...Where the Quietest Place on Earth is.

It's in Minnesota. A lab in Minneapolis has created an acoustic chamber where 99.9% of all sound is absorbed. Companies have been using it to test their products to see just how loud they are without any background noise. Sound effect artists use it to get the most accurate recording of any sound they need. Want to hear a pin drop? This place will give it to you.

These work too, just ask my high school band.

How did I come across this? Twitter. I follow various interesting fact accounts and they mentioned this room. Reason being is that NASA is using it for training exercises for deep space travel. Space is pretty much soundless. If you've ever watched Firefly you may have noticed the subtle reference they make to it. Every time you see the ship's engines fire up they have no sound effects because there wouldn't be.

"Whoosh".....I mean..."         "

Your senses are a funny thing. Whenever you cut input to one of them off, they don't know what to do. So in a room with a sound proofing of 99.9%, your brain just starts hearing things. Heartbeats become much louder to you and you just start taking in order to hear anything. The longest anyone lasted in there was only 45 minutes.

Just enough time for a Sesame Seed encrusted Moroccan Sea Bass.

And that is what I learned today.

...Why The Mariana Trench is so Deep.

The Mariana(s) Trench has been in the news lately due to our homegrown Hollywood director James Cameron making his way to the bottom of it. I'll be honest, I don't really care that he did. He's not the first to do it and won't be the last. He went down, came up, and that's about it. I'm not really sure how it helps science at all and don't know why its news worthy.

Now this is worthy.

 But why is the Mariana Trench so deep? Same reason mountains are so tall. That's right folks.....your favourite and mine.......Plate Tectonics. The trench lies on a subduction zone. That's where two plates come together and one flows underneath the other one. The Andes Mountains lie along a subduction zone. If you can picture it, you can see why a trench is formed. On top of that, since its in the Pacific, the sea bed is farther away from and large landmasses. There aren't any rivers or deltas or runoff constantly depositing silt building the floor up. Over time the sea bed kept compressing under its own weight making it deeper and deeper.

In the Mariana Trench, no one can hear your echo.

AND THAT IS WHAT I LEARNED TODAY.

...There are Blue, Red, and Green Bees.

I like bees. They don't really freak me out and I'm not afraid of a sting. But if I saw one of these bad boys coming at me I might run away. For some reason these coloured bees give me the creeps.

Not this one though.

The Blue Orchard Mason Bee (Osmia lignaria) is found in the northern range of the Rocky Mountains mainly in British Colombia. They are independent bees and aren't very social. They do nest together as it increases mating possibilities and defences, but each bee finds its own food and doesn't share. They pollinate by using their hairy bodies and are quite effective at it. They are very shy and easily scared. They rarely sting unless a serious threat is in front of them. They nest in holes in trees and the females make tubular nests where they lay their eggs. Each egg is separated by a bit of mud. They appear black (its a shiny, metallic blue) and are often mistaken for black flies. 

The Leonardo of the bee word.

Red bees (Osmia rufa) are very similar to the blue bee in how they forage, nest, and sting (except the male has no stinger). When laying eggs the male larvae are placed closer to the nest's opening so they emerge first. They are found in parts of the UK, Scandinavia, mainland Europe, and parts of the Middle East. These are not the same as the red bees found in Brooklyn, NY. Those bees have found a Maraschino Cherry factory. They feast on the red corn syrup used for marinating and tell all their friends back at the nest. Their honey has also started changing colour as well.

Not as angry as you'd think.

The Metallic Green Bee (Agapostemon texanus) is, again, like the other two bees listed above. I'm starting to wonder if the gene responsible for the colour change affects the behaviour as well. They are found throughout North America with most of their numbers in the Southern USA. They have been known to form a hive with a queen or two.

They like to recycle.

And that is what I learned today.

OTHER THINGS I LEARNED:
-About Stone Babies (odd...)

...I Can't Behind on This.

I may have been truant in updating this thing lately, but I've been keeping up writing it. I just wanted to give the posts a one last go through before I put them up. Well, a nice little computer glitch took care of that. Took care of it by losing all my info. On top of that I got a wicked retarded head cold and got behind. In order to catch up I'm doing a quick post with the crap I learned (starting with the oldest first).

Just put it in my box!

...Glass Balls Bounce Better Than Rubber Ones.
Its due to something called the coefficient of restitution. Its a measurement of two objects' velocity before and after a collision. Its a ratio between the two with a maximum value of 1 (no speed lost) to 0 (all speed lost). Rubber is about 0.80 while glass can reach 0.95. This all depends of what the glass bounces off and providing it doesn't shatter. Have you ever dropped a glass on the floor and seen it bounce a few times before breaking. Sometimes it reaches quite a height.

