First of all, the source was: http://didyouknow.org  Amazing site, you should check it out regularly for updates.

You blink 15 000 times a day

The muscle that lets your eye blink is the fastest muscle in your body. It allows you to blink 5 times a second. On average, you blink 15 000 times a day. That’s about 10 times per minute, or more than five million times a year. Women blink more than men.

Jean-Dominique Bauby, a French journalist suffering from “locked-in” syndrome, wrote the book “The Driving Bell and the Butterfly” by blinking his left eyelid – the only part of his body that could move.

Animals blink too, of course. Some bird species, usually flightless birds, have only a lower eyelid, whereas pigeons use upper and lower lids to blink. Fish and insects do not have eyelids – their eyes are protected by a hardened lens.

To care for your eyes, eat carrots. They really do make you see better. Vitamin A is known to prevent “night blindness,” and carrots are loaded with Vitamin A. Deficiency of Vitamin A actually is a significant world problem, comparable to that of protein deficiency and second only to caloric deficiency.

Carrots also contain fiber, potassium, vitamin C, and beta-carotene, which may reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer. Carrots have zero fat content. One carrot provides more than 200% of recommended daily intake of Vitamin A.

Carrots were first cultivated in 500 BC in the Mediterranean regions. The first carrots were purple, white, and yellow. They were introduced in Europe in the 1600s. Orange carrots – the ones we know today – were first grown in Japan in the 17th century, and later made popular by the Dutch.

Mel Blanc, who played the voice of Bugs Bunny, was allergic to carrots.

Human bones for furniture

The characters in the movies Psycho and Silence of the Lambs are based on a real person, Ed Gein. He died on July 26, 1984 of respiratory failure in the Mendota Mental Health Institute, Wisconsin. His victims were not so lucky. Ed was a grave robber who had developed a taste for slicing up people. He murdered his victims, cut them up, and then used their bones to make furniture. When caught in 1957, his room featured lampshades and chair seats made of human skin.

Role of oxygen in breathing

For thousands of years people did not know why we breathe air. Plato and Aristotle believed that nutrients from food were burned in the heart, making the flame that brought warmth and life to the body. They thought that the air that we breathe helped to keep the fire controlled. Oxygen was discovered to be a chemical element, and vital in breathing, by 18th century scientists such as Joseph Priestley, Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier. It was Lavoisier, who is regarded as the founder of modern chemistry, who named oxygen.

Oxygen is necessary for the chemical reactions inside a cell. (The word oxygen is from the Greek meaning acid burning.) These cellular respirations break up nutrients from food and set free the energy for driving the cell’s life process. A pretty important process considering you breathe up to 23 000 times a day.

Feathers per square inch

A swan has up to 25,000 feathers but a hummingbird has the fewest feathers of all birds – only about 1,000 feathers. But being so small, it has more feathers per square inch than most other birds.

A hummingbird beats its wings up to 80 times per second, flying at speeds up to 35 mph (56km/h). Its heart beats more than 1200 times per minute. Which means it needs a lot of food and liquid for energy. It eats up to half its own weight and drinks 8 times its weight in water each day.  Its long tubular tongue licks nectar at 13 times a second.

The hummingbird is one of the smallest bird species and the only one that is known to be able to fly backwards.

The size of the sun in comparison

It is the fire of life. It can be kind but it can get angry. But it never throws its weight around. It is the sun. And although it is 330,000 more massive than earth and contains 99.8% of the mass in our solar system, it is small in comparison with some other stars.

The sun never cease to amaze us with its theatrics, its lava flares dancing across its surface in a ballet of nuclear fusion, sometimes leaping millions of miles into the air. And although the sun is big, its intense heat and light makes it difficult to capture good images with normal instruments. So NASA scientists use an Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager and an Atmospheric Imaging Assembly detector to view the ultra-violet (UV) and extreme ultra-violet lithography (EUV) wavelengths released by the sun. The resulting images are spectacular.

