Many words we use today are twisted versions of words used long ago. In fact, we can often watch words get twisted in our own lifetime. Technology is having a huge impact on the way we use language and will shape words we know into words that we don’t recognize. Thanks to technology, this transformation will be visible for future generations to study.

Thanks to the written word, we can study the evolution of the words we know as normal. Goodbye is a very common word, but it’s actually a contraction — it was a whole sentence 500 years ago. The first written usage of goodbye is from a 1573 letter written Gabriel Harvey. “To requite your [gallon] of godbwyes, I regive you a pottle of howdyes.”

Today, saying “bye” has the same basic meaning as “goodbye” since we’ve completely lost the original meaning of the phrase. Really, we’re just saying “be with ye” which doesn’t really make any sense. Etymologists believe a similar situation lead to “good” replacing “god” in that phrase too, people lost the sense of where the phrase came from and what its original meaning was so there was nothing to shape the way it was said.

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photo: knegtel (cc)

sources: TheFreeDictionary.com, Dictionary.com, Etymonline.com

Sleep can make you happier and more alert, motivated, and productive. If you’re healthy, it’s fairly straightforward to get these benefits from sleep if you know a little bit about your sleep cycles.

First, imagine if washing machines didn’t have timers and you had to guess when they finished their last cycle. If you stopped it too soon, your clothes would still be soapy; if you stopped it too late then it would start all over again. That would be a disaster; nobody would put up with that. Yet, that’s exactly what most people do with their sleep cycles.

You sleep in cycles. Each cycle usually lasts 90 – 110 minutes. It’s called a cycle because your brain and body go through a number of different stages during that time. The stages can be divided in different ways, but two of the most common divisions are REM (rapid eye movement) and non-REM.

The non-REM “deep sleep” phase is longer during the cycles earlier in the night and tend to get shorter during the later cycles. The REM phase is the opposite. Vivid dreams generally occur during REM sleep, so you tend to dream more as you get closer to your wakeup time.

Most of us get up at about the same time every day. Sometimes, you feel well rested; other times you feel like you barely slept at all. This wide variance can be caused by waking up in the middle of your sleep cycle rather than close to the end.

During a sleep cycle, your body is temporarily paralyzed. Some doctors and researchers believe this may be to prevent you from physically acting out the actions you perform in your dreams, potentially causing yourself harm or waking yourself up. If you wake up during a paralysis phase, you will feel groggy. Since a sleep cycle is typically ninety minutes, your total sleep time should be a multiple of ninety minutes.

Getting enough sleep is also important to your health. The length of your cycles and the exact number of cycles needed will vary by person. But, you’ll know you’ve had adequate sleep when you have no signs of sleepiness or dysfunction during daytime hours. In lab tests, sleep deprivation has shown to reduce white blood cell count, hurting the immune system. Sleep deprivation has also been linked to increased risk of: heart disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, memory lapses or loss, and irritability. It also slows your reaction time and accuracy.

There’s a free online calculator to help you calculate when you should go to sleep or wake up: http://sleepti.me. If you have a smartphone and want to be more precise, there are advanced alarm clock apps available such as Sleep Cycle that will wake you during the ideal point in your sleep cycle. I’ve tried Sleep Cycle and it works great. It is an iOS app, but there are plenty of Android and other options too — Elbyron has listed some in the comments. In general, these tools make you a lot more aware of your sleep cycles, which has definitely helped improve the quality of sleep that I get, even when I don’t use the app.

Sleep smarter and you’ll feel even better.

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Photo: Jeff Hill (cc)

Sources: wikipedia (sleep, sleep inertia), highexistence.com, sleepti.me

Someone who has always been a good friend to me is my buddy Rick. He is always good for new ideas and he happens to be a TV fanatic.

Two seasons after LOST started, Rick knew I’d love the show. He ran down the plot summary from the first two seasons over lunch and I was hooked before I even saw the show. Another time, he was telling me about a show he liked but was unhappy because it had “jumped the shark.” I wasn’t familiar with the phrase so he explained it to me.

In 1977, during the the fifth season of the TV series Happy Days, the character Fonzie was water skiing and literally jumped over a shark. You can see it in this clip:

The show had been extremely popular, but this stunt was a pivotal point which marked a steady downturn in the quality of the show. It was a grave departure from the stories in previous seasons and seemed to indicate that the writers had run out of ideas.

These days, the phrase is generally used to indicate that something is past its prime or has reached a point that is the beginning of an end.

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Photo: Bill Ward (cc)

Sources: Rick … and wikipedia (Jumping the Shark)

Most shirts used to have an irritating tag inside the back of the neckline. Some tags were particularly jagged and became increasingly torturous throughout the day.

The tags are useful because they displayed the shirt size, fabric type and care instructions. But, the shirt size is the only one that really needs to be there since it’s a convenient place to look when you’re browsing the rack for your size.

Thankfully, many shirt makers have started screen printing the size on the inside of the neckline. In those cases, the protruding tags are often moved to a more comfortable position — on the inside of the left seam near the bottom of the shirt. Not all garments have a side seam of course, but you will frequently find the tag there when they do.

I bring this to your attention not for superfluous trivia, but rather for a “landmark” you can find when you’re getting dressed in the dark. You may not want to turn the light on when your roommate or spouse is still sleeping, but you still want your clothes on correctly.

So far, this has held true for men and womens shirts, sweaters etc. Although I haven’t found any yet, there will likely be exceptions.

