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Guest Post: Invention of the Electric Chair

2011-11-08T14:49:00.000+05:30

Dentist Alfred P. Southwick is famously known as the creator of the electric chair, a method widely known for executing criminals and accused people.

The story goes that one day, the dentist saw a highly intoxicated fellow touching a live electric generator. The man died an extremely quick death. After having witnessed this, the dentist came to a conclusion. He studied that the conduction of electricity could result in the death of a living being. Since his profession had him perform all medical procedures by making his patients sit on the chair, he came up with the unique idea of an electric chair.

Alfred P. Southwick along with the Governor of New York state, David B. Hill worked tremendously hard to make the law of execution on an electric chair legal and recommended that death by electrocution should be made a legal form of capital punishment.

Finally, on January 1st, 1889 the law went into effect and on August 6th, 1890 the electric chair claimed its first victim, William Kemmler.

This guest post has been written by the research group from HappyHealth

"Mrs." is actually an abbreviation for the word "mistress."

2011-10-22T15:17:00.001+05:30

"Mistress" is the feminine form of "mister," which originally meant "master." Over the years people garbled the name for the married female, and the word "mistress" took on the meaning of an illicit lover, something far different than its original connotation. Therefore, married women ceased to spell out the full word, leaving "Mrs." as the far more respectable abbreviation!

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Mice that were exposed to heavy metal became aggressive and murderous

2011-10-22T15:08:00.009+05:30

One study conducted by David Merrill exposed mice to heavy metal 24 hours a day. The band chosen was Anthrax. The purpose of the study was to see how the heavy metal would affect their ability to learn new things.

Shockingly, the experiment could not be finished because instead of completing the Maze, the heavy metal mice all killed each other.
In further experiments, Merrill exposed the mice to heavy metal for only 10 hours a day. Even though the mice did not become homicidal in this experiment, they were much worse at solving the maze than when they had first encountered it.

(source)

Any unrestrained liquid in space will form a perfect sphere.

2011-10-20T16:58:00.004+05:30

I guess first off I should define what is meant by 'unrestrained.' Here on Earth, whenever we see falling liquids they obviously do not take the form of a perfect sphere (have you ever drawn a round raindrop before?). This is not for a lack of 'trying' on the liquid's part; there are simply other forces at work here on Earth that do not allow liquids to become completely spherical. The two culprits that 'restrain' liquids on Earth are gravity and the atmosphere. Gravity keeps the liquid moving toward the Earth and the gases in the atmosphere provide an uneven drag, with both factors resulting in raindrops that are flattened out and deformed.

Click here to watch the video!

Out in space, neither gravity nor an atmosphere are present, which allows liquid to take a perfectly round form. But without either of these constraints, what is left to hold it together? The answer is a phenomenon called surface tension, which is present in all liquids. Molecules in a liquid state are bound together by strong cohesive forces. These forces are even more powerful among molecules at the surface of a liquid because they are not completely surrounded by other molecules. This forms an outer 'tension' which makes it more difficult to move an object through the surface of a liquid than if it were completely submerged.

Warning: the following video is out of this world! (but seriously - it really is freaking awesome.)

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Amazon is now selling more Kindle books than ALL of their print titles combined!

2011-10-18T14:54:00.002+05:30

As of this past April 1st, for every 100 print titles the e-commerce site has sold, there have been 105 e-books sold on the Kindle! This includes both paperback and hardcover books and does not count any downloads of the assortment of free Kindle titles that are available. Also, Amazon’s brand-new $114 ad-supported model is now selling more rapidly than the older $139 Kindle. As an avid reader of both E- and “tree” books, I can tell you from personal experience that the Kindle has been worth every dollar for me. I also don’t believe normal books are about to ‘die out’ anytime soon as a result of this digital revolution.

(source)

The inventor of the Pringles had his ashes buried inside one of the tall tubes.

2011-10-17T17:02:00.002+05:30

Fredric J. Baur of Cincinnati, OH was so proud of his invention that he requested for his remains to be encased inside of it after he died! During his life, he served as an organic chemist and food technician at Procter & Gamble. In 1966, Baur filed for a patent for the tall, skinny can and the novel method of stacking the curved chips inside.

The patent was granted four years later, and he was able to retire in the early ‘80s knowing that he had invented something really cool. Baur passed away in May 2008 at the age of 89, and his children fulfilled his request - his ashes were split between a pair of urns and a Pringles can in his grave!

Source

You weigh less at the Equator

2011-10-17T16:59:00.001+05:30

The reason for this is that Earth bulges outward at the Equator because of the planet's rotation and its tendency to stay in a straight line while moving. This creates a gravitational field that is uneven, with more pull on the poles than in the middle. Because of this bulge, a person standing at the Equator is really further from the majority of Earth's mass than a person standing at either of the poles. But don't get your hopes up too much - the weight difference is a mere 0.5%! That's less than a pound for anyone weighing less than 200 pounds.