Full disk image of the sun. Ain’t it beautiful?!

Full disk image of the sun as taken by NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory, which orbits 22,300 miles above earth.

Earth in comparison to the sun

Earth’s distance from the sun varies between 91.4 million miles – in January – and 94.4 million miles – in July. The average distance of 92,955,887.6 miles (149,?597,?870.7 kilometers) is called 1 astronomical unit (AU), a measurement that is used to report distances to other planets and stars as well. In short, it’s not a weekend drive.

NASA puts the size of earth to the sun in perspective like this: Suppose the radius of Earth were the width of an ordinary paper clip. The radius of the sun would be roughly the height of a desk, and the sun would be about 100 paces from earth.

Earth size in comparison to the sun and other planets:

(Hey, we’re small but we’re beautiful!)

The size of the sun in comparison

Our sun is one of billions in the entire universe. It also is fairly small in comparison with other big stars. In fact, our sun is classified as a G2 dwarf star. Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, is twice as massive as the sun and 25 times more luminous. And Sirius is dwarfed by Pollux, which is eight times the radius of the sun. And Pollux is dwarfed by Arcturus, which is almost 26 times the size of the sun.

It’s a big, big universe

But there are bigger stars yet. When compared to Antares, our handsome sun is a mere pixel on a map. And Antares is not even the biggest star. That title is thought to belong to a star called VY Canus Majoris. It is about 2,000 times the size of the sun, or more than twice the size of Antares.

Sun in comparison to Antares:

Note that it VY Canus Majoris is the biggest in size but not mass. The currently known most massive star is thought to be WR 102ka – known as Peony Nebula Star – at about 175 times the mass of the sun.

How big is the universe?

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe calculated the age of the known universe at 13.7 billion years old, based on its radius of 13.7 billion light years. And it is growing bigger every day, at a speed of 71 km/s/Mpc. The size of the whole universe is estimated to be 78 billion light years. If you start traveling today at 60 miles per hour (100km/h) you’ll get to the end of your first coffee stop, the end of one light year, in nine trillion years. Then you just keep going for another 77 billion light years. Or you could stay here, look after our beautiful planet… and enjoy the sun.

Sharks are immune to all known diseases

Sharks are the only animals that never get sick: they are immune to every known disease including cancer. Their body frames are not made up of bones – they are made of cartilage, the tough, fibrous tissue that shapes our noses and ears. Instead of scales shark skins have small tooth-like spikes that are so sharp that shark skin has long been used as sandpaper. It is thought that some types of big sharks, including the Great White, change sex when they reach a certain size: males become females to ensure survival of their species.

Although sharks are one of the most feared animals, fatal attacks on humans are fairly rare in comparison to many other incidents. Fatal attacks by dogs outnumber sharks ten and more times per year and you are 50 times more likely to be hit by lightning. A shark attack comparison by PressExposure reads like this:

“The US has a population of 300 million, your odds of being a victim of a shark attack are 1 in 8 million. In comparison, your odds of dying from a fall down the stairs are 1 in 200,000. Your odds of dying from a wasp, bee or hornet sting are 1 in 5.9 million. Your odds of dying from a lightning strike are 1 in 4.3 million. Your odds of drowning in your bathtub are 1 in 800.000. Other causes of death with a higher probability then being attacked by a shark are: dying from an adverse reaction to antibiotics with the odds being 1 in 7 million, being killed by a falling object has odds of 1 in 400,000, being killed by an agricultural machine has odds of 1 in 500,000 and being killed in a motor vehicle accident has odds of 1 in 6,000.”

Wigs that are 3 feet high

In 1500 BC in Egypt women shaved their head as the ultimate display in beauty. Remaining hair was removed with special gold tweezers and then their scalps were buffed to a high sheen with soft cloths. Over the next 100 years the rich Egyptian women placed cones of scented grease on their heads, allowing the grease to melt and drip down over their bodies, bathing bodies and clothes in fragrance.