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]]> http://brokensecrets.com/2012/01/09/shirt-tags-are-moving-to-the-bottom-left-seam/feed/ 1 Broken Secrets hurley shirt http://brokensecrets.com/2012/01/05/its-normal-for-half-your-nose-to-always-feel-blocked/ http://brokensecrets.com/2012/01/05/its-normal-for-half-your-nose-to-always-feel-blocked/#comments Thu, 05 Jan 2012 07:00:00 +0000 Chad Upton http://brokensecrets.com/?p=6342 ]]> By Chad Upton | Editor

You probably don’t think about it much, but if you did, you’d notice that it often feels like one nostril or the other is always plugged. That’s completely normal for about 70% of adults.

Assuming you’re healthy, your “plugged” nostril actually allows a tiny amount of air through and your other nostril handles the rest. After an average of 2.5 hours, the cycle will shift and use the alternate nostril as the primary source of air. The following scan shows one nasal passage mostly blocked and the other mostly open.

For a long time, Eastern medicine has had theories about the purpose of this cycle and a number of exercises that involve moving air through a specific nostril. On the other hand, Western scientists didn’t come up with a physiological purpose for this phenomena until more recently.

Research indicates that the high/low flow approach in the two nostrils optimizes your sense of smell. As you’ve probably discovered first hand, or shall we say finger, the inside of your nose is lined with mucus. This mucus continues deep inside your nasal passage and is very important; it acts as a barrier and helps protect your brain from infection. But, it also means that something you smell has to be absorbed by the mucus before you can smell it.

This mucus absorbs different chemical compounds at different rates. Therefore, some smells are better detected when they are absorbed in more concentrated levels in the slow moving airstream of your plugged nostril while others are better smelled when absorbed in lower concentration through the fast moving airstream of the other nostril.

Humans have about 1.6 sq inches (10 cm²) of smell receptor cells in our nasal passage. By contrast, dogs have 17 times more space dedicated to these same receptors, and in greater density, which explains why their sense of smell is so much better than ours.

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Photo credit: Len Matthews (cc), Wikimedia Commons (cc)

Sources: wikipedia (Nasal Cycle, Olfaction)

If you have ever gone swimming for several hours or taken a really long bath, then you are probably familiar with the phenomenon referred to as “pruney fingers” or “raisin fingers.” A common explanation for this wrinkling of the hands (and feet) is that the skin absorbs excess water when submerged, which causes it to expand. This expansion increases the surface area of the skin, thereby resulting in wrinkles. So while these pruney fingertips may have the appearance of being shrunken or shriveled, they are actually larger than they were when dry. It has been suggested that fingers and toes are more susceptible to this effect than other areas of the body due at least in part to a lack of hair follicles, which produce sebum – an oily secreted substance that may act as a temporary protective barrier against water absorption.

But water uptake is only part of the story. As early as the 1930s, scientists noted that patients with palsy-related nerve damage in their hands showed no signs of water-induced wrinkling in the areas specifically affected by the impaired nerves. This insight suggested that the nervous system is actively involved in the wrinkling process, and additional research has shown that vasoconstriction – narrowing of the blood vessels – plays a role as well. A modern view of raisin fingers goes something like this: prolonged immersion leads to excess water uptake by the skin; the resulting electrolyte imbalance causes neurons to fire more rapidly, which causes blood vessels to constrict, thereby reducing blood flow underneath the skin and leading to a decrease in skin tension, thus causing wrinkling. This process is clearly more complicated than simple water-induced swelling, which is probably why most people have never heard about it. The complete physiological mechanism of action is likely a combination of water-induced swelling and vasoconstriction.

But none of this explains why fingers that look like little dried fruits should be a part of our biology in the first place. A new theory (put forth in a recent article in the journal Brain, Behavior and Evolution) proposes that wrinkles on the fingers and toes may actually act as miniature drainage channels to displace water and increase grip in wet conditions, similar to the rain treads on the tires of a car. In other words, when your fingers and toes get really wet, they wrinkle up to counteract the slickness of the water. Additional work still needs to be done for the theory to become more widely accepted, but it appears that the raisiny morphology may be an evolutionary adaptation for life in slippery environments.

As a professional bioengineer I feel inclined to run my own experiments, but I’m still waiting for my hot tub/climbing wall grant to go through.

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Sources: Amazing Health Trivia, WonderQuest, Wikipedia, Nature, 1Mark Changizi, et al

Image: Brian Zambrano (cc)

The HOLLYWOOD sign in Los Angeles, California needs little introduction.

Although it is often associated with movies and television it was originally erected in 1923 as an advertisement for a new housing development named Hollywoodland. It originally cost $21,000 to build the 50-foot high letters on Mount Lee, including the four thousand 20 watt bulbs that illuminated them.

The letters quickly became a symbol of the movie industry. Ironically, actress Peg Entwistle became famous when she climbed a workman’s ladder to the top of the “H” and allegedly jumped to her death in 1932. She was apparently unhappy about her failure as an actress. It’s true, she was not well known — it took two days for police to identify who she was, and only then because her uncle contacted them to see if it could be her.

In 1944, the housing developers transferred ownership of some land, including the Hollywoodland sign, to the City of Los Angeles. By 1949, the sign was in grave disrepair. As the city was demolishing it, public outcry turned the demolition into a refurbishing project, during which time it was shortened to HOLLYWOOD. The letters were shortened too, now standing 45 feet tall, instead of the original 50. More residents could identify with HOLLYWOOD since that was the name of the city from 1903 to 1910 and remains the name of the district today.

