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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 01-13-2004 07:12 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Why do evergreens stay green all year round? Trees lose their leaves to conserve moisture.On broadleaf trees water evaporates through their leaves.In warm months,water is usually available in the soil to replace this constant loss of moisture.In winter,however,when the soil can freeze solid,tree roots may be cut off from their water supply,causing the trees to dry up and die. Evergreens have much smaller,thinner leaves or needles,and a thicker waxy cuticle, to cut down on evaporation.Hence,they do not have to shed all their leaves and their leaves do not change color.Pines and other evergreens do,however,shed their needles. They just don't do it all at once,as broadleaf trees do.Just look beneath a pine tree sometime.The ground will be covered with needles.Thankfully,evergreens do retain most of their leaves during the cold months,or winter would be that much drabber. ~source used: "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 01-13-2004 02:45 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - How do astronauts go to the bathroom in space? No snickering here,folks;this is serious business.When you gotta go,you gotta go, even if you're an astronaut.Consider the problem. In your regular earth toilet,the user (A) places him- or herself above the toilet (B). Waste gets from point A to point B by means of the miracle of gravity. In space, you don't have gravity. Stuff just floats. You see the difficulty this presents. (I'm certainly not going to spell it out for you.) So scientists had to use a different way to get waste from point A to point B. What they came up with was a high- tech vacuum cleaner. Here's how it works.The astronaut sits firmly on a special toilet seat.The seat makes a firm seal with the astronaut's skin,preventing anything from drifting off Into the cabin. Then he or she switches on a fan inside the toilet.This creates a gentle suction that pulls the waste into the toilet.The solid stuff collects in a special bag,while the wet stuff flows through the bag into a pipe and eventually gets pumped to a storage tank. When the astronaut is done,he or she closes the top of the toilet tightly and opens a valve that permits the air Inside the toilet to escape into the vacuum of space.This causes the moisture in the solids to boil away instantly.A special gizmo packs away what remains for disposal when the spacecraft gets back to the ground. Great,you say.But what if,as so often happens in the space program,it doesn't work? Well,there are several backup systems.If all else fails,there's always the "Apollo bag," so called because it was what the astronauts used on the Apollo flights.Basically,It's a plastic bag.You use it pretty much the way you'd figure you'd use it. Believe me being an astronaut is a lot less glamorous than it's made out to be. ~source used: "Know It All" by Ed Zotti~  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-13-2004 02:45 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - How do astronauts go to the bathroom in space? No snickering here,folks;this is serious business.When you gotta go,you gotta go, even if you're an astronaut.Consider the problem. In your regular earth toilet,the user (A) places him- or herself above the toilet (B). Waste gets from point A to point B by means of the miracle of gravity. In space, you don't have gravity. Stuff just floats. You see the difficulty this presents. (I'm certainly not going to spell it out for you.) So scientists had to use a different way to get waste from point A to point B. What they came up with was a high- tech vacuum cleaner. Here's how it works.The astronaut sits firmly on a special toilet seat.The seat makes a firm seal with the astronaut's skin,preventing anything from drifting off Into the cabin. Then he or she switches on a fan inside the toilet.This creates a gentle suction that pulls the waste into the toilet.The solid stuff collects in a special bag,while the wet stuff flows through the bag into a pipe and eventually gets pumped to a storage tank. When the astronaut is done,he or she closes the top of the toilet tightly and opens a valve that permits the air Inside the toilet to escape into the vacuum of space.This causes the moisture in the solids to boil away instantly.A special gizmo packs away what remains for disposal when the spacecraft gets back to the ground. Great,you say.But what if,as so often happens in the space program,it doesn't work? Well,there are several backup systems.If all else fails,there's always the "Apollo bag," so called because it was what the astronauts used on the Apollo flights.Basically,It's a plastic bag.You use it pretty much the way you'd figure you'd use it. Believe me being an astronaut is a lot less glamorous than it's made out to be. ~source used: "Know It All" by Ed Zotti~  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-14-2004 02:30 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - "cop": The word "cop" long was a source of irritation to J. Edgar Hoover,and the nickname "nation's top cop" must have proved especially galling because of the frequency with which it turned