Curio Cabinet / Daily Curio
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FREEHumanities Daily Curio #1644Free1 CQ
Now that's loyalty. 44 years ago, an Imperial Japanese Army officer named Hiroo Onoda, became the last WWII soldier to surrender—29 years after the war ended! Onoda was a second lieutenant stationed in the Philippine jungle. The last order he had been given by his commander in early 1945 was to stay and fight. Onoda, like all Japanese military of the time, was loyal to an honor code stating death was preferable to surrender. So when the Japanese forces withdrew from the Philippines later in 1945, Onoda stayed behind along with three of his enlisted men. Relying on his training as an intelligence officer trained in guerrilla tactics, they hid in the jungle of Lubang Island, 93 miles from Manila. When they found pamphlets proclaiming the end of the war 73 years ago this month, Onoda believed it was enemy propaganda. Instead, they built huts from bamboo, pilfered rice, and ate stolen cows. They evaded American and Filipino search parties and attacked islanders who approached—killing roughly 30 inhabitants over the years. One of his enlisted men surrendered in 1950, and the other two were shot dead by island police in 1954 and 1972. Still Onoda refused to surrender. When a wayward Japanese student hunted him down in 1974, he still rejected all pleas to come home, saying he was awaiting orders from his superiors. Only when the Japanese government sent a delegation to formally relieve him of his duty—a group that included Onoda's brother and his former commander—did the old soldier capitulate. The lieutenant officially presented his sword to Filipino president Ferdinand Marcos, who pardoned him for any war crimes he had committed. Onoda was still wearing his tattered uniform. Upon returning to Tokyo, he received a full hero's welcome including a national parade. To his brother, he said: "I am sorry I have disturbed you for so long."
Image credit & copyright: Jiji Press/AFP/Getty Images
Now that's loyalty. 44 years ago, an Imperial Japanese Army officer named Hiroo Onoda, became the last WWII soldier to surrender—29 years after the war ended! Onoda was a second lieutenant stationed in the Philippine jungle. The last order he had been given by his commander in early 1945 was to stay and fight. Onoda, like all Japanese military of the time, was loyal to an honor code stating death was preferable to surrender. So when the Japanese forces withdrew from the Philippines later in 1945, Onoda stayed behind along with three of his enlisted men. Relying on his training as an intelligence officer trained in guerrilla tactics, they hid in the jungle of Lubang Island, 93 miles from Manila. When they found pamphlets proclaiming the end of the war 73 years ago this month, Onoda believed it was enemy propaganda. Instead, they built huts from bamboo, pilfered rice, and ate stolen cows. They evaded American and Filipino search parties and attacked islanders who approached—killing roughly 30 inhabitants over the years. One of his enlisted men surrendered in 1950, and the other two were shot dead by island police in 1954 and 1972. Still Onoda refused to surrender. When a wayward Japanese student hunted him down in 1974, he still rejected all pleas to come home, saying he was awaiting orders from his superiors. Only when the Japanese government sent a delegation to formally relieve him of his duty—a group that included Onoda's brother and his former commander—did the old soldier capitulate. The lieutenant officially presented his sword to Filipino president Ferdinand Marcos, who pardoned him for any war crimes he had committed. Onoda was still wearing his tattered uniform. Upon returning to Tokyo, he received a full hero's welcome including a national parade. To his brother, he said: "I am sorry I have disturbed you for so long."
Image credit & copyright: Jiji Press/AFP/Getty Images
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FREESTEM Daily Curio #1643Free1 CQ
It's a bird! It's a plane! Nope, it's a drunk bird. And Gilbert, a tiny city in northeastern Minnesota, seems to have been attacked by thousands of them. The Gilbert Chief of Police, Ty Techar, put out a notice that residents should watch out for "tipsy birds" flying into windows, dive-bombing residents, slamming into cars, and generally "flopping all over the place." The birds are also exhibiting an atypical willingness to stay put when humans approach. All of this has led authorities to conclude the birds are suffering from fermentation toxicity. In other words, they're drunk. It commonly occurs when animals eat berries that have fermented into alcohol—usually during spring thaw when berries are susceptible to wild yeasts fermenting their remaining sugars. Normally it affects bigger animals like deer, since the birds have migrated south for the winter. But this year an early frost seems to have kicked in the phenomenon much earlier than normal. Meaning tiny sparrows and robins, with blood alcohol tolerances much lower than deer, are gobbling up the berries. Some bird experts say there's no real evidence the birds are drunk, and that when migration begins there are always increased episodes of birds going berserk. But Chief Techar isn't buying it. While he admits he hasn't given the birds a breathalyzer, he says it's easy to tell. Still, he wants residents to calm down: "it's not like every bird in our town is hammered." You can find the joke there yourself.
Image credit & copyright: Joseph Leduc
It's a bird! It's a plane! Nope, it's a drunk bird. And Gilbert, a tiny city in northeastern Minnesota, seems to have been attacked by thousands of them. The Gilbert Chief of Police, Ty Techar, put out a notice that residents should watch out for "tipsy birds" flying into windows, dive-bombing residents, slamming into cars, and generally "flopping all over the place." The birds are also exhibiting an atypical willingness to stay put when humans approach. All of this has led authorities to conclude the birds are suffering from fermentation toxicity. In other words, they're drunk. It commonly occurs when animals eat berries that have fermented into alcohol—usually during spring thaw when berries are susceptible to wild yeasts fermenting their remaining sugars. Normally it affects bigger animals like deer, since the birds have migrated south for the winter. But this year an early frost seems to have kicked in the phenomenon much earlier than normal. Meaning tiny sparrows and robins, with blood alcohol tolerances much lower than deer, are gobbling up the berries. Some bird experts say there's no real evidence the birds are drunk, and that when migration begins there are always increased episodes of birds going berserk. But Chief Techar isn't buying it. While he admits he hasn't given the birds a breathalyzer, he says it's easy to tell. Still, he wants residents to calm down: "it's not like every bird in our town is hammered." You can find the joke there yourself.
Image credit & copyright: Joseph Leduc
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FREEAesthetic Daily CurioFree1 CQ
It's Flashback Friday and World Egg Day! Enjoy this eggcellent favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
You may know Fabergé eggs as things criminals steal in movies like James Bond and Ocean's Twelve. But it's their place in Russian history, not Hollywood, that makes them so valuable. The first Fabergé egg was commissioned in 1885 by Tsar Alexander III as an Easter gift for his wife. Easter was the most important holiday in the Russian Orthodox Church. Traditionally, eggs were hand-dyed, blessed by a priest, and then given to family and friends. Over the centuries, these gift eggs had become more ornate and, for the higher classes, were fabricated by artists with precious metals or jewels. Alexander, intent on coming up with the finest gift egg, enlisted the jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé. Fabergé's first egg was so exquisite that Alexander made the gift an annual tradition. His only rule was that each egg should contain a "surprise"—otherwise Fabergé controlled the design completely. One egg doubled as a wind-up toy; another twisted to reveal three family portraits; yet another held a life-size rosebud which opened to reveal jewels. After Alexander's death, his son Nicholas II doubled down on the tradition by presenting his mother and his wife with separate eggs. Fabergé produced 50 eggs for the tsars before Nicholas was overthrown during the bloody Bolshevik Revolution. History buffs will know that the Bolsheviks were not exactly into displays of material wealth, let alone jewel-encrusted eggs. Fabergé made a few eggs for other wealthy clientele, but none would ever come close to the value of the emperors' eggs, 43 of which remain. One lucky American stumbled upon a genuine Alexander Fabergé egg at a rummage sale, eventually selling it for $33 million. The tsar must be egg-rolling over in his grave!
