Something I Learned Today

2009-06-01T23:11:00.000-07:00

Thomas Midgley, Jr. has been said to have "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history." Midgley invented tetra-ethyl lead, a gasoline additive that raised octane ratings and released record amounts of lead into the atmosphere that have been linked to health problems worldwide, and chlorofluorocarbon, also known as Freon, which is responsible for the hole in the ozone layer. In 1951 he contracted polio, which crippled him, and developed a system of ropes on pulleys that lifted him out of bed and strangled him in 1955.

2009-05-30T20:45:00.000-07:00

There are literally thousands of different types of cordyceps, the parasitic fungi that controls the minds of infected insects and guides them to an ideal (for the fungi) place to die before sprouting from their bodies to spread its spores, and each type preys on only one species of insect.

2009-05-18T13:07:00.000-07:00

Historians and doctors of today believe that Charles Floyd, the only man who died during the Lewis and Clark Expedition, passed as the result of appendicitis and the eventual rupture of his appendix, for which there was no cure in 1804. He would have died even if he'd stayed home. His burial site is in modern day Sioux City, Iowa, where he is commemorated with a monument that looks the same as George Washington's, only significantly smaller.

2009-05-10T22:15:00.000-07:00

Hulu.com, the website that offers a legal way to watch television shows and (so far, mostly bad) movies online any time, adds new episodes after they have aired on television in Hawaii. This means that, if you live on the East Coast, you have to wait six hours after you've missed a show to catch it online. Thus, I will not be able to watch the most recent episode of Family Guy, which my mother described as "funny," tonight.

2009-05-03T19:09:00.001-07:00

A "Tijuana Bible" is a small comic book, typically eight pages long with a single panel to a page, depicting explicit sexual activity and often staring well-known comic book characters. Little is known about the artists of these works, but Wesley Morse, the creator of 'Bazooka Joe,' is behind some of the more widely circulated 'Bibles' from the 1930s.

2009-04-26T12:36:00.000-07:00

Seed Bombs, dried balls of wildflower or grass seeds, fertilizer, and clay designed to be thrown to unreachable locations and create unexpected plant growth, are one tool in a larger movement called guerrilla gardening, in which activists tend gardens or otherwise react against urban sprawl in neglected publicly or privately held areas.

2009-04-22T19:58:00.000-07:00

Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd President of the United States of America, serving one term from 1889 to 1893. I took two years of AP US History and I swear I was unaware of this man until a few minutes ago.

2009-04-14T20:44:00.000-07:00

Sao Paulo, Brazil, calls itself the "Pizza Capital of the World" and boasts 6,000 pizzerias within its city limits.

2009-04-13T22:25:00.001-07:00

A person who engages in bricolage is a bricoleur.

2009-04-12T19:34:00.000-07:00

The ordinal form of the number zero is "zeroth."

2009-04-09T20:50:00.000-07:00

We all know that semen consists of two parts: sperm and stuff, but what's up with the stuff? That stuff, called seminal plasma, carries nutrients for the sperm and serves as protection from the acidic environment of a vagina.

2009-04-08T18:03:00.000-07:00

Black Pepper was so valued and expensive in the days of the Roman Empire that it was sometimes used as collateral or currency.

2009-04-05T20:48:00.000-07:00

The Oregon Trail, an educational computer game popular in American elementary schools in the late 1980s and early 1990s which took players on a journey from Independence, Missouri, to an embarrassing death from dysentery in the middle of nowhere, was actually first developed in 1971 by three student-teachers. It was developed further in 1974 when one of those students, Don Rawitsch, took a job at the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium, but it did not find wide release until 1985, by which time floppy disks had come into popular use.

2009-04-04T21:04:00.000-07:00

The oldest surviving motion picture is Roundhay Garden Scene, filmed by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince in 1888. It's about 2 seconds long and features four people moving slightly.

2009-04-02T18:20:00.000-07:00

2D computer graphics come in two varieties: raster, made up of pixels, and vector, made up of simple geometric shapes called "primitives." There may be other varieties, but I didn't learn about them.

2009-03-30T22:04:00.000-07:00

Burmese Pythons, which were introduced to the area after escaping from captivity or being released by people who once kept them as pets, are flourishing in the wild in Florida and are currently competing with the American Alligator as the dominant predator in the Everglades. In 2006, park rangers found an exploded python carcass containing the corpse of a 6-foot gator.

2009-03-29T17:12:00.000-07:00

To be classified as a "cheese food," the FDA mandates that a product must contain at least 51% real cheese. Products that are less than 51% cheese, such as Velveeta, are labeled "cheese product."

2009-03-27T12:54:00.000-07:00

The US Military makes its equipment -- tanks, ships and the like -- available to filmmakers at affordable prices if the film casts a flattering light on the military. If a film presents the military as inglorious, they will have to rent from private collectors or foreign militaries. Apocalypse Now was blackballed for featuring a soldier ordered to kill a superior as a major plot point and had to rent helicopters from the Philippine Air Force, who repeatedly recalled them to battle communists during the course of filming. Top Gun, on the other hand, had the full support of the Navy, who even set-up recruitment tables outside some theaters, despite the fact that it is a terrible, terrible movie.

2009-03-26T21:45:00.000-07:00

Camphor, an active ingredient in Vicks VapoRub, Carmex lib balm, and various anti-itch creams, which produces a cooling feeling similar to that of menthol, is also used as a snake and moth repellent.

2009-03-25T15:09:00.000-07:00

According to color psychologists, we associate the color blue with stability and confidence and find it non-threatening. This is why many police uniforms are blue. It is also a good choice when choosing your outfit for a job interview.

2009-03-24T22:49:00.000-07:00

Contrary to what you may have learned from animated films, seals and killer whales are not the only natural predators of emperor penguins; the southern giant petrel is responsible for up to 34% of chick deaths in some colonies.