up in newspaper and magazine articles.All of us know,of course, that any policeman responds more agreeably to the title "officer"than to "cop",but some people ask whether this attitude on the lawmen's part is justified.Is it the result of inherited prejudice or is there good reason for disliking the nickname "cop"? Well,good reason there is—in abundance.Though many people think that "cop" is merely a shortened form of "copper," from the buttons once worn by British bobbies, this is untrue. In the first place, "bobbies" did not exist until Sir Robert Peel secured the passage of Britain's first modern Police Act in 1828. But the word "cop" in the sense of "one who captures or snatches" is recorded as early as 1704.Indeed,an ancestor word, "cap". with the same meaning,came into English from French at the time of the Norman Conquest and can be traced all the way back to ancient Rome's "capere" (to capture). But there seems nothing derogatory about this meaning "of cop" — one who seizes or captures.However,over the centuries,the word "cop" has been used by unsavory underworld characters in many different meanings.To steal,for instance:an auto thief "cops a heap".To assault from the rear by stealth: a crook "cops a sneak". And of course, there's the well-known "cop a plea" — to plead guilty to a lesser crime in order to get a lesser penalty. ~source used: "Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origin" by William and Marry Morris  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-19-2004 09:33 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - Where is the "black box" on an airplane and why do they paint it black? First of all,the black box isn't really black.It's fluorescent orange so it's easier to Find.It's called the "black box" because it's associated with death. The box is made to survive crashes and extreme temperatures (up to 2,000°F for 30 minutes).Inside are recordings of the pilots' voices and the aircraft's flight information from its cockpit on metallic tape.The tape is a 30-minute-long loop,so that if a plane crashes,the last 30 minutes before impact are recorded. The box is mounted in the back of the plane,which is the part most likely to stay intact in a crash. ~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 01-20-2004 05:57 AM                        Rated G Today's useless fact - What is the origin of the word "quack," meaning a fake or unethical doctor? The word "quack" is an abbreviation of "quacksalver," a 16th-century word meaning a peddler who sold fraudulent medicines in the street.Since to quack meant to peddle,to "quacksalve" meant to peddle a salve or ointment,especially one that allegedly could cure any malady. The charlatan who did this peddling was a quacksalver.Today a quack means either a fake or unethical medical doctor. Although medical quackery has been around for centuries,it seems to have flowered the most in the United States.The medicine wagons of the snake oil peddlers in the 1800s later gave way to much more sophisticated scams. Radionics was one of the most popular frauds in the 1920s and 1930s. The quack doctor used a small wooden box with a number of holes in the front and a light bulb inside.A number of wires, a dial, a pedal,and a glass tube were added to make the box impressive.Thin pieces of colored paper were pasted over the holes. The patient would moisten a slip of paper with his tongue and then drop it into a slot on top of the box.The quack doctor claimed he could see a letter through one of the holes that would diagnose the patient's illness.For example, an A meant the patient was suffering from arthritis.Radionic doctors claimed they could lengthen a patient's legs,cause amputated fingers to grow back, and fill dental cavities,as well as kill dandelions over any specified distance and fertilize fields as far as 70 miles away. Another fraud was the Spectro-Chrome therapy machine.The quack doctor explained that each color had significance. For instance, red energized the liver,blue built vitality,lemon yellow built bones, purple prevented malaria, and so on.When these colors were not in harmony,disease or other physical ailments resulted. The quack doctor claimed his Spectro-Chrome machine would attune all the color waves of a person's body to bring good health. As bizarre as it sounds, by 1940 he had sold enough of his machines to earn him over $ 1 million. There are countless other medical frauds in our history, most of which were invented in the late 1800s or early 1900s. A few examples are the Homo-Vibra Ray, whose practitioners claimed the ability of diagnosing illnesses even if the patient was a great distance away; the electric brush designed to relieve headaches and promote hair growth; the galvanic eyeglasses said to improve eyesight and prevent nasal congestion; and the radio disease killer, which was an impressive-looking box of electronic gear that the patient could use to cure himself. Although it may seem odd that such fake devices could ever sell, when people are ill or suffering and cannot find a cure,they will often try anything. Today there are many reputable alternatives to standard medical techniques, but there are also many quacks out there. ~source used: "Thoughts for the Throne"~by Don Voorhees[/b]  