Facts about Mistletoe

The name comes from the fact mistletoe starts from bird droppings made from the red or white berries. It is a parasitic plant and roots to the branches of trees. Thus “mistle” or “missel”, which meant “dung”, and “toe”, which came from the Anglo-Saxon “tan” meaning “twig.” There are over 900 species of mistletoe and it grows on a wide variety of trees.

Ancient Greeks considered the plant an aphrodisiac and believed it aided in fertility. Norseman believed mistletoe was a plant of peace and when enemies met under the mistletoe they were obliged to stop fighting for at least a day. Eventually, this spawned a tradition to hang mistletoe over the doorway for peace and good luck.

It became associated with Christmas from the tradition of hanging mistletoe in one’s home to bring good luck and peace to those within the house. It hung year round and was replaced each Christmas eve or at New Year.

During the 16th century in Britain, it became popular to create a ball of mistletoe hung as a Christmas decoration. Couples standing under the mistletoe were to kiss if the mistletoe ball still had berries. For each kiss, one berry would be taken from the ball. Once all the berries were gone, all the “luck” was drained out and it became bad luck to kiss beneath it.

Mistletoe leaves and young twigs are used by herbalists, and it is popular in Europe, especially in Germany, for treating circulatory and respiratory system problems.

Eight Other December 25 Events

December 25, 325 is the first date that Christmas was celebrated specifically on December 25.
December 25, 597 England adopted the Julian calendar, now used by most of the world.
December 25, 800 Charlemagne is crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III.
December 25, 1066 William the Conqueror is crowned King of England.
December 25, 1717 the great Christmas Flood ravaged the Netherlands and parts of Germany and Scandinavia.
December 25, 1776 - 11pm, General George Washington, along with 5,400 men, crossed the Delaware River, in order to surprise Hessian troops celebrating the Christmas Holiday.
December 25, 1914 the Christmas Truce. During the height of World War I, the Germans began to sing Christmas Carols, crossed the lines, and met with Allies and both shook hands. (The next day they resumed fighting.)
December 25, 2002 University of New Mexico junior place-kicker Katie Hnida attempts to kick an extra point in a game against UCLA in the Las Vegas Bowl. She is first woman to play in Division I football.
December 25, 2012 - Merry Christmas!

Wordology, Tragus

The little piece of cartilage that sticks out at the front external opening of your ear.

Ten Tiger Facts

Most tigers have more than 100 stripes, and no two tigers have the same stripes.

The roar of a tiger can be heard from over a mile away.

There are nine subspecies of tiger: the Bengal tiger, the Indochinese tiger, the Malayan tiger, the Sumatran tiger, the Siberian tiger, and the South China tiger.

The Siberian tiger is the biggest of the nine subspecies and can reach an average head and body length of 75-90 in. They can weigh up to 660 pounds.

A tiger marks its territory by spraying trees and bushes (contained inside the territory) with its urine, and also leaves deep scratches on tree trunks.

One averaged sized tiger can eat up to 60 pounds of meat at a single time.

A tiger’s canine teeth can grow up to three inches long, easily capable of crunching through the spine of any creature on Earth.

A tiger can go as long as a week without a meal.

A tiger’s saliva is antiseptic, and is handy when a tiger cleans its wounds.

If you were to shave all the fur off a tiger’s skin, the stripes would still remain.

Three Stooges Origin

Ted  Healy, another vaudvillian discovered the act in 1925 as they were performing on vaudeville. They were originally billed as "Ted Healy And His Stooges", but the trio broke away from Healy in 1934 due to his mismanagement of them and their finances. He passed away in 1937.

Here they are on stage with him.

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.