Today’s interesting fact has to do with carbon dioxide.

About 55 million years ago, the temperature of the earth rose six degrees over a period of about 20,000 years.

It seems that the increase took place because of an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

They have identified what produced the increase, and they estimate the temperature change was caused by an increase of 2 gigatons of CO2 a year over the normal release amounts during that period.

Compare that with modern days, when we are releasing 25 gigatons of CO2 a year.

This release 55 million years ago was important to us.

There was a minor extinction event, some say very minor, which killed off many larger mammal species.

But it did allow the evolution of monkeys, apes and hominids, which lead eventually to us.

It makes me wonder what our additions to our atmosphere will allow to evolve in the future.

Today's interesting fact has to do with iPhones.

I don't actually have one, can't afford it at the momment, although I'd love to have one.

I only learnt this intersting fact yesterday.

Research done by a app developer, found that about 10 different pastcodes, would unlock one in seven iPhones.

There are 10,000 possible combinations I read, yet from this a tenth of a percent of the combinations, will unlock a large portion of them.

Out of 204,508 phones checked, the top three codes used were 1234, 0000 and 2580 with over 10 percent of the observed population using just these three codes.

Makes me wonder, and I'm going to make sure I don't use them if I ever get one.

The blog I read this information from is at:

http://www.i-programmer.info/news/149-security/2668-passcodes.html

Today’s interesting fact has to do with Monet.

Monet was a French painter and is considered by many to be one of the founders of the French impressionist movement.

He is famous for changing his style of painting, as in his red period and his blue period.

What a lot of people don't know is that when his red period started, he had developed cataracts, which shifted his vision into red.

When he started his blue period, he had just had the cataracts removed, along with most of the lenses in his eyes.

This allowed ultraviolet light to pass through into his eye, and it seems it made many things seem much bluer.

He even went back to previous paintings and repainted portions to make them bluer.

This trait of bluer vision has been confirmed with others who have had their lenses removed.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with Ultraviolet light.

This came about because of a question from my work colleague Saghir.

Ultraviolet light often abbreviated as UV, has shorter wavelengths than visible light.

UV is invisible to the eye, being filtered out by the lens.

It causes sunburn, cataracts in the lens, and has been shown to cause skin cancer by causing damage to the DNA of skin cells.

Much of UV light is blocked by the ozone layer.

Where this layer is depleted, increased skin cancers and cataracts have been noted in both people and animals.

They've been using UV light to deactivate micro-organisms in wine that would normally spoil the product.

The UV light doesn't necessarily kill the microbes but instead damages them in a way that they cannot reproduce and they stop growing.

Recently, this process has been used as an alternative to pasteurisation for milk.

The pasteurisation process currently used doesn't kill all the microbes that can be found in milk, and can cause chemical changes in milk, which some object to.

UV light does stop the microbes in milk that pasteurisation doesn't get rid of, and doesn't cause the chemical changes in the milk.

The use is being piloted and if all goes well it may replace pasteurisation.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with magnetic fields and the eye.

Many animals can sense magnetic fields.

There are many different methods that have been developed by nature to allow animals to do this.

One system is a chemical that is found in the eyes of many animals, as diverse as mammals, birds, and insects.

It has been noticed that high power electric transmission lines seems to affect animals with this system.

Recently this chemical has been found to exist in human eyes, although no one has yet determined if humans can detect magnetic fields.

But I had a thought, when I had learnt this.

A small number of people I know seem to be affected by high power electric lines.

They complain of headaches, spots in their vision, and poor eye sight after going under one of these lines or electrical pylons.

Add this to the aura that some individuals claim to be able to see.

Someone I know, lets call them S, regularly visits one of these individuals who claims to see auras.

In a recent visit this individual noted that S's aura was out of its normal shape.

It just so happened that S had just gone under one of those lines.

Could it be that some people can see magnetic lines and see them as auras, because of this chemical?

Watch this space, and if I read anything more on this subject, I will post it here.

I was away from things for the past few days, so here is Wednesday’s interesting fact.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with high voltage electric transmission and sun eruptions.

Our civilisation relies on electricity.

It provides our light, heats our homes, cools our food, is starting to move our cars, it is the power for our industries.

Without electricity, it is doubted by some that our civilisation would survive.

The system of high voltage electric transmissions, that take our electricity from the power stations that generate it to where we use it, is under threat.

As shown in the 1859 solar eruption, when telegraph lines burnt out and operators where shocked, and again in 1989 when Hydro-Quebec Canadian power grid went down for more than nine hours, our current system is not proof against solar eruptions.

