Today’s interesting fact has to do with English Blackbirds, Song Thrushes and Anvils.

A lot of people know that Song Thrushes will pick a large rock and use it as an anvil to break up snail shells and eat the extracted snail.

I was walking home last night and saw an English Blackbird do the same, using a brick drive way as the anvil.

Aparently Blackbirds in some parts of England have learnt the trick and in other areas, the birds will steal extracted snails from Song Thrushes and in other areas Blackbirds don't seem to eat snails.

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.

Today's interesting fact has to do with Tea.

What is the difference between black tea and green tea?

Black tea has been oxidized.

In the distant past, this was done by the application of a mould.

Now it is oxidized using machinery specially developed for the process.

Today's interesting fact has to do with Cotton.

Cotton has been used for garments and ropes thousands of years.

Old World cotton has short strands.

When the Spanish went into the Caribbean they found that the cotton used by the Carib and Arawak Indians had long strands.

Europeans took seeds of the Caribbean cotton and exported it all over the world, where it was crossed with short strand cotten, to create the hybrids of cotton we use today.

Today's interesting fact has to do with dog's wool.

Which would you think is warmer, cardigans created from wool from sheep or lambs, or wool from dogs.

The answer might not be what you think.

Dog's wool is better at keeping you warm, it is up to 80% warmer than sheep or lambs wool.

You might not be able to purchase Chiengora garments, but there are plenty of examples on the internet on how to create your own garments.

Dog wool was the main fiber spun on the North American continent before the Spaniards introduced sheep.

Today's interesting fact has to do with the Lionfish.

The Lionfish comes from the pacific ocean.

It has sharp spines that contain venom which mean that it has few preditors.

It has become a pest in the Caribbean, where it has no natural enemies.

It seems a few were released from aquariums in the US and are now devistating Caribbean ecologies.

Today's interesting fact has to do with Films.

If you are into action films, animated or ones made from comics, it is important to watch to the end of the credits.

Often, these films will have spoilers at the end of the film, which sometimes makes part of the film make more sense, or will set up the reason for a sequel.

For example, Thor has reached the cinema, so if you go to watch it make sure you watch the film to the last credit.

Today's interesting fact has to do with GPS.

GPS stands for Global Positioning System.

GPS is being used by a number of systems these days.

Almost everyone knows about SatNavs and how it makes things easier for drivers to get from one place to another, and they have replaced maps for many.

But there are other systems that use GPS, even though they never move, because of the exact timings that can be obtained from the system.

Three satelites are used to determine the position of the object using GPS, and a fourth satelite then provides the exact time.

That exact time, is used in traffic systems in coordinating traffic lights, in hospitals in coordinating medical machinery, by telephone systems in the masts that send singnals to your mobile telephone.

A recent experiment involving GPS blocking in California by the US Navy caused no end of issues with these systems.

China is producing GPS blockers and these are on sale through the internet throughout the world.

Today's interesting fact has to do with the Small-leaved Lime.

Tilia cordata is a tree that grows through much of Europe and Southern Britian and it has been planted in many areas as an ornimental.

Car drivers are well aware of the honey dew that sometimes drips on their cars if carelessly parked in the wrong places, e.g. under the trees in late spring.

This honey dew comes from aphids that can attack the trees when the leaves are young.

The young leaves are edible and were traditionaly used in Britian in spring salads and as a replacement to lettuce in salads.

Lime tree honey is considered a delicacy by some and the flowers can be made into a tea which is supposed to have medicinal properties.

It is thought to be an anti-inflammatory and has been traditionally used in respiratory issues: such as colds, fevers, flues, sore throat, bronchitis, and cough.

Today's interesting fact has to do with the calorie.

When asked, a lot of people don't know what a calorie is.

A calorie is a unit of energy.

It is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree C, or around 4.2 joules of energy.

This calorie is sometimes called the small calorie or the gram calorie.

In most 'scientific' applications, the joule is now used instead.

The calorie is mostly used now as a unit of food energy.

To make things confusing for dieters, there is also the Calorie, sometimes called the Large Calorie, Kilogram calorie, the kilocalorie, Dietary calorie or food calorie.

The Calorie (always denoted with an uppercase or capital C) is the energy needed to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree C.

Calories in food is determined by calculations, developed by Wilbur Olin Atwater and associated in the 19th Century, where they compared the energy produce by burning and estimating how much energy is used after the foodstuff passed through an alimentary canal.

We have learnt recently that the number of calories that can be removed from food increases with the amount of processing a foodstuff receives.

This sadly means that the calories listed on many food packets can incorrect, by as much as 25% and those of us who diet, must keep this in mind when calculating how many calories we are consuming.

Today's interesting fact has to do with ties and high blood pressure.

Recently medical research has confirmed that wearing a part of the traditional western formal business attire can contribute to a serious health risk.

A tie increases pressure in two ways.

1) It places pressure on the glands of the neck that help the body control blood pressure and cause an increase in that way.

2) It constricts the blood vessels of the neck and the restriction this causes creates a feed back to the heart which then raises the blood pressure to get the correct amount of blood into the brain.

Both of these have been shown by the increase of pressure within the eye.

There is evidence that it can also cause Glaucoma.

Today's interesting fact has to do with Absinthe.

Absinthe is a high alcohol content drink that also has extracts of wormwood, green anise and sweet fennel within it.

It was very popular as an alcoholic drink in late 19th- and early 20th-century France.

Because of the wormwood extracts Absinthe has historically been portrayed as dangerously addictive and hallucinogenic.

One chemical, thujone, which is present in small quantities, has been was blamed for the alleged harmful effects.

Because of accepted belief that Absinthe was considered addictive, by 1915, Absinthe was banned in the United States and in most European countries.

However, recent research has shown that wormwood is not addictive nor a hallucinogen.

An examination of a few of the remaining Absinthe bottles from the 19th and early 20th century, it seems that the hallucinations users suffered were more likely to come about from the methyl alcohol also found in the bottles.

Today's interesting fact has to do with sleep and the brain.

In our busy modern lives, many of us find ourselves waking up tired.

There have been many proposed reasons for this lack of restful sleep.

It has been suggested that modern lighting has caused the problems, by resetting our body clocks.

It has been shown that bright blue light will reset our circadian rhythms.

Florescent and LED lights tend to be in the bluer range.

It has been suggested that looking at our bright computer screens and mobile telephones late at night does just this.

They have been studying the brain using MRI to determine what sections of the brain do various tasks and how they interact.

Several studies that have shown when we have a lack of sleep, sections of the brain can take a nap without our realising it.

These naps cause a reduction in ability, especially when doing repetitive tasks.

People will often do the 'wrong' things when these naps occur.

Drivers lose the ability to drive and have accidents, operators of machinery can mis-use their equipment, writers can type nonsense, and speakers can find they talk nonsense.

