Fun Friday Fact - hope you respond weekly to give us all a smile

[Mmindy]

[Hannah Renee]

1 hour ago, Mmindy said:

Now that's funny!

[Marcie Jensen]

Here's an odd piece of high heel trivia. The first recorded instance of wearing high heels was King John of England. He wore them regularly because he was so much shorter than his older brother, RIchard the Lionhearted.

[Mmindy]

6 minutes ago, Marcie Jensen said:

Here's an odd piece of high heel trivia. The first recorded instance of wearing high heels was King John of England. He wore them regularly because he was so much shorter than his older brother, RIchard the Lionhearted.

[Heather Shay]

Malala Yousafzai, the girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban for insisting on going to school, recently completed her final exams in the University of Oxford.

[Jani]

Good for her.  Now the other women and girls left behind under Taliban rule need help! 

[Marcie Jensen]

1 minute ago, Jani said:

Good for her.  Now the other women and girls left behind under Taliban rule need help! 

Agreed. Having been there many times over the years, courtesy of the U.S. Army, and having been out among the populace (at one point I spoke Dari--one of the primary languages) I can say with some confidence that Afghanistan, and the Taliban, are firmly lodged in about the 13th century culturally.

[miz miranda]

An interesting discussion on this topic can be found at https://upgrader.gapminder.org/t/sdg-world-un-goals/3/explanation

The site is a legacy of the work of Hans Rosling and provides information on how most of the world believes conditions are substantially worse than they actually are. It is worthwhile to checking out as well as his TED talks. I found it eye opening.

Around 60% of young girls in low-income countries go to school.

Source: UNESCO

 

Survey Results

Of the people we have tested, 86% got this question wrong.

• Total

  86%

• Japan

  94%

• Belgium

  94%

• Russia

  91%

• Türkiye

  91%

• Canada

  91%

About this misconception

Many people wrongly think a minority of girls in low-income countries go to school, probably because they know there are still huge gender inequalities in the world and they don’t want to trivialize them. Out of 195 countries, today only 27 are called low-income and only 11 of them still have big gender inequalities in primary education: Afghanistan, Guinea, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Guinea-Bissau, Yemen, Chad, Niger, Eritrea, Mozambique and Somalia.

Forty years ago, across all low-income countries, many more boys finished primary school compared to girls but, since then, more parents across the world now prioritize their daughters’ education. Today, in most countries, both girls and boys miss school to almost the same extent, and when they do, it’s mainly because their families are extremely poor.

In most low-income countries in general, girls drop out of school more than boys when they reach puberty, partly because of bad school toilets. When countries become middle-income countries, schools are better prepared for female students. When measuring results, pretty much everywhere, girls outperform boys all the way up to higher education.

The Coronavirus pandemic resulted in more than 90% of countries globally closing schools at some point during 2020. The effect on how many girls (and boys) who might not have returned to school when they reopened is still unknown, but UNESCO projected that up to 11 million girls may not go back (particularly those aged 12-17).

[Heather Shay]

Fall Leaf Colors are Caused by Sugar

Everyone loves those colorful leaf colors in the fall from vibrant reds to eye-popping bright oranges, but did you know that the color the leaves turn is based on how much sugar is in the leaves, according to One Country.  That’s why maple leaves are such a brilliant red color.

(Ekaterina Pokrovsky / Shutterstock.com)

[Charlize]

Thanks for the reminder that it's time to get into the woods to work on our syrup lines.  here in NJ we often tap in January but last year flows started in late December.  Who knows how long our trees will be able to handle the warming temperatures of the earth.  For now however i've got work to do.  Fun fact:  NJ makes maple syrup too!

 

Hugs,

 

Charlize

[awkward-yet-sweet]

Maple fact - sugar maples can sometimes be tapped for syrup as far South as Tennessee/Arkansas in a colder year.  Not just an activity for the far north. 

[miz miranda]

I fell for the Autumn category:

 

Autumn has been called the “hectic beauty of death

 

Levels of testosterone in both men and women are at their highest in the fall. Scientists speculate the surge may be a result of ancient mating instincts (e.g., the fall “rutting season”) or that decreasing daylight somehow triggers it.

 

According to NASA, autumn is “aurora season” because geomagnetic storms are about twice as frequent as the annual average during the fall.

 

A “Harvest Moon” is the full moon closest to the autumn equinox. Before artificial lighting, such moonlight was essential to a farmer’s successful harvest.

 

Each fall, the black-capped chickadee’s tiny hippocampus enlarges by 30%, which enables it to remember where it collected seeds in different spots in trees and on the ground.

 

People who live on the equator or central area of the planet never experience autumn.

 

While heart attacks and car accidents increase after the start of daylight saving time in the spring, the opposite is true of the end of it in the fall: heart attacks and accidents decrease the Monday after daylight saving time ends.

 

Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany, takes place each autumn. The festival began as part of a crown prince’s wedding celebrations in 1810 and has continued since. About 1.3 million gallons (5 million liters) of beer are poured during the festival.

[Heather Shay]

There actually aren’t “57 varieties” of Heinz ketchup, and never were. Company founder H.J. Heinz thought his product should have a number, and he liked 57. Hint: Hit the glass bottle on the “57,” not the bottom, to get the ketchup to flow. 

[Davie]

A better solution to Florida’s hurricane problem
        Coral reefs can protect coastal cities from deadly floods, if only we keep them alive.  Coral reefs are among the many ecosystems, including mangrove forests and wetlands, that can protect us. They function like natural breakwaters during a hurricane, helping to dampen or “break” waves that can flood homes and offices near shore.
       Coral reefs help safeguard the homes of more than 18,000 people and avert $1.8 billion in flood damage each year, according to a recent analysis by the US Geological Survey (USGS).