It's Flashback Friday and World Egg Day! Enjoy this eggcellent favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
You may know Fabergé eggs as things criminals steal in movies like James Bond and Ocean's Twelve. But it's their place in Russian history, not Hollywood, that makes them so valuable. The first Fabergé egg was commissioned in 1885 by Tsar Alexander III as an Easter gift for his wife. Easter was the most important holiday in the Russian Orthodox Church. Traditionally, eggs were hand-dyed, blessed by a priest, and then given to family and friends. Over the centuries, these gift eggs had become more ornate and, for the higher classes, were fabricated by artists with precious metals or jewels. Alexander, intent on coming up with the finest gift egg, enlisted the jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé. Fabergé's first egg was so exquisite that Alexander made the gift an annual tradition. His only rule was that each egg should contain a "surprise"—otherwise Fabergé controlled the design completely. One egg doubled as a wind-up toy; another twisted to reveal three family portraits; yet another held a life-size rosebud which opened to reveal jewels. After Alexander's death, his son Nicholas II doubled down on the tradition by presenting his mother and his wife with separate eggs. Fabergé produced 50 eggs for the tsars before Nicholas was overthrown during the bloody Bolshevik Revolution. History buffs will know that the Bolsheviks were not exactly into displays of material wealth, let alone jewel-encrusted eggs. Fabergé made a few eggs for other wealthy clientele, but none would ever come close to the value of the emperors' eggs, 43 of which remain. One lucky American stumbled upon a genuine Alexander Fabergé egg at a rummage sale, eventually selling it for $33 million. The tsar must be egg-rolling over in his grave!
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FREEWorld History Daily Curio #1642Free1 CQ
You think you know somebody, and then they surprise you… from the afterlife. In today's Scream Themed Thursday we'll explore England's mythical "screaming skulls." One of the most infamous cases took place several centuries ago at Bettiscombe Manor in Dorset, England. The legend goes that an elderly servant beseeched his master to send his remains to the West Indies after his expected death. But the master ignored his dying wish and buried the man in a local graveyard. According to the story, the master was then tormented by late-night coffin-banging, ghoulish shrieks, and other phantasms from the Bettiscombe Skull—to the point that he eventually dug up the servant's remains and buried him closer to the manor. This only caused the ghoul to fly into an uproar. Frustrated, he exhumed him again, brought the screaming skull into the house, and discarded the rest of the skeleton in a barn loft. The howling ceased. As with most screaming skull tales, when the haunted skull finds an acceptable resting place it quiets down. Of course, it's all superstition. In 1963, scientists examined the Bettiscombe skull and found that it belonged to a woman who lived 3,000 years ago!
Image credit & copyright: Flickr / Volitare88
You think you know somebody, and then they surprise you… from the afterlife. In today's Scream Themed Thursday we'll explore England's mythical "screaming skulls." One of the most infamous cases took place several centuries ago at Bettiscombe Manor in Dorset, England. The legend goes that an elderly servant beseeched his master to send his remains to the West Indies after his expected death. But the master ignored his dying wish and buried the man in a local graveyard. According to the story, the master was then tormented by late-night coffin-banging, ghoulish shrieks, and other phantasms from the Bettiscombe Skull—to the point that he eventually dug up the servant's remains and buried him closer to the manor. This only caused the ghoul to fly into an uproar. Frustrated, he exhumed him again, brought the screaming skull into the house, and discarded the rest of the skeleton in a barn loft. The howling ceased. As with most screaming skull tales, when the haunted skull finds an acceptable resting place it quiets down. Of course, it's all superstition. In 1963, scientists examined the Bettiscombe skull and found that it belonged to a woman who lived 3,000 years ago!
Image credit & copyright: Flickr / Volitare88
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FREESTEM Daily Curio #1641Free1 CQ
Move over, global warming. There's a new threat that might wipe out humanity even sooner. A NASA scientist published a report last month that has caused a minor panic. The author, Brian Cox, debunks the theory that an asteroid or comet collision is the greatest threat to life on earth. Instead, Cox says, a supervolcano eruption is far likelier to be the beginning of our end. The supervolcano Cox is most worried is lurking underneath Yellowstone National Park. Scientists believe there have been around 20 supervolcanic eruptions ever on earth, occurring on average every 100,000 years. The one underneath Yellowstone, which powers all of the park's famous geothermal activity, erupts roughly every 600,000 years. And the last time it blew was 640,000 years ago! That's when it formed the massive 30-by-45-mile Yellowstone Caldera. 80 smaller eruptions have occurred since, the most recent 174,000 years ago. But its biggest explosion occurred 2.1 million years ago, when 6,000 times the material ejected by Mt. St. Helens coated 5,790 square miles with ash. All the way to modern-day Missouri! Cox predicts the next explosion will expel over 1,000 cubic kilometers of rock and ash, capable of coating most of North America. It would likely plunge Earth into a Volcanic winter. The U.N. has estimated it would leave enough food to feed the world for only 74 days. Besides scaring the heck out of us, Cox has also offered a solution: geothermal drilling. By drilling holes 10 kilometers deep in the sides of the volcano, and pumping cool water under high pressure, Cox believes NASA could cool the magma chamber of the volcano and prevent an eruption. His plan would only cost a few billion dollars, and as a side effect, it would create a geothermal electrical plant capable of producing enough electricity to power the entire country for the amazingly low price of $.10/kWh. Unfortunately, it's technically illegal since the 1970 Geothermal Steam Act prohibits any electric plants near Yellowstone. Even if it were legal, there's no political will to disrupt the pristineness of such a natural treasure. Cox also admits there is some chance the drilling could actually trigger the eruption. So for now we'll just have to add supervolcanoes to the list of "Armageddons nobody is doing anything about." Sigh. An extra glass of red wine for me tonight.
Move over, global warming. There's a new threat that might wipe out humanity even sooner. A NASA scientist published a report last month that has caused a minor panic. The author, Brian Cox, debunks the theory that an asteroid or comet collision is the greatest threat to life on earth. Instead, Cox says, a supervolcano eruption is far likelier to be the beginning of our end. The supervolcano Cox is most worried is lurking underneath Yellowstone National Park. Scientists believe there have been around 20 supervolcanic eruptions ever on earth, occurring on average every 100,000 years. The one underneath Yellowstone, which powers all of the park's famous geothermal activity, erupts roughly every 600,000 years. And the last time it blew was 640,000 years ago! That's when it formed the massive 30-by-45-mile Yellowstone Caldera. 80 smaller eruptions have occurred since, the most recent 174,000 years ago. But its biggest explosion occurred 2.1 million years ago, when 6,000 times the material ejected by Mt. St. Helens coated 5,790 square miles with ash. All the way to modern-day Missouri! Cox predicts the next explosion will expel over 1,000 cubic kilometers of rock and ash, capable of coating most of North America. It would likely plunge Earth into a Volcanic winter. The U.N. has estimated it would leave enough food to feed the world for only 74 days. Besides scaring the heck out of us, Cox has also offered a solution: geothermal drilling. By drilling holes 10 kilometers deep in the sides of the volcano, and pumping cool water under high pressure, Cox believes NASA could cool the magma chamber of the volcano and prevent an eruption. His plan would only cost a few billion dollars, and as a side effect, it would create a geothermal electrical plant capable of producing enough electricity to power the entire country for the amazingly low price of $.10/kWh. Unfortunately, it's technically illegal since the 1970 Geothermal Steam Act prohibits any electric plants near Yellowstone. Even if it were legal, there's no political will to disrupt the pristineness of such a natural treasure. Cox also admits there is some chance the drilling could actually trigger the eruption. So for now we'll just have to add supervolcanoes to the list of "Armageddons nobody is doing anything about." Sigh. An extra glass of red wine for me tonight.