With a good night sleep, they find that the brain doesn't nap and accidents then are less likely to occur.

Today's interesting fact has to do with bicycles and trucks.

In the UK, 50% of cyclist deaths are caused by collisions with Lorries (Trucks or 18 wheelers in the US) which are only 5% of UK traffic.

Today's interesting fact has to do with Echocardiograms.

An Echocardiogram is a sound picture of the heart.

Until recently, it displayed slices of the heart to allow doctors to see if you have issues with the heart.

With the increased computer power available, three dimensional images and even movies have been created.

It can also show blood flow and can pinpoint where arteries are clogged.

It is usually known as an Echo, as ECG usually refers to an Electrocardiogram.

I have just had one and can confirm that it doesn't hurt.

Today's interesting fact has to do with snakes.

Snakes have two hemipenes, or two half penis, that are stored inverted within the tail of the male.

One hemipenis is everted for reproduction by erectile tissue and one is used in mating.

They used to think that snakes (and lizards) alternated the one they use between matings.

But it turns out from recent observations that most snakes seem to be right handed.

In addition to having a forked tongue, the snakes hemipenes are also forked, and these forks are thought to help the male snake to grasp the female internally and aid in completing copulation.

Today's interesting fact has to do with Termites.

For a long time entomologists argued over where on the tree of life termites came from.

It was often argued that termites were realted to or even desended from a type of cockroach.

Cockroaches and termites share a few common elements, but then so do most insects.

One thing they share is the Fat Body, a white mass that fills much of the abdomen of many insects.

The Fat Body has two types of cells, adipocytes filled with fat gobules and mycetocytes, which are filled with mutualistic bacteria.

Many insects, if you kill these bacteria, can continue to live and will eventually replace their bacteria.

But with cockroaches, if you kill the bacteria, the cockroaches and termites will usually die.

It seems that the bacteria in both insects are almost the same, closely related species.

When until they genetically sequenced the insects and compared them, it was shown that termites are actualy a type of cockroach, desendents of a type of wood eating cockroach.

Nick Myall doesn't like spiders, so he asked me to do something else today.

So, today's interesting fact has to do with Cockroaches.

Cockroaches have been around for at least 300 million years, which is 70 million years before the first identified dinosaurs.

Their overall basic design has not changed in all that time.

The big difference between fossilized examples and present day ones is the loss of a long ovipositor (egg laying tube) in the current crop.

Of the 5000 odd species so far identified, only five try to inhabit our homes.

The big four are: German cockroach, Brown-banded cockroach, American cockroach and Oriental cockroach.

The identifying the names by places may be misleading, as they are found all over the world and there is no evidence as to where they originated.

The fifth inhabitant is a new arrival, which we can positively identify its origin, and that is the Australian roach, which has only recently decided to join our households and is so far mainly located on that island continent.

Cockroaches can spread disease, and lots of people are allergic to their faeces.

Cockroaches eat anything, including human hair, calluses and nails as well as other cockroaches.

Sailors are reported to have sometimes worn gloves to protect their fingernails.

It turns out that Nick isn't that enamoured with Cockroaches either.

Today's interesting fact has to do with Bola Spiders.

Most people are familar with spiders that create webs, chaotic ones as the black widow spiders make or circular ones which are made by orb spiders, the webs that often found in your garden between two plants.

Bola spiders are ones that create a sort of lasso, a sticky blob of web on the end of a line of web.

They often sit in a small circular web waiting until an insect, such as a fly or moth, flies near, when they twirl their Bola and ensnare the passing prey.

You can find a number of videos on the web that show them in action, such as this one.

Today's interesting fact has to do with iodine and the lack of it in the British Diet.

Countries that depend on the sea to produce a large portion of their diet usually don't seem to have problems with iodine deficiencies.

Britain historically was one of those countries.

Unfortunately eating habits have changed; people are eating less food sourced from the sea.

While fish have some iodine in them, the amount various tremendously, shell fish usually have more iodine in them but kelp or seaweed is the best source of iodine.

And until the early 1900's many foods produce in the UK had many foods that contained seaweed extracts.

More recently, the largest portion of iodine in the British diet came from milk, but fewer people drink milk in amounts required and are not meeting their dietary needs.

The World Health Organisation has recently put out a warning that many who live in Britain are deficient in Iodine and suffering from the effects.

This includes thyroid problems and weight gain.

When this was published, I went to every supermarket I could reach, including Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys and the only supermarket I've found so far that has iodized salt is Lidls.

Today's interesting fact has to do with light.

Everyone knows that nothing can travel faster than light.

However, this is an incorrect statement of fact when light is in any medium other than a vacuum.

The speed of light in water, in an atmosphere or in glass or plastic is slower than it is in a vacuum.

Neutrinos and electrons are particles and Neutrinos don't slow down when they go through water, glass or even rock or metals.

When a particle does this, it generates Cherenkov radiation, which is an electromagnetic radiation that is emitted when a charged particle passes through a dielectric medium at a speed greater than the velocity of light in that medium.

This radiation has been likened to the sonic boom created by the sound wave produced when an aircraft exceeds the speed of sound.

In this case charged particles polarize the molecules of the medium, which then turn back rapidly to their ground state, which then emit radiation in the process.

The characteristic blue glow often seen in images of nuclear reactors is due to Cherenkov radiation in the dielectric medium of water

Today's interesting fact has to do with parasites.

Parasites do more than infect their vectors, they can also change the infected individual's behaviour.

A vector is any person, animal or microorganism that that carries and transmits an infectious agent.

Most parasites have several vectors, mice and cats are two common vectors for Toxoplasmosis although it also infects many warm blooded animals, including humans.

When Toxoplasmosis infects mice, it changes the mouse behaviour from wanting to stay in corners and dark places, to going into the light and open places.

This allows Toxoplasmosis to reach their second vector, when the mouse is caught by their predetors, such as cats or foxes.

Animals can be infected by eating infected meat, by the accidental ingestion of fecal material of another animal that has recently been infected, or by transmission from mother to fetus.

Cats often get blamed for Humans infection, but we are more likely to get infected contact with raw meat or eating meats that are undercooked or because of fecal contamination of hands.

Up to one third of the world population is thought to be infected.

The initial infection can mimic a minor flu infection, but is more likely to go unnoticed.

Most people never have a problem with the infection, although it can be fatal, especially if passed from mother to fetus.

It has been noticed that Toxoplasmosis can change an infected human's behaviour, in that those who are infected, are more likely to take risks an get into driving accidents.

Today's interesting fact has to do with Blood Cells.

Most people know that there are four basic types of blood cells, A, B, AB and O, and that they come either RH positive or RH negative. But most people don't know that there are actually many additional groupings that blood can come in.

To date 30 blood group systems have been recognised. These groupings are based on antigens that can be found on the surface of the blood cell. The antigens can be proteins, carbohydrates, glycoproteins, or glycolipids and over 600 have been identified. Many of the antigens are vary rare or found maily in specific ethnic groups.

