not capable of laying any eggs unless they eat a nutritional supplement of some tasty,fresh blood.Their organs convert the lipids in blood into iron and protein that can greatly increase their fecundity. A mosquito that would lay five or ten eggs without the supplement can lay as many as 200 with a dash of Type O.Although we don't miss the blood sucked out of us,this is quite a feast for the mosquito;many times,she consumes more than her own body weight in blood. But let's not take it personally.Some studies have indicated that given a choice,mosquitoes prefer the blood of cows to humans,and in the jungle are just as likely to try to bite a monkey or a bird as a human. ~source used: "Do Penguins Have Knees?" by David Feldman~  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-09-2004 08:19 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - If the third prong on an electrical plug is for grounding and shock protection,why don't all plugs have three prongs? In the good old days,electrical plugs had two prongs and the receptacles were ungrounded. If you happened to use the wrong side of the circuit, it could be a shocking experience. So a simple and effective idea was developed: add a third prong. Don French, chief engineer for Radio Shack, explains the principle: "If any short circuit developed in the wiring or device being powered,then instead of shocking the next person who touched the device,the third prong,being grounded,would carry the current until a fuse would blow.Now it is common to find three-prongedplugs on most portable and stationary appliances." Meanwhile, however, other engineers were working on "double insulated" prongs that do not require a third prong for protection. Although the third prong was rendered unnecessary, most old receptacles weren't wide enough to receive the fatter prongs—another example of incompatible technologies that benefited the manufacturers (think of all the consumers who had to refit receptacles and buy new extension cords to hold double insulated prongs) and bankrupted the consumer. ~source used: "Do Penguins Have Knees?" by David Feldman~  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-10-2004 08:26 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - Freudian Slip Maybe you keep such close watch of your tongue that you've never,never made a Freudian slip.If so, ou're practically in a class by yourself.From time to time,most of us blurt out something that seems to reveal thoughts we prefer to hide. Such verbal self-exposure owes its worldwide use and name to the founder of psychoanalysis. Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud was still studying in Paris at age thirty.Once he began seeing patients,however,he started developing new theories.Soon he said that every abnormal mental state involves repressed memories.Dreams,he reported in a sensational turn-of-the-century book,stem largely from repressed sexual desires. Anyone interviewed by the great doctor or one of his early disciples was sure to say something that evoked an "Aha!" reactionfrom the analyst.That was inevitable,for everyday speech is saturated with sexual innuendoes and overtones. A comment considered bland and innocent by a patient might be seen by Freud to indicate severe maladjustment.Hence any unplanned verbal revelation,not necessarily sexual now,is termed a "Freudian slip". ~source used: "Why You Say It" by Webb Garrison~  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-10-2004 08:26 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - Freudian Slip Maybe you keep such close watch of your tongue that you've never,never made a Freudian slip.If so, ou're practically in a class by yourself.From time to time,most of us blurt out something that seems to reveal thoughts we prefer to hide. Such verbal self-exposure owes its worldwide use and name to the founder of psychoanalysis. Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud was still studying in Paris at age thirty.Once he began seeing patients,however,he started developing new theories.Soon he said that every abnormal mental state involves repressed memories.Dreams,he reported in a sensational turn-of-the-century book,stem largely from repressed sexual desires. Anyone interviewed by the great doctor or one of his early disciples was sure to say something that evoked an "Aha!" reactionfrom the analyst.That was inevitable,for everyday speech is saturated with sexual innuendoes and overtones. A comment considered bland and innocent by a patient might be seen by Freud to indicate severe maladjustment.Hence any unplanned verbal revelation,not necessarily sexual now,is termed a "Freudian slip". ~source used: "Why You Say It" by Webb Garrison~  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-11-2004 10:22 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Why are there ten pins in bowling? The origins of bowling are at least seven thousand years old. We know that the Egyptians played a game like bowling and even the cavemen may have played a somewhat similar game. The ancient Polynesians also played a game using a type of alley in which the players stood sixty feet away and tried to knock down a target.Coincidentally,this is exactly the same length as today's bowling alley.In twelfth-century England,round boulders were rolled down cinder or clay alleys at wooden pins. The fourteenth-century Germans were said to have enjoyed a bowlinglike game,in which a bottle-shaped club,called a kegel,was the target.The players would place a kegel at one end of a cloister of a church and try to knock it down with a stone thrown from the other end.Successfully tipping over the kegel was supposed to be a sign of having lived a pure life.Its popularity spread from the cloisters to the general population of Germany and the Low Countries.The Dutch became especially fond of a version of the game using nine pins. Bowling as we know it today evolved from this seventeenth-century Dutch game of ninepins.Early ninepins was played outdoors.By the early nineteenth century,there were several indoor bowling alleys in New York,and the game had a wide following along the Eastern Seaboard.Gambling on ninepins was very popular and the game was outlawed in some states,including Connecticut,in 1850.It is said that tenpins was then played as a way to circumvent the laws banning ninepins.Tenpins soon became more popular than ninepins and the game quickly spread throughout the United States. ~source used: "Thoughts for the Throne" by Don Voorhees~  |  IP: Logged

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