The 1949 sign was built from sheet metal and wood, which fared well considering its materials, but was falling apart by 1978. At this time, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce began a campaign to replace the sign with a more permanent version. Nine generous donors including, Hugh Hefner; Warner Brothers Records and Alice Cooper, each paid $27,700 to reconstruct a letter. In 2009, Hugh Hefner saved the sign again when he donated $1 million to The Trust for Public Land, an organization formed to protect the area from further real estate development.

Decades of temporary alterations to the sign began in 1976, some authorized and some not. A few of the more famous modifications include: HOLLYWEED, HOLYWOOD, GO NAVY, CALTECH, OLLYWOOD, OIL WAR, PEROTWOOD, GO UCLA, SAVE THE PEAK, JOLLYGOOD. To prevent further unauthorized modifications, the LAPD installed a motion detector alarm system in 2000.

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Photo: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid (cc)

Sources: Wikipedia (Hollywood Sign, Peg Entwistle), Film Bug, Beachwood Canyon

Although it looks like a rockstar tour bus, this is one of at least 40 mobile execution vehicles that China uses for capital punishment. Just like a blood bank bus or MRI trailer brings a scarce resource to a remote community, death vans tour the Chinese countryside executing criminals.

Whether you agree with capital punishment or not, China is good at it. They should be, they do it more than all other countries combined. The question is: do they do it ethically?

China doesn’t disclose how many executions it performs each year, but Amnesty International estimates at least 1718 were conducted in 2008. Another group believes the number could be as high as 4,000 per year now and 8,000 when it was at its peak.

China is trying to reduce the number of executions it carries out. In 2006, Chinese law dictated sixty-eight offenses, including tax evasion, that were punishable by death. Earlier this year, tax fraud and some other non-violent crimes were removed from the death penalty list. Since 2007, all execution orders are reviewed by the high court to help ensure ethical reasoning.

A lethal injection, made from the same ingredients used in the United States, is administered in the back of the death van. The execution is broadcast live to local authorities who verify the execution is carried out legally.

But, some agencies have raised questions about what happens to the bodies after the execution. The government has indicated the bodies are taken directly to the crematorium. However, some people have complained that the bodies are not available to be viewed before they are cremated. This has sparked rumors that organs from the bodies could be sold on the black market. The Ministry of Health has tried to crack down on this by tightening controls over organ transplants. However, Amnesty International in Hong Kong claims they have evidence suggesting the Chinese police, courts and hospitals participate in the organ trade.

Historically, gunshots have been the most popular method of capital punishment in China. They’re cheap, quick and don’t require a lot of expertise to perform. The gunshot executions are still used, but they’re being replaced by lethal injection. They’re not performed by a firing squad like some other countries, they are performed by one shooter.

Some people wish the government continued to use guns since lethal injections are expensive. The lethal cocktails costs about $125 and a trip to the execution chamber can cost local authorities as much as $250. The death vans were created to help reduce the cost of lethal injections; instead of sending all the criminals to the cities, the death vans come to them.

Ironically, one of the companies that makes these killing machines also makes bulletproof vehicles that help others escape death.

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Source: NY Times, USA Today, AFP/Google

Photo: Jinguan Group

No matter which mobile phone carrier you use, you’ll eventually drop a call with somebody. Even if you don’t have a cellphone, you still have to deal with dropped calls when you’re talking with people who do.

Sometimes you both try to call each other at the same time and get each other’s voicemail. Other times, you try to call the other person and they’re still talking away, oblivious to the fact that the call was dropped.

Rule #1: Whoever initiated the call, initiates the call back after a dropped call.

To some, this rule is obvious. But, it needs to be stated to remove any confusion and prevent the double voicemail dilemma.

Rule #2: Whoever was listening when the call was dropped, remembers the last sentence the other person said.

This is less obvious, but since the listener is the only one who knows exactly when the call was dropped; they need to remember the last sentence or at least the topic — this may be the same person who needs to call the other person back.

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Photo: addicted eyes (cc)

You probably learned about rods and cones in high school biology class. These retinal cells allow our brains to process light so we can see. But, there is a third type of cell that most people don’t know about: photosensitive ganglion cells.

They don’t have a cool name like Rods and Cones, but what they lack in name they make up for in swagger. Much like rods and cones, they send light information to the brain. Instead of using this information to “see”, the brain uses it to synchronize your body’s circadian rhythm to the 24-hour light/dark cycle of this planet. These “lion” cells are the original atomic clock.

They’re also used to control the pupillary light reflex. When you doctor, or local police officer, shines a bright light in your eyes, these cells are used to close your irises to limit the bright light hitting your retinas. Additionally, they help regulate melatonin — the hormone that controls several biological functions, including sleep.

Most research indicates that the ganglion cells are sensitive to light in the spectrum between 460 and 484 nm, or “blue” light which is prevalent in the visible spectrum of sunlight. Basically, this is why you get sleepy when it gets dark and why you start to “wake up” when it gets light outside.

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Photo: bigbluemeanie (cc)

Sources: nature.com, wikipedia (pupillary light reflex, photoreceptor cell, photosensitive ganglion cells, melatonin)

The thirty mile zone (aka “TMZ” or “studio zone”) is the approximately thirty mile area in Southern California where America’s movie industry is based. However, New Jersey was the center of film in America before Hollywood.

Thomas Edison owned a majority of the patents on motion picture cameras and through these patents, he tightly controlled who could make films. In 1908, he formed the Motion Picture Patents Company, a licensing trust that included other important motion picture patent holders, including Eastman Kodak, who sold the only film stock that film makers could legally purchase.

