Just a little something that could be fun/interesting and that might draw out some surprising areas and depth of knowledge tucked away in ThePhins membership! Post a fact that is, well, a fact (you know, true), that's interesting or useful, and which you think most people might not know. That's it. (Oh, and post a source if you can.) I'll kick off... Many of the English names for different kinds of meats and the names for the animals that the meats come from derive from (and illustrate) the noble/commoner, Norman/Saxon origins of England. Cow vs. Beef Calf vs Veal Pig vs. Pork Sheep vs. Mutton Deer vs. Venison The words don't seem to have anything in common with one another. That's because the animal names have Saxon origins whereas the very different meat names come from Norman origin. Why? The Saxon commoners, speaking Old English, looked after the animals whereas the noble Norman Lords (with their 'French' origins) didn't concern themselves with such things, they just ate the meat. Thus, we have French origin words for meats and Saxon origin words for the animals that provide them. French words for the animal and meats today: Vache - Boeuf Veau - Veau Cochon - Porc Moutons - Mouton Cerf - Venaison Chicken is an odd-ball, but Pullet (Young Chicken) maintains the divide with the French being Poulet. Similarly, 'Poultry' traces back to 'Pouletrie'. (As one would imagine, this divide continues on into other areas of life too.) Source: https://www.dictionary.com/e/animal-names-change-become-food/
Thanks for sharing! I love stuff like that. I saw a blog post just a few days ago about how most of the Indo-Eurpoean languages derived their word for "two" from the same root.
Orca drown and consume humpback whale calves. The calves will typically try to find sanctuary on their mother's backs but the Orca take turns creating waves to separate them. When this happens they gang up and take turns dragging the calf down deep until it drowns. Saw this on an Attenborough doc called "The Hunt" on Netflix. When I think of the world's most prominent apex predator, I think of the Orca. They're outrageously cunning and they're merciless. Up until then I didn't know they went after other species of whale like that.
No doubt. Orca are the absolute top of the food chain. I read last week that if Great White sharks see/notice a pod of Orca in their feeding ground, they will immediately swim hundreds or even thousands of miles away, and not return for up to a year.
I heard that dolphin males do the same thing to dolphin calves. Apparently, dolphin females won't mate while they're raising a calf so the males will kill the calf. That always struck me as one of the most vicious and vile things I've heard of happening in nature shows.
i love orcas. they make sharks look like poodles. They are basically the wolves of the sea world except much smarter
interesting article on the difference between smoking and eating marijuana. Apparently a different type of THC is activated depending on which you do "According to Nick Jikomes, the principal research scientist at the cannabis website Leafly, the discrepancy comes down to the type of THC, the primary psychoactive compound in marijuana. When you smoke a joint, what goes into your bloodstream is called delta-9 THC. When you eat cannabis, meanwhile, the drug gets processed by your liver into a different compound, 11-hydroxy THC. The two forms are very similar to each other, but the small differences between them can mean they affect the brain in dramatically disparate ways. The 11-hydroxy THC affects you more intensely once it crosses the blood-brain barrier, Jikomes says. Mike Tagen, a scientific consultant for cannabis companies who has a pharmacology background, agrees that 11-hydroxy THC is far more potent. The molecule, he says, can activate certain receptors in the brain more fully than delta-9 can. It’s “more like the synthetic cannabinoids, like Spice or K2,” Tagen told me. “Those are associated with bad reactions, things like anxiety attacks, paranoia. That might be why you see the strong reaction with edibles.” https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/07/why-edibles-make-people-paranoid/594649/
Can attest to this. I went to a special brunch on one Sunday morning last summer, and had to work from home next day. I wanted "it" to end so bad but even when I woke up I was still feeling it. Never, ever, again.
While this is true, not all orcas eat mammals on the regular. There are basically mammal eating orcas and fish eating orcas. 2 of my favorite mind blowers: - The T-Rex lived closer to the time of us then it did to the stegosaurus. - In size, a dust particle is the half way point between an atom and the Earth.
I enjoyed what I learned from the Documentary Botony of Desire. That Johnny Appleseed is known as Johnny Appleseed because he planted apple from seed. The interesting part about that is that apple seeds are that they contain the potential for almost every apple in each seed. Meaning you get a random apple when you plant an apple. Apple trees are cloned. Johnny Appleseed became rich by going to new settlements and teaching them to grow apples. However, most apples taste terrible. But almost all of them are good for alcohol. Johnny Appleseed was an alcohol peddler. The apple a day keeps the doctor away was created during prohibition to rebrand apples from a "forbidden fruit" to something wholesome. Before that apples were known for alcohol. Also that Denmark once crashed their economy due to tulips.