These blood groups, are most important when it comes to blood transfusions. By blood typing the main groups, medical personnel can usually easily identify who can receive what blood.

Occasionally these additional blood groupings can cause issues, when the blood is rejected even though it passed the blood typing.

Recently, a lab in Canada has worked out of way of masking these antigens, by coating the blood cells with a layer of sugars, glycoproteins, and glycolipids.

In the lab and in test animals, they have successfully given transfusions of different types of bloods that would normally cause rejection issues without any reduction in the way the blood cells work.

It is going into human testing, and will hopefully be available in the next five years.

Today's interesting fact has to do with the famous children's book writer Enid Blighton, the creator of Noddy and the Famous Five.

She also published under the pen name of Mary Pollock.

Enid had her own tennis court and has been reported to have enjoyed playing tennis in the nude.

Haven't been posting lately, but I've renewed my pledge to try to do so on a daily basis, Monday through Friday.

Today's interesting fact.

One hundred years ago, one third of all children born, died before the age of five. Today it is less than one half of one percent.

And we can thank science and the application of it to modern medicine for this result.

Today's interesting fact has to do with magnetic north.

Magnetic north has been moving around a lot lately.

At the moment, it is changing it's position on the earth by more than 40 miles a year.

No one knows why this is occurring and there are many new theories that are being tested and refined at the moment.

But one of the effects of the magnetic pole moving, is that several airports have had to change their signs. The large signs at the ends of the runways, display the degrees off magnetic north that the runway lays on, and pilots rely on these to ensure their on board compasses are working correctly. With recent changes, several of these have had to be changed yearly.

Today's interesting fact has to do with phosphorus.

There are about five countries that produce most of the phosphorus used today.

It seems that there are not many workable deposits available to us in the world.

Phosphorus is a key ingredient in the fertilisers we use to feed all the humans currently in the world.

Without this element, our farmers wouldn't be able to produce as much as they currently do.

Unless we find more deposits, in about 30 years, we will have passed the peak, and will not have enough to keep our farms going.

Today's interesting fact has to do with bitter tastes, spinach, and brussels sprouts.

I started off today’s fact with how a lab in the US has developed a system that uses extracts from spinach leaves to produce electricity.

While this was considered interesting by my audience, Nick Myall stated that he doesn't like the taste of spinach, brussels sprouts and other brassicas.

As he is the one I give these interesting facts to, this reminded me, that there are bitter tasting chemicals that not everyone taste.

While at university many years ago, our chemistry professor gave all of the class a litmus test strip that had been dipped onto one such chemical.

Our task was to taste the strip and report on that taste. About 10% of the class found it very bitter, but the rest of the class reported tasting just paper.

This ability to taste this specific chemical comes from having two copies of a specific recessive allele of a certain gene.

Our ability to taste many bitter tastes is also controlled by specific alleles.

So Nick and his son, who both find brussels sprouts particularly repugnant, probably have some of these genes, whereas his wife and daughter, who love the taste, probably don't.

My advice would be to have something different on their plates, if possible.

Today's interesting post has to do with spiders and snail shells.

There is a spider in Madagascar, that makes itself a home in the shell of a snail.

Doesn't matter what type of snail, these spiders, once they find an uninhabited shell, and after they determine it is their size, use the shell to protect itself from the rest of the world.

Using their silk strands, they hoist these shells up into bushes and trees, for further protection.

Today's interesting fact has to do with house dust mites.

House dust mites are found just about everywhere we live.

They eat the organic detritus, such as the dead skin cslls that constantly falls off our bodies, although they will consume any organic material, such as plant pollen, textile or paper fibers, and hair.

House Dust mites are linked to athma, their feces contain powerful digestive enzymes that are a major inducer of allergic reactions.

Today's interesting fact has to do with the Transient Ischaemic Attack (TIA), more commonly known as a Mini Stroke.

There are two types of strokes, and today, we will deal with one, a subset so to speak of the ischaemic stroke. An ischaemic stroke occurs when something blocks an artery that carries blood to the brain. This can be because of a blood clot that forms in an artery for what ever reason, an air bubble, blood clot or fat globule that is formed in a blood vessel somewhere, that is later carried to the brain and finally a blockage in the tiny blood vessels found deep within the brain.

If the blockage of blood supply to the brain is temporary the individual will have the symptoms of a stroke for a short time. This is called a transient ischaemic attack (TIA) or mini-stroke. The symptoms of a TIA can last from a few minutes to 24 hours.

A TIA is a sign that part of the brain is not getting enough blood and there is a risk of a more serious stroke in the future. As with any stroke, it is important to seek medical attention immediately.

Today's interesting fact has to do with nanotechnology

Different people seem to have different ideas in what nanotechnology refers to.

To make it things worse, some journalists seem use the same term for nanomachines and nanocrystals.

Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating mater on an atomic and molecular scale.

Titanium dioxide is a good example of this.

This mineral is found in toothpaste, paint, paper, sunscreen, skin care products and is used as a food colouring.

New uses of the material are constantly being found.

It turns paints white, helps whiten teeth, is a mild abrasive and its opacity blocks light.

Up to recently, the crystals used in these products have been large, when considered on the molectular scale.

But nano particles are now being used in many products. They are much smaller than the crystals that were used in the past.

These tiny crystals are begining to be linked to respiratory tract cancer and may cause problems in the digestive tract if swallowed.

Today's interesting fact is short and sweet and has to do with chemicals.

In response to all those individuals who have insisted they do not want food or drinks with chemicals in them, and in response to those companies that advertise their products as being chemical free, the Royal Society of Chemistry in the UK, has a million pound prize for anyone who can produce a material or substance that does not have any chemicals in it.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with Urine and stem cells.

Recently it was discovered that while urine is for the most part sterile, it also contains a certain number of stem cells floating in the fluid.

These seem to be shed into the urine by the body.

Medical Scientists have extracted these stem cells, and by using a scaffold of collagen from a pig urethra which had all cells removed, seeded the scaffolding with these stem cells and created a new urethra that has been successfully transplanted back into the urine doner animals.

This means that in the near future, when individuals have lost a urethra through accident or disease, they may have a new one created, from their own stem cells, thereby removing any possibility of tissue rejection.

It has been suggested by some researchers, that the practice of drinking ones own urine, might help the individual, by placing these stem cells back into the body, where they might migrate to and replace tissues that are damaged.

They also say the practice of by some cultures, to urinate on wounds to promote healing, may have more to do with these stem cells, and less to the supposed sterility of said urine.

No testing on either of these suggestions has been done to date, and it is not at this time recommended.

Today's interesting fact has to do with our default level of feelings.