The patents allowed the group to use law enforcement to prevent unauthorized use of their cameras, film, projectors or any variation of this equipment that included features that infringed on their patents. In some cases they hired thugs to do the enforcement.

Understandably, these tight restrictions stifled inovation and crippled the film industry.

Independent filmmakers fled to Hollywood. The physical distance from the Edison Trust made it easy to work on their films without the tight control and patent enforcement.

The reliable sunshine and temperature also made Hollywood a more suitable place to make films year-round.

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Sources: filmbug, wikipedia (motion picture patents company)

Photo: Heather Culligan (cc)

How much is your fridge space worth?

Traditional watermelons take up a lot of space in your fridge. So, farmers in Japan came up with a way to grow square watermelons.

Square watermelons are a better use of space in your fridge and during shipping. When you pack them together there isn’t as much “empty” space in the corners. They’re also more convenient because they don’t roll over, they stand on their own.

From a practical standpoint, they’re definitely better. But, are they worth the money? In Japan, they go for the equivalent of about $82 USD. These watermelons are available in some US specialty grocery shops as well. These Panama imports are going for $75 and up.

If you want square watermelons without the obtuse price, you might consider growing your own. You can do it just like the Japanese farmers if you pickup a polycarbonate mold to grow them in. Basically, you fit the case around the watermelon as it starts growing and the watermelon grows to fill the shape of the case. The case runs for about $110 USD, but you can use it to grow many watermelons. Once you’ve grown two, you’ve more than paid for it.

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Photo: solution_63 (cc)

Sources: CNN, slashfood, snopes, square-watermelons.com

Sailors have it easy these days — an inexpensive GPS will tell you how fast your ship is travelling. Heck, even your smartphone can do it if you have the right app. That’s how I clocked the car ferry on Lake Michigan at 35 mph (56 km/h) last summer.

However, a blackberry could not measure your speed 450 years ago. That required a “chip log” (aka “ship log” or “log”). This was a spool of rope attached to a small piece of wood. The sailors would place the wood in the water where it would drag in the water, unspooling the knotted rope. One sailer count the knots passing over the haul and another would use a 30 second sandglass to measure the time. They had a table to lookup the speed (“knots”) based on the number of knots that passed by.

Although the method has changed significantly, the units are still called “knots.” To put that in a way that might have more meaning, one nautical mile translates to 1.151 miles or 1.852 km.

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Sources: wikipedia (knots, chip log)

Photo: Rémi Kaupp (gnu license)

There are thousands of grape varieties out there. You’ll find a couple of them in the grocery store and another fraction of them in wine making.

Casual wine drinkers might be able to name a couple dozen grape varieties used for wine, but two of the most common are actually the same grape: Syrah and Shiraz.

Why have two names for the same thing?

Based on current naming conventions, it appears to have happened when the grape was introduced to Australia in 1832, where it is known as Shiraz. Before then, it was mostly found in the Rhône valley of Southern France, where it is known as Syrah. It is also known as Shiraz in South Africa

Outside of these regions, the wines made from these grapes are marketed as either Shiraz or Syrah. The choice is sometimes arbitrary, but often has to do with the flavor of the wine. A smokey, tannic wine from these grapes could be called a Syrah since it is similar in character to those made in Rhône valley. Conversely, a sweet, fruity, peppered version might be labelled a Shiraz because it’s more like an Australian classic.

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Photo: Adrian Midgley (cc)

Sources: wikipedia (Syrah), wine-searcher

Often inspired by the Disney fairytales of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, many young girls dress as princesses for Halloween.

While they are popular fairytales, these theme-park castles are largely based on a real castle in Germany – Neuschwanstein Castle. Look at the resemblance:

Disney has also noted the inspiration from structures in France too: Notre Dame de Paris and Hospices de Beaune.

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Sources: wikipedia (Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, Cinderella Castle, Neuschwanstein Castle)

Photos: Katie Rommel-Esham (cc) Jack Versloot (cc)

Although we typically use QR codes with our mobile phones, they were actually invented by a Japanese company (Denso) for tracking products during manufacturing. Even though they’ve been around since 1994, QR codes have only started to become popular in North America in the past few years. They’re also known as “matrix”, “2d” or “square” barcodes.

Traditional 1 dimensional barcodes are very limited in the amount of information they can store in a small space, generally an 8-24 digit number. The number in a traditional bar code is really only useful if you have a database or table where you can lookup that number to get more meaningful information, such as the price of the item at a grocery store. QR codes can contain a lot more data.

They’re called Quick Response codes because the data is in the code and it doesn’t have to be looked up in a table to be meaningful. For example, the QR code in this article contains a URL to another post on the blog related to bar codes. When you scan it with your phone’s QR app, your phone can decode the image into the URL, no remote lookup is required. QR codes can also be used to get text or send sms text messages and dial phone numbers.

These codes appear on everything from magazine and TV advertisements to product packaging and restaurant menus. But, one of my favorite places to see QR codes are alongside street addresses. Instead of typing the long address in your phone and risking a wild-goose chase inducing typo, scan the code and go.

So, how do you get your phone to interpret these codes? Here are the names of a couple QR reading apps on each of the major platforms.