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FREEPlay Daily Curio #1640Free1 CQ
Is it time for a selfie ban? The phenomenon of snapping mobile phone self-portraits is getting out of hand. Not only is it super annoying, it's apparently pretty dangerous. A recent study found that 259 people died from selfie-related incidents in the past six years! The number one cause was drowning, followed by transportation—think oncoming train or car—and falling from heights. Other selfie-death causes included firearms, electrocution, and "animals." India had the most selfie-cides, where it has been declared a public health problem. Already in 2018 there have been several spectacular cases. In May an Indian man tried to take a selfie with an injured bear, who apparently wasn't so injured that he couldn't maul him. And two people died in the U.S. last month trying to take photos on the edges of cliffs. One fell 800 feet in Yosemite, and another fell 200 feet at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan. Yikes. Public health officials are starting to clamor for "no selfie zones" near bodies of water, mountaintop vistas, cliffs, waterfalls, and observation decks on buildings. Personally, I don't think that's ever going to happen, at least in America. Politicians know better than anyone what an ego rush it can be to get a few hundred "likes" on your Instagram.
Image credit & copyright: Jonathan Moore
Is it time for a selfie ban? The phenomenon of snapping mobile phone self-portraits is getting out of hand. Not only is it super annoying, it's apparently pretty dangerous. A recent study found that 259 people died from selfie-related incidents in the past six years! The number one cause was drowning, followed by transportation—think oncoming train or car—and falling from heights. Other selfie-death causes included firearms, electrocution, and "animals." India had the most selfie-cides, where it has been declared a public health problem. Already in 2018 there have been several spectacular cases. In May an Indian man tried to take a selfie with an injured bear, who apparently wasn't so injured that he couldn't maul him. And two people died in the U.S. last month trying to take photos on the edges of cliffs. One fell 800 feet in Yosemite, and another fell 200 feet at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan. Yikes. Public health officials are starting to clamor for "no selfie zones" near bodies of water, mountaintop vistas, cliffs, waterfalls, and observation decks on buildings. Personally, I don't think that's ever going to happen, at least in America. Politicians know better than anyone what an ego rush it can be to get a few hundred "likes" on your Instagram.
Image credit & copyright: Jonathan Moore
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FREESTEM Daily Curio #1639Free1 CQ
Save your tires. Today's car tires are still made from 30% natural rubber, from the sap of the hevea brasiliensis, or rubber tree. The trees only grow in a narrow region around the equator known as the "rubber belt," resist cultivation, and take seven years to start producing latex. Basically, the world is producing as much natural rubber as it can. So far, attempts to produce car tires from 100% synthetic rubber have all failed—due to what the industry calls natural rubber's "unique performance attributes." Economists say either we find a new source of rubber, or tire prices will inevitably skyrocket. Our only hope may be the lowly dandelion. Since World War I, scientists have been looking for other plants that could produce natural latex. They found a particular Russian strain of dandelion that has roots which contain the same natural latex found in rubber trees. Unfortunately, it takes several thousand dandelions to make a single tire. But, unlike rubber trees, they grow pretty much anywhere, as any lawn owner can attest. And the plants begin producing the latex after only one year. Continental Tire Company has tested tires made of the Russian dandelion plant and found them to have an equivalent "property profile" to those made from conventional rubber. They have planted almost 1,000 acres of the special dandelion and hope to scale production at some point in the future under the brand name Taraxagum™. The company says the biggest challenge is getting the Russian dandelions to take root in large fields. Unlike its American cousin, it doesn't grow like a weed. If only they could use some of mine!
Image credit & copyright: Uli Benz, TU München
Save your tires. Today's car tires are still made from 30% natural rubber, from the sap of the hevea brasiliensis, or rubber tree. The trees only grow in a narrow region around the equator known as the "rubber belt," resist cultivation, and take seven years to start producing latex. Basically, the world is producing as much natural rubber as it can. So far, attempts to produce car tires from 100% synthetic rubber have all failed—due to what the industry calls natural rubber's "unique performance attributes." Economists say either we find a new source of rubber, or tire prices will inevitably skyrocket. Our only hope may be the lowly dandelion. Since World War I, scientists have been looking for other plants that could produce natural latex. They found a particular Russian strain of dandelion that has roots which contain the same natural latex found in rubber trees. Unfortunately, it takes several thousand dandelions to make a single tire. But, unlike rubber trees, they grow pretty much anywhere, as any lawn owner can attest. And the plants begin producing the latex after only one year. Continental Tire Company has tested tires made of the Russian dandelion plant and found them to have an equivalent "property profile" to those made from conventional rubber. They have planted almost 1,000 acres of the special dandelion and hope to scale production at some point in the future under the brand name Taraxagum™. The company says the biggest challenge is getting the Russian dandelions to take root in large fields. Unlike its American cousin, it doesn't grow like a weed. If only they could use some of mine!
Image credit & copyright: Uli Benz, TU München
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FREEPlay Daily CurioFree1 CQ
Happy Plaidurday and Flashback Friday! Enjoy this favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
Got plaid? Plaid is one of the most recognizable fabric patterns in the world. But it didn't start off as a casual print preferred by outdoorsmen and hipsters. Actually, plaid isn’t even the correct technical term for the pattern. The right term is "tartan," which described the unique cloth patterns that distinguished Celtic clans from each other in 16th-century Scotland—similar to a coat of arms. "Plaids" were the physical kilts or blankets worn to protect against the bitter cold of Scottish winters. Because people bought their clothing from the same local weavers, patterns and vegetable-dye colors became standardized by locality. Over time, these local patterns took on a regional significance. People began wearing local tartan designs in the way we wear the colors of our hometown sports teams. Tartans took on even more significance when they became the military uniforms of the 1714 Scottish rebellion against the English monarchy. Black Watch, as the specific tartan design was called, became the leading symbol for rebellion against England. This lead to the prohibition of tartan in England for almost 50 years! During the 19th century, the pattern finally made its leap to the U.S. This is when the term "plaid" was first used to describe the pattern, not the clothing. Plaid received a boost in U.S. popularity when Scottish trader Jock McCluskey traded his home tartan with Native Americans for their buffalo. Hence the famous red-and-black Buffalo plaid, which became a staple for outdoorsmen like lumberjacks. Plaid eventually became the hallmark pattern for groups like the 1960's surf rock scene, the grunge movement, Los Angeles gangs, and today's hipsters. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to be in any public gathering without seeing a lot of plaid. Or should I say tartan?