Everyone seems to have a default setting when it comes to being happy, sad, miserable, grumpy or what ever. An individual will leave that setting, become happier, sadder, depressed, etc but eventually they will return to their default setting. Most of our time is spent in that setting.

Researchers have for years been trying to determine when this setting becomes our default. All the recent research suggests that this setting is determined at around 3 years of age, and it usually remains the same throughout life. The only times it changes is due to physical trauma to the brain, viral or bacterial infections, or chemicals changing the function of the brain.

Today's interesting fact has to do with the islandic volcano, Eyjafjallajokull.

Recently this volcano has been delcared to be a green eruption.

The reason for this, is that the amount of greenhouse gasses it produced are less than the amount of greenhouse glasses that would have been produced by the planes that the eruption grounded.

It says something that the planes flying to, from and within Europe, produce more CO2, that a series of volcanic eruptions.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with the Angel Winged Clam.

The angel wing clam gained a bit of fame in the movie Sahara, where Dirk tells Dr Rojas about the clam, calling it Petricola Pholadiformis and stating that the river they were in is the only place on earth that they occur. He goes on to state that they glow in the dark, and that science has been unable to determine why. He continues that he thinks they glow, because they can.

Unfortunately the clam he identifies, doesn’t glow in the dark, is actually called the false angel wing and is found in many fresh water rivers. The angle wing clam is Cyrtopleura Costata, is found only in salt water and while some of these shells will glow if exposed to ultraviolet light, they do not produce their own light.

Some molluscs do have a bio luminance organ and produce a green light. This light can be seen glowing through the shell. In some species of molluscs this light shines brighter through the shell than others and the shells have been shown to amplify the light produced. The technique used by the molluscs for laying down material in the shells are have been determined and the method is being used by LED producers to increase the output of their devices.

As to why these creatures produce light, it seems that the brighter the light, the less predation the animals suffer in the wild. It is thought that the green light produced hides them from their predators, effectively hiding them in plain sight. It has been confirmed that at least some of these predators cannot see the frequencies produced.

I'm a bit late in posting the 23rd's interesting fact. I did give the fact to Nick yesterday face to face though.

Today's interesting fact has to do with faecal transplants.

Faecal transplants have been performed since the 1950's, on patients with infected colons with unstoppable diarrhoea who have failed to respond to conventional treatments. At this time, it is a sort of last resort, but it may become more common place after a new set of medical trials are finished later next year.

There are an estimated 25,000 different type of bacteria, fungi and viruses that normally live in the large colon. This vast colony of micro-organisms for the most part live in a symbiotic relationship with us, increasing the nutrients available for us to absorb from our food. These creatures also work with each other, supplying compounds and nutrients that others cannot synthesise.

When the mixture of types of micro-organisms are disturbed, such as from antibiotics, poor diet or disease, harmful bacteria and viruses can take hold and cause us problems. It has been suggested that the appendix harbours a collection of good bacteria that gets released when this happens, but if the balance is too far out of whack, the colon colony cannot recover.

C. dificile is one such bacteria, and cause death.

Faecal transplants, from individuals with healthy bowel colonies, have been shown to correct this type of problem, within 48 hours of administration. One medical clinic has done over 1500 faecal transplants, all of the patients recovered from their debilitating conditions.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with exploding toads and frogs.

It was noticed some years ago, that toads and frogs were exploding in gardens, parks and along river banks in parts of Europe. No one could explain at first why they were exploding and there were a considerable number of theories advanced, including one that required visiting outer space men.

One biologist noticed that the samples he studied had no livers. So he and several of his colleagues set up blinds and cameras in various frog and toad habitats to determine what was going on. After several weeks of investigation, they realised that the culprits in the case of the exploding frogs and toads were crows.

Crows would fly into the areas, settle down on the ground, and stand still. Toads and Frogs seem to have trouble seeing anything that doesn’t move. They are primed to see movement, so if something stands still, they don’t notice. When a frog or toad got close enough, with surgical precision, the crows would stab the amphibian in the stomach, and remove the liver, which crows seem to really enjoy. This didn’t kill the frogs and toads immediately, but left a wound, that would often partially heal, until the frog or toad decided to make their calls. They would fill their throats, the wound would burst and the poor creature would explode.

This behaviour was only found in certain areas of Europe, but the behaviour seems to be learnt by crows watching other crows, and the actions have been reported in the US now, a world wide phenomenon.

I’m posting yesterdays interesting fact today, as yesterday was a bit hectic. It has to do with the weather and climate.

Weather is what happens from day to day. Climate is what happens globally. For what ever reason, the world’s overall temperature is rising, even if in parts of the world, it is getting colder.

In England has experienced a lot of swings in the weather patterns over the past 50 years or so and seems to come and go. This has been shown to be because of changes in the jet stream, a river of wind that runs around the world.

Models suggest that as the overall temperature of the world increases, the jet stream will meander more. This seems to be happening, which has been causing the swings in weather, such as the droughts and subsequent forest fires in Russia, the cold winters in some parts of the world, as well as the warm winters in other parts.

This is because as the jet stream kinks, cold air from the north is dragged south, bringing cold and snow, and then warm air is dragged north, bringing the warm weather.

You can see this in a pot of water on a stove or cooker. When the water simmers, hot water rises, and cold water settles down to the bottom to warm and rise again. The more heat applied to the bottom of the pan, the faster this rising and falling occurs, until eventually you get a rolling boil. This is basically what is happening to the air.

As the tropics get warmer air rises and goes north, where it settles and then moves south. Because the earth is spinning, this causes the various trade winds. The hotter the tropics get, the further north the warm air goes, the more violent it moves and the faster cold air from the north, along with the snow and freezing rain, goes south.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with the element carbon.

There are three common isotopes of carbon that are found on earth, carbon-12, carbon-13 and carbon-14. Around 99% is carbon-12, about 1% is carbon-13 and carbon-14 is found in trace amounts.

Carbon-14 is radioactive and decays into nitrogen-14. You might think that this is why carbon-14 is so rare and that it might eventually disappear, but carbon-14 is produced when cosmic rays enter the atmospheres, produce neutrons, through a reaction convert the nitrogen-14 into a carbon-14 atom and a hydrogen atom.

Carbon-14 is constantly replenished, so that in the there is always about the same amount in the atmosphere at any time. Carbon-14 gets picked up by plants and through herbivores enters the animal food chain. Once an animal or plant dies, the ratio of carbon-14 to the other carbon isotopes doesn’t remain constant, as the carbon decays.

Because we know the half life of carbon-14, and the amount of carbon-14 is thought to remain constant (which remains true as long as the amount of cosmic rays remains constant), by determining how much carbon-14 remains in a sample, can determine how old the sample is, which is how radio-carbon dating works.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with atoms, elements and isotopes.

