Happy Friday

“With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.”

I believe all days are great, and still enjoy a Happy Friday!

Change Your Eye Color

Dr. Gregg Homer of Stroma Medical is developing the technology for a laser procedure that will turn brown eyes blue. He says a 20-second procedure that removes melanin, the pigment that gives brown eyes their color, will permanently make them blue without affecting a patient’s eyesight. The change occurs gradually over two weeks. The procedure can not change blue eyes to brown.

The majority of the world’s population has brown eyes, and the number of blue-eyed people is decreasing in America.

The doctor says he expects to do another year of testing before the technique becomes available outside of the United States in less than two years, and within the United States in three. It is estimated the procedure will cost $5,000. 

Redefining Round

A company called Shark Wheel is reinventing the wheel. Instead of the conventional circular shape, this new skateboard wheel is based around a cube shape. The company claims its new wheels ride smoother, faster, and offer better grip than traditional skateboard wheels.

The wheels are based around a shape that fits inside a cube. They aren't quite a square, and aren't quite circular, but are made up of three strips, each of which create a helical shape when they roll. This forms a sine wave pattern where the wheels make contact with the ground. 

The new wheels should start hitting the streets in September, 2013.

Four Unusual Cemeteries

The largest man made reef in the world three miles off the coast of Key Biscayne, the Neptune Memorial Reef, is also an underwater mausoleum. The graveyard is 40 feet below the surface of the water, allowing divers swim among statues and sea life to visit deceased family members. Divers go down with ashes mixed with cement and place the mixture in a selected location. The cost for placement is $2,600 to $4,000, and there are 1,200 spots in the initial development.

In the lagoons of Venice Italy, San Michele island has been occupied only by the dead since the early 1800s. Two other structures on the island are the Church of San Michele, built in 1469, and the Cappella Emiliana, built in 1543. Because space is limited on the island, Venetians who are interred on San Michele have ten years of peace before their remains are exhumed and moved to an ossuary. Igor Stravinsky and Ezra pound are interred there.

The Hallstatt, Austria Ossuary, or Beinhaus (Bone House), is filled with about 700 painted skulls and 500 undecorated skulls. The ossuary dates back to the 17th century and is notable for the decorations painted on many of the skulls.

The Calico, California Ghost Town Cemetery is the town's original burial site with headstones dating back to 1882. Today, only those who have a long relationship with Calico are given the honor of being buried alongside the 19th-century miners, but space is limited.

Taking Naps

Here is an interesting web site. It is dedicated to helping you to take naps. The theory is that you can take a better nap if you have background sounds to help. The site provides free MP3 files to play when you are ready to catch a few winks.   LINK 

On another day I will go into the background and philosophy of taking power naps to refresh yourself during the day, but now I feel a bit tired.

New Cast Design

With this new 3D-printed exoskeletal cast idea, the incredibly fun and funky looking design provides a bit of leeway when it comes to scratching that itch halfway down your arm or balancing one leg outside of the shower so as not to get the cast wet. Victoria University of Wellington Architecture and Design school graduate Jake Evill recently developed this concept, called Cortex.

The exoskeletal cast provides a strong fractured-bone support system featuring lightweight protection that is ventilated, recyclable, and shower friendly.

To produce the cast, the patient receives an X-Ray scan during which the break is identified. That specific area is then 3D scanned and the data is fed into the computer to generate a 3D-printed cast. The final product has one open side that is eventually snapped closed with strong fasteners.

Moon Amtrak Day

34th Annual Mooning of Amtrak, 8th Annual Mooning of Metrolink - All Day Saturday, July 13, 2013, Laguna Niguel, California, U.S.A.

In 1979, K.T. Smith offered to buy a drink for anyone willing to moon the next train that passed the Mugs Away Saloon in Laguna Niguel, California

Since then, the second Saturday in July has become “Moon Amtrak Day,” when hundreds of drinkers bare their bottoms at the many trains that pass through town. No one organizes, controls, directs, or is responsible for this annual event.

Dalai Lama, Winter Home

In case you were wondering where the Buddhist holy Dalai Lama, whose name is Tenzin Gyatso, spent his winters until he went into exile in 1959, this is it. Since then, he has been living in India and has referred to himself as a Marxist. He has received a Nobel Peace Prize.

The Potala Palace in Tibet was built in the 7th century. 

Tibetans address the Dalai Lama as Gyalwa Rinpoche ("Precious Victor"), Kundun ("Presence"), Yishin Norbu ("Wish fulfilling Gem") among others, and His Holiness by Westerners. The 14th Dalai Lama (since 1950) retired March 14, 2011.

All Dalai Lamas are a reincarnation of the previous one. High Lamas have a vision by a dream or if the Dalai Lama was cremated, they will often monitor the direction of the smoke as an indication of the direction of the rebirth. Once the High Lamas have found the home and the boy they believe to be the reincarnation, the boy undergoes a series of tests to affirm the rebirth. They present a number of artifacts, only some of which belonged to the previous Dalai Lama, and if the boy chooses the items which belonged to the previous Dalai Lama. This is seen as a sign, in conjunction with all of the other indications, that the boy is the reincarnation.

Tenzin Gyatso, who was born born Lhamo Dondrub on July 6, 1935 has stated that he will not be reborn in the People's Republic of China and has also suggested he may not be reborn at all, suggesting the function of the Dalai Lama may be outdated. He said, "Naturally my next life is entirely up to me. No one else, and also this is not a political matter."