If a large eruption went off, we could lose everything we now rely on.

I was away from things for the past few days, so here is Tuesday's interesting fact.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with steam trains.

Apparently, since the creation of the railroads in the UK, there has not been a single year, where there has not been a steam traction engine on the UK main lines.

They may have replaced them for the most part in the UK with electric and diesel, but there still are steam trains in use in the UK.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with the urine.

Many people will tell you that urine is sterile and that nothing lives in it.

Some survivalists have suggested that if you get wounded away from possible medical treatment you should urinate on the wound to clean it.

As odd as this seems to most, this practice has allegedly assisted in the healing process.

But urine isn't quite a sterile as most people think.

Hidden within the golden fluid, are scattered stem cells, released by the body and excreted with the rest of the liquid.

These cells have been shown to be very important for some, in a different way than might have been expected.

Medical Scientists have taken these cells and seeded a collagen framework, to create ureters, urethras, bladders and even complete kidneys.

These new ureters, urethras and bladders, created by the patient's own stem cells, collected from their urine, have been successfully used to replace defective organs.

Whole kidneys have been successfully implanted into test animals and we are likely to hear about whole kidneys in the near future.

This would be a boon to anyone with diseased kidneys, where the patient does not have a genetic disease that would suggest not using the patients stem cells, then kidney transplants may become easier, and done with the patients own cells.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with the Pharaoh ant.

Pharaoh ants are small tropical ants that are yellow or light brown in colour and almost transparent.

No one is exactly sure where they originally came from, although the West Indies and Indonesia have been suggested.

We may never know their exact origin, but they have been introduced just about everywhere in the world that humans live.

Each colony can have up to 200 queens, with between 1000 and 2500 workers in them.

Each nest is very small and a number of them together can suggest that massive colonies exist.

Colonies reproduce by budding, where a small number of ants containing a cross section of types, will leave together to a new home.

A single colony can populate a large building through budding in less than six months.

Pharaoh ants do not have a nest mate smell, so unlike many other ants, individuals that end up in the wrong colony are treated the same as original inhabitants.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with light from the sun and why certain disaster movies make no sense.

We live on the earth courtesy of the light and heat we receive from the sun.

There have been several disaster movies about the sun shutting down, and that life giving light stopping.

The light that comes from the sun is generated by several means.

One source is the ionised atoms in the outer shell of the Sun.

Interactions between these ions generate photons, which escape the sun providing light.

Another source is the atomic furnace deep within the sun. Hydrogen atoms fuse and the result generates heat and light.

The heat creates the gigantic convection currents that roll through the sun, spreading the heat and creating the ionised atoms that generates some of our light.

The photons generated from fusion travels in a random direction. We are told that in general it will travel at the speed of light on average about 2 cm before it gets absorbed by another atom.

The atom that absorbs the photon will then release a photon, in a random direction only to be absorbed by another atom.

It is estimated that it will take about a million years before the average photon created by fusion leaves the surface of the sun.

In the disaster movies, fusion stops, the sun stops shining, and intrepid astronauts go to the sun, and using our nuclear weapons, restart the sun.

But if the sun stopped fusion, it would take a million years before it started to dim so I doubt we would notice the process had stopped.

And if we restarted the sun's fusion, it could take a million years before it started to shine at the same levels as it does now.

So those movies are not based on facts, and we can stop worrying about the sun going out.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with Birds and how they breathe.

Birds have a more efficient breathing system than mammals do.

Birds have up to nine air sacs in their bodies, which help reduce their overall weight but also both store air and act like bellows allowing fresh air to constantly flow through the lungs during each cycle of inhale and exhale.

Mammals use a bidirectional airflow in their lungs which moves the air in and out. This means that air that has been depleted with oxygen is mixed with fresh air with every breath.

Birds because of the way their lungs and air sacs are designed breathe with a unidirectional airflow, so that the air makes a circuit in the lungs. This means that air is never mixed, and is always fresh.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with Owls.

Large birds of prey, owls have large eyes that take in whatever light is available.

Most owls hunt at night, in the dark.

Many people think owls use their superior night sight to hunt, but most owls actually use their hearing to hunt and use their eyes to keep from flying into objects.

To aid the Owl in hearing one of the ears is placed higher on the head than the other.

This allows better hearing helping the owl to better pinpoint it's prey.

The circle of feathers found around the eyes are designed to help direct the sound to the ears.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with Medicine and Zoonoses.

We often think of the possibility of humans catching diseases from animals, pets, domesticated or wild.

Go anywhere these days and you will hear Mothers telling their children to not touch an animal because they could catch something.