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-21-2004 06:12 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Why Does Menthol Feel Cool to the Taste and Cool to the Skin? Of course,the temperature of menthol shaving cream isn't any lower than that of musk shaving cream.So clearly,something funny is going on. R. J. Reynolds's public relations representative,Mary Ann Usrey, explains the physiological shenanigans: The interior of the mouth contains many thermoreceptors that respond to cooling. These thermoreceptors may be compared to the receptors for the sensations of "sweet," "salty," "bitter," etc. In other words,individual receptors respond to specific types of stimulation.For example,a person's perception that sugar is sweet is initiated when the receptors in the mouth for "sweet" are stimulated.Menthol feels cools to the taste because menthol stimulates the thermoreceptors that respond normally to cooling. Menthol has the ability to "trick" those thermoreceptors into responding.The brain receives the message that what is being experienced is "cool." Although not as easy to stimulate by menthol as those in the mouth, the skin also contains those types of thermoreceptors, which is why menthol shaving cream or shaving lotion feels cool to the skin. ~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 01-22-2004 06:09 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Do animals dream? That depends on what is meant by dreaming,and obviously you cannot ask an animal if it has had a dream.But experts cite strong suggestive evidence that mammals like dogs and cats experience something people would recognize as dreams. Such animals have the same brain processes during sleep as humans.They experience both rapid eye movement sleep,or REM sleep,and non-REM sleep. REM sleep is when dreaming is known to occur in adult humans.While it is going on,the brain is very active but biochemical controls prevent the body from acting on the mental images. In experiments with cats,if the inhibition of motor activity is removed by surgery,when animals go into REM sleep,they may walk around the room and generally act as though they were acting out a "dream." A cat might demonstrate every behavior involved in chasing mice, for example. But is the dream a series of vivid,discrete,integrated images? We don't know if an animal is capable of that in wakefulness. There is controversy over whether human infants dream,for the same reason. ~source used: "The Book of Science Questions and Answers" by C. Claiborne Ray~  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-22-2004 06:21 AM                        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-knightjousting 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 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 01-22-2004 12:28 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - Were the Amazons real? Did they really burn off their breasts? There is evidence that nomadic tribes of warrior women existed in Asia Minor,as Greek accounts have suggested,but it's clear that not everything in these tales was based in fact.In tombs unearthed in the region (and other regions,it might be noted) both men and women were buried with weapons.This suggested that men and women most likely fought alongside one another.One burial site in particular has given archaeologists reason to believe that many of these steppe tribes had women warriors.A young girl of about 14 was buried with weapons and armor, and she also had bowed legs,strongly suggesting that she had been raised to ride on horseback,as most warriors of this time period were. As to the issue of breasts,some of the Greek stories tell of ferocious warrior women burning off one of their breasts,and other stories do not.In terms of the archaeological finds, there's been no evidence of this practice. Some experts believe the "Amazon women" myth came from the ancient Greek encounters with the Hittites,a civilization that worshipped goddesses and used priestesses.At the time of the Greek writings,Hittite men wore their hair long and paid homage to female images in their religion.It's possible that there was a gender-confusion problem-that the lonely Greek soldiers saw the Hittite guys and thought they were gals. Because Hittite remains are not as exciting as ancient Greek remains,it's a culture that hasn't been studied as much as it should.But therein may lie the answer to the Amazon question. ~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 01-26-2004 06:41 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - If you took a rooster up to the land of the midnight sun,would it crow? Even during the longest days up above the Arctic Circle,you still get a slight nocturnal dimming.And roosters can be set off by the subtlest of dawns.So yes,in all likelihood our hypothetical great northern cock will crow.Which of course begs the question:Why do roosters crow in the first place? It has nothing to do with circadian rhythms or some burning barnyard mission to announce the new day.