The exact opposite would be in practice by the 18th century in England when women’s wigs were sometimes 3 ft (1 metre) high. The wigs were dusted with flour and decorated with stuffed birds, fruit, replicas of gardens, or even model ships. Women would wear the wigs continuously for several months. They were matted with lard to keep them from coming apart, which made mice and insects a constant problem, leading to the spreading of skin lice in the upper classes. When a hair-powder tax was introduced in 1795, the wig craze disappeared abruptly.

1775 etch ridiculing Frenchwoman as Englishman shoots at birds nesting in her tall wig.
More fascinating hair art at BibliOdyssey

The return of the tall wig

Wigs did not disappear completely, of course. Even today, the wig business is a billion dollar industry. After all, a wig is a fashion accessory. But those are wigs that look like natural hair… even though they often are made from acrylics, nylon, polyester, horse hair, or buffalo hair. Although, wigs made with human hair are more popular, even though they are much more expensive, because they can be colored or permed.  Most human hair wigs are made from Asian hair because of supply and also because they are straighter and stronger than other people’s hair.

Tall wigs can still be found… a la Lady Gaga. She has at least 20 wigs (not all tall, of course). Which is some way off the amount of wigs that Faustina the Elder (A.D. 100-141) had: 300 wigs!

Valentine’s Day – festival of love

Valentine’s Day originates from the ancient Roman fertility festival of Lupercalia, which was celebrated on 15 February in honor of the gods Lupercus and Faunus, as well as the legendary founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus. During the festival, young men would draw the names of women from a box, and each couple would be paired until next year’s celebration. Often they would fall in love and marry.

At around 270AD Rome was facing battles and civil uprising. The men were not keen to join the army. Emperor Claudius II believed that the men did not want to leave their loved ones and summarily canceled all marriages and engagements. Two priests, Valentine and Marius, disobeyed the decree and secretly performed marriage ceremonies. Valentine was caught on 14 February and dragged to jail. Later in the day he was clubbed to death and beheaded. It is said that, before his execution, Valentine himself had fallen in love with the jailer’s daughter. He signed his final note to her, “From your Valentine.”

Valentine’s Day

In 391AD, Emperor Theodosius I declared Christianity as the official religion of the Rome. The fertility festival was celebrated until 496AD when Pope Gelasius replaced it with a similar celebration. For patron saint of the celebration, he chose the “lovers” saint, St Valentine. He also moved the date of the celebration from the 15 February to the date of St Valentine’s death, 14 February. Through the centuries, Valentines Day became to be remembered more as the festival of love instead of a religious day. In 1969 it was dropped from the Roman Catholic calendar as a designated feast day.

Cupid and Psyche

Cupid has always played a role in the celebrations of love. Those whose hearts are pierced by his arrows fall deeply in love. In Greek mythology he was known as Eros, the young son of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. To the Romans, he was Cupid, son of Venus. But where there’s love, there often is jealousy. Venus was jealous of the beauty of Psyche, a mere mortal, and ordered Cupid to punish her (for being so beautiful). Instead, Cupid fell deeply in love and took her as his wife.

As a mortal Psyche was forbidden to look at him. Eventually her sisters convinced her to look at the handsome Cupid. As punishment, Venus demanded that she perform three difficult tasks, the last of which caused Psyche’s death. Cupid found her lifeless on the ground and removed the eternal sleep from her body. The gods, moved by their love, then granted Psyche immortality.

The symbol of Cupid became part of Valentines Day only recently. Cupid is still around shooting his arrows. Psyche represents the struggles of the human soul.

It is said that Cupid’s arrows are tipped with diamonds, lending it magic without equal.

Happy Valentine’s!

Esther Howland, the woman who produced the first commercial American valentines in the 1840s, sold a then mind-boggling ,000 in cards her first year of business. Today, over 1 billion valentine cards are sent in the US – second in number only to Christmas cards.