Dance magic, dance

...The Island of Nauru Made its Money From Bird Poo.
Its situated a few hundred miles away from Australia. Back in 1902 large amounts of phosphate deposits were discovered and mined for fertilizer purposes. The phosphates were left by, you guessed it, bird poo compiled over 1000s of years. The island is running out and literally has no other sources of income. They rely on imports for everything, even their water (due to humid wind currents it rarely rains there). The Australians are now paying them to house asylum seekers, which sucks since if the claimants don't get their status they become Nauru's problem and not Australia's. They also received a cool 9 mil form Russia after conveniently recognizing South Ossetia as a sovereign nation. They tried the offshore banking thing as well, but that didn't work out either. Tourism is all they have left and according to discovernauru.com there's plenty to do, such as swimming, walking, or eating at one of their two restaurants.

This is how they did it.

...Where April Fools Comes From.
Actually, I don't know, no one does. The most popular story comes from France. In the 1500s France changed their calendar to fit the new Roman calendar. Before the change France celebrated New Year's Eve in the spring, but it took a long time for the calendar switch to reach everyone, so those still celebrating in spring were called 'April Fools'. Turns out new Year's Eve was celebrated at Easter, so it changed every year and rarely fell on the 1st. Today in France the day is known as 'le poisson d'Avril', the Fish of April, and is celebrated by putting paper fish on a passerby's back.

Good one!

It's personally my favourite 'holiday'. For years I worked in restaurants and I used to LOVE Telling people we were switching our cola brands. So if the place had Coke, I'd ask "did you hear we were switching to Pepsi?' Most didn't care, but there was always one or two who were either more really excited or really pissed off than they should be. Of course the retort was always 'its after noon, jokes on you!' No......pretty sure they still looked like the fool. Its lost its novelty with the public and corporations do most of the pranks. LAX airport once put a giant sign on its roof saying 'Welcome To Cleveland' one year and the whole Rick Rolling trend started as an April fools prank.

Yin and yang.

...The History of Easter.
Easter is my favourite real holiday. Summer is on the way, the candy is better, bunnies are cute, and who doesn't like an Easter egg hunt? Like Christmas its a Christian holiday celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Again, like Christmas, the date is based on an old Pagan celebration of spring and rebirth that the season of spring represents. It honoured the Pagan 'god' of Eostre (or Eastre in some translations) who was associated with eggs and hares, other symbols of rebirth. Why hares? They often showed up at the beginning of spring and as we all know they tend to multiply, lots of new life there. One of the differences between rabbits and hares is that hares sleep in nests above ground. So when it came time to hide eggs for the kids, the nests seemed like good places. The first mention of an Easter Bunny/Hare was in Germany during the 1600s. The idea developed and spread and here we are.

Efficiency is key.

In Australia rabbits are hated. They are an invasive species and have run rampant all over. They even built a fence that spanned the country in order to prevent them from spreading. So the Australians eat chocolate bilbys instead.

How about anothe bilby on the barbie?

...Why Nostrils Get Clogged One at a Time.
I've been getting over a head cold for a few days now. One of the things I hate most about it is the fact that only one nostril gets clogged. For me, I find with only one nostril the air coming in is colder and kinda stings. Does this happen to anyone else? Anyway....looks like our nostrils are the bodies version of a tag team champion. Every time you breath more air goes in one hole than the other and after a few hours it switches. There's erectile tissue in your nose (yes, that kind of erectile) and it swells in one nostril closing the pathway the air takes. One reason could be is that certain smells are better perceived with quick air and others with slow air. This way we have a chance of picking it up at anytime of the day. If we pick up one of these scents in our left nostril, our body gives us a clue as to where its coming from. Handy if you're looking for food or a mate. It also gives it a break. While one works the other rests. This effect just becomes more obvious when sick and your sinus are full. A trick I heard to unclog them, but it doesn't seem to work for me, is to press the roof of your mouth with your tongue and press a finger between your eyebrows. It moves your vomer bone and allows snot to drain. See if it works for you.

Reese Witherspoon's first role.

...How Nice The Lister Block is.
The lister block is not a block, but a building, located in Hamilton (obviously). Its found at the corner of James St. and King William St. First built in 1886 it was used as a commercial shopping centre and named after Joseph Lister the buildings first owner. It caught on fire in 1923 and was rebuilt and dubbed 'Canada's First Shopping Mall. It was a very important building and most of Hamilton's population shopped there and its top floor was used for various doctor offices. It was the Eaton Centre of its time. In 1995 the last tenant moved out and the building sat empty up until a year ago. Hamilton's HIStory + HERitage project took over a space and started renovating. Many of Hamilton's City Services offices are moving there and a lot of small businesses. There is even a space for the CBC to house their Hamilton radio station when they decide to move in. It has a very 1960s feel to it and its nice.

Fancy dancy

...Why Dahlonega is Important. I came across the town of Dahlonega, Georgia through a guest at the hotel. I was entering his address in the computer and tried to pronounce it (I was close). That’s when he said 'the site of the USA's first gold rush'.....Sir, this is my favourite type of fact. Something that just pops up in the conversation. Dahlonega is located in the north part of Georgia in Lumpkin County and is home to about 5200 people. I had no idea that gold was ever 'rushed' in that part of the country. It started in 1828 and lasted to the 1840s when it became harder to find. Once gold was discovered in San Francisco in 1848 most miners headed west and the Georgia rush all but ended. Dahlonega is Cherokee for 'yellow' in fact and a mint was built in the town to make coins from all the gold found there. Currently the town is in the vineyard business. If you're a guy it might be a good place to visit. Almost 50% of the population is between 18 and 24 years old with 100 women for every 69.3 men.