[Heather Shay]

Fall is not an exclusively US term. The word "fall"– short for "falling of the leaf" – was used in the 17th century throughout Britain.

[awkward-yet-sweet]

Foxes may have been the original domesticated pet.  Foxes have been found buried with humans in ancient grave sites that predate examples of dogs or cats buried with people by 4,000 years or more.

[Heather Shay]

1. “Rainbow” comes from the Latin arcus pluvius, meaning “rainy arch.”

 

2. In Greek and Roman times, it was believed that rainbows were a path created by the goddess of the rainbow, Iris, linking us to the immortals.

 

3. What do rainbows have to so with peacocks? The Greeks used the word “iris” to refer to any colored circle, thus the iris of the eye or even the spot on the tail of a peacock. Other words that take their cue from the goddess of the rainbow include the iris flower, the chemical iridium, and the word “iridescent.”

 

4. Even though rainbows figure prominently in the myths and religions of so many cultures throughout history, no one had any idea what the heck they actually were until the 17th century.

 

5. The Greek epic poet Homer believed that rainbows were made of a single color, purple. (How decidedly unpoetic.)

 

6. The Greek philosopher Xenophanes elaborated by bestowing the rainbow with another two colors, saying that it was comprised of purple, yellow-green, and red.

 

7. Aristotle agreed with Xenophanes in his treatise, Meteorologica: “The rainbow has three colors, and these three, and no others.” Apparently this was a hot topic!

 

8. During the Renaissance, it was decided that, no, there were four colors: red, blue, green, and yellow. By the 17th century, western thinkers had agreed upon five colors: red, yellow, green, blue, and purple.

 

9. In 1637 René Descartes discovered that rainbows were caused by light from the sun being split into different colors by rain. Gold star for Descartes.

 

10. In 1666, Isaac Newton added indigo and orange to give us the seven-colored Roy G. Biv that we all know and love today. However, in China rainbows are considered to contain just five colors.

[Charlize]

As a painter i have always looked at the rainbow as 6 colors,  The three primaries: red, yellow and blue and the secondary colors made by mixing the primaries creating orange, green and purple.  Hence the rainbow flag.  Perhaps since indigo gets so close to black it is often not included.  I have found it a difficult color to obtain with most paints.  Some makers produce an indigo but it just doesn't seem to make that illusive color.

 

Hugs,

 

Charlize

[miz miranda]

The color didn't have a name until relatively modern times

 

 the evidence of ancient Greek literature and philosophy shows that since blue was not part of Homer and his readers’ shared vocabulary (yellow and green do not appear either), it may not have been part of their perceptual experience, either. The spread of blue ink across the world as a relatively recent phenomenon has to do with its availability. “If you think about it,” writes Business Insider’s Kevin Loria, “blue doesn’t appear much in nature — there aren’t blue animals, blue eyes are rare, and blue flowers are mostly human creations.”

The color blue took hold in modern times with the development of substances that could act as blue pigment, like Prussian Blue, invented in Berlin, manufactured in China and exported to Japan in the 19th century. “The only ancient culture to develop a word for blue was the Egyptians — and as it happens, they were also the only culture that had a way to produce a blue dye.” Color is not only cultural, it is also technological. But first, perhaps, it could be a linguistic phenomenon.

One modern researcher, Jules Davidoff, found this to be true in experiments with a Namibian people whose language makes no distinction between blue and green (but names many finer shades of green than English does). “Davidoff says that without a word for a colour,” Loria writes, “without a way of identifying it as different, it’s much harder for us to notice what’s unique about it.” Unless we’re color blind, we all “see” the same things when we look at the world because of the basic biology of human eyes and brains. But whether certain colors appear, it seems, has to do less with what we see than with what we’re already primed to expect.

[Heather Shay]

[Jani]

This can apply to many of us.  "So you see, there were plenty of bumps in the road but at the end of the day, they pushed on." 

[Heather Shay]

1. The most expensive film ever made was Pirates of the Caribbean, which cost more than 375 million dollars to create. For reference, the average budget for a big studio movie is around $65 million.
2. If E.T. is one of your favorite movies of all time, then you'll be interested to know that someone squished their hands in jelly to make the sound effect for E.T. walking around.
3. Buzz Lightyear's original name is Lunar Larry. Doesn't have quite the same ring to it, right? But it is on theme.
4. The bookworms will appreciate this fun fact: Isaac Asimov is the only author to write a book in every Dewey-decimal category.
5. Another literary fact for you: It took Leo Tolstoy six years to finish his novel War and Peace.

[Marcie Jensen]

The fact about Asimov is very interesting. I knew he was a genius and had written everything from poetry to chemistry to science fiction, but had no idea he had written in every Dewey-decimal category. Thanks for sharing.

[Heather Nicole]

8 hours ago, Heather Shay said:

The bookworms will appreciate this fun fact: Isaac Asimov is the only author to write a book in every Dewey-decimal category.

 

If his 600's work just happened to be a 641, then I'm going to have to make it my life's mission to find this "Cooking with Asimov" book.

[Heather Nicole]

Speaking of the dewey decimal system, here's one:

 

Did you know the dewy decimal system isn't just for non-fiction?

 

While libraries usually have separate sections without any call numbers for most of their fiction collections, the dewey decimal system is designed to accommodate fictional works. For example, 398 contains traditional folk tales and mythologies, Shakespere's works are in 822.33, and the 800's in general contain such things as poetry, comedy, and other fictional literature.