Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Ten

Today I learned about Humpty Dumpty. Yes, Humpty freakin' Dumpty. Back off. This stemmed from obsessive, repeated listening to Counting Crows' "Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)" on my way to and from work over the past couple of weeks. Eventually I was just like, what the hell is the deal with Humty Dumpty anyway? Where did that rhyme come from? How come people always draw him as an egg, when the rhyme does not say anything about him being an egg at all? I would just think that Humpty Dumpty was a dude if it had not been implanted in my brain that he is in fact an egg with arms and legs and wearing a little suit.

Well there are good answers to all of these questions. Basically, Humpty Dumpty was originally a riddle, and the title character was indeed an egg. Humpty Dumpty was also a slang term referring to a short and clumsy person. (What about a tall clumsy person? A hastey Chasey, perhaps? Eh, I tried.) For more info I will refer you to the Wikipedia entry and to one of my other favorite time-wasters, The Straight Dope.

For the record, this is my favorite Thing I've Learned to date. It is just so random yet interesting at the same time. Thanks, Humpty.

Nine

Instead of learning on Wikipedia, I learned about Wikipedia.


You learn too.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Eight

Today I learned about beer. Basically there are two main types of beer...ales and lagers. Ales are made with top-fermenting yeast and lager is made with bottom-fermenting yeast. Those two then break off into a bunch of different types like stout, pilsner, porter, etc. I would describe those two main types but you sort of get different descriptions based on what source you're looking at...I'm sure it's a pretty subjective thing. Also there seems to be a lot of variation depending on the type within those main categories, so...I won't bother with that. I honestly didn't even get as good of information as I was hoping for, but I didn't really spend THAT much time looking. I was just a little curious.

Next up is the goal of learning which beer I can actually drink without being totally grossed out.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Five, Six, Seven

Thursday:

The average hamster lives 2-3 years. I read this in a book about caring for your hamster while I was on C* at work.

Friday:

Friday I learned a little bit about Vickie Stringer and Triple Crown Publications. Vickie is a writer and publisher from Columbus, and TCP has put out such books as Whore, Gangsta, A Project Chick, Crackhead, Bitch, Cash Money, and many more. These books are EXTREMELY popular at my library, and on Thursday Vickie did a program at the main library that had like 200 people in attendance. A lot of the people that write TCP books write them when they're in prison; I learned that one of the authors is currently incarcerated in Michigan, and so she only gets half of the money from selling her books...that state of Michigan gets the other half. Isn't that BS? And she can actually only have like $1000 at one time, so she set up some kind of fund with Vickie to put the money in there. Crazy. Anyway, I knew some of this stuff already, but one girl that I work with sent out an email about the program so I did find out more about Ms. Stringer and TCP in general. Check out the TCP website for more info...the story is actually very cool.

Saturday:

Today I learned about the Flickr group Stick Figures In Peril which is fucking hilarious. HILARIOUS.

I need to put more links in with all of these entries, but really I am too lazy.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Four

Today I went to my parents' house to do laundry, and my mom had cut an article out of the paper for me. It's about a guy in Mexico who found a frog in a mine. Why so special? The frog, less than half an inch long, was covered in amber and is estimated to be 25 million years old. 25 MILLION YEARS OLD. This is the first frog of its kind (genus: Craugastor) found in Mexico. One biologist wants to try to take DNA from the frog so he can see what species it is, but a.) it is apparently very very unlikely to get DNA from something that old, and b.) also it's not likely that the guy who found it will let anybody drill into it since it's so rare.

I kept thinking that this was exactly how Jurassic Park happened, but not quite. In that movie it was a mosquito in the amber with dino blood inside...the frog came into play when they needed something to fill the holes in the dino DNA. I think. It's been a while. In any case, it doesn't sound like we need to be worried about Mexican Frogosaurs taking over the continent any time soon.

OR DO WE?

No, we don't.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Three

Today I learned about vasovagal syncope. On last week's Scrubs, we find out that JD has this disorder, which results in him fainting whenever he poos. Hee! I myself am a fainter but have not had the misfortune of fainting on the can. My fainting spells have occured during a worm dissection, after getting an ear infection poked at by my doctor, after getting my pre-college shots, at the eye doctor, while cleaning the bathroom, and, most recently, while shoveling snow. WTF.

Vasovagal syncope occurs when your blood pressure drops as the result of stress (physical or mental/emotional). Most people don't have this reaction and therefore do not pass out. Lucky bastards. Pooing, peeing, and sometimes even repeated swallowing can stimulate the vagus nerve, which causes this reaction, as seen in our poor Dr. Dorian. I didn't see anywhere if this is hereditary, but I bet it is because my dad does the same as me but even worse.

Fainting is kind of a bitch, for anyone who hasn't experienced it. It's embarrassing, you feel crappy afterward, you can really get hurt if you're standing up when it happens (ie cracking your head on a desk on the way down), and I personally have a tendency to twitch and flail while I'm out...this past time I bit my lip pretty damn hard. On the upside, I have rad dreams while unconscious and also you can get out of school early if you conk out in front of your whole science class. Score!

Two

Yesterday I looked up "beldam," because it kept showing up in the book I'm reading. From M-W.com:

Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English beldam grandmother, from Anglo-French bel beautiful + Middle English dam
: an old woman

That pretty much makes sense.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

One

Today I learned about snow--particularly, snowflakes. Twice this winter it has snowed where the snow is extremely fluffy with huge flakes. You can actually see the little "snowflake" pattern in the snow, like you cut them out of paper. Last night I was informed that the shape of the snowflake is caused by the shape of water/ice itself (I was freezing and not paying much attention). So today I looked up Snow on Wikipedia and found out lots of interesting things about snow, some of which I didn't really understand because I don't know much about science.

In any case, the six-sided symmetry of a snowflake "arises from the hexagonal crystal structure of ordinary ice." Depending on how cold and how humid it is when the snowflake is forming, you'll get different shapes of snowflakes. The reason that each opposite arm is exactly symmetrical (well, not exactly, but close enough) isn't known for sure. It sounds like the most likely reason is just that the arms are forming at exactly the same time in exactly the same environment, so they end up looking alike.

There is a lot more information in the Wikipedia article if you're interested. There are also some REALLY cool pictures of snowflakes and snow crystals taken with an electron microscope. Check it out!