Happy Plaidurday and Flashback Friday! Enjoy this favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
Got plaid? Plaid is one of the most recognizable fabric patterns in the world. But it didn't start off as a casual print preferred by outdoorsmen and hipsters. Actually, plaid isn’t even the correct technical term for the pattern. The right term is "tartan," which described the unique cloth patterns that distinguished Celtic clans from each other in 16th-century Scotland—similar to a coat of arms. "Plaids" were the physical kilts or blankets worn to protect against the bitter cold of Scottish winters. Because people bought their clothing from the same local weavers, patterns and vegetable-dye colors became standardized by locality. Over time, these local patterns took on a regional significance. People began wearing local tartan designs in the way we wear the colors of our hometown sports teams. Tartans took on even more significance when they became the military uniforms of the 1714 Scottish rebellion against the English monarchy. Black Watch, as the specific tartan design was called, became the leading symbol for rebellion against England. This lead to the prohibition of tartan in England for almost 50 years! During the 19th century, the pattern finally made its leap to the U.S. This is when the term "plaid" was first used to describe the pattern, not the clothing. Plaid received a boost in U.S. popularity when Scottish trader Jock McCluskey traded his home tartan with Native Americans for their buffalo. Hence the famous red-and-black Buffalo plaid, which became a staple for outdoorsmen like lumberjacks. Plaid eventually became the hallmark pattern for groups like the 1960's surf rock scene, the grunge movement, Los Angeles gangs, and today's hipsters. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to be in any public gathering without seeing a lot of plaid. Or should I say tartan?
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FREEPlay Daily Curio #1638Free1 CQ
Pee-yew. Nothing stinks quite like spoiled milk on the interior of a milk truck. That's what a door-to-door milkman told Julius Sämann, the subject of today's Automobile Themed Thursday, in 1952. Turns out the delivery man was complaining to the right guy. Sämann, a Jewish chemist who had fled Nazi Germany, had studied Alpine tree aromas in Canada before relocating to Watertown, New York. He had a eureka moment as the milkman left, and hurried to his chemistry bench. First, he isolated the most concentrated fragrances he could, before saturating blotter papers with them. Then he attached strings to the blotters, and encased them in peel-back cellophane wrap. Finally, after initially cutting his creations in the shape of arched-back pin-up girls, he settled on a conical tree shape—which he figured would dramatically release aromas, branch by branch, as the cellophane was peeled back. Sämann's had invented the rear-view-mirror hanging air freshener! It was patented and on store shelves less than a year after his milkman conversation. And it was an instant hit. Up until then, most other air fresheners were an obnoxiously gooey liquid. Cabbies especially loved Sämann's invention, after decades of smelling pungent upholstery. Today, Sämann's Car-Freshner Corporation is a third generation family business, having sold billions of fresheners in over 60 scents. They include classics, like Royal Pine and Vanillaroma, as well as "masculine" scents like Pure Steel and Bourbon. Yes, bourbon—a deliciously enticing aroma, except possibly when you find yourself pulled over by a police officer!
Image credit & copyright: Jens Mortensen for The New York Times; Prop stylist: Josephine Shokrian
Pee-yew. Nothing stinks quite like spoiled milk on the interior of a milk truck. That's what a door-to-door milkman told Julius Sämann, the subject of today's Automobile Themed Thursday, in 1952. Turns out the delivery man was complaining to the right guy. Sämann, a Jewish chemist who had fled Nazi Germany, had studied Alpine tree aromas in Canada before relocating to Watertown, New York. He had a eureka moment as the milkman left, and hurried to his chemistry bench. First, he isolated the most concentrated fragrances he could, before saturating blotter papers with them. Then he attached strings to the blotters, and encased them in peel-back cellophane wrap. Finally, after initially cutting his creations in the shape of arched-back pin-up girls, he settled on a conical tree shape—which he figured would dramatically release aromas, branch by branch, as the cellophane was peeled back. Sämann's had invented the rear-view-mirror hanging air freshener! It was patented and on store shelves less than a year after his milkman conversation. And it was an instant hit. Up until then, most other air fresheners were an obnoxiously gooey liquid. Cabbies especially loved Sämann's invention, after decades of smelling pungent upholstery. Today, Sämann's Car-Freshner Corporation is a third generation family business, having sold billions of fresheners in over 60 scents. They include classics, like Royal Pine and Vanillaroma, as well as "masculine" scents like Pure Steel and Bourbon. Yes, bourbon—a deliciously enticing aroma, except possibly when you find yourself pulled over by a police officer!
Image credit & copyright: Jens Mortensen for The New York Times; Prop stylist: Josephine Shokrian
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FREEMind + Body Daily Curio #1637Free1 CQ
Clearly, the monkeys are not running the zoo. At least not the Melbourne Zoo, where the nutritionist announced they are eliminating all fruit from the animals' diet. Including no more bananas for the monkeys. The head veterinarian believes today's supermarket fruit has been selectively bred so full of sugar, that it is unhealthy for the animals to consume. Primates and red pandas especially develop a taste for the sugary fruit and will eat nothing else—especially not their vitamin pellets. As a result, the animals are becoming obese and experiencing tooth decay. So zookeepers have been told to go cold turkey.
Fruit has been a staple of human diets since prehistoric times. Wild fruits contain energy-giving fructose, and its fiber and chewiness cause the sugar to hit the liver slowly. What's more, consuming fruit has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, and stroke in humans. But today's industrially-grown fruit is so high in sugar that it no longer has many of the same health benefits. Actually, the Melbourne Zoo monkeys could have it worse. The monkeys at England's Paignton Zoo not only lost their bananas, but also were weaned off bread, eggs, and nuts. On the menu instead: vitamin pellets, fiber biscuits, fresh vegetables, and brown rice. Hey, that sounds eerily similar to the menu of a new vegetarian restaurant here in Palo Alto!
Image credit & copyright: Ellen and Ed Hoel via Costa Rica Leap
Clearly, the monkeys are not running the zoo. At least not the Melbourne Zoo, where the nutritionist announced they are eliminating all fruit from the animals' diet. Including no more bananas for the monkeys. The head veterinarian believes today's supermarket fruit has been selectively bred so full of sugar, that it is unhealthy for the animals to consume. Primates and red pandas especially develop a taste for the sugary fruit and will eat nothing else—especially not their vitamin pellets. As a result, the animals are becoming obese and experiencing tooth decay. So zookeepers have been told to go cold turkey.
Fruit has been a staple of human diets since prehistoric times. Wild fruits contain energy-giving fructose, and its fiber and chewiness cause the sugar to hit the liver slowly. What's more, consuming fruit has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, and stroke in humans. But today's industrially-grown fruit is so high in sugar that it no longer has many of the same health benefits. Actually, the Melbourne Zoo monkeys could have it worse. The monkeys at England's Paignton Zoo not only lost their bananas, but also were weaned off bread, eggs, and nuts. On the menu instead: vitamin pellets, fiber biscuits, fresh vegetables, and brown rice. Hey, that sounds eerily similar to the menu of a new vegetarian restaurant here in Palo Alto!
