Did you Know That ...

A year on Earth is obviously 1 year long, since it’s the standard of measurement. But we can break it down further.

A year is 365.24 days. Or 8,765 hours, or 526,000 minutes, or 31.6 million seconds.

The tricky one is the number of days. Because the earth year doesn’t work out to exactly 365 days, we have the leap year. If we didn’t, days in the calendar wouldn’t match up with the position of the Earth in its orbit. Eventually, the months would flip around, and the northern hemisphere would have summer in January, and vice versa.

To fix this, we put on extra days in some years, called leap years. In those leap years, a year lasts 366 days, and not the usual 365. This gets tacked onto the end of February. Normally, February only has 28 days, but in leap years, it has 29 days.

When to you have leap years? It’s actually pretty complicated.

The basic rule is that you have a leap year if you can divide the year by 4. So 2004, 2008, etc. But years divisible by 100 are not leap years. So 1800, 1900 aren’t leap years. Unless they’re divisible by 400. So 1600 and 2000 are leap years. By following this algorithm, you can have an Earth orbit that lasts 365.24 days.

With the current system, it’s not actually perfect. There’s an extra 0.000125 days being accumulated. Over course of 8,000 years, the calendar will lose a single day.

Here’s an article about how astronomers might use cosmic rays to measure time on Earth.

And here is more information on how to calculate leap years from timeanddate.com.

We did an episode of Astronomy Cast just on the Earth. Give it a listen, Episode 51: Earth.

Thanks to universetoday.com

Q: Does rubbing a boo-boo really make it better?

A: Yes! Pain signals are sent to the brain by special receptors, called nociceptors, which are sensitive enough to distinguish between a bruise and a scratch. If you rub or caress a wound, receptors for other types of sensations will start sending out their own signals -drowning out the pain signals of the nociceptors, like one voice getting lost in the crowd. The result? The pain lessens, and maybe even goes away. So let Mommy kiss that boo-boo!

Q: Can swearing help?

Yes again. There’s good scientific evidence to suggest that cursing like a sailor can numb your pain. In a recent study, participants were asked to hold their hand in icy water for as long as they could. They could either say the same neutral word over and over while their hand was in the water, or they could repeat a swear word of their choice. The people who cursed reportedly felt less pain, and they were able to keep their hand in the water longer. Scientists aren’t exactly sure what causes the phenomenon, but they’d swear by it.

Why We Win...

Pop Quiz: Independence Day...

Pop quiz: Who was emperor when the United States declared independence from China?

Give up?

Perhaps you should ask one of the Americans who, when asked what country the U.S. separated from, named France, Japan, Mexico, Spain or, yes, China.

A new Marist poll shows that 26% of people in this country don't know that the U.S. declared its independence from Great Britain. That includes 20% who aren't sure and another 6% who think it was another country.

Looking at the numbers more deeply, it appears the closer to 1776 you were born, the more likely you are to know the correct answer. So enjoy the July 4th holiday, everyone, and don't forget to be thankful that we're out from under the yoke of our Mexican colonial oppressors.

Fact For Today...

Any dog under 15 lbs. is officially a cat until it proves it can do cool dog stuff other than yap a lot. Of course no self-respecting cat would claim them…

Got Your Towel? ...

May 25, 2001: Towel Day Honors Hitchhiker Author Adams

By Curtis Silver

2001: Two weeks after the death of Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, fans get together and celebrate May 25 as “Towel Day” in his memory. The tradition continues each year since.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a novelization of a popular British radio series. The books started publishing in 1979. Author Douglas Adams became an icon of humorous geek literature, wrote four sequels to it and, tragically, died of a heart attack at age 49.

D. Clyde Williamson made the initial proposal May 14, 2001, in the “Binary Freedom” forum at System Toolbox:

Douglas Adams will be missed by his fans worldwide. So that all his fans everywhere can pay tribute to this genius, I propose that two weeks after his passing (May 25, 2001) be marked as “Towel Day”. All Douglas Adams fans are encouraged to carry a towel with them for the day.

