| 2341/
Earth has slowed its spin. When dinosaurs ruled, they did
so during days only about 22 hours and 45 minutes long.
2342/ Cosmic radiation
zaps enough atoms of ordinary carbon into the radioactive
form to keep the planetary supply of carbon 14 at near 60
metric tons. That sounds enormous, but it's puny next to the
worldwide total of all forms of carbon in the atmosphere,
biosphere, and fresh and salt waters, which stands at about
40 trillion metric tons (that's 40 followed by twelve more
zeros).
2343/ In 1847, three
108-foot spans of the twelve-span railroad bridge over the
Dee River in England collapsed under the weight of a passenger
train. The bridge's designer, Robert Stephenson, was so horrified
by the accident that he set himself to devising a new, stronger
mode of bridge construction. The Dee bridge had been built
of flanged girders trussed with tie rods; Stephenson's new
bridges were pure trusses, far better able to withstand the
lateral torsion that had wrenched apart his earlier bridge.
2344/ In 1902, President
Theodore Roosevelt visited Mississippi to help settle a dispute
over state boundaries. Roosevelt hunted during his free time
there, but had poor luck. Someone, worried about the presidential
morale, offered him a shot at a tethered bear cub. Understandably,
Roosevelt declined the offer. A political cartoonist caricatured
the event, and Teddy Roosevelt's bear cub became famous. Within
a few years, Teddy's bears were on sale in toy stores across
America.
2345/ Clay tablets thousands
of years old indicate that the earliest beer was Sumerian.
The beverage apparently played an important role in Sumer;
the word for beer turns up in texts relating to medicine,
ritual, myth - and law. Hammurabi's code, assembled in the
eighteenth century B.C. made special mention of beer parlours.
Owners who overcharged customers were to be drowned; high
priestesses caught in a beer parlour were to be executed by
fire.
2346/ Black pepper is
the dried berries of the Piper niarum vine.
2347/ Ninety percent
of the world's pepper comes from only four countries - India,
Indonesia, Brazil, and Malaysia.
2348/ About 95 percent
of every edible fat or oil consists of fatty acids. Fatty
acids all are based on carbon chains - carbon atoms linked
together one after another in a single molecule. Different
fatty acids are defined as saturated, monounsaturated, or
polyunsaturated depending on how effectively hydrogen atoms
have linked onto those carbon chains.
2349/ Coconut oil has
more saturated fat - about 9l percent by weight - than do
butter or lard.
2350/ Palm oil, also
has more saturated fat than butter does - about 85 percent
to butter's 80.
2351/ A gram is about
what a common paper clip weighs. So if a recipe analysis claims
something has three grams of fat, think of it as three paper
clips by weight. In those terrns, a tablespoon of butter is
worth eleven and a half paper clips of fat, but only a bit
over six of them are saturated fat.
2352/ Red sparklers get
their overall colour from strontium carbonate.
2353/ Sodium is such
a powerful source of yellow-orange light that fireworks manufacturers
have to use it carefully. Small amounts of sodium contaminating
other light-producing ingredients can ruin attempts to generate
other colours in a pyrotechnic.
2354/ Barium compounds
are the source for the different greens in fireworks. They
are tricky substances. Barium chloride is so unstable at typical
room temperatures that it can't be packed directly into a
rocket or star shell. Instead, the fireworks manufacturers
put a more stable chlorine-containing compound (even chlorinated
rubber) in with the barium. The compound decomposes at high
temperatures and releases free chlorine, which then combines
with the barium to create the right light-producing molecules.
In effect, the firework has to synthesize its own light source
before it can generate light of the desired colour.
2355/ Only certain types
of wood can be used in good violins; for proper resonance,
backs are maple, tops are spruce.
2356/ A properly sealed
bottle of carbonated beverage shows no bubbles. The bottle's
contents are under pressure, so the carbon dioxide cannot
expand to form bubbles. Pop the top, release the pressure,
and bingo! Bubbles.
2357/ A 10 pound sack
of flour on the moon would bake six times as much bread as
a sack weighing 10 pounds on earth.
2358/ The first evidence
for gunpowder is in about the 9th century, and consists of
a Taoist warning against mixing saltpeter, sulphur, arsenic
compounds, and honey (which supplied carbon), on the grounds
that burnt hands, faces, and houses had resulted from the
experiment. By the beginning of the 10th century, however,
there is mention of the use of "fire-drug", the
term later used for gunpowder, in war.
2359/ The term infrared
was taken over to cover the entire portion of the spectrum
between seven tenths of a micrometer (the boundary with red
light) and the shortest radio waves (around 1000 micrometers).
(It takes roughly 25,000 micrometers to make an inch.)
2360/ The experimental
verification of a universal attractive force between two objects
in a laboratory is a difficult experiment to perform because
gravity is so weak. To give an example, the attractive force
between two lead balls, each a foot in diameter and weighing
nearly 400 pounds, is only two one hundred thousandths of
an ounce (.00002 oz.)
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