Image credit & copyright: Ellen and Ed Hoel via Costa Rica Leap
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FREESTEM Daily Curio #1636Free1 CQ
Talk about designer drugs. Medical researchers are increasingly intrigued by circadian medicine: the idea that medications, surgeries, and therapies like radiation are more effective when they are synched with each patient's internal circadian clock. Most biologists believe that we each have our own chronotype, or genetic combinations that determine the time of the day when our bodies and minds are most alert. The latest estimate is that half of our genes are expressed in sync with our internal clocks. Two studies published in the last month are trying to uncover how these "clock genes" might be helpful in medicine. The first study, by a computational biologist at Northwestern University, identified 41 genes that could be used to identify a person's biological clock time within 1.5 hours using two blood samples. A second study created a database of genes that are involved with the transport or metabolism of known drugs. By combining the data from the two studies, researchers believe it's possible to create drugs that can be delivered according to a person's own internal clock; when the proteins acting as drug delivery vehicles and drug loading docks are most active. Doing so could dramatically improve the efficacy of many drugs. Some researchers believe that our body may even have different clocks for different systems or organs—like different time zones in our bodies. In which case, you may need to know what time it is in your liver. In other words, it could be the case that it's always five o'clock somewhere in your own body.
Talk about designer drugs. Medical researchers are increasingly intrigued by circadian medicine: the idea that medications, surgeries, and therapies like radiation are more effective when they are synched with each patient's internal circadian clock. Most biologists believe that we each have our own chronotype, or genetic combinations that determine the time of the day when our bodies and minds are most alert. The latest estimate is that half of our genes are expressed in sync with our internal clocks. Two studies published in the last month are trying to uncover how these "clock genes" might be helpful in medicine. The first study, by a computational biologist at Northwestern University, identified 41 genes that could be used to identify a person's biological clock time within 1.5 hours using two blood samples. A second study created a database of genes that are involved with the transport or metabolism of known drugs. By combining the data from the two studies, researchers believe it's possible to create drugs that can be delivered according to a person's own internal clock; when the proteins acting as drug delivery vehicles and drug loading docks are most active. Doing so could dramatically improve the efficacy of many drugs. Some researchers believe that our body may even have different clocks for different systems or organs—like different time zones in our bodies. In which case, you may need to know what time it is in your liver. In other words, it could be the case that it's always five o'clock somewhere in your own body.
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FREESTEM Daily Curio #1635Free1 CQ
Octopuses—no it's not octopi since it's Greek, but purists may use octopodes—are extremely shy creatures. They are almost entirely loners. Biologists who study the animals must keep them in separate enclosures when they aren't mating, otherwise, they eat one another. Despite their lack of social behavior, octopuses are extremely intelligent. They can open jars, steal fish, and high five each other. They have also been known to perform Tom-Cruise-like escapes from captivity, like
Inky did in 2016. But the octopus brain is nothing like other animals', having evolved down a separate branch of the animal kingdom over 500 million years ago. Their closest relatives are snails and slugs, who both have way smaller brains and much less impressive cognitive abilities. So scientists have been known to concoct some bizarre studies of the octopus brain. Which sorta explains why Johns Hopkins neuroscientists recently gave several eight-legged cephalopods the drug ecstasy, or MDMA. Actually, they had a good reason. Despite all of the differences between the complex brains of octopuses and humans, we have identical genes for the protein which binds the molecule serotonin to brain cells. Since that's the protein utilized by ecstasy, the John Hopkins team wanted to know if it had the same euphoria-inducing impact on the octopus brain as it does on humans. Turns out it does. Their results were published last week. High doses of the drug caused the animals to freak out, hanging in the corners of their tank in a hypervigilant stance. But smaller doses made the octopus subjects dramatically more social. When put in the same tanks, they overcame their normal aggressiveness and purposely engaged with each other. They even intertwined their arms and formed sixteen-limb hugs, not wanting to let go. The researchers say this implies our gene for binding serotonin has been promoting social behavior for at least 500 million years. It could also mean that the ability to turn on social behavior via the protein is an important part of complex brain development. Good golly, miss Molly!
Image credit & copyright: Roy Caldwell via KQED
Octopuses—no it's not octopi since it's Greek, but purists may use octopodes—are extremely shy creatures. They are almost entirely loners. Biologists who study the animals must keep them in separate enclosures when they aren't mating, otherwise, they eat one another. Despite their lack of social behavior, octopuses are extremely intelligent. They can open jars, steal fish, and high five each other. They have also been known to perform Tom-Cruise-like escapes from captivity, like
Inky did in 2016. But the octopus brain is nothing like other animals', having evolved down a separate branch of the animal kingdom over 500 million years ago. Their closest relatives are snails and slugs, who both have way smaller brains and much less impressive cognitive abilities. So scientists have been known to concoct some bizarre studies of the octopus brain. Which sorta explains why Johns Hopkins neuroscientists recently gave several eight-legged cephalopods the drug ecstasy, or MDMA. Actually, they had a good reason. Despite all of the differences between the complex brains of octopuses and humans, we have identical genes for the protein which binds the molecule serotonin to brain cells. Since that's the protein utilized by ecstasy, the John Hopkins team wanted to know if it had the same euphoria-inducing impact on the octopus brain as it does on humans. Turns out it does. Their results were published last week. High doses of the drug caused the animals to freak out, hanging in the corners of their tank in a hypervigilant stance. But smaller doses made the octopus subjects dramatically more social. When put in the same tanks, they overcame their normal aggressiveness and purposely engaged with each other. They even intertwined their arms and formed sixteen-limb hugs, not wanting to let go. The researchers say this implies our gene for binding serotonin has been promoting social behavior for at least 500 million years. It could also mean that the ability to turn on social behavior via the protein is an important part of complex brain development. Good golly, miss Molly!
Image credit & copyright: Roy Caldwell via KQED
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FREEPlay Daily CurioFree1 CQ
It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this veggie-ful favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
The pumpkin is quintessentially American. Not only is it indigenous to North America, a staple of the Native American diet, and perfectly designed for the weather pattern of New England; but pumpkins are what kept the Pilgrims alive when their initial crops of wheat and corn failed. So growing giant pumpkins has long been an American specialty. The first record pumpkin was recorded at the Paris World's Fair of 1900, weighing in at 400 pounds and grown by American hobbyist William Warnock. But the sport of competitive pumpkin growing didn't begin until 1979. That's when a Nova Scotian farmer named Howard Dill accidentally grew a huge pumpkin. So huge that he brought it to a fair near Philadelphia conducting vegetable weigh-ins. His mammoth gourd tipped the scales at 438.5 pounds, won first place for largest vegetable, and broke the World Record. In 1980, Dill produced even larger pumpkins; he did it again a year later. Soon Dill began marketing seeds from his giant pumpkins as the variety Dill's Atlantic Giant, and a new sport was born. The race was on to grown a 1,000-pound pumpkin. That mark was smashed in 1996. In 2012 the one-ton mark was reached. Today, growers are honing in on 3,000 pounds. These behemoths love New England weather because it's warm during the day but cool at night, with longer days because of its northern latitude. At their peak, competitive pumpkins drink 100 gallons of water per day and gain two pounds per hour. Talk about American ingenuity! Except the world's largest pumpkins are now grown by European horticulturists in greenhouses. A professional Belgian grower broke the record last year with a 2,624.4-pound orange beauty. It was grown with scientific precision in a temperature-controlled "polytunnel." So it's our European friends who are actually the ingenious ones. Hey, they don't even celebrate Halloween!