The life of a miner is tough.

Phew.

...I Suffer From Malapropism.

Malapropism is when you use a word incorrectly in place of a similar sounding word. It isn't "you're" instead of "your" or "they're" instead of "their", that's just bad grammar. Its saying "Self-depreciating" when its "Self-deprecating". They're meant to have a humourous outcome as any late night comic/TV show displayed for us constantly a few years ago. Remember this guy:

Malapropism Accomplished

He used them all the time, and not on purpose. It seemed like every speech he made he flubbed. "If the terriers and bariffs are torn down, this economy will grow." or "Oftentimes, we live in a processed world, you know, people focus on the process and not results." Dan Quayle ("Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child.") and Yogi Berra ("Texas has a lot of electrical votes") are two other people who unintentionally made them. Shakespeare used them on purpose for various literary devices such as foreshadowing.

I was using malaproisms before they were cool.

My family also suffers from it. The best example I can come up with was during a game of Monopoly with the family. It was down to my grandparents, and my grandma had landed on a square with a hotel. She was done for, but her stubbornness wouldn't allow her to admit defeat. She had sole and mortgaged everything but still kept trying to find a way to not lose. My grandpa had had enough and asked 'Well, do you conceive?" We had a good laugh at that. I can think of two that most people use very often: 'Do you take interact?" instead of 'Interac' and when people say 'for all intensive purposes' instead of 'for all intents and purposes'.

You're screwed.

And that is what I learned today.

Bonus Fact:
-A Mondegreen is when something is misheard instead of being missaid. Elton John's 'Bennie and the Jets' is a good example. No one knows the lyrics to that....

...Some Australian Slang.

I watched the Australian series Wilfred the other day. Not all of it in one day mind you, but over the period of a few. Its about a guy (Adam) who moves in with his girlfriend and her dog. Everyone except Adam and the audience sees the dog as a regular dog, but we see a man dressed in a dog suit. It sounds ridiculous, and it is, but it's also pretty good. You might know it since they also made a American version of it with Elijah Wood.

Not that Wilfred. 

The dog, Wilfred, smokes and drinks and will have sex with pretty much everything (he is a dog after all). After a while I started to notice that he used the word 'root' as a verb. It took me a little while longer to realize that it was a euphemism for 'fuck'. In all senses of the word. Wilfred kept saying 'he was in the mood for a root' or 'give her a root' and I thought he literally meant a root. From a tree or something. Dogs like to dig stuff up don't they?

Doesn't look sexual at all.

Some other slang I came across that I enjoy:
Back of Bourke : a very long way away
Banana bender : a person from Queensland
Billy : teapot. Container for boiling water.
Bush telly : campfire
Dunny : outside lavatory
Jumbuck : sheep
Lunch, who opened their? : OK, who farted?
Snag : a sausage
Tinny : can of beer
Wog : flu or trivial illness
There were a lot of short forms too:
Ambo : ambulance, ambulance driver
Avos : avocados
Bizzo : business ("mind your own bizzo")
Compo : Workers' Compensation pay
Doco : documentary
Garbo : municipal garbage collector
Kero : kerosene
Polly : politician
Rellie or relo : family relative
Vejjo : vegetarian

And that is what I learned today.

More things about vinegar.

...Other Names for the 7 Dwarfs.

Nifty, Snappy, Awful, Sniffy, Woeful, Dizzy, and Baldy. Those could have been the 7 brave dwarfs that helped a poor white girl hide from her ultamite doom. These were some of the names that Disney executives came up with in 1937 for their new moving picture show Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Oh! The woe-manity!

What's funny to me is that these professional gentlemen all sat around at a meeting table, smoking cigarettes, and discussed each name and their merits, how easy they'd be to draw (not sure what Doleful looks like), and how easy they roll off the tounge. Some of my favourites: Biggo-Ego, Burpy, Hickey, Jaunty, Neurtsy, Shorty, Sneezy-Wheezy, Strutty, and Wistful. You can see the whole list here.

All those for 'Juanty' say aye...

Snow White was popularized by the Brothers Grimm in 1812. It wasn't until 100 years later when adaptd for Broadway did the dwarfs get any names. They were: Blick, Flick, Glick, Snick, Plick, Whick, and Quee. Disney's version was the very first full length animated feature ever produced and gave the dwarfs the names we are familiar with. It was also Disney's first full length movie and is the only traditional animated movie to be on the American Film Institute's Top 100 Movies of All Time list at #34 (Toy Story is the only other animated film at #99).

Not the Snow White I remember

And that is what I learned today.

OTHER THINGS I LEARNED:
-Wellington Wheat beer tastes like crap.