Dark Tooth

 Dark tooth sounds kind of ominous compared to black tooth,rotten tooth or icky tooth but out of respect for a 10th century Danish king who got the nickname "Bluetooth" due to a dead tooth,King Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson,we have the name Bluetooth for our short range wireless technology. Of course there's slightly more to the story of why modern technology is called Bluetooth. King Harald was known for uniting his country and Norway,with that in mind fast forward to several tech companies(IBM,Toshiba,,Ericsson,and Nokia) wanting the same technology but none of them willing to trust the other companies so an engineer with Intel became the leader of the group and he just happened to be reading about King Harald and suggested the name,Bluetooth, since the tech companies were uniting in order to advance technology,although Bluetooth was supposed to be a temporary name the alternative names had trademark problems so Bluetooth ended up being permanent. The logo for Bluetooth is two runes melded together for HB. Now you know the rest of the story! 

Supercharged

 A 66 year old woman in Dublin had surgery recently to remove 55 batteries from her stomach/colon. After the initial X-rays revealed the cause of her discomfort the doctors thought they should wait to see if she could pass them naturally. The first week she passed 5 AA batteries but continued to have abdominal pain so they surgically removed 46 more batteries. The 4 remaining batteries had to be milked through the colon then retrieved through her anus. The doctors believed this was the highest number of batteries ever ingested but warned that serious injury could occur from swallowing batteries. I'm kind of surprised there wasn't a reaction in the stomach when the acids met with the batteries. Needless to say,don't try this at home. 

Worldwide Insanity?

 Today's post could be filed under misery loves company since at least the US isn't the only place with Far Right people with less than sane ideas. In the US the right wants to pretty much rewrite history,glossing over parts that don't help their agenda,it turns out that other countries are in the same boat. For instance Germany's Far-Right party,Alternative for Germany aka AFD ,has used the phrase,"invasion of foreigners" and called the Holocaust Memorial a "monument of shame"in their recent campaign,sounds shockingly familiar,doesn't it? On the bright side one of their campaign advertisements which was supposed to be packs of gummy bears in the shape of an upward arrows was a complete fail as the ended up looking like a penis which for the most part isn't a good political logo,but thanks for the laugh. 

 

The Winner Is

 Yesterday was the 32nd Ig Nobel Prizes (the prizes for comical scientific achievements),held less than a month before the Nobel Prizes,this years winners include:the sex lives of constipated scorpions,how ducklings have born in physics,a full size rubber moose crash test dummy and how the heart beats of people on blind dates synchronize if they are attracted to each other among others. The poor scorpions when they lose their tails escaping predators they not only lose their sex drives but eventually their lives from constipation. The duckling simply follow their mother in a straight line to conserve energy much like geese flying in formation or cars drafting off of the vehicle in front of them. The heart beats are self explanatory leaving us with  a dummy moose to determine the damage done to the animal when it is hit rather than the damage to the vehicle. Ah,the Iggy's! One of the prizes this year was a virtually worthless Zimbabwean 10 trillion dollar  bill.

Fall Fun

 Bobbing for apples used to be a popular fall/Halloween game though nowadays many people cringe at the germ factor involved. Long before bobbing was a Halloween staple it was part of an older tradition that involved single British women selecting their future husbands. Each apple represented an eligible bachelor,if the woman bit into the apple on the first try the couple would live happily ever after,the second try they would be together but it wouldn't last and if the bite didn't happen until the third try the relationship was doomed. 

Next up is Candy Corn,one of those love it or hate it items,Candy Corn has been around since the 1880s and was originally called Chicken Feed. Enough people eat the candy as they sell 35 million lbs. per year.Candy Corn is made by the same company who makes Jelly Belly,which is another questionable name for candy. 

 

Pre Wheel Inventions

 The wheel is thought of as the game changing invention since it allowed people to travel farther,spin fibers,irrigate crops and grind grains easier. In reality the wheel wasn't on the top of the ancient to-do list,the items that were more important include:boats,musical instruments,glue and alcohol. The oldest sign of alcohol is 9,000 years old when beer residue was found in pottery found in China,by comparison the wheel came about 3 millennia later. Booze played an important role in several ways in the early civilizations from medicinal to the center of religious and social celebrations. The wheel on the other hand has played a big part in where the world is today which is not a pretty picture so maybe it wasn't that great of an invention after all?  

Brown Out

 Probably a poor choice for a title considering the recent power outages due to the fires but trust me,it could be worse. We've all heard of white noise and know it helps some people get restful sleep,but what about pink noise?or brown noise? Pink noise for the most part is similar to white noise with the exception of being less harsh and lower tones,like a light wind or rain. Next we have brown noise,aka red noise,which contains all frequencies and sounds from every octave of the sound spectrum. It is lower in tone than both white and pink noise and sounds more like thunder rumbling , waterfalls or heavy rain. Not only is it useful for promoting sleep it is also helping people with ADHD with concentration. It may also lower the symptoms of ringing in the ears and improve thinking skills.