Granny smith is my favorite apple. Cider is my favorite alcohol. Granny Smith cider is the best thing ever
Scientists: Sprite Is the Best Hangover Cure The carbonated lemon-lime drink showed a markedly positive effect on alcohol-related symptoms in a recent study conducted by a team of Chinese scientists. Apparently, Sprite has the ability to breakdown acetaldehyde, a metabolite of ethanol. By contrast, many other drinks tested — among them herbal teas — were found to have the opposite effect and actually increased those symptoms we all know too well (and forget about every Friday night). http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/10/09/obey-your-thirst-defy-your-hangover/?iid=nf-main-trend-now
I've always sworn by a nice cold can (or usually cans, due to the dehydration!) of Irn Bru when I've got a hangover. Don't think it's readily available outside Scotland, but the professor in this article seems to agree with me and has sourced it in Canada! Maybe it has a similar ingredient list to Sprite. https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/3691755/irn-bru-hangover-cure-research/ And to add to the 'I didn't know that' theme, Irn Bru was originally called Iron Brew, but had to change the name when it couldn't be proven that it actually contained any iron.
I actually first came across it as a student at the university of Tennessee in the mid 90s. I was walking across campus one day, and there was a guy with a cooler full of them near the student center handing them out. I drank it, thought it was pretty good, but that was that. Then I never saw it again until my wife and I took our honeymoon to Scotland in 2006 and I saw it in a grocery store and remembered having it ten years earlier.
I haven't heard that name in a long while. I had Irn Bru in Peru once as a kid. If I recall correctly it reminded me of cream soda.
The trick with vegemite is to use it sparingly. Lots of butter, a little vegemite. Most Americans make the (horrible) mistake of putting it on like nutella or pb&j.
I watched that years ago. I too had never known that you would get a random apple when you planted a seed. Fascinating stuff.
Granny Smiths cant hold Honeycrisps jock. No, the best cure is to not get the hangover in the first place. After drinking, you grab gatorade and pizza (or something else with heavy carbs and protein). It wont prevent you from yacking if you drank like a fish but ive never had a hangover when i followed that...
Da Vinci was a strict vegan, bastard, wrote right to left and was completely unschooled. All that...and Bill Gates brought his journal for 30.8M. http://mentalfloss.com/article/502202/12-masterful-facts-about-leonardo-da-vinci
Very random but today I learned how to add and subtract starting from the left rather than right, and it takes a lot less time, is fool proof and easier. I knew it was technically possible but I didnt know how superior it is. I think the only thing hard for small kids about it would be that you need to work with numbers up to 90 when subtracting from a column instead of just 10 and they might not be immediately capable of that.
Im lost with it all. My 4th grader can do it, and my wife can help, but I'm useless at even normal math lol.
Lions notably do this as well. If a new male displaces an old male, he will immediately kill any cubs to put the females in heat and get busy.
I'm decent but not a prodigy or anything lol. I came across it because I was thinking of trying to go back to school next year before too many more years pile up on me and it becomes a chore, so I'm kind of revisiting and rebuilding my skills from the ground up in that year. That way it's not a massive struggle remembering everything I may need to use when I do end up at our community college.
Ah man I can do a beer for breakfast once in a while but I cant do Budweiser. My least favorite of all the generic beers personally.
As a Belgian friend said to me once, American beer (Referencing the generics like Budweiser) is like making love in a canoe.
*shrug* I like Bud Light. So many beers are just so bitter I feel like spitting them out as soon as I taste them. I hate bitter.
The 3 main beers in my house are Worsteiner Dunkel, Guinness and Stella Artois. Sorry, no personal shot at anyone who likes it but Bud and Bud Light are nothing but piss water lol. My ex used to get noting but Bud Light all of the time. It took a divorce and remarrying a woman with exquisite taste to properly calibrate my taste buds to the finger things!
My favorite ****ty beer is Miller High Life. Mostly because it has the dumbest tag line. Champagne of Beers. However Budweiser is gross, Bud Light is an insult to beer, and Coors is swill. I am a beer snob.
Its funny how almost all self proclaimed "beer snobs" seem to enjoy things that taste really bitter, lol. And those of us who don't, and who like things that are sweet instead, are labeled as wrong.
There are plenty of really good sweet beers out there. I do not like bitter. I very much dislike IPAs. Generally speaking the beers I like are 40 IBUs and below. IBU stands for International Bitter Units.
Yeah, I've loved having the IBUs listed a lot of places. I look for 15 or lower. Anything above 20 is too much for me usually.