It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this veggie-ful favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
The pumpkin is quintessentially American. Not only is it indigenous to North America, a staple of the Native American diet, and perfectly designed for the weather pattern of New England; but pumpkins are what kept the Pilgrims alive when their initial crops of wheat and corn failed. So growing giant pumpkins has long been an American specialty. The first record pumpkin was recorded at the Paris World's Fair of 1900, weighing in at 400 pounds and grown by American hobbyist William Warnock. But the sport of competitive pumpkin growing didn't begin until 1979. That's when a Nova Scotian farmer named Howard Dill accidentally grew a huge pumpkin. So huge that he brought it to a fair near Philadelphia conducting vegetable weigh-ins. His mammoth gourd tipped the scales at 438.5 pounds, won first place for largest vegetable, and broke the World Record. In 1980, Dill produced even larger pumpkins; he did it again a year later. Soon Dill began marketing seeds from his giant pumpkins as the variety Dill's Atlantic Giant, and a new sport was born. The race was on to grown a 1,000-pound pumpkin. That mark was smashed in 1996. In 2012 the one-ton mark was reached. Today, growers are honing in on 3,000 pounds. These behemoths love New England weather because it's warm during the day but cool at night, with longer days because of its northern latitude. At their peak, competitive pumpkins drink 100 gallons of water per day and gain two pounds per hour. Talk about American ingenuity! Except the world's largest pumpkins are now grown by European horticulturists in greenhouses. A professional Belgian grower broke the record last year with a 2,624.4-pound orange beauty. It was grown with scientific precision in a temperature-controlled "polytunnel." So it's our European friends who are actually the ingenious ones. Hey, they don't even celebrate Halloween!
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FREEHumanities Daily Curio #1634Free1 CQ
Mini versions of things are always better, right? If you're a farmer, they are. As part of today's Carrot Themed Thursday, we're getting acquainted with agricultural genius Mike Yurosek. Before he reinvented everyone's favorite orange veggie in the '80s, the carrot business was unbelievably wasteful. Carrots hitting store shelves needed to fit in lightweight plastic bags, but as little as 30% met the dimensions. Farmers fed the reject carrots, which were either misshapen or ungainly, to their livestock. Then along came Yurosek, frustrated with the poor returns on his labor. After feeding his cows and pigs so many carrots "their fat turned orange," he snatched up a potato peeler and began sculpting his carrots down by hand. Obviously, this turned out to be too much work. So he purchased an industrial green-bean cutter in 1986. With his new rig, Yurosek chopped his reject carrots into 2-inch nubs: the first of our standardized "baby-cut carrots," better known as baby carrots. That's right, baby carrots aren't actually baby at all. They are the carved stumps of deformed carrots! Only a year after his innovation, carrot consumption in the states jumped by 30%. Wow. Yurosek's success has me thinking: maybe baby Curios?
Image credit & copyright: Chuck Berman / Chicago Tribune
Mini versions of things are always better, right? If you're a farmer, they are. As part of today's Carrot Themed Thursday, we're getting acquainted with agricultural genius Mike Yurosek. Before he reinvented everyone's favorite orange veggie in the '80s, the carrot business was unbelievably wasteful. Carrots hitting store shelves needed to fit in lightweight plastic bags, but as little as 30% met the dimensions. Farmers fed the reject carrots, which were either misshapen or ungainly, to their livestock. Then along came Yurosek, frustrated with the poor returns on his labor. After feeding his cows and pigs so many carrots "their fat turned orange," he snatched up a potato peeler and began sculpting his carrots down by hand. Obviously, this turned out to be too much work. So he purchased an industrial green-bean cutter in 1986. With his new rig, Yurosek chopped his reject carrots into 2-inch nubs: the first of our standardized "baby-cut carrots," better known as baby carrots. That's right, baby carrots aren't actually baby at all. They are the carved stumps of deformed carrots! Only a year after his innovation, carrot consumption in the states jumped by 30%. Wow. Yurosek's success has me thinking: maybe baby Curios?
Image credit & copyright: Chuck Berman / Chicago Tribune
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FREEAesthetic Daily Curio #1633Free1 CQ
Gerard Adriaan Heineken was born this week in 1841. 23 years later he founded the Heineken beer company. Today Heineken is the second largest beer company in the world, operating 165 breweries that produce five billion gallons of beer annually. That's a lot of beer bottles. And once they're empty, that's a lot of trash. Which is exactly what Heineken's third CEO—and Gerard's grandson—Alfred noticed when he was traveling in South America late in his life. He was appalled at how many Heineken beer bottles were strewn on the ground of the small island of Curaçao—and how many homeless people there were. In Holland, Heineken had devised a recycling system so efficient that the average bottle was used 30 times. But in Curaçao, which lacked any modern distribution systems, bottles were used exactly once and disposed on the ground. Alfred was hit with an inspiration. He knew beer bottles were surprisingly strong, capable of supporting 50 kg per cm2. What if the bottles on the ground could have a second life as building bricks?
When Alfred returned to Holland, he hired an architect to redesign Heineken bottles to be used as bricks after they were were used for beer. The architect, John Habraken, came up with a stackable, square "World Bottle" design he called WOBO. The bottles were thickened to bear weight horizontally, and the corners were squared off to be stackable sideways. The neck of each bottle locked into a depression on the bottom of the next. Dimples on both sides made it easier for mortar to adhere. Habraken even designed plastic shipping pallets that could double as roofs. It was ingenious: ship the beer to a remote location, the locals drink the beer, then the locals build houses with the bottles and the shipping containers. Except it never happened. Heineken produced 100,000 WOBO bottles and even built a test house near Alfred's home outside Amsterdam. But in the end, Heineken's marketing department killed the idea. Too risky for the brand. Recently, the WOBO concept has won several design awards and inspired a new design by an Arizona State professor that uses Eco/Ergo water bottles. I guess that could work, but the builders are going to be in a much worse mood than they would be if they were using beer bottles!
Below: the WOBO designed by John Habraken; the 1965 WOBO concept house; Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple in Thailand.
Image credit & copyright: top - Flickr user greezer.ch; additional - Heineken International
Gerard Adriaan Heineken was born this week in 1841. 23 years later he founded the Heineken beer company. Today Heineken is the second largest beer company in the world, operating 165 breweries that produce five billion gallons of beer annually. That's a lot of beer bottles. And once they're empty, that's a lot of trash. Which is exactly what Heineken's third CEO—and Gerard's grandson—Alfred noticed when he was traveling in South America late in his life. He was appalled at how many Heineken beer bottles were strewn on the ground of the small island of Curaçao—and how many homeless people there were. In Holland, Heineken had devised a recycling system so efficient that the average bottle was used 30 times. But in Curaçao, which lacked any modern distribution systems, bottles were used exactly once and disposed on the ground. Alfred was hit with an inspiration. He knew beer bottles were surprisingly strong, capable of supporting 50 kg per cm2. What if the bottles on the ground could have a second life as building bricks?