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A first-class ticket on the Titanic would cost approximately $57,200 today.

2011-03-29T16:13:00.002+05:30

Factoring in inflation, the $2,500 first-class tickets would be $57,200. The most expensive rooms on the ill-fated luxury liner would cost more than $103,000 now! On the plus side, you could get access to the swimming pool for only 25 cents! Even adjusting for inflation, it’s less than $6. For 50 cents, or less than 12 inflation-adjusted dollars, you got access to the squash courts, and could play with a professional squash player! You also got access to the Titanic’s 60 chefs. You even got the opportunity to see an iceberg up close for free! (too soon?)

On the other hand, third-class passengers only had to pay 40 bucks, or $900 in modern currency (which is actually fairly comparable to the price of a flight from Southampton to New York right now). These lower-class rooms often housed as many as ten passengers, but they were separated by gender so families had to be split up! Also, the 700 third-class passengers all had to share the same 2 bathtubs. On the plus side, back then they didn't have to deal with the TSA.

The recent earthquake moved Japan closer to the United States.

2011-03-15T15:57:00.001+05:30

Geophysicists found that global positioning stations near the quake’s epicenter moved as far as 13 feet eastward! This does not mean that the entire country shifted, but that the nation has actually grown wider. NASA scientists have also found that the earthquake may have shorted the length of the day by a couple of milliseconds and shifted the Earth’s axis!

This is not uncommon as large-scale quakes go, however. Last year’s Chilean earthquake and a 2004 Sumatran tremor also caused minor changes in our planet’s tilt and day length. Despite the dramatic nature of earthquakes and the amount of damage they can cause, fluctuations in the patterns of ocean currents and atmospheric conditions typically induce even greater changes!

Source: The NY Times

An Oscar costs several hundred dollars to produce.

2011-03-14T14:58:00.001+05:30

The reason the award is so expensive is because of the gold plating on the outside of each statuette. If it did not contain any gold, an Oscar would be worth less than $100!

And that’s just the materials, not taking into account the labor costs. It takes 10 people more than 5 and a half hour to create each one. Each statue is polished to perfection, and just the polishing requires an entire hour per statue! It ends up taking 3-4 weeks to create all the statues for the awards ceremony.

For a complete history of the Oscars (the statues, not the ceremony) check out this website. Also make sure to check out this list of unusual stats and trivia about the Academy Awards. Of course, the statues weren’t always this expensive. A metal shortage in World War II resulted in a switch from the original material to plaster. The plaster Oscars were returned after the war and exchanged for the real thing.

An extinct variety of zebra only had stripes on its head and neck.

2011-03-14T14:52:00.002+05:30

The last Quagga died in a zoo in 1883. At the time no one realized that this actually meant the animal was extinct. Their wild population dwindled in their native South African grasslands with the introduction of non-native sheep and goats. Because they competed with the Quagga for grass to graze on, settlers hunted them to extinction.

The Quagga, it turns out, is not a separate species. Rather, it is a subspecies of the more common Plains Zebra. This is an important difference because that means that this extinct animal can actually be brought back! Their genetic code is still present in the genome of the Plains Zebra and, through selective breeding, an approximate subspecies can be recreated.

Check out the Quagga Project for information on the efforts to bring back this extinct animal.

On March 19th, the Moon will be the closest it has been to Earth in 18 years.

2011-03-14T14:48:00.002+05:30

The moon - stalking the Earth since 4.4 billion BC. Picture courtesy NASA

In fact, the Moon will only be 221,556 miles away! This event, called a lunar perigee, is a source of contention between scientists and astrological theorists. Some believe that having the Moon so close can cause all sorts of natural disasters, such as the 1938 New England hurricane, Cyclone Tracy in 1974, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 - all events which fell on or near the appearance of a “SuperMoon.”

Experts claim that most of this worries are completely unfounded. The biggest known change caused by a lunar perigee involves the Earth’s ocean tides - high tides are higher than usual, and low tides are lower. Not so fast though! Dr. Victor Gostin of Adelaide University says there MAY also be a correlation between SuperMoons and tectonic activity! The nearer Moon may be associated with a shift in “Earth tides” which can trigger large-scale earthquakes near the Equator.

Time will tell who's right. Check out this article for more on this phenomenon and come to your own conclusions.

The world’s most typical person is a 28-year-old Chinese man.

