May 3, 2019

Wordology, Pangram

A pangram is a sentence that uses every letter in the alphabet. The name comes from two Greek root words. “Pan” means “all,” and “gram” means “something written.” Together, they mean all written letters.

The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.
The five boxing wizards jump quickly.

A pangram must be a full sentence. That means it needs to include a subject and a predicate. A “perfect pangram” uses each letter from the alphabet only once.

Favorite Color Study

One of the most calming colors to be surrounded by, according to a global survey from paper merchant G F Smith and psychologists at the University of Sussex, UK is navy blue, closely followed by teal-like turquoise, and soft pastel pink.
The World's Favorite Color Project involved 26,596 participants from over 100 different countries to get some insights into the world's most beloved color. To do this, they asked people to list attributes and emotions that they associate with certain colors in the hopes of also finding out what different hues mean to different people, and what may influence this.
“First, the more saturated the color is, the more it is associated with excitement and stimulation. Second, the lighter the color, the more it is associated with calmness and relaxation."

Many studies have found that blue and green are also associated with calmness and relaxation. The findings also showed that orange is most often associated with happiness, while pink is viewed as the sexiest, and the colors people around the world most associated with luxury are white, purple, and orange.

Apr 26, 2019

Happy Friday

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

Today is a better day to celebrate a Happy Friday!

Tesla Space Roadster Progress

Elon Musk is so difficult to keep up with as he spreads his time between massive projects that each would consume other mere mortals.

His space roadster and Starman was one of those projects that we marveled at, but has since almost slipped from memory. It has traveled more than a half million miles so far. Here is a site that is still tracking the vehicle as it continues to fly in orbit around the sun at a speed of 13,561 mi/h.  LINK

National Pretzel Day

April 26 is National Pretzel Day. Most people agree that pretzels have a Christian background, and they were developed by the monks. According to The History of Science and Technology, in 610 AD, an Italian monk invents pretzels as a reward to children who learn their prayers. He called the strips of baked dough, folded to resemble arms crossing the chest, pretiola (little rewards).
The Pennsylvania Dutch immigrants introduced pretzels to North America in the 19th century. At this time, many handmade pretzel bakeries populated central Pennsylvania, and their popularity quickly spread.

Grapefruit Juice and Drugs

Why many prescription medications include the warning, “do not take with grapefruit juice.”

The reason is because grapefruit juice messes with your body’s ability to properly metabolize the medicine. It blocks a crucial enzyme (CYP3A4) that controls how much of the medicine you receive. Drinking even one glass of grapefruit juice throws off the safe dose. Basically, it is subject to a potentially dramatic increase in systemic exposure and associated higher risk of overdose with grapefruit as a result of diminished the CYP3A4 activity, primarily in the small intestine, rather than in the liver.

Kohl's Accepts Amazon Returns

Kohl’s announced that it will start accepting Amazon returns at all 1,150 of its stores starting in July 2019. There is no extra charge for the service.
Kohl’s and Amazon started experimenting with a collaboration on brick-and-mortar returns back in 2017, allowing customers to take back items purchased on Amazon even if those items were already out of their Amazon shipping boxes.
Kohl’s CEO Michelle Gass explained in a press release that the partnership with Amazon, called 'Amazon Returns', is “delivering innovation,” and perhaps more importantly, driving traffic to Kohl’s stores.
The announcement from Kohl’s is careful to note that the company will only accept “eligible” returns, which means that you cannot return things you bought on Amazon from a third-party. If your item was sent from an Amazon warehouse, you are probably safe to return it, but you must double-check by heading to the Amazon Returns Center online.

Kohl’s started carrying Amazon products in over 200 stores last month, including the Amazon Fire tablet, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, the Echo Dot, and the Echo Show.

Wordology, EPCOT

Back during 1966 Walt Disney had an idea for part of his theme park in Florida. He planned for it to be an actual community and called it EPCOT. Most folks have forgotten or never knew what that meant or if it was just a word. On Disney World’s website, “Epcot” actually is not written in all caps, which would suggest that it is not an acronym. However, it is an acronym for “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.” Now you know.


Incidentally, Walt Disney might have been the first to put gloves on his characters. In addition to being easier to animate, he also did not want Mickey to have mouse hands, because he was supposed to be more human.