A disease that transfers to humans from animals is a zoonose.

Flu, Rabies, SARS, Salmonella, toxoplasmosis and HIV are a few of the diseases that have regularly made the transition from animal to human.

Bovine tuberculosis is another disease that can sometimes infect people through their milk.

Herds that have been identified as having TB have been culled to prevent this from occurring.

It is often thought that TB crossed from Cattle to Humans when they were fist domesticated.

However, gene sequencing has shown that the TB that infects cattle originally came from the humans; their TB is a descendant of ours.

Researchers thought that that armadillos would be good subjects to test leprosy treatments on, because of their low body temperature.

When researchers realised that wild armadillos carried leprosy, it was suggested that it had always existed in the new world, and had not been imported from the old world by European settlers as originally thought.

Alerts recently went out asking people to not touch or interact with the animals.

But gene sequencing has shown that the leprosy infecting wild armadillos actually had crossed over very recently from humans and has not had the chance to mutate into a new separate species of bacteria, so it looks like the European settlers did bring it with them.

Today's interesting fact has to do with Bread.

About 80% of the bread sold these days is produced using a system called the Chorleywood Process.

It is characterised by having a long shelf life, is almost always plastic wrapped, and is usually but not always defined as a sandwich loaf.

The process was developed in Chorleywood Flour Milling and Bakery Research Association laboratories in 1961 and it has revolutionised the way bread is produced throughout the world.

The bread on the inside is up to 40% softer, comes out fluffier so you get larger loafs with less material and importantly allows the baker to use lower protein wheat, with the side benefit is that the shelf life of the bread is usually more than doubled. The process also saves money by reducing the amount of time required from start to finish by more than half.

The traditional method of baking bread uses yeast and there are several methods. One is to mix the all ingredients at once, create the dough, allow it to rise, punch it down, place in baking tray, it to prove (rise again) and finally bake. Another method requires mixing the ingredients and allowing 24 to 72 hours or more of fermentation before baking.

The new process works by adding hard fats, extra yeast and a number of different chemicals and mixing at high speed until the dough is ready to bake in a fraction of the time the traditional methods take. The extra chemicals added include (but are not limited to) ascorbic acid, hydrochloride, sodium metabisulfate, ammonium chloride, various phosphates, amylase, and protease.

The whole process has started to come under question. The hard fats used for some time were usually transfats and many places (such as New York City) have started to ban the use of transfats in foods. The yeast doesn't have as much time to work on the bread and it is suggested that the chemistry of the bread may be affected. This change in chemistry is thought by some to be causing the issues of gluten intolerance. This is because traditionally made breads do not cause the specific symptoms people seem get when eating bread produced by the newer system. Three-quarters of people who believe they have an allergy or intolerance to bread show no signs in blind allergy testing.

There have been marked changes in our gut flora since the introduction of this new bread making system. These changes have been liked to allergies, obesity, irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease and Clostridium Difficile infections, as well as possibly many diseases originally thought to only be genetic, bacterial or viral in nature, such as Diabetes and Parkinson disease.

Studies using test animals have suggested there is a possible link. Recent human studies starting using with men and women who have never eaten bread produced by the Chorleywood system have shown significant changes to their gut flora once they start eating the bread. While the jury is still out, initial indications are suggesting that the changes in our gut bacteria may not be helpful to our overall health.

Watch this space, as this gives hope for those who think they are gluten intolerant. They may just need to change the bread they eat and if that doesn’t work have a gut flora transplant.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with Medicine.

People get upset with their physicians for not being able to instantly diagnose their ailments.

Recent studies have suggested that physicians diagnose and perscribe the correct treatment only about 30% of the time, and this often means multiple visits before you get the correct treatement.

Often patients get better dispite their treatments.

One reason this occurs, is that many different ailments have the same symptoms and doctors need to rule out the most common illnesses before they try to cure the less common ones.

Still we are much better off than we were less than 100 years ago.

A recent historical documentry pointed out that the practice of medicine only stopped killing more patients than it cured in around 1920.

The percentage is much better now, but a quick search hasn't been able to find the actual percentage medicine still kills.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with lenses.

The purpose of a lens is to focus light.

Children often learn about this is science classes, but before that many children learn to burn holes in cardboard, leaves and wood.

The average lens children play with to burn things focus light up to 1000 times.

The lens of your eye is better at focusing light, and is 2.5 times more effective.

Because the lens of the eye focuses mainly on the fovea, this is why they tell you to not look at the sun.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with Entomophagy, or the consumption of insects as food.

Over 1,000 insects are known to be eaten in 80% of the world.