2011-03-07T15:58:00.000+05:30

National Geographic recently sought to determine the characteristics of the most typical human being. Because the world’s largest ethnic group is Han Chinese, males outnumber females, and the world’s average age is 28, this person would have to fulfill all these qualifications. The magazine even took it a step further! Its researchers averaged the faces of 190,000 of the world’s 9-million-plus 28-year-old Han Chinese men.

In addition to age, gender, and ethnicity, this individual would also have a few more typical attributes. He would have to be right-handed and earn less than $12,000 a year. To be totally average, this man would also be required to own a cell phone, but not a bank account, because less than a quarter of the world has one!

More typical facts can be seen in National Geographic’s atypical YouTube video below!

Mr. Monopoly (of the famous board game) was modeled after the famous American banker and financier J.P. Morgan.

2011-03-07T15:50:00.000+05:30

This is according to Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story, a new documentary on Monopoly. Filmmaker Kevin Tostado, who has also worked on the TV show Heroes, is a huge Monopoly fan. He’s competed in Monopoly tournaments himself, and has even dressed as Mr. Monopoly in the past.

His new film will highlight the world of competitive Monopoly. It will feature all sorts of Monopoly fanatics, including people with Mr. Monopoly tattooed on their arm, or the entire board tattooed on their backs! The film will also feature insider tips from the pros. For instance, you could keep your opponents from building hotels if you buy up all of the houses!

Source: AOL News

Also See: Under The Boardwalk

The first man to survive going over Niagara Falls later died from slipping on an orange peel.

2011-03-07T15:44:00.001+05:30

Bobby Leach, a circus stuntman from Cornwell, England, wanted to be the first to accomplish the Niagara Falls “triple challenge.” The challenge entailed three tasks: a barrel trip through its rapids into a whirlpool, parachuting off the Upper Suspension Bridge into the river above the rapids, and going over the Falls themselves in a barrel.

Leach accomplished the first two legs of the challenge in 1908 and 1910. On the afternoon of July 25, 1911, Bobby Leach entered his 8-foot long steel barrel and took the plunge! It took 22 minutes for the barrel to be retrieved, and though Bobby had survived, he had broken his jaw and both kneecaps!

After a six-month hospital stay, Leach toured the world with his barrel to relish his new-found celebrity. Fourteen years later though, he slipped on an orange peel in New Zealand! The result was a fractured leg that became infected and had to be amputated. The former stuntman died of complications from the injury two months later.

Apple’s original logo featured Sir Isaac Newton.

2011-02-28T15:28:00.005+05:30

This first logo was designed by Ron Wayne, one of Apple’s three co-founders, and was only used for the Apple I computer. More of a picture than a logo, it portrayed the famous scene in which Isaac Newton is pondering gravity beneath an apple tree. Less than a year later, Steve Jobs, another co-founder, requested a redesign because he felt it was too intellectual and far too intricate to be stamped on computers.

The newer logo, created by art designer Rob Janoff, was far more simplistic - it featured a partially bitten apple striped with the colors of the rainbow in the wrong order. This served as Apple’s primary logo for 20 years until 1997 when Jobs decided to ditch the rainbow stripes for a solid-colored fruit.

Source: The Apple Museum

McDonald's has unique menu items in every country. In Portugal, you can order soup!

2011-02-24T17:13:00.001+05:30

More examples: in India (where much of the population does not eat beef) the restaurant offers such fare as the Chicken Maharaja Mac and the potato-patty McAloo Tikki Burger. This does not mean that McDonald’s has replaced its traditional offerings in these locations - they merely supplement their menu with a bit of localized flair in many places.

You can order the popular Caldo Verde soup in Portugal, a Quiche de Queljo in Brazil, and have some Red Bean Pie for dessert in Hong Kong (yes, red beans are a common dessert item there). Italian McDonald's restaurants use local cheese producers for its Parmigiano Reggiano burger, and in France they serve a burger on a stone oven-baked Ciabatta roll.

It’s good to see that Mickey D’s is mixing things up a bit, we’re just unhappy that each of these items is not preceded with “Mc” - what’s the deal with that?? I want a McQuiche and a McSoup!

Check out this list of the 40 weirdest McDonald's menu items from around the world. Personal favorites include the Banana Pie, Chicken Porridge, the McLobster roll, and the McRice Burger. In Germany, McDonald's sells beer.

Source: McDonald's

Apple used to sell a featureless iPhone app for $999.99.

2011-02-24T16:55:00.001+05:30

The application, called “I Am Rich,” was developed to serve the purpose its name suggests - simply as a distinction that the user who purchased it is wealthy enough to do so! When activated, the app just shows a glowing red gem onscreen - that’s it. $999.99 is apparently the highest amount a web developer can sell their applications for through the iPhone’s App Store, otherwise we’re sure the program’s creator, Armin Heinrich, would have charged more!