Android: QR Droid, mobiScan QR

iOS: RedLaser, pic2shop

BlackBerry: QR Code Scanner Pro, mobiletag 2D barcodes scanner

Windows: QR Reader, Quickmark

Microsoft also has their own variant called “tag.” Tags look a bit different than QR codes and they require Microsoft’s own mobile app to read them. Tags do provide a bit of a branding enhancement since the user will see a picture of your choice in the MS app, making it easier to identify your link when they’re browsing through their tags later. The tag app is available for Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Symbian, J2ME and of course Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7. Unfortunately, this app does not read regular QR codes. If it did, maybe they’d see better traction on this app, especially since they’re one of the few QR readers that lives on every major platform.

There are hundreds of millions of smartphones and tablets that can use QR codes; it’s surprising they’re not even more popular than they already are. Maybe some people like thumb typing.

Code generators: QRStuff, Kaywa, MS Tag

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Sources: intomobile.com, wikipedia (qr code)

Like many kids, I didn’t like vegetables — especially carrots and broccoli. Adults frequently told me that carrots would improve my eyesight, so that seemed like a good reason to try liking them.

There was one person who didn’t tell me this, he actually told me the opposite. My grand father overheard somebody tell me that carrots would improve my eyesight and he let me in on a little secret — it was all a big lie. Carrots do not improve your eyesight.

Sure, carrots and many other foods do contain beta-carotene, which metabolizes into Vitamin A and everyone agrees that is essential for maintaining eye health, but it does not improve it. If you are not consuming enough vitamin A, any number of sources could help restore your vitamin A supply. Carrots themselves are not unique or magical in this way. In fact, carrots have less beta-carotene per 200 calorie serving than red peppers, kale and lettuce.

If lettuce, kale and red pepper have more beta-carotene than carrots, why do carrots get all the eyesight credit?

During World War II, the British were particularly good at shooting down Nazi bombers at night, when it’s almost impossible to see other planes. It was as if they had super-human sight, and they did. They had radar.

Once news stories started to circulate about these pilots with seemingly super-human eyes, the government needed a good explanation to prevent the Germans from learning about this technology. Carrots.

Flight Lieutenant John Cunningham, nicknamed ”Cats Eyes” for his incredible ability to shoot down enemy planes, had a natural love for carrots. The story wrote itself and they explained that they were feeding other pilots a lot of carrots to improve their eyesight too.

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Sources: duke health, snopes, self.com

When I was about 7 years old, my grade school classroom had an Apple II computer stashed in the corner of the room. I remember the excitement when our teacher said we could use the computer after we finished all of our work, even though I had no idea how to use it. Nobody knew how to use it, except for Woody.

Woody was the only kid who had a computer at home and it too was an Apple II. Since that was the first affordable mass-market computer, if any home or small business had a computer, it was usually an Apple.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started the personal computer revolution. There’s no doubt it would have happened without them, but who knows when. Steve Wozniak had the drive to build prototypes of computers just for fun while his partner Steve Jobs had the vision and drive to sell them to people who didn’t know how to use them, like some other products Apple has recently been successful with.

When Steve Jobs passed away, his assets were estimated to be around $6 billion. With that kind of wealth, you could buy almost anything. So, when he received a liver transplant in 2009, a lot of people suggested that he bought his way to the top of the waiting list. How else could he have skipped ahead of 16,000 other people?

His wealth did help him, but not in the way that some have implied.

He was on the transplant waiting list. Well, he was actually on more than one waiting list. Some have even speculated that he was on all of the waiting lists.

So, why doesn’t everyone do this? The rule at the time was that you needed to be within 4 hours of the transplant hospital. For most people, that significantly reduces the number of transplant lists you could be on. But, if you’re a billionaire with a private jet on standby, you’re within 4 hours of a lot of places.

Even still, with so many people waiting, how did he get to the top of the list so quickly?

The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) audits the transplant centers to ensure fair treatment. So, he didn’t likely get to the top of the list because of his wealth or social status.

Since his jet gave him access to almost any transplant center in the country, he did what any smart analytical person would do: he figured out which transplant center had the shortest wait and made sure he was on that list. That’s how a guy who lives in Northern California ends up with a liver transplant in Tennessee. It turns out, the median wait time in Tennessee was 85% shorter than the national average.

The technology that Steve brought us will fade, but his approach to everything, including saving his own life, is the real gift he gave us. When Steve rejoined and began to rejuvenate Apple in 1997, the slogan was, “think different” and that sentiment is Steve’s real legacy.

Rest in peace.

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Sources: digital journal, cnn, slate, the daily beast

Some people think these shoes look weird:

But, they just look like feet. So, maybe it’s our shoe stressed feet that look weird. If you look at your toes, they’re not spread out like your fingers. Most people’s toes are squished together in the shape of a shoe, even when they’re not in shoes.

That’s weird.

I never really thought about it much, until I saw a pair of these shoes. They’re called “Five Fingers” and they’re made by a company called Vibram. They’re a bit pricey, so you may also want to look at Fila’s similar and slightly cheaper version called “Skele-toes.” This style of footwear are to shoes what winter gloves are to mittens.

These shoes and the growing category of “minimalist running shoes” are a hot trend in running circles right now. There are many reasons why, but the ten most convincing reasons are on the floor in front of you.

We’ve been cramming our feet into unnatural shoes since childhood, but what would our feet look like if we had never worn shoes? Probably something like this:

These feet actually look weird too; we’re used to seeing feet that are shaped like shoes.

The difference is glaring. Look at the straight black line in the first photo, it stretches from the big toe, across the ball of the foot to the heel. You can’t draw a straight line on the second photo that aligns these three important parts of your feet.

