Where Ricin Comes From

A while back, mail containing ricin was sent to the president and to a congressman, so I went looking to find out about it. Ricin is a naturally occurring toxin in castor beans, which come from castor-oil plants. It can be extracted from the beans or the waste leftover after castor oil is made from them.

Castor beans can be crushed to extract oil, or processed to make ricin. In its purest form, ricin is a white powder and dissolves in water.

Someone can be poisoned with ricin by inhaling the powder or a mist of dissolved ricin, or by injection. The purified toxin from a single castor bean is lethal enough to kill a thousand people.

Ricin blocks the ability of cells to make proteins and can kill in a matter of days. There is currently no antidote for ricin poisoning.

Facts About Olives

Did you know the main difference between green and black olives is when they were picked? Green olives are picked before they are ripe, while black olives are allowed to ripen on the tree.

After that, green olives are soaked in a solution containing lye, then fermented in brine for anywhere between 6 to 12 months after being picked. The longer the olive is fermented, the less bitter and more flavorful it becomes. Green olives are usually pitted, and often stuffed with items such as pimientos, anchovies, jalapenos, garlic or onions.

Black olives are also soaked in lye to lessen their bitterness, then cured in brine, but rarely stuffed. Green olives contain about twice as much sodium as black olives, while black olives contain more oil than green.

Olive oil  has been considered sacred since ancient times and is still used in religious ceremonies today. It was used to anoint kings in ancient Greece, for grooming bodies and hair in Ancient Rome, burnt in sacred lamps of temples, rubbed on the first Olympic athletes to cure muscle aches. Victors in Olympic games were crowned with wreathes made of olive branches and leaves.

Olive trees can live for over a thousand years.

Speaking of Olives and long living, Popeye's friend Olive Oyl was the main star of the comic strip for ten years before Popeye took top billing. She was also the supposed fiancee of Harold Hamgravy before Popeye stepped into her life.

Olive's family included  her brother, Castor Oyl, Castor's estranged wife, Cylinda Oyl, their mother, Nana Oyl (after banana oil), their father, Cole Oyl. Olive's nieces Diesel Oyl and Violet Oyl, her two uncles, Otto Oyl and Lubry Kent Oyl and cousin, sultry blonde Sutra Oyl.

Ant Facts

Spring is here and the ants have come out. Worker ants are foraging for food, looking after the colony's young, and defending their home for unwanted intruders. One nest in South America has had up to 700,000 members.

Ants are clean insects. Some worker ants are given the job of taking the rubbish from the nest and putting it outside in a special rubbish dump. Each colony of ants has its own smell. In this way, intruders can be recognized.

Black Ants and Wood Ants have no sting, but they can squirt a spray of formic acid. Some birds put ants in their feathers because the ants squirt formic acid which gets rid of parasites.

The Slave-Maker Ant raids the nests of other ants and steals their pupae. When these new ants hatch,they work as slaves within the colony. Worker ants keep eggs and larvae in different groups according to ages.

Ants undergo complete metamorphosis from egg, to larva, to pupa, to adult. Each ant colony begins with, and centers around the queen, whose sole purpose is to reproduce. Although the queen may copulate with several males during her brief mating period, she never mates again. She stores sperm in an internal pouch, where sperm remain immobile until she opens a valve that allows them to enter her reproductive tract to fertilize the eggs.

The queen ant lives a significantly longer life than her workers. A queen of the species Lasius niger in Europe lived for 29 years in captivity. Queen ants lay the eggs that grow into worker ants. A leafcutter ant queen in South America lived for 14 years and bred over 150 million worker ants in her lifetime.

The queen controls the sex of her offspring. Fertilized eggs produce females, either wingless workers seldom capable of reproduction, or reproductive virgin queens, which are produced only when there are sufficient workers to allow for the expansion of the colony.

Unfertilized eggs develop into winged males who do no work, and exist solely to fertilize a virgin queen. The queen produces myriads of workers by secreting a chemical that retards wing growth and ovary development in the female larvae.

After mating, queen ants and male ants lose their wings. The queen scurries off in search of a site to start her new nest. If she survives, she digs a nest, lays eggs, and single-handedly raises her first brood that consists entirely of workers.

Whoopee Cushions

The whoopee cushion is a classic design that has not changed since its launch in 1932.

The idea of sitting down to make a funny noise is much older, Queen Victoria was given a musical bustle in 1887 for her Golden Jubilee which played 'God Save the Queen' when the wearer sat down. The Roman Emperor Elagabulus used an early version of the whoopee cushion at his dinner parties.

The Quad City Mallards ice hockey team hold the world record for the largest simultaneous whoopee cushion sit with 3,614 sitters taking part at Moline, Illinois, USA.

Whoopi Goldberg (Caryn Elaine Johnson) got her stage name from her childhood flatulence and the fact that it made her sound like a whoopee cushion. She adopted the traditionally Jewish surname 'Goldberg' as a stage name, because her mother felt that Johnson was not "Jewish enough" to make her a star. Well, that's about the end of it.

Patriot's Day

Patriots Day April 19 - America had remained neutral in the war until April 6th of 1917 when President Wilson and the U.S. Congress made a declaration of war. This poster calls for the American people to get on board with the war efforts.

Political Bonus

We tend to think the people in Congress today are a bit looney, but it all started way earlier.

In 1936, Democrats took over Rhode Island’s state senate and began giving out $100 bonuses to veterans. A Republican was concerned at this liberality and quietly recommended a bonus for Sgt. Evael O.W. Tnesba of the Twelfth Machine Gun Battalion. A Democrat seconded the bill and it passed immediately, sending a ripple of laughter through the chamber.

Sensing they’d been had, the Democrats referred the bill to a committee for study. There they discovered that Evael O.W. Tnesba spelled backward is Absent W.O. Leave.

Racing Right

Races are usually run counterclockwise because it is believed to be easier for right handed people, who make up the majority of world population. Putting their right foot forward and leaning into a turn feels more comfortable and provides more power and balance than the reverse direction, say physicists.

Going counterclockwise also looks more natural, with runners passing the observer in the way most people perceive, think, and read; that is left-to-right. Easy to understand why counterclockwise was chosen standardizing international competitions.

Mustard

The oriental mustard plant originally started growing in the foothills of the Himalayas, but migrated to the USA, UK, Denmark, and Canada.

Mild white mustard grows wild in North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe and has also spread. Black mustard is grown in Argentina, China, the US, and Canada.

Canada and Nepal are the world's major producers of mustard seed, between them accounting for about 57% of world production in 2010. The United Sates receives 43% of Canada's total output of mustard seeds.

Get Rid of Smells

If you get something really smelly on your hands, like mustard, garlic, or cheap cologne, try rubbing your hand on some stainless steel under running water. This combination should mostly wipe out the bad smells.

Another tip for removing odors from fish, onions, or garlic is to rub your hands across the blade of a stainless steel knife. You can even buy stainless steel 'soap', which is just a piece of stainless steel about the same shape and size as a bar of normal soap.

There is not much scientific data about how stainless steel removes odor and other types of odors are not affected by contact with the metal.