Easter Painting

This is the time of the year to share this one, although it would be as beautiful anytime, even for the non-religious. LINK   It is a portrait of the Resurrection, painted in larger than life size (12  by 40 feet) The artist, Ron DiCianni, tells how and why he did it. BTW it was unveiled last year in the museum of biblical art Dallas. His works have sold in the millions when made into prints. Enjoy!

Four Uses for Mustard

Romans were first introduced to mustard seeds by the Egyptians. They mixed unfermented grape juice with ground mustard, and called this concoction "must" - hence mustard!

For Sore Throat - Combine mustard, the juice of one half of a fresh lemon, one tablespoon of salt, one tablespoon of honey, and one half cup of boiling water. Mix the ingredients thoroughly. Let the mixture cool for 10 minutes. Take some in your mouth and gargle! Warning: this concoction will not taste of smell good. After a few rounds of gargling, your throat should be feeling a lot less sore.

To remove bad smells, use some mustard and hot water and wipe over surface.

Drippyness' can be induced to encourage decongestion by rubbing some mustard on your chest. Place a cloth, damp with hot water, on top of the mustard. Within minutes, you will feel better.

Soothe aching muscles  Combine 2 tablespoons of mustard and 1 teaspoon of Epsom salts in your warm running bath water. Mustard will amplify the therapeutic effects of the salts, relieving you of muscle pains. As a bonus, you can also use mustard on your hot dogs and hamburgers.

Take for Granted

Many of us take things for granted, but have you ever thought about where that saying came from, or did you just take it for granted? There are many definitions, like to seize with authority, or to take with force or skill and more. The one I like is, 'to expect someone or something to always be available to you'. Have not been able to find a definitive source, but it seems that in the old days, rulers used to grant use of land, use of title, etc., and sometimes people would just assume possession of these things, even though they had not been officially granted to them. Hence, take it as if it had been granted to them.

Usually this has a negative connotation, such as being taken for granted. However, sometimes in relationships it can be good to be 'taken for granted'. It means someone has come to rely on you to always be there or always react in the same way. I take for granted that every Friday will be a Happy Friday.

Bacon Gumballs

My way-much-older brother gave me some of these tasty treats. Everyone who tries some says that they are - um - ah -  interesting. Some folks don't even spit them out. Of course, I like them.

Nano Packaging

A new and novel use for nanomaterials is ready to revolutionize food preservation. The coating is made of a thin film of nanoscale bits of clay, the same kind used to make bricks, mixed with polymers, but looks transparent. When viewed under an electron microscope, the film even looks like bricks and mortar.

The nanobrick film was recently unveiled at the National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society. It is claimed to be as impervious to air as glass is.

Snack makers have long experimented with packaging materials to keep food fresh longer. Most of the packaging processes are meant to keep out oxygen. Some examples include soda bottles coated with silicon oxide and chip bags lined with foil.

The new material would be layered onto an existing plastic package, improve its strength, and block oxygen, while still letting you see inside. Another interesting use might be to help basketballs and footballs stay inflated longer than existing balls. Of course they wouldn't need to use it for packaging bacon, it never lasts that long on the shelf.

Seven Wonders of the World

A global poll determined the new seven wonders of the world and they are: the 'Christ the Redeemer' statue in Rio de Janeiro; the Colosseum in Rome; the Taj Mahal in India; the Great Wall of China; the ancient city of Petra, in Jordan; the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru; and the ancient Mayan city of Chichén Itzá, in Mexico. Interesting how our tastes have changed, such as the Colosseum, in its glory, was not considered good enough for the old list, but not that it is ruins, it is a wonder.