Cramping your foot’s style is not cool because that can lead to cramps and strains and lots of heel pains. If you’ve ever had foot pain or discomfort, you may think your shoes don’t have enough cushioning or that your arches have too much or too little support. While there are exceptions, these problems are generally myths perpetuated by the shoe industry that simply wants you to buy new shoes often.

Many of the best runners in the world, who consistently win marathons, run without any shoes at all. Do they have bad feet? No, they have really strong feet. They also have better knees and hips than runners who use thick padded running shoes. One medical study compared running in shoes to barefoot and fount that barefoot running demonstrated 38% lower knee torque and 54% less internal hip rotation torque. This means that running barefoot provides a much more natural motion for your joints. This notion is pretty surprising the first time you hear it, but there are a mountain of medical studies to support it.

Should you throw away your super spongy running shoes and go barefoot tomorrow? Probably not. Just like running in shoes, you need some education to do it the best way possible. Check your area for a local running club where you can learn, or look for some online videos on the subject. I’ve also got some great sources listed below which would make a good starting point.

Also, running on soft shoes might not be a good idea but research shows that running on soft surfaces is better than hard surfaces. Even though grass and dirt may have rocks and pits, these actually work to strengthen your ankles over time. That said, you may also want to consider the type of floors you have at home — you may even want to get something like soft rubber floors. One popular retailer in the US is Discount Flooring, for some other countries you may want to look at: Vintage Flooring (Canada) and Carpet Right (UK).

PS – Neil posted a funny story at 1000awesomethings.com about my first outdoor run earlier this year.

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Sources: PM&R, Shoe Myths, Nature.com, CMAJ.ca, bjsportmed.com

Originally and occasionally still, Aglets are made from metal, often copper or brass.

The word Aglet (or Aiglet) comes from an old french word, aguillette and it’s root word is aguille, which means needle. This makes sense since aglets make it easy to thread laces through eyelets in garments and shoes.

Metal aglets can still be found on garments, although usually as decorative accents rather than functional fasteners. Some of these decorative aglets are made from stone or glass and even shaped like small figurines. These go back to at least the fifteenth century, even Shakespeare references an “aglet baby” in The Taming of the Shrew.

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Sources: wikipedia (aglet), dictionary.com

If you’ve created a website account with Facebook, TicketMaster, Twitter, CNN, Craigslist or thousands of other sites, then you have helped translate text from old books and newspapers.

Websites that offer free accounts try to ensure that every account is created by a real human being instead of a computer “bot” — computer programs written to automatically create accounts and then spam those websites with ads. One way to protect against bots is to have people do something that is easy for a human but difficult for a computer: read distorted text.

That’s why you are frequently asked to solve these simple word puzzles. Although it’s a bit annoying, it helps make the website better by reducing spam and other abuse. There are many variants of these puzzles, called captchas, and if the website uses the reCAPTCHA system, your work can also benefit society.

You see, the unclear words in a reCAPTCHA are scanned from old books and newspapers for the google books project. After scanning the books, they run the scans through a computer to translate the images into text, but computer programs aren’t very good at reading blurry words. That’s exactly why this is a perfect way to test if someone is human, because a computer already tried to solve it and failed.

The solution you enter is compared to the solution that other people have entered for the same word. When the program gets a number of consistent answers from multiple people then that word is fixed in the digital copy of the book or newspaper.

This effort might sound futile, but approximately 200 million of these little puzzles are solved each day. Although it only takes you a few seconds, it adds up to around 150,000 hours of work per week. This is called “crowd-sourcing” — a small contribution from a lot of people that collectively make a significant contribution to something grand.

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Sources: wikipedia (recaptcha), recaptcha.com

Seeds from peaches, black cherries, apricots and apples contain a compound called amygdalin. Your body metabolizes amygdalin as hydrogen cyanide, which can make you very sick and even kill you (in large doses).

Hydrogen cyanide is lethal because it impedes blood from carrying oxygen, which is of course a critical function of blood.

The pits and seeds from cherries and apples aren’t a huge concern since it would take an unreasonably significant quantity of those to cause you harm. However, you should be more aware of the dangers of peach and apricot seeds if you like to eat them.

If you’re just consuming the fruit, there is nothing to worry about; however, some people buy bags of apricot seeds, or other forms of amygdalin, as a treatment or preventative treatment for cancer. It is marketed under the name Laetrile and “Vitamin B17″ although there are many studies that prove it is not effective at treating cancer, not to mention the increased chance of cyanide poisoning.

A fatal dose of cyanide can be as little as 1.5 mg/kg of body weight. Since an apricot kernel contains approximately 0.5 mg of cyanide, consuming 150 seeds in a short period of time could be lethal to a 50 kg (110 lb) person.

It’s not just fruit seeds, there are other foods that contain cyanide too. Cassava, also known as tapioca, contains two forms of cyanide and should not be eaten raw. It is rendered safe for consumption by the process of soaking, cooking or fermentation.

There are many people who consume these foods in small doses without issue; you can buy bags of apricot kernels from Amazon or health food stores. If you do buy some, heed the serving suggestion and warning on the package.

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Sources: wikipedia (amygdalin, cassava, cyanide poisoning, apricot kernel), Saint Louis University (PDF)

As much as I like to write about and consume coffee, beer is actually a more popular drink. Worldwide, Beer is the third most consumed beverage after water and tea.

It shouldn’t be too surprising, beer is the oldest known form of alcohol, thought to be over 10,000 years old. Trappist monks, and other religious people, originally brewed beer to help feed the community. Some dark beer, such as Guinness brand, is sometimes referred to as a “meal in glass.”