More Things You Think Cause Cancer but Do Not

Power lines emit both electric and magnetic energy, but do not cause cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute's fact sheet on Electromagnetic Fields and Cancer. 'The electric energy emitted by power lines is easily shielded or weakened by walls and other objects. The magnetic energy emitted by power lines is a low-frequency form of radiation that does not damage genes.

Slicing a tumor does not cause it to spread. During 2005, nearly 41 percent of people surveyed by the American Cancer Society said they believed that surgery to remove cancer actually caused cancer to spread, and an additional 13 percent were not sure. Surgeons use special protocols to prevent cancer cells from migrating during surgical procedures. Also, cancer replicates and metastasizes on its own, not with the help of a scalpel.

Exposure to air does not cause cancer to spread. "There is no scientific data supporting that theory," says Blair Marshall, MD, thoracic surgeon, on oncolink.com. Dr. Marshall writes that the theory stems from situations where cancer patients have surgery and then later die of metastatic cancer. "In actuality," Dr. Marshall reports, "if the patient had not undergone any surgery at all, they still would have developed widespread disease." This belief is more prevalent and difficult to disentangle in under-served groups, according to the study, and may contribute to disparities in cancer outcomes in those groups.

Optimum Oreo Dunk Time

Members of Utah State University’s Splash Lab, an academic group studying the behaviors of fluids put Oreos to the test.
Three researchers gathered Oreos, Chips Ahoy, Nutter Butter, and Graham Crackers and dipped the cookies halfway in 2 percent milk for half a second to seven seconds. After dunking, the team weighed the treats and measured how much milk had been absorbed.
The results: Oreos absorbed 50 percent of their potential liquid weight in just one second. After two seconds, they absorbed 80 percent. The number flatlined briefly for a second. After the fourth second, the cookie maxed out: It absorbed all its possible milk. “This data indicates that for the tested cookies, keeping your cookie in the glass any longer than five seconds does not lead to any additional milk entering the cookies,” their study suggested.

Three seconds is enough time to saturate most of an Oreo. There is no benefit to dunking longer than four seconds. To increase dunk time, use high-fat dairy, such as whole milk (3.25 percent butterfat) or half-and-half (about 10 percent butterfat).

Smiles

During 2010, an interesting study was conducted at Wayne State University. Its purpose was to find out if a smile could influence humans’ life expectancy. Scientists studied baseball cards with famous baseball players produced before 1950. It turned out that players who did not smile lived around 72.9 years, players with a slight smile lived 75 years, and those with really wide smiles lived 79.9 years. Hmmm.


There is a connection between a smile and mood: even if you are forced to smile, you start feeling better. A wide smile equals 2,000 bars of chocolate. Our smile can influence others. People cannot keep scowling if you smile in front of them. Smiling is contagious, so we lose control over our facial muscles and smile back. A smiling person also looks more attractive and professional.

Apr 19, 2019

Happy Friday

Take the end of each day to bed with you and it will transform overnight to a wonderful new day.

This is especially true when you wake up on a Happy Friday!

International Cannabis Culture Day

April 20 is the official cannabis celebration day. Carl's Jr. says it is debuting a cannabis-infused burger on 4/20. The "Rocky Mountain High: CheeseBurger Delight" will be topped with CBD-infused "Santa Fe Sauce" and sold at one location in Denver for a single day. It will cost $4.20.


Other April 20 Birthdays and Events:

Hitler (born 1889),
George Takei (star Trek's Sulu (born 1937)
1775 American Revolutionary War
Carmen Electra [Tara Leigh Patrick] (born 1972)
1972 – Apollo 16 lands on the moon.
2008 – Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300 becoming the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race.
Alfred Hawthorne "Benny" Hill, English comedian and actor (born 1924) D 4/20/1992
Cantinflas, Mexican actor, producer, and screenwriter (born 1911) D 4/20/1993

Wordology, Chyron

The pronunciation is Keeron. It is a caption superimposed over usually the lower part of a video image (as during a news broadcast) or any predominantly text-based video graphic as used mainly by television news broadcasts that typically resides in the lower third.

Although it is often used generically, it actually comes from the name of the company whose software allows television producers to add those crawling words, phrases, and images to their broadcasts.