The old seven wonders of the world: The Great Pyramid of Egypt, Giza; the Colossus of Rhodes, Greece; the Lighthouse of Alexandria, Egypt; the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Greece; the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Iraq; the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, Turkey, and the Temple of Artemis, Turkey.
Now you can see the wonders in all their breathtaking glory at National Geographic. LINK

Soda Can Fizz

Here is a little tidbit that can be very handy around the holiday or anytime. You have seen how soda fizzes out all over if you drop a can or bottle. If someone shakes a can, it makes it difficult to open without making a mess. Here is a trick to prevent that from happening. Tap the side of the can and you can open it without fear of making a mess. LINK

Happy Friday

It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one, than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.

I am always prepared for the opportunity to have a Happy Friday!

Do Stuff Faster

Interesting collection of videos that show how to do ordinary things faster. Some are very practical. LINK

Plastic Computer Chips

A plastic processor and printed memory show that computing doesn't have to rely on inflexible silicon.

Silicon may run the computers that surround us, but the rigid inflexibility of the semiconductor means it cannot reach everywhere. The first computer processor and memory chips made out of plastic semiconductors suggest that, someday, nothing will be out of bounds for computer power and we are getting closer every day.

Researchers in Europe used 4,000 plastic, or organic, transistors to create the plastic microprocessor, which measures roughly two centimeters square and is built on top of flexible plastic foil. "Compared to using silicon, this has the advantage of lower price and that it can be flexible," says Jan Genoe at the IMEC nanotechnology center in Leuven, Belgium.

The processor can so far run only one simple program of 16 instructions and run at a speed of six hertz, on the order of a million times slower than a modern desktop machine. Organic transistors have already been used in certain LED displays and RFID tags, but have not been combined in such numbers, or used to make a processor of any kind until now.

Making the processor begins with a 25-micrometer thick sheet of flexible plastic, like what you might wrap your lunch. A layer of gold electrodes are deposited on top, followed by an insulating layer of plastic, and the plastic semiconductors that make up the processor's 4,000 transistors. In the future, such processors could be made more cheaply by printing them. This may prove to be the future of chip technology, but personally, I still like my chips made from potatoes.

Pub Sign

In the pub at Royal Hotel in Pilgrims Rest, South Africa, hangs a board engraved WYBMADIITY. Each time a customer asks what this means, the bartender says, “Will you buy me a drink if I tell you?”

Ralphs

In 1872, 22-year-old bricklayer George Albert Ralphs lost an arm in a hunting accident and was forced to find a new occupation. Ralphs took a job at a grocery store in downtown Los Angeles and saved enough money to open his own store with his brother two years later. Ralphs Bros. Grocery provided lodging for farmers who came to Los Angeles to sell their crops, enabling its founders to establish a good relationship with some of their main suppliers. By 1928, Ralphs, had 10 cash-and-carry stores. As it grew over the next several decades, it opened bakeries, creameries, and floral departments in its stores. In 1978, it introduced a line of Plain Wrap products, an alternative to name-brand items. Today, Ralphs is the largest subsidiary of Kroger.

Mobile Phones

1983, Motorola's DynaTAC (Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage) 8000X was the world's first commercially-released mobile phone, with a price tag of $3,995 equivalent to $8,772.59 in today's dollars. DynaTAC and Droid below, not according to scale.

Motorola spent 15 years and over $100 million developing the technology. The DynaTAC 8000X allowed 30 minutes of talk time, took 10 hours to charge, weighed 1.75 lb., and stood 13 in. high. It is fun to watch old movies and see characters use the large bulky phones and wonder how old is that. It is younger than you think.

Artificial Lungs

Growing new body parts has always been more science fiction than science reality, but that balance may quickly be shifting, at least in the lab. Relying on more sophisticated biosimulators that can better mimic body conditions, researchers have re-created the delicate architecture of a rat lung accurately enough for it to assume 95% of a normal lung's inhaling and exhaling functions.

The key to their respiratory success was starting with a skeletal rat-lung template, including a matrix of blood vessels and collagen and other connective tissue, then seeding it with stem cells and nutrients to generate lifelike tissue that exchanged oxygen and carbon dioxide just like normal lung tissue. The ultimate goal is to replace enough human lung tissue to aid patients with emphysema or lung cancer.