The rose is the symbol of love, but the flower symbol for February actually is the violet.
A rose is the symbol for June: meaning of flowers

Valentine’s Day originates from the ancient Roman festival of fertility, which was held annually on 15 February. The 14th of February was celebrated in honor of Juno, the queen of the Roman gods and goddesses. Juno was also the goddess of women and marriage.

Artificial Intelligence

In 1637 Rene Descartes, the French mathematician and philosopher, predicted that it would never be possible to make a machine that thinks as humans do. That was a rather astonishing observation considering that the concept of the analytical machine was devised by Charles Babbage only two hundred years later. Babbage never completed his analytical engine but his theories laid the early foundation for artificial intelligence.

The father of Artificial Intelligence is British mathematician Alan Mathison Turing. In 1950 he declared that in the future there would be a machine that would duplicate human intelligence. He devised a specialised test, known as the “Turing test”, to be used to prove artificial intelligence. In the test, a human and a computer hidden from view would be asked random identical questions. If the computer was successful, the questioner would be unable to distinguish the machine from the human.

In 1947 Turing argued that the brain could itself be regarded as a computer. Working on his Automatic Computer Engine, he declared that he was more interested in producing models of the action of the brain than in the practical applications of computers.

AI laboratories

The first conference on artificial intelligence was held at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire in 1956. It led to the establishment of the AI laboratories at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) by Marvin Minsky and John McCarthy (who invented the AI computer language called Lisp) and Stanford University by Edward Feigenbaum and Joshua Lederberg. Herbert Simon and Allen Newell of the Rand Corporation ran tests that showed the one and zeros in computer language could be used not only to represent numbers but also symbols. Between 1958 and 1960 psychologist Frank Rosenblatt of Cornell University modelled the Perceptron computer after the human brain. He “trained” it to recognize the alphabet. The chase was on to develop “neuron networks” of computer processors.

The human brain consists of more than 100 billion nerve cells (neurons) through which the brain’s commands are sent in the form of electric pulses. It can process many operations at the same time (such as thinking, talking and walking at the same time). This is called parallel processing. Computers follow sets of logic steps, procedures called algorithms. Fast computers perform roughly 10 billion calculations per second. Supercomputers use multiple processors to follow several algorithms simultaneously.

Back to the power of reasoning

When IBMs Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Gary Kasparov in 1997 it was a boost for AI developers. Today, a host of “smart devices” can recognize postal codes, patterns, symbols, handwriting, voices, etc. But no computer has yet mastered “plain, common sense.” Computers, it seems, can talk to each other but not to humans.

If the computer is to think like humans then its brains should be developed to be like that of a human. So, instead of using digital processors, scientists have developed silicon chips that work in analogue mode, the way a human brain cell works. A computer at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois used this mode of operation to process highly abstract problems, crudely approximating human reasoning.

The androids

The idea of personal assistant robots are not too far off, perhaps. But how will these human-like robots, called androids, behave and how will they be governed? Won’t they “take over the world?” If the robot laws of Isaac Asimov is followed, we’ll be safe.
1. Asimov’s first law is that robots may not harm humans either through action or inaction.
2. They must obey humans except when the commands conflict with the first law.
3. Androids must protect themselves except, again, when this comes into conflict with the first law.

Which one is the computer? Computers talk to each other easily but not to us. Is there something we should know about artificial intelligence?

Open a birthday card, listen to Happy Birthday – and throw the card in the bin. You’ve just thrown away more computer power that existed in the whole world before 1950. Computer power is being developed at a staggering speed.

Charles Babbage (1792-1871) is the father of the computer. He did not complete his analytical computer because he couldn’t raise finance for it.

Factoids
Alan Turing (1912 – 1954) was born and studied in London but earned his doctorate from Princeton University in the US in 1938. During WW II he deciphered the German Enigma codes. It played an important role in the victory of the Allies. He committed suicide by ingesting cyanide.