Although Guinness is dark, it’s pretty light on calories. A pint of Guinness only has 198 calories, less than skimmed milk, orange juice and most other non-light beers.

Thanks to Gord for submitting this one.

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Image: Daniele Faieta (cc)

Sources: wikipedia (beer, guinness, trappist beer)

It has been ten years since the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. Although the attacks happened in the United States, they were an attack on freedom everywhere. It is not an anniversary we want to remember, it’s an anniversary we never want to forget. That is the spirit on which the redevelopment of the World Trade Center is built.

When complete, the World Trade Center (WTC) will include a train station, performing arts center, retail space, five new office towers, a memorial site and museum. The tallest and most tributary building is Tower 1, nicknamed “The Freedom Tower.” That’s not a superficial name, the new tower embodies freedom and pays homage to the structures that came before it, a common device in architectural design.

The top floor of the new Tower 1 will reach 1,362 feet (415 meters), the same height as the former WTC South Tower. A glass enclosed observation deck will float just above that at 1,368 feet (417 meters), the same height as the original WTC North Tower. An illuminated antenna will reach further, bringing the total height to 1,776 feet (541 meters). The height is a significant symbol of freedom; 1776 being the year the US declared independence from Great Britain.

The antenna’s design draws inspiration from the torch on the nearby Statue of Liberty, a symbol of freedom itself. The blinking aircraft warning light at the top will blink in a slightly irregular pattern, repeating one long flash followed by one short flash. This is Morse code for the letter “N” for “New York.”

Aesthetics frequently differ among structures, but Tower 1 is unique on the inside too. Slated to open in late 2013, this 105 story building will feature a fortified structural base. Basically, the lowest 19 floors don’t contain any inhabitable space. Instead, they form a reinforced concrete pedestal intended to protect the building from ground based terrorist attacks similar to the truck bomb attack in 1993.

The rest of the building employs a redundant steel moment frame with an additional 3 feet (91 cm) thick reinforced concrete shear wall around the inner spine of the building. The core contains elevators, stairwells, electrical risers and sprinkler systems. These structural features and redundancies make it the strongest skyscraper ever built.

There are some additional safety considerations too. The building is situated 65 feet (20 m) away from the street, nearly triple the distance the twin towers were from the street. Additionally, the windows nearest the road will be made of a special blast-resistant plastic. The ventilation system contains biological and chemical filters and there are extra-wide emergency stairs exclusively for firefighter use.

There are seventy elevators, including some super high-speed elevators that travel at 33 feet per second (10 m/s). Some elevators are exclusively for emergency and non-ambulatory use. For safety, elevators will have their own backup power supplies and stairways will be pressurized to keep smoke from entering them.

Looking at the site plan, you may notice that WTC 6 is missing. WTC 1 is on the former site of WTC 6, so there will not be a new WTC 6. Although this plan calls for a WTC 5, the future of that tower is in question. The plans for WTC 5 were scrapped in 2008 when the major tenant pulled out in favor of another location in midtown manhattan. Tower 5 may get built, but there are no concrete plans at this time.

At the center of the site, a beautiful memorial has been created in the space that was once occupied by the twin towers. The memorial will be dedicated on September 11th, 2011 and be open to families who lost someone in the terrorist attacks. It will open to the public the following day.

Architects also designed the site so that every September 11th, between 8:46 am  and 10:28 am (the time the first plane hit to the time the second tower collapsed), the alignment of the Earth and Sun will create a bright wedge shaped highlight that focuses light toward the memorial plaza.

The two footprints of the original towers will be represented by square shaped waterfalls, some of the largest man-made falls in the world. The names of nearly 3,000 victims of the 1993 and 2001 terrorist attacks will be memorialized in a bronze bezel that will surround the two square waterfalls. Over 400 trees have been brought in from around New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, DC, to honor those who died in the WTC, on Flight 93 and in the attack on the Pentagon. Among these trees, there is one that was actually on-site when the towers collapsed.

Known as the “Survivor tree,” this callery pear tree was burned by the fires and covered by the rubble when the towers collapsed. The tree was uncovered weeks later and taken to a nearby nursery. It was not expected to survive, but after tender care and pruning, it has grown 30 feet tall and returned to the World Trade Center site. While the waterfalls, and the names around them, represent what we lost, the survivor tree represents the courage, growth and perseverance that remains.

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Images: Silverstein Properties (fair use), wikimedia commons (gnu)

Sources: Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, LowerManhattan.info, WTC.com, NYPost, 911 memorial, dna info, wikipedia (1 world trade, World Trade Center Site), popsci

After the planes hit the twin towers on 9/11/2001, all commercial air traffic was grounded. But, a cross country flight was the only thing that could save one man’s life.

A couple hours after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, Lawrence Van Sertima, a snake handler of 40 years, was about to get his first snake bite. He was handling a Taipan snake, one of the most deadly in the world, when it became uncooperative and bit his thumb.

He knew he was in trouble. Since air traffic was grounded, he could not be taken to the hospital by helicopter. It took 40 minutes to get to Miami’s Baptist Hospital.

The venom from this particular snake attacks the blood, muscles, kidneys and heart. It’s one of the worst possible scenarios. Within hours he was in critical condition and soon bled from his eyes and mouth.