Make sure that the towel is conspicuous, use it as a talking point to encourage those who have never read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to go pick up a copy. Wrap it around your head, use it as a weapon, soak it in nutrients- whatever you want!

Towel Day asks the important questions. For instance, if you learned that planet Earth was about to be destroyed to make room for an interstellar expressway, would you be prepared? It’s not about making peace with your God or clearing up all your debts; it’s about something much more important and useful. Do you have your towel?

And according to the Guide, you’d know if you did. It would be wrapped around your neck and you’d feel secure and prepared for whatever the galaxy were to throw at you. On Towel Day, you’d better have your towel, because you never know what’s coming, or going for that matter.

This year, as we do every year, we take a moment to hoist our thumbs up in the air and hope we don’t end up in the cargo hold of a Vogon warship. However, if we have our towel on us we’ll be perfectly prepared for whatever may come. Or go.

So why the towel? What’s so great about something seemingly so simple and basic? From Chapter 3 of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

If you have a towel, you are not only ultimately prepared but others around you will become aware of your ultimate preparedness and be randomly willing to assist to make sure you are even further prepared for your journey. Could you ask for anything more? This is what having a towel handy can do for you.

In honor of Douglas Adams: So long and thanks for all the fish!!

Check Towelday.org Towel Day activities being held worldwide.

Your very own 42 Utility Towel is available from ThinkGeek!

Buy a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy at Amazon.

Read More http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/05/0525first-towel-day/#ixzz0oxK6TBqI

Did You Know…

The Banana

Horticulturists believe that the banana was Earth's first fruit. Banana plants have been cultivated since before recorded history. One of the first records dates back to Alexander the Great conquest of India, where he found the Banana in 327 BC.

Banana plants are the largest plants on earth with out a woody stem. They are actually a giant herb of the same family as lilies, orchids and palms.

They are a perennial crop that are grown and harvested year round. They do not grow from seeds but rather from rhizome or bulb. Each fleshy bulb will sprout new shoots year after year.

As they ripen the starch in the fruit turns to sugar, thus the riper the banana the sweeter.

A cluster of banana is called a hand and consists of 10 to 20 bananas that are known as fingers. In fact the banana is Arabic for finger.

The banana is one of the few fruits that ripen best off the plant. If left on the plant the fruit splits and has a cottony texture and flavor. Even in tropical growing areas, bananas for domestic consumption are cut green and stored in moist shady places to ripen slowly.

In 1516 Friar Tomas sails to the Caribbean from Europe bringing banana roots with him. He planted them in the rich fertile soil of the tropics. Beginning there future in the Americas. Banana were first introduced to the US public at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition are now the most widely eaten fruit in the country.

Bananas have no fat, cholesterol or sodium.

In east Africa a very popular use is in banana beer.

In Southeast Asia the Banana Leaf is used to wrap food, providing a unique flavor and aroma to rice and other foods.

India is the largest world producer of bananas, growing 16.5 million turns yearly, followed by Brazil at 6.5 million tons for the same period (2002).

To the Indians, the flower from the banana tree is sacred. During religious and wedding ceremonies the flowers are tied around the head in the belief they bring good luck.

For more on the Banana check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bananna

Did You Know…

In a study one glass of water stopped mid-night hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied…

Lack of water is the main trigger of daytime fatigue. A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-termed memory trouble with basic math and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or a printed page…

Even mild dehydration will slow down ones metabolism by as 3%…

Preliminary research indicates that eight to ten glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of suffers…

It takes almost 9 calories, the equivalent of eating one gummy bear, for the body to warm up eight ounces of 32-degree water after drinking it…

Water is the official state beverage of Indiana…

Did You Know…

Without using precision instruments, no computers, graphing calculators or even a slide rule, Eratoshenes measured the radius of the Earth in the third Century BC to within 1% of the value determined by todays technology.

Aritarchus, a Greek astronomer living in 200 BC was reportedly the first person to declare that the Earth revolved around the Sun. His theory was disregarded for hundreds of years.

Even today less the 50% of American adults understand that the Earth orbits the Sun yearly, according to a basic science survey.