Delays

Sorry for the delay in postings this week. Had a power outage and it dropped internet access for a few days.

Wordology, Pills

Properly speaking a pill traditionally has been round shaped (due to manufacturing limitations) and a tablet is a mixture of pharmacological substances pressed into a small cake or bar.

A pill can be a capsule, which usually contains liquid, or a pellet, which usually is dry pressed. Pills can also be lozenges, which were traditionally diamond shaped and are usually sucked, rather than swallowed.

Here is the order of pills that act the quickest: Liquids, Liqui-gel caps, Chew or rapid-release tablets, Capsules, Hard tablets.

So, all tablets are pills, but all pills are not tablets.

If you find this hard to swallow, take two aspirin and see me next week.

Bacon or Ham

The difference between bacon and salted pork or ham is primarily the composition of the brine that is used to cure it.  Brine for bacon often includes sodium nitrite, sodium nitrate, and saltpeter (for curing the meat); sodium ascorbate (for setting the color, as well as speeding up the curing process); and brown or maple sugar (for flavor), among other ingredients.  Brine for ham tends to have a significantly higher concentration of sugar. Incidentally, the USDA defines “bacon” as “the cured belly of a swine carcass”

Bob's Big Boy

Big Boy Restaurants International LLC bought the franchise from Elias Brothers (Michigan). It is a restaurant chain keeping its headquarters in Warren, Michigan. Big Boy started in 1936 and is considered the first US franchise. It also pioneered the first double decker hamburger, named the Big Boy.

Detroit, Canada and other places have Elias Brother's Big Boy. Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee have Frisch's Big Boy, now a co-owner of the name. Shoney's Big Boy was up and down the East Coast and Southwest, but gave up the Big Boy name in 1984. California, where Big Boy originated has Bob's Big Boy. There are numerous others.

When Marriott bought the chain, it expanded and changed many of the franchise localities. It sold to Elias Brothers, one of the largest franchisees.

The oldest remaining Bob’s Big Boy restaurant in the United States, “Bob’s 49″ is in Burbank, CA. It was built in 1949.

I Forgot

Did you forget why you went into the kitchen? It may be more location than age related. Researchers in Notre Dame conducted several experiments on rooms and their effect on memory. Subjects in the study were divided into two groups and given a simple task while traveling the same distance. The only difference is one group went through a doorway and the other did not.

They found that people who traveled through the doorway were three times more likely to forget their task. Researchers concluded that our mind perceives doorways as “event boundaries” and that decisions you made in that room are “stored” there when you leave. That is also why it is easier to remember if you go back into that room. That presumes you remember which room you came from.

Happy Friday

"He does not preach what he practices until he has practiced what he preaches." Confucius
I always preach about the practice of having a Happy Friday!

Discreet vs. Discrete

Discreet describes showing “reserve, prudence, or cautiousness” in one’s behavior or speech. The noun form of discreet is discretion. Both discreet and discrete derive from the Latin “discretus”, meaning separate, situated, put apart, which derives from the Late Latin discernere (where the word “discern” came from).

Discrete means “distinct, separate, or unrelated.” The noun form of discrete is discreteness.

Here is how each might be used in a sentence.
These two items are discrete.
The politician was not discreet.

Discrete and discreet are homophones; words that sound alike, but differ in meaning or spelling or both.

Interesting Animal Numbers

A swan has over 25,000 feathers in its body. Snails have 14175 teeth laid along 135 rows on their tongue. The North Atlantic right whale's testes account for around 1% of its total body weight, and each of them can weigh over a thousand pounds. Africa's Nile crocodile can measure twenty feet long and weigh two thousand pounds. A horse has sixteen muscles in each ear, which allows it to rotate its ears a full 180 degrees.

Tongue Myth Debunked

The tongue does not have zones specializing in specific tastes. It turns out this myth started when Harvard Psychologist Edwin G. Boring mistranslated a German paper written in 1901 titled “Zur Psychophysik des Geschmackssinnes.” The tongue paper, written by German Scientist D.P. Hanig, outlined Hanig’s research on the four known basic tastes.  He put together a group of subjects and tested the main tastes on each of them on various parts of their tongues until he figured he had a good map put together on where they tasted various tastes the most.

This myth endured until the 1970′s when scientists tested tongue maps and debunked Hanig’s paper.

Wordology, Canuck

The term "Canuck" originated in 1869 from Johnny Canuck, a nationalistic symbol billed as a younger, simpler cousin to America's Uncle Sam or Britain's John Bull. During World War II, Johnny Canuck was used as a mascot in pro-Canadian propaganda as Canada's personal defender against the Axis Powers.

A Canuck is also a small or medium-sized hardy horse, common in Canada. In addition, it is the name of the NHL hockey team in Vancouver, Canada.

Ten Facts about the Human Body

Blood vessels in a human body can be as long as 60,000 miles.
Humans are born with over 300 bones, but this number reduces to 206 in adults because some naturally fuse together as we grow.
Of the 206 bones, 106 are located in the hands and feet.
The liver is the largest solid organ and it contains 10% of the blood in a human body.
The stirrup bone in the middle ear is the smallest bone in the human body and is about .11 inches long.
The average person has 100,000 hairs on his or her head. Hair grows about five inches per year.
The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue in proportion to its size. The hardest bone is the jawbone.
The tooth is the only part of the human body that can not repair itself.
It takes twice as long to lose new muscle if you stop working out than it did to gain it.
We use 200 muscles to take one step and we average 10,000 steps a day.

Ice Cream Trick

Ice cream is good for your tongue, but if you put it in the freezer it gets hard as a rock. Next time, put the carton in a plastic bag. It will be much softer when you take it out so you do not need to bend your spoon.

Apple Facts

Greek and Roman mythology refer to apples as symbols of love and beauty. This time of year we often think of warm apple cider on a cold night.

Apples contain Vitamin C, Beta-Carotene, iron, potassium, and more. Apples have very high mineral contents, pectins, malic acid which are good in normalizing the intestines. Apples are good for treatment of anemia, dysentery, heart disease, headache, eye disorders, and kidney stones. Apple juice is an excellent means of providing essential fluids to the body.

A number of components in apples, have been found to lower blood cholesterol with a reduced risk of ischemic heart disease, stroke, prostrate cancer, type II diabetes, asthma, and a new study findings published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease show there may be some help for those patients.Apples are also good for treatment of the Acid reflux condition also called gerd (gastro esophageal reflux disease).

Green Apples - Good for strong bones and teeth, aids in vision, anti cancer properties.
  
Yellow Apples - Good for heart and eyes, immune system, reduce risk of some cancers.
  
Red Apples - Good for heart, memory function, lower risk of some cancers and to maintain urinary tract health. Maybe there is some truth to the old saying that an apple a day keeps the doctor away.

Heart Attack and Cardiac Arrest

The terms “heart attack” and “cardiac arrest” are often used interchangeably. However, they are not equivalent. “Cardiac arrest” simply implies the heart has stopped pumping blood.  A heart attack is a lack of blood flow to a specific area of the heart caused by some blockage, spasm, or rupture.

People who have a heart attack are significantly more likely to survive than those who suffer cardiac arrest. While both are bad, cardiac arrest is worse.