The simplest atom, hydrogen, has one electron and one proton. The proton is in the nucleus with the electron circling around it. But there isn’t just one form of hydrogen, there are three. Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen that has a neutron in the nucleus with the proton. Tritium has two neutrons with the proton. Hydrogen is also the only element with separate names for the various isotopes. The simplest form, without any neutrons, is also known as protium.

Today's interesting fact has to do with Echinacea and Ginseng.

These herbal remedies have been used for thousands of years. Echinacea by American Indians, Ginseng by those in the far east.

Many claims have been made about the potent powers of these two herbs and few of them have been confirmed, but one fact has been scientifically proven in blind tests. The use of these two herbs in combination have been shown to reduce the length an individual has a cold and a case of flu, by at least a third and sometimes by half.

Today's interesting fact has to do with the pygmy sloth of the Caribbean.

These diminutive creatures are much smaller than the land bound version. They were separated from the land about ten thousand years ago and have become a new species very quickly.

Unlike their relatives, these regularly swim and can be found paddling in the ocean, although they don't yet know exactly why.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with T-Cells.


T-Cells are used by the body to attack bacteria and viruses. Many of them are produced by the Thymus. T-Cells seem to rewrite some of their DNA, to produce small circles of RNA, which are used to help them do their job.

Recently they have worked out that the number of these T Cell Receptors found in T-Cells can be used to determine how old someone is. Blood samples, found by the police, can now give them the age of whoever lost the blood. This technique has already been used to rule out individuals in some cases.

Today's interesting fact has to do with Dogs.

As most people know, the domestic dog seems to be a descendant of a species of wolves that lives on and around the Himalayas, with the occasional input of genes from other wolves or wild dogs throughout the world.

Short legged dogs seem to all descend from one genetic change, that is felt to have originated in the middle east, anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000 years ago.

Today's interesting fact has to do with Global Warming.

Not the global warming that is being discussed today, with some stating that it doesn't exist and others stating that it does. But the global warming that occurred some 50 million years ago.

No one is quite sure how it happened, but around 50 million years ago, the temperature of the planet sky rocketed. The shores of the Arctic ocean had palm trees lining it. Hippo's and Elephants lived in the Arctic circle. And perhaps most importantly to us, the number of primate species boomed, and eventually resulted 50 million years later in humans.

There are a number of theories as to why the planet warmed at that time. One is a meteorite that struck some high carbon content rocks. Another are some volcanoes that came up through other rocks that had a similar content. Another one is a methane burp, from the sea floor.

Whatever it was, the world warmed over the course in the matter of a few thousand years, and instant in geological time frame.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with the past two posts.

What is the difference I was asked, between Epigenetics and Lamarckism or Lysenkoism.

Epigenetics changes the way genes work, sometimes for several generations, but is eventually reversed, and the genes go back to the way they worked. No change to the genetic code is made. These changes allow the following generations to cope with specific changes to the environment. For instance, if a generation or two of an organism is given limited access to nutrients, epigenetic changes allow successive generations to survive by increasing the way they take up nutrients and how they utilise them. When the conditions that cause the change are reversed, eventually the epigenetic changes are reversed.

For both Lamarckism and Lysenkoism it was postulated that changes made to an organism, affects its offspring. Lamarck suggested that cutting off several generations of mice tails, would eventually lead to tailless mice. If this were true, breeds of dogs that had their tails docked for hundreds of years would now not have tails when born, yet those tails still exist.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with Trofim Lysenko, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and the theory of the heritability of acquired characteristics.

Lysenko was a follower of Lamarck, a French Biologist who came up with Lamarckism, or the idea that an organism can pass on traits that it develops during its life, to its descendants. These traits were thought to be passed on at the time of conception.

Lamarckism fell out of favour in the 1920’s when evidence that seemed to support the theory, was shown to have been tampered with.

Lysenko claimed to have developed a better agricultural system through Lamarckism, which the leaders of the Soviet Union felt better supported the ideology of Communism. Lysenko was placed in charge of agriculture and denounced biologists that suggested other systems might work better than Lysenkoism, particularly geneticists, many of whom were executed or sent to labour camps.

Genetics was eventually declared a pseudoscience and effectively outlawed, and this was rescinded only in the mid 1960s.

Today's interesting fact, has to do with Epigenetics.

Epigenetics is the study of inherited changes in appearance, or gene expression by mechanisms other than changes to DNA. Or in other words, how genes turn off and on from generation to generation. It has also been used to describe how genes turn on and off during the lifetime of an individual. In a foetus, genes switch on and off as the body grows.

It has been shown that when genes have methyl groups added to them, the action of that gene can be turned off or even have their actions changed.

While it was thought that these changes could not be passed on from one generation to another, its been determined that these changes can pass on through two or more generations. Changes the way that a set of genes work, that occurred to your grandparents, can show up in you and possibly your children.

The study of epigenetics is still in its infancy, but many are suggesting that the recent obesity epidemic might have at least some of its roots in the starvation of some of our ancestors.

Today's interesting fact has to do with Swarm Intelligence.

If you have watched a cloud of starlings, a swarm of ants, or a shoal of fish turning and moving, you might be forgiven for thinking that some form of intelligence was required. But it has been shown that simple equations can explain the behaviour.

Swarm Intelligence is shown however when a group of animals makes a decision that affects the whole group. Such as when bees swarm to find a new home.

But humans also can display swarm intelligence. Take a jar, fill it with beans, and then ask various individuals how many beans are in the jar, without letting them discuss their guesses. Apparently, more often than not, an average of the answer, is likely to be closest to the correct answer.

This only works when discussions are not allowed, as a percentage of the population seems to be able to sway others opinion, to such a degree, that the others will accept these opinions, without actually guessing.

Today's interesting fact has to do with Culture and how it affects those who live within them.

Culture affects much more than many people think. The way we perceive colour is determined by culture. The way we express emotions on our faces is determined by culture. The way we react to issues is determined by culture. There are apparently only two facial expressions that are innate, that everyone expresses. All the others are learnt by the culture we grow up in.

The way we perceive images is also affected. There is an interesting picture of two lines, with lines forming arrows at the ends. the two lines are both the same length, but depending on the culture we grow up in, determines if we see the one line larger than the other. Those raised in western cultures, will think one line up to 22% longer than the other. The San, African bushmen, shown the same image, correctly identify them as being exactly the same length, as do Australian Aborigines.

Today's interesting fact has to do with the largest and smallest living organism.

The largest one seems to be a fungus, known locally as the "humongous fungus", a honey mushroom. The mycelium of this fungus covers almost 1000 hectares of forest. DNA tests from portions taken throughout the forest has shown that it is all one creature

The smallest one (and note that it self replicates without outside help, in other words, is not a parasite) is a bacterium that is 200 nanometres in diameter. It was found in hot, arsenic filled mine effluent.

Today's interesting facts continue with spiders, specifically Huntsman spiders.

These are also known as giant crab spiders, wood spiders, and in south Africa, rain spiders because they often go into homes when it rains.