On July 12

Bill Cosby, George Washington Carver, Richard Simmons, R. Buckminster Fuller, Van Clyburn, and Milton Berle, among others were born on this day.

This Day in:
1290  Jews are expelled from England by order of King Edward I
1630  New Amsterdam's governor buys Gull Island from Indians for cargo, renames it Oyster Island, now known as Ellis Island
1843  Mormon leader Joseph Smith say God OKs polygamy
1901  Cy Young wins his 300th game
1914  Babe Ruth makes his baseball debut, pitches for Red Sox
1921  Babe Ruth sets record of 137 career home runs
1962  Rolling Stones 1st performance at Marquee Club, London

John Adams and Independence

After the members of the Second Continental Congress approved and signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, John Adams wrote about the occasion in a letter to his wife Abigail, "I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding Generations as the great anniversary Festival." He suggested that it should, "Be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shows, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more." It would be nice if some of our current batch of politicians would read the words of who came before them.

AstroTurf Facts

It was originally named “ChemGrass” before being used by the Houston Astros Major League Baseball team in the Astrodome.

Contrary to popular belief, AstroTurf was not first used or invented for the Houston Astros.  It was originally invented in 1964, two years before the Astros would use it, by Donald L. Elbert, James M. Faria, and Robert T. Wright, working for Monsanto Company.

In 1965, the Houston Astros attempted to use a special type of natural grass on the indoor field, but the semi-transparent ceiling panels did not let in enough sunlight and the grass died within a few months.  This resulted in the Astros organization having to paint the dirt field green, to make it appear more like a normal baseball field.

By the start of the 1966 season, the Astros decided to go with ChemGrass. Due to a limited supply, though, they were only able to get the infield covered for the first half of the season and the outfield was still painted green dirt.  Shortly after the All-Star break, the entire field was covered in ChemGrass and this artificial surface received national attention for the first time.

Soon after other sporting teams began using ChemGrass up for outdoor stadiums, particularly those in colder climates. The product was renamed AstroTurf by John A. Wortmann, an employee of Monsanto.  By 1987, AstroTurf had become so popular that Monsanto made it an independent subsidiary, named AstroTurf Industries, Inc.

AstroTurf eventually became unpopular in outdoor fields, despite the cost benefit, mostly due to the extra wear on player’s bodies. It was typically installed over cement and provided little cushioning compared to real grass and dirt. Currently, over 160 million square feet of AstroTurf is being used on sporting fields and for home use worldwide.

AstroTurf eventually lent its name to the political and business term 'AstroTurfing', where a business or political group will attempt to create an artificial 'movement' to sway public opinion about a topic by making people think 'regular' people are behind the movement.

The US government hired a software company in 2011 to develop special AstroTurfing software, partly by using Facebook, Twitter, and by social engineering that would help the government sway public opinion on various topics. Among other things, the software would scan for online articles written by people with opposing views to what the Administration wanted people to think. It would then create fake accounts and automatically post made up, discrediting information about the authors.

Wordology, Eavesdrop

Eavesdropping originally came from Anglo-Saxon laws against building too close to the border of your land, so the rain running off your roof would not run on to your neighbor's property. The eavesdrip is the width of ground around a house or building which receives the rain water dropping from the eaves.

The primary function of the eaves is to throw rain water off the walls, prevent erosion of the footings, and reduce splatter on the wall from rain as it hits the ground.

Eavesdropper became the word for a person who stands within range of the eaves drip in order to listen to what is said inside the house. Now it has evolved to the act of secretly listening to the private conversations or reading online records of others without their consent. The word eaves is both singular and plural.

Top Ten Web Facts

There are 14.3 trillion web pages on the World Wide Web.

68.8% of all email traffic is spam. (back in 2008, 53.8 trillion spam emails were sent)

51% of all spam is about pharmaceuticals, the top category of all spam.

30.8% used Internet Explorer in 2012 (in 2008 it was 70%)

43% of the top 1 million websites are hosted in the U.S.

44.8 % of internet users live in Asia

11.4% of internet users live in North America

68.4% of smart phones use Android operating system (introduced Sept 2008) vs. iPhone (introduced June 2007) 19.4%

4 billion hours of video are watched on YouTube each month

In 2012, there were 2.7 billion likes on Facebook each day and 5 billion Google's +1 button  each day.

Blood Types

There are 8 main types of blood separated into 4 groups. The groups are A, B, AB, and O. They are grouped together by the presence or absence of an antigen. Antigens are substances within the blood that cause our immune systems to create antibodies. These antibodies kill anything the immune system thinks is a threat.

The specific antigens that create the different blood types are found on the surface of red blood cells and are known as type A and type B. They are separated by the presence of another type of antigen known as rH factor. If this rH antigen is present, blood is considered positive, if absent, negative.

Someone that has type A antigens and rH factor is considered type A+. If someone has both types of antigens and no rH factor would be type AB- blood. If no A or B antigens then it is type O.

All of this matters because of those antibodies your immune system creates. Someone with type A blood will have antibodies for type B, and someone with type B will have antibodies for type A. Type O has antibodies for both A and B. If you were to give type B blood to someone who was type A, their antibodies would attack the type A red blood cells causing very unwanted side effects, including possible death.

The two main types of cells within the blood are red and white. Red blood cells make up nearly 45% of your blood volume. White blood cells make up less than 1%. What is left over is blood plasma at approximately 55% of blood volume.

Red blood cells and most white blood cells are predominantly created within the bone marrow of large bones. White blood cell production is controlled within the immune system.