It takes the human brain approximately one-half second to process and act on an input. Even average computers need less than half that time. But computers cannot process the extremely complex processes of thought creation and emotions… yet.

Well-known science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov also wrote mysteries, studies of the Bible, interpretations of Shakespeare and informative articles on chemistry, astronomy, biology and mathematics. He also laid down rules for the future androids.

The word “robot” comes from the Czech robota, which means labor. Playwright Karel Capek introduced the word robot in his 1920 play R.U.R. – Rossum’s Universal Robots.

In 270BC ancient Greek engineer Ctesibus made organs and water clocks with movable figures, effectively producing the world’s first robot.

Decoding the Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown’s 2003 historical novel The Da Vinci Code provided some food for thought… or was it just gooyie gum with an odd taste? Take a bite!

Long before Dan Brown put pen to paper the concept of Jesus having been (happily) married and “moving on” (to southern France – in Brown’s scenarios) much was written about the life of Jesus after the crucifixion. From the second century onward almost 5 000 pieces of manuscripts have been found – mostly discovered during the 20th century – that beckoned to be included in the New Testament. Since none of the original New Testament gospels have as yet been discovered (only copies and copies of copies exist) we continue to be entertained by the many views in the many debates surrounding the fascinating life of Jesus.

Cracking the code
Described by New York Times as a “riddle-filled – code-breaking – exhilaratingly brainy thriller – ” The Times described it as “littered with misconceptions – howlers and location descriptions straight out of tourist guide books.” The Da Vinci Code garnered effusive – even ebullient – praise from numerous reviewers. The Library Journal raved – “This masterpiece should be mandatory reading”; the Chicago Tribune marveled that the book contained “several doctorates” worth of fascinating history and learned speculation”; Salon magazine described the novel as “an ingenious mixture of paranoid thriller – art history lesson – chase story – religious symbology lecture and anti-clerical screed.” Carl E. Olson and Sandra Miesel tries to crack the code in this Planet Envoy article

Was Jesus married?

What do we know about Mary Magdalene? The idea that Mary Magdalene was married to Jesus is not attested in the Gospels. Eleven passages in the NT address who Mary Magdalene was: She was a beneficiary of exorcism. She was present at Jesus’ crucifixion and was there when Jesus was laid in the tomb. She was present when it was discovered that the tomb was empty. She was further the beneficiary of one of the first appearances of the Lord after His resurrection. It is also unusual that she is identified as Mary of Magdala – because most names of women in the Bible are tied to mates to whom they are related. She is not connected to anyone. If she were married, she would have been so identified… according to Jim Eckman in Issues in Perspective

December – 25th
The Da Vinci Code – on page 232: claims: “Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian god Mithras – called the Son of God and the Light of the World – was born on December 25 – died – was buried in a rock tomb – and then resurrected in three days. By the way – December 25 was also the birthday of Osiris – Adonis – and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold – frankincense – and myrrh.” Read on at aboutbibleprophecy

Why the ‘Lost Gospels’ Lost Out
“Serapion of Antioch (a bishop from 190 to 211) – who let some of his flock read the Gospel of Peter in church – until he read the book himself. He concluded that it had a heretical Christology – teachings about Jesus that did not conform to other ancient apostolic documents.” Ben Witherington III decodes The Da Vinci Code

The Gnostic texts were written after the books of Matthew (about 65 to 100AD), Mark (about 40 to 75), Luke (about 60 to 80) and John (about 90) – Richard Abanes

The early Christian Church was a chaos of contending beliefs – according to Bart Ehrman, author of Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew.

While code and decoding books race up the book sale rankings, the world’s best-selling book – which also happens to be the book most stolen from libraries – have ranked number 1 with such consistency that it is not even mentioned in sales lists anymore: The Bible.

