Ig Nobel Awards 2017

The Ig Nobel awards are given for achievements that first make people laugh then make them think. On September 14, 2017 at the 27th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard's Sanders Theatre, the following prizes were awarded.

• Physics, Using fluid dynamics to probe the question "Can a Cat Be Both a Solid and a Liquid?"
• Peace, Demonstrating that regular playing of a didgeridoo is an effective treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea (sic) and snoring.
• Economics, Experiments to see how contact with a live crocodile affects a person's willingness to gamble.
• Anatomy, medical research study "Why Do Old Men Have Big Ears?"
• Biology, Discovery of a female penis, and a male vagina, in a cave insect.
• Fluid Dynamics, Studying the dynamics of liquid-sloshing, to learn what happens when a person walks backwards while carrying a cup of coffee.
• Nutrition, First scientific report of human blood in the diet of the hairy-legged vampire bat.
• Medicine, Using advanced brain-scanning technology to measure the extent to which some people are disgusted by cheese.

Camel Camel Camel

Came across this interesting site. It tracks prices for all things Amazon. You can create Amazon price watches and get alerts via email and Twitter when prices drop. View the price history of Amazon products. Seems practical if you are planning a large purchase, but waiting for a price drop. LINK

Wordology, Ultracrepidarian

One who gives opinions on something beyond his or her knowledge. Someone who does not know what they are talking about. No comments please.

Gravity in Space

Contrary to common opinion, gravity is everywhere, even in space. Anything with mass creates gravity. The effect of gravity decreases as distance increases. At extreme distances, the gravity exerted on a particular object might be almost zero, but is never completely absent.

At the orbit of the International Space Station, Earth's gravitational pull is about 90% of what it is at Earth's surface.

Astronauts on spaceships in outer space are affected by gravity in the same way that their spaceships are. They are both orbiting Earth, which means they are falling sideways (in orbit) at the same time they are falling toward Earth.


On Earth, astronauts feel the force of gravity as weight, because the ground prevents them from falling. In outer space there is no ground to push against astronauts. As they orbit and fall toward Earth at the same rate as their spaceship, astronauts feel weightless, as if there were no gravity.

Burger and Booze Home Delivery

Saw an ad that shows Friday's is starting home delivery of booze along with food. It claims to be first to home deliver this combination and is rolling out in Dallas and Houston, Texas, then nationwide next year. The liquor and mix come separate and you need to mix it yourself. It will be interesting to see how this will work with so many unique local liquor laws around the country.

Happy Friday

You cannot learn a deep appreciation of happiness if you do not dive in.

Dive in all the way to appreciate a Happy Friday!

Wordology, Rasceta

The creases on the inside of wrist.

What's in a Name, 7Up

7 Up is a brand of lemon-lime flavored, non-caffeinated soft drink. The rights to the brand are held by Dr Pepper Snapple Group in the United States, and PepsiCo in the rest of the world. Creative marketing during prohibition moved the product to underground speakeasies. Like other products such as ginger ale and tonic, 7 UP quickly became a popular mixer for alcoholic drinks. After prohibition was repealed, it was still marketed as a mixer. By the late 1940s, 7 UP had become the third best-selling soft drink in the world.

Westinghouse bought 7 Up in 1969 and sold it in 1978 to Philip Morris, which then during 1986 sold it to a group led by Hicks & Haas. 7 Up merged with Dr Pepper in 1988. Cadbury Schweppes bought the combined company in 1995. The Dr Pepper Snapple Group was spun off from Cadbury Schweppes in 2008.

7 Up was created by Charles Grigg, who came up with the formula for a lemon-lime soft drink in 1929. The product, originally named "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda" contained lithium citrate, a mood-stabilizing drug. "Bib-label" referred to the use of paper labels that were placed on the plain bottles.

The US Food and Drug Administration banned the use of lithium in beer and soft drinks in 1948, and 7-Up was reformulated two years later. Its name was later shortened to "7 Up Lithiated Lemon Soda" before being further shortened to just "7 Up" during 1936.


The actual origin of the 7Up name is unclear, as is the origin or meaning of the red dot. It contains no sugar, preservatives, caffeine or coloring.

Banana Facts

The wonderful banana probably first grew in Southeast Asia, and did not make a big impact elsewhere until the early Islamic period when it was brought from India to the Middle East, and on to Africa. The banana turned up in Europe before that, but only as an exotic rarity. In ancient Rome, it had to make do with borrowing the name of the fig (a notion which lived on in the early French term for ‘banana’, figue du paradis).

Spanish and Portuguese colonists took the banana with them across the Atlantic from Africa to the Americas, and along with it they brought its African name, banana, apparently a word from one of the languages of the Congo area (it has been speculated that it derives ultimately from Arabic banana ‘finger, toe’, an origin which would be echoed in the English term hand for a bunch of bananas, and serves as a reminder that many varieties of banana are quite small, not like the large sizes imported into Britain).

Since the end of the nineteenth century Bananaland has been used by Australians as a colloquial and not completely complimentary name for Queensland, a state where the banana is a key crop. Even less complimentary is banana republic, a term coined in the 1930s for small volatile states of the South American tropics (from their economic dependence on the export of bananas).

Wordology, O'Clock

The long form of this expression is 'two of the clock' or 'two on the clock' and the apostrophe stands for the missing letters. Two of the clock is an old expression that dates back to the time of sundials and other means of telling time. In order to distinguish the fact that one was referencing a clock's time, rather than something else, one would say, "It is two of the clock," which later became two o'clock.

Manicule

A manicule is a unique symbol. Literally it takes the form of a hand with an outstretched index figure, gesturing towards a particularly pertinent piece of text or a direction.

Although manicules are still visible today in old signage and retro décor, their heyday was in medieval and Renaissance Europe.

Despite its centuries-long popularity, the first-ever use of a manicule is surprisingly difficult to find. They were reportedly used in the Domesday Book of 1066, a record of land ownership in England and Wales. Widespread use began around the 12th century. The name comes from the Latin word manicula, meaning little hand, but the punctuation mark has had other synonyms, including bishop’s fist, pointing hand, digit, and fist.

As far as punctuation marks go, the manicule’s function was fairly self-explanatory. Usually drawn in the margin of a page (and sometimes between columns of text or sentences), it was a way for the reader to note a particularly significant paragraph of text. They were essentially the medieval version of a highlighter.

The use and dynamic of manicules changed once books began to be printed. This new technology allowed writers and publishers to highlight what they believed to be significant. The little hands with outstretched finger make it easy to find the key points without re-reading the whole text.

Funny Town Names

What started out as a temporary solution has become a point of pride for locals. In No Name, Colorado according to reports, a government official first marked a newly constructed exit off I-70 with a sign reading “No Name” as a placeholder. By the time officials got around to officially labeling it, “No Name” had the support of the community and it stuck. Visitors can find the spot near the No Name tunnels, No Name Creek, and the No Name hiking trail.

British Slaves in America

Between 1718 and 1776, British authorities exiled approximately 50,000 male and female convicts to American colonies in a policy euphemistically known as 'transportation'. Once in America, the convicts fell under a life of servitude or outright slavery, underfed and overworked.


They had to obey their masters or risk being imprisoned. In the early period of transportation, half of them died while in bondage. The Americans’ demands for independence caused Britain to stop sending its convicts to America and forced the Brits to send them to Australia instead. The Australian convict trade was about three times as large as the American version.

Happy Friday

If you cannot change, how can you ever discover that each day is better than the last.

Today is a better day to celebrate a Happy Friday!