(Let a rooster out after he's been locked in a closet for ten minutes, and he'll crow just as loudly.)Paul Siegel,a poultry behaviorist at Virginia Tech,says morning crowing is strictly a turf thing. It's as if the rooster were warning,"Now that we can all see again,just remember—this stuff is MINE!" In any case,you can forget Chaucer's brave Chanticleer:Nature's alarm clock is just another insecure male trying to scare off the competition.It's a wonder anyone gets up in the morning. ~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 01-26-2004 07:41 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Cordon bleu: If you are eating in a fine restaurant and have the services of a "cordon bleu" chef,you are being offered a truly fine cuisine. "Cordon bleu" means "blue ribbon," and the blue ribbon has long been the sign of supremacy.In the days when ocean liners vied with each other to win the title of fastest ship on the transatlantic run,the award was a blue ribbon and the fastest ship was advertised as the "blue-ribbon winner." The color blue has been associated with royalty and power ever since ancient times when gods and goddesses were believed to live in the heavens up above the blue skies.In England the highest order of knighthood is the Order of the Garter, represented by a blue ribbon. In France the Knights of the Holy Ghost wore an insigne suspended around the neck by a cordon bleu.In years past these knights, like many other Frenchmen,developed tastes for fine foods and wines.When they were served an especially superb meal, they rewarded the chef by calling his meal "un repas de cordon bleu" and decorating him with a blue ribbon.That's how the highest order of French chefs came to be called masters of "cordon bleu" cuisine. ~source used: "Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins"~ by William and Mary Morris  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-27-2004 05:41 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Do train whistles mean anything besides "get out of the way"? The wistles used to mean a lot more back before phones,walkie- talkies,and other ways for the engineer to communicate with the rest of the crew. For example,one urgent "toot!" signaled the brakeman to jump from car to car,applying the brakes on each one,which at one time was the only way to stop the train. Other signals: 1.Bell while in station - Passengers take your seats. 2.Toooot toooot - Train ready to proceed. 3.Too too too - Backing up. 4.Too too too too too toot - Succession of short blasts means nothing to the crew,so used to scare cattle off the track. 5.Toooot toooot la toooot - Approaching a public crossing. 6.Tooot tooot tooot tooot tooot tooot tooot - Train is one mile from the next station. ~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 01-28-2004 11:44 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Hanky-panky: What on earth leads us to say that a person fooling around on a mate or other underhanded business is engaged in hanky-panky? Strange as it seems,the expression is a logical one whose roots are easily traced. In many eras,magicians learned to keep the eyes of observers off their doings by means of distraction.An umbrella or a coffin is a tried-and-proven source,as is a handkerchief,for that matter. About 150 years or so ago,many a British master of fast movements swung a handkerchief with one hand to keep viewers from noticing what he was doing with the other.This practice was so common that use of a hanky came to be associated with clandestine activity.Maybe influenced by hocus-pocus,a rhyming word was added. Presto! Quicker than you can bat your eyes, hanky-panky came into being as just the right label for undercover doings. ~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 01-30-2004 04:27 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - Why aren t there 100 seconds in a minute and 100 minutes in an hour instead of 60? About 5,000 years ago there was a great city,Uruk,in Sumeria, an area we now call the Middle East.It was here that the earliest known writing was found,as well as a system of mathematics.This early numbering system was based on the number 60 rather than the number 10 as in our system.The ancient Sumerians divided each hour into 60 minutes and each minute into 60 seconds.Although their numbering system has not been used for centuries,their system of dividing hours into minutes and minutes into seconds survived and is still used today. In our modern numbering system we use fractions to denote a part of something.For example,if we divide 10 by 3,our answer is 3 1/3.However,if we want an answer without fractions, then we have only two choices because the number 10 can only be still get 10 so we don't consider that combination here.)If we divide 10 by 2,the I answer is 5 or "half," and if we divide 10 by 5,the answer is 2 or "one fifth." The ancient Sumerians didn't know how to write fractions,yet they often needed to know what a "half" or a "third" of something was.To solve this problem,an Uruk mathematician decided to base the Sumerian numbering system on the number 60, which can easily be divided by both halves and thirds.Although 10 can only be divided by 2 or 5 if a whole number answer is desired,60 can be divided by 10 different numbers that provide answers without fractions (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30). ~source used: "Do Fish Drink Water?" by Bill McLain~  |  IP: Logged

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