What cigarettes contain

Tobacco is a 0 billion industry, producing six trillion cigarettes a year – about 1,000 cigarettes for each person on earth. And this is what you’ll find in cigarettes:

~ Formaldehyde, which embalmer use to preserve dead bodies;
~ Toluene, which is commonly used as an ingredient in paint thinner;
~ Acetone, an active ingredient in nail polish remover;
~ Ammonia, which scientists have discovered lets you absorb more nicotine, keeping you hooked on smoking.

If you smoke, you and those around you also inhaling arsenic, benzene, cadmium, hydrogen cyanide, lead, mercury and phonol. In all, 4000 harmful chemicals, including 44 types of poison, of which 43 are proven cancer-causing substances. That should be reason enough why a person should stop smoking immediately.

Bad business
Life insurance companies charge smokers nearly double the amount they charge non-smokers for term assurance. Some tobacco companies also own shares in life assurance companies. What appears to be a good deal for tobacco companies is a bad deal for taxpayers: the health care costs caused directly by smoking, and the lost economic productivity, cost governments up to three times as much as the total earnings of the tobacco industry.

Death
Smokers are ten times more likely to suffer from lung cancer than non-smokers, three times more likely to have a stroke, and twice more likely to suffer a heart attack. Carbon monoxide in cigarettes deprives the heart of oxygen. Smoking can cause headaches, infertility, blood vessel disease, digestive problems, mouth and throat cancer, and blindness.

Tobacco causes more deaths than those caused by all the wars of the past 100 years, including World Wars One and Two. More than three million people die each year as a result of smoking.

Nicotine is a drug. It is more addictive than cocaine, heroine or mandrax. Nicotine is a natural insecticide. Plants such as tomatoes produce it in their leaves to discourage bugs from eating them.

Stop smoking

After 8 hours, the carbon monoxide in your blood drops to normal.
After 48 hours, nerve endings start regrowing and the ability to smell and taste is enhanced.
After a year, the risk of heart disease drops halfway back to that of a non-smoker.
After 15 years, the risk of coronary heart disease is that of a non-smoker.

Easter bunny originates from ancient Anglo-Saxon carnival

The ancient Anglo-Saxons celebrated the return of spring with a carnival commemorating their goddess of offspring and of springtime, Eostre. The word carnival possibly originated from the Latin ‘carne vale’ meaning “flesh, farewell” or “meat, farewell.” The offerings were rabbits and coloured eggs, bidding an end to winter.

As it happened, the pagan festival of Eostre occurred at the same time of year as the Christian observance of the Resurrection of Christ and it didn’t take the Christian missionaries long to convert the Anglo-Saxons when they encountered them in the 2nd century. The offering of rabbits and eggs eventually (in the 8th century, it is thought) became the Easter bunny and Easter eggs.

Prior to 325 AD, Easter was variously celebrated on different days of the week, including Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. In that year, the Council of Nicaea was convened by emperor Constantine. It issued the Easter Rule which states that Easter shall be celebrated on the first Sunday that occurs after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox. The “full moon” in the rule is the ecclesiastical full moon, which is defined as the 14th day of a tabular lunation, where day 1 corresponds to the ecclesiastical New Moon. It does not always occur on the same date as the astronomical full moon. The ecclesiastical “vernal equinox” is always on 21st March but Easter Sunday is the Sunday following the Paschal Full Moon date for the year.

Christians commemorate the Friday before Easter as Good Friday, the day that Jesus was crucified. Easter Sunday is celebrated as the day Jesus rose again.

HOT CROSS BUNS

The word bun is derived from the Saxon word “boun” (pronounced “bo-han’) which means “sacred ox.” At the ancient Celtic feast of Eostre, an ox was sacrificed with the ox’s horns becoming a symbol for the feast. They were carved into the ritual bread, thus “hot cross buns.” Initially, the cross on the buns represented the moon, the heavenly body associated with the goddess Eostre, and its four quarters. Today, the cross on hot cross buns represents the cross of Christ.

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