When Alfred returned to Holland, he hired an architect to redesign Heineken bottles to be used as bricks after they were were used for beer. The architect, John Habraken, came up with a stackable, square "World Bottle" design he called WOBO. The bottles were thickened to bear weight horizontally, and the corners were squared off to be stackable sideways. The neck of each bottle locked into a depression on the bottom of the next. Dimples on both sides made it easier for mortar to adhere. Habraken even designed plastic shipping pallets that could double as roofs. It was ingenious: ship the beer to a remote location, the locals drink the beer, then the locals build houses with the bottles and the shipping containers. Except it never happened. Heineken produced 100,000 WOBO bottles and even built a test house near Alfred's home outside Amsterdam. But in the end, Heineken's marketing department killed the idea. Too risky for the brand. Recently, the WOBO concept has won several design awards and inspired a new design by an Arizona State professor that uses Eco/Ergo water bottles. I guess that could work, but the builders are going to be in a much worse mood than they would be if they were using beer bottles!
Below: the WOBO designed by John Habraken; the 1965 WOBO concept house; Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple in Thailand.
Image credit & copyright: top - Flickr user greezer.ch; additional - Heineken International
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FREESTEM Daily Curio #1632Free1 CQ
It may sound like a Monty Python movie, but paleontologists think a squishy pancake of cells the size of a frisbee could be their Holy Grail. Discovered by an Australian PhD student, and published last week in Science, the organism is called a Dickinsonia. The student, Ilya Bobrovskiy, was looking for fossils in Russia when he came across a mummified creature in a mixture of clay and sandstone. He was pretty sure it was the first three-dimensional Dickinsonia fossil ever found, but sent photos to biogeochemist Jochen Brocks in Australia to be sure. Brocks was so excited, he immediately invited Bobrovskiy to become his PhD student—and bring his fossils with him.
At the time of Bobrovskiy's discovery in 2013, Dickinsonia fossils had been spotted at dozens of dig sites around the globe. But only as two-dimensional imprints in sandstone, which provided no organic material to examine. They were known to be some sort of sea organism from the Ediacaran period, around 600 million years ago. Just how complicated were Dickinsonia? And were they ancestors of modern life—which exploded in the subsequent Cambrian period—or an evolutionary dead end? Brocks and his new protege set out to answer those questions using Bobrovskiy's new fossil. When they analyzed the sample, they discovered it was teeming with cholesteroids, a mummified marker of cholesterol which is a distinct signature of animal life. They had discovered the oldest macroscopic creature in the fossil record! While he admits more evidence is needed, Brocks is convinced that creatures like Dickinsonia are the first kings of our modern animal kingdom. Like Simba but more gooey.
It may sound like a Monty Python movie, but paleontologists think a squishy pancake of cells the size of a frisbee could be their Holy Grail. Discovered by an Australian PhD student, and published last week in Science, the organism is called a Dickinsonia. The student, Ilya Bobrovskiy, was looking for fossils in Russia when he came across a mummified creature in a mixture of clay and sandstone. He was pretty sure it was the first three-dimensional Dickinsonia fossil ever found, but sent photos to biogeochemist Jochen Brocks in Australia to be sure. Brocks was so excited, he immediately invited Bobrovskiy to become his PhD student—and bring his fossils with him.
At the time of Bobrovskiy's discovery in 2013, Dickinsonia fossils had been spotted at dozens of dig sites around the globe. But only as two-dimensional imprints in sandstone, which provided no organic material to examine. They were known to be some sort of sea organism from the Ediacaran period, around 600 million years ago. Just how complicated were Dickinsonia? And were they ancestors of modern life—which exploded in the subsequent Cambrian period—or an evolutionary dead end? Brocks and his new protege set out to answer those questions using Bobrovskiy's new fossil. When they analyzed the sample, they discovered it was teeming with cholesteroids, a mummified marker of cholesterol which is a distinct signature of animal life. They had discovered the oldest macroscopic creature in the fossil record! While he admits more evidence is needed, Brocks is convinced that creatures like Dickinsonia are the first kings of our modern animal kingdom. Like Simba but more gooey.
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FREESTEM Daily Curio #1631Free1 CQ
Friends premiered on September 22, 1994. In the 24 years since, Jennifer Aniston has become more than just a household name. "Rachel" has graced hundreds of magazine covers. Her hair has been straight; her hair has been tousled. She was with Brad; then without him. And Vince Vaughn. And John Mayer. And Justin Theroux. Then there's her chin, which some say is perfection. And which either has or hasn't been subjected to plastic surgery implants (and subsequent removal). Jennifer Aniston is definitely a meme in many Americans' minds. But what a UCLA neurosurgeon discovered while operating on epileptic patients will probably surprise you: Jennifer Aniston has her own neuron in some people's brains.
In many brain surgeries, patients are kept conscious throughout the procedure so they can provide feedback to the surgeons—and there are no pain receptors in our brains. So neurosurgeon Itzhak Fried decided to start doing mini-experiments with patients during the operations, with their permission of course. Fried would show them pictures and see what neurons "lit up" electrically in their brains. Amazingly, when Fried showed them pictures of Jennifer Aniston, a very specific neuron lit up on several of his patients. He called it the Jennifer Aniston Neuron. He couldn't get that specific neuron to light up by showing them pictures of other famous people, or animals, or places, or anything else. Fried has since been able to replicate the phenomenon with different patients using photos of Julia Roberts, Halle Berry, and Kobe Bryant. Neurologists think it could be explained by the neuronal theory of memory, which posits that memories are stored using a cascade of neurons with one acting as the cherry on top. A different but related memory might recruit an overlapping set of neurons and have a different dominant neuron. This hierarchical organization of memory could create a special place for celebrities or icons that have special meaning in our lives. If that's the case, then I've definitely got neurons for Audrey Tautou and Paul Simon. Hop on the bus, Gus… no need to discuss much.
Friends premiered on September 22, 1994. In the 24 years since, Jennifer Aniston has become more than just a household name. "Rachel" has graced hundreds of magazine covers. Her hair has been straight; her hair has been tousled. She was with Brad; then without him. And Vince Vaughn. And John Mayer. And Justin Theroux. Then there's her chin, which some say is perfection. And which either has or hasn't been subjected to plastic surgery implants (and subsequent removal). Jennifer Aniston is definitely a meme in many Americans' minds. But what a UCLA neurosurgeon discovered while operating on epileptic patients will probably surprise you: Jennifer Aniston has her own neuron in some people's brains.
In many brain surgeries, patients are kept conscious throughout the procedure so they can provide feedback to the surgeons—and there are no pain receptors in our brains. So neurosurgeon Itzhak Fried decided to start doing mini-experiments with patients during the operations, with their permission of course. Fried would show them pictures and see what neurons "lit up" electrically in their brains. Amazingly, when Fried showed them pictures of Jennifer Aniston, a very specific neuron lit up on several of his patients. He called it the Jennifer Aniston Neuron. He couldn't get that specific neuron to light up by showing them pictures of other famous people, or animals, or places, or anything else. Fried has since been able to replicate the phenomenon with different patients using photos of Julia Roberts, Halle Berry, and Kobe Bryant. Neurologists think it could be explained by the neuronal theory of memory, which posits that memories are stored using a cascade of neurons with one acting as the cherry on top. A different but related memory might recruit an overlapping set of neurons and have a different dominant neuron. This hierarchical organization of memory could create a special place for celebrities or icons that have special meaning in our lives. If that's the case, then I've definitely got neurons for Audrey Tautou and Paul Simon. Hop on the bus, Gus… no need to discuss much.