Insect eating is now rare in the 'developed' world, but insects remain a popular food in many 'developing' regions,

There have been some studies that have suggested that most of the protein our ancestors ate came from insects, with the extra protein coming from small birds, fish, lizards, snakes and small mammals.

Insects are a good source of protein, vitamins, minerals, and fats.

More importantly, the fats from insects are the mainly the coveted Omega 3 oils we are so encouraged to consume.

Free range chickens have higher Omega 3 oil in their meat and eggs, simply because they are able to consume any insects in their paddocks.

There are individuals and organisations who are suggesting we can fulfil all our dietary protein needs much easier, cheaper and with less impact on the environment, by switching from meat animals to various insects.

Today's interesting fact again has to do with sight.

Our visual cortex processes the information our eyes send to us.

While everyone knows the eye contains rods and cones which allow us to see, most people think that these are evenly distributed throughout the eye.

The Fovea is the small section of the eye that the lense of the eye primarily focuses on, and it contains the majority of cones found in the eye.

You can see how small the Fovea is by extending your arm completely out and lift your thumb.

The area the Fovea sees is about the size of your thumbnail.

You continue to see colour in your perferial vision because your visual cortex fills in the information for you.

If you don't see something in your Fovea, you might not notice it at all.

There is an experiment that involves videoing four or five individuals playing basket ball, and a man in a gorilla suit walks through the play.

When this video has been shown to subjects, and they were told to keep an eye on who has the ball, most watchers miss the gorrilla suit completely.

Today's interesting fact has to do with sight.

While those of us who have sight, take it for granted, we don't see as much as we think we do.

We blink about every 5 seconds, which takes about 150 milliseconds.

Studies have shown that when we blink, we don't see, but the visual cortex edits out these blackouts so we never notice them.

About three times a second and lasting up to 200 milliseconds our eyes make jerky moves which are called saccades.

These movements allow the Fovea, to focus on different parts of our environment and to provide the information to the brain that then fills what we see.

During each of these saccades, while the eyes keep transmitting data to the brain, the brain doesn't process about 100 milliseconds of the information.

The average individual will perform up to 15,000 saccades a day and even if we don't include the blinking, this means that while awake and having our eyes open, our visual system is offline for up to four hours every day.

Tomorrow I'll try cover why we still think we see during these four hours.

You get two today, because I missed a work day out:

Today's interesting fact has to do with Hard Water.

Hard water is considered hard because dissolved mineral content in the water.

When heated this mineral content can precipitate out, and forms the scale found in our kettles and other water heating equipment.

When it comes to cooking, plumbing, washing clothes, boiling kettles, heating water, electric showers and bathing or showering, people don't like hard water.

Part of this dislike comes from the dissolved ions in hard water that makes it hard react with the chemicals in soap to create a sticky scum or curd, which is then left on the skin, clothing, surfaces or hair.

Clothes and sheets washed in hard water often feel rough or even harsh to touch.

But hard water can be good for your health in a number of ways.

A study done in 1984 states:

'New results based on changes that have taken place in water hardness and in cardiovascular death rates between 1961 and 1971 in the county boroughs of England and Wales indicate a significant trend for men, in the direction of decreasing cardiovascular mortality with increasing hardness, but no trend for women. The trend in male mortality appears to be specific to cardiovascular disease. The results are similar to those of the earlier study and support the hypothesis of a weak causal relationship between the hardness of drinking water and mortality from cardiovascular disease.'

With fewer people drinking milk and eating milk by-products, studies have also suggested that hard water be an important source of the calcium and magnesium needed in our diet.

So while soft water can be good for washing clothes, hard water might be better for you to drink.

Today's interesting fact has to do with heart attacks.

Most people don't worry about having a heart attack, even though children as young as five have had them in recent years.

When having a heart attack, many report pain radiating down the left arm, stifness of the arm or neck or even a crushing weight on the chest, sometimes likened to having an elephant sit on you.

But what most people don't know, is the most likely time to have one is between 6 am and 12 noon.

Today's interesting fact has to do with Toes.

Toes assist you while walking, providing balance, weight-bearing, and thrust during each step.

Many people don't realise that toe bones often get broken and the toe's owner often never realises there has been a break.

Today's interesting fact has to do with food prices.

Overall food prices have more than doubled over the past 20 years.

Items such as coffee and tea have risen much faster than many other food stuffs, but perhaps the greatest increase has been in bottled water.

But even stapes, such as wheat, rice and potatoes have also had massive increases.

A sack of rice which was purchased two years ago for £5.00, costs more that £10.00 this year.