Miami-Dade’s Fire Rescue has a snake bite unit called “Venom 1.” They had 5 vials of a polyvalent antivenin, designed to treat multiple types of snake bites. It helped, and was barely keeping Van Sertima alive. He needed the monovalent antivenin, made from the venom of the Taipan snake, as soon as possible. Unfortunately, there were only two places that it existed: New York and San Diego.

The chances of getting clearance for a plane to take off from New York were unlikely, so they tried San Diego. The FAA in Washington granted permission for the flight, although it had to be  escorted by two fighter jets. Within 45 minutes of landing, the antivenin was being administered.

Van Sertima recovered and learned about the terrorist attacks a few days later.

Bonus: Anti-venom and antivenin are the same thing.

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Image: thefixer (cc)

Sources: discovery.com, jacksonville.com, clickorlando.com

When a recording artist sells 500,000 units of an album or a single, their “record” is eligible for “gold certification” by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). There are also platinum, diamond and other levels of these awards that indicate even greater sales.

If you couldn’t tell from the name, the RIAA is a US organization and it only tracks sales in the US. Similar awards are administered in 70 other countries by The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, although the number of sales to achieve each award varies by country.

In 1958, the cast album from the production of Oklahoma! was the first album to receive the official gold record award. Back then, records were records. There were no CDs, MP3s, etc… albums were really only available on vinyl records. Magnetic tapes were not popular for consumer use and 8 Track cartridges were about six years away from creation.

To make vinyl records, an original “master” record is created and depending on the exact process used, the vinyl records are stamped from a master, mother or stamper record.  In those days, these masters/mothers/stampers were generally made from metal. Stampers are used to literally stamp the groves into the records that are distributed. Stampers are generally good for about a thousand uses, so many stampers are produced for popular records. Originally, the used stampers were treated with gold to create the gold record awards.

Today, vinyl records are far from the most popular media for music, but some albums are available on vinyl. Although many albums are not available on vinyl, gold records may still be awarded if they reach their sales goals. The gold records are no longer made from actual records, masters or stampers. They’re now made by specific trophy and plaque makers who are certified by the RIAA.

Today, the award symbolically represents a high number of sales. But originally, it literally represented that many records were sold because the actual production stamper was worn out, gold plated and awarded to the artist.

In the last couple decades, the term “gold master” has transcended the recording industry. The phrase is also used in the computer industry to identify a software product version that is ready for distribution.

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Image: Jim Cassady (cc)

Sources: RIAA, EIL, RecordPressing.com, Wikipedia (Gold Master), emusician

The magnificent waterfalls known as Niagara falls are split on the US/Canada border. People come to see massive amounts of water flowing over the falls and that’s exactly what they get, during the day.

While the falls are a popular tourist attraction, many people don’t know the water is an important source of power. There is one power company on each side of the border that draws water from above the falls to turn their generators.

Unfortunately, drawing water from the river above the falls can impact what the falls look like.

During the tourist season (April to October), the power companies must maintain the water flow over the falls at 100,000 cubic feet per second. That’s not very difficult since the river has a natural flow of about 212,000 cubic feet per second on a typical summer day. That means they normally draw about 100,000 cubic feet per second for power generation and allow that same amount over the falls.

But at night, they can draw even more water and lower the flow at the falls to about 50,000 cubic feet per second. This extra flow allows them to turn their turbines and fill up their reservoirs so they have more water after the tourism flow is restored in the morning. Since the falls erode about two feet per year, drawing extra water at night also slows erosion so the falls will be around for many generations to come.

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Image: Alberto Mari (cc)

Source: NiagaraFrontier.com

Whether it’s your windshield mounted Garmin or your pocket slung smartphone, your GPS device is programmed to disable itself under certain conditions.

If it’s travelling faster than 1200 MPH or above 65,000 feet in altitude, the GPS function will shutdown.

These restrictions were put in place to help ensure the technology could not be used for malicious intentions by foreign governments or terrorists.

Modern commercial airplanes do not typically approach this speed or altitude, so you can’t test this unless you build your own missile or weather balloon.

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Photo: avlxyz (cc)

Sources: wikipedia, gizmodo

Many people know that paper money has markings that illuminate under a black light. These markings make it more difficult to counterfeit and thus easier to spot counterfeit money. Also, regular paper glows wildly under a black light, while currency paper does not, another dead giveaway. The same also applies to credit cards.

For this demonstration, I rounded up one card from each of the major issuers and tore my basement apart looking for my standard issue college black light. I eventually found it, but only after creating a small pile of retro items for this year’s halloween costume.

The black light’s strong purple glow catalyzed the American Express card to reveal “AMEX” spelled across the card, with a picture of a globe between “AM” and “EX.”

MasterCard was hiding “MC” on theirs:

The Visa card revealed the V logo.

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The myth that bumblebee flight is scientifically impossible persists today. Even some presidential hopefuls believe it. Don’t be fooled. This tale’s been floating around since the 1930s, back when aerodynamics was emerging from a science.

Various luminaries in the field of fluid dynamics have been accused of popularizing the idea, which seems to have originated in a collaboration between French entomologist Antoine Magnan and his assistant, the mathematician André Sainte-Laguë. Sainte-Laguë had done a primitive calculation on the aerodynamics of bumblebee flight, assuming that the wings we perfectly smooth and flat. They also ignored more complicated aerodynamics in favor of a simpler model.

These assumptions made the calculation easier…and the answer wrong. Magnan himself wrote: “One shouldn’t be surprised that the results of the calculations don’t square with reality.” That didn’t stop the myth from achieving enough lift to take off.

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Source: Wikipedia, Naturenet

Image: Wikimedia (gnu)