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FREEScience Daily CurioFree1 CQ
It's Flashback Friday! Celebrate fall with this autumnal favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
It's the time of year for colorful fall foliage, but it turns out leaves don't actually "change" color. Instead, the red, orange, and yellow colors that you see in the fall are always present, just usually hidden by the green. Leaf color comes from two main pigments: chlorophyll and carotenoids. Chlorophyll (green) is the most important, and without it, trees could not produce food from sunlight and water using photosynthesis. Carotenoids are the pigments that create the bright yellows, reds, and oranges when autumn rolls around. In the fall, trees respond to a decreasing amount of sunlight by producing less and less chlorophyll, eventually stopping altogether. This is when the carotenoids already in the leaves can finally show through, leaving us with a beautiful spectrum of sparkling oranges, glowing yellows, and warm reds. A certain Cyndi Lauper song comes to mind.
It's Flashback Friday! Celebrate fall with this autumnal favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
It's the time of year for colorful fall foliage, but it turns out leaves don't actually "change" color. Instead, the red, orange, and yellow colors that you see in the fall are always present, just usually hidden by the green. Leaf color comes from two main pigments: chlorophyll and carotenoids. Chlorophyll (green) is the most important, and without it, trees could not produce food from sunlight and water using photosynthesis. Carotenoids are the pigments that create the bright yellows, reds, and oranges when autumn rolls around. In the fall, trees respond to a decreasing amount of sunlight by producing less and less chlorophyll, eventually stopping altogether. This is when the carotenoids already in the leaves can finally show through, leaving us with a beautiful spectrum of sparkling oranges, glowing yellows, and warm reds. A certain Cyndi Lauper song comes to mind.
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FREEHumanities Daily Curio #1630Free1 CQ
It's that wonderful time of the year when leaves start to turn gold, red, and purple. But before we celebrate, we need to sort something out. Is this going to be a Fall Themed Thursday, or an Autumn Themed Thursday? To figure it out, we need to go back in time—way back. That's because fall is a relatively new concept. 1,500 years ago, Anglo-Saxon tribes only recognized one season: winter. In the epic poem Beowulf, for example, years are counted instead as winters. "Sumer" and "spryngyng tyme" don't appear as concepts until sometime between the 11th and 15th centuries. Even then, people didn't distinguish the time of the year when the leaves fell. There are examples of English speakers citing "harvest," but not the season. Then the Latin word "autumn" entered the English lexicon in the 1300s. It wasn't until Samuel Johnson entered "fall" into his Dictionary of the English Language in 1755 that the word became an official name for this time of year—but it's unclear if there was an intended association with leaves "falling" off of trees. When America cut ties with Britain at the end of that century, fall became an Americanism, and autumn remained popular in England. Instead of voicing my opinion, I'll let the lexicographer H.W. Fowler speak for me: "Fall is better on the merits than autumn, in every way: it is short, Saxon (like the other three season names), picturesque; it reveals its derivation to every one who uses it, not to the scholar only, like autumn." So there you have it—it's a Fall Themed Thursday.
Image credit & copyright: Valerii Tkachenko
It's that wonderful time of the year when leaves start to turn gold, red, and purple. But before we celebrate, we need to sort something out. Is this going to be a Fall Themed Thursday, or an Autumn Themed Thursday? To figure it out, we need to go back in time—way back. That's because fall is a relatively new concept. 1,500 years ago, Anglo-Saxon tribes only recognized one season: winter. In the epic poem Beowulf, for example, years are counted instead as winters. "Sumer" and "spryngyng tyme" don't appear as concepts until sometime between the 11th and 15th centuries. Even then, people didn't distinguish the time of the year when the leaves fell. There are examples of English speakers citing "harvest," but not the season. Then the Latin word "autumn" entered the English lexicon in the 1300s. It wasn't until Samuel Johnson entered "fall" into his Dictionary of the English Language in 1755 that the word became an official name for this time of year—but it's unclear if there was an intended association with leaves "falling" off of trees. When America cut ties with Britain at the end of that century, fall became an Americanism, and autumn remained popular in England. Instead of voicing my opinion, I'll let the lexicographer H.W. Fowler speak for me: "Fall is better on the merits than autumn, in every way: it is short, Saxon (like the other three season names), picturesque; it reveals its derivation to every one who uses it, not to the scholar only, like autumn." So there you have it—it's a Fall Themed Thursday.
Image credit & copyright: Valerii Tkachenko
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FREETravel Daily Curio #1629Free1 CQ
Besides looking like a gigantic circus tent at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, the Denver International Airport (DEN, although locals call it DIA) is notorious for something else: conspiracy theories. The internet has been abuzz for years about the strange features at DEN. First, there's the 32-foot-high statue of an apocalyptic blue bucking bronco with glowing red eyes that greets cars as they arrive. His name is Blucifer, at least according to the interwebs. It is true that the horse's sculptor, Luis Jiménez, was killed when a 9,000-pound section of the sculpture fell on him, severing an artery in his leg. DEN officials continued with the installation in his honor. Then there are the bizarre gargoyles in the baggage claim that are popping out of suitcases hanging from the wall. And when people look at satellite photos of DEN's six runways, some see a swastika. But the biggest source of speculation has to do with the underground baggage moving system which was installed when the airport was built in 1995, but has never functioned. Conspiracists say that's because it's really an underground city built either for doomsday or as an alien encampment or as a Fourth Reich prison camp—depending on the theory. Airport officials say it's actually housing a 28-mile pipe system to move almost three million gallons of jet fuel that is stored in underground "fuel farm tanks." To which the conspiracy theorists point out, that's way too much fuel for just an airport. DEN is having a little fun with all the theories during their latest renovation. See their new marketing campaign in the photo above. And, speaking of conspiracies, make sure to check out the latest Conspiracy level launching on Word Genius later this week.
Below: images of a few of DEN's oddities.
Image credit & copyright: Denver International Airport
Besides looking like a gigantic circus tent at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, the Denver International Airport (DEN, although locals call it DIA) is notorious for something else: conspiracy theories. The internet has been abuzz for years about the strange features at DEN. First, there's the 32-foot-high statue of an apocalyptic blue bucking bronco with glowing red eyes that greets cars as they arrive. His name is Blucifer, at least according to the interwebs. It is true that the horse's sculptor, Luis Jiménez, was killed when a 9,000-pound section of the sculpture fell on him, severing an artery in his leg. DEN officials continued with the installation in his honor. Then there are the bizarre gargoyles in the baggage claim that are popping out of suitcases hanging from the wall. And when people look at satellite photos of DEN's six runways, some see a swastika. But the biggest source of speculation has to do with the underground baggage moving system which was installed when the airport was built in 1995, but has never functioned. Conspiracists say that's because it's really an underground city built either for doomsday or as an alien encampment or as a Fourth Reich prison camp—depending on the theory. Airport officials say it's actually housing a 28-mile pipe system to move almost three million gallons of jet fuel that is stored in underground "fuel farm tanks." To which the conspiracy theorists point out, that's way too much fuel for just an airport. DEN is having a little fun with all the theories during their latest renovation. See their new marketing campaign in the photo above. And, speaking of conspiracies, make sure to check out the latest Conspiracy level launching on Word Genius later this week.
Below: images of a few of DEN's oddities.
Image credit & copyright: Denver International Airport