The Huntsman spider is found throughout the world, in tropical or semi-tropical regions and can be found in houses in colder climates.

The largest can have a leg span of almost a foot across. While not deadly to humans, they can bite and can cause minor swelling and local pain.

These spiders feed on insects, especially cockroaches, so should be considered benificial. They do not use webs, but hunt their food.

They have been found in Baltic and Dominican amber.

Today's interesting fact has to do with Spiders.

Tarantulas are very large spiders, and make popular pets. The largest ones, come with red hairs that cover their bodies. Not a lot of people know that you should handle these large creatures with care, as the hairs easily come off the spiders, and if they go into your or an animals eyes, can cause temporary blindness. If they go into the lungs, they can cause an allergic reaction and even foster an infection. These large spiders also have another trick up thier sleaves, it was recently discovered that their feet have web producing spinnerettes that help them climb, something that puzzeled some scientists given the weight of the spiders.

Newly born spiders fly to new environments, by climbing to the top of the highest feature they can find, then spin a fine thread of silk, which is picked up by the breeze. Eventually the thread will pull them up into the air, so they can settle as much as hundreds of miles from their birthplace.

I was specificaly asked how spiders get from one tree to another, to build their webs. I've seen this in action. Just as a baby spider spins its parachute, a larger spider intent on creating a large web will spin a fine thread into the air. Once it is picked up by the breeze, it poduces a thicker and sticker thread, followed by a thick but not sticky thread. When the thread catches on another object, the spider fastens the thread to what it is sitting on, as an anchor, then climbs the thread, and adds another guideline as it climbs to where the thread caught. Amazing to watch.

Today's interesting fact has to do with Honey.

Humans have been using honey for thousands of years.

Not to long ago, some honey in clay post was discovered in an Egyptian tomb.

It was found to be edible, showing that Honey stays edible.

Honey has been used to treat wounds. The ancients discovered that a layer of honey on a wound would usually allow the wound to heal without turning septic and festering.

This is partially due to the antibiotics that is found in honey, preventing bacteria from multiplying and partially from the sealing of the wound from the atmosphere.

My earlier post, was actually yesterdays. I fell asleep last night before I posted it.

Today's interesting fact has to do with Honey Bees.

Bees regulate the temperature of their hives by warming their bodies, through vibrating their flight muscles.

This can raise the temperature of the hive to over 47 °C (117 °F).

If a human's body temperature were to rise to this temperature, it would kill him (her).

Therefore, if you had a large enough ball of bees, you could kill someone, and not just from potential stings.

It would take the about 20,000,000 Honey Bees, or the contents of around 1000 medium sized hives, to do it though. The bees wouldn't be able to get close enough all at once, to a human to actually do it, there would be a awful lot of bees.

But it would only take around 50 jars of honey to supply the bees with the energy to do the feat, if it were possible.

Today's interesting fact has to do with water.

Specifically water bottled in plastic.

To understand the cost of bottled water, it has been estimated by various orgnaistions that to bring home the cost in oil, the bottles should be filled with a specific amount of oil.

How much, oil there should be depends on if the company estimating it is funded by producers of bottled water or not.

It can range anywhere from a fifth of a bottle to a quarter of a bottle of oil.

The cost doesn't just come from the manufacture of the bottle, but also to the filling of the water, the pumping of the water, the transportation of the water, and in many cases the filtration, of the water.

Some water is purified by removing everything except the water, and then adding specific chemicals to give the perfect taste.

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

Just before the end of the 1800's, the presindent of the British Assoication stated that England, and the rest of the civilised world, was in danger of running out of food.

Britain back then needed to import wheat, as there wasn't enough land to meet demand, considering yields were around 1.5 tonnes per hectare.

The way around the problem was the application of nitrogen fertilisers, which could more than double yields.

Guano from various islands and lands was harvested to produce these fertlisers and it was recognised that the supply of Guano would soon run out.

Fortunately for the modern world, Fritz Haber worked out how to systhesise ammonia from the air and water, which lead to the Haber-Bosh process and nitrogen fertlisers.

Over half of the nitrogen fertilisers used today are produced by this process, and without it, the human population would never have reached the levels it has today.

This need to produce nitrogen fertilisers to support our ranks may cause problems in the near future. Some esitmates, suggest that over 30% of the oil consumed today goes to producing the fertlisers required to feed the planet.

If plans to add the special nodes that contain the special nitrogen fixing bacteria to all our food plants do not come about, will the end of oil, result in starvation to humans across the planet?

This needs to be thought about by someone, because not a lot of people realise we are basically eating oil based products, as well as using it in our cars, air planes, plastics and to produce electricity.

Today's interesting fact has to do with pregnant women and an old wives tale.

Even today, pregnant women are told that if they have a curry, it will either induce the birthing process, or reduce the time it takes to give birth.

While there is some evidence that a hot curry can start the process, there has been no evidence the length of the process is reduced at all and the chemical compounds within the various spices also have another effect.

When a woman gives birth, her body produces various endorphins and chemicals that reduce the amount of pain she experiences during the birth.

Unfortunately the various compounds within the curry, stop the endorphins produced from stopping the pain.

So the result is, while a curry may help start birthing, it means the woman in question feels all the pain, instead of having the pain reduced, as she would normally.

Today's interesting fact has to do with the Pike. This is a large carnivorous fish, called the Jackfish in some parts of North America and the Gar in others. It is found throughout the northern hemisphere.

Pike can grow to four feet in length, about 1.5 meters, and eat everything from fish, frogs, birds and other pike, ambushing their prey. Although it is considered a fresh water fish, it also can live in brackish waters, and has been seen eating herring on in salt waters.

In an attack it has been calculated that during its lunge for prey the Pike subjects itself to more than 10g of force, if only for a short distance.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with medications.

When someone is prescribed medications, some care is given to make sure that when multiple drugs are given, they don’t interfere with each other. For instance, if someone is taking Warfarin to thin their blood, they are told to not take Aspirin, or other drugs that also thin the blood.

Some years ago, when I was in the USAF Reserves, I worked as a Pharmacy Technician. Every time we handed out birth control, we had a script we followed, a little speach, warning the recipient that some medications, such as some antibiotics, some over the counter remedies, etc, would make their birth control ineffective, and as such they should take additional precautions if sex was planned. We also told them that if they were in doubt, they should discuss with the Pharmacist or their prescribing Physician. This seemingly little known fact has stuck with me, possibly because some of my colleagues were much younger than me, and they would ask me to talk to the women, as discussing birth control seemed to embarrass the younger men.

I’ve discussed this with Doctors, and all of them have told me that they mention this information when a prescription is first issued. I have in the past, looked at some birth control information sheets, and the information was also listed there. I don't know if it still is, but I'm sure a Google search will confirm that it happens with some medications.

Many women however, do get pregnant, because they don’t follow this advice, usually I suspect, because they forget the advice, something that I can understand, with the busy lives we all have these days. I known of many women who have gotten pregnant from this, but perhaps, after seeing it here, someone will not have an unwanted pregnancy?

Today's interesting fact deals with lizards.

I've covered before how some lizards have sex determining genes, and others use the temperature of their surroundings while they are in the egg to determine their sex. With those who use genes to determine sex, Lizards and snakes have ZW chromosomes. Those with ZZ are male, those with ZW are female. It has been long thought that lizards with the set of WW chromosomes, were both infertile and non-viable (e.g. they die in the egg), just as mammals with YY sex chromosomes are non-viable and die in the egg.

Normally, when birds or lizards reproduce parenthetically, all the young are male, as the young are only produced from doubling the chromosomes of the mother. Females couldn't be born.

But recently, however a Boa Constrictor, an India Python, has been found to have produced viable female young, with WW sex chromosomes. It is interesting that the Boa produced no male offspring, only female ones.

This is being studied now, and they are hoping to determine if the mother's offspring can produce offspring from mating with males. If they do, they should also be female. Only the Boa's grandchildren should produce males after mating.

I look forward for the next few years to find out the outcome.

Today's interesting fact has to do with mobile phones.

These minicomputers have changed our lives and have made connections to our friends, families and work ubiquitous.

To many, being without a connection to the world is abhorrent to think about. I've known people drive 30 miles to work, sit down at their desk, only to get up and drive home, just to pick up their phones from home.

One of the worst things that can happen to the modern individual, is for their battery to run out of power. This invariably leads to the unprepard to run around the office asking if anyone has a charger that can be used to charge their phone. I had a neighbour recently knock on the door to my flat, begging for a charger, as his wife had his in her handbag at her place of work, and wasn't due home for several hours.

A few years ago, the EU commission approached the companies that manufacture phones, to correct this situation, partially to stave off the potential electrical waste of thousands of tons of unused chargers, but also to make things simpler for mobile phone customers. I understand it was suggested that it was either the companies came up with a solution, or the EU could come up with a law to force it on the manufacturers. Most companies, if not all, have agreed that phones that are data-enabled, mostly 3G and 4G phones, will have this ability.

And it is this year, 2010, inter-chargeable mobile phones are supposed to be available to us, the consumer. I checked the other day, and while the 3G phones I looked at were charged by the mini-USB, most of non-3G phones I saw still had separate chargers.

This emphasis on 3G phones might cause us all problems in the near future. These data intensive phones use a lot of bandwidth. Many, in heavily populated areas, have commented on their phones cutting out, conversations dropped, data flow halted. This seems to be because while we have been buying these new 3G phones, the infrastructure is being overloaded. Indeed, for the 2012 Olympics, they are frantically increasing the infrastructure in and around the Olympic village and sports arenas, to handle the extra capacity that will be required.

Even so, there is likely to be issues, because as the analogue TV and Radio networks are still working, the bandwidth that the mobile phone companies want to take over, to increase their products connectivity isn't available. I read not long ago, that by 2013, many phones will not be able to maintain a signal, as the connections may end up being rotated between available cells.

The UK isn't the only country having this problem. In New York City, friends have reported they constantly lose connections, as have friends in Los Angles and other large cities.

So we may just need to learn, to do without constant instant communications, as more of these 3G phones are sold and used, unless the bandwidth issues are solved soon.

Today's interesting fact has to do with the Chupacabras, or translated into English, the goat sucker.

La Chupacabras was first reported in Puerto Rico, as a cross between an monkey and a bat, a bald animal that sucked the blood out of it's prey, usually livestock especially goats, and was considered to be a vampire. It then migrated to mainland of Central America, changing from a bipidal creature, into a quadrapidal one. Its range now extends well beyond Texas and have been reported as far north as Maine, and as far south as Chile.

Over the years the remains of a number of these creatures have been found, often in such a decomposed state, it has been difficult to determine their identity. However, recent finds, have provided genetic material, as well as skin samples and it seems that the creatures are actually coyote or dogs with severe parasite infections, specifically that of mange.

I find it interesting that there are many diseases that seem to have been passed from domesticated animals to humans. Mange is one of the few diseases that has pass from humans, to two of our closest domesticated companions, dogs and cats. The mange parasite's closest relative is the itch mite, scabies, a parasite that infects humans. When a human is infected, the infection will often last months, however most humans develop an imuninity and cannot be infected again. Dogs have only developed the ability to build partial resistance to the mite so far, and the dog's relative, the coyte, doesn't seem to even have that, leading to massive and cripalling infections that leave the animals unable to hunt their normal prey, causing them to turn to livestock, which being penned together are easier for ill coytes to attack.

Today's interesting fact is a continuing note on Komodo Dragons.

There is speculation that the Komodo Dragons are the last remnants or descendants of a species that once lived in Australia and Indonesia, which were connected 900,000 of years ago. The large lizards in most of Indonesia and Australia disappeared around the same time that humans arrived. It isn't known of course, if these large lizards died out because of the climate change that was then occurring or if humans had something to do with their demise.

Komodo Dragons are one of the few lizards where the female of the species do not require a male to reproduce, or at least to produce male progeny. Komodo Dragons, like birds, and unlike crocodiles and many other lizards, have genes that determine the sex of their offspring. Instead of XY, Birds and Komodo Dragons have an ZW sex pair. Many lizards have their sex determined by the heat the eggs receive during development.

Female Komodo Dragons have the ZW combination whereas Males are ZZ. This is the opposite of Humans. When Female Komodo Dragons don't have males to fertilise their eggs, they effectively self fertilise, by somehow doubling the the chromosomes in the egg. Eggs that have a WW combination, the eggs are infertile and do not develop. If they have ZZ they are male. All young from parthenogenesis in Komodo Dragons have been male, which makes sense, as the female's eggs would either have W or Z, the second sex chromosome would normally be supplied in the male's sperm, as a W.

Today's interesting fact has to do with the Komodo dragon.

This very large lizard, lives on four main islands of Indonesia, Komodo, Rinca, Flores and Gili Motang.

It lives mostly on carrion, but also hunts and ambushes prey.

It is a very strong swimmer and has been found swimming more than six miles from land, and it has been suggested it may also catch and eat fish.

It was long thought that in ambushing large animals, a combination of bacteria in their saliva caused toxic shock in the attacked animals, which then incapacitated the animals, and allowed the Komodo dragons to finish their kills.

Recently, keepers of Bearded Dragon lizards, noticed that mice caught by their lizards died faster than expected. Someone did some study and noticed that these lizards had venom in their saliva and further study discovered they had venom glands. This prompted an expanded study, because up to that moment, the only venomous lizards were thought to be the Gila Monsters in the Americas. The study showed that Komodo Dragons, as well as many other lizards, also have venom glands, and this is what incapacitates the Dragons prey, not bacterial toxic shock.

Today's interesting fact has to do with cinnamon and type 2 Diabetes.

I was asked the other day by a work collegue, why I always put cinnamon into my Tea and Coffee.

The answer was quite simple, I don't want to add sugar to my drinks, and as our ancestors knew before sugar was widely available, cinnamon makes what ever it is added to taste sweeter. And for me, it sweetens my drinks just the right amount.

Also, I went on to explain, a daily dose of cinnamon, from a quarter teaspoon to a teaspoon, has been shown to help delay (and some studies have suggested may prevent) the onset of type 2 Diabetes.

In addition, it seems to reduce fasting blood glucose, as well as triglycerides and LDL (or bad) cholesterol.

From other studies it has been shown that tt doesn't seem to matter if the spice has been added to food or drink, or taken orally in a capsule or tablet.

So, I was asked, why don't doctors tell us about this?

I had to think about this question for a while before my memory dredged up the information.

Cinnamon comes from the bark of treas and bushes. The amount of active ingredients found in the bark is extremely variable, and depends both on the genetics of the tree, where on the tree the bark was harvested as well as how much sunshine the bark received. Which is one reason doctors may not prescribe it, quality control is important in medications.

Taking cinnamon in large amounts is not a good idea, as large doses of one of cinnamon's active ingreadiants, coumarin, can cause liver damage. Coumarin can also thin the blood, so people with bleeding disorders or on anti-clotting medication, should reduce their intake.

Which active ingredient, or combination of chemicals, is causing the affects noted in the above studies hasn't been competely identified.

It's been suggested in most studies that pregnant women should avoid excessive amounts, and while you can buy a concentrated oil of cinnamon, it is not intended for consumption and using it orally can depress the central nervous system.

So limiting yourself to no more than a teaspoon's worth a day is probably a good idea, at least until they determine what is causing the effect and how to standardise doses.

Myself, I'm going to continue having a bit in my tea and coffee, cause it tastes good.

Today's interesting fact has to do with modern photography.

When I went to school, Louis Danguerre was said to have been the father of modern photograpy.

However, a Joseph Niepce, a number of years before had developed created a process that, using bitumen and lavender oil on metal plates, created an image that could be used to produce prints. Unfortunately it took between 8 and 42 hours to produce an image.

Niepce died of a stroke in 1933 and left his notes to Danguerre who then worked out how to use silver, iodine vaper and mercury fumes to create a latent image.

Of course, pin hole camers have been around for a long time, the Greeks and Chinese had both invented them in the 4th and 5th centruies BC. Camera obscuras were used in the 6th century CE, in eastern Europe, and early Muslim scolars studied cameras as well.

Today's intersting fact has to do with movies.

There are those who are suggesting that back in 1928, Charlie Chaplin may have documented the first proof that time travel exists.

In the movie 'The Circus' an older woman is seen walking, holding something to her left ear as she talks.

Her gestures and behaviour looks almost exactly the same as now seen almost anyware on the planet while people talk on their phones.

She even seems to stop, in the middle of a sentence, as if she is listening to someone else.

While some suggest she had mental problems, her behaviour was not documented until after the invention of the modern mobile phone.

Does this mean that time travel really exists?

Continuing on insomnia today, it has been suggested by some psychologists that some owe their success to the condition. Because they can't sleep, they spend their time doing work that they wouldn't have had a chance to do.

Vincent Van Gogh might not have painted so much, Napoleon Bonaparte may not have created his empire, W C Fields and Groucho Marks might not have been as successful, Alexandre Dumas and Mark Twain might not have written as much as they did, Thomas Edison, Marilyn Monroe and Benjamin Franklin may not have invented as much in their lifetimes.

Speaking of Marilyn, I've read that she had a number of patents registered in her name, and that her monetary worth came more from her inventions than the movies she appeared in.

So insomnia, although a curse, can sometimes also be a blessing in disguise.

I had thought of a fact this morning that I didn't think that Nick knew, but he changed the subject on me before I could tell him the fact.

Still, I thought I'd include it here anyway.

Cordite was invented in the late 1800's and was used almost exclusively by the British in their small arms and many British bombs during WW1, at least until they had sufficent shortages that they had to switch the the American smokless powder for many of their munitions.

Cordite was not used for small arms in the US during WW1, but was often used with large munitions.

Cordite was used as a detonation device for the nucular weapon, Little Boy, the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima.

But the subject has been changed to insomnia, a subject dear to my heart, as I do occasionally suffer from its effects.

Insomnia can be a sign or symptom of various medical and psychiatric disorders.

Insomnia can also be a condition, that causes other disorders.

Changes in the area where you sleep, the time you go to sleep, depression and stress can all cause the condition.

Insomnia is on the increase, with more and more sufferers turning to their doctors or various nostrums for help.

A recent study, has shown that blue light causes a section of the brain to help you wake up, whereas red light does the opposite and helps you fall asleep. This study has suggested that the recent switch to compact floresent lights in which is deficent in red light and with more blue light in the output, could be part of the reason for the increase, as the light would be waking our minds in the evenings, when we are preparing to go to sleep.

Todays interesting fact continues with WW1 and Homeopathy.

There are a many people who believe that Homeopathy doesn't work, and possibly just as many who believe it does.

However, during WW1, the American Homeopathy, the journal of American Homeopaths sent three military hospitals to France.

The hospitals were fully equipped and included medical, surgical, nursing and radiolological teams, as well as apparently, a pharmacy filled with the standard non-homeopath medication of the day.

Todays's interesting fact again has to do with World War 1.

During WW1 aproximately 9.5 million millitary men died. During the same time approximately 9.5 million military horses and mules also died.

Calvery was used in the begining of WW1, and were used with good efect until both the introduction of large machine guns, when thousands of horses died in what ended up as futal charges, and the introduction of trench warfare, where horses were no longer effective. Calvery charges did not die out completely and continued until the end of the war, where they were effective where large calaber weapons were not available.

Horses and mules were used as in support roles throughout the war, taking supplies and munitions to the front and wounded back. Thousands of these support animals died from gas attacks and other munitions.

Today's interesting fact has to do with World War 1. Nick likes World War 1 and has requested this subject today.

I remember reading some years ago, that while may people think that the causes of WW1 was the assanation Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, which because of treaties signed over the years, required the begining of a war. Indeed, when I was in school, that was exactly what I was taught.

But the article insisted that the real reasons were economic. Oil, had become an important commodity. Oil companies, and nations, had worked out that the need for oil would be paramount for years to come. The article suggested that it was only after Germany had been cut off from the oil fields in the countries they had invaded, that they had effectively lost the war, with the same occuring again in WW2, when Germany was cut off from it's oil supplies.

I don't know how accurate this is, but it is an interesting fact that others believe this to be the facts for the war.