Apple initially approved the app, but soon removed it from the store, but not before 8 rich suckers decided to download it! One user review of the app stated, “I saw this app with a few friends and we jokingly clicked 'buy' thinking it was a joke, to see what would happen...THIS IS NO JOKE...DO NOT BUY THIS APP AND APPLE PLEASE REMOVE THIS FROM THE APP STORE!” “I Am Rich” was most likely removed for just this reason - because users could have easily purchased it by mistake! Two of the six buyers have since had their purchases refunded by Apple, and Heinrich has gone on the record saying that he is glad because he did not want to collect money from people who purchased his app by accident.

You can read all about this weird story here.

Albert Einstein’s brain was stolen after he died.

2011-02-21T15:01:00.001+05:30

Tiny metal electrodes are attached to Albert Einstein's
head to pick up impulses from his brain and to
magnify and record them for study in 1950 in
Princeton, N.J. Dr. Alejandro Arellano kneels
beside him.

The man who performed the autopsy on Einstein’s body shortly after he died was a Princeton pathologist by the name of Thomas Harvey. Harvey removed the brain for examination, as is customary during autopsies, but he never replaced it. At the cost of his job and reputation, Harvey instead placed it in a jar of formaldehyde and took it home!

Over the next 40 years, he sent bits of the brain to leading neuroscientists for them to study. He felt that stealing the brain was his scientific duty! What is left of the brain now resides back at Princeton where it started - Harvey tried to return it to Einstein’s daughter at one point, but she didn’t want it, so he gave it back to the university.

Read the entire thing at: NPR

Elephants are afraid of mice. (Watch the video!)

2011-02-21T14:57:00.000+05:30

...or at least they are very careful to avoid them. The guys on Mythbusters proved this myth to be plausible - check it out in the video below!

The human nose can distinguish more than 10,000 different smells.

2011-02-18T15:17:00.000+05:30

There are hundreds of different kinds of neurons in the nose that specialize in recognizing different odors and transmitting those signals to the brain. This occurs when molecules of the things that you can smell travel to your nose. Whatever thing you are smelling (a flower, a piece of fruit, an onion, etc.) gives off light, volatile chemicals called odorants that make their way to your nose as they evaporate. These chemicals trigger the neurons in your nose that allow you to recognize the smell. Specialized smell neurons exist to pick up on different kinds of smells, allowing us to distinguish between over 10,000 different odorants.

Source: How Stuff Works

The toaster was invented before pre-sliced bread.

2011-02-18T15:12:00.001+05:30

Toasting bread has been a common practice since the time of the ancient Romans. However, it was not until 1853 that the first electric toaster was invented by a British firm called Crompton and Co. This original model only toasted one side of the bread at a time and required someone to stand by and watch to make sure the bread didn’t burn. The more contemporary pop-up timer toasters we are used to were not invented until 1919.

Nine years after this revised model and seventy-five after the original British toaster, a man by the name of Otto Frederick Rohwedder came along and came up with the coolest thing since sliced bread...mechanically sliced bread! His first machine incorporated hat pins to hold the sliced loaves together, but this did not work very well and the bread went stale quickly. Finally, in 1928 he finished a machine that sliced the bread and wrapped it in plastic! Pre-sliced bread and the electric toaster were a match made in heaven, and remain a staple of American breakfast food to this day!

Source: About.com

The world’s largest touch screen is 10 meters long and can accept up to 100 multi-touch inputs at one time. (See the video!)

2011-02-14T15:33:00.001+05:30

The screen was developed by a group at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. In order to create the behemoth, the school modified a 3D theatre’s screen using infrared lamps and cameras. The screen is used to teach students interactivity.

Source: The Earth Times

Tablecloths were originally used as napkins in Ancient Rome.

2011-02-14T15:28:00.000+05:30

Tablecloths were popularized by the Europeans. They originally started appearing on Roman tables in the 1st century. The first written mention of a tablecloth dated from 103 AD. Back then, the Romans considered their tables too beautiful to cover up completely, so tablecloths were smaller and intended for individual use, like a napkin.

By the 10th century, the tablecloth had evolved into the giant table covering that we know today as it spread through the Byzantine empire and feudal Western Europe. By the 14th century it became customary even for peasants to use tablecloths.

Source: Old And Interesting

Dogs do NOT see in black-and-white.

2011-02-10T14:25:00.000+05:30

Yes, dogs are partially colorblind, but that does not mean they do not see any color at all! Man’s best friend suffers from a kind of colorblindness that is called deuteranopia in humans. Both people and dogs have three different varieties of color receptors in their eyes: one for red, one for green, and one for blue. Deuteranopes, and similarly all canines, do not have the green color receptor and therefore cannot tell the difference between shades